We drove into a caravan park outside Quorn and went to bed early. The following day we would be on the Stuart Highway at last, heading north. And we wanted to be fresh. Some time after midnight I was woken by what sounded like live organ music. Had I been asked to name the tune I would have said it was less a medley than a fugue, and yet somehow more like Rodgers and Hammerstein than Frescobaldi. But given that there were neither churches nor discothèques near by, that Quorn itself was fifteen minutes away across the railway track, and that only we and a couple of caravans shared the park, I had to assume that what I’d heard I’d merely dreamt. I went to sleep again, berating myself for being trivial while my brain played ‘Some Enchanted Evening’, confusing it spasmodically with the ‘Capriccio Pastorale’.

In the morning I ran into the owners of the caravans in the shower rooms. One looked a bit like Arthur Miller and was in fact called Arthur; the other reminded me of Norman Mailer but was called Ernest. They were discussing their wives when I walked in. ‘Now that mine’s retired she says she’s got to do something with her time,’ Arthur said. ‘So she bought a piano.’

‘Mine too,’ Ernest said.

‘The trouble was she thought she’d get rusty while we were off camping, so I got her this portable Yamaha.’

‘Ah, we thought we heard a Yamaha last night, but then we thought it was just some sort of echo of ours.’

‘So that was your Yamaha that we heard? We thought it was a bit funny. Not that my wife really likes these little instruments.’

‘No, mine doesn’t either. But it’s just while we’re away.’

I plunged my head under the shower. When I came out Ernest was explaining how his wife specialized in playing piano accompaniment for blind square-dancers. ‘You’d be amazed how good some of them can be,’ he said.

Arthur said, ‘My father’s blind.’

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘And my mother’s only 5 per cent sighted.’

‘Oh, yeah, yeah.’

‘But I’ve never heard them mention anything about square-dancing.’

Ernest ran his hand through his hair. He had large deposits of sleep in both his eyes. Like many elderly men he was beginning to look like a woman. ‘Well, they don’t all do it,’ he said.

Arthur wanted to know where Ernest came from. Melbourne, Ernest told him. That seemed to be exactly as Arthur suspected. ‘Do you know the blind telephone exchange people there?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, well, yeah, I know some.’

‘No, but do you know Fat Doreen?’ He measured her with his hands. There was no mistaking her once he’d finished.

‘Doreen? No. Hang on. Doreen? Yeah, I think I do.’