Oriwia wiped tears from Jimmy’s face and went to find a tin to put the baking in that Aki and Chappy would take to Taana and others out on the fenceline.

One day, that year or next, Oriwia believed, Aki would bring a bride home, someone new to live among them. She would bring new skills and ideas with her, just as others had. Her father Jimmy had brought his shop and his trading. Taana had come from the south to marry Dorothea, bringing his building skills. Others had brought their own weaving techniques or dress-making abilities, or knew how to sharpen saws. They’d have this new bride to themselves while Aki was away – that is, if he didn’t leave the boats altogether.

Chappy, sitting on a tree stump and resting his forehead against the hot flanks of Mu, would reach in and thumb down diagonal teats, straps of milk frothing into the bucket held lightly between his knees. As he milked he sang – to the animal, Oriwia believed. Or he could’ve been speaking for all she knew, reciting poetry, telling stories.

When he’d finished, he would take the milk to the kitchen, return, untie the leg-rope and lead the cow off to the spring where the grass was good and long. Mu had become used to these daily treats, denied to her before as there had been no one with time to attend her in the boggy area. Sometimes, instead of taking Mu to the swamp, he would take her to the back of Dorothea’s flower garden where a stand of bamboo had taken over and where he would feed her with bamboo shoots. He would stand Mu in the creek and brush her down in the way he had seen Taana wash the horses.

At the spring he’d fill the water can and lead Mu back to the enclosure next to the house. She was a jelly-eyed Jersey, Mu the fourth.

From mid-morning there were other tasks he gave himself, such as splitting kindling, carrying wood, skimming cream and taking skimmed milk to the pigs. He was ruled by women who wouldn’t allow him to go and work with men, even though he was strong enough by then. He was there to do their bidding, but also he was their orphan, someone who had come into their care and on whose behalf they felt wounded.

In the gardens where everyone worked together, they soon had him hoeing between rows, watering, harvesting, or whatever the seasonal task might be. There was plenty to occupy him until evening milking, when he would tap the side of the bucket and Mu would swing her way towards him.

Oriwia shut the shop once a fortnight and delivered her father to Dorothea. She would settle Jimmy in the kitchen in cold weather, or under the coral tree in Dorothea’s garden when the weather was warm.