The mayor spoke first—it was his town, after all—to give the official welcome and thanks. This was a Federation town, he declared, and if it should, one day, become the nation’s capital then it would be as well for the nation! The people cheered (perhaps unaware their town was now officially only ninety-eight miles from Sydney and therefore no longer eligible). They were honoured this evening, the mayor said, not only with the Premier’s presence but with that of a number of his ministers too, the first of whom, the Secretary for Public Monies, the Honourable Mr Alasdair Dunlevy MLA, he was pleased to invite to the podium now to address them.

Much applause greeted this announcement, not because Mr Dunlevy was to speak (as most did not know who he was) but because the mood was jubilant and the people of Bathurst had waited a long time to take centre stage.

Mr Dunlevy, who was seated close to the Premier, now rose and approached the podium. He carried his speech notes and he placed these notes on the podium. He adjusted them. He lifted his head. The hall, and the twelve hundred people inside it, fell, for the most part, to a hushed quiet—though when the mood is jubilant hushed quiet is no easy thing and one or two cheers persisted and some irreverent comments shot back and forth from the galleries to the floor and back again and a ripple of laughter followed them. But eventually they fell away and the hall was silent.

And the people waited.

But the minister did not speak.

The people shuffled, they became a little restless, one or two called out. A nervous laugh came, an insult from far to the back of the hall.

But still the minister did not speak.

Those on the platform exchanged looks, shifted in their seats. And down below the platform the people seated in the front rows could see the gleam of perspiration on the minister’s forehead and the grey pallor of his face. And they saw how his hand shook at his side.

Stage fright, they said later.

CHAPTER THIRTY: UNTETHERED

CHAPTER THIRTY

UNTETHERED

Eleanor sat at her writing desk. Her journal lay unopened before her and she ran her fingers over the soft calfskin cover to anchor herself to this place, to this world, but she did not open the journal and as the room had settled into evening and was already in semidarkness she could not have read the words she had once written even had she wished to.

The fire was not lit, the curtains were not drawn and the light from the street outside bathed the room in a not-unpleasant glow, enough to make out shapes and shadows well enough though not to read or write by.