Leonie’s demeanour changed again quickly; the twitch was back and she gave me a softer look. ‘Ah, kiddo,’ she said, and sighed. ‘You’re just a young fish. Maybe too young to know better, I don’t know. Maybe not. But you should probably start thinking about whether it’s a good idea for a young white girl to start explaining racism to a Djaara woman old enough to be her mother.’

I nodded and blinked hard. Oh god, not here, not now. I didn’t want to cry.

And then Leonie started laughing. ‘“People from elsewhere”,’ she said, pronouncing ‘elsewhere’ with a grand English ‘h’. ‘“People from else-hwhere”,’ she said again, and laughed a lot, and then when it began to die down again she chuckled to herself and said, ‘You should be showing me your visa,’ and then she laughed so hard she had to wipe the tears out of her eyes with the back of her wrist so she could see well enough to smooth the last bits of surgical tape around Bette’s dressing.

I tried to laugh too, at myself, but it came out a bit hard-edged.

Leonie trimmed the tails of the tape and tucked away the ends of the bandage with a deft hand. She took off her gloves and reached over and quickly patted my hand. ‘You’ll be right,’ she said. ‘Try not to take it personally. I get it. Sometimes you gubbas don’t know your own racism until it reaches up and smacks you in the face.’ And then she stood up and began packing things away in her kit.

When everything was neatly away she held out her ungloved hand for me to shake. ‘Well, it was nice to finally meet you, Anna,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said, taking her hand. I felt like my head was spinning. ‘It was nice to “finally” meet you too, Leonie.’ And then I added, ‘Even though I’ve never heard of you.’

She laughed and nodded. Then she dropped my hand and looked down at me. ‘Actually, Anna. Do you want to do me a favour? You drive, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘You know what you could do? I’ve made a doctor’s appointment for Bette on Thursday and Hessel’s got a long history of not taking her. Do you reckon you could make sure she gets there?’

‘Well, I’m not sure –’ But then I nodded, suddenly eager to please Leonie, or at least eager to get her to leave. ‘Okay, sure, I could maybe do that.’

‘Good girl,’ she said. ‘Medical centre, main street, next to the post office. Eleven-thirty.’

Leonie picked up her kit. She gestured to where Bette was still sitting, head back, snoring, and said, ‘Anyway, I’ll be back tomorrow to check on her again. I could maybe teach you a couple more things if you like.’ And then halfway to the door she turned back towards me, smiling, and she lowered her voice. ‘And maybe I’ll bring my son. He’d love to meet you.’

I listened as Leonie’s footsteps crunched away across the gravel, but after only a moment they crunched back and her face was in the doorway again.