The noise abated and the crowd was thinning. Gordon made out Japan Ned, in a torn wetsuit, near the centre. Tonsure Man’s head gleamed brown in the sun, and the inky back of Cnut’s head shone a livid blue, its expression even more ferocious than usual. Sam was hoisting Dog out of the sand. It seemed that a lot of surfers had been involved.

Sam helped Dog over the jump-up boulder to the base of the wooden stairs. Blood striped the white of Dog’s face paint. Lighter strands of red were wrapped around his torso like bluebottle streamers. He was clutching his eyes. The backs of his hands were red with blood. Sam, in his zipper vest, was carrying half of Dog’s paddle. No sign of his stand-up paddleboard.

‘I guess Japan Ned finally had enough,’ Gordon said. ‘Every man reaches his breaking point.’

Ben said, ‘We all do, Dad.’

Gordon looked at Ben as if to answer the accusation—why don’t you hate him too?—but he had nothing. He looked down into the crowd but they were just heads and shoulders, breaking up and wandering off, some into the surf and some up the sand, witnesses to Bluebird justice, long delayed, no longer denied.

Sam and Dog arrived at the kikuyu lawn below the deck. Dog’s injuries were worse up close. His forehead was sliced open, as was the side of his neck and his shoulder.

‘I need an ambulance!’

Dog’s voice was wobbly and frantic. Beside him, Sam nodded, like a parent apologising for his overambitious upstart son who has just picked on the biggest kid in the playground.

Gordon turned inside to get his phone. Lou stopped him.

‘No.’

She stood with her legs parted, square-on as a cage fighter.

‘You’re not helping him,’ Lou stated.

‘He’s badly hurt.’ Gordon turned to Kelly, who was leaning over the rail. Gordon could hear Dog calling up from the lawn, whining, ‘Lemme in, will ya? Kel?’

Kelly watched Dog teeter on the grass, weighed down by nothing heavier than his half-paddle. Certainly not consequences. Dog was Dog, while Kelly was unforgiven. She was still furious with Gordon for not decking the bastard, but maybe it was up to her. She had slept with Dog so that Gordon would kick her out. She had slept with Gordon to spite Leonie, and also, maybe in her heart of girlish hearts, so that Gordon might wake up to himself and be a husband. But fuck that for a joke, she thought: enough sleeping with men to manipulate her fate. By doing nothing, these men had put it all back on to her. If her nature was unforgivable, then there was no point trying to hide it anymore.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not here.’

‘Not here?’ Dog pleaded. ‘Meaning?’

Kelly shook her head. ‘Not ever.’

Next it was Ben.

‘You’re not welcome here.’

Dog was still whimpering, like a—like a dog.