She smiled, shook her head, and watched as he returned to the bar, thinking that sort of boy didn’t belong anywhere near Kippen, or boarding school for that matter.

For a few moments Daniel and his son breathed in silence.

Jamie had returned to staring at the wall, and Daniel to leaning against the door, blocking any chance of anyone returning.

But he noticed the signs of others. The vinyl chair below the first-aid cabinet had been left askew. So worn out, he assumed, that the imprint of Tony’s dumb arse was still apparent.

His ex-wife’s departure was marked by the scattering of some of the contents of her bag across the floor, including a lipstick and a phone bill.

Daniel bent to scoop them off the floor, taking in the impressions left by her shoes. They were just subtle imprints with a smattering of sand she must have picked-up from the garden bed she’d rushed across on their way from the car park to the hotel.

As he got himself upright, he pushed the errant chair into place. It hit the wall with a sharp knock that made his son’s shoulders flinch.

‘If you try running away from boarding school, you’ll be back at The Mulgas living with me before you know what’s hit you,’ Daniel said, calmly.

Jamie’s shoulders slackened like he was about to speak.

But Daniel drove right over him. ‘If good farm work doesn’t knock all this nonsense out of you, then we’ll get you some professional help,’ Daniel said. ‘There are ways to fix boys like you, Jamie.’

It would all come tumbling out when he placed a hand on his son’s shoulder. Just as he did so, Jamie began swallowing, trying to keep the truth inside. There: the back of the hand going to the nose to wipe away the first of the flow. Textbook guilt mixed with the relief of discovery. Daniel patted his son and returned to the door, folded his arms, and gently came to rest against it.

‘So, shall we just go home?’ he said, reaching into his pocket for his car keys.

He would avoid any nonsense with the hotel manager, and they’d just get on the road in ten minutes. All he really wanted was his son asleep in the back of his car, and his hand on his wife’s thigh, a secret for a while between the two of them.

James kept his eyes on the wall and nodded to give Dad his answer. It was clear now he could never tell anyone what he and Tony had done. James closed his eyes, squeezed them shut so tight that tears escaped, trying to recapture the feel of his cousin’s skin, the way Tony shuddered when he laughed or collapsed in pleasure.