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settled back on the cushion on the floor and suggested a game of chess, because she was better at chess.
    ‘We haven’t got a chess board,’ Rohan said.
    ‘I’ll make one.’
    ‘There’s no chess set.’
    ‘I’ll improvise.’
    ‘So let me get this right – you feel up to making a chess board and getting together a homemade chess set, but not able to get off that couch and do something worthwhile round the place?’
    ‘I —’
    He stopped her with a raised hand. ‘Yes, you’ve been weak and been through a lot, and I know it’s hard . But if you can sit there with enough rational thought to play a decent hand of poker then you can rabbit-proof the garden, fix some fences and slash some bracken.’
    ‘I was going to say that I do feel stronger.’
    ‘What, right this very minute?’
    She smiled. ‘No.’
    ‘No. So starting tomorrow you get up early and do the chooks and check the orchard before any birds come through. You can leave the fruit for Shannon to wash once he’s up. I’ll be gone most of the day, and Shannon will be busy with the sheep. He’ll show you what to do … and you can also help him. You can crutch and ring the lambs, collect firewood – that sort of thing.’
    She nodded.
    ‘Have you got any experience with animals?’
    ‘A bit.’
    ‘What did you do? What was your job?’
    ‘I was a PE teacher.’
    ‘Farmhand would have been better. I also want you to look after the clothes – and be careful with them; not too much washing, and fix a tear straight away. And I see big problems with shoes. I really wanna be able to save the spare boots and overalls, in case we have to leave.’
    ‘It won’t come to that,’ I said. ‘Industry will come back on line, and the economy. Just from what Denny has said I can’t see it going on forever. We’ve got heaps of everything to see us through.’
    ‘Well we must have been listening to two different stories then, because nothing I’ve heard gives me that sort of pie-in-sky enthusiasm. You know what, Pup, you’d just wanna wake up to yourself. You do yourself no bloody favours, let me tell you.’
    I might have bitten back, but I saw he was readying to go to bed and I didn’t want to stop him. Denny sat bright-eyed on the floor near the table, and I had the impression she might not go to bed yet. I wanted her to come and sit with me on the veranda.
    Rohan put a log on the fire. I was almost too scared to move. I hoped she didn’t move either; it seemed that if we both sat perfectly still he wouldn’t comprehend that we were about to be left up together, like we were two children whose mother had forgotten bedtime.
    Rohan left without saying goodnight.
    Denny hugged her knees and stared over the card table and into the fire.
    My chest filled with words, my tongue felt heavy with them, and yet instead of asking if she wanted to come and sit outside with me, I took the shotgun and stayed silent as I walked towards the French doors.
    I sat down in the wicker chair. I had no idea why it was like this. Why the three of us were slow circling lions, eyeing one another and relying on the subtlest body language to communicate. The need to speak openly with her was as insistent as hunger.
    I looked at the guitar beside me; I hadn’t played in the few days since she’d arrived. But even now it was the wrong time to play, with Rohan not yet asleep and liable to shout his disapproval from the bedroom.
    She was moving in the lounge, by the fire. I heard her put the fire screen in place. I swore under my breath. I was still staring down at my feet when she quietly opened the door and came outside.
    She had her blanket around her shoulders and peered at me in the dark. I took the guitar from the other chair.
    ‘I’m a night-time person,’ she said, padding past me in bare feet. ‘How about you?’
    ‘That’s why I got this shift; Rohan’s a morning guy.’
    She folded herself into the chair; her feet were pale and wide.
    ‘I’m going to start