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putting the remaining 78s back in the trunk.
    â€˜What are you doing?’ Gordon grabbed my shoulder. He began reading the labels. ‘What about these?’
    At that moment I wanted to pause; something felt out of place. Twice he whistled he was ready. I stared at my fingernails, waiting to think clearly. A few houses away a dog barked, and someone was trying to start a motorbike.
    It took less than a week, if that, to go through the remaining 78s, and when they were gone we tried chipped or broken discs, until it was too difficult to throw or nothing was left of them. Even so, when I realised the entire collection had gone, a feeling spread in my stomach of corresponding emptiness.
    I dismissed Gordon’s suggestion we continue, using saucers, his idea of a joke: saw him nudge-nudging my sister. She was hanging around us, always there. A glance at her scrawniness could trigger irritation in me, I don’t know why. Anything he said she’d listen, mouth open in that way. I would have said, look, scram, buzz off; words to that effect. I was about to, when Gordon reached for something wrapped in newspaper under the bench, and we squatted, sister too, I could see her pants.
    Lifting it out I untied the string.
    â€˜Eek!’ She clutched at him.
    I held up a fox with glass eye.
    â€˜O-kay,’ I swung experimentally. ‘This’ll do. What’s the matter?’ I stared at my sister. ‘I can throw it.’
    Before she married, our mother dressed up for special occasions, little hats, veils, dresses consisting of buttons and tiny flowers. One photo in the album has her on a shopping spree with her mother in the city, each with a cheesy smile, like sisters. Shortly after, she met our father, I forget where. Near the back door I was adjusting my feet, getting the balance right. I swung a few times, began again, swung once more, again, suddenly letting go with all the smoothness I could muster, the centrifugal force of the lop-sided fox hop-hopping me forward like a shot-putter.
    Leisurely, the dog-like shape began flying, its tail outstretched. At the chimney it somersaulted in slow motion against the night sky, appeared to set course, and with snarling teeth nosedived straight for Gordon across the street, chatting to my sister. At her cry he tried to swerve. The fox followed, sinking its fangs into his throat, as he rolled on the lawn.
    A fox is pleasant to hold, weighted at one end, a living thing. I never tired of sending it over, enjoying the accelerating moment of release, then running up our drive to follow its twists and turns, flash of orange tail, its Stuka-dive forcing Gordon into the acrobatics of a goalkeeper, exaggerated for my sister, looking on. ‘Improvisation is the mother of invention!’ I heard him call out. My sister swallowed anything. At the same time she had a frivolous side; I could imagine reaching our gate to find her parading in front of him, fox draped over one shoulder, hand on hip for him.
    As mentioned, the houses each had a hedge, except the Gills’, which had the picket fence, leaving the house naked. The Gills didn’t seem to mind, on the contrary. Every other night the lights would be blazing, more like an ocean-liner than a house, the rest of the street as dark as the sea. The rectangle of illuminated lawn appeared as a billiard table, the beds of roses, shutters flung open, car in the drive all added up to a welcoming, optimistic air. After the loss of the fox I sent over a rubbish-bin lid, glittering chassis of a crystal-set, tennis racquet in its press, other objects so poor in the aerodynamics department they barely cleared the roof. They were not adding anything; I was beginning to lose interest.
    The card table had a way of setting its legs in mid-air, to make a perfect four-point landing on the Gills’ lawn; but that only happened, I think, twice.
    Our father would begin picking his teeth with a match, and for the umpteenth time tell