Her people, she explained, came from Cape Portland, the nearest corner of lutruwita to where we were sitting. I did not understand that lutruwita was their name for Van Diemen’s Land until she said: ‘Only sixteen mile away’—pointing—‘just over there on a clear day.’ Her people were the North East nation, words she uttered the way I remembered saying the United Kingdom to the Cooper children. The nation was all but finished now, she told us, making it clear that she considered her future to be among the island wives.

I watched Munro watching her as she spoke: his gaze seemed to vary between pride and proprietorship. He never corrected her: in fact, it was she who several times told him not to use his hands, or directed him to offer his guests more meat or bread. Louisa was the fingersmith for the islands, he said proudly, and I was mystified by the term until he added that she had now delivered over a dozen children.

His confidence, I thought, emanated not from dominion over his wife but from his place in the island’s society. He was their boss. The sealers sent all their trade goods through him and had done for years. They deferred to him in disputes, asked him to officiate when they married their women. He vouched for their credit with faraway officials, he investigated their misdeeds. His hands made gestures of authority as he described these things. Louisa eyed his cutlery sternly.

My father listened closely. I had watched him, as was my habit every evening, and somehow he was resisting the pull of the wine. He had taken a small glass, no more. The effort inside him must have been heroic. On other nights I had watched his hands exploring the table in search of the bottle, even in front of others. Now the shaky hands were firmly clasped in his lap.

‘Where will you head next?’ Munro asked.

‘Oh, around Cape Barren,’ said my father. ‘A loop to the east and back around to Gun Carriage.’

‘You fella careful there,’ said Louisa, unbidden. ‘Not like us, them lot.’

Munro shot her a look.

She saw it but continued. ‘Just mean they’s different. You ben know it, James. Always complainin bout them banditti an that.’

If it ruffled him slightly, Munro soon returned to his favourite topics. He was expansive to the point of tedium about civic matters. The need for wharves and anchorages. The infuriating payments levied upon the islanders to keep freelancing troops off their backs. The steady loss of seal numbers and the need for a report to Hobart about the decline.