I heard her stamping about and muttering to herself: “I got some, now where did I put that bottle? … It’s behind the pickles … no, it ain’t.” I cleared a place on the table and sat there, swinging my legs. Down in the paddock I could hear Jo singing and the sound of hammer strokes as Hin drove in the tent pegs. It was sunset. There is no twilight to our New Zealand days, but a curious half-hour when everything appears grotesque — it frightens — as though the savage spirit of the country walked abroad and sneered at what it saw. Sitting alone in the hideous room I grew afraid. The woman next door was a long time finding that stuff. What was she doing in there? Once I thought I heard her bang her hands down on the counter, and once she half moaned, turning it into a cough and clearing her throat. I wanted to shout “Buck up,” but I kept silent.

“Good Lord, what a life!” I thought. “Imagine being here day in, day out, with that rat of a child and a mangy dog. Imagine bothering about ironing — mad, of course she’s mad! Wonder how long she’s been here — wonder if I could get her to talk.”

At that moment she poked her head round the door.

“Wot was it yer wanted?” she asked.

“Embrocation.”

“Oh, I forgot. I got it, it was in front of the pickle jars.”

She handed me the bottle.

“My, you do look tired, you do! Shall I knock yer up a few scones for supper! There’s some tongue in the store, too, and I’ll cook yer a cabbage if you fancy it.”

“Right-o.” I smiled at her. “Come down to the paddock and bring the kid for tea.”

She shook her head, pursing up her mouth.

“Oh no. I don’t fancy it. I’ll send the kid down with the things and a billy of milk. Shall I knock up a few extry scones to take with yer ter-morrow?”

“Thanks.”

She came and stood by the door.

“How old is the kid?”

“Six — come next Christmas. I ’ad a bit of trouble with ’er one way an’ another. I ’adn’t any milk till a month after she was born and she sickened like a cow.”

“She’s not like you — takes after her father?” Just as the woman had shouted her refusal at us before, she shouted at me then.

“No, she don’t; she’s the dead spit of me. Any fool could see that. Come on in now, Els, you stop messing in the dirt.”

I met Jo climbing over the paddock fence.

“What’s the old bitch got in the store?” he asked.

“Don’t know — didn’t look.”

“Well, of all the fools. Hin’s slanging you. What have you been doing all the time?”

“She couldn’t find this stuff. Oh, my shakes, you are smart!”

Jo had washed, combed his wet hair in a line across his forehead, and buttoned a coat over his shirt. He grinned.

Hin snatched the embrocation from me. I went to the end of the paddock where the willows grew and bathed in the creek. The water was clear and soft as oil. Along the edges held by the grass and rushes, white foam tumbled and bubbled. I lay in the water and looked up at the trees that were still a moment, then quivered lightly, and again were still. The air smelt of rain. I forgot about the woman and the kid until I came back to the tent. Hin lay by the fire watching the billy boil.

I asked where Jo was and if the kid had brought our supper.

“Pooh,” said Hin, rolling over and looking up at the sky.