‘Not if we hurry.’

‘Let me see you hurry then,’ Captain Edmund said.

‘Yes, sir.’ The boys continued to cross the quadrangle casually, now in silence.

‘Run!’ came the command. The boys jogged under an archway. The night settled and a few stars began to shine.

A crack like thunder echoed through the quadrangle. Captain Edmund disappeared from the window. A patchwork of lights turned on until the quadrangle glowed gold.

Dormitory windows crammed with eager, noisy boys, their excited voices chasing each other into the night.

TWO

Day 1

Kilkenny Road

11.30 p.m. Sunday, 25th October 1965

The glow from streetlights failed to penetrate the canopy of jacaranda trees that lined Kilkenny Road, Floreat. Only one house shimmered in light. Porch light, window lights and a passageway light poured through an open front door into the night. A Rachmaninoff piano piece surged and faded.

Eighteen-year-old Paul Cardilini walked quickly along the pavement towards the house. He pushed aside the front gate, took several hurried steps onto the verandah and went inside, closing the flyscreen door and the timber front door quietly behind him.

‘Dad! Dad!’ he called.

Stretched out on the lounge room sofa lay his father: a man in his forties, white singlet, business trousers, head hanging back over one armrest, socked feet resting on the other. Beer bottles lay like skittles on the floor.

‘Dad, wake up.’ The young man turned down the record player, Rachmaninoff fell to a whisper. He shook his father. The man’s legs fell to the floor as he tried to sit up.

‘Paul, hey. How are you?’

‘You’re drunk again, Dad,’ Paul said tonelessly.

‘No. No.’

‘Drunk. I could hear Mum’s music all the way down the street.’

‘No. Why, what time is it?’

‘It’s after eleven.’

‘Hell.’ Rubbing at the confusion in his eyes, Paul’s father asked, ‘You eaten?’

‘Yes. Did you?’

‘I was waiting for you,’ he replied, trying to focus.

‘Rubbish. I told you yesterday I was eating at friends’ tonight.’

‘Oh. That’s good then. I might go to bed.’

‘Jesus, you were going to stop this.’

‘Really. Yep. I will. But I’m going to bed now.’

Paul watched his father test the weight and balance of each step and reach for the doorframe as a support before turning down the passageway. Paul turned off the record player and delicately lifted the LP from the turntable. He slipped the record reverently into its dust jacket and album cover. He picked up the beer bottles and glass. Looking around the room, he sighed heavily before switching off the light.

Day 1

St Nicholas College

11.55 p.m. Sunday, 25th October 1965

The boy stood in his pyjamas outside Captain Edmund’s door. He was barefoot as instructed and could feel the worn, coarse carpet on the soles of his feet. His right hand rested on the cool round door handle which he turned, easing the door open. Trying to smile he stepped through and drew the door shut behind him. His foot pressed onto something sharp and hard, he felt it snag at his skin. Welcoming the pain, he pushed his foot harder to the floor. In the room the open curtains cast a rectangle of weak light. The light ended at the Captain’s shoulders. The boy stood still. His foot throbbed.