‘Much rain with it, do you think?’ Matilda grinned. ‘Ants can sense the storms, but they are total failures at working out how much rain will come with them.’

‘Depends which ants,’ said Rose. ‘Little black ones?’ She shrugged. ‘Not much use at all. Look for the green ones with the gold abdomens. Have you got them here?’

‘Further down by the river, among the rocks.’

‘Thought you might. You go and check those. I reckon there’ll be more than enough rain to put out any lightning strikes. A real gusher, three inches, maybe more. We’ll have enough storms to see us through the next few summers, even if it’s drought elsewhere.’

‘Yes, the red gums have been setting seed,’ said Matilda, as casually as another woman might say, ‘Did you hear there will be a concert at the Conservatorium next week?’ ‘And the gully gums too.’

‘It’ll be a good year if the gully gums seed,’ agreed Rose. ‘But we’ll have the roos and emus moving through from the dry lands by February.’

‘That soon?’ replied Matilda thoughtfully. ‘I thought maybe a month or so later . . .’

‘February,’ stated Rose firmly. She took her third lamington and smiled at Matilda. ‘Auntie Love taught you well.’

‘She did,’ said Matilda softly. ‘I wish I’d had more time with her. There’s so much I’d like to ask.’

‘I might know some of the answers,’ said Rose carefully.

Matilda looked as if she’d been given a garden of flowers. Or possibly another fifty electric shearing machines. ‘Thank you. That would be wonderful. I . . . I hope we see a lot of each other.’

And Clancy realised that this young woman was lonely — not for companionship, for she had servants, stockmen and their wives, she was part of the church community at Gibber’s Creek and probably half a dozen organisations like the Tennis Club, the Literary Society and what had been the local Temperance and Suffrage Guild but had now become a branch of the Country Women’s Association. But he doubted any woman there talked about the gully gums.

Just as his Rose needed more company too.

Luncheon — far more than just lunch — was perfect, even if most of the courses had been frantically prepared to add to a much smaller meal: watercress soup, yabbies in a tomato sauce (he imagined Mrs Taylor sending her sons out with an old sock, some rotting meat and an instruction to catch some yabbies — fast), lamb chops arranged in small circles, with stuffing in the middle tasting of lemon and herbs, and dishes of crisp roasted potatoes, carrots with a taste of orange and honey, and asparagus, which he hadn’t seen for years either and thought must be home grown till he remembered that the Lees’ market garden was just across the river.