‘We’ll have to stop soon anyway,’ he said. ‘It’s not wise to be driving after dark. But you don’t have to go into the bushes, Sandra. You can use the storm drain at the side of the road. I’ll watch out for creepy-crawlies.’

‘I’ll hang on,’ she said grimly.

‘Then why don’t you put the seat back and try to catch some sleep?’ he said softly.

‘I don’t want to sleep,’ she replied, vehemently stabbing out her cigarette in the dashboard ashtray and lighting another immediately. ‘I want a drink.’

‘There’s a flask of coffee in the glove box, and some water in the—’

‘Not coffee!’ she spat. ‘I want a proper drink.’

‘I know you do,’ he said with infinite care, ‘but we agreed you’d try to go without for a while.’

‘We didn’t agree to any such thing,’ she retorted furiously. ‘You told me I had to stop drinking and forced me to leave my lovely home in Sydney for some dump in the back of buggery.’

He winced at her vulgarity. ‘You agreed to give it a go,’ he said with determined calm, ‘and Morgan’s Reach isn’t a dump – it’s a nice little town in one of the most beautiful parts of Australia.’

‘Yeah, right,’ she sneered, ‘and I’m the flaming tooth fairy.’

Terence ignored her sarcasm knowing it was her need for a drink that was making her sour and jumpy. And yet he was uneasy at the thought of her at Morgan’s Reach, for although the family would be there to support him, there would be very little for Sandra to do – and a bored Sandra went in search of alcohol, which then led to trouble.

He’d been so desperate to get her off the booze and away from the reminders of what had happened during the war that he hadn’t thought things through properly when his father’s latest pleading letter had arrived. The chance to get out of Sydney and away from the awkward situation at the practice – to give Sandra time and space to deal with her demons and find herself again – had seemed like the answer to his prayers. But the daunting reality of this homecoming was beginning to dawn on him and, as they left Sydney further and further behind, he wondered if he was making the biggest mistake of his life.

With Sandra chain-smoking beside him in venomous silence he tried to concentrate on the road ahead as the storm gathered in strength and black clouds roiled across the skies, driven by a hot and deadly wind. Born in the Outback, Terence was all too aware of the havoc such a dry electric storm could cause after a long drought. If it did break, the rain would be torrential, and a flash flood was not a possibility – it was a certainty.