Rube, answering the cop’s question: ‘Yes sir, I’m sure. I’m not trying to start anything. My brother and I are just enjoying this wonderfully grey day here in the city and admiring the speedy beasts on their way around the track.’ A showbag, he is. Full of garbage. ‘Is that a crime?’

Cop, getting fed up: ‘Why are you talking to us anyway?’

Female accomplice cop and I look at each other. Again. She has nice underwear. I imagine it.

Rube: ‘Well, we were just …’

Cop, testy: ‘Just what? What do you want?’

Female cop looks great. Brilliant. She’s in a bath. Bubbles. She rises up. She smiles. At me. I shake.

Ruben, grinning loudly: ‘Well, we were hoping you might put a bet on for us …’

Female cop, from the bath: ‘Are you kidding?’

Me, smashing my head up through the water: ‘Are you bloody jokin’ Rube?’

Rube, smacking my mouth: ‘My name’s not Rube.’

Me, back in reality: ‘Oh, sorry James, y’ tosser.’

Cop, holding scrunched up sausage roll bag with sauce smothered inside it: ‘What’s a tosser?’

Rube, distressed: ‘Oh God almighty, this can’t be happening! How ridiculously stupid can one man be?’

Cop, curious: ‘What is a tosser?’

Female accomplice cop, who is about five foot nine and uses the police gym I’d say four nights a week: ‘You look at one every morning in the mirror.’ She’s tall and lean and great. She winks at me.

Me: speechless.

Rube: ‘That’s the way, love.’

Female unbelievably sexy cop: ‘Who you callin’ love, lover boy?’

Rube, ignoring her and going back to ignorant don’t-even-know-what-a-tosser-is cop: ‘So will you put a bet on or not?’

Tosser cop: ‘What?’

Me, to all of them but not loud enough: ‘This is downright bloody ridiculous.’ People mill around and past us, to place bets.

Female accomplice cop, to me: ‘You wanna taste me?’ Me: ‘Love to.’ It’s my imagination, of course.

Tosser cop: ‘Okay.’

Rube, shocked: ‘What?’

Tosser cop: ‘I’ll put the bet on for y’s.’

Rube, floundering: ‘Really?’

Tosser cop, trying to impress: ‘Yeah, I do it all the time, don’t I Cassy?’

Hundred per cent pure female cop, clearly unimpressed: ‘Whatever y’ reckon.’

Me: ‘Is that ethical?’

Rube, incredulous, to me: ‘Are you mentally challenged?’ (He’s recently become tired of the word spastic. He reckons the new way makes him sound more sophisticated. Something like that, anyway.)

Me: ‘No, I’m not. But —’

All three of them, to me: ‘Shut up.’ The bastards.

Tosser cop: ‘What’s the dog’s number?’

Rube, happy with himself: ‘Three.’

Tosser cop: ‘Its name?’

Rube: ‘You Bastard.’

Tosser cop: ‘Pardon?’

Rube: ‘I swear it. Here, look at our program.’

We all look.

Me: ‘How’d they get away with a name like that?’