Douglas stared out at feathery stalks of long grass haloed with the late sun, and two horses head-to-head over a fence. From his own feet a long thin shadow went out along the roadway of the bridge and bent over the side.

He thought about how she had been at the Museum opening. It had seemed to him then that she had been quite warm. Definitely cordial. Perhaps even something more than cordial. He had gone over it in his mind, the look she had given him, the way she had said his name. He replayed it again and again.

It had not been anything as straightforward as a smile. But there had been something around the mouth, and something round the corners of the eyes too. You could call it a twinkle. There had been a twinkle in her eye.

Put that way, it did not sound quite right.

He looked up into the bush where the orange ribbons around the doomed trees flickered.

Mr Denning had been surprised to hear from him. Surprised, too, it seemed, at some change in the way he spoke.

Cheeseman, he had said warily. Everything all right, Cheeseman?

In the moment of hearing his voice, feeling the little clutch of fear, Douglas had realised that talking to Mr Denning had always been like the Legacy teas. Those tough old blokes expecting him to be a hero like his father. The way they turned away, contemptuous, when they found out he was not.

He was still no hero. That was never going to be the right word for what he was. But you did not necessarily have to be a hero, to do what had to be done.

He had noticed that Harley Savage had a way of squaring her shoulders back before she spoke and he had tried it, right there in the stuffy phonebox at the foot of the stairs in the Caledonian.

It’s about the bridge, Mr Denning, he said.

Getting your shoulders back definitely helped. Or perhaps it was thinking about Harley Savage that helped.

I think we can save it.

We, meaning whom, exactly? We: Douglas Cheeseman and the Supervising Engineer from Head Office? Douglas Cheeseman and the concerned citizens of Karakarook, NSW?

He knew who he meant. He could pretend to himself if he liked, but he knew that he knew. There was a picture in his mind, of himself and Harley Savage. He could see them, the two of them, side by side. Shoulder to shoulder. Being we.

Suddenly he was not so sure about that look she had given him, and the sound of his name in her mouth. Now that she was upon him, he had an impulse to hide. She would never find him if he ran down to his burrow under the bridge. He would hear her walking on top of him, but she would not know he was there. If he was that kind of man, he could even look up through the cracks, up her dress. If she was that kind of woman, the kind who wore that kind of dress.

She was tall and solid striding through the landscape. He was prepared to admit that she frightened him, and the way she walked was one of the things that frightened him the most. It excited him, too. She held her shoulders back hard and took long strides. It was a kind of swagger. Her feet came down hard. She was like an army marching. Nothing would stop her. She could forge on right over you, not seeing you, bearing herself along on those pulled-back shoulders.

It made the fur along his spine stand up.

He did not think she had seen him yet, dim, pale, probably invisible in his neutrals. Hiding was not out of the question.

But hiding was not a realistic option. It was a disgrace even to have thought of it. He got his shoulders squared back.

We can save the bridge, he would say. He would not beat around the bush.

Getting his shoulders squared back did not seem to be helping as much this time.

He could see the smile on her face, and it looked as though she might be humming. She still had not seen him. The dog was there beside her but it was having to trot to keep up. It looked alertly from side to side. Soon it would smell the invisible fawn-coloured man who had had shameful thoughts about hiding.

He took a meaningless step forward, snatched his hat off and used it to wave away a fly that was not there, so that she would see him. He did not want her to think he was trying to hide.

The dog saw him first, and then she saw him too. She did not stop coming on but each step was slower than the last. Her smile went through some kind of small metamorphosis.

He told himself not to rush in. Let her set the tone.

I was hoping you’d come, he blurted, as she came closer.

He blundered on, trying to remember what he had rehearsed. She was wearing a blue shirt of some coarse sort of fabric today. It definitely did something for her.

To have a chat. About the bridge.

In a bush beside the road a bird was scolding on and on. Peep peep a cheep a parp par, parp parp parp a chick chick pirrup. Another answered: Eep eep, then again eep eep.

There’s no need to knock it down, you see.

Oh?

Under the hat, her face was noncommittal.

He felt things were already getting away from him. Perhaps he should have written it all down, done a list.

The trees will still have to go, but we can use them for the corbels. Chook can work the timber. Then we’ll bolt concrete on top to keep it all dry. In modules. We’ll cast them upside-down, in sections, you see, to allow for movement.

He had a nasty feeling he was gabbling.

Because really, it’s only the corbels.

He could not remember if he had already explained to her about corbels.

As well as the lines going out from her eyes, there were curves cut into her face, like brackets, on either side of her mouth. It must be where her face creased when she smiled. He imagined it. Years and years of smiles. Hundreds and thousands of them.

She was not exactly smiling at the moment. But she was not exactly frowning, either.

The what?

He wished he was better at explaining.

They’re sort of joiners, he started.

He put one hand out, palm down, and jabbed the other up against it.

They kind of join where two beams meet on top of a pier.

He jabbed away desperately.

Look, he said suddenly, I’ll show you.

He found he had put his hand behind her upper arm. He did not know he had it in him to be so bold. The coarse blue fabric was surprisingly soft to touch. He guided her over towards the fence, surprised, too, at how she allowed him. He folded himself in half to get through the fence, hurrying so he could hold the strands apart for her, and his shirt snagged on the barbed wire, pulling free with a musical twang. It sounded ridiculous and their eyes met for a moment but neither of them smiled.

On the narrow strip of sand beside the water, they had to stand close to each other. Together they looked up into the private underparts of the bridge.

Really, it’s as strong as anything.

He slapped at one of the piers.

Not going to move any more.

He wished she would say something.

Look, he said, too loud.

He tried again, softer.

See up there? See the corbels?

He crouched and pointed up into the darkest corner.

Completely rotten. See?

Actually it was hard to see in the heavy shadow, and the flickering reflected light was confusing.

She crouched beside him and stared up at the wrong place.

He leaned in towards her so she could follow the line of his pointing arm.

See?

When he turned too quickly, with another thought about corbels, he knocked against her in the tight space so that she lost her balance and had to save herself with a hand down on the mud.

Oh! Sorry!

She ignored this.

So why are they so important? she said. These corbels.

He glanced at her, to see if she was being hostile, but she was simply waiting to hear what he would say, her face blank with concentration. She was shoulder-to-shoulder with him, their faces almost touching. He could smell something exotic coming off the coarse blue shirt. This close, he could see things he had never noticed about her before. He had a good view of her neck as she looked up. It was not young and smooth, and where the neck of the shirt was open the skin of her upper chest was crepey and spotted with brown freckles. But as he watched her staring up at the underneath of the bridge, strangely lit with rippling light, he longed to put his face into that corner where neck met chest, to feel the warmth of her, the large powerful strength of her, the way the blood moved with such eagerness in her veins.

Well, he started.

He had managed it with Mr Denning, he reminded himself. He would manage it with her, too.

They distribute the load. That’s why they’re important.

He bunched up his fingers and jabbed them against the pile beside him.

See, when you do that, well, it’s quite a load. It’s all going into that, um, small, um, area of the headstock.

He jabbed away at the pile. Little flakes of old bark drifted down.

But if you do it like this —

He opened his hand out and laid the palm flat against the wood.

Well, you’ve got more, um, surface area to distribute the load. The weight. That’s what the corbel does, takes the load and distributes it and sends it down into the piers.

He was making broad distributing-and-sending-down gestures with his hand when he became aware of her watching him. He stopped in the middle of a sending-down movement.

Sorry, he said. I’m a bit, um, obsessed.

He looked at his boots, sinking slowly into the mud.

My wife was always telling me I was a bridge bore.

She stood up, a bit at a time, cautiously, between the beams. He heard her joints cracking. She wiped her muddy hand on a pier.

Yes, she said dryly. You already said.

He bit his lip. Not only a bridge bore, but a bore about being a bridge bore.

Sorry, he muttered.

He could feel the water seeping in over the top of one of his boots.

Well, she said.

She looked up again, at where the light stippled the timbers with light and dark.

That’s okay, she said, and laughed abruptly. I interest easily.

She turned her face to him. He had not noticed before how her hazel eyes were flecked with amber when you looked closely. In fact, when you looked closely, there were many colours in her eyes, tiny flecks of a great many different kinds of brown.

The timber’s right there, he said.

He spoke straight into those flecked hazel eyes.

Plenty of timber.

His mouth was moving, but he was not really thinking about the words.

It’s only the corbels, you see.

He could not remember if he was repeating himself.

She had got closer to him. Or he had got closer to her. Either way, he was close enough now to see the pale line of the old scar on her chin, and the fan of wrinkles raying out from the corner of each eye.

The corners of her mouth were amazingly expressive. The muscular precision was remarkable. The human face. The human mouth. That little muscle, just there, that was quirking up the corner of her lips as she turned towards him.

This was simpler than that, and there did not seem to be a running commentary on it. A conversation was going on, but one that did not involve words of any kind. He was looking at her, at Harley Savage her very self, and she was looking at him. Douglas Cheeseman.

It was a joke of a name, but that was just something his parents had done to him. He himself was not a joke.

Look, she said.

There was something that had to be done, now before the wordless conversation became looking deep into each other’s eyes and was just one more thing to hide behind.

I must warn you, she said. I’ve got a dangerous streak.

He laughed. There was relief in it, as if he thought she was going to say something worse.

That’s okay, he said.

He thought for a moment.

Me too.

It was a good joke, but now it was getting close to being a performance again. Harley Savage, known for her dry wit, making someone laugh.

No, she said, the thing is.

She stopped. She had never put into words, aloud, just exactly what the thing was. She was dizzy with the fear of it, the palms of her hands suddenly sweaty. She steadied herself with a hand against one of the piers, feeling the wood silky under her palm.

I had a husband.

The words seemed large and foreign in her mouth.

He was nodding.

Yes, I had a wife.

As far as he was concerned, it just meant they had something in common.

No, she said, and it came out sharp. He stopped smiling.

The thing is, he.

She had always hidden behind the tidiness of took his own life. Behind it, you could pretend to think it had nothing to do with you.

He killed himself with his circular saw. In the shed.

She took a big quavery breath.

And he.

But she could not find the words for the letter. Dear Harley comma. She stopped. A big wad of some kind of thick woolliness was filling her throat, stopping any more words getting out. The whole of the space behind her face had swollen with this thing and was bursting through the apertures. The face could not keep it all out of sight any more.

Yes, he said, and after a moment she felt his arm around her shoulders. Yes.

He did not seem to be disgusted or frightened. He did not even seem especially surprised. Yes, he said, as if it was normal, a husband cutting his head off out in the shed. His arm around her shoulder was not being terribly sorry or offering my deepest sympathy. It was just a matter of geometry: an equal and opposite force. It was what a person needed when they could not balance by themselves any more.

Yes. Yes.

And now the dog was pushing against her leg. She could feel its tail beating steadily, backwards and forwards. It stayed pressed up hard, a big warm shape stuck to her, keeping her company while she went about the business of allowing her face to open up, letting out everything that was behind it.