‘Get out of it, you, that’s my son’s pile!’ Josie slapped away Dog’s hand. Dog did not see jigsaws as a cooperative enterprise. Instead, he would steal pieces that Red Cap had patiently sifted, jam them into spots where they didn’t fit, and pretend they did, showily tap-tapping them in and seeking acclaim.

‘Ten bucks says I find the next piece,’ Dog said. ‘Gordo, you gunna back me in? I’m a genius at post-impressionism.’

‘Save it for the jury,’ Josie said.

Gordon, wondering if the installation of a closing-time bell in The Lodge would cause any effect other than high dudgeon among these people, went into the kitchen, which was separated from the living room by an inexplicable Wild West louvred saloon door, chest-high at the top and knee-high at the bottom, swinging open at the centre. He cleaned out the microwave, a morass of hot chocolate after an accident involving possibly Tonsure Man or Red Cap but most likely Dog, whose attitude to cleaning was that it was all part of the service.

‘Eh, Gordo, what’s this one like?’

Tonsure Man had come to the saloon door from the sunroom, now known as the library, waving a paperback thriller, a question mark on his face.

‘Cleanser,’ Gordon said, not a compliment but a code. A ‘cleanser’ was the term they had used since boyhood for taking a crap. When applied to a book it meant it passes the time, but it’s shit.

‘Like his others?’ Tonsure Man flashed the author’s embossed name and fanned the pages.

‘Customer guarantee: no different from his others.’

‘When you gunna get some decent reads? I’m starting to wonder if I’m becoming an intellectual snob.’

‘When Lou has cash to go down to Lifeline and buy more selectively,’ Gordon said. ‘Till then, we’re relying on what people offload when their old folks die.’

‘I heard that,’ said Josie, who had only a Gideon’s Bible, six Margaret Fultons and a shelf of completed crossword puzzle books to bequeath.

Tonsure Man went back to searching the shelves. Since the demise of the Bluebird Literary Institute, the nearest public library was too far away for Bluebird locals, many of whom, like Red Cap and Tonsure Man, fancied themselves big readers but couldn’t afford new books. As well as introducing the library concept to The Lodge, Lou also served focaccias and Vietnamese rolls and, in her spare time, ran surfboat crew training in the twilight and dawn hours for girls who weren’t welcome at the Bluebird Surf Life Saving Club.

‘She’s a beauty, that bird,’ Josie declared.

‘I don’t know how she does it,’ said Tonsure Man, marvelling at anyone who could fit more than a surf session and three coffee dates into a single day.