‘Might as well be you that gets control of all this,’ Red Cap went on, casting an eye around the falling-apart furniture, the saloon door, the diagonal pine feature wall below the kitchen bar and the yellowing books. He rested his hand on the opening of the laundry chute, beside the bookshelf, which might once have led to a laundry but now led to the Boardroom, allowing a clear line of hearing from upstairs to down. ‘Anyone else’d fuck it right up.’

Gordon sensed that the slope in the living room floor was increasing. He took a glass marble out of the sparsely stocked cutlery drawer and placed it on the floorboards. It set off towards the balcony, taking a direct route past Red Cap, Josie and Tonsure Man, and warping past Lou, home from TAFE, coming out of the bunk room adjusting the strap of her swimsuit over her shoulder, her training uniform fitting her like the skin of an apple. Twenty-two years old, tanned and fit from ironwoman training, curveless as a thumb, Gordon’s goddaughter fascinated the hell out of Tonsure Man, Red Cap and Josie, who looked up from the jigsaw puzzle to gawk shamelessly at her musculature.

The marble rolled past Dog, who was silently beseeching Lou to make him a coffee. Ignoring him, Lou pulled on a baggy Champion sloppy joe and Adidas tracksuit pants over her swimsuit. She was either the cutting edge of youth fashion or a donation bin picker. Add it to the list of things Gordon couldn’t decipher anymore. No—never could. Who was he kidding. But no doubt about it, his goddaughter was a tonic. Whenever he saw her capability—the best word to describe Lou’s approach to actions as simple as dragging a surf ski off the beach or making a coffee—he received a shot of optimism. It seemed self-evident that life would be harder for each new generation, but Lou gave hope that the human race was on the improve. Hope: why did you have to look so hard to find it?

‘Can’t you get her to notice me?’ Dog asked Gordon.

‘I think she already has,’ Gordon said, eyes on his watch. He followed the marble and picked it up when it fell into the slot for the balcony sliding door, a loose aluminium strip raised and irreparably kinked from people tripping over it. Kelly had christened the annoying metal strip the Shitfuckerpoobum. Replacing that aluminium strip was one of his Tasks. He’d gone to the hardware store today, but Shitfuckerpoobums were more expensive than he’d thought, so he’d crossed it off his list. His Tasks all ended up with a line drawn through them at the end of the day, a ladder of horizontal rungs that gave him equal satisfaction whether they had been completed or avoided.

‘How many seconds?’ Dog said.

‘Eleven,’ Gordon said, crossing the room, uphill, to return the marble to its drawer.