‘It is not I who has deceived you! Only one of us has been unfaithful in this marriage, Alasdair, only one of has broken their vows, has lied to other, and as God is my witness, it is not I!’

‘No! Leave! Leave this room now!’

He looked stricken. She must look much the same, she presumed. As though they had plumbed some depth. Could not sink any further. It seemed they must, at last, understand each other.

Eleanor spoke now in quite a different voice: ‘Do you care, then, so much for this woman, Alasdair—’

But he cried out in exasperation and pushed past her and plunged down the stairs. She followed a step behind, but only as far as the top of the stairs. Heard the front door open below.

‘—that you would sacrifice everything?’

But the door had closed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: FLASH FLOOD

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

FLASH FLOOD

The rain did not let up the following day or for the two after that. Within hours of the cloudburst the gutters in the streets of the city overflowed. By the end of the day they had turned to rivers. Great torrents of water cascaded down Macquarie Street, bringing with it tree branches, mud, sodden newspapers, broken umbrellas and the overturned refuse of every domestic and mercantile premises on the way, even one or two bloated animal carcasses, to be spat out into the quay and swept into the harbour and beyond. Rain lashed the windows of Parliament House, the Treasury, Customs House and Government House; it buffeted the bows of the steamships and the colliers as they attempted to dock at Woolloomooloo and it drenched the men on the dockside. Earthworks loosened and trees were unrooted. Roofs leaked and some collapsed. In the poorer districts, whole buildings were swept away and some of the residents along with them. Beyond the city the rivers swelled and burst their banks, the roads became impassable, the settlements and outlying stations became inundated. The sheep and cattle that had withstood the drought were lost.

Alasdair’s newspaper declared it a disaster. Not the loss of life or livestock or property, but the referendum which was now just a week away. How would the men get to the polling stations, it asked, when the rivers had burst their banks and the roads had become impassable? Their drays could not ford the raging waters and their horses had perished. What were they to do?