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pure poison, due to his eyes aren’t good enough to get the bugs off before he cooks it, so half the time he cooks them too.
    Martin calls silverbeet ‘bug stew’ since he found a cooked earwig on his plate one night. He might look a bit like Henry on theoutside but he’s more like Mavis on the inside; he can be funny, and also he can be tough. Like on Mavis’s birthday, like, he can remember her before she got fat, he said, ‘Knowing what a gorgeous chick you used to be a few years back, how could you eat your way to that ?’ Then he offered to buy her a Jenny Craig diet.
    â€˜Buy me a box of chocolates,’ she said.
    Anyway, the next day Martin cut outthis newspaper advertisement that is a cartoon man, made out of tractor, truck and car tyres, then he drew frizzy red hair on it with a biro and he stuck it on the fridge. Mavis thumped him a good one for that.
    She’s getting meaner with her thumps lately, and she’s also getting bigger, or maybe her thumps are getting meaner because she’s getting bigger. She never stops eating, even when she’ssmoking. She’s always got a packet of lollies in her pocket and every time she lights a cigarette she pops a lolly in her mouth. Maybe she doesn’t like the taste of cigarettes.
    Through slitted eyes Lori stares at her, making the image unclear, just the chewing chin which gets lost in the swallowing throat, except for a little round bulge where her chin used to be. It’s like that chin is so determinedit refuses to give up and roll down. Everything else has rolled down – until you get to her wrists and her ankles. Mavis’s feet aren’t fat, or her hands. She’s got pretty hands, with nice nails. If you could cut her off at the chin then halfway down her shins and around her wrists and just look at those bits, you could get an idea of what Martin can remember.
    Vinnie’s red curls are all on thefloor and Henry is looking for another head. Mick isn’t around. He’s never in the kitchen, except when he’s eating, so Henry starts on Neil.
    Then Mavis gets up and everyone flattens against wall, table and cupboards, making space. She gets the custard powder, goes to the fridge, which is in the southwest corner, between the louvres and the west window, and she takes out three eggs, and the milk;she gets her favourite saucepan from beneath the sink, pushes between the brothers to the stove where the milk goes into the saucepan, then she stands cracking eggs, spilling their golden brains into a basin and bashing them to death with a fork. She gets a cup, mixes custard powder with a pile of sugar and a dribble of milk, adds vanilla, but all the while she’s watching that saucepan, waitingfor the milk to boil, sort of impatient.
    And just as the milk is ready to go over the top, she pours in the custard powder stuff and stirs, stirs until it boils again, then sort of lovingly she pours what’s in the saucepan over her eggs, stirring slow, stirring lovingly. Her custard tastes of love and Lori’s mouth is watering for a bit of it. She won’t get any. Mavis takes her bowl and spoonback to her couch and she flops down without spilling a drop. The poor old couch thumps back against the wall, making a deeper hole through the plaster.
    One day that wall will fall down on top of her, but she’ll just reach a hand out of the rubble, push the wall off and keep on eating her custard.

Aunty Eva
    â€˜Stop your staring at me,’ Mavis says. ‘Every time I look up, you’re staring at me.’
    â€˜I’m not. I’m just . . . looking at the wall, thinking. Aren’t people allowed to think in this house nowadays?’ Lori replies.
    Henry is in the shower and Donny’s waiting to use it next. He looks more like Mavis than Henry, but he doesn’t act it. He goes off to work every day, never forgets to bringthe shopping home and never says much to anyone, just