Inside there was the muffled sound of a radio playing. I knocked—one of those brass lion heads, which needed a polish. There was a voice, female, ‘Coming!’ and footsteps. I stepped back a little, folding my hands in front of my waist. The door opened and there was the smell of baking, and the silhouette of a woman with sunlight behind her so I couldn’t straightaway see her face. She was tall, like Jim, and her hair glowed kind of white.

‘Can I help you?’ Her voice had that soft, sugary sound of the American South.

‘I—I’m a friend of Jim’s from the Mariposa, and I’m in town for the day. I thought I’d stop by to say hello…if I’ve got the right place, that is. If he’s around.’

The woman just stood there with her mouth open for a moment and then she grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. ‘Honey, of course he is. That’s my boy. Come inside now. You’re one of them Australian girls, aren’t you? He told me how y’all came over on that boat. Were you going to Roanoke? What’s your name? I’ll bet he told me about you.’

Once the words started flowing out of her they didn’t seem to stop, and I was ushered into the kitchen and sat down and poured a glass of iced tea before she paused to catch her breath and ask me if she could get me something to eat. She was tall and slender, with a thin face and prominent teeth, her white hair pulled into a bun which frizzed out around her face. Her skin was lined and tanned, as if she spent a lot of time in the sun. I said I’d eaten, but she put a piece of pie in front of me anyway—strawberry rhubarb, she told me—and sat across from me asking questions and watching me eat. Since I’d come in she hadn’t mentioned Jim again and I wondered if he was even home.

When I had finished eating and praised her pie, she took the plate to the sink and looked out the kitchen window. ‘He’s just coming in off the water now. Come on down to the dock and we’ll say hello.’