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didn’t click with you either, did it?’
    â€˜Nope. No, it did not.’ Ray pointed the remote control at the television. His mouth twitched, and he appeared to be chuckling at a quite serious news item on the collapse of the Greek economy. ‘Didn’t notice a thing, darl.’
    Now that guilt had been established, Romy was all forgiveness. ‘Oh, Merle, please, don’t you be sorry. I should be sorry, inflicting my dietary needs onto you. And it looks like a . . . such an interesting . . .’ Here she poked at the yellow mush with her fork. ‘. . . concept. I’m sure Eddy would love to try some.’
    Eddy leaned over the dish again, his hands pressed between his knees under the table. ‘Oooh, I’d love to. I reckon vegetarians get all the little treats we carnivores miss out on.’
    â€˜Except it’s not vegetarian,’ Romy corrected him sweetly.
    Suddenly, Ray stood and whisked the dish away. Their faces turned to him in a silent chorus of astonishment as he marched it over to the bin and scraped half the contents of the plate into the bin. He then crashed the plate back down on the table, tofu burgers skittering, before Romy. She put her hand to her throat and winced away from him, turning one shoulder slightly as if fearful of a blow.
    â€˜Hey, Dad. I would have eaten that,’ Eddy protested.
    â€˜Ray!’ Merle’s mouth sagged with distress. Ray clattered his chair around like he would break it against the floor before he reseated himself. He took his cutlery in his big, farming fists, and started eating, glaring at the telly.
    â€˜I’m sure we don’t want to force anyone to eat anything.’
    Romy lowered her head like a nun in prayer, and nibbled at her tofu.
    Eddy sighed, and ate. So often it ended up like this, Romy and his father growling like two dogs on a leash while his mother and he smiled their faces off and tried to keep the peace. Your father and I are so different, Romy always said in the car on the way home, shaking her head. A red-necked, bullying old man and a new-age, feminist young woman, she would marvel. So different! The classic confrontation of generational power! Eddy often reflected privately that Romy and his father were actually scarily similar. It was just that stubbornness, like second-hand clothes, looked stylish on the young, and plain dowdy on the old.
    Eddy and Romy had met at Romy’s parents’ wake. His own parents had known her parents through the Lions Club, and when Carlos and Francesca Fernandez were killed in a car crash towing their caravan up the Hume Highway, his parents went to the funeral. Their own car was in for servicing that week, and Eddy was driving them everywhere; to golf, to the doctor, to the supermarket. When he heard about the funeral, he offered to drop them off and pick them up. His mother saw it as a good chance to show him off to her acquaintances. Eddy was the sort of son you showed off. He had a good job and nice skin and he had no tattoos or earrings. On the downside, he could come across as a little embarrassed in his demeanour and not very confident, and he could absent-mindedly slide his fingertips down the waistband of his pants when he was nervous, as if seeking comfort from the warmth of his privates. But he had an endearing gentleness and excellentmanners.
    But when he laid eyes on Romilda Fernandez, he forgot his manners immediately.
    â€˜So, got yourself a girlfriend?’ Roger Davis from the golf club had enquired, winking at Eddy’s dad. But Eddy pushed past him without responding and crossed the room.
    â€˜I’m Eddy,’ he told the pretty, dark-haired woman with the swollen red eyes. ‘You must be Carlos and Francesca’s daughter.’ He had heard she was living and working in London, had been called by the Australian police in the middle of the night to hear the news that her parents were dead. Had flown back from an English winter