‘Perfect. Then that shall be today’s message. You get one word. How about the arse? Chris and I will share the other two. This is your big debut. It’s like a dream come true. So won’t you smile for the camera? I know you’re going to love it.’

He sang the last bit, like it was already a song, and I grinned, pretending I knew it. I hoped there wouldn’t actually be a camera.

*

It rained later that morning: light flicky rain out of a sunny sky, which we felt glad to sit in as it teased away the last of our hangovers. Old Boy, who didn’t have a hangover, also appeared reasonably content to sit in it, just as he always appeared reasonably content about everything. Christine, under her floppy hat, still looked serene and impeccable, mysteriously free of environmental emulsion splashback. The four of us ate mostly in silence, perched on a wall above the shingle, staring out towards an arched rock that my dad had once told me was arched because a very strong whale had swum straight through the middle of it. I thought how beautiful the sun was as it glinted through the arch, and how magical the world we took for granted could be, the world already there that we placed all our paraphernalia and meaningless chaos on top of, and inextricably tied in with this realisation was the realisation for the first time since waking up that I was probably still wasted from last night.

‘So it was you all along?’ I asked Mark.

‘Well, yeah. Me. Some friends. Christine, sometimes. But mostly me.’

‘But why? I mean, I thought it was pretty funny. But why?’

‘You really have to ask? You know what they called me up there, the way they spoke about me. I’d had enough.’

‘No. Well, sort of. Yes. No. What? Who?’

‘“Jam Jar”. The members at the club. You didn’t know that?’

‘I didn’t realise that was you. I always wondered who they were talking about and why they said that.’