‘Please! Not another giant serving of completely hysterical pseudo-mystical mumbo-jumbo, Miss Hahn!’ he called over his shoulder, then, ‘I just can’t bear it!’ he repeated.

‘This coat is a priceless heirloom, Mr Huff!’ I called back.

‘Am I fated to be entirely surrounded by religious maniacs?’ he groaned.

‘And very old!’ I added.

Mr Huff didn’t react. So I followed after him, haranguing him. ‘It was a gift to Orla from her maternal grandmother, Mr Huff. It had actually belonged to her grandmother as a child. It’s ancient. Ancient. Each little skin is sewn together with kangaroo sinew. Every individual patch decorated with ancient Aboriginal symbols. See? It’s decorated with the Ngemba clan insignia …’

I began to unfold it. ‘Have you even had a chance to take a proper look at it, Mr Huff?’

‘Leave me alone, Miss Hahn!’ Mr Huff panted over his shoulder.

‘But I thought you had a great interest in native antiquities, Mr Huff!’ I chided.

Mr Huff entered the house and laboriously made his way through to the living room. When he reached the living room he swung around on his crutches, frowning. ‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘yes. I suppose I do have an interest in native antiquities.’

He was sweating heavily, and out of breath. One of his hands was trembling.

The hunter, hunted, I thought.

‘The hunter, hunted,’ he said.

‘I was just …’ I started, then stopped.

‘What do you want from me, Miss Hahn?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

‘What do you want from me, Miss Hahn?’ he repeated, this time almost … almost tenderly.

‘This was her coat, Mr Huff,’ I said. ‘This was Orla’s coat.’

I continued to unfold it as he watched.

‘Just look,’ I said, ‘see how beautiful it is …’

I held it out to him, pointing to all the patches, every one embedded with its own, special and sacred ancient imagery; an exquisitely dense miasma of ochre and black dots, squiggles and dashes, some abstract, some more literal …

‘A bee’ – I smiled – ‘and the eucalyptus leaf … and—’

‘A bush plum,’ he interrupted.

‘And that looks like …’ – I scowled – ‘a rabbit print?’

‘Possum.’

I continued looking, growing ever more fascinated. ‘And four wavy strokes followed by an endless circle, and another endless circle, then four more strokes … four thousand and—’

‘That’s actually a river,’ Mr Huff interrupted, pointing to the four strokes, ‘or sometimes it means a very old story … and the concentric circles represent a waterhole. The waterhole is a sacred place … or sometimes the camping place of a totemic heroine … see here … an old woman’s breast …’

He turned the coat over in his hand. ‘The little circle is a child … and that’s a great star … and this is a journey with the important sites marked out … that’s a fire but it’s being obliterated by smoke …’

As Mr Huff worked his way around the coat I gazed over at him.