‘No.’ She is sounding a little drunk already. Maybe she had a couple before she came, because she’s taken up drinking after everything that’s happened to her. ‘Well, actually, he told me he’d finished the six pieces they had demanded. I never saw them, but that’s what he told me before he died. And then I get these attacks and threats. I don’t know what he did with the pieces, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to find them.’

‘You could tell the police.’

‘So could you.’

‘What?’

‘About the money.’

‘The money?’ I forget for a moment that I have told her about the money. ‘Oh, yeah. So what are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know. Keep asking around, and hope something turns up. I’m looking everywhere on the farm, in case he hid them there somewhere. Ben’s helping me out.’

‘Ben Ruder?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Really?’

She smiles at my annoyance. ‘You don’t like him?’

‘Not really, and I wouldn’t say I was the only one.’

‘He’s okay. He’s Tito’s uncle.’ She is still talking, saying, ‘He found the farm for us. Helped us out.’ But all I am hearing is ‘Tito’s uncle’.

This is really bad, and I’m not even sure why. I know I’m looking like a jealous adolescent, so I ask, ‘Tito’s pottery must have been really valuable?’ I put the rest of the salad together, and add a few sliced grapes and a little balsamic dressing.

‘Yeah. Flavour of the month, year, or whatever. There is still a lot of prestige in saying you have a piece by Tito Slade.’ She reaches a hand out towards me, and touches my forearm. I stay rigid to stop the jump. I’m sure it is only a friendly touch, a way of saying thanks for dinner and the other stuff. I head for the steaks, showing I’m too preoccupied with my responsibilities to respond to the contact.

Then we eat quietly, and she commends me on my skills. I seem to be filling her glass a lot with the red she has switched to, but I am keeping my own glass topped up, too. She tells me about growing up in the city, privileged and insulated from the kind of hardship that seems integral to the country. I tell her about my childhood, which I remember as fun on horses and bikes, and in dams and creeks. The fun-on-bikes reference makes my spine arch protectively. I tell her about helping my father, and camping with my friends. I don’t remember it as hardship.

With no lead-in, she says, ‘Did you ever find yourself in something you didn’t like, but you were so far in you couldn’t find a way out of it?’