She was one of those people who, out of nervousness, have to use the language of contradiction even when they’re agreeing with you. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve got ten. And two in America.’

‘That’s an awful lot of people to write to.’

‘No, yes. I write to them all once a month. I’d like to write more often, but the postage is too expensive.’

I did a quick calculation. If she wrote to them all air mail once a week it would cost her $700, about $350, a year. The other calculation I did was that that added up to more letters than I’d written in the whole of my life.

As I left I saw her studying my address in her visitors’ book. I wondered if that was where she found her penfriends. And if there might be a letter full of friendly contradictions waiting for me when I got home.

We decided against the second longest sheer drop in Australia – had it been the first longest we might have thought differently – and headed in the direction she’d shown me for the Italian cemetery.

No one who finds himself in Ingham should ever miss it. You drive 5 ks out of town on a winding route, through the sugar cane, past unmistakably Italianate villas of the modern style, the sun all the while streaming through the car windows, until you come to a sudden bend in the road and there it is – what you might have taken, had you been unprepared, for a miniature mediaeval village or a field of dolls’ houses. Rows and rows of tiled shower rooms, little greenhouses with sliding doors, mini-chapels, containing altars and memorabilia, to the beloved Italian dead. In some cases even to the not-yet or the not-entirely dead.

I chose one to examine in some detail, because I was struck by its gothic windows, on which were transfers, meant to look like glass engravings, depicting a holy scene, and because I was impressed by the tiling. Highly polished black tiles preserved the mausoleum’s exterior; inside, a mosaic of blue and black and puce with raised surfaces covered not just the floor but also ran up the walls of the altar. A colour photograph of the deceased above the altar was flanked by an alabaster Our Lord and an alabaster Our Lady. Our Lord was pointing to his bleeding heart. On the walls were preserved flowers mounted in glass or perspex domes. Artificial grasses and ferns were strewn everywhere. A fresh bouquet was placed at the feet of a plaster cast miniature of the Pietà – the one you can buy outside St Peter’s. A cross made of ceramic roses rested by the other end of the statue. The memorial stone read:

QUI GIACE

LA MORTALE SPOGLIE DI

GIOVANNI SPINA

NATO A GIARRE IL 23.11.1898

MORTO 8.12.1970

MARITO AFFETUOSO E PADRE ESSEMPLARE