‘We set off from Melbourne heading west,’ said the ageing explorer, ‘why, it must be nearly fifty years ago, and we went on horseback where we could, and on foot when the bush became too impenetrable—which it was most of the time, dense enough to lose the man in front of you though he was but five yards ahead, and terrain rough enough you were lucky to cover ten miles in a day, half that on some days. We had mules and a few goats and a couple of blacks to guide us, though the mules died soon enough—one fell and became lame and a second was bitten by a snake—and the goats were driven off one night by some blacks, and the blacks that were to guide us left after a week or so. After many days of no fresh water we set up camp on the shores of Lake Corangamite. And a bitter day it was, let me tell you, when we ran into the cold waters of that lake to slake our thirst only to find the water was brine though we were many miles inland. And that is what it means, of course, in the local Aboriginal dialect.’

‘That is what what means, Sir Bertram?’ asked Blanche Rothe, leaning a little over the table towards him with an intentness in her face, though Eleanor had seen her eyes wander during the old explorer’s words.

‘Corangamite, dear lady. It means bitter. Or thereabouts. A rough translation, at any rate.’

And Mrs Rothe was gratified, or looked to be. At any rate, she smiled.

Bitter. Yes, one would be bitter journeying all that way and finding only salt water. But why go all that way—for what reason? Eleanor felt she had missed the point of the story. It seemed to her that Sir Bertram told them a story from another time, another century, when such things as explorers still existed, when there were still uncharted places left to explore. She recalled Alasdair had wanted to be an explorer, too, at one time. She looked across the table at her husband—he had been placed opposite her. He looked impatient, as though the elderly gentleman’s reminiscences irritated him. She had a feeling Alasdair would not wish to be reminded of his earlier aspiration to be an explorer, though it was a noble enough calling—perhaps less so in these modern times, when such an ambition might seem faintly absurd, but twenty or thirty years ago, yes, it was noble—heroic, even. Certainly, she had thought it so at the time. She remembered the story of Mr Leichhardt embarking on his great expedition and the celebrations and speeches that had accompanied his departure, and he had gone and been lost and, finally, forgotten. But they had named a suburb after him and that was something, was it not?