D-Dyla.n | Chapter One

Twenty-two stones and a complete plan.

I’d washed the stones the night before, out the back with the hose, and lined them up under the verandah light to dry. Wet, they were the real green. Dark green. Expensive green. The jade mine is forty-five minutes out of town, biggest deposit in the southern hemisphere, and nobody, nobody, sells jade to the tourists at the side of the road. That’s called a gap in the market. I found it.

The maths was simple: ten dollars a stone. Twenty stones a day, conservative. Fourteen hundred a week. I’d need a sign by Christmas and staff by Easter.

In the morning I tipped the stones into the milk crate on the back of the bike, pulled Nan’s tea towel off the line, and took her garden sprayer while I was at it. The sprayer was because a wet stone is green and a dry stone – a dry stone is green too, it just needs the light to hit it right.

I picked the picnic table by the foreshore toilets, where the caravans pull in for the loo and a meat pie from the bakery. I scraped the dried gull dropping off the tabletop with one of the stones, spread the towel, pinned the corners with the four biggest, and laid the rest out in rows, big to small. Shop was open before eight.

The wind came off the gulf carrying salt. The holiday kids were jumping off the end of the jetty and the sound carried all the way up. I kept my back to the jetty. When the sun got into the stones the green sank to the bottom of them and the grey floated up; I gave them a squirt and it came back.

First vehicle of the day was Kev’s ute. He pulled up level with the table and put his elbow out the window.

’Flogging what this time, Dylan?’

’Jade. C-c-Cowell jade.’

’Off the beach, is it?’

’I’ve got a source. Sources don’t get named.’

He laughed, one of those laughs that pulls his whole face backwards. ’Ten bucks for a rock? You owe me a beer when you’re a millionaire.’ And he was off.

A laugh means the word spreads. Free advertising. Kev would tell ten people by dark and two of the ten would come. That’s how I’d costed it.

Another ute went past. Slowed. Didn’t stop. Warren. Two summers ago Warren paid me forty dollars, a pre-order on bait worms, and my worm farm lasted three weeks. A technical issue. Ventilation. Some people don’t forget, and they don’t count that as a fault of theirs.

Two kids circled the table on their bikes.

’What are they?’

’Jade.’

’Can you lick ’em?’

’No.’

’If you lick ’em they stay green.’

’G-g-go to school.’

’It’s holidays.’

Free solutions always come from the unqualified.

Near ten the sprayer ran dry. The park tap was a fair walk and you can’t leave stock unattended, so I went to the water’s edge. Tide was out; the water had backed off and the mud shone. I went in to the ankles, no further, held the sprayer head under, and kept my eyes on the water the whole time, the way you don’t turn your back on a strange dog. Salt water’s still water. Back to the table.

Between customers I designed the logo, in my head: a stone, with shine coming off it. How do you draw shine? Three crooked lines? A problem for later.

The white caravan came in mid-morning. Victorian plates. Money, in other words. The woman got out with a boy of seven or eight; the bloke stayed at the wheel with his phone.

The boy came straight to the table. ’What are these?’

’Jade. B-b-biggest jade deposit in the southern hemisphere is forty-five minutes from here. I bring these in from the source. T-t—’ The word jammed. My fingers went one-two-three on my thigh and it broke loose: ’—ten dollars each. But that’s roadside price, not mine price. You’re paying half what it’s worth.’

I talk a lot. People like it; they wait to see where the word gets out.

The boy said, ’Why are they wet?’

’They c-c-come in wet.’

The woman picked up the smallest stone, turned it in her hand, looked at me, one of those looks adults trade over a child’s head. ’Is five enough?’

’K-k-kids’ discount. Always.’

She handed over the note and off they went. Halfway across the car park the boy’s voice carried back: ’Mum, it’s going grey.’

’It’s lovely, sweetheart.’

In any business the first sale is proof, not money. I put the proof in my shirt pocket and gave the stones a squirt.

From the end of the jetty somebody yelled, ’Dylan! Come jump!’ Jimmy, or his brother; from that distance there’s no difference.

’Ear!’ I pointed at it.

’Again with the ear?’

’D-d-doctor said no water in it!’

No doctor had ever said any such thing, because I’d never asked one anything. But the line’s held for six, seven years.

At noon Ray came back off the jetty, rod on his shoulder, bucket in hand. He stopped in front of the table and looked at the stones: the dry ones, not the wet ones. Picked one up, weighed it in his fist, held it to the light.

’These are only green wet, son.’

’B-b-bad light at noon.’

’Jade’s heavy. Cold. Hold it and the cold stays in your hand.’ He set the stone back down, square, exactly where he’d taken it from. ’Table’s level, but.’ And off he went.

Ray’s caught fish for forty years, not stone. A fish expert is a fish expert.

When he was well gone I dug into my trouser pocket and brought out my own stone: the first one, the one the whole plan had come out of. Spat on it, spread it with my thumb. It went green. Real green. I held it in my fist to see if it stayed cold.

It went warm.

I put it back in my pocket and thought about the next customer.

The afternoon went quiet. The sun had cooked the stones; run a hand over them and your fingerprints stayed in the salt. The flies wouldn’t even land on them. The sprayer had given up too: the salt had crusted the nozzle white and it spat instead of misting. The market’s slow in the mornings. The market’s slow in the afternoons. One of those two sentences was true.

Four o’clock I packed up. Shook out the towel, tipped the stones into the crate, and the bike rode like a drunk under the load; I gripped the bars two-handed and took the middle of the road and let the utes honk.

Nan was in the kitchen, standing, one hand on the table edge, topping beans. I came through the door and without turning she said, ’Have you got my garden sprayer?’

I put it on the table. She picked it up, sniffed it, ran the tap and worked the trigger till it stopped spitting and misted again. Said nothing. The geraniums in the window had scorched leaf edges; they hadn’t been misted in two days.

I took the five out of my shirt pocket and laid it on the table, flat, next to the beans. ’First sale. And that’s b-b-bare, no sign yet. With a sign, seven hundred a week, minimum. I’ve done the maths.’

Nan put down the beans, smoothed the note with two fingers, and went, hand to table, hand to chair-back, and brought the tin down off the fridge and put the note inside.

’Power’s due on the fifteenth.’

That was all. Back to the beans.

That night I tipped the stones out by the back step and put the hose on them. Under the water they went green: last night’s green.

From inside the house: ’Don’t waste water.’

I turned off the tap. I didn’t stay to watch them dry; I had better work to do.

I was finding the problem.

The problem was the sun, not the stones.

The orange letter had been on the fridge ten days. First under the corner magnet, then the middle of the door, then directly above the handle, where you’d have to move it to get at the milk. The repositioning was Nan’s work. On the morning of the appointment the letter was sitting on the teapot.

’Ten o’clock.’ She poured. ’Not half past.’

’It’s d-d-diarised.’

It was diarised. A man has to get along with the government for the sake of his business.

Two minutes to ten I leaned the bike on the council building wall and went in. Deb’s desk is behind the library; half the desk is Centrelink, the other half is whatever the town needs it to be: water rates, library cards, sign-ups for anything. The smell is photocopier toner and hot carpet. The ceiling fan turned and every paper on the desk had a clip on it. Anti-fan equipment. The fan won the odd round anyway; a yoga flyer lifted off the board and resettled, twice.

Deb looked over her glasses. ’On time. Sit.’ And, dialling: ’How’s Pam’s knee? She missed Thursday club.’

’Good.’

It was good. I’d seen her that morning; she was standing.

Deb handed me the receiver and took a folder to the photocopier, two metres away, which means: I’ve given you privacy. Behind me a man in a sweat-stained hat was waiting for the desk, a rates notice folded to a weapon in his fist. Ahead of me the town’s whole morning had gone through that desk: a boat rego, two library returns, a form Deb filled out herself because its owner had left his glasses at home.

’Chris here, Port Lincoln office. Date of birth, for ID?’

’Twenty-third of May, t-t—’

’—two thousand and one. Yep, got it. Righto, Dylan, what am I recording for job search this month?’

’Well’ is a good word. It starts soft; you can get a run-up off a ’Well’. ’Well. I run my own b-b-business. Gemstones. We had sales this week and we’re expanding for the C-c-Christmas market.’

Typing. ’What were the sales?’

’F-f—’ No. ’Five d-d-dollars.’

The typing stopped. ’Five dollars.’

Behind me the hat man made a noise through his nose. That one I didn’t count as free advertising.

’It’s the first sale. In business, first sale’s not the d-d-dollars. It’s proof.’

Silence. The phone is worse. They can’t see you; they can only see your silence, and silence down a phone line is the shape of a dropped call.

’Look,’ Chris said. ’Robson’s putting on seasonal casuals for Christmas. Oyster shed, right there in Cowell. Want me to refer you?’

’B-b-books are full. It’s my busy season.’

A pause with no breathing in it. Then: ’Righto. So per your plan, you’ll lodge four job applications by the thirty-first. They don’t go in, your payment gets suspended. That’s your mutual obligation. Okay?’

’Okay.’

’Good on ya.’ He said it the way the form says it.

Mutual. I liked that word. Mutual means both sides; it implied the government owed me some effort too. And there’s a points system: applications are five points each. I respect a points system. I’ve been keeping score my whole life; good to see the government catch up. Four applications: you put your name down in four places and get back to your real work.

I hung up and Deb came back with the folder. Same folder, nothing copied.

’Greg’s not a bad bloke.’

’T-t-to his staff, maybe.’

On the noticeboard beside the desk, between the church-hall yoga flyer and a photo of a missing cat called Biscuit – three weeks gone, and looking, in the photo, like an animal that had left on purpose – there was a yellow sheet: MAIN STREET CHRISTMAS MARKET, SATURDAY. STALLS $10. REGISTER WITH DEB.

Everything in this town ends up at Deb’s desk.

’A stall.’

Deb opened her ruled book. ’Ten dollars.’

’B-b-bringing it Thursday.’

She wrote my name and stamped it. ’Site twelve. Next to the fire brigade sausage sizzle.’

Next to the sausages means a queue. A queue means eyes. Eyes mean sales. There wasn’t a better site in the whole market and Deb didn’t even know the favour she’d done me.

’D-d-Deb. Buy into the business now and it’s cheap. After Christmas it won’t be this p-p-price.’

She looked at me over the glasses the way she looks at incomplete forms. ’My wages come out of this desk, Dylan.’ She shut the book. ’Tell Pam Thursday club’s expecting her.’

I took the coastal road home, the one that runs past the oyster sheds. The tide was in and the gulf had gone its flat midday silver, and a pelican stood on the jetty rail like it held shares in the town. The big door of Robson’s shed stood open; lights on inside, radio going, stacks of black crates halfway up the wall, and out the front Kev in waders was hosing crates.

’Millionaire!’ He aimed the hose at me without firing. ’Come do a week. Twenty-eight an hour. Real money, not rock money.’

’B-b-books are full. Busy season.’

’Busy season!’ He laughed and went back to the crates.

I pedalled. The shed smell – salt water, oyster, bleach – followed me all the way up the rise.

Twenty-eight times eight, times five. That one I didn’t run; there was more urgent maths. The stall wanted ten and I had five.

The other five was somewhere in this house.

Thursday I took the ten to Deb. Five of it was mine; the other five I lifted out of the tin on the fridge and left paper in its place: LOAN — DYLAN — BACK SATURDAY NIGHT WITH INTEREST. By Friday Nan had said nothing. Either she hadn’t opened the tin, or she’d opened it and said nothing.

Friday night the pub was heaving; meat tray raffle night. Muted cricket up over the bar, fans going, tinsel sagging along the top shelf, some farmer’s dog asleep under a stool. The specials board said SCHNITZEL NIGHT under a sprig of plastic holly; Baz runs one special and it is always schnitzel. Consistency is why this town trusts him with the book. I talk easier in noise; I don’t know why. My theory is that when there’s plenty of sound, the words aren’t scared of walking out alone: they leave with the crowd.

Baz was behind the bar. ’One, Dylan.’

’T-t-two?’

’One.’ And he slid his book out from beside the till and added a line. The pen lives in the spiral.

Inside half an hour there was a ring of them round me. The stall news was out.

’So you’re opening shop Saturday?’

’Site t-t-twelve. Next to the brigade sausages. B-b-best spot in the market.’

’You got the jade insured?’

’Insurance is for things that b-b-break. Stone doesn’t break.’

They laughed. The good laugh, the kind that warms you. I leaned in. ’And put this in your pipes. China’s the b-b-biggest jade buyer on earth. I’m working on C-c-Cowell quality. Saturday’s market is stage one.’ A long sentence, and it came out whole. In the pub they do. Somebody clapped. One clap; budget applause. I banked it.

’What’s jade fetch in China, then?’

’Four hundred a k-k-kilo. Entry grade.’

The number arrived as I said it, which is where the best numbers come from.

’And how much have you sold ’em?’

’Volume follows b-b-brand. Ask any company.’

’Which company’s that, then?’

’Mine.’

’Does Warren know you’re back in business?’

’Creditors are on the p-p-priority list.’

At the end of the bar, next to Kev, there was a new face; young, first-week sunburn.

Kev said, ’Lukas. Greg’s new bloke. German.’

Lukas put his hand out, formal, like a meeting. ’What is your purchase price per stone?’

’C-c-commercial in confidence.’

’Your margin?’

’In c-c-confidence.’

He nodded, serious. ‘*Genau*.’ He didn’t write anything down, but he looked at me the way people look when they’ve written it down.

The pub laughed. Lukas turned to them: ’Why do you laugh?’

For a second nobody had anything. Kev said, ’Nothing. Drink up.’

Only technical question asked all night, that one.

Somewhere in the middle of it they drew the raffle. Joy from the CWA read the numbers out like school assembly, twice each, and the room went quiet for it the way it goes quiet for nothing else. Kev had bought me a ticket – ’Millionaire’s got no shrapnel’ – my number was seventy-three and seventy-two won. The meat tray went home with one of the farmers, who held it over his head like a premiership cup, which in that room it is.

Luck means you’re close. Close means you’re headed the right way.

Kev set his glass down. ’Bet. Saturday, you don’t clear fifty.’

’Fifty? D-d-double it.’

’Fifty.’

’D-d-done. Stakes?’

’You lose, you wash crates at the shed. Full day. I win—’ he corrected himself: ’I lose, I square your tab with Baz.’

Baz, from behind the bar, without lifting his head: ’Thirty-four dollars.’ He pulled the book across and wrote under my column. ’A bet in the book is sacred.’

We shook. Kev’s hand smelled of shed bleach. Baz blotted the line with the side of his fist; the book carries biro onto both hands and the whole town in it somewhere.

Fifty dollars is five stones. Five stones, beside the sausage queue, with that crowd: sold by ten in the morning. As good as done: Kev had already squared my tab; he just didn’t know it yet.

On the way out, Baz’s book was still open on the bar. My column was the longest in it. I counted the lines from the top: eleven. Twelve with the bet.

A creditworthy man has a long column. They don’t give tick to just anyone. Warren’s name was in there too, higher up, in a different column. I didn’t read his number. A man reads his own column.

Outside, Lukas was leaning on the wall, facing the dark of the gulf.

’Saturday I come. Your stall.’

’Come at eleven. P-p-peak trade.’

’Where is the mine?’

’Forty-five minutes. You c-c-can’t visit. Site safety.’

’Genau.’ He accepted it the way he accepts everything: filed.

First customer in my life to book ahead.

I rode home with the wind behind me and the town shut down. Past the silos the sprinklers were going at the bowls club, watering grass nobody would walk on before Tuesday. The kitchen light was on: Nan always says she forgets to turn it off. And I turned it off and lay in bed spending Kev’s fifty until sleep came. A proper sign, a big one, with legs the wind couldn’t take. A chair for behind the table. And oil, some kind of special stone oil that holds the shine.

And if there’s no special kind, canola’s still oil.

I couldn’t sleep. The canola was in the kitchen.

The problem had been obvious since the first day: a wet stone is green and wet doesn’t last. The sun was to blame. The solution: something the sun can’t beat.

I oiled all twenty-one stones, one at a time, and lined them up under the verandah light. They shone. Wetter than wet, green forever. That’s science: observation, problem, solution.

Then I sat down and wrote twenty-one certificates of authenticity, on pages off Nan’s shopping pad, with her marker: GENUINE COWELL JADE — CERTIFIED BY THE FRANKLIN JADE COMPANY. Signed: me. Who better than the producer? I numbered them too, one to twenty-one. Serial numbers create value; I’d read that somewhere, or thought it.

Saturday, six in the morning, the main street had gone Christmas, the kind of Christmas that’s thirty-eight degrees. Tinsel up the light poles, trestle tables in rows, Deb in the middle of the road with a clipboard telling everyone where to stand, the fire crew wheeling the barbecue into place, the CWA women laying out cakes. Site twelve was beside the barbecue, exactly as ordered. I spread Nan’s tea towel and set out the gleaming stones, big to small, each with its folded certificate underneath. The towel took a stain under the first stone; a green, oily stain. The certificates were safe.

Half past eight the sizzle fired up and the queue formed. Long, exactly as costed.

The queue had its back to me.

You face the sausages in a sausage queue. I hadn’t costed that. And the onion smoke drifted across and settled on the oil.

By ten the stones smelled like a kebab.

The flies worked it out before the customers did.

First sale was nine o’clock; an old lady with a grandkid over from Adelaide. She picked up the smallest stone and her fingers came away glossy. She looked at her hand, then at me.

’P-p-protective coating. Fresh on.’

She paid five and I presented the certificate two-handed, like a diploma.

’What’s this?’

’Certificate of authenticity. Free.’

’Who signed it?’

’The company.’

Under my eye she folded it into her handbag, out of politeness. Politeness is a kind of sale too.

A tyre-kicker offered two dollars for a big one and got refused. ’We don’t d-d-discount heritage.’

Half ten, Warren came out of the sausage queue with a paper plate. The same forty dollars, on its own two legs.

’Well, well. The company.’

’Warren.’

’Where’s my forty bucks, Dylan?’

’Investment carries r-r—’ No. ’Investment carries risk—’

’It wasn’t an investment. It was a pre-order. Bait.’

Half the queue had turned around. Moments like this want one sentence that flips the table. I had the sentence:

’C-c-creditors rank first on jade profits.’

Warren didn’t laugh. Some don’t.

’Forty dollars, Dylan. I don’t forget.’ And he walked off with his plate.

The queue turned back to the sausages. One or two kept looking, and it wasn’t a buying look.

At midday a woman came back who’d bought in the morning; kid beside her, kid’s shirt stained oily green.

’My money.’

’Store p-p-policy: no refunds.’ I gestured at a sign that didn’t exist.

’DEB!’

Deb arrived with the clipboard. Looked at the stone, at the shirt, at me.

’Give it back.’

’Stall rules—’

’I am the stall rules.’

Five dollars went back. The kid kept the stone; nobody counted that.

Eleven on the dot, Lukas came. He picked up a stone and his fingers came away shining. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and cleaned the stone, precisely, like a pair of glasses.

’Oil?’

’P-p-protective coating.’

’Genau.’ Said in a way that could carry any meaning at all.

He held the clean stone to the light. ’This one. For my mother.’ Ten dollars, full price, no haggling. He read the certificate right through, then folded it along the crease, with respect, or the way you handle evidence; hard to say.

I handed it over two-handed and announced it, loud, for the queue: ’First export! The G-g-German market is open!’

Lukas, to the queue, flat: ’One stone. For my mother.’

’Cross-border retail is still export.’

He didn’t argue further. A technical man knows when arguing is pointless.

Three o’clock the market was folding up. The tinsel was coming down and the CWA women were dividing the unsold cakes among themselves. Kev arrived, cigarette on his lip, and we counted in front of everyone; a small crowd assembled for it, the way this town assembles for its own entertainment.

’Twenty sold, five refunded. Fifteen.’

’T-t-twenty. Refunds are a separate ledger. A sale’s a sale.’

’Fifteen.’

’Plus the German b-b-bulk order. Lukas paid a deposit – that ten is actually—’

From over by the cake stall, without raising his voice: ’It was not a deposit.’

’—negotiations are ongoing.’

Kev pulled a small book from his pocket; Baz’s, borrowed for exactly this moment. ’Fifteen. Under fifty.’ He wrote it. ’Monday. Five a.m.’

’I’ll be appealing the c-c-count.’

’Tell Baz.’ He shut the book.

I would. The book is sacred, but even scripture has footnotes.

At home, Nan was in the doorway, hand on the frame.

’Where’s my tea towel?’

The towel was at the bottom of the crate, under the stones, green and oily.

’B-b-being laundered.’

True. Soon.

I got the tin down. My own paper was waiting: BACK SATURDAY NIGHT WITH INTEREST. It was Saturday night and there was fifteen dollars in my pocket. I put five in the tin and wrote on the paper: HALF PRINCIPAL PAID. INTEREST ROLLED — COMPOUNDING. MONDAY.

Healthy accounting is transparency.

I washed the towel in the yard with dishwashing liquid. The green spread and the foam went green. I hung it on the line behind the bedsheet, where the kitchen window can’t see.

Monday was two days off. I had options.

Option one: an ear certificate.

Option two—

Sunday morning the towel was back from behind the sheet; folded, on the table, under my cup.

Nan poured the tea. ’It’ll go cold.’

About the towel: nothing. The kind of nothing with no use-by date.

I drank my tea off the green oily corpse and laid out the day. Sunday was for executing the options.

Option one: the ear certificate.

I rode for the hospital. At the top of the main street Warren’s ute went past, slowed, and four fingers came up out of the window. I didn’t answer. I kept both hands on the bars; dignity is also a road rule. A businessman doesn’t negotiate with creditors at intersections. In the mirror, if the bike had one, he’d have been laughing. The bike doesn’t have one. Some equipment you don’t miss.

Cowell hospital on a Sunday runs one duty nurse and six empty beds. There was tinsel taped along the fire extinguisher. The nurse, Liz, looked up from the desk.

’What’s wrong?’

’My ear. P-p-pain. Since last night.’

’Which one?’

I paused. First mistake; an earache doesn’t pause. ’Left.’

’Medicare card?’

I had it. Crumpled, but I had it. I signed the walk-in book with a flourish; official documents deserve effort. Under REASON FOR VISIT I wrote: assessment. A word with room in it.

She took the scope, looked in the left ear, then the other one, for thoroughness.

’Clean. Healthiest ear I’ve seen today.’

It was Sunday. Probably the only ear. She wrote something down anyway. Nurses write everything; it’s how the town’s other book gets kept.

’Maybe it’s from d-d-deeper. Internal.’

’Is this about Monday’s bet?’

The town. The town always arrives first.

’P-p-preventive care is still care.’ I stood up. ’Thanks for your time.’

’Come back if it turns real,’ she said, which is medicine and philosophy in the one visit.

By evening everyone knew. Free advertising, only this time for the other side.

Option two: substitute labour.

The jetty at ten on a Sunday belongs to the kids and one dog with no owner anyone will admit to. Jimmy was at the end of it with his brother and two rods.

’Jimmy. One day’s work. C-c-crate washing. Ten cash, ten after export profits.’

Jimmy looked at his brother. The brother, twelve, acting as counsel, whispered something. Jimmy looked back at me.

’You said that to Warren too.’

He’s fourteen. The town keeps its memory in its kids.

’Twenty cash,’ he said. ’Up front. Danger money. Crates stink.’

’They’re p-p-professionally rinsed.’

’You’d know,’ said the brother. Twelve years old, and already billing.

I didn’t have twenty. Negotiations hit a liquidity wall.

Lunch was a cheese toastie I made myself, burnt on one side. I ate it burnt side down. Presentation matters, even for an audience of none. Nan was at a neighbour’s, returning a dish. A house with one person in it has a different sound; the fridge does most of the talking.

In the evening Kev’s message arrived: HEARD. BETS ARE NON-TRANSFERABLE. BAZ’S BOOK, CLAUSE ONE.

Clauses. Now it had clauses.

Option three: the appeal.

Sunday evening the pub runs quiet: the roast crowd, the widowers, the dartboard ticking. At dusk I went in. Baz behind the bar, Kev on a stool, which meant we had an audience.

I opened the case, on my fingers, the way terms get delivered in this town. ’One: the count was conducted without a neutral p-p-party present. Two: forced refunds are still sales. Three: the German deposit—’

Baz turned the book around to face me and put his finger on the line.

’You shook on it. Eight people watched.’

’A handshake isn’t a c-c-contract—’

’In Cowell it is.’

’Says what p-p-precedent?’

’The book.’ Baz is not a man you beat on precedent. He owns the archive.

Kev raised his glass to the law.

From down the bar somebody said, ’Give it up, mate.’

’Justice doesn’t g-g-give up.’

’Then write it down,’ I told Baz. ’Leaving under protest.’

Baz shrugged and wrote it. Next to the line of the bet, two words: UNDER PROTEST.

The sacred book now carried my opinion. That’s a kind of win, for a man who writes his own definition of winning.

Kev bought me a beer on the strength of it. Winners can afford ceremony. I drank it. A man honours ceremony even from the wrong side of it.

Option four found itself at the kitchen table, late.

Option four was this: if you can’t escape Monday, upgrade Monday.

I wasn’t going to the shed on Monday to pay off a penalty. I was going on a site inspection.

On the backs of the remaining certificates – nineteen sheets, blank side up, ready – I started writing: TWO-ROW LAYOUT. IN FROM THE EAST, OUT TO THE WEST. TWENTY PER CENT SAVED ON MOVEMENT. I ran the maths again with fresh numbers. The fresh numbers agreed with me. Numbers I generate generally do.

Nan passed down the hallway. ’Power’s not free.’

I ironed the collared shirt as well and hung it over the chair. The board wobbled; I steadied it with a knee. The iron spat. Nan’s iron only trusts Nan. A consultant should look like a consultant, even holding a hose.

At the top of the page I wrote: PROPOSAL.

Crossed it out: MASTER PLAN.

Crossed it out: THE ROBSON SHED FIVE-YEAR ROADMAP.

It didn’t fit. It needed a second page.