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Western Australia
Friday, 10th January 1958
Out here, it’s red earth for as far as the eye can see. Overhead, the sun ploughs an unending blue sky. Under dust- green mulga, a lizard seeks shade and shadow; ants engineer heat- defying nests; kangaroos suck moisture from tender leaves, ears swivelling to locate a distant rumble: on the straight vermilion line that cleaves the sparse trees, a lone truck is approaching.
Strung along the seat of the Bedford, the three MacBride men sit, like unpacked Russian dolls. Phil’s straight, dark hair and oval face is repeated in Warren, his eldest son, and echoed in Matt, his youngest. Like peas in a pod – same story for generations. Everyone reckons even Rosie, the daughter back at the homestead, born between the brothers, is the spitting image, too. The mother, Lorna, doesn’t get a look- in. You can tell a MacBride a mile off.
Warren punched his little brother’s arm. ‘God, you come out with some bulldust!’
‘No! Sailing around the world. Discovering uninhabited islands . . .’ Matt said. ‘It’d be great!’
‘Well, unless you put in the elbow grease, the damned boat’ll be eaten by white ants, so you’d sink as soon as you hit the water,’ said their father. He gave the gearstick a shove, coaxing the truck over the coming rise. From the back, the few dozen sheep baa ’d.
The fact that the MacBrides had a boat on their sheep station might have been unremarkable if their property bordered the state’s six- thousand- mile coast. But Meredith Downs, nearly a million arid acres, is far inland, fringing into desert country in places.
‘What was the bet about again?’ Matt asked.
The discussion had begun when…
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