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” You ridiculed it. You argued that you couldn’t see an Australian tree if you gave it a Latin name. You said that was the wrong way of seeing.’
    ‘I think I was right,’ he said.
    ‘Now I think you were right.’
    He reminded her of how they rode their horses bareback through the bush tracks to Seven Mile Beach and into the sea, and lit fires from the driftwood to dry out.
    They went through their favourite names from the coast: Foxground, Flying Fox Creek, Fairy Meadow, Mollymook, Jerry Bailey and, of course, Jasper’s Brush. ‘Did you ever see a fairy at Fairy Meadow?’
    There was a knock and she went to the door, opening it to allow Janice to back into the room with a tray loaded with food, glasses, wine and cutlery. Edith helped her clear a space on the table and together they laid the tablecloth. Now armed with something Janice didn’t know she knew, she watched Janice. The ball was back in her court. Janice laid out the cutlery and put down their first course. ‘I’ll bring up the other courses when they’re ready.’ She had returned to her serving-girl voice.
    Frederick and Janice did not make any sort of eye or verbal contact.
    She felt like saying something, but now, slightly amused, she would leave them stranded in their own game.
    She dipped a little finger in the oyster sauce and tried it. The sauces were unpredictable. At least the oyster forks were there.
    ‘Thank you, Janice.’
    ‘My pleasure.’
    Janice left. She said to Frederick, ‘What did you do with your share of the inheritance from Mother and then from Father?’
    He shrugged and tried an oyster.
    Edith persisted with her inquiry. ‘Mother transferred money and assets to us before she died – divided between you, me and Father. It must be sitting there in the bank waiting for you to collect it. Or at the solicitor’s.’
    He didn’t respond.
    ‘It must be in the hands of the estate – the family lawyer, Morris Phillips, at Phillips, Fox & Masel. You remember him? His sons run the firm now. A good deal of money and some shares.’
    On his second oyster, he said, ‘The solicitors did track me down – I’d had other business with Morris from time to time.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘I gave it to the Party.’
    She didn’t say anything.
    He said, ‘It would’ve, well, hindered me. Contaminated me in some way.’
    She was not sure why she was dismayed. It was, after all, his inheritance. And she had given some of her inheritance to the International School in Geneva.
    ‘But when, and if, the Communist Party comes to power, you – as a top official, a commissar – will be well paid.’
    ‘Ah, but there will be no great difference between what I earn, if I am socialist president, and what a waitress such as Janice earns. Even you accept that inheritance is grossly unjust to poor kids – gives rich kids a flying start.’
    ‘From each according to ability, to each according to need?’ she said.
    Frederick frowned. ‘Anyhow, it’s not what we do or what we’re paid, as long as everyone has enough to eat and a roof. It is that we do our work well that makes work good for us – a good society allows us to find the work we are able to do well. Gives everyone a fair go.’
    She watched him as she ate her oysters. The sauce was successfully made.
    He said, ‘And, by the way, we say now, “ From each according to his ability, to each according to his work .” ’
    She could see he enjoyed teaching.
    He went on, ‘Back in the early 1930s, Stalin abolished wage equalisation. Skilled workers, he argued, should be paid something more than unskilled.’
    She said, ‘I rather like the older doctrine of “according to need” . . . I must be more of a socialist than you. The Good Society does not measure itself by its geniuses or millionaires or great artists; more by how decently the low-achievers – those not so good at much, those with low IQ scores – live and are treated. The winners can look after themselves.’
    But she found