In the city it was gauche to be on time, but she had a feeling it might be different in Karakarook.

Just a bit of a barbie, Coralie had said. Out at my sister’s place. Just a few people.

The Yuribee road was a homely little thing. Yellow flowers bobbed along the broken edges of the road and the thick stems of thistles burst up through the bitumen. There were no cuttings and no culverts. It was a matter of up around the hills and down the other side. The Datsun laboured up, whined down, swinging out on a sharp corner so the back wheels snatched at gravel.

The landscape was laid on in layers, the distant mountains the airiest of blues, overlaid with the curves of hills, each a darker blue, until the closer ones were almost black with thick bush softening every contour of the land like mould. In the foreground each individual hill had only a remnant cap of bush, and where the slope grew gentle it had been cleared altogether into a band of bleached bare paddock.

At the end of a line of pine trees there was a sagging post-and-rail fence, where a group of cows nosed at the straw-dry grass. One seemed to have given up and was standing pensively staring into the distance, its shadow a small black shape underneath its belly. A cockeyed shed near them seemed to be kneeling sideways into the grass. In the next paddock, all by itself, was a small brick dunny with a pointy roof, like a miniature church.

There it was finally, the burnt-out car, upside down, with a small tree growing through the driver’s window. She had to go past that. Then there would be a sharp bend, and she had to go past that, and she had to go past the shed and yards, but not far, because when she got to the gate and grid, she had to turn in there.

She felt a little clutch of fright, getting out of the car to undo the gate. It had been like this for a long time now. There was that sense of all the faces turning towards her. Oh, it’s Harley. In that moment, when she could feel them all visualising what had happened with Philip, she had to gather her personality around her like a cloak. It was for protection, but she knew it could look like bad temper.

The first gate was held closed with a chain-and-pin arrangement, but the pin had twisted in the wood of the post and it took her a moment to work out how to twist it back around so you could lift the chain over it. Some sheep nearby raised their heads and watched her suspiciously. She found she was over-acting innocence. Just here for a barbie, she was explaining in her imagination. They’re expecting me. As she drove through the gate and got out again to close it behind her, the sheep tossed their heads in fright and scattered away with their bandy back legs looking silly. From behind an egg-like boulder that had been cracked in half by a tree erupting out of it, she could hear them going Baa! Baaaaah! Ba-ah! in an indignant way.

Each of Coralie’s sister’s gates was kept closed by a different arrangement of chain and loops, some from the shop and some home-made out of fencing-wire. Coralie had told her there were three of them, not counting the first one, but she had lost count when she came over a rise and saw the house in front of her.

From a distance, as she drove up the last stretch of pot-holed track past the last gate, feeling all her loose flesh jiggle and jolt, Coralie’s sister’s place reminded her of Gran and Grandfather’s place. There was the same bald paddock in front of the house, the same bush-covered hill behind it, the same kind of big black pine tree at the side. There was even an old bulbous-nosed truck, its red paint turned to pink powder, standing up to its doors in weeds, that was just like Grandfather’s old Dodge.

She got out of the car, hearing how loud the door-slam was in the midday silence, and took a deep breath of the sweet straw-scented air.

She wished she had some other Harley she could offer them.

But now Coralie was coming out smiling from the verandah, where she must have been waiting for her. From the back of the house she could hear voices, splashing, children shrieking.

Good on you, pet, Coralie said. Glad you could come.

From the sound of it, she had thought Harley might not come, and that was clever of her, because for a while it had been true. An attack of gastric, she had planned. What a shame. At the last minute, though, she thought of all the complications an attack of gastric would cause. Coralie would come to the house, and want to look after her. She would have to pretend to be sick, then pretend to recover, but not too quickly.

In the end, it was probably easier to face just a few people.

She followed Coralie around the side path past the water tank and along beside the chook-yard. The chooks’ water bowl was a cracked pink bathroom hand-basin with the plug in, tilting on the ground. Stretched out on the wire with plastic clothes pegs, a fox-skin had shrivelled and cracked in the sun.

She felt her mouth jerk into a spasm of premature smile, as if practising, and made it stop. It might look funny to come around the corner with a big smile already stuck on.

She need not have worried, because just as they came into the backyard, someone threw a cupful of something at the barbecue and orange flame erupted with a whump. Everyone jumped back. Steady on, Don, someone shrilled. Call the Brigade, quick! someone else called, and a man’s voice shouted, Not to worry, love, we’re all here, so they were all laughing and only half paying attention when she and Coralie joined them.

There was the barbecue with the men around it poking at the cooking meat, and a big table in the shade under a tree, the food all covered with little domes of fly-wire, and a square of bright blue swimming-pool where children were jumping in, splashing up water that was like chips of glass in the sun.

Coralie’s sister Donna was just like Coralie, only without the glasses, and her hair was dyed red instead of black. She fussed around Harley, getting her a drink, getting her a little biscuit with cheese on it. Then she and Coralie stood side by side, smiling at her, as if at handiwork they were proud of.

A big man who had been methodically splitting wood for the barbecue put his axe down and wiped his hands on his blue singlet so he could shake hands.

My husband Henry, Coralie said, rather formally, but then she laughed.

Mind you, nobody calls him that.

Call me Chook, he said. Everyone does.

In fact, Harley thought, he did look a bit like an old boiler, stringy in the singlet. It was the kind of dangerous, or at least nasty, thought she had hoped she might be able to avoid, unwinding in Karakarook, the kind of thought that belonged to the old side of her leaf.

To make up for it, she tried to be especially friendly.

You’re in the Heritage Committee too, then? she asked, but she could see straight away that was wrong. Coralie and Chook exchanged a glance.

Not exactly, Coralie said.

Not on your life, he said at the same moment.

It’s a bit of a sore point, Donna explained unnecessarily. As a matter of fact.

In the little silence, the man who had brought the old bushranger shirt to the meeting came up.

Mr Cutcliffe, you remember? Coralie said.

Mr Cutcliffe sat Harley down on a stool he had brought for the purpose, and sat on another himself, and started to tell her a lot of things about the bushrangers. Wonderful, she kept saying. Goodness.

Chook went back to splitting kindling with small deft strokes of his axe, and Coralie and Donna went over to the food table to do things with plates. Really? Harley said. Fancy that.

Then the fat woman, the one whose Nanna made the miniatures, was standing beside Mr Cutcliffe with a plate of meat.

Here you go, Mr Cutcliffe, she said. Salad’s over on the table, you know your way around.

She took his place on the stool.

He’s the teacher, she said, watching him go over to the table. Mr Cutcliffe. Taught me, too. And look, I’m Leith. I know how it is with names.

Leith smiled peacefully over towards the swimming-pool.

He’s real good with the kids, Mr Cutcliffe. But you don’t want to get him started on the bushrangers. His mother was a Hall, see, and he’s that proud of it.

She shifted on the little canvas stool and it creaked dangerously.

Now listen, Harley, she said, and Harley tightened herself up against whatever was coming. She was going to be told she had done something wrong. Perhaps she had left one of the gates open on the way in.

Sorry you missed out on the bucket the other day, she said in her slow smiling way. Grandad’s a bit funny about the display.

Harley nodded, and tried to make her smile as peaceful as Leith’s.

Perfectly all right, she said. No problem at all.

But it made her giddy. She had come very close to losing her temper with Grandad, had nearly shouted at him, slapped the counter, stormed out of the shop. If she had, everyone in Karakarook would have known within half an hour. Here in Karakarook there would be no hiding a dangerous streak.

The Asian man came over with a plate full of food for her, and another for himself, and with another strained creak from the stool, Leith got up.

Alfred, isn’t it? Harley said, remembering the tiny secretive writing on her list.

Then she wondered if that might be wrong, too. Perhaps he liked to be called Mr Chang, the way Bert Cutcliffe obviously like to be Mr Cutcliffe. Or Alfred Chang might have been someone else, and now he would think, she thinks we all look the same.

Yes, he said, only I’m Freddy to my friends. Like the frog. Call me Freddy.

He smiled at her, a frank cheerful boyish smile, although she could see, close up like this, that he was no boy.

Try this rump, he said. Butchered it myself.

They chewed the steak together in silence for a moment. It was very tough. Harley tried not to let him see how her jaw was straining at it.

Tough as old boot leather, he said cheerfully.

Harley was getting ready to protest that no, it was lovely, such a good flavour, and not really tough at all,but he got in first.

Leave that, he said. I’ll get you some snags. No need to be polite.

Got something to show you, he said.

He did not quite take her by the hand, but the gesture implied it, and it seemed impolite not to follow him. Coralie glanced up and did something with her face that was some kind of message, but at that distance it was impossible to know what it meant. In the far corner of the garden, bushes screened them from the party and the light turned green, filtering down through a big tree of some thick shady kind.

The butchering tree, Freddy said. Grandpa was cook out here in the old days.

He pointed up into the leaves, where a thick branch hung directly over their heads.

See? The hook. Hang the beast up on that, slice it down, all the guts fall straight out.

If he was trying for shock effect, he had picked the wrong audience.

Oh yes, Harley said, but she was already moving to go back to the party. As she was turning, Freddy was suddenly in front of her with a hand gripping her elbow.

Know what Karakarook means? he said.

She could feel his thumb, stroking the skin just above her elbow.

In Aboriginal?

Taking her elbow had brought him very close to her. He was shorter than she was, chunky and muscular, and was watching her in a certain kind of intent way.

It means elbow.

She knew that intent look. She had received it a lot in her younger days, in spite of her lack of looks. She knew what it came from, and she knew exactly what it led to. It was flattering, in a way, to be getting it at her time of life, and from a man certainly not lacking in charm.

Number two husband had been like this Freddy: that nice lopsided smile, that nuggety quality. Like Freddy, he had given off a kind of steam of sexuality, an innocent animal vigour. He had flirted with anyone. It did not mean anything. It was just a reflex, the way you saw the kids in Newtown going along trying the handles of all the parked cars, just on the off-chance. Occasionally, often enough to keep them trying, one of the doors would open.

Freddy was to be congratulated for being willing to give such unpromising material a try. In Karakarook there’d be a terrible shortage of new doors, not much room for just on the off-chance. You’d know everyone, and they’d know you, and there’d be no room for secrets. A new person, and especially a new person who was just passing through, would be an opportunity you would just have to take when it was offered.

Poor Freddy was not to know how entirely her history had made such intent looks irrelevant. Not so much unwelcome as simply obsolete.

She resisted the impulse to laugh.

To demonstrate what he meant, he crooked his own arm, the one that was not holding hers.

Because of the bend in the river.

Crooking his elbow and holding it up to show the way the river bent had brought him even closer.

Well, she said, and moved herself away just slightly. That’s an interesting piece of information, Freddy.

He caught the tone straight away and dropped his hand from her elbow.

They looked at each other. He was not surprised, not disappointed, just weighing up whether it would be worth trying again.

Any time you need information, he suggested, watching her.

Thanks, she said.

She heard the dryness in her tone and for an instant she was sorry. You would have a few laughs with this Freddy.

Elbows, knees, he said. Body parts in general.

I know where to come, she agreed, and allowed herself a smile.

From over at the barbecue, someone called out Bring us the lemonade while you’re there, love! Bottom shelf of the fridge!

Coralie came over and sat beside her on the grass.

I see you’ve met our Freddy, she said.

Harley could hear how she was feeling her way.

You could start a scandal in Karakarook that way. Go behind the bushes with the butcher for two minutes. One person noticing would be all it took.

Not telling you about Karakarook, Coralie asked. What it means in Aboriginal?

Well, as a matter of fact, yes.

Coralie gave a sudden admiring laugh that made Donna’s husband glance over from scraping the barbecue.

Doesn’t waste any time, our Freddy.

They both watched Freddy getting beers out of an esky and handing them round.

Not a bad bloke, Coralie said. Got his mother and his auntie out on the farm, they’re neither of them well. You’ve got to hand it to him, looking after them the way he does.

She glanced at Harley.

But it‘s, you know, limiting for him.

Harley watched Donna’s husband, a calm, smiling man whose tee-shirt said JACK THE RIPPER with blood dripping off each letter. He was hoisting up a little girl who had run out of the house. She sat astride his hip, picking at the thick rubbery paint of the blood.

So have you got a husband at all, yourself?

Harley could tell Coralie meant it to sound casual, but it came out a bit blunt.

She rushed on, covering it up.

Don’t take any notice of me, love. We’re all stickybeaks out here in the bush.

Then she left a silence.

I did have, Harley said. But he’s gone.

Her own laugh took her by surprise.

Not dead and gone. Just gone.

It was true, more or less. It was completely true of two of the three husbands. True of the majority.

Any little lie that was necessary to keep covered up the way in which the third husband was gone was a kindness. There were times when everyone was happier with a little lie.

Coralie turned her glass, looking at the way the light made the beer look like honey, put it down on the grass, made a reasonable assumption.

They do that, don’t they, she said finally. They can be bloody idiots.

Donna came over to them. She had a plastic bag full of something she wanted to show Harley, but could not bring herself to. It was interesting, watching someone else being shy.

Go on, pet, show her, Coralie said, but Donna was half-angry.

Oh, it’s nothing, it’s just a lot of rubbish.

Exactly! Coralie cried, and turned to Harley. Just what you said, wasn’t it, pet, about the rubbish?

It was not hard to see who wore the pants in that relationship.

But Harley was not going to get involved in this one.

Oh, well, she murmured diplomatically. Well, you know.

Coralie grabbed the bag and pulled out a handful of what was in it: tailor’s samples of dark wool, dozens of them. A couple of the squares dropped out of her hand and Donna quickly bent to pick them up. Now that Coralie had got the ball rolling, Donna was braver.

Mr Sinclair’s grand-daughter gave them to the fete, she said. But nobody wanted them.

She held up a lustrous navy-blue with a faint grey stripe.

I could have told her that, but you can‘t, when it’s a fete, can you?

I’d have bought them, Harley said. Like a shot.

They were quality wool, dense sombre colours, mint condition. She actually felt her mouth watering at the idea of piecing them together.

Want them? Donna said. You’re more than welcome.

She held the bag out. Harley had to stop herself snatching it and pawing greedily through the squares.

Just what I needed, she said. I’m doing a sort of pretend wagga. Based on the old bridge, you know?

This threatened to create the sort of silence that had greeted Australian vernacular, but Mr Cutcliffe rescued the moment. Ah, show and tell, eh? he said, coming over. Ten and a half out of ten, girls.

Coralie and Donna laughed, even though Harley did not think it was much of a joke, but after a moment she felt she should join in too. Mr Cutcliffe looked round at them all going heh heh heh. You could see how pleased he was to have made them laugh, even if they were only being polite. It was worth the little effort, to see the pleasure it gave him.

It was a new idea for Harley. In the city you could avoid people like Mr Cutcliffe, who did not know when enough was enough on some subject dear to their heart. You could pretend to be terribly busy. The word deadline could be used or you could be just on your way out of the house.

But out here, she could see people went by different rules. You did not just pick out the best bits of life. You took the whole lot, the good and the bad. You forgave people for being who they were, and you hoped they would be able to forgive you. Now and again you were rewarded with the small pleasure of being able to laugh, not uproariously but genuinely, at a small witticism offered by someone who was usually a bore.

More than the heat and the flies, that was what made the bush feel like another country, where anything was possible.

In Sydney she was used to people one at a time, and only the ones she already knew. She seemed to have stopped meeting fresh people. All the ones she saw knew the story about Philip. Oh, it’s Harley, she saw them think. And there was Philip. The story lay like a stain across everything they said and everything she said. Certain words created a certain kind of silence. Conversations inched forwards carefully across a chasm.

Everyone knowing had its good side. No one expected a great deal. If things came out sounding peculiar, allowances were made. But it had its bad side too. It was like being attached, permanently and irrevocably, to a big lump of something dead and ugly.

A long afternoon in the company of so many new people, none of whom knew anything about her — how dangerous she was, for example — had left her feeling that her head was not quite attached to her body, or perhaps it was that her face was not attached to her head. That face had created small speeches of a blameless kind, smiled at things other people had said, had managed to be nothing worse than perfectly normal.

She was still smiling as she drove back through all the gates, still holding herself ready to be agreeable, still arranging innocuous sentences in her mind. Apprehension had become a habit that created its own difficulties, but nothing had been asked of her this afternoon that she could not manage. In a small way it was something to be proud of.

At the last gate, as she was looping the piece of fencing-wire over the rusted bolt, she suddenly wondered whether she had closed the very first gate, back near the house, the one with the piece of chain and the little fencing-wire hook. She had been smiling, and teasing herself with the idea that life might be different if you lived in the country, and she had not been paying attention to the gates. She stood with her hand on the warm metal of this last one, trying to remember.

A sheep came towards her and went baa in a tremulous way at her. It made it hard to concentrate. She frowned at it and it became indignant. Baa-aaah! Baa!

She could remember undoing the chain on that first gate, working out the way the hook went, and even remembered pushing the gate open. It hung too low and you had to heave it up, but the corner still dragged along through a groove in the dirt. She remembered that, and she remembered driving through it. Then her memory went blank.

She stood for a long time, staring down at the dirt.

Finally she undid the last gate again, got into the car, and went all the way back through the three gates, being careful to close each one. When she got to the third one, hoping Donna was not watching the smoke-signals of her dust, she found that she had closed it after all, the hook fast on the chain.

By the time she got back to the road, she felt she had been opening and closing gates all afternoon. But at least she had not done anything unforgivable.