I found the reference to dumb animals and dissection a bit untimely myself, given where Ros had decided we were going tonight. Like lambs to the slaughter, I thought, as we trod that same dusty road to the Boab which had broken our spirits earlier in the day. Like fish to the bait. Like moths to the flame.

Pubs that went in for live entertainment had always caused me concern; for some reason not at all worth examining, I associated the combination of music and alcohol with extreme danger. Extreme danger to me. So it was a relief to push open the doors of The Waterhole and discover a perfectly respectable, I might even say clerkly, crowd, clapping their hands to MANTUS, and joining in the words with the lead singer – I fought the law but . . . the law won.

Girls who looked like first-year primary teachers or trainee probation officers sat together drinking pineapple juices, dressed in summer frocks their mothers might have posted them from Perth. Young men with beards as soft and seraphic as Ken Mills’s stood at the bar and melted us with their warm, welcoming expressions. After several tentative ‘How’s yer’s going?’ one of these finally introduced himself. ‘Orlando De Biasi,’ he said. ‘And you?’

It was only when I took his hand that I realized how badly he needed my support. He’d have gone at the knees had I not kept him up. On close inspection I noticed that his eyes were red – not just red-rimmed but red in the very iris, streaked like a Kununurra sunset in the very whites.

‘You look worse than my bloody dog,’ one of his friends said to him.

The moment he discovered we were travellers he offered to take us fishing. ‘I’ll pick you up from your hotel at five a.m.,’ he said.

I put it to him that he might have trouble making such an early start, given what a good time he was having.