I entrusted the itinerary of a warm Saturday afternoon to Claire.

Walking towards Moseley Square past Colley Reserve and the Beach House, we caught the scent of salty air and summery promise.

Claire’s first stop was the Bay Discovery Centre, housed in the billowing white of the Town Hall. How had I never been? My excuse is I’m certain there’re Parisiennes who sullenly avoid the Eiffel Tower too.

Inside was the kitsch and the considered. We saw displays featuring pioneering aviator Jimmy Melrose, a local history of forbidden beachwear with the bikini only allowed a few short decades ago — racy Brighton before coquettish Glenelg.

Also, a section dedicated to objects found on the ocean floor. A wall of vanished keys, jewellery, pocketknives.

Unforgivably, I’d cheerfully ignored this museum since last millennium.

*

Claire now steered us south. Easing off Jetty Road in Brighton we arrived by the Windsor Cinema. It’s functional rather than Art Deco beautiful. The cook/cleaner/usher/ barista/projectionist explained, ‘We had trouble with the first feature so your film’s about half an hour later.’

So, an opportune intermission with a shared coffee and melting moments biscuits. The third of these tempted us and Claire said, ‘Let’s have half each.’

Right then, it was perfect.

We settled into the Windsor for The Senior. Watching a middle-aged Texan chase a lost college football dream felt like an odd choice for Claire, yet there we were — her gift of endurance for a genre in which she has no earthly interest.

I enjoy, as Paul Kelly observed, how moments of sporting grace can be found amidst danger. When a goal or wicket or touchdown is conjured from the most despairing of situations. As the most critical member of any team in any sport, the quarterback can create in astonishing ways.

Being set in West Texas, there were compulsory mentions of war and religion, and these remain the same thing. It had a predictable plot of redemption — personal, family, marital — and these all occurred for our good ole boy but there was a warmth to the story we both liked.

*

Monday was Alex’s eighteenth birthday. On the phone I asked this:

‘I know you’ve got parties and things planned but what do you want to do on your actual birthday?’

I imagined he might want to go out to dinner with his girlfriend Harriet or head to the city with some friends. To my delight he announced he’d be happy to go to the Broady, have a pizza and his first legal beer.

Table 9 and its multi-generational party were ahead of us in the queue. They ordered multi-course meals and lavish drinks with glacial urgency. Aunt Maud’s turnout was bigger than any of us expected. We got served after a prolonged fashion.

In the beer garden Alex and I took our table by the ill-fated frangipani. Under the pergola a sloppy clot of blokes sipped Guinness. With relaxed animation we chatted of his weekend; university offers (Flinders and the VCA); how Harriet’s dad is taking him to see The Beta Band; his road trip to Sydney to hear an avant garde Japanese guitarist; the Pink Floyd vinyl both Harriet and I bought him — Wish You Were Here and Relics.

I relished his company and our soaring hour vanished into the indigo sky. Alex is curious, grateful, and seems to have a growing toolkit of what I hope he’ll need. I’m delighted that he voluntarily seeks support — what Richard Ford, in The Sportswriter, calls ‘the illumination and warmth it mutely offers.’

I dropped Alex at his girlfriend’s. With Three D Radio for company, I drove home through our sparkling seaside suburb.