Once he had disentangled Dog’s mixed metaphors, Gordon’s jaw firmed to deny the charge of optimism. A chorus of voices screamed in his ear, Kelly, Ben and Lou, Now. Let him know. Now. But suddenly it was Dog who looked nervous, his eyes swivelling.

‘Can you feel it?’ Dog asked. ‘I can feel it.’

‘I feel like I should’ve had a lawyer when I got that contract.’

‘Bit late now. How rude to hire a lawyer when Leonie’s being so good to you? Lawyers are lying cunts. Anyway, I’ve got a bad feeling; I gotta get out of here. Coming for a wave tomorrow?’

Every day Dog challenged Gordon’s vows to stop smoking dope and stop surfing Bluebird, with a persistence that suggested loving friendship and fraternal care but felt more like a tick burrowing into Gordon’s armpit.

‘You surf, and make it up with Ned,’ Gordon said.

‘What the fuck is that?’

For a moment, Gordon saw a flash of panic on Dog’s face. The ground was indeed shaking. There were not many objects on the open shelves in the living room—no photographs, knickknacks or anything suggesting shared memories, most of their things remaining in storage—but the crockery rattled. Dog’s eyes were flashing as if that karma fridge was coming, and it wasn’t aimed at Gordon.

‘You really would murder me?’ Dog said quietly. For a second, Gordon saw himself reflected in the wetness of Dog’s brown eyes, a terrifying moment of shared recognition: that if Gordon dropped his nice-guy mask for one instant, out would jump the frothing homicidal maniac.

‘Calm down.’ Gordon put Dog out of his misery. ‘The washing machine’s on spin.’

‘Jeez, I was shitting meself there!’

With an uneasy laugh, Dog made a phone call and let himself out the front door to climb the stairs to Cliff Street, where his wife Sally would be waiting in her car like he was eight years old and she was his mum picking him up from a play date.

Gordon and Lou followed Ben to bed early, none wanting to wait up for Kelly. Gordon lay in his child-sized bunk, imagining himself rolling downhill like the marble with the slope across the living room, jumping the Shitfuckerpoobum and tumbling off the balcony all the way down to the beach.