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looked at their watches. It was only four, but they didn’t want to be searching for the homestead in the dark.

6
    AND THE AIR had taken on the golden furriness as they drove up the avenue lined with imported poplars (as if all the staff of the big house had been summoned and stood in welcome), driving slowly to avoid colliding with stray animals – dogs, sheep, et cetera, for all they knew.
    There was an unexpected garden – the greenery, roses – and to the side a flagpole, machinery, shearers’ quarters, the corrugated tank on stilts – representing labour, self-reliance – which threw shadows angular and out of kilter across the gravel, implying the presence, surely, of patterns and complexities to be traversed. The shadow of the house itself folded out flat, as if it was being wrapped in dark brown paper. There was a wide veranda and outline of windows, a screen door; a woman bent over two barking dogs on long chains, looked up.
    Sophie turned to Erica, ‘Did you say I was coming too?’
    As Erica stepped out of the car, the woman came forward. She apologised for the dogs – ‘harmless, just ravenous’. It was good of them to come out all this way. We – that’s her brother – were grateful.
    Then she stood still, as if she was trying to remember something. She doesn’t have many visitors, Erica concluded; and immediately worried they were over-dressed – two smart women, fronting up from the city.
    Expecting them, Lindsey Antill had applied a slash of lipstick, the quick dark slash tilting her mouth, enough for Sophie to wonder whether she really wanted them there.
    Before they could object she took their bags; they traversed the shadows, passed the dogs now smiling, their tongues hanging out, and entered the Antill homestead, a large house of high ceilings and many rooms. Wherever they stepped it creaked like a ship.
    Off the central corridor, their bedrooms each had a fireplace and a small desk by the window which reached to the floor.
    â€˜My brother will be in later.’
    Erica sat on the edge of the bed. Taking off her watch, she lay down – heaved a sigh. Parts of the road they had been on appeared, and the petulant lips of the solicitor in Sydney, and the worn-out man on the horse. Briefly she considered her pictorial admiration of horses. As usual, her mother’s face was blurry. Was Sophie the right person to be travelling with? Better – easier – alone? Erica wondered if she had brought the right clothes. By now the brother should have turned up. First thing in the morning she would sit down and begin the task. It was a privilege to be allowed into the mind of another person, the life work of another. She was curious to see what he had thought, what he had found. Already she respected his effort. It would have been difficult to sustain across pages, the many years, the isolation, the heat, perhaps the silence.

7
    THE DINING room had a fine English table, silver candlesticks, and heavy knives and forks set for four. Under the table was a Persian carpet of soft faded pattern as if coated in dust. Otherwise the floorboards were bare, dark jarrah. It was a long room. Maroon-striped wallpaper decorated one side, and the stripes were very nearly obliterated by rows of official photo-finishes from Randwick, Warwick Farm, Flemington, Caulfield, Eagle Farm – Australian suburbs, endowed with a more concentrated purpose. To the untrained eye the outstretched horses strung out in a line all looked the same; their names were printed underneath, back to the one bringing up the rear. The rest of the room was empty, except for a shotgun leaning in the corner.
    This matter-of-fact masculinity was modified by Lindsey coming in wearing a dark velvet dress and earrings.
    It took Sophie by surprise. ‘And I of course didn’t think to bring anything to wear. All I brought,’ she swung around to Erica, ‘is virtually what I