ELIZABETH: For your own safety, Minister, I suggest you let Stef keep it.

GEORGE does so. WILLIAM pours the champagne.

WILLIAM: I thought we might make a toast to our visitors.

BETSHEB goes to drink her champagne.

FRANCIS: Betsheb… not yet.

AYRE takes hers and gulps it down. BETSHEB sees her and follows suit.

ELIZABETH: I suppose a queen is entitled to invent her own table manners.

She indicates to WILLIAM that he should pour more champagne for the women.

[As he sets down the bottle] William, short and sweet before it’s too late.

WILLIAM raises his glass and, with the exception of STEF, the others do likewise. AYRE and BETSHEB raise their glasses, curious as to the meaning of this ritual.

WILLIAM: To our five aliens who have landed on this strange planet, no longer called Van Diemen’s Land, but Tasmania, and to their queen, Queenie Ayre.

OTHERS: Queenie Ayre.

STEF stares at the candle. AYRE downs her glass quickly. The others sip theirs, BETSHEB carefully imitating FRANCIS.

SCENE THIRTEEN

The Archer’s garden, night. The meal has been eaten and only STEF is left, lying on the grass playing with a candle. GEORGE and WILLIAM enter from the garden. STEF secretly stalks them.

GEORGE: It must need a lot of gardeners.

WILLIAM: Two full-time, one part-time. It’s modelled after Beckford’s classical English garden, Fonthill.

They stop and watch STEF, who pretends to look at the candle.

GEORGE: You picked up their language very quickly. I find it a real pea soup.

WILLIAM: I wouldn’t leave them alone. Drove them mad, trying to understand it.

GEORGE: [touching STEF with his foot] Doesn’t notice much about him, does he?

WILLIAM: It’s hard to know.

GEORGE: Asylum patients make me feel the same way. They seem unfathomable. As if they could do anything. [Pause.] As you can well appreciate, Doctor Archer, with Australia now at war the Government has many important things on its mind. Our primary aim will be to help defeat the Germans. Have you read any of the Nazi philosophy? Foul. A cesspool of human hatred.

STEF is intrigued by GEORGE’s trouser legs and watches like a dog observing its prey.

The Cabinet decided I should take care of this matter as I have medical experience myself. You know it’s going to be a very popular piece in the newspapers here and overseas? That would be true to say, wouldn’t it?

STEF pounces on GEORGE’s leg and sinks his teeth in.

WILLIAM: Stef! Stef! Let go!

WILLIAM pulls him off

GEORGE: Does he always do that?

WILLIAM: He likes to pretend he’s our corgi.

STEF rocks back and forth and laughs at some huge private joke.

GEORGE: You realise the fuss these people are going to cause?

WILLIAM nods.

Isn’t there an asylum not far from here?

WILLIAM: New Norfolk.