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sweeten Irene, or make her wise. Instead, the more she was exposed to it, the more crabbed her spirit became. She had always felt superior; now she had reason. Fate had been cruel to marry her to a farmer. Such a dull, mean, ordinary existence! She chewed on the injustice of it like a dog with a piece of hide.

25
    The Pleasant Place of All Festivity
    T HE EVENT THAT confirmed Boy once and for all in the view that it was best not to show enthusiasm was a carnival Freddie organized. He had the bright idea that Progress, instead of parading floats down the main street like every other town, should have a water carnival. There was a stretch of cement-lined canal between the showground and municipal offices that was perfect for such an occasion. Freddie had political ambitions.
    When told of this, Boy hatched a plan to make a gondola. He labored on the project for months, mounting a gondola-shaped plywood frame on an old beat-up rowboat that his father used on duck-shooting expeditions; the contraption then received a coat of silver paint. The finishing touch: a canopy decorated with purple crepe-paper flowers.
    Every boat, no matter how modest, needs a name. Freddie suggested ‘Bella.’ Beautiful, like your mother, he explained. And that was what Boy painted on its side.
    When the big day arrived, Rex loaded Boy’s creation onto the tray of his Bedford truck and drove the whole family into Progress. After breaking a bottle of pilsner on its prow, they all helped push the gondola into the water, then stood back and held their breaths. It floated!
    Freddie, in a red waistcoat and tasseled cap, stood in the back of the gondola, poling it along. Irene sat under the canopy and assumed a royal pose. Don’t we look proper idiots, they had said, as they set off, giggling like maniacs and setting the boat wobbling. They told each other they were doing it for Boy, who had put so much effort into building the thing.
    Boy had positioned himself in front of the crowd on the canal bank, the better to enjoy his triumph. As the gondola drew near, he began to wave. Then he saw himself as if from a distance: a boy waving like a dickhead at his mother in a pretend gondola. He pushed his way through the crowd and sat in the cab of the Bedford until it was time to go home.

26
    Alive As Fire, and Evilly Aware
    A SMALL BOY was walking along a bush track, hands stuck in his pockets, lips puckered in a whistle. Sunlight streamed through the leaves, dappling his path. His presence disturbed a flock of corellas, and they burst into the air, wheeling and whirring. The boy watched appreciatively, canting his head, shading his eyes, and then continued on his way, until he came to a log. He stepped over it, taking his hands out of his pockets, angling his body, for it was a large log. The snake struck with impersonal dispatch.
    Exclamations of horror rose from the class. The boys started in their seats, the girls covered their eyes or wrung their handkerchiefs. The teacher, who was standing by the projector, hushed them, and they settled down to watch the rest of the film. The boy’s whistling, the sounds of the bush, had been replaced by the voice of a narrator – male, grave, pedantic, the voice that ran the world. ‘Stuart was careless,’ the voice intoned. ‘He risked certain death.’
    Fortunately for Stuart, he had in his pocket what he needed to save himself: a razor blade. He also had presence of mind, which was the quality one needed above all others to survive the perils of the Australian bush, or so the narrator instructed the class. Using what remained of his strength – with every beat of his heart, the poison was coursing through his bloodstream, a fact borne home by the soundtrack, which thumped intimately – the boy tore a strip off his shirt and tied it around his thigh. He scrabbled in the dry leaves and found a stick, inserted it in the bandage on his leg and twisted until the cloth tightened