I had been standing above him, though he would only have known it by the direction of my voice. Now I sat down at his side, suddenly exhausted. The words escaped me quietly. ‘I do love you. I have always loved you.’

We sat like that and neither of us spoke. The boat slipped onward, closing in towards something we couldn’t understand. The dark birds moved about us, specks of cold water lit on our faces, perhaps spray or the faintest rain, drips off the rigging, and here we were, two lost people on a voyage to nowhere.

~

‘What happened to her?’

I thought he was asleep. The speckling damp had turned to light rain.

‘To whom?’ His voice was soft now; the rage had left him.

‘My mother. Your wife.’

He sighed. ‘Doesn’t help to know.’

‘Doesn’t help not to.’

‘There was a fire.’

‘I know there was a fire, Father.’ My eyes were accustomed to the darkness. I could see the pain on his face.

‘What does it have to do with the man, the one we’re pursuing?’

‘It doesn’t,’ he began. ‘Well, all these things, all misfortunes belong to large families.’

‘Tell me.’

He waited a long time to answer. The night moved past us, but the demand hung there, weightless.

‘They set fire to the house, in the middle of the night. You will ask me who and in truth I cannot say. But it had happened a number of times that year, to others, I mean. There was conflict. Could have been the Cadigal, the Gweagal, the Eora. I don’t know, but the roof came down before we knew what was happening. It was…chaos. Terrible heat, smoke. I got you out. I went again but I could not get your mother out.’ I tried to imagine him, imagine my mother, hated so much by someone. ‘Why did they burn our house?’

‘Why do they do anything, Eliza? I can only say that it’s not their way. It’s something that, hmm…happened.’

‘But why our house?’

He seemed distressed at this. ‘Why not? Had to be someone’s house.’

I could not tell what I was gnawing at. I knew only that there was something about him that resisted. Something he was not going to give me.

‘What happened to her?’

‘Don’t, Eliza. You think you need to know it, but you do not.’

‘Please.’

The lapping of the bow. The small strains of the timbers. Above us a dark silhouette against the sky: the doctor had caught a large ray and strung it in the rigging to dry. It caught the wind and flexed like a canvas jib.

He sighed as if I had asked him to lift a heavy weight, but he answered.