AustLit

'The phone call comes while my mother is rinsing her hair in the kitchen sink, with one of those white rubber faucet attachments that don’t quite fit the tap so water spurts every which way out of its would-be seal. I can see from my vantage point sitting on the countertop that a pool is forming between the back of the sink and the windowpane; a couple of dead flies are floating, exposing their bloated bellies, and the spray from the tap is creating a waterfeature effect so it looks like the scene is missing only a miniature palm tree. My mother wrestles with the tap and hands me the hose. I angle the spray over to the flies and watch as I make them swirl round and round. Mother winds a pink towel into a turban, then jabs at my arm. I take the phone from its cradle and twist the cord around my finger. She slaps my hand, then the tap shut. Her expression says someone had better be dead.' (Introduction)