After a while I asked about his wife.

‘You’d be surprised,’ he said. ‘I lucked out with Jen. You wouldn’t know to look at me but my wife is a very attractive woman. You wouldn’t pick her from a line-up. You’d guess too low, I’d make a bet on that. She’s a very attractive woman. I’ve had four affairs. Four affairs in thirty years. Christ, Francie, I’m a shit of a man.’

I asked about the women and he sucked on his lager and gazed up at the mounted row of trophy hoofs behind the bar, crooked downwards like tub faucets. He said, ‘You would have liked the first one. Pat. She had a hell of a laugh. But I’ll always remember: one night near the end I climbed up to her balcony to look in her bedroom window. She was there, with her husband, on her hands and knees. He was at her from behind and I’ll never forget it, he had a blue magazine, a porno, open on her back. He was turning the pages. I remember it. As if she wasn’t even there. God, she wasn’t a beauty or anything. But turning the pages. And she just knelt there, rocking, hands and knees. Course I just crept away. But the image stayed. She got a job in Sydney after that.’