THERE’S A LIGHT blearing hazy through the glass behind her brother’s head, the red-blue red-blue of a police car or ambulance. A fire truck. The siren whirs, sings, sets off the great, lumbering sheep dog at her father’s feet, barking at the door until she pulls it open.

‘Mee-mah-mee-mah,’ her niece cries, her little feet pounding against the unpolished floor. Ash pays her no mind, leaning against the doorframe, fingers itching for a cigarette as she watches her father’s dog race over the Mars-red dirt of the farm, leap the paddock fence and disappear through a flock of newly shorn sheep.