Against all likelihood, Gordon’s eyes half closed and he recited Lou’s phone number.

‘You can never remember mine,’ Kelly said as she pushed the buttons, ‘but you can remember your omigod-daughter’s. Hello?’ ‘Hello?’ said an unmistakable low voice.

Kelly said to Gordon, ‘Why the fuck is Jude Oxenford answering Lou’s phone?’

‘I heard that,’ Jude’s voice said.

‘Are you all right?’ Kelly said into the phone, her eyes on Gordon.

‘The traffic’s pretty shit, but we’re past the worst of it now.’

Kelly handed the phone to Gordon.

‘What’s up?’ Jude said.

‘Nobody was in there,’ he stated, his inflection falling.

‘Omigod, you’re okay!’ the former state champ cried when she saw Gordon, hugging him for the first time in the three decades they had known each other.

When more spectators heard Gordon was watching the fire from The Bench of Broken Dreams rather than perishing in the defence of his house, they came to kiss and hug him as if he deserved a hero’s welcome for not being up there. The rumour that he had been caught in the fire had taken hold so swiftly that people now wanted to touch him, to make sure they were not imagining his survival. He would never have guessed that anyone cared. He barely cared enough himself.

His face was burning from the heat, even though the firemen had kept the spectators cordoned more than one hundred metres away. The air smelt of chemicals. People were pinching their noses in pain. Most of the fire-smothering activity was concentrated on the real estate surrounding The Lodge. More valuable houses, duplexes and boutique apartments were being sprayed with fire-retardant foam and water to make a barrier against the incendiary construction, the terrorist building, the threat to its innocent neighbours. Archer David’s mini-excavator could not be saved.