A question, like a fire, needs a provocation, and Bluebird’s raised middle finger to the monuments to greed and folly and rapacious optimism is one structure that clings to the sandstone cliff in the southern corner, defying gravity, connected to the world by a pair of wooden staircases, one leading up via four zigzags and a narrow pass between two duplexes to the street, the other thirty-three steps down to a jump rock onto the sand; staircases like rope ladders on which the building is paralysed, unable to climb or descend. A gob of bleached driftwood and cement render thrown against the cliff face, surely it must slip into the sea. This house is not an answer but a question: absolute beachfront yet virtually inaccessible, sitting on premium real estate that is somehow not real estate at all, a historic abuse protected by custom.

How the fuck did they get away with that?

That is The Lodge, and if you have to ask what The Lodge is, you’re not a Bluebirder.

Gordon and Kelly Grimes are living there now. They used to rent an ex-housing commission cottage near the high school, but separated after Kelly fucked Gordon’s best mate. As separations go, theirs was unorthodox: Kelly and their sixteen-year-old son Ben moved out of the broken family home and into The Lodge, followed by Gordon himself, thanks to the manipulations of Kelly’s widowed wicked stepmother, who, for good measure, claimed the queen room. Kelly has the double, separated by half an inch of asbestos sheeting from the bunk room, which is occupied by Gordon, his twenty-two-year-old goddaughter Lou, and Ben.

Lodge and family: held together by the gravity of their fractures.

What have they got away with? As the godless say, pull up a pew. Long story.

GORDON

Gordon

On the deck of The Lodge, Gordon Grimes screened his eyes. The sun was playing peek-a-boo over a bank of clouds that would soon burn off, summer continuing its insurgency against the season formerly known as spring.

Hearing a whistle from his left, Gordon turned to see his bearded young neighbour waving cheerfully. David Archer’s humble grin spoke of disbelief at their shared good fortune. Gordon, on edge due to both an ongoing dispute with Archer and the underlying fact that Archer’s fortune was built on a more solid economic base than his, raised his hand tentatively, torn between the suspicion that Archer was taking the piss and the greater anxiety that his friendliness was genuine. Archer cupped his hands worshipfully to the sky. In their single mediation session before the dispute was given a court date, Archer had referred to this headland as Bluebird’s ‘dress circle’, which Gordon took to mean that the people down below must be actors.

Gordon, bracing against his balcony rail, might have held a premium ticket, but he felt far from premium. He had got away with nothing except the view.