BETSHEB: Sprits o’ rack ’n’ cat, doomtime.

Silence. ELIZABETH, wearing an expensive evening gown, enters and watches, unnoticed.

AYRE: Sprits adorate quim sold for sinbread.

BETSHEB: Sprits adorate quim sold for sinbread.

AYRE: Albion is glommentime, rack ’n’ cat time.

BETSHEB: Albion is glommentime, rack ’n’ cat time.

Silence. BETSHEB feeds AYRE. ELIZABETH goes towards WILLIAM.

ELIZABETH: The driver is waiting.

WILLIAM looks up, puzzled.

You said we should pick you up on the way to Government House.

WILLIAM: I wanted to see if Ayre was alright.

ELIZABETH: You’re always here. Why isn’t Ayre inside? She looks very ill.

WILLIAM: She has a great fear of dying in her room. They’ll go in soon for dinner.

ELIZABETH: I’m curious, William: what do you do when you come to visit them?

WILLIAM: Nothing much. Check their health. Watch.

ELIZABETH: You’re forever here. The hospital’s always ringing me. ‘Where’s Doctor Archer?’ ‘He’s gone to stare at the madmen,’ I say.

WILLIAM: They’re not mad.

ELIZABETH: They just do a very good impersonation of it.

Pause.

WILLIAM: Ayre is teaching Betsheb—not teaching, passing on their culture, her memories.

ELIZABETH: Do you read Francis’s letters to her?

WILLIAM: Each one I have to read dozens of times. She misses him terribly.

AYRE: [to BETSHEB] Glommen sprits o’ cut-throat kin.

BETSHEB: Glommen sprits o’ cut-throat kin.

AYRE: Pass ’elly gate t’ goldy dell.

BETSHEB: Pass ‘elly gate t’ goldy dell.

ELIZABETH: [to WILLIAM] What a pathetic group they look, like those Aboriginals in shanty towns.

WILLIAM: She’s teaching Betsheb about the night-time spirits.

ELIZABETH: Come on, the Governor is waiting.

He stands.

Your bow tie.

An envelope falls from his lap. As he straightens his bow tie, ELIZABETH picks up the envelope.

What’s in here?

WILLIAM: The editor of the Medical Journal was going to publish them.

ELIZABETH: [handing him the envelope] What are they?

WILLIAM: The Chief Psychiatrist here decided she wanted photographs of Mac’s interesting medical condition. [Handing the photographs to ELIZABETH] He was always ashamed of his deformity and so that’s what they photographed in brilliant close-ups. The reason why Ayre and the rest are here is because Mac couldn’t have children. He knows that. And look what they go and do.

ELIZABETH: You would have been as callous as that.

WILLIAM: Once.

ELIZABETH: Your tie. [Straightening his tie] You smell like a brewery.

WILLIAM: I drink to forget what we’ve done to them.

ELIZABETH: There was nothing you could do.

AYRE: [to BETSHEB] Pearly dawn pass glommen time, thou pass demon time. Pass tempest ’n’ temper time.

WILLIAM: [to ELIZABETH] It would have been nice for that to have been the Australian language.

ELIZABETH: When you’ve been drinking I can never tell when you’re serious or not.