Warm yellow afternoon light streamed into the saloon from the west, illuminating the dust motes flitting though the air, as the tram wound its way through Royal Park. Outside, a grove of she-oaks thinned out, replaced by the long brick wall of the Zoo to their right. Galvanised metal enclosures poked out from between the treetops of exotic trees.

"The Horses. That's got a bit of Steely Dan in it." Titus adjusted his posture very slightly, keeping his eyes firmly peeled on the passing scenery outside, savouring the feeling of being edged against solid metal, the predictable ker-thunk of the bogies, the burnt smell of the warm air from the blowers under the seats, the benign sharpness of disinfectant.

Their ride was one of the few unrebuilt B2s that still seemed to floating around. Most of the windows were scratched and the big black window seals had chunks gouged out. The panel he was edged up against had the telltale orange-peel finish of a hasty repaint. He could see the original fake wood showing where someone had scratched off the paint. It would get replaced when the tram was sent up to East Preston for the rebuild.

But it still felt like it was hewn from the solid, as it rocked along the open ballast at a respectable clip. An unrebuilt 30 year-old bus would have been borderline unbearable to ride in.

"What's Daryl Braithwaite got to do with Steely Dan?" Fraser looked up from his phone screen for a moment.

"Well, he didn't write the song. Rickie Lee Jones and Walter Becker did, Walter Becker being one of two permanent members of Steely Dan. A lot of rappers have also sampled their work too, you know. You've almost certainly heard bits of their songs somewhere."

"Yeah." Fraser nodded half-heartedly, focused on his Instagram feed, not quite following Titus' train of thought.

"What's the most famous one?" Titus paused for a moment to think. "Champion. Kanye West. Remember that?" 

"Yeah? Sort of?"

"The hook. That's a sample from Kid Charlemagne. Did you realise / That you were a champion in their eyes?" Titus sang, slightly off-key, to the horror of the person sitting opposite them. "Sound familiar?"

The look on Fraser's face did not change. He shook his head very slightly.

"OK, Let's try again. Old Chanel. Wiz Khalifa." Titus hummed the beat. "That's the opening chords of Josie."

"That I do know. The Wiz Khalifa song, that is."

"So you have heard Steely Dan before."

"What song did you say it was from?" Fraser opened up Spotify on his phone.

"Josie. It'll come up." Titus looked over his shoulder. "Actually, don't listen to that first. Listen to...let me think... Peg."

"4 million monthly listeners." Fraser whistled. "Wow. They're famous."

"That's mostly just boomers, probably."

"Are they popular with baby boomers?"

"They're like the stereotypical boomer band." Titus wondered if he had misspoken.

"So what's so special about them?"
"Production values. They were absolute perfectionists. People still use their music to test stereo systems." 

"Hmm." As Fraser plugged in his earphones in, Titus returned his focus to the scenery.

The strident whistle of metal on concrete-embedded metal flared up as old 2081 entered the long, curved descent to the underpass below the Upfield line in the middle of Royal Park. The bogies thumped and creaked and screeched. This bit of track had been last relaid in the mid-1980s, at the beginning of the long decline in tracklaying standards that would eventually culminate in the infamous Lygon St job of 2007. There were patches of fresh concrete where maintenance crews had fixed up the worst bits.

He realised that some of Fraser's hair was resting on his shoulder. Ordinarily he would have brushed it off, or possibly even made a scene about it, but he let it stay there.

Suddenly, the events of the last few days caught up with him. He felt the familiar knot of dread materialise in his gut, and the flushing of his cheeks. Suddenly, the lock of blonde hair on his shoulder felt like it was burning a hole through his blazer.

It had always been this way, he consoled himself. Friendship was an inexplicable thing that crept up on him. There was no point in trying to understand it or to trying to control it. It was just the way it was. As his sudden bout of crisis subsided, he felt rather selfish for only thinking of himself. What did Fraser think of all this? Try as he might, he had no idea. A bit of the dread returned.

He tried to think it through. On one hand, what he feared most was dragging someone else into a situation that neither of them enjoyed. On the other hand, Fraser had agreed to come. Surely that meant something. But people often agreed to things without thinking it through, himself included, so it was not the consolation he needed it to be.

The lights dimmed and flashed as the tram passed through the shadowed brickwork of the underpass, then took a sharp right. Pushing the other thoughts to a far corner of his mind, he thought back to when he was little, when most of his tram-related experiences were from the perspective of the backseat of a car, and he yearned for anything other the unceasing monotony of grey concrete track. He had looked forward to every family trip to Highpoint Shopping Centre, not because he wanted to buy anything, but because the tramlines around Highpoint ran on the side of the road rather than in the middle of it, on open ballast, just like a railway, a legacy of the hasty wartime extensions to the munitions factories.

He recalled the instances where open ballast track had been covered over with concrete or asphalt over the years, for easier access with maintenance vehicles or some other reason, a list his subconscious had been diligently compiling for the last decade or so, which he thankfully had never needed to rank in terms of size or anything:

Royal Park station to the Netball & Hockey Centre, the bit they were travelling along right now (2005)

The crossover at the Flemington Rd entrance to Royal Park (2015-ish)

The entrance to Camberwell Depot from Riversdale Rd (1980s)

Victoria Parade from Nicholson St to Latrobe St (1980s?)

The old Maribyrnong River bridge (1967)

The short bit of Dandenong Rd between Glenferrie and Hawthorn Rds (1990s)

Part of The Hump over the train line at Preston Workshops (A couple of years ago)

The Maribyrnong West terminus (Early 2000s, probably)

It was probably less than a kilometre, added up, but every metre counted when open ballast accounted for a small proportion of the network.

And then, a sub-category, for the open ballast track which had simply been ripped up and not replaced:

the Point Ormond terminus (1960)

the short bit to Essendon Airport (1976)

the connecting track between the VR tram terminus and the former St Kilda station, back when you could catch a train to St Kilda (1959)

the extension to Beaumaris (tracks laid on unsealed roads counted as open track, right?) (1931)

At least the ones in Royal Park had still been there when he was little. He had very vague memories of the old stop at the Zoo, just a old bottle-green wooden shelter nestled in some dead grass.

He felt Fraser nudge him, snapping him out of his reverie. "How was it?"

"Holy shit. That guitar solo."

"You know how many guitarists they went through for that?"

"How many?"

"Seven."

"How did they have seven guitarists?"

"Well they started off with band members like a normal band, and they toured, and they did live shows, just like any normal band," Titus explained. "But in about 1974 they got sick and tired of it, so they fired everyone except the two founding members, and they just hired session musicians. As many as they could find, the best. The cream of the crop. Truckloads of them."

"Really?"

"Yeah."  

***

The address Drew had given Titus was just off Hope St in West Brunswick, an old weatherboard house that had seen better days. The front garden was overgrown to the point that it was spilling onto the footpath, the gutters were sagging, old shoes hung from the power lines in front, and faded Socialist Alliance posters were pasted to the windows, along with some newer cartoons. There was washing hanging from a frame on the verandah. 

Titus paused to study one of the cartoons. There was a big anthropomorphic lump of coal standing on the back of a mining truck, arms outstretched, proclaiming, "WE ARE FINITE." 

The door was ajar. But he knocked anyway. Out of habit. 

A girl with acne, bloodshot eyes and unkempt hair poked her head out of the door. She had a hairtie in her hand. She squinted at Titus. "Who are you guys-"

"We're looking for Hugo." Titus explained.

"Hugo!" She shouted down the corridor. "There's some kids from your old school here. They're looking for you."

There was a muffled reply from somewhere down the corridor. They took this as a cue to go in, brushing past Acne Girl. 

It was dim inside. The corridor was narrow, and the floorboards creaked underfoot. They passed a small kitchen, the sink stacked to the brim with dirty dishes. 

Hugo was sitting on an unmade bed in his bedroom, dressed in a polar fleece jacket. There were polaroids on the wall and stuff strewn all over the floor. The table was covered with dirty dishes and bowls. It smelled strongly of smoke. 

"Titus!" Hugo wrapped him in a bear hug. He was assaulted by the smell of cologne. "I haven't seen you in ages. How's it going?" 

"Good." Titus said, flatly. He could see the backyard from the bedroom window. A patch of lawn, some ragged-looking daisy shrubs, a tin shed, a rusty Hills Hoist, a gate to the laneway beyond.
"She wasn't too gruff when she let you in, Georgia, right?" 

"Not really." 

"She's like that with people she doesn't know." 

Titus gestured to Fraser, who was standing next to him. "Hugo, this is-" 

Hugo peered at Fraser. "Freddie Sinclair's brother, right?" 

"Yeah." 

"You look exactly like him." Hugo's eyes were sparkling again. "How's he doing?" 

"He's at Kenyon College. Scholarship." 

"I thought he went to somewhere in America." Hugo nodded, taking in the information. "But I imagine you two didn't come all the way to tell me that. So why are you here?" 

TItus decided to get straight to the point. "Do you recognise any of the names here?" He showed him the photo he'd taken of the page he'd found in Darvall's desk drawer. 

Hugo studied the picture. "Where did you find that?" 

"Don't worry about it." 

"Darvall's office, right?" There was that old sparkle in Hugo's eye. 

"How do you know?" 

"He supervised them, you know," Hugo said, still studying the photo on Titus' phone. "They took the fall for him." 

"How did you know that?" 

"Just rumours," Hugo replied, rather flippantly. 

"Should we speak to him?" 

"I'm not sure if that's the best idea." Hugo was serious now. "It's a very touchy subject, you know. People still don't like to talk about it." 

Titus pointed at the photo again. "Do you recognise any of the names?"

Hugo looked at the photo for a moment. "I've heard of Faure. He was Drama Captain in 1990. Name was on the honours board. Don't know anything about him, though. As for Michaelis, he used to help with backstage stuff sometimes. He also worked as a drama teacher for a few years, but quit because he got married." 

"What about the others?" 

Hugo shook his head.

"Do you know where we could find him now? Michaelis, that is." Titus felt his heartrate quicken. They had a lead. 

"I think he runs a bookshop in Collingwood. It's at the corner of Victoria Parade and Hoddle St. You know where that is?"

"Yeah," Titus replied. It was too late to go there today. They would have to visit tomorrow. "We have to go now. Thanks so much." 

"Stay for a bit." Hugo gestured towards the kitchen. "We've got beer in the fridge. And food. Taj went out to the shops the day before."   

"I've got to study," Titus replied. He didn't really, but the white lie rolled off his tongue with practiced ease. "I promise we'll come back if we have any more questions." 

"Any time, brother." Hugo gave him another hug. "Say hi to Freddie for me," he said to Fraser. 

On their way out, Georgia stopped him. "I thought you looked familiar," she said. "Now I remember. Your dad, right? Alan Walker." 

Titus was not sure exactly where this was going, but he had a good idea of where it might. "You're in his class, right?" 

"Tell him to take a look at the mic settings for his lecture recordings," she replied. "I can't hear a bloody thing even when I have it turned up to full volume." 

"OK." Titus said. It was true that his dad was not the most tech-literate person. "I'll remember that."