I nodded. I could easily imagine it happening. One of the reasons I’ve never stopped.

‘I had to stop. I was getting a belly, couldn’t work properly. The wife hated it. So, I stopped. Oscar didn’t touch it. Never had. Said he didn’t like the taste. He was a bit of a fitness fanatic, too. Walked everywhere. I don’t suppose you know Dudley?’

‘No. What’s it near?’

‘Redhead.’

‘I’ve surfed there. Years ago.’

‘Yeah, big surfing beach. Dudley’s different. Couldn’t even drive to it till a couple of years ago when they put a dirt road in. Still doesn’t get a lot of use. It’s all recreation reserve around there, the foreshore and that. You can stand on parts of Dudley beach and not see anything man-made. Anyway, I’d drive down to where the track starts and walk to the beach. Fifteen minutes down the track. Oscar’d walk from home every time. Put another fifteen minutes on the time to get there. And he’d always walk back, wouldn’t accept a lift. Big bloke, very strong. Twenty years younger than me.’

I had a picture of the two men, old and middle-aged, tiny and large, the quintessential Australian and the man with the European name. Bach. What was that? What nationality was the composer? German? And Jacobs? Was that Jewish? Was the picture even more bizarre than I first thought? ‘Are you having some sort of dispute with Mr Bach, Mr Jacobs?’

His eyebrows shot up and he almost choked on the cigarette. ‘Me and Oscar? Never. Best of mates. Never had a blue. Not once. ‘Course the wife didn’t altogether take to him. She’s a bit on the old-fashioned side, May. Oscar being a German was a bit of a trouble to her. She lost some family in the war.’

I could see that Horrie was going to tell the story in his own way at his own pace. I wrote May Jacobs on the pad and put German alongside Bach’s name. Johann Sebastian. Of course, what else could he be. ‘But that didn’t worry you?’