Frank Hardy told me this story so it must be true. And untrue, depending on one’s outlook upon historical accuracy. Being one who has never believed in real truth, more like a recession-era Oscar Wilde, who said somewhere, perhaps it was in court, that nothing is quite true, I have believed in the atmosphere and the feelings contained in a fable more than in verifiable fact.

All or part of this being the case, I remember years ago in Sydney it was that Frank Hardy and I were sifting through a tray of schooners at a gritty sharp and semi-realistic pub in Glebe Point Road, and among the stroke-victim-raconteurs and beady-eyed police-informers and common thugs who felt bad that nobody was bothering to write down their back-lane murders or botched kidnappings or illiterate ransom notes, he said to me, Frank did, that he was nearly murdered once.