“Yes, I think so.”
“But he doesn’t. He flips. He can’t handle it and that sets Ross off.”
“All right, that’s a lot of how. Now, who was Ross’ father?”
“Bryn,” I said.
I sat on the bed and Ailsa rested her head against my thigh and we watched the day dying slowly outside the open window. An ascending jet littered the sky with dirty brown smoke, its boom drowned out something Ailsa murmured and I stroked her hair in reply. Maybe she was thinking about Mark Gutteridge, maybe about the children she’d never have. I was thinking about raw, haunted people who twanged the nerves of everyone they touched—like Bryn, like Haines, like Cyn. They couldn’t sloop along in the shallows where the water was warm and the breeze soft, they had to jut up into spray and icy winds with their secrets for sails and the rocks dead ahead.
For reading group notes visit textclassics.com.au
The Commandant
Jessica Anderson
Introduced by Carmen Callil
Homesickness
Murray Bail
Introduced by Peter Conrad
Sydney Bridge Upside Down
David Ballantyne
Introduced by Kate De Goldi
A Difficult Young Man
Martin Boyd
Introduced by Sonya Hartnett
The Australian Ugliness
Robin Boyd
Introduced by Christos Tsiolkas
The Even More Complete
Book of Australian Verse
John Clarke
Introduced by John Clarke
Diary of a Bad Year
Introduced by Peter Goldsworthy
Wake in Fright
Kenneth Cook
Introduced by Peter Temple
The Dying Trade
Peter Corris
Introduced by Charles Waterstreet
They’re a Weird Mob
Nino Culotta
Introduced by Jacinta Tynan
Careful, He Might Hear You
Sumner Locke Elliott
Introduced by Robyn Nevin
Terra Australis
Matthew Flinders
Introduced by Tim Flannery
My Brilliant Career
Miles Franklin
Introduced by Jennifer Byrne
Cosmo Cosmolino
Helen Garner
Introduced by Ramona Koval
Dark Places
Kate Grenville
Introduced by Louise Adler
Elizabeth Harrower
Introduced by Joan London
The Mystery of
a Hansom Cab
Fergus Hume
Introduced by Simon Caterson
The Glass Canoe
David Ireland
Introduced by Nicolas Rothwell
The Jerilderie Letter
Ned Kelly
Introduced by Alex McDermott
Bring Larks and Heroes
Thomas Keneally
Introduced by Geordie Williamson
Strine
Afferbeck Lauder
Introduced by John Clarke
Stiff
Shane Maloney
Introduced by Lindsay Tanner
The Middle Parts of Fortune
Frederic Manning
Introduced by Simon Caterson
The Scarecrow
Introduced by Craig Sherborne
The Dig Tree
Sarah Murgatroyd
Introduced by Geoffrey Blainey
The Plains
Gerald Murnane
Introduced by Wayne Macauley
The Fortunes of
Richard Mahony
Henry Handel Richardson
Introduced by Peter Craven
The Women in Black
Madeleine St John
Introduced by Bruce Beresford
An Iron Rose
Peter Temple
Introduced by Les Carlyon
1788
Watkin Tench
Introduced by Tim Flannery