May I politely suggest that as native children have their own schools on the reservations the government has so kindly provided for their welfare, it would be best if the boy you call your son be sent to one of those. While he appears to be well mannered and even intelligent, I have a duty to the other students of this school and to their parents.

Yours sincerely,

R. Hoffernan

Principal, Gibber’s Creek Public School

He sat there helpless. His first thought was to rage, but anger would hurt Ben and Rose, and have no effect at all on R. Hoffernan, Principal.

His second was to take Benjamin and Rose to England, or even Paris — he had heard that dark-skinned students were accepted at good schools there, as long as they were well born and wealthy. But take Rose away from all she loved? Impossible. And for him and Benjamin as well.

Finally he settled on hugging his son, pretending not to see that the boy was crying. And later, when Rose hugged him, after Benjamin had gone to bed, he did not let her see his tears either.

They’d go droving again for a while, he decided, let the boy feel the heartbeat of the earth under his swag as they lay down to sleep, the glitter of the endless stars above. Gibber’s Creek and Gibber’s Creek Public School were a tiny dot in the universe. Gibber’s Creek wouldn’t matter way out there, he told himself.

He wrote a letter to his solicitor — no longer the Babcock firm — with instructions to sell the Gibber’s Creek house, to pack and send their possessions after them. He would not stay in that town another day nor subject his son to it. He had just set out to slide it under the office door when a woman appeared at their gate. ‘Mrs Hoffernan? Will you come in?’

‘No, thank you, I need to get back to supervise the lunch hour. Though I would like to visit another time, if your wife would invite me.’

‘We leave tomorrow,’ he said shortly.

‘Ah. I was afraid you would. Mr Clancy, I am so sorry. I thought, well, you know what I thought. I just assumed my husband . . .’ She stopped, trying to find the words to say she had not realised her husband was a bigot, even a fool, for the Clancy money could have done good things for the school, including possibly giving them a cricket pitch. But she could not criticise her husband to a stranger, so there were no possible words for her to find.

‘Thank you for trying, Mrs Hoffernan.’

‘I tried to convince him. Perhaps one day . . .’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Perhaps.’ He lifted his hat to her and began to walk in the opposite direction, to the town centre.