‘I’m fine,’ I say. He saunters into the service station to pay, his right leg stiff.

‘Despite everything I’m actually looking forward to seeing the place,’ Claire says.

‘Well it might be your last chance. We’re putting it on the market.’

‘You are?’ Axel says, with a note of sadness. ‘It was your grandparents’ place, right?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘We’ll find something else.’

‘I’m glad you’ll be in Auckland for a little longer,’ he says. ‘But I’m really sorry, Lina. I know it was a special place for you.’

‘Better go out in style,’ Claire adds, turning to me across the back seat. ‘Have one last good weekend down there. Weather is supposed to be nice.’

‘Gets up to twenty-four on Saturday,’ I say.

Cain is coming back now. He climbs in, tosses a Snickers bar on Axel’s lap. ‘You beauty,’ he says, tearing it open.

‘I know your only vice,’ Cain says, before starting the car and setting off again.

It’s a nice easy drive down, and the boys are talking about training together for selection. Reminiscing. Although Axel’s never outranked Cain, he’s always seemed to carry an authority over him. I’m watching them, grinning as they recall a time when they were eight days into the gruelling SAS selection process. Most had already dropped out. Crossing the Waiouru desert in the centre of the North Island, their food intake had been restricted every day and they were on a pack march carrying one twenty-kilogram jerry can of water each and one extra to be passed between the group throughout. They were at the outer limits of what humans are capable of, physically and psychologically.

‘It was thirty degrees, remember?’ Cain says now.

‘I can’t remember much, just thinking I was going to die. We were about fourteen hours into a twenty-hour march. My legs were jelly and no one had said anything for about two hours.’ He’s already got laughter in his voice, they both do. ‘And out of nowhere someone decides to loudly –’

‘Very loudly,’ Cain adds. ‘Like a grenade.’

‘– pass gas.’ Axel is struggling to speak, through the bubbling laughter.

‘My brain wasn’t even functioning,’ Cain adds. ‘It barely registered. Then in the debrief someone said –’

‘It was Trent who said it,’ Axel says, they’re both telling the story now, speaking at the same time.

‘Right, fess up, who farted back there, you almost killed me.’