Valia put the magazines on a stool and said she’d come across some information about the modern workforce. ‘Maybe not all that interesting. But you might want to take a look.’

In the dark Penny told her sister: ‘I want to study science at the University of Sydney.’

‘Good!’ Valia stopped, not sure what to say. ‘I think that would suit you.’

‘Don’t say a word to our father. I’m expecting a letter from the university any day. Then I’ll tell him.’

Achilles’ posture that night, when he entered the kitchen, was that of a man about to steal something. Crouching down at the stove, he massaged his temples with one hand and with the other fed the letter from the university into the furnace. And now that, he thought, would be the end of the matter; no more study for Penelope. He had made the cafe. He had made the family.

‘What are you burning there?’ asked Lucky, who’d been sitting at the booth nearest the kitchen entrance.

‘A letter from someone asking for money, big surprise,’ said Achilles. ‘So I put them into the fucking fire.’

‘Say, is there anything you want to talk about? You seem unhappy. It’s obvious. It’s all over you.’

‘I am a happy person deep inside,’ said Achilles. ‘I have two good daughters. We have a beautiful business and when I wake up I say to myself I’m satisfied to live in this place and give my daughters a path in life. And you too. You get the path as well. I like you. You’re a bit Greek. You’re a bit American. What are you? I don’t know. You work hard.’

‘When was the last time you left the cafe? How about we go for a drink one afternoon? We should go to the pub on a weekly basis—Thursday, I think. Talk to some people. We might learn something from them.’

‘We don’t go in pubs,’ said Achilles. ‘We don’t need to. We’ve got the cafe. Everything is here!’

3.

Valia’s undiminishing desire to get out more—to see more of the city than the interior of the Achillion, to have sex with her husband in a building that wasn’t also occupied by her father and sister, and to have loud sex—coincided with the visit to Sydney of the actual Benny Goodman and band, whose concert tour was brought to Valia’s attention one morning by a newspaper. She read the paper in bed, sucking on sugared almonds they sold in the cafe. Lucky tramped in from the kitchen and changed his shirt, which had torn from armpit to waist as he reached over the stove to save the briki from boiling over.

‘We must see Benny Goodman,’ she said. ‘It’s perfect.’

‘I’d like that,’ said Lucky.

‘We’ll get a hotel that night. Look into it, Lucky.’