Flinty stared at her. ‘Of course. They had the best marriage I’d ever seen. My mum and dad were happy too, of course. But Mum still did the cooking and cleaning stuff while Dad was the one who made decisions. But seeing your grandparents together, hunting brumbies over the mountains, camping out sometimes just for the joy of it — well, it showed me and Sandy that marriage could be different. He never minded most of our income coming from my books. He didn’t feel neglected if Anna Green cooked some of our dinners, as well as doing the housework.’ She looked at Nancy curiously. ‘Why do you ask? You didn’t ever think they weren’t happy, did you?’

Nancy hesitated. ‘Not really. There was just something Grandpa told me once. And Gran said something too . . .’

‘What was it?’

‘It was when she was dying.’ Nancy smiled at the memory. ‘I hope I go like that too. We put a bed out on the veranda in her last months. She said she didn’t want to die with walls around her. She just slept there for longer each day. Mostly one of us would sit with her, but she said that sometimes she wanted to be alone with her friends too.’ She knew Flinty would understand that friends need not be human. ‘She loved the night most. The wallabies, the powerful owl. It used to sit on the veranda rail, this great massive bird, almost as if it were talking to her.’

Flinty smiled. ‘Almost?’

Nancy, who’d had a few conversations with birds herself — and not ones she’d admit even to her husband, or even be able to explain to someone who didn’t realise conversations did not need spoken human language — shrugged. ‘Okay. Was talking to her. But one afternoon she’d been asleep. I was sitting with her reading when I realised she’d woken up, or half woken. Because she just smiled at me and said, “He loved me so much, even if I wasn’t Matilda.”’

‘You think your grandfather had an affair with Matilda? Or was even in love with her? Nancy, my dear, that’s impossible.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Clancy was about forty years older than Matilda. Because I knew your grandpa and there’s no way he’d have been unfaithful to your gran, nor even want to be. And because Matilda was my best friend for many years. We talked about everything, including your grandparents.’ She smiled reminiscently. ‘We even talked about James, Matilda’s fiancé who was killed too, as well as how she’d loved Tommy since she was twelve years old, and my first years with Sandy, and . . . well, things I’ve never told anyone else. There was never the slightest hint of anything untoward between Matilda and Clancy of the Overflow.’

‘I’m glad,’ said Nancy.