He cleaned the stovetop with a paint scraper. Sweat beaded on his forearms and this pleased him because it meant that the stove was hot, the customers were ordering full meals, and he was exercised. He understood that his attempts to control other people were futile, that despite him they would go on doing and getting what they wished, and this tormenting knowledge allowed Achilles to continue his controlling behaviour without much reflection, further assisted by his family’s tendency to avoid confrontation with him. They put up with Achilles’ moods: they paid the small price as though it were a toll that one generation paid to another, rarely putting him in his place (apart from the night of the olive-wood club). And Achilles believed his life, in relation to theirs, was a monotonous succession of unspeakable yet small humiliations, his unhappiness relieved only by moments of delusional hope, when he believed one day others would listen to him, confide in him, and call him wise.

Lucky was the first family member to discover Penny’s relationship with Walter Schüller. They had already met, Walter and Lucky, outside the Taylor Street branch of the Colonial Bank, while both men waited for the doors to open. In retrospect, Lucky accepted that he had clumsily inflicted small talk on a reluctant Walter, who was even more indisposed to a handshake. Walter sucked in his cheeks severely when he smoked, as if with disappointment, and his large frame made the cigarettes look undersized, the habit ill-suited to him.

‘You’re from Baden Baden?’ Lucky had asked him. ‘I’ve heard of it.’

‘Maybe one day you saw a map.’

‘Did you come here before the war, or after?’

‘Before. I was interned.’

‘Do you get asked that a lot?’

‘All the time. It’s why I hate questions from strangers.’

A few weeks later, through one of the cafe windows, Lucky saw the German for the last time. Penny and Walter were on a street corner, standing close to each other, clearly composed as a pair on a new footpath that Walter had recently laid down for a price the council found irresistible. Lucky pushed the Benny Goodman glasses back into place. Penny and Walter’s bodies were squared. Quickly her hand touched his. Then they looked down at the ground between them, in some kind of embarrassment of intimacy. Lucky could see what they meant to each other.

That afternoon, at a discreet moment, he told Penny: ‘I think you should be more careful. That’s all I want to say.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You know what.’

‘Do I look like the bloody oracle to you?’

‘I’m talking about your charming German friend, Walter. I saw you two together on the goddamn street.’

‘He asked me how I was and I felt sorry for him. He thinks everyone hates him.’

‘In my experience he’s not pleasant in conversation.’