Whistles were blown and the senior boys dragged their boats to the tideline. Unlike Lou’s girls, the Bluebird boys’ team was in the middle of the beach, in the top-seeded position, where they would have to contend with the battering chop on the way out but would receive assistance on their return.

‘You paid your rates yet?’ Frontal said out of the side of his mouth.

Kelly looked at Gordon, who shrugged.

‘We haven’t?’ she said.

‘Here’s what you don’t get,’ Frontal said, directing a fixed smile at the ocean. ‘I know you don’t want to see someone like me as your friend, but the sooner you realise I have your interests at heart, the better you’ll be. If your rates go overdue another cycle, you get a mandatory inspection. And you know what that means.’

‘Now’s not the time or place,’ Kelly said.

‘Sure, sure,’ Frontal replied. ‘We’re here for the boys.’

‘And the girls,’ she added.

What was insulting was not that Frontal thought he was doing the right thing; it was that they were fifty years old and having to answer to this knobhead. Whatever happened with The Lodge, they had to get out of here. Gordon was kidding himself. He was no hero of conservation; he was a slave to circumstance. Frontal might be its weak-chinned face, but their real nemesis was an impersonal, inescapable force. Frontal’s power manifested not in pieces of paper, but in the arm-twisting muscle of gravity. Gordon’s unreasonable hatred of this pathetic individual diverted him from the truth, which was that he had, long ago, lost the battle.

He had lost. Kelly had to make him see that.

‘Never mind the way out, you just watch them come home,’ Frontal murmured, as if passing on a last-minute betting tip.

The starting gun cracked. Kelly noticed Daniel nearly falling off the side of the surfboat as he jumped aboard. Frontal winced, but soon the boys were stroking in unison. The wind chop threw the boat, but the sweep was able to maintain their line. They were in fourth place as they rounded the buoys. Frontal leapt to his feet.

The heavy wooden surfboats had to round two buoys about fifty metres apart, making their course a triangle. This design was to ease congestion, but at both buoys the crews were cutting across each other. There seemed to be no rules. The tactical battle was said to thrill purists, but it was a slightly terrifying convergence, Kelly thought, of testosterone and teak at sea. Fortunately, it took place far enough out for the spectators not to take fright. Otherwise, surf boat racing might have gone the way of bare-knuckle boxing.