Gordon was rubbing his eyelid, which was stinging quite badly, like he’d been shot point-blank with a spud gun. ‘Yeah, all good.’

‘Ah! Isn’t this nice!’ Dog said from the sliding door, bald head gleaming. As he stepped inside, he tripped on the aluminium track and fell forward, staying on his feet by reaching forward to the broken staircase, where the exposed screw from the broken newel dug into his palm. ‘Shit!’ He wrung his hand in pain.

Lou and Ben exchanged a satisfied look.

‘Shitfuckerpoobum,’ Ben corrected him.

Ben dug a hole in his mashed potato and filled it with sauce. Lou cut and ate her beans one at a time. Not even the ridiculous tablecloth could make Gordon happy. Pushing against the awkward silence, Dog kept smacking his lips as if savouring a gourmet banquet.

‘These are butcher’s special, right?’

Gordon’s plate was clean.

‘Cheapest ones I could find,’ he said. ‘All filler no killer.’

‘You know, it’s not poor diet that causes problems for men our age,’ Dog said, ‘it’s the speed at which we consume our poor diet. What’s the rush?’

‘He just wants to get it over with so you go home,’ Ben said, picking up his plate and taking it to the kitchen. Lou followed him.

‘Ben,’ Gordon said.

‘You’re just as bad,’ Ben called over the saloon door. ‘There’s a meme going round at school: My wife and my best mate ran off. Gee, I miss him already.’

Gordon closed his eyes and sought the energy to disappear. Dog was frowning with the dual effort of first trying to understand, and then appearing not to have understood, the joke. He emerged from this mental swamp with an innocent eye-roll—Kids!—and said to Gordon, as if he’d just had a good idea, ‘Well! Might be time for yours truly to make myself scarce. But first’—he gave Gordon a wink and twisted his head towards the balcony—‘let me do you a favour.’

Outside, Dog took three businesslike drags on a grubby-looking joint with the efficiency of an asthmatic on his Ventolin, and offered it to Gordon.

‘Some favour,’ Gordon said. He hadn’t smoked since the twentieth century, and wasn’t likely to start again on this roach glistening with Dog’s slobber. ‘Tempting as it is.’

‘Your loss.’ Dog sucked back and squinted through the twilight at the five surfers clustered on the main break. ‘That Ned out there?’

‘My eyes aren’t good enough.’

‘Can’t believe he’d do this, it was a minor run-in.’

‘I heard something went on. Your fault, I assume.’

‘Pig’s arse!’