‘It’s a gorgeous jumper, raw wool, but there’s white and cream and about six shades of brown to almost black, in the most complicated pattern you can imagine. The CWA would go wild. And it IS warm. I haven’t been cold since I started wearing it. AND I finally bought some thermal underwear, which helps too. I have also discovered why scarves and gloves were invented and gumboots for rainy days, not just for wading through creeks. But it’s not always raining. We saw the sunlight for seven and a half minutes yesterday.

‘I never, ever, EVER thought I would get sick of rain. It took about six days.

‘I’d better go. Work is as hard as I thought and as good as I hoped, and I’m not the ignorant colonial I was afraid I might be either.

‘Miss you heaps. Love and hugs, Scarlett.’

‘She’s happy,’ said Nancy.

‘Yes,’ said Jed.

‘And that’s what matters.’

‘Yes.

‘And you feel like taking the next plane and tying her up and bringing her home?’

‘How did you guess?’

‘I feel that way too. I’m going to feel it even more when the boys leave home.

‘Leave home? But they love the land.’

‘They’ll be back,’ said Nancy. ‘But Tom still wants to go to Ag College, and maybe a year working around New Zealand. Clancy . . . I’m not sure what Clancy wants, except he’ll photograph whatever it is. Don’t know where he gets it from.’

‘A mother who knows how to see the world? He sees it, then photographs it?’

‘I never thought of that. Thank you. It makes it better.’

‘You really don’t like him taking photos?’

‘I really don’t like thinking of him heading across the world. But he’s going to. Just like Scarlett.’

Jed didn’t ask how she knew. ‘How about that quiche? And maybe you can tell me more about your grandparents.’ Grandparents, she thought. I’m writing about the history of Australia, and it seems so far away. But it is still the story of Nancy’s grandparents, still only three generations. Or four, if you counted her children.

‘Where were we up to?’ asked Nancy.

‘Heading up to Charters Towers.’

‘Right, that was it. I went droving up there myself at the beginning of the war.’

Nancy meant World War II, thought Jed, just as ‘her’ war would always be Vietnam. And Mattie’s?

Please, she thought, never let war touch Mattie’s life. ‘I’ll get lunch and a tape recorder,’ she added.

Chapter 40

Chapter 40

A Very Decent Damper

Most damper is heavy. But a good damper is simple.