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you.
    Piss off Les, I say.
    Les is laughing. He is a fat little man with a fat little gut and he sits on that stool all day long. Even when Les is laughing he looks like a toad.

    Spit’s car isn’t at his house and his boots aren’t on the mat. Belle answers the door, holding the baby in one arm. She is red in the face and her eyes are bulging and staring. She wipes her hair back with her spare hand. She looks like she’s been screaming all day long.
    So where the bloody hell’s Spit? she asks.
    I was going to ask you the same question, Belle, I say.
    I follow her into the house.
    In the living room the television blasts away and the older boy is sitting in his highchair. He is eating chocolate muck out of a plastic container.
    Say hello to your grandpa, Belle says to him.
    The boy just looks at me and then starts banging his spoon against the container, smiling and then laughing. His face and bib and all of him is covered in chocolate.
    The carpet is stained and scattered with infants’ things. Blankets, a baby bouncer, dummies and chewing toys. The room smells of milk and talcum powder, dirty nappies.
    Belle puts the baby down on one of the blankets.
    There’s soft drink in the fridge, she says.
    I go into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of lemonade and drink it standing at the sink. Out the window the sun falls across the fence at an angle, making a line with the shade below. The older boy’s plastic tricycle is sitting overturned on the grass and the grass is long. Faint swirls of cloud move across the sky. I put the bottle back in the fridge and rinse my glass, placing it upside down on the dish rack.
    Back in the living room Belle is trying to get the baby to drink from a bottle, talking to it in baby talk. The older one is still banging his spoon on the highchair, squealing nonsense.
    Roy Thompson reckons he’s gone fishing, I say.
    Belle snorts, cooing to the baby.
    Trust Roy Thompson to know, she says.
    The baby is laughing and kicking its plump and powdered legs, pushing them together like a frog in water. It swings the bottle in one hand and the bottle rolls across the floor.
    Well, he’ll be back soon enough, I say.
    Belle snorts again.
    He’ll be back all right, she says. I know he’ll be back. That’s the least of my worries.
    She fetches the bottle and gives it back to the baby and stands up. She is wearing a singlet and tracksuit pants, bulging out of both. Her arms are large and puckered.
    He’ll be back, she says, but that’s not the problem, is it?
    No, I say. No, it’s not.
    Trust Roy Thompson to know, she says. Sleazy old bugger.
    She goes over to the older child who is still banging away with his spoon. She takes the spoon and starts trying to feed him. He smiles coyly, turning away every time she tries to put the spoon into his mouth. The muck smears all over his face. It is slick with gelatine like oil on water.
    So they going to dock him? Belle asks. Spit. They going to dock him?
    They’re not going to dock him, but they’re not going to pay him either, I say. You don’t get paid if you don’t work.
    Belle takes the boy’s jaw and tries to force it open, pushing the spoon into his mouth. It knocks against his teeth and he shakes his head, howling. The muck goes everywhere and Belle swears, wiping a spot on her singlet. It smears.
    Well what about holiday pay? she asks. What about sick leave? Suppose he got sick? They’d have to pay him then, wouldn’t they? If he got sick?
    I shake my head.
    Not if you’re on seasonal, I say. You only get paid for what you work on seasonal.
    Belle stops trying to feed the boy, who is still screaming over the noise of the television. She puts the spoon in the container and takes off his bib, sitting him on the floor against the couch. He is filthy with chocolate. The glow of the television flickers over the boy, quick with changing colours. He goes quiet, staring at the