‘Only a small one for me,’ Beatriz said. ‘And by the way, luck had nothing to do with it. I asked God, every morning and every night, to spare you, and he did.’ She sounded stern. Fifty years of service with this family, and still God didn’t get credit for his goodness.

‘God, Gil and the CFS,’ Michael said. ‘The holy trinity.’ He slid glasses of wine across the table to Ali, Stella and Thea, then handed a half-measure to Beatriz, and clinked glasses with her. ‘Cheers, dear Beatriz,’ he said. ‘Your prayers are a comfort to us all.’

‘It came so close, Beatriz,’ Stella said. ‘Scary how fast it moves. One minute the fire seems miles away; the next minute it’s heading for your hayloft.’

The old lady shook her head in horrified wonder; she felt blessed that they’d survived, when disaster had seemed, to her, a nailed-on certainty, and she’d cooked up a caldeirada to show how happy she was to have her family safely home. Portuguese fish stew, the celebration meal, the thanksgiving offering. She hauled the dish from the oven and lifted the lid to check the seasoning, and fragrant steam rose like a promise from the trusty, battle-scarred cooking pot.

‘Alma won’t cook fish,’ Thea said. ‘She says it makes her kitchen smell.’

Beatriz sniffed and said, ‘A cook who won’t cook fish is no cook at all.’ She rarely, and unfairly, had anything good to say about Alma, whom she’d met only twice, but whose reign at Lismore Creek represented an imagined threat to her own pre-eminence here in Adelaide.

‘It is kind of smelly though,’ Thea said. ‘In the morning, I mean, when you get the bones and heads going in your stock pot, Beatriz. A bit gross.’ She wrinkled her pretty nose.

‘Ingrate,’ Michael said. ‘This wine is perfect, Ali. Ali? Taste your wine.’ She was lost in thought, and jumped a little at the sound of her name.

‘Sorry?’ she said. She was thinking of Daniel Lawrence and Nick Drake and Rory Gallagher.

‘Try the wine, it’s delicious.’ He watched her take a sip, nod her approval. Michael liked feedback for his wine choices; really, he’d have preferred more than a nod, a little appreciative analysis perhaps. But Ali was no connoisseur, he’d failed to turn her into one, despite his best efforts; if the wine was cold, white and dry, that was good enough for her.

Beatriz said, ‘My street in Porto, when I was small, smelled of boiled fish heads every Friday. The whole street!’

‘I might go to Portugal on my travels,’ Stella said casually. ‘Italy, France, Spain, Portugal.’ She gazed into her glass and swirled her wine, watching it lap the sides.