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paper this evening, he will deliver her from all of this. She will be given the comfort and respect she deserves and his outraged sense of social justice will be satisfied. Yes, he now knows what he will write and now knows what questions to ask.But just as he is about to speak, the photographer lifts his camera and any chance of gaining her confidence is suddenly lost.
    ‘Shoo!’ the old woman is saying. ‘Shoo!’ Her left arm is raised and she is shaking her bony, white hand at them both. Her right hand is on her hip. The photographer takes a second shot before she turns and leaves them, trudging back to her tent, inside which she will be safe from the prying eyes of a world that isn’t hers any more and finds her odd enough to send newspaper types out to talk to her. Before she leaves, the journalist calls out that he can help her, and she stops for a second and spins around, telling him that she practically owns the land and if she’s not complaining why should anybody else? And, what’s more, she doesn’t need anybody’s help. She’s done without help all her life and she doesn’t need it now, thank you very much. Then she is gone and the photographer and the journalist are left standing on the dirt road, after having taken two photographs and asked one question for their troubles. They didn’t even get her name. And no matter how much they call out, the journalist knows she will not re-emerge from her tent. The journalist glares at the photographer, who is completely oblivious of the fact that he has ruined his colleague’s plans, and who wouldn’t care anyway. This photographer has been at the paper for many years and for him it’s a job: get the shot and go. And concluding that there is nothing to say, that the damage has been done, the journalist looks around him in search of someone to talk to about the old woman. They cannotreturn without even knowing her name. So he scans the neighbourhood and it is only then that he notices a golf course at the end of this dirt track. He knows it’s a golf course because behind the fence and the line of trees that continues for a mile or more he can see the trim lawns of a fairway, a tee and part of a painted weatherboard clubhouse. A golf course. Out here? Then he tells the photographer that they can’t leave yet. That they don’t know who she is. He will, he says, stroll across to the farmhouse and ask the questions he was not able to ask the old woman, if anybody is in. The photographer shrugs and returns to the car, where he lights a cigarette and watches the young journalist trudging over the muddy paddocks to the farmhouse.
    No longer caring about the mud on his shoes, the journalist arrives at the farmhouse and pauses at the front gate, at a neat white picket fence that surprises him simply for being there. Pushing the gate open, he steps up the path to the stone house, a solid construction that has the look of having been there for some time. He knocks; there is no answer. He knocks again and a tall, slightly stooped figure emerges from the sideway. This, the journalist assumes, is the farmer, for he has a farmer’s face — ruddy from being out all day, his springy hair already turning white with age. He wears the kind of canvas trousers and collarless shirts that nobody wears any more, and it occurs to the journalist that he too, like the old woman in the tent, is a walking image of the way things once were. The farmer smiles. The journalist introduces himself and explains why he is there.
    ‘Miss Carroll?’ the farmer asks.
    The journalist nods, pleased that he at least has the name. He removes his notebook and pencil from his pocket, for the farmer seems quite happy to talk. In fact, he gives every impression that he likes a good chat. And the journalist, noticing no sign of anybody else around or any sign of female presence (lace curtains, flower pots), and observing the couldn’t-care-less, take-me-as-I-am demeanour of the farmer, concludes that