Peter spent the days after the dance surveying Ferndale and wasn’t too impressed. Not with the landscape but with his stewardship of it. For over a decade he’d been here and there was so little to show for it. Methodically he catalogued his omissions of care and soon filled half-a-dozen sheets of foolscap paper. But his affinity with Ferndale was growing day by day.

Sometimes, though, he forgot what he was doing. The jagged mountain range would capture his attention. Or the tiny blue flowers on the shrubs hugging the top of the cliff, which he’d never noticed before, or the cracks in the dry earth. It was only Spot jumping up on him that reminded him of what had to be done. Then he paused to wonder if a sense of faith was being restored to him. Faith in what, he was unsure. The land. The light. The possibility of loving.

On the last day of the survey, he took a satchel containing lunch down onto the beach below the homestead. Even here it felt hot. There wasn’t the slightest stirring of air, in spite of the crashing breakers. Hat tilted against the glare, he sat in the shade of a large rock. Gnawing on hard bread, on which he’d arranged lumps of even harder Burford Cheddar – he’d forgotten to replenish the pantry and was having to make do with what he could scrounge – he felt he now had a future. A future beyond mere survival.

Ilona must visit Ferndale. Tomorrow he would drive into Jingera and persuade her to come. How would the place seem to her? Squinting, he glanced around. At the northern end of the short beach, the fissured cliff face was dotted with lime green and olive-coloured bushes that were stunted by their southerly exposure. Below the headland, waves washed around some jagged pinnacles of rock. Two black cormorants, perched on the highest rock, surveyed the sea. It was a dangerous place to surf but Ilona knew about dangerous water after her experience on Jingera Beach. He wouldn’t need to convince her that she couldn’t swim here.

After finishing lunch, he returned to the homestead. That was at least structurally sound, although undeniably dilapidated. The verandahs needed reroofing and the woodwork needed repainting. Several hundred yards distant was an agglomeration of sheds, yards and water tanks. They jostled around the bleached weatherboard cottage that had once housed the manager.

Perhaps, when he got the place going properly again, he’d find another manager. He’d been reluctant to do that before because he’d wanted to be alone. Maybe now he was getting ahead of himself; he should leave the manager idea for a bit and proceed incrementally. First he’d hire some casual labour and see how things worked out. It wasn’t a shortage of funds that had been hampering him but a shortage of motivation.

The main house felt baking hot inside. Before leaving that morning he’d forgotten to shut the windows against the heat. After closing them, he drew the curtains; they were shabby velour things that needed replacing. The outbuilding that was the kitchen seemed even hotter than the house, the fuel stove making the room almost unbearable. After making a pot of tea, he put it on a tray, together with a cup and saucer. In the glassed-in walkway connecting the kitchen to the main house, he paused. There was something strange about the lozenges of light cast by the stained glass panels; they were too yellow somehow. The light outside was queer too, an almost luminous yellow. He glanced at his watch. Only three fifteen and far too early for the sun to set. A strong wind had sprung up in the short time since he’d come indoors and was buffeting the Monterey cypresses and radiata pines surrounding the house. The highest branches whipped back and forth, as if they were made of some flexible wire rather than brittle wood. The sky was now covered with a thick layer of dark grey cloud tinged with orange. That must be red dust scooped up from somewhere out west; they had no earth that colour around these parts.

At this moment a streak of lightning sliced the sky, followed a second later by a crack of thunder so loud that the walkway windows shivered. On the verandah, Spot began to howl and even the two old kelpies whimpered a bit. He let the dogs inside. Gently he stroked quivering Spot: this was probably the first thunderstorm he’d ever experienced. Flashes of lightning and claps of thunder formed a syncopated entertainment. When Spot began to whine, he shut him in the dining room and returned to the walkway, his exhilaration growing. This would be the first rain for months.

But when it came it was mainly dust. Dabs of fine mud splattered the windows and stuck there, leaving penny-sized circles of red ochre. Soon there were so many that it was hard to see out and even the flashes of lightning were barely visible through the fine layer of mud covering the glazing.

Then, as suddenly as the storm had started, it ceased. The wind dropped and the red-tinged clouds drifted slowly eastwards.

He released Spot from the dining room and went outside with the dogs. The house and ground were coated with red dust. More precious tank water would have to be used to clean the windows. There wasn’t even a scent of water on soil and the temperature must still be pushing a hundred. Although the trees were intact, half-a-dozen branches littered the patch of weeds that were once called a lawn.

But he’d ask Ilona and Zidra to visit anyway. They could see Ferndale at its worst.