It was a cup of tea in the kitchen, late enough in the afternoon that the light had begun its daily ritual of softening into something more hesitant. Long shadows gathered in corners and along the skirting boards, as though the house itself was preparing for night. The tea was hot, strong, and slightly over-stewed, the kind made more from habit than craft, and no one complained.

By now, speaking with Sean had become no different to speaking with one of their own boys, only taller, broader, and with a habit of thinking before answering. He was family by proximity and time, not blood, though sometimes those categories blurred in rural places where loyalty mattered more than biology.

The school bus was expected to trundle past the Holgate Farm gate at eight fifteen, or thereabouts. Nothing in the district happened exactly on time; clocks here functioned less as instruments of precision and more as vague gestures toward civilisation. Ten minutes either side was considered punctual. Fifteen was only mildly irritating. Twenty meant the driver had probably stopped somewhere to yarn.

They found the gate eventually, if gate was the correct agricultural term for something sagging sideways like an arthritic cow. A plank of timber had been nailed to the second rail in a manner that suggested the carpenter had abandoned not just the job but the concept of accuracy itself. On it, in faded paint that looked like it had been applied with a soggy toothbrush, was written: HOLGATE.

It was one hundred and twenty miles from Fishermans Bend to Eildon,  one hundred and twenty miles of patchy bitumen, loose gravel, cow-chewed fence posts, and the kind of bends that made the uninitiated carsick and the initiated wary. On paper it wasn’t far. On the ground it was practically a pilgrimage.

“Listen up, lads,  yer dad’s got summat to say to yer,” called Sandra Baines, hands on hips like she were about to announce either a death, a birth, or that someone had knocked over her best china again.