Valia came to the entrance of the kitchen, ready to give Lucky an order. The whistle blast of a kettle went off. Asquith’s head was hot.

‘Honey, this is Ian—remember? From the Benny Goodman night, during the war?’

‘Oh, now I see it!’ said Valia. But Asquith had the sense she’d recognised him from the start, that she understood he hadn’t come to their cafe by chance.

‘Tomorrow night we’re doing a special dish for Ian,’ said Lucky.

Valia said: ‘But the whole cafe is booked for the Kogarah Girls Sports Club function.’

‘Right, it is,’ said Lucky. ‘Ian, how about the night after next?’

Before Asquith could answer, Valia said: ‘We’re catering for the Bradbury wedding. Mr Bradbury’s sister is Penny’s math teacher and we have to go the extra mile because Penelope’s missed so much school. It will be a long night.’

‘How about I drop by another time? said Asquith. ‘In a few weeks?’

Tree shadows slipped over the bonnet of Ian Asquith’s car and fell flat on the road behind. He’d need to do something about the Ford before leaving for London. Maybe he could give it away to someone on the street—simply hand over the keys. He wouldn’t drive out this way again, wouldn’t revisit the Achillion, because of the unflattering comparisons that might be intensified in his mind, because his life, in relation to Lucky’s, already seemed a special sort of fiasco. The American had got away with everything.

Asquith drove through a five-point intersection, his car shaking as it rolled over recently buried tramlines, as barely concealed resentments made themselves felt. Asquith blamed his father for being a philistine—a businessman and not a scholar. He blamed his teachers at university; they hadn’t taught him anything, really. He blamed all classicists and philologists for the conditions of their clique. And he blamed himself. Bion of Smyrna was a bad idea. In his mind there played a cinema reel of a naked Lucky and Valia thudding up against each other in the cafe kitchen. If only Lucky would stumble, Asquith thought, if only something bad happened to him, then everyone would see what must become of frauds. It felt manifestly unjust that Lucky could marry Valia, that his artistic ambitions could dissipate and no longer trouble him, and that he lived happily ever after in a popular restaurant, while Asquith’s life unravelled.

6.

At the establishment that he’d now come to think of as the Shit Pub, after his Sadean bathroom experience, Asquith sat alone near the door and slyly observed the patrons who entered. As the hour passed these drab men all appeared much the same, all weary, all scrawny. For assistance, he went to the bar and ordered two drinks from the same woman who—he strongly suspected—had served him that day of the toilet incident.