‘How charming,’ said Eleanor, not taking any. On her left the mayor was explaining to her husband some new method of irrigation and she watched Alasdair give the man his full attention, offer up some appropriate comment, give the scheme his full consideration, when she could see he was no more present than she herself was, could see some metronome beating time behind his eyes. He exchanged glances, often, with Greensmith, who looked more wretched by the hour.

‘But why, Mr Dunlevy, should the capital of our nation not be right here, in Penrith?’ demanded an alderman seated on Eleanor’s right and leaning over her so that he almost dislodged her hat in his eagerness to gain an audience with her husband, the minister.

‘Here?’ said Alasdair. He smiled. ‘Why, sir, because it is not the required hundred miles from Sydney, that is why. The bill is quite clear on that point, and Penrith cannot be more than thirty miles at most.’

But the man would not be put off.

‘I have heard the people of Goulburn were not the required distance either, that they were only some ninety-six miles from Sydney, but they got the under-secretary to resurvey the map and found that their city was a hundred miles distance after all, that it was in fact a hundred and four miles!’

‘Yes, I had heard that,’ Alasdair admitted. ‘And in the process they found that Bathurst, their most bitter rival, was suddenly a mere ninety-eight miles distant and so no more in the running.’ He allowed himself a smile at the petty jealousies of the regions. ‘But I doubt the most obliging surveyor in the colony could find you another seventy miles, sir.’

The alderman sat back, deflated and defeated by geography.

‘That is my youngest,’ said the lady mayoress, indicating a barefoot child of indeterminate sex some little distance away. Eleanor looked and saw the child in grubby whites, licking its fingers, and she did not know if she was meant to congratulate or commiserate or merely to observe. She smiled and said nothing.

The mayor stood up, and those who had voted for him in the recent mayoral election clapped and cheered, and those who had not jeered and turned their backs, and those from outlying stations or who had travelled down from the mountains that morning to attend the event looked on indifferently or helped themselves to more meat, for there was plenty left over.

‘Friends,’ said the mayor, holding up his hands for silence. ‘We are fortunate to be joined today by the Honourable Mr Alasdair Dunlevy, member of the Legislative Assembly, minister and prominent supporter of the Federation—’

At which a great shout went up.

‘—and should the men of this great colony of New South Wales decide to vote in favour of the Federation, which I am certain we shall—’

Another shout, louder this time.