‘Bread and cheese,’ I said, ‘indeed, bread and cheese,’ but tried to infuse the phrase with a special whimsy that said ah, yes, very good, these things, but not for you and me. Perhaps I could interest you in the greater noun of nothing?

‘Chris L,’ I said, holding the bread with both my hands. ‘I forgot one half of the bread and cheese.’

‘Which half?’ said Dan. He swooped into the kitchen, a new habit of his, and lifted from a clutch of insulated bags thing after insulated thing: white wine and sparkling wine, pre-chilled water and Soda-Stream bottles, a nanginator – hmm – and orange juice. Lachlan wandered in. Nobody said anything and, when Dan and Lachlan had removed everything from the bags, synchronised, efficient, Dan folded the insulating bags into the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink.

‘So great,’ I said.

‘Thank you,’ said Dan. ‘I know, it’s like we live here.’ He beamed at Lachlan, who remained stoic, but went slightly red. ‘And now, the ideal reward . . . delicious bread and cheese.’

‘Ugh,’ I said. Dan made an exaggerated face of disappointment, and followed Lachlan into the bedroom.

‘Hi, mates, what’s up?’ said Vivian, coming up the stairs.

‘We need cheese,’ Chris L whispered.

Vivian leaned in and smiled.

Maybe this was the beautiful person’s version of baby talk, a sensuous shroud of whispers, commensurate with a preference for sunglasses and hand-obscuring garments. Chris L encircled Vivian, wiping and brushing his body where I would have looped without touching, and he said more words, whisper whisper whisper, into the pressed folds of the back of Vivian’s shirt.

‘Don’t worry, beach mates,’ Vivian said. ‘I’ll go get some cheese.’

So responsible, I thought approvingly. A serious Vivian, more like the guy he’d seemed to be on the night I met him and less like a guy in loungey sweatpants. I wondered at the sex they had presumably been having and whether this somehow contributed to Vivian’s upstandingness. Maybe it had brought out the very best in him, making him feel invested and responsible.

‘That would be great,’ Chris L whispered.

‘It’s no problem,’ Vivian whispered too.

And he was right; it wasn’t. It was all so nice and nothingy. Despite my tendency to fixate on the grimmer parts of fortune, and read dark presentiments into the summer nights, death was not the only thing for guys like us to get when we weren’t attending our jobs, or finishing our minors, or buying clothes or burning fuel or striving to repeat the worst mistakes of our forebears. We could also stand around and whisper nothings.

‘Cheers!’ I said to Chris L. We were not yet drinking – I would fix that soon – but how grateful I was that the spirit of fun and friendship had superseded, at least for now, my terrible attraction.