The eagle lands heavily nearby, and the ravens retreat and then advance, and start harassing him — first one, and then the other. The wedgie threatens them with his beak, and then picks up the corpse in his huge talons and begins to flap his great wings. It takes several motions to get him off the ground, and for a moment he looks like he never will. Then he is in the air, and flying is suddenly effortless. The ravens keep up their racket of disappointment back and forth across the patch where the rabbit had been lying. Then they do their worst impression of elegance to get themselves into the air, and follow the eagle. They are still complaining as they swoop the big bird, hoping his irritation will cause him to drop his prize. But the wedge-tail is unworried as he makes his way into the trees, where I know he will have a nest at the highest point. There might just be beauty in what I have seen.

As a little boy, I would come up here and hide from the adults. I could look down on everyone and pretend I was the king of the world. James used to take his friends up here when they were just old enough to camp on their own. Then, when they were older, teenagers, the same group came back to camp, and snuck alcohol in with them. Sarah and I knew, and I used to go and check on them, at night mostly, to satisfy the other parents. I always made plenty of noise as I approached their camp so they would have time to stash what they needed to stash. No alcohol was ever found. I think Sarah and I felt that if they were going to experiment, it was as safe here as anywhere. I have often wished to go back in time, for all sorts of reasons. That is certainly a period I would like to go back to: when kids experimenting with alcohol was our biggest worry. ‘We were happy,’ I say out loud, and the words roll out like obscenities. ‘Happy’ is now an odd, unlikely concept that is beyond my imagining. I can’t think of a world where I could be ‘happy’. And now I’m stealing money and hiding on my own property from criminals.