Clementine also contends with the cruelty of schoolteachers and the mediocre expectations of her parents in a town where wanting to go to university is considered ‘posh’. She writes to Fan, but never hears back. After an illness, Clementine is suddenly sent back to Lake Conapaira to recuperate. Things are different there now; Fan’s mother has lost that blackly dangerous edge and the strap no longer hangs ominously in the kitchen. Fan’s miyan has disappeared; she feels his loss keenly. Five years later, Fan is still Fan, but now she is chasing after boys. Once Clementine returns home, the girls’ friendship lapses again – Clementine gradually stops writing when she hears nothing back from Fan. In a letter from Fan’s mother, Clementine discovers that her fifteen-year-old cousin has married a local boy and will soon become a mother.

Trapped in a loveless marriage with a second baby, Fan’s life spirals into monotony and depression. After visiting her faded friend, Clementine always means to write again, but can’t think of anything to say. Fan rallies against her situation, but even small pleasures such as a book of poetry from the library are denied her. In desperation, Fan finally travels to the Blue Mountains, her childhood symbol of happiness.

Judith Clarke’s writing shines in this sad and beautiful novel. This is not a book to be read hurriedly; every page contains something worth savouring. Fan’s laughter seems ‘to fly upwards, like drops of bright water flung into the air’. Morning light is as ‘thin and grey as the gruel fed to orphans in fairy stories’. In Fan’s house, ‘the anger smelled like iron and the disappointment smelled like mud’. These evocative phrases occur at just the right intervals – as with a dégustation, the reader receives beautiful little ‘tastes’ but doesn’t come away feeling overfed.

Though The Winds of Heaven is less racial in focus, its themes of sisterhood, small-mindedness and the harshness of circumstance are reminiscent of Julia Lawrinson’s Bye, Beautiful (2006); Clementine and Fan are broadly similar to Lawrinson’s Sandy and Marianne. As in Bye, Beautiful, the women are often burdened with the realities of life. ‘Would it have been different if Fan had grown up in the city, instead of far away at Lake Conapaira? Or if she’d had a different family? If she’d married someone else instead of Gary? If things had gone better at school? If the old black man hadn’t gone away?’

Clarke’s story spans more than fifty years. While bookending the past-tense 1950s–1960s chapters with present-tense, present-day sections initially seemed unnecessary, they do carry a special resonance and purpose. As Clementine echoes Fan’s loving words about her children, we are left with a sense of hope for future generations. It is an uplifting finale that enhances this finely written novel.