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mother’s friends. They were competent and kind of wise and not very interesting. They kept sharing looks with each other that said there was stuff being unsaid.
    I sat on another chair. The walls were painted green. There is possibly no good green colour you can paint a wall. I had a bad case of the munchies.
    Gail rescued us all again. ‘Jack was saying round town that we hadn’t paid him. And Doug and Terry ... Well, they want him to take it back. Admit that we didn’t know. We can prove it was sent to the wrong place.’
    Robin nodded. ‘That you pay your bills.’
    Gail said, ‘We pay as we go.’
    Liz saw me watching and I could see her getting ready to be mad with me because I was seeing things I had no right to.
    â€˜A cup of tea!’ I said, standing. ‘These damn Mayses girls don’t even offer a man a cup of tea even though he’s sawed the top off his car and driven the other Mayses all night to come here.’
    Liz laughed.
    Gail stood, socially aghast. ‘I’m so sorry. Yes. Tea.’
    â€˜Or tequila would be good, and nachos. Too early?’
    Robin sat looking at the invoice.
    Liz said, ‘Through here, Zac. So, are you a university student also?’
    I followed them through to the kitchen ruffling the not-Jade toddler’s head as we went past. ‘No. Not me. I work for a living. I’m a full-time waiter. It’s not a job, it’s a career.’
    â€˜Oh,’ said Liz in that disappointed way people do.
    â€˜You look like someone,’ said Gail, like people also do. ‘Someone famous.’
    Sometimes I say, how do you know I’m not? But this time I held my face in the angle that’s best for seeing it.
    â€˜Don’t say it,’ said Robin, coming into the kitchen. She was smiling, but before anyone could say Orlando Bloom or Paul Newman and finally google up James Dean and go, yes, you look like James Dean. Before they could do that, Robin asked, ‘Are the men at work?’
    â€˜They’re up north,’ said Liz. She put the kettle on and went for cups, while Gail got cake out of an old round tin. It looked like carrot cake.
    â€˜Fly in,’ said Gail.
    â€˜That’s right,’ said Robin.
    â€˜Back on Friday week.’
    Robin sat at the kitchen table. I went over to Gail and let her see me steal the first piece of cake.
    Gail said, ‘With the way gold prices are they’ve been talking about getting their old jobs here at the mine. They’re going back into the old mines and open cutting.’
    Liz said, ‘Doug says Dad could get a job.’
    Gail said, ‘He’s not interested.’
    Robin was. ‘Is he prospecting?’
    Gail said, ‘You know Dad. The big strike.’
    Liz said, ‘Doug says, it never works, chasing that big strike. You can count on a wage and that’s not too shabby.’
    Gail said, ‘Especially if you’ve got a family to think about.’
    The kettle whistled. Liz poured the hot water over the tea bags. Gail gave me the plate of cut cake and I put it in the middle of the table.
    I tried to catch Robin’s eye, but was invisible to her. I sat down and took more cake. Very moist carrot cake.
    Robin finally asked, ‘When will he be back?’
    â€˜Doug?’
    â€˜Dad.’
    â€˜We don’t see that much of him,’ said Liz.
    â€˜Sometimes he pops in. When he’s in town. You know Dad,’ said Gail.
    â€˜No. Do you?’
    Liz and Gail both blinked at Robin, then blinked at each other.
    Gail said, ‘I’ll see if the kids are all right.’ She went into the lounge.
    Robin looked at me and I smiled at her. But she didn’t smile back and kept looking at me, until I took my cup of tea and more cake and went into the lounge room.
    Gail had picked up a baby and had her on her hip as she watched the toddlers make gouges of texta colour on a blank page. I smiled and nodded to her and