‘Yeah, well, we’re entitled to them.’ Nancy and Jed shared a rueful smile. Both of them had survived more trauma than most. Both knew they had survived that trauma because of the love of others. ‘But I think I’ve spent too long indoors. Getting River View up, working with the patients there, getting the therapy centre going, housework and looking after kids . . .’

And being at the hospital with me, thought Jed. ‘And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him,’ she quoted.

‘Yep. That’s it exactly. I need to sleep on the ground again, or at least in a swag. It’ll play merry hell with my arthritis but be good for my soul.’

‘Raincloud’s giving massage therapy now in town,’ offered Jed facetiously. Raincloud had never regarded qualifications as necessary for any of his careers.

‘Over my dead body. Come to think of it, he’s not getting his lily-white hands on my dead body either.’ Nancy stood. ‘I’d better get back. The boys are half excited at not having to sit down in a classroom all day for a while and half scared of things changing. But things always change. It’ll be good for them to understand that.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m not leaving you in the lurch with your book, am I?’

Yes, thought Jed. She had a contract to deliver the manuscript by the middle of next year, had already had the deadline extended twice. A few hours once every month or so with Nancy was not going to be enough to finish it, nor even an afternoon. And she had learned that Nancy told stories in her own way, slowly. Rose and Clancy’s life could not be easily summarised. She had realised now how much she didn’t know, how many myths and clichés she had absorbed about the past. She couldn’t just take a plot here and fill in the rest from imagination. This book needed truth.

But she had another book half drafted — a shorter one that would still fulfil her contract — the tale of an orphan girl who ran away from the aunts she believed were trying to kill her and joined a circus: the history of her mother-in-law, who had danced in a blonde wig and harem pants, and brought an elephant to Gibber’s Creek. Jed knew the whole of that one — or at least as much as Blue was ever going to tell her daughter-in-law and the Australian public. And she could write it in six months.

‘It’ll be fine,’ she said sincerely.

Nancy looked relieved. ‘Good. I’ll tell you more about Rose while we’re packing too.’

‘Thanks. At least I know the ending of her story,’ she added.

Nancy looked at her strangely. ‘Do you?’