‘We have business,’ Carl explained to Gordon.

‘You’re leaving before the end of the match?’ Gordon asked Daniel.

Daniel looked to Carl, as if requesting permission to speak.

‘He saw you and your father talking with Frontal,’ Carl said to Gordon. ‘Then he called me and asked for a lift.’

Daniel was turning impatiently towards Carl’s Camry, flicking his chin to beckon Carl to hurry up.

‘He doesn’t want to be here when the merde hits the ventilateur,’ Carl said. ‘And he doesn’t want his father turning up again. He doesn’t want either of them to be here.’

‘So … he already knew.’

Carl’s noncommittal response passed for assent. He followed Daniel up the slope to his car, into which the boy had loaded his cricket bag. Seeing Gordon still watching them, Carl called, ‘You all right?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean … everything.’

Gordon pondered this. What was all right, in Carlian terms?

‘I don’t know.’

‘Good.’ Carl nodded, as if this was the answer he had been seeking.

Norma was sitting alone on a park bench under a stand of casuarinas beside the pavilion. Gordon dropped onto the seat beside her. She was distraught at the direction the match was taking. ‘They’re hopeless, those boys—absolutely hopeless!’ she said hotly. Gordon didn’t know if she was talking about St Pat’s or Cobcroft. Maybe both.

‘It’s all set up for Ben to save the day,’ Gordon said.

Norma rolled her eyes. ‘You know I love him to bits, but the last thing we want is for the match to be in his hands.’

The good thing about cricket for a family like Gordon’s was that it took the awkwardness out of long silences. Even Norma’s need to talk eased off. Watching cricket granted her a peculiar freedom. As he sat beside her trying to summon the courage to ask what he had come to ask, Gordon also felt the comfort of not being expected to speak. They were watching cricket. Things happened very, very slowly.

‘Mum,’ he said, but the word stuck his tongue to the roof of his mouth. He tried again. ‘Mum?’

‘What is it?’

‘I’ve been thinking about Owen.’

He saw a tremor in her dewlap, but she had the fortitude—or was it the preparedness?—or the presence of mind?—not to respond.

‘Mum?’

Again she made him wait. Two overs passed.

‘Spit it out, Gordon.’

‘I was eight. And we’ve never talked about him. Never. Not once. Not you, not Dad. Don’t you think that’s a bit strange?’

‘Well, maybe we are a bit strange.’ She said it dismissively. But her mouth and cheeks were puckering. Her eyelids fluttered. He noticed her hands gripping each other. ‘What’s brought this on?’ she asked.

‘Maybe I’m at that time of life. I don’t know. We don’t have to, it’s all right.’