Gordon left Lou and Jude in the kitchen and went into the living room, where the volume had risen another notch. Red Cap’s mother had spotted Dog ‘up to a bit of jiggery-pokery’ with the cards, against which Dog, backed up against the diagonal pine feature wall, was indignantly defending himself. Carl was shuffling, staying out of the argument with an intense preoccupation that Gordon tried not to find suspicious. Tonsure Man had drifted away to the clothing bins, where Ron had stationed himself, ostensibly to help Tonsure Man’s sartorial choices but probably to talk him into handing over Red Cap’s car keys ‘for safekeeping’. Gordon took orders for drinks and poured some beer and G and Ts into more or less clean glasses, jars, mugs and vases.

‘Settle, petal,’ Dog was saying over his shoulder to the card players as he followed Gordon. ‘Eh, the governor in his mansion! How’s things? Tell you what,’ Dog continued without waiting for an answer, ‘I saw Kel the other day at the golf club. She’s not bad!’

Gordon’s eyes narrowed in the search for double meaning, but Dog seemed to be presenting face value. Not for the first time, Gordon contemplated the utter failure of his scheme to kill Dog with kindness. Quiet retribution, the appearance of forgiveness, was meant to drive Dog onto his bad conscience, and he would writhe in agony every night until his guilt drove him to repentance, apology, and finally reparations. The truth was that Dog had that most stupendous Bluebirder’s gift, the knack for oblivion. That shit was yesterday. Today’s another day. All good, champ. All, all good.

And Gordon suddenly saw himself the way Dog saw him: not as a nice person, not as a friend too noble to act from petty vengeance, but as a poor miserable prick incapacitated by a pain so profound that it whited him out. With pain like Gordon’s, survival could only be found in forgetting. Oblivion was Gordon’s lifelong habit and their great shared talent; why should it stop now?

‘She was playing with your old lady, of all people,’ Dog was going on. ‘Good that Norma’s getting around with that broken hip. She was in a cart.’

‘I know, I dropped Kelly off.’

Dog aimed a head-twitch at the balcony. Red Cap and Snake protested about the disruption to the card game. Dog told them to continue without him, which Carl was already doing, flicking cards with Vegas wrists.

The sun was setting over Bluebird Beach, empty but for a huddle of kids in the south corner sharing a joint. Reminded, Dog produced a thing that looked like a second-hand toothpick from his board shorts pocket and sparked up. He offered it to Gordon, who declined.

‘I live in hope,’ Dog said. ‘Hey now, I wanted to ask you something.’

Gordon grimaced. ‘You mean tell me something. That I don’t want to hear.’