Returning to the kitchen, he swung through the saloon door like Steve McQueen sorting the place out, only he was going the wrong way. He picked up an expensive pot holder and wrestled for control of a vast quantity of fettuccine. The fancy pot holder was, she noticed, one of those fuck-off Eastons gems. Once he’d explained these out-of-character purchases, she fell a little bit—a tiny, tiny bit—in the general vicinity, the hazy insinuation, back in love with him.

She dipped a finger into the sauce, let out a gasp of pleasure, and picked up a spoon to go in again.

‘Haven’t you been fed this week?’ Gordon asked.

‘I just get so hungry after golf. Where did you learn to make an arrabbiata like this?’

‘Thank you,’ Gordon said. ‘Only you could make a compliment sound like an accusation.’

‘You must be having an affair,’ she said. A proper arrabbiata. Next it’d be a haircut less than ten years behind fashion. And then shoes without socks, and she’d be dead to him.

‘I brought some goodies.’ She tossed her gleanings from the community garden onto the benchtop.

Gordon gave them a snooty look and said, ‘You know I don’t deal in hot herbs.’

‘Of course not. You thumb your nose at the lifeguards, you go to court over some bullshit with the neighbour, you’re the saviour of Old Bluebird.’

‘Unlike pilfering community herb gardens, which is really sticking it to the man.’

‘Oh, you drive me mad,’ she said without feeling. For lack of anything else to do, she began to run the tap to wash up, but then, remembering that she might look like a wife and mother, dropped a handful of utensils with an over-dramatic splash and stripped off the rubber gloves she had just put on. Her throat tightening with some kind of dirty emotional bomb, she moved to the window.

‘This is an inch thick in salt scum,’ she said. ‘How can you enjoy the ocean through that?’ But she knew the answer: Gordon saw the world through salt-covered glass. And he had an abiding affection for scum. ‘Don’t you have some buddy who cleans on the cheat?’

Gordon’s eyes widened. She wondered if she had said that or thought it. So Freudian. Was it Freudian when you came out with shit like that?

‘Cheap,’ she corrected herself.

‘How’s Ben?’ Gordon said mercifully. ‘He did all right in his maths exam, thanks to your help.’

‘Thank the Vyvanse.’ Kelly raised an invisible glass in a mock toast.