‘Too much wasted time,’ Curtis explained (school had been the first entry in his list of hates). ‘I could read when I was six, maths, nine or ten, and all the rest was bullshit.’

I’d just spent two hours writing about the Russian Revolution. A good dose of Ernie—peasants eating sawdust, watching their children slowly starve, as their landlords dressed for balls. ‘How do you reckon you went?’ I asked.

‘Beautifully.’ Curtis took a folded slip of paper from his pocket, opened it and showed me. Dozens of tightly scribbled facts and dates and a palimpsest of causes, outcomes and long-term effects. ‘Those teachers are so lazy. I had it on my desk, and no one walked past. White sat on her arse reading a magazine the whole time.’ Then he ripped up the evidence and offered it to the wind. ‘Beats sittin’ with Peter. He really stinks. Do you reckon he uses deodorant?’

‘He told me he doesn’t.’

‘I never quite got him. How can you live that long and never have a girlfriend, or wife? There’s only so much wanking you can do.’

‘He’s different.’

‘Lives with his mum. Classic closet homo.’

‘He is not.’

‘They hide it, Clemmy. Coupla magazines under the wardrobe.’

‘You’re full of shit.’

‘You wanna watch out, he’ll be after you next.’

‘He’s sort of … asexual.’

Curtis almost laughed. ‘No such thing. God put it there for a reason.’

‘You’re the expert.’

He smiled again.

‘Go on.’

‘No, if she knew I was telling …’

He was busting to say it. Seventeen years of waiting, listening, overhearing, imagining and practising. It wasn’t something you could keep to yourself.

‘I offered Coward ten bucks a week if he mowed during my free on Thursday afternoon.’

We jumped the fence and headed towards a new, multistorey police station under construction.

‘Ten bucks a week?’

‘I’ve been selling John’s smokes. Figure it should keep me going for a few months.’

‘What about when he comes back?’

‘Not any time soon. So last Thursday I told Mum I was studying in the library and me and Tracey …’

‘Go on.’

‘We wandered down, had a chat, bit of a kiss. Then the bra …’

He’d always said he’d beat me, and he had. He’d said he didn’t see why people had to wait so long. Who made the laws? The Catholics, no doubt. But if your stuff started working at twelve, why all the hanging about?

‘I can’t tell you any more.’

‘Go on.’

He just smiled.

We crossed the road and walked in the shadow of the scaffold.

‘And?’

‘She had a bit of a sook and said, Why did I do that? I told her it’d all be good, and she said, I don’t believe I did it.’

‘And?’

‘I told her it’s natural. Then I mentioned next Thursday, and she got all shitty and ran off.’