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We’re taking her out to Dungalear station.”
    â€œHey Shirl,” yells Reggie. A woman appears from an adjacent kitchen, her hands clasping the hem of her floral dress.
    â€œYeah? Wha’cha hollerin’ for?”
    â€œGranny’s out front. Henry and Bob Boney’re takin’ her outta the hospital for the day.” Shirl leaves the room followed by three other dark, large-bellied women with thin, stick-like legs. They all acknowledge Henry as they pass and he flirts confidently back at them.
    â€œSo do you think they’ll let you onto Dungalear?” asks Reggie. His eyes are dimmed from working in the mines. His liquorice skin is creased and his pale fingers, which are never far from his face, are twisted and gnarled.
    â€œDunno. Guess we’ll find out when we get there.”
    The old men smile between themselves as Henry speaks.
    â€œGood luck,” replies Tom. His glasses move against his face as he grins. He strokes his white beard with obvious mirth.
    â€œSay, did you hear about Reggie’s nephew? Tell him the story Reggie.”
    Reggie shuffles in his chair and straightens his back.
    I return to the car. Granny is sitting with her door open, holding court with Shirl and the other women. They are discussing the nursing staff at the hospital. I sit silently, my irritation gnawing at me, sweat forming on my forehead as the temperature in the car builds. The circle of men and the circle of women are deeply engrossed in conversation and I have the sinking feeling that I’m not going anywhere for a while. I think of my carefully laid out piles of paperwork on the hotel-room floor. I sigh as the clock counts off another hour.
    The car slides noiselessly along the road as it leaves the huddle of houses at the edge of the town. The two cousins in the front seat are talking about Reggie’s nephew.
    â€œSometimes kids are just born bad,” says Dad.
    â€œSometimes there’s reasons,” replies Uncle Henry.
    â€œSometimes not,” Dad answers.
    Granny looks out the window as the landscape melts beside the car. She seems to be looking beyond the pastures, fences and houses. I imagine that she can see silhouettes of almost forgotten faces imposed on the curves of the road and long-gone bodies pressed into the branches of trees. I watch her and imagine that the landscape must sing to her with memories — joyful and secret, sinister and sacred.
    I sit in the middle of the back seat but the car is large enough for me not to feel cramped. I ignore the Bob and Henry Show, as I call it when the two cousins bicker like schoolboys or old women. I look at Danielle, who was the cause of our visit to the Foundation, her strong jaw-line, a defiant chin and thick black hair plaited and pulled back from her face. She is slightly darker than me and without my too-thin European features. I wonder if anyone seeing us side by side would guess we are related, albeit distantly.
    As the car passes an old church surrounded by gravestones, Danielle observes, “A cemetery is not a nice place to end up, but if you want to meet God that’s the way to go.”
    â€œI’m not in a great hurry to get there myself,” I reply.
    â€œDo you believe in God?” Danielle asks me.
    â€œSort of. I mean, I believe in something. Some force. But I do not believe in churches.” I hate questions about God and spirituality. I’ve no comfort with things I cannot articulate.
    â€œMe neither. Reverend Phillips — he’s the local Reverend — he comes to the Foundation. He tells me that if I’m smart I’d go to church.” Danielle rolls her eyes. “But the older folks seem to like him.”
    The loyalty to or defense of the church that the older people express puzzles me. The churches were a destructive force that caused irreparable damage to Aboriginal culture through their attempts to Christianise ’the heathens’. Yet even my