‘I’m surprised it’s taken so long, Doug.’

‘Mind yer own business.’

‘Last time you said we’d go. What, you goin’ with Clem?’

No reply.

‘September, before it gets too hot. All that gold … before it’s too late. We’re no spring chickens, Doug.’

‘I’m not goin’ nowhere.’

I glanced at Pop. ‘You might as well tell him.’

‘I could come with you,’ Ernie said. ‘That’s what we agreed on.’

‘That was a long time ago.’

I turned into the hotel car park, switched off the engine and waited. Pop said, ‘We’re here.’

‘When would it have been … sixty-five?’ Ernie asked. ‘Me and your pop had been sitting at the front bar for hours, then he says: I got this map.’

He spent the next five minutes explaining how Pop had taken the map out of his pocket, flattened it on the bar, showed him Lasseter’s Reef and asked if he was interested in coming, for a ten per cent cut.

‘And that was it, Clem. We shook on it and agreed on a date. But then he changed his mind.’

‘I did not,’ Pop said. ‘Tell him the whole story.’

‘That’s it.’

Pop turned to me. ‘Yes, we agreed on it, but a few days later I get this phone call. That Doug Currie? Yes, who’s this? I’m so and so and Ernie Sharpe mentioned you might be looking for someone to come on a trip. Then another call, and another. He’d told the front bar of the Windsor, everyone knew.’

‘Okay, I got a bit tipsy, told one of the fellas, but I vowed them to secrecy—’

‘And you believed them?’

‘Jesus, Doug, I said I’s sorry, but that needn’ta stopped us drinkin’.’

There was a short pause; hot asphalt, Fi-Fi panting. Pop said, ‘We’re here now. You can go have a chat with your mates.’

‘I can do some driving, and I’m not a bad cook.’

In the absence of a dog, Pop smoothed his pants. ‘I’ll think about it.’

Ernie got out, let Fi-Fi down, and she pissed against the wheel. Then he led her towards her post on North East Road, the dangerous few feet between pub and traffic where she’d sat, alone, all these years, waiting for him to stagger out pissed. But, I guessed, she was happy, because she had a routine, and knew that was her spot, and people would give her water and a pat and a crust of their pie. Like her master, aware that everything happened, if you were patient.

Curtis and I crossed the oval and headed for the Gleneagles shops. They’d let us leave early after our midyear exams. School had been a long, agonising wait for the dentist; the pain that came and went. Thirteen years, nearly, since we’d sat together, cross-legged, listening to our Prep teacher telling us what to do if we needed the toilet.