Carl was displaying an unexpected facility for handling the crowd and the card game. The Velvet Underground’s Loaded was belting out of the stereo. His eyes glittered and he rambled briskly while dealing the cards. Lou figured he was dangerously high. She’d seen these types back home. A quiet, withdrawn, sad, helpless, gentle Carl was a good Carl. An exuberant, bullish, super-capable Carl was one step from the precipice.

Fuck, she thought. Home. Not here. Home is where your shit is waiting for you. Bluebird wasn’t her shit; it was all theirs.

‘Faites vos jeux! Rien ne va plus!’ Carl called, and the ladies snickered. Red Cap, Snake, Dog and Tonsure Man were playing, while Josie and her older sister Lucie were spectating. Tony Eastaugh reclined in an armchair, his plastic leg elevated on a vinyl pouf, drinking something brown from a jam jar, while Sam was outside with Chook and Macca, plus, judging from the numbers, sundry Chookalikes and Maccalikes. Ron, itching to take over as dealer, made for Carl. Lou stepped into his path.

‘Be careful,’ she said, eyeing Carl. ‘He’s not predictable.’

‘I can handle that wanker,’ was Ron’s reply.

Lou laughed, despite her resolution never to laugh at anything Ron said.

‘You behave. Here’s a chair, sit with your new best friend. Maybe you can talk him into going camping with you.’

‘Whatever you say, boss.’ Ron sat with Tony behind the card players. Tony squinted over, then under, and finally through his reading glasses.

‘Ron,’ Tony began their conversation.

‘Tony,’ Ron finished it.

From the side table next to the armchair, Ron picked up a manila folder of documents and began leafing through it. When it came to personal effects, Ron’s view towards Gordon was what’s yours is mine and what’s mine’s me own.

‘Do you mind?’ Gordon assumed the folder belonged to his ill-organised paperwork—distributed between the armchair, the kitchen bar, the card table and the bunk room—which he was rushing about to gather up from wherever guests might settle.

Ron gave a dismissive shrug and put the folder back down, leaving his hand on it as if to say that he would nose through Gordon’s private business in his own time.

Lou asked Ron if he wanted a cup of tea. ‘I’ll have what he’s having,’ he said, nodding to the amber fluid in Tony’s jam jar.

Gordon followed Lou through the saloon door to the kitchen, where she poured a Toohey’s Old for Ron and drained the longneck.

‘You really reckon Leonie’s preparing the place for sale?’ she said.

‘That’s my information.’

‘And that’s not a good thing for you? The freedom you and Kelly would have?’

Gordon shook his head. ‘All a sale would do is clear the debts I’ve incurred since I’ve been here. And The Lodge would be gone to the developers.’