THE FIRST RIDE-ON mower my parents bought was always breaking down. This seems an incidental fact, but really it isn’t. We lived on sixteen acres in subtropical northern New South Wales and the grass grew like wildfire. There was a man who would come out to repair it. He was a regular feature of my childhood. Reliable, efficient, relatively cheap. There is something alluring about people who come into your home and solve otherwise insurmountable problems, and it’s interesting the way fix-it men can come to seem wise. Into my teens, I’d watch my parents’ thankful faces as they waved this man off, peaceful in the knowledge that the mower would work again tomorrow.

One day, after he had fixed our mower for the umpteenth time, my mother and I stood chatting to him in the driveway, a moment of small talk. I don’t know why, but I mentioned that my boyfriend was of Italian descent.