I looked at this place – the gully. In among the red gums I recognised willows over the water, bare now in the winter, and much further along, a row of pine trees – a solid block of deep bottle green that seemed so out of place, such a strange replacement for whatever other smoke-coloured dapply native trees would have stood there first. All about on the flat were the scattered remnants of burnt logs and sticks and old beer bottles, testament to recent and ancient bonfires and yobbo invasions.

Clouds moved across the sky. The bare branches of the trees stood out like dark skeletons against new steel, and I looked through them at the perfect shapes of the high-up ravens as they floated like ash through the air, drifting and dipping, barely flapping.

I draped Basil’s fleecy coat over myself and watched the stray flurries of wind ruffle the surface of the green-grey water until finally footsteps crunched in the paddock above and Basil dropped down beside me, followed closely by Leonie.

‘She was already nearly here to see Bette,’ Basil said. ‘So I told her. About everything – I’m sorry, I hope that was alright.’

I nodded.

‘So Hessel kicked you out, huh?’ Leonie said, crouching in front of me.

Basil answered for me. ‘Yep – she’s one of us now!’

Leonie turned to him. ‘The gully, Basil?’

‘It seemed right,’ Basil said defensively and brought out my water bottle and the bag of supplies I had bought from the chemist. ‘You also had a pair of very fetching trackie-daks in there by your desk,’ he said. He pulled out the teal velvet pants I had left there in case I needed extra warmth. ‘Um, and I also grabbed these . . .’ Basil trailed off, and I looked up.

I laughed.

‘They were on the clothes line,’ he said. ‘I snuck around the side of the house. It was all very quiet in there.’

Bette’s underpants looked ridiculous in Basil’s hands – wide and beige, with uncomfortable elastic around the top and the leg holes. I shook my head at him.

‘What?’ he said. ‘I did my best.’

I laughed, and then felt like crying. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘It’s amazing.’

‘Stop chatting and take those,’ Leonie said, pointing at the painkillers from my supply bag and wrapping a blood-pressure band around my arm.

‘I feel okay now,’ I said. Actually, I felt foolish as hell, but she knew what I meant.

‘Still . . .’ she said.

‘Is it, you know, a miscarriage?’

‘Not sure,’ she said. ‘Not necessarily,’ she added. ‘Pregnancy can do weird and freakish things to a body, not just miscarry.’

‘Ouch,’ I said again, doubling over. Not as bad as before, but not out of the woods.

‘Take the drugs, girl,’ Leonie said. ‘Any more blood?’

‘I’m not sure, I don’t think so . . .’ I washed the pills down with water from my water bottle.

‘Get changed and we’ll have a look how much there is.’