‘Yes, we knew it was you. Who did you think you were mocking out there at Passage Island? The future I am here to offer these people may be…different for you. Now,’ he turned to the others, brightly. ‘It might assist in alleviating your worries if you come with me and meet the natives we already have on board. We have gathered people from Cape Barren, Clarke and Woody. They came willingly, I am pleased to say, and they seem very comfortable. I would not recommend you throw in your lot with her.’

Tarenorerer stood now, took a long step forward. Her body dominated the room.

‘Why doan you tell em what’s really happenin, Parish? Hey? Maybe tell em they got a choice now, but if they doan do it your way, you got soldiers comin from Launceston to put em in leg fetters? Maybe tell em that, tell em you gonna have em jailed, an you gonna shoot the resisters.’

She drilled her finger at the air between them as she hectored him, eyes wide. He’d tilted back, his body betraying his alarm at the onslaught.

‘Mebbe tell em that, hey? You din come ere for your Christ, for your Bible! You come ere like a common thief, luta tawin!’

They were entangled in their mutual hatred, eye to eye in the centre of the room. The tyereelore watched on, weighing the danger this man represented against the danger of the other man, the one who was loose on their island. God and the Devil, or something. Their sympathies were with Tarenorerer, that much was clear, but she was asking a lot of them.

‘You go off a minute,’ Mother Brown said to Parish eventually, waving a finger at the door. Tarenorerer was silent. It occurred to me that the two women had differing claims to authority here: Mother Brown by seniority and by virtue of her relationship to Smith, but Tarenorerer had a revolutionary’s fervour. The women sensed it in her.

Parish waited long enough to let it appear that it was his own idea, then left, again nodding the men ahead of him. Nothing happened once they’d gone. No one spoke. I’d never endured a longer silence in company. The only conclusion available was that they’d long seen this day approaching.

Tarenorerer addressed my father and me. ‘You best go too.’ Her voice was sad and kind. ‘Just outside, eh.’

I took my father by the arm and led him out the front door into the westerly sun. The day hung there, ageing in the wind. To our right, the thatched roofing of the gathering place still covered the debris of the party. The piano had been moved inside, but bottles littered the ground and the dogs worked rump-high and head-down, nosing their snouts through the sand for scraps. Other dogs had gone with the men, barking elsewhere.