your mama

nine of ten

‘Yeah I said grace at Christmas. Thought of this great line, waited til the right time, then: “May god keep the wolves from the door and the women in our beds”.’

He holds his cardigan arms out and recounts waiting for warm laughter from his family. ‘Great, right? Didn’t go down so well – I got clobbered by all my sisters.’ 

‘How many kids in your family?’ 

‘I’m nine of ten,’ he says, disappearing out the front to deliver a beer to someone before taking the stage. One minute he’s a toddler in a 1980s lounge room, learning from a shoal of siblings how to hold court. The next, he’s that soft, dishevelled post-hipster again, singing break-up songs while his maybe-new girlfriend beams at him from behind a glass of red.