‘It’s okay,’ said Jed tiredly. ’Sam wouldn’t mind if you took photos of him.’

Maybe, one day, Mattie will even like to have them, she thought. They might evoke the only memories she’d have of her father, this still figure in the bed. Sam, who’d swum with her through moonlight as the platypus ducked and fed unafraid of either human on the other side of the river, whose warm embrace had made this miracle, a child. Who had left them . . .

But he hadn’t gone. Sam was still there. She gazed at him, suddenly stricken. Was Sam McAlpine refusing to let himself die until his wife released him?

‘Book!’ said Mattie hopefully. Adults often responded to that word by giving her cake or ice cream, a toy giraffe or in this case food when she wanted it. ‘I want book book now.’

Jed reached into her bag and handed her daughter a banana, pulling down the peel. ‘Okay, small one. Nappy change, then home.’

‘Hey, Mum, could we have pizza for dinner? They’ve got frozen ones at the supermarket now. With pineapple!’

‘We had pizza two nights ago.’

Clancy looked at her: that was clearly no conceivable reason not to have pizza again.

Jed grinned at Nancy. ‘Give in. And please, I’d love to hear more tomorrow.’

‘Even about the Honourable Flora?’

‘Especially about Flora. I never thought about Honourables in Australia.’

‘Oh, I could tell you some stories. I probably will . . .’ Nancy pressed a kiss onto Jed’s forehead, another to Mattie’s cheek, then followed Clancy from the room.

Dribble sat on its brown bare acres above the river between Drinkwater and Overflow. Cicadas yelled. Gum leaves hung limp. Even the tussocks were brown now, in this second year of drought. But it was hers. Matilda had given her both house and land. (‘If possible, every girl should have her own house,’ said Matilda firmly, Matilda who had lived in her own log hut at twelve, with no running water, no power and no security — but her own.) Sam had planted the orchard, dug the vegetable garden that Broccoli Bill now tended for her, and built her new study at the end of the old house.

Sam. Everywhere Jed looked she could see Sam. But the scent of him was gone. That fresh sweat and essential Samness . . .

Jed parked in the carport and hauled Mattie out.

‘Batbat! yelled Mattie happily, pointing at the fat brown creature that had ripped up the doormat yet again. ‘Carrots for Batbat?’

‘Huffhuffhuff,’ said the wombat, only slightly threateningly, its eyes on Jed’s vulnerable ankles.

Jed sighed as she hefted Mattie up onto her hip. She had accepted the orphaned wombat from Sam’s veterinary cousin. ‘He’ll be company for you,’ Felicity had assured her. ‘It’s impossible not to grin when you see a wombat.’

Felicity however had not warned her that Batbat would demand carrots every afternoon, and make his displeasure known if he didn’t get them.