He took her hand and shook it. ‘I’m afraid I don’t remember anything from before the accident.’ Then he recalled what Ava had told him about her friend. ‘Was it you who helped me with your traditional medicine?’

‘Yes.’ Her eyes were kind and very calm. ‘Both you and Ava needed me. She asked me to look out for you while you’re here.’ She pressed a small card into his hand. ‘My mobile number. Either I or my husband will have the phone on us most of the time. Leave a message if you need assistance.’

‘Thank you.’ He wouldn’t, but the kindness he’d met here was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. ‘I love your paintings.’ His eye was continually drawn to a blue-and-white dot painting.

‘Ah, you like the medicine art. That’s not surprising. There are curtains made of this design inside the medical centre at Yulara and perhaps you’re remembering that, too.’

He had a vague picture of that from earlier today. There seemed something so familiar and calming about the blue-and-white waving lines that he bought a painting as well as a small postcard of it to tuck into his wallet. It was getting tight in his wallet and he needed to clean it out. Denise wrapped the painting carefully and he carried it while she gave him a tour and explained the artefacts and artwork to him.

When another tourist came over to ask questions, he wandered away and spent another hour listening to the explanations on the free running video and reading the interpretive texts along the warren of nooks and flowing walls.

He’d booked for dinner so he left to give himself enough time to drive out to The Olgas. Kata Tjuta. He needed to be back at Yulara for the bus that took those who’d booked to the sandhills for the Sounds of Silence dinner.

Despite his feeling of displacement, Zac stayed for a week: did the sunrise, the lunch and the sunset tours, went again out to Kata Tjuta, up to Kings Canyon, and took short hikes that connected him more to the feeling of timeless space around him. He attended several Indigenous events which he enjoyed, but the Sounds of Silence dinner out in the desert under the stars that first night remained the highlight. Though he wished he could have gone to it with company. The Dreamtime stories told that night reminded him of the night he’d spent with Poddy and the desert community, but his mind kept returning to Ava and how it seemed they’d been doomed from the start.

On the last day, he drove back to Alice Springs for his pre-work check-up. He’d moved no closer to the past, but was more easy with it, and had come to the conclusion that he probably never would remember.

George looked up as Zac entered. ‘Zac. Welcome back. How was the rock?’