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own. They were always more special when you’d collected them yourself.
    Collected. He thought of Audrey again. I should have apologised.
    The horses followed him back to the fence. They seemed skittish. It was unnerving hearing their hooves and loud breathing behind him. Wolfgang was relieved to put the barrier of the fence between him and them. He pulled up a clump of long grass from the roadside ditch and this time one of the chestnuts dared to come close enough to pull it out of his hands with its mobile black lips.
    I’ll see her tomorrow, Wolfgang thought. I’ll apologise then.

10
    Keith Babacan came to the ticket window. It was just after five-thirty on Monday afternoon and Mrs Lonsdale was helping Wolfgang count the day’s takings.
    ‘I can see I’m in the wrong business,’ Keith said.
    Mrs Lonsdale looked up. ‘Good afternoon, Keith. You’ve missed your daughter, I’m afraid – she left half an hour ago.’
    ‘It’s your assistant I came to see, Shirley. Can you spare young Mulqueen for five minutes?’
    Wolfgang followed Audrey’s father out into the car park. Young Mulqueen. Had he found out Wolfgang’s age? ‘I ... um. How was your Christmas, Mr Babacan?’
    ‘Good, good. And yours?’
    ‘Yeah, it was okay.’
    ‘Good, good,’ said Keith, loosening his Homer Simpson tie. He was wearing a pink long-sleeved shirt with sweat-rings under the arms, fawn trousers and shiny brown shoes. He must have come straight from Furniture Kingdom. ‘Hot enough for you?’ he asked. ‘Let’s sit in my car.’
    It was a moss-green Mercedes parked illegally in one of the disabled parking spaces directly outside the entryway. The interior had a faintly chemical new-car smell and was pleasantly cool. Keith started the engine and made an adjustment to the airconditioner.
    ‘How much do you make in a week, Wolfgang?’
    ‘At the pool?’
    ‘No, at university,’ said Keith, then laughed his Furniture King laugh – Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! – to diffuse the sarcasm. ‘Of course I mean the pool. What’s your take-home pay?’
    ‘It depends how many hours I do.’
    ‘Give me a ballpark figure.’
    Wolfgang shrugged. What business was it of Mr Babacan’s? ‘Around three hundred dollars.’
    ‘Three hundred dollars.’ Keith drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘How would you like to take home four hundred, hmmm?’
    The car’s engine whirred, a distant, gentle vibration through Wolfgang’s feet. ‘Are you offering me a job, Mr Babacan?’
    ‘That I am, Mr Mulqueen. Four hundred dollars a week – cash in hand – right through till you go back to university. Interested?’
    Of course he was interested. But there was one problem: he went to school, not university, and school started in the final week of January. Still, that left him five weeks to work for Mr Babacan. Two thousand dollars.
    ‘What exactly is the job?’
    ‘Before we go into that,’ Keith said, ‘would you mind if I asked you a personal question?’
    ‘I guess not.’
    ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’
    Wolfgang blushed. What sort of question was that? ‘I, um ... yes,’ he lied. After all, he was supposed to be at university. And he wanted to sound mature – mature enough to earn four hundred dollars a week. ‘But she lives down in Melbourne. She’s doing the same course as me, actually. At the uni.’
    ‘Does she get up here much?’
    ‘To New Lourdes? No, hardly ever. Mostly I drive down and see her.’ Drive, Wolfgang heard himself say. Shit. ‘Dad lets me borrow his car.’
    Keith looked him in the eye. ‘She’s not the jealous type, is she?’
    ‘I guess not,’ Wolfgang said. He was sweating now, despite the airconditioning. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t really know – I’d never do anything to make her jealous.’
    ‘Do you think she would mind if you spent a bit of time with Audrey?’
    ‘How do you mean, Mr Babacan?’
    ‘Keith,’ said Keith. ‘It’s simple enough. I want you to – what’s the expression you