‘Lotta black fellas,’ Pop said, as he studied them.

‘Don’t know if I’d like to live here,’ Peter said.

Karl and Paddy, Slobodan, Giovanni and Giuseppe, loading their utes, driving towards imagined fortunes. Ruptures in the earth where underground homes and shops dared to test the temperature, although it wasn’t so bad today. Making a fruitcup-coloured town of up-and-downs, sinking gyms and submerged love nests, brave government offices sitting stiff-shouldered in the sun.

We parked outside a row of shops and Pop bought a chicken. We sat al fresco breaking it apart. I got a drumstick, and Coke, and Peter settled for wings, and a little breast. Pop wasn’t hungry. He noticed a phone and said, ‘I s’pose I better face the music. Wish me luck.’

Ten minutes later we’d finished, and Pop was still talking, and a couple of local kids (shoeless and shirtless) had asked for money. Ernie had said, ‘Piss off,’ but Peter had given them some change, because you couldn’t afford to make enemies in a small town.

Peter said, ‘I wonder what she’s saying?’

‘She’s demanding we return, saying how worried everyone is, how selfish it was to just leave.’

We eyed Pop, who was poker-faced.

‘D’you reckon there’s any gold?’ Ernie asked.

‘Course,’ I said, dutifully.

‘You reckon?’

‘… perhaps.’

Another minute, Pop returned, sat down, but then cleaned up the chicken, put it in the bin, stood beside us and said, ‘Come on, let’s see this room.’

‘What’d she say?’ Peter asked.

‘Grizzled, of course. Come on, we got a lot to do.’

‘What else did she say?’ I asked.

‘Doesn’t matter. Grizzled. It’s all she does. But she’ll get over it.’

He brushed his pants, felt the new directions in his pocket then said, ‘Would you lot just bloody come!’

‘What is it?’ Ern asked.

‘It’s nothin’. If we don’t keep going …’

Ernie was driving, his seat back, one hand on the wheel. Pop said, ‘Pay attention.’

‘Fifty years of driving, not so much as a dent.’

Pop retreated into the landscape.

An early start, again. We’d emerged from our cave room with our bags, loaded the car, returned for the all-inclusive breakfast, but the woman (still in her nightie) had said, ‘Dining room’s not open till seven.’

‘We gotta make tracks,’ Pop had said.

‘Seven.’

‘But we only wanna bita toast, a cuppa.’

She’d shrugged, and he’d said, ‘Fuck me,’ and she’d said, ‘Language,’ and he’d said, ‘Not much for the tourists, eh?’

So we’d loaded our gear, found a servo and bought day-old pies and sausage rolls. All the time, Pop saying, ‘Coupla sticks of dynamite.’

‘Can’t believe we’ve come this far,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ Pop mumbled. A sort of so what? yeah.

‘Be diggin’ soon, eh?’