I’m eight or nine years old. My father and I are in the garage at the back of the house. It’s a large, stone construction, with double doors and space to park two cars. But my father is an untidy man, and a hoarder and there’s so much crap, ranging from planks of wood, the shutters taken down from the kitchen windows some three years before, through lawn mowers – three lawn mowers – boxes of apples, onions, lengths of copper piping, to several pairs of wellington boots, an accumulation of hard hats that must be edging toward double figures, boxes of papers, files, maps, the old punctured paddling pool, that there’s no room for even one car.

Today he is going to make a run for the rabbit my sister will soon have, and I am to help him. He crouches over the toolbox and scrabbles about amongst the rust and dust for some nails. I stand behind him and watch. Lying on the concrete floor, a few feet behind him, is a hammer. He has several hammers. This hammer is stubby, but heavy, and the handle is matt and worn smooth. I believe it to be quite an old hammer.

As he picks and sifts through the miscellany of metal spikes in the bottom of the tool box, he is completely immersed in his activity, oblivious to my presence, and I realise just how easy it would be to pick up the hammer, and without requiring any great strength on my part – simply letting it drop would likely suffice – smash it down onto the crown of his head and snuff him out with just one or two blows.