When Ali first went to Lismore Creek, it was for Rob’s eighteenth birthday party, a black-tie affair thrown in fine style by Margaret, along the time-honoured lines of the Bachelor and Spinster Balls of her own youth. It was March, two years after Michael had brought Ali back to Adelaide. Prior to that, the only farm she’d ever visited had belonged to the uncle of a primary school friend. It had clung to the ragged fringes of Rotherham, a drab patchwork of fields, its limits marked by tumbledown drystone walls and thin hedgerows. But at Lismore Creek she saw a world without end, and all of it belonged to the McCormacks.

Michael drove her up from Adelaide to the Clare Valley, and when he said, ‘Here we are,’ and turned off the road on to a white stone track, she assumed they’d arrived. But he continued, on and on, then onwards still, through an undulating landscape rendered in greens, gold and brown: pastures, coppices and vines unfolding around them with infinite grace. Finally, they reached the house, standing stately and gravely beautiful, flanked by mighty oaks, Alma waving from the shade of the porch, a jug of cold lemonade, a plate of cucumber and dill sandwiches, and Gil appearing from the stable block, clapping his hands at the sight of Michael, and taking Ali by the waist to waltz her through the dust of the yard.

She’d been spellbound by this free pass to an apparently enchanted land, where the McCormacks had shifted within their privileged ranks to make room for Ali, a lost girl without a pedigree or much of a past. Rob’s party had been a blast, the shearing shed mellow with fairy lights, decked out with bunting and flowers. There was a band, then a DJ, and the Country Women’s Association did the catering, with Margaret in command. Ali and Michael drank and danced and skylarked, then finally retired to a swag by the creek and made love under the benign eye of the Southern Cross. In the morning, they all played cricket in their crushed and crumpled finery, and ate pancakes and bacon. And then Ali – who had never ridden a horse, was terrified of them, truth be told – sat on the wooden steps of a small pavilion and watched her husband play polo, deft and fearless, golden in the sunlight, born to this life, like a prince, the heir to his father’s kingdom.