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His mother had drowned in the dam when David was little.
    David sat a little way up the hill above the dam. He closed his eyes a moment and felt the warmth coming from theground. He watched the light become gentle then golden and turn the midgies into dancers. He watched the water in the dam turn silver then black. He thought about what Mrs Pringle had told him about his mother being a laugher and listener and mostly a dancer. He wondered why no one ever said things about what kind of person his father was.
    When the Pringles had driven away, David came in and served out rabbit stew and cut bread while his grandfather read the newspaper Mr Wallace had given him. David knew not to ask after the Pringles or the important papers.
    â€˜The English batsmen had a particular appetite for Turner’s bowling. If ever a player were misnamed, it’s Frederick Turner.’
    â€˜What do they mean?’ asked David.
    â€˜He’s a spin bowler, a turner of the ball.’
    â€˜That’s unfair.’
    â€˜But accurate. He took one wicket for a hundred and fifty-three. Did you hear about Hobbs?’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    â€˜Lawrence with consumption. Moffit drowning. And Brand with malaria.’
    â€˜From the India tour.’
    â€˜And now Hobbs to a horse riding accident. Strange times.’
    David pushed his grandfather’s plate across the table and sat down. ‘So how did our fast bowlers go?’
    As they ate their dinner, Grandad and David checked the scores and dissected the game as they guessed at what might have gone on behind the cold facts of the newspaper report. After they’d washed up, David was sent to practise his bowling alone because his grandfather said he had more bookkeeping to do.
    David lit the lantern by the tool shed so it lit his practice wicket. He carefully got the old plough horse halter out of the hay shed, and placed it on a good length, right in front of the wickets. The hole, in the centre of the halter, where it fitted around the horse’s neck, faced forward, so there was a gap of about one foot high by four inches wide.
    Moths dashed themselves against the lantern, some so hard that their wings shattered to drift away in pieces as they fell to the ground. There was a goanna who lived in a small burrow under the cricket pitch; in the morning, when the sun warmed things, the goanna feasted on the dead and dying moths of the night before.
    David got the box of cricket balls and began to practise. First he bowled some off spin, around the left edge of the halter and into the stumps. Then some more off breaks that held their line a little more so they clattered noisily into the corrugated iron behind the stumps. Then he switched to leg spin. He bowled some balls to the right of the halter, spinning them in towards the wicket. He really let his fingers rip on these balls, making a humming sound he liked, spinning them back around and into the stumps from a long way out. He bowled some more leggies towards the halter, but spinning away to the left and an imaginary slips line. Next David bowled a loopy. This had his usual leg-spinner grip, but used more of his third finger and a lot of overspin so that the ball dipped a little in the air and then bounced higher over the halter and the stumps beyond. Then, still checking his grip, he started to work on bowling the skidder, so the ball would go through the gap in the halter and into the stumps.
    And all the while, he kept up an imaginary commentary. ‘O’Malley, the English opener, is well set. His tight defenceand patient attacks have thwarted Australia. He’s on forty-eight. David Donald comes in to bowl.’ David bowled, and the ball skidded through the hole to hit the wickets in the middle stump. David leaped in the air. ‘Yes, he’s bowled him.’
    There was clapping. David turned.
    A man’s voice came from the darkness, ‘Well bowled, but I don’t think you would have bowled