‘I like it.’ She found a soothing rhythm in gardening, a thoughtless peace where for a little while she could forget everything but the task before her. With her hands in the earth, time seemed to flow over her without the constant reminders that accompanied the rest of her day. Only in the garden were the ghosts of the lost absent from her thoughts. Sitting back on her heels, Tilly smeared a muddy glove across one cheek to brush away a stray hair and looked about her with satisfaction. Weeding carrots was finicky work but she’d got most of them out, thinning the rows as she worked.

Resting for a moment, she surveyed her small netted kingdom and the reach of land beyond that stretched all the way to the river bank. There were no fences or garden beds around the homestead, though the gateposts near the bird bath showed there must once have been. Of the original station garden only the lemon tree had survived. Some natives had grown up and been left for shade, and there was one immense tree towering above the house whose name none of them knew. The grass that Matt usually mowed ran to the edge of the little spring-fed and pandanus-lined creek behind the homestead from which they drew their water.

Out front, the land dipped to the jungle-like edge of the Nutt River, where sweeping paperbacks intertwined with swarming creepers, palms and pandanus thickets that almost screened the water from view. It was a big river, the Nutt – deep and brown and dangerous, home to the estuarine crocodiles that could often be seen sprawled like drying logs on the muddy edges of its banks. Open forest country stretched beyond the water, a dry vista of grass, landscaped with bloodwood, stringybark and white-trunked gums. A blue-winged kookaburra was just now cackling his heart out from the branches of one.

With a last glance at her row of weeded carrots, Tilly stood, clapping her earthy gloves together. She just might add to the order for yeast, she thought. Surely the WPA could buy her a packet of flower seeds? She had a sudden desire to see a tub of them near the front steps. Cosmos, perhaps, or marigolds. Something bright and pretty to lift all their spirits at the end of the day. And if management considered them an unnecessary expense, she’d damn well pay for them herself.

Chapter Two

Tilly stripped off her gloves, leaving them in the basket beside the door, and went to wash, thinking she had best get on with preparing the spare room. A glimpse of her mud-smeared cheek in the mirror brought an involuntary smile that faded as she studied her face. She had not looked at herself – not really – for months. There was no call for make-up out here and sunscreen could be applied by touch.