‘Reckon. Bita land, few animals, keep a man busy. What d’you do in town? Baby Burgess? That’s not a life.’

We passed through a small town. It was already alive, joggers, a rubbish truck trawling the streets. Pop said, ‘Never ends, does it?’

Ernie searched his pockets, found the picture we’d taken in town, and placed it on the dash. The four of us, grinning, clutching shoulders. ‘Do we gotta look at that the whole way?’ Pop asked.

‘It’s just us boys now, eh?’

Pop couldn’t argue. Perhaps, he guessed, it was important.

Soon, the world was gone. Treeless hills stuck out their tongues, thirsting for rain that stuck to the coast. Town-sized paddocks full of sheep and Angus, and vines clinging to hills like old war wounds. Pop put down his window and smelled it. ‘That’s it … we’ve arrived.’

‘We’ve just left,’ Ernie said. ‘Anyway, I gotta pee.’

Pop looked over. ‘Already?’

‘Me bladder.’

‘This gonna happen the whole way?’

‘No, but I gotta pee.’

Pop shook his head, but pulled up. Ernie said, ‘Somewhere with a tree.’

Pop got out, stretched his legs and said, ‘This’ll do.’

‘Everyone can see.’

‘Who’s looking at you?’

Ernie walked a few metres, turned away from us, and waited. A car sped past, and he said, ‘Fuck, I need a tree.’

‘Just do it. It’s not the front bar of the Windsor.’

Ernie zipped himself and walked back. ‘Can’t piss in the open.’

We drove. The tress turned to stumps, the grass dried off and granite and limestone emerged from the hills. Sheep gave way to wheat, or stubble, or harvesters and field bins. Pop scanned the landscape. ‘It’s dry this year.’

But we’d already tired of his travelogue.

‘Not meant for agriculture. They pump fertiliser into it, but it’s not sustainable.’

‘What’s not?’ Ernie said.

‘Grain. This far north. Idiot’s game.’

‘They’ve been doing it for years.’

‘Still …’

Ernie retreated, realising there was no point.

I’d tried some D. H. Lawrence, but it wasn’t working. So I found Jen’s cards in my pocket and said, ‘Who wants their fortune told?

‘Me,’ Peter replied.

‘Not that loada shit,’ Pop said.

But I was shuffling. ‘Lap of the gods, Pop.’

‘Rubbish. Man makes his own luck.’

‘Righto, Pete.’ I laid the first card on my knee. The Fool.

‘What’s that?’ Pete asked.

‘Spirit in search of experience.’ (I’d heard it so many times I’d remembered.)

‘There you go,’ Pete said to Pop. ‘D’you hear that?’

‘Not listening. Jen’s not gonna be happy.’

‘She’s lost interest,’ I said.

On, further. A sagging geography, letting in the sea, so that everything to our west was swamp, brittle land filled with salt, skeletal trees and the smell of rotting vegetation. But it shimmered in the crystal sun, and Pop said, ‘That’s just about the prettiest thing I seen.’