Next stop distant Cobar, where Stavros, the franchisee, did his best to appear composed about losing his car, and even helped secure the EJ to the truck, a task in which both he and Achilles were untrained. With profanities held between his lips, Stavros said, ‘Give my regards to the American. Tell him it’s tough out here. He should be the one to visit next time.’ Like many of Lucky’s franchisees, Stavros referred to the boss as ‘the American’. They pronounced him foreign, not-Greek, part of a diaspora distinct from theirs. It wasn’t Achilles’ job to tell Stavros he needed to smarten up, to make do, that the restaurant’s fortunes could be life or death for his marriage and family. According to the conditions of the franchise contract he and his family should be out of the cafe. No one had given Achilles good advice. Fuck Stavros, he thought. The cabin of the blue Holden, fatigued with stains and tears, smelled rank and reminded Achilles of a little goat. He wound down the front windows of the EJ on both sides to air out the car on the way back home. If he avoided any kangaroos, if he drove fast, he could make the trip to Sydney in nine hours.

Still heading towards Nyngan, the wide dirt road pinched at the centre, Achilles noticed smoke fluttering from the cabin of the Holden EJ. He was, for the time being, smoking cigarettes again. It was temporary and he justified it this way: if he didn’t smoke on this assignment, he would have been bored out of his mind, might have lost concentration and run off the road. Achilles watched his mirrors as smoke now streamed out of the EJ’s wide-open windows. He smacked the dashboard with his left fist, said, ‘What? Fuck God!’ One of the cigarette butts he’d flicked out of the truck window must have curled around and landed inside the cabin of the Holden. Black smoke in knots and braids poured from the EJ, like a gag in a circus car.

A car overtaking him leaned on the horn and signalled for Achilles to pull over, but he shook his head. How could he extinguish the fire out here? Pull over and urinate through the window of the Holden? He bent forwards over the steering wheel, leaning away from the fire burning a few metres behind him, his weight down on the pedal. Nyngan was, what, forty-five minutes away? How exactly did cars explode?

Automobiles coming the other way flashed their lights at him, honked their horns, while the cars behind kept well back. The driver of one passing truck yelled out: ‘YER ON FIRE!’