Lucky, who did not have a new job, suspected by now that his unsuccessful search for restaurant and hotel work in the past three weeks might have something to do with the fact he was American, or because he was ethnically Greek—or probably both. Or maybe employers didn’t like something else about him. There had occurred a change in status. Americans looked out of place in postwar Australia. The previous year, hundreds of thousands of GIs and air force and navy men were resident in the state capitals, omnipresent and exotic, but virtually no one returned after the war. Australian wives moved to the United States. There were days when Lucky suspected he was the only American living in Sydney.

‘Come back to the cafe,’ said Achilles. ‘That’s where you belong.’

‘We can’t do that. We can’t forgive you. And it’s gonna be that way for a long time. I’m here because I need to pack up some things.’

‘Take what you want. Take some cigarettes. I’ll keep out of your way.’

Lucky and Valia’s former bedroom lay closest to the cafe’s gargling generator, which once produced what Lucky had found to be accommodating noises that invited him to the heavy sleep of a happy life. Achilles was the one problem with the Achillion. He wrecked their home. He made the cafe squalid. He paced the lounge room, shifting chairs around. Lucky packed the clothes Valia had left behind, those she requested, including a few things he never liked—a Little Bo Peep-style hat, a purple cardigan she wore some nights after closing time. For her part, Valia disliked Lucky’s shoes, said they needed replacing, but his feet were bony and his Haglund’s heel bled easily and he wasn’t willing to wear in new boots. Without a proper home, without much money, Lucky took comfort in petty thoughts, in the normal, superficial spite between husband and wife, in the one or two things he never liked, and which revealed the measure of their good marriage. He could hear someone fiddling with the back gate.

The sounds of the yard were familiar to Lucky. The components of the back gate were a sheet of compacted iron riveted to a frame, a chain, a lock, hinges, and these parts made distinctive noises when touched.

He checked the verandah: ‘You there, Achilles?’

Lucky went through the yard, out the gate, and down the lane. He called out his father-in-law’s name. Who was the old man meeting? Since when did Achilles have a friend? The lane ended in a large pothole. The street looked as dark and still as a back road in a small town, the cold night air loaded with pressure. He chose a direction. Two blocks away, he found Achilles in front of the fruit store, pouring gasoline onto the windows and steps.

‘What are you, a fucking nutcase?’ Lucky hissed.