Of course! That was why she was boring. She gets off the boat in Sydney a screeching harridan and she’s still screeching two hundred pages later. Having changed too radically between London and Sydney, she then doesn’t change at all.

That would be boring in life, and it was boring in a book too.

Sal needed what her husband had acquired—a sequence. A journey.

Again there was that feeling that I was being offered a space where I could go on exploring. There was still time to do much more than tinker with adverbs. I could get to know Sal, as I’d got to know Thornhill, by putting her in situations and watching what she did. The book wasn’t finished yet.

I went back to the scene of the Wisemans’ arrival in Sydney, when they’d been approached by an Aboriginal man:

She took a step forward and shooed him off as you would a chook that had strayed into the house, Go on! Bugger off! Shooing at him close enough that Thornhill flinched, expecting her hand to strike the man, and then what would happen?

She was eyeball-to-eyeball with the black man. This is our place, she mouthed loudly. Belongs to us now.

The man started to speak, but Sal was out-shouting him, Bugger off you dirty poxy savage with your mumbo-bloody-jumbo, she was shrieking, and turned savagely to Thornhill, come on Will you scared of this savage, you going to let him rule the roost, leave it all to me, where are your bloody balls Will? You got to take a firm line, from the start, like you do with a pup.

I put the new Sal into the moment, started to write, and watched what she did.

What does he want, our victuals is it, Sal whispered, as if the fellow would not hear if she whispered.

Thornhill gave the man the shred of meat, but it was not that he wanted. They were all stuck in the moment. Thornhill could hear Sal breathing somewhat heavily beside him, as if preparing to fight. But when she spoke her voice was a little uncertain. What does he want, Will? If it ain’t the victuals?

Her uncertainty, the fear in her voice, made Thornhill bold.

He took a step forward so he was eyeball-to-eyeball with the man.

Bugger off, he shouted. Bugger off!

He could hear his voice harsh, loud in the quiet dusk. He made shooing gestures, like you would shoo a chook that had got into the house.

After a long moment, the man turned and walked away around the rise of the slope.

Sal was crying, sniffing, gulping. I am scared, Will, they are gunna spear us.

Thornhill thought that too, imagined the blacks coming back with others, all those spears.

Bullshit, Sal, he said, they’re savages, you just got to take a firm line from the start, like you do with a pup.