‘Well, they wash them. But five years, that’s not so much when you’re my age.’

Then he asked me for the highlights, and I said there weren’t many, and I asked if he ever noticed maps drawn in chalk in the lunch shed, and he said yes, and I explained. And he asked after Curtis, and I said he was okay, still a pain, but okay.

Then he said, ‘It’s good to see you. You know, kids come and go, and you never see them again, but you always remember.’

‘All the stuff me and Curtis did?’

‘Too right. You, with your hand in the cookie jar.’

‘Shit … you remember?’

‘I do.’

‘I’s hoping …’

‘I knew you’d come good, and you have, eh?’

He told a couple of boys to stop arguing, but didn’t seem too concerned about the game, falling apart.

‘I was shitting myself,’ I said. ‘All the way across the yard, and when you stopped and said …’

He smiled, and held my shoulder for a moment. ‘Do this long enough, you can tell. But I always wondered why you did it.’

I said, ‘Maybe I wanted to know what it felt like.’

‘There’s nothin’ better. Middle of a sunny day. Green grass. Sherrin’s pumped up, and we’re alive, eh, Clem?’

‘Yeah.’

He looked at his kids, and took a deep breath.

‘Wouldn’t be dead for quids, I reckon.’

‘No.’ As I saw Curtis, fighting for the ball.

‘Carn,’ Mr Gottl said, pulling me towards the oval. Me, the shit-kicker, the weed, the hater-of-sport. But the little kids welcomed me, and I let them tackle me, and pretended to fall and knock my head on the sprinkler, and Mr Gottl joined in, and it was like it had been, and always would be, amen.