‘You’re such a fucking idiot,’ Curtis said.

We walked back to the BP with the bin. It took us an hour, but Curtis was determined to destroy the images. When we arrived Gary was waiting in the shop. ‘Ten minutes?’

When Curtis explained, Mr H laughed so hard he leaked (or so he said). He was good like that. He might’ve missed a few sales, but they’d be back. What mattered was that this Curtis kid, this strange, slightly idiotic boy of the suburbs, had learned his lesson.

There was a forty-four-gallon drum behind the workshop. Gary helped us unload the pictures, and he tipped a little petrol on them, threw in a smoke, and we watched them burn. Over twenty minutes, we fed the flames. Gary took care of the customers, and we overheard him telling one what we were burning. They laughed.

It was getting dark and I said, ‘I’m going home.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

The fire died down.

Gary won out, because he got a bin, and it was handy (once he painted over the school name) for the driveway.

That’s how it was done back then. There was no point worrying about anything. It was only a bum. Everyone had one.

I got out, closed the door and Pop said, ‘Tomorrow, practise yer parking.’

The L-plates were still L. Curtis was in his yard, and called over, ‘How did it go?’

‘Nine points,’ Pop said.

‘Bad luck.’

Seeing how you were only allowed eight.

‘What did you do wrong?’

‘Plenty,’ Pop continued. ‘Reversing, parking …’

‘Pop,’ I said.

‘And we’ll keep going until you get it right.’

He went in, and I could hear him telling Mum and Jen before he was even through the door. I didn’t want to face another half-hour of analysis. The fact was, Pop was pissed off he’d have to spend more time preparing for Lasseter.

Luckily, there was a voice. ‘Clem?’

I followed it into Val’s yard, over the lunar landscape, to David, sitting in the shade. He said, ‘Don’t worry, I failed three times before I got mine.’

This is what I wanted to hear. Dave was a sage, stranded under his Bodhi tree, contemplating life’s possibilities.

‘I’m in the Datsun waiting,’ I said, ‘and he gets in and looks at me like, You’re gonna be trouble, writes something down, says, Reverse, turn right and enter the left carriageway. Who says that? The left carriageway?’

I noticed a boot on the footpath, half-burning, half-smoking. ‘Is that yours?’

‘No.’

‘I pull out and this guy comes burning along, pounds the horn and old four-eyes writes something down. I say, I did check, but he was speeding. And he just looks at me like, I’ll be the judge of that.’