After Cath’s husband Bill died, Cath and Sylvie had driven up to Sydney together because Sylvie was going off the rails. That’s what she’d heard her mum say. But she was only fifteen — of course she was going off the rails. She hadn’t thought about that trip for a long time. They’d stayed in old motels beside the highway and drank champagne every evening — two glasses for Cath and one for Sylvie — of the most expensive sort they could find.

Sylvie opened the gate and walked through the alfalfa, which swished pleasantly in the darkness. Sooner or later, she thought, the fires will come through this place. Fire or scavengers. There would be nothing they could do about it. And what was with that fucking gun he’d given her? The alfalfa ended and she kept going, stepping among the gravestones until she came to the place — more or less — where he used to kneel down and pretend to cry.

Now she knelt down herself and put her hands into the dry dirt. Then she took them out again, unsatisfied, and licked her fingers. The ulcer in her mouth stung but she enjoyed the pain, the bitter taste. She closed her eyes. Then she opened them. She was suddenly very thirsty. Further off, a meandering line of gum trees followed the creek. She remembered swimming there once, and saw an image of herself stooping to drink the clear water, like some sort of Pre-Raphaelite figure. That’s what she would do. She stood up and began walking again. She was not cold anymore. There was the smell of eucalyptus. She was thinking about her grandmother Cath, and about the way Ruth had held her hand, and about the hand of the terminator as he’d disappeared into the molten steel. Thumbs up.

Something was lying in the dry grass at the edge of the trees. A dead bird, maybe. She walked towards it. The body of a large bird with its chest opened up, a chunk of the chest missing, the dull red cavity exposed. Putrefying and teeming with ants. There were wild cats out here, and what else? But it wasn’t a bird, she realised when she got close enough to see. It was a blue baseball cap. Red on the inside. Lost. With the logo of a beer company on the front.

She recognised it.

It was Ruth’s hat.

Maybe.

She knelt down and touched it. The fear of animals was replaced by something worse. But there were probably thousands of identical hats. It was the type of hat that was given out for free at public events. Maybe everyone in the camp had one. She reached for her watch. But she’d left it in the cabin.

And then she saw the first man. He was naked.

Sylvie froze.

He was walking slowly through the trees up ahead, as if looking for something on the ground, his giant, furry belly tight as a drum.