‘Ethelred has been my King Cophetua, marrying a beggar maid. He took a lonely disfigured woman and gave her paradise, a home and work she loves, and the society of men and women of intellect. He gave me everything and, yes, it was because he loved me, because we fit, he and I, in a way I never thought two people could do. But he cannot give me more life. Everything else I could ever want, but not life.’

‘Couldn’t the tumour be removed?’

She shook her head. ‘That was why he consulted so many surgeons, not just one. But each says the same. The tumour is bound up in the blood vessels. Any attempt to cut it out would kill me. My tumour is part of me, it seems, not an interloper. Clancy, I’m sorry — should I not have asked you to come? I’ve grown so used to death. Truly, I didn’t really think how this might affect you till now. But I did so want to see you.’

He tried to think what he felt. He owed her honesty. ‘I feel like a small part of me is being cut away, one of the best parts. But I am glad you asked. I don’t want to waste whatever time I have left with my sister. I . . . I should have come long before. But things have been — difficult. I brought you a present,’ he said, remembering. He pulled the brown paper from his pocket.

She opened it. The browned leaves had crumbled a little. It looked even less significant than when Moonrise Billy had given it to him. ‘A bloke I know said it was a rare plant —’

‘Clancy! Look!’ Maria was staring at it as if he had given her rubies. ‘It is quite unlike anything I have ever seen. See how the leaves here are opposite and the flowers are borne on the main stem? It is remarkable . . . Ethelred! Look what Clancy has brought us!’

Two men, who had ridden up the hill and into the garden, dismounted. Clancy recognised his wisp of a brother-in-law — still a mere tuft of a man — his shadowed eyes suddenly bright with interest.

He peered down at the plant. ‘I say! Tavy, old chap, look at this! Clancy, where the deuce did you get it . . .? Oh, I’m sorry. Tavy, this is my brother-in-law, Horatio Clancy, but call him Clancy, everyone does. Clancy, this is my good friend and colleague Dr MacTavish. He began in medicine, but realised the error of his ways and turned to botany as well. Now where did you find this beauty?’

Christmas. They did not decorate a tree, but Tavy — Dr McTavish — had brought a potted native plant from the Sydney sandstone country. The bush had red flowers that were somehow not flowers at all, but things called calyxes, which stood in the flowers’ place. ‘And as for Christmas greenery,’ said Maria, ‘we have it all around.’