The brilliant arcs began to widen and fade and after a few minutes both of them had gone. Lew had risen early, showered and dressed. He watched the rainbows from the kitchen window and drank tea. Ate toast and Jimmy’s cumquat jam for breakfast and looked at his watch three times before he left. The old homestead was built of local honey-coloured stone and the hardwood timber jarra-djarraly. The stones had been taken from the Daybreak Springs formations. Lime masonry cement mixed in a dry creek bed near the house. The roof was of terracotta tiles, the old Cordoba thigh tiles carted up from Fremantle docks. Took two weeks. Bullock carts then, camels too sometimes in the summer, they said. As he approached the house, he could see the wide, dark verandas with canvas deck chairs and old tables. Piles of books and the pages of abandoned newspapers lifting in the breeze. Iron filigree: circle and star, fleurs-de-lis; lathe-finished veranda posts and dressed lintels.
