‘What if I find another buyer? Leonie can’t make me sell to her. That’d be like … slavery,’ Gordon said hopefully.

‘You’re a holy fucken fool, Gordo. We’re all cheering for the holy, but sometimes it looks like the fool is winning. If you’d read your contract, you would know that it gives Leonie first and last option. You can’t sell to anyone else. It’s a two-million-dollar fraud at the expense of the Bluebird Building Society, made possible by my weakness for my mate,’ Sam said. ‘And of course I’m not going to report it, because that would implicate me.’

‘So Leonie wins.’

‘Doesn’t she always? It’s like a slow-motion Attenborough doco,’ Sam said appreciatively. ‘Insect caught in the spider web—that’s us.’

‘We’re fucked.’

‘And just when we thought the world had run out of ways to fuck us, council’s approved the redevelopment of the firehouse. We can lodge an appeal with the Land and Environment Court, and good luck with that if you don’t have fifty grand. Groundworks start in three months. They’re knocking the joint down. Gordo, there’s nothing of Bluebird left to save. We should probably be amazed that it lasted this long. Still! Check out this view.’ Bluebird Bay glimmered beneath their feet. ‘The world is good, yeah?’ Sam spat, and watched his golly arc down into the dark ocean.

But this was the place for beginnings, not endings: they had tacitly conspired all those years ago to dedicate this place to the future. Here, Sam had become Gordon’s brother.

‘So why did you bring me here?’ Sam asked. ‘You reckon this is a good place to hear bad news?’

The breeze carried noise from The Lodge across the bay. The rest of Bluebird was empty mansions with robot lighting. The Lodge, one happy bulb, was all the illumination left. Gordon said nothing.

‘Don’t you think it’s weird that Ron and Tony are talking to each other?’ Sam said. ‘Well, when I say talking to each other, I was looking at them in the party and Ron was doing all the talking. But then I noticed that Dad was doing all the talking too. Both gabbing over the top of each other, deaf as posts. Talk about strange bedfellows. What do you reckon that’s about?’

Gordon looked distant, as if he was asking himself, Why did I bring him here?