‘What? No way,’ but Basil could see I was serious about something, so he thought for a moment. ‘I mean, he’s nuts. Totally nuts. But old nuts. Funny old man nuts. Harmless nuts, surely? Why?’

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. It’s just something the doctor asked. Bette had a bad knock on her head recently, some broken fingers. I think Geraldine was just fishing around for some possible reasons . . .’

‘Shit. Poor Bette. It must be living in that house. Total chaos. But broken fingers . . . yeah, that’s weird.’

We sat looking at the ten-foot brolgas while I pulled out the pamphlet and handed it to Basil. He flipped it to the back. ‘Yeah, here it is. My favourite bit. Imagine it, right, this bunch of old white settler dudes all standing around putting up this monument to this place that they’ve “birthed” after driving all the local people off, chasing away all the inconvenient little black children. They say, “Remember that without memorials of this kind our young people will grow up feeling that we belong to nowhere.”’ Basil shook his head and laughed. ‘Now, doesn’t that just kill you?’

I didn’t know if it did. I had glimpsed the name ‘Bromley’ a number of times in the list of ‘founding fathers’ on the back. Clearly it didn’t really ‘kill’ Basil either, because he tore the pamphlet in half and then in half again, and then again and again until it was in tiny little pieces which he sprinkled on the ground. And then he stood up and shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

He sighed heavily, and then gestured with his head to the side. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go before we end up telling each other all the things we’re trying not to.’

‘I don’t know if I have anything left,’ I said. But I stood anyway, and we walked together in silence back to the road.

27

By the time we made it back to the road it was nearly dark.

‘So, right,’ said Basil, ‘the light’s going. It’s pretty late.’

‘You think?’ I said.

‘Here,’ said Basil. ‘Take the bike, ride straight up this road, don’t take the one we came in on, and keep going. It’ll take you straight up to the main road and Bromley will be right there. Shouldn’t take more than an hour.’

‘An hour!’

‘Definitely no more than an hour. It’d take four if you walked.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’ve got a mate who lives only a few kays down the road, I’ll walk down there and they’ll probably feed me and call my mum and dob on me – so, perfect. But I can’t let a pregnant lady walk that far. It’s a good bike. It’s got a light. Take it slow and gentle. It’s all flat.’

‘Fine. I don’t really have a choice. But what about you – will you be able to see?’

‘Nope, but I’ll cope. And it’s good to give the coppers something to do, Aboriginal kid walking around at night without a torch.’