‘If you’re determined,’ Nora said.

Her head was lowered in concentration.

‘If you want a thing enough.’

She was fixing a fresh tape.

‘And we do love our birds. Our Sundays together in the bush.’

The machine had begun its snuffling and shuffling again. Nora Mackenzie raised her head, as if launched on an invocation.

Two or three notes of bird-song fell surprisingly pure and clear, out of the crackle, into the beige and string-coloured room.

‘This is one,’ Nora said, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard before.’

She smiled, however, and listened to identify.

‘Willy-Wagtails,’ Nora said.

Willy-Wagtails were suited to tape. The song tumbled and exulted.

‘It must be something,’ Nora said, ‘that Arch made while I was with Mother. There were a couple of Sundays when he did a little field-work on his own.’

Nora might have given way to a gentle melancholy for all she had foregone if circumstances had not heightened the pitch. There was Arch standing in the doorway. Blood streaming.

‘Blasted bulb collapsed in my hand!’

‘Oh, darling! Oh dear!’ Nora cried.

The Wheelers were both fascinated. There was the blood dripping on the beige wall-to-wall.

How the willy-wagtails chortled.

Nora Mackenzie literally staggered at her husband, to take upon herself, if possible, the whole ghastly business.

‘Come along, Arch,’ she moaned. ‘We’ll fix. In just a minute,’ Nora panted.

And simply by closing the door, she succeeded in blotting the situation, all but the drops of blood that were left behind on the carpet.

‘Poor old Arch! Bleeding like a pig!’ Jum Wheeler said, and laughed.

Eileen added:

‘We shall suffer the willy-wags alone.’

Perhaps it was better like that. You could relax. Eileen began to pull. Her step-ins had eaten into her.

The willy-wagtails were at it again.

‘Am I going crackers?’ asked Jum. ‘Listening to those bloody birds!’

When somebody laughed. Out of the tape. The Wheelers sat. Still.

Three-quarters of the bottle! Snuffle crackle. Arch Mackenzie, you’re a fair trimmer! Again that rather brassy laughter.

‘Well, I’ll be blowed!’ said Jum Wheeler.

‘But it’s that Miss Cullen,’ Eileen said.

The Wheeler spirits soared as surely as plummets dragged the notes of the wagtail down.

But it’s far too rocky, and far too late. Besides, it’s willy-wagtails we’re after. How Miss Cullen laughed. Willy-wagtails by moonlight! Arch was less intelligible, as if he had listened to too many birds, and caught the habit. Snuffle crackle went the machine ...the buttons are not made to undo... Miss Cullen informed. Oh, stop it. Arch!ARCH! You’re TEARING me!

So that the merciless machine took possession of the room. There in the crackle of twigs, the stench of ants, the two Wheelers sat. There was that long, thin Harry Edwards, Eileen remembered, with bony wrists, had got her down behind the barn. She had hated it at first. All mirth had been exorcized from Miss Cullen’s recorded laughter. Grinding out. Grinding out. So much of life was recorded by now. Returning late from a country dance, the Wheelers had fallen down amongst the sticks and stones, and made what is called love, and risen in the grey hours, to find themselves numb and bulging.