Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 14, Issue 6 by Leigh Swinbourne

Author:Leigh Swinbourne
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781922171863
Publisher: Review of Australian Fiction

Grapefruit

Chris Somerville

My mother’s boyfriend Richard is in the backyard, picking oranges up off the lawn. I’m watching him through the kitchen window. Richard is wearing a blue tracksuit and it’s late spring. Although the orange tree is growing in the neighbour’s yard these oranges have fallen from the branches that hang over my mother’s fence.

Richard had once outlined this to us while we were watching television; who was the owner of the tree’s fruit when it came to rest on my mother’s lawn; who owns the air space between the branch and the ground, in which the orange will fall. He had brought up a recent news item, where a woman got her boyfriend to shoot a kite that was flying above her backyard, because she thought it had a camera attached to it, filming her.

He’s waiting to deploy these arguments if the neighbours ever kick up a fuss about the oranges. This means when he collects them from the lawn he takes his time, inspecting each one, holding them up into the sunlight like he’s just stumbled across a diamond.

He does this about once a week.

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