It was only recently that he’d started to think about all this. Even as a surfer, with an affinity for nature, he hadn’t seen a reason not to go into mining. In Wollongong, these worlds had coexisted – mining and industry on one hand, surfing on the other. That is, they seemed to go together, until they didn’t. Industries failed, plants were abandoned and decayed, and pollutants seeped into the groundwater.

Max took advantage of the pause. ‘Usually people want an education so they don’t have to go down the mines!’ he said. ‘In Australia it’s the opposite. Everyone wants to go down the mines.’

‘I have an education. I have a degree in engineering.’

‘And what about philosophy, the humanities, the arts? Is there a place for those underground?’

‘Says the guy with the MBA.’ Max chuckled, but Damien shook his head and checked the map again.

By now it was dark, which was worse than looking at the clouds because he couldn’t tell how close they were getting to the rain. If they hit rain, things would be tricky. With the surfboards in the back there was no way to close the roof. There was also the problem of the damaged window seal, which was no longer watertight thanks to his Ferris Bueller stunt. They hadn’t come far on the A-67 but, deciding they’d better stop, they picked the town of Santillana del Mar to stay in for the night.

‘Santillana,’ said Max. ‘Like Gil Blas de Santillane. I wonder if it’s the same.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a book.’ He could hear the glee in Max’s voice. ‘Literature!’

Damien’s reply had all the grace of the last swing in a pub brawl. ‘Maybe you should ask your father about who understands the value of education.’

‘What do you mean?’

He wanted to get under Max’s guard. ‘Oh, come on. You don’t know? Dad sent money back to the family for years.’

His father and Max’s had lived very different lives. After leaving for Australia, Damien’s dad got a job as a coal miner, the sort who really did work underground. Literature was of no more use to him in the Illawarra than it was in the fields of Veneto, where the rest of the family remained. Then he got a better-paid job in a packing yard, which meant that he could send money back home, and eventually buy his own home in Dapto when he married Damien’s mother.

Max looked genuinely surprised. He was actually lost for words. But just then, with a flash of lights, they were waved to a stop by the police, the Guardia Civil. The car must have been waiting by the road in darkness.

‘I wasn’t speeding!’ Max protested as he pulled onto the verge.