The shop opened by eight. Valia worked the counter. She and Lucky took breaks together; sometimes they had sex quickly in their bedroom, or they’d sit knee to knee in a booth and talk. The cafe—which Lucky still called a ‘diner’ sometimes—closed at 9.30 pm. Then the family swept and mopped the floor, wiped the tables and prepared their own dinner, always including a few Greek plates: youvarlakia, yemista, stifado, a soup. There were no Greek dishes on the cafe’s menu; Achilles said Anglo people would never eat the stuff, because the nation was culinarily, racially, ethnically limited. He claimed not a single Greek-Australian cafe served a single Greek dish. Think about that, he would say, think of what was lost!

Until the winter of 1946 Achilles remained polite to anyone who arrived a few minutes after closing time, lingering on the entrance step, some with their faces pressed close to the glass, hoping the Asproyerakas family would offer them a table. Whenever customers knocked on the door outside business hours Achilles told them he was sorry, and his big stone face expanded to smile, but the shop had to shut at some time. Not open all day, not allowed by law. Already the Achillion operated ninety hours a week. He gave late arrivals a sandwich or piece of fruit instead. But one cold day he stopped offering snacks, without exception and without explanation, to any customers who did not observe Achillion time. He couldn’t be softened anymore. And there came the night when he heard a loud knock on the locked cafe door and Achilles picked up his olive-wood club, threatening to kill the two men on the other side of the glass who said they were looking for steak and soup.

‘We are closed!’ said Achilles. ‘Get going or I smash your head bloody!’

‘We can’t buy a loaf of bread?’ said one of the men from outside. ‘Not much to ask, mate.’

‘Maybe I kill you, mate! What do you think? Then I put your body through a machine in the abattoir. And you’re never heard from again.’

‘Achilles, you can’t talk to people like that!’ Lucky said. Until a few moments ago, he’d been mopping the cafe floor in a contented trance.

‘No, I’m going to deal with these fucking lazies!’ said Achilles.

The two prospective customers backed away from the window.

Pointing at them, Achilles said: ‘I’ll kill you!’

‘Hey, how do you know they’re not off-duty police?’ Lucky asked his father-in-law. ‘All the men look like cops around here.’

‘If they’re cops, they turn up wearing uniform because I give an official discount,’ replied Achilles.

‘This is some display,’ said Valia, coming out to the cafe floor in a change of clothes. ‘Give me the big stick.’