And gosh, of course we have the money. That is no problem at all.

Send her send her send her.

Signing out now,

Your sister, Veda x

† † †

24 JAN 1969

Dear Tilde,

This morning the first thing I noticed upon waking was a very odd aroma of citrus fruit. It was all through the house, the smell of leaves from a lime plant, or a lemon-scented gum on Pound Road. The whole house.

I wondered where on earth it came from. It wasn’t from outside. When I opened the window, there was no citrus scent. I began to think I dreamt it, though I don’t believe I’ve ever had a dream with a smell so real before, or even a smell at all come to think of it.

For a moment, I felt taken right back to childhood. Amazing that a smell can do that. I felt young again and hopeful, like the whole world was opening out, that I had all the time I needed, that there were hundreds of long slow days before me. Do you know what I mean? Do you know that feeling? Lying on the grass with a book for hours like we used to, or swimming in the creek all day, or hauling a picnic basket to the paddock for long lunches and chapters read out loud from novels. And Jane in a little bumpy wobbly pram or clutching your back and complaining in the heat. It seems both like yesterday and like a million years ago. I remember reading to you from poems I was writing. And you were all the while spotting animals, and birds, and plants whose names you were learning from books.

Sometimes I feel like everything exists side by side, Tilde. I’m still the same girl, you know, I feel very close to her, ten-year-old me, with all her hopes and vain loves.

It’s very quick, in the end: childhood. When you’re in it, it goes on forever and ever. It’s only when you are a mother that you realise how fleeting it is. And how quickly Life comes along, with its curbs on playfulness and lassitude—for you need lassitude to have playfulness, it cannot be otherwise. Life comes down upon us and turns us into a reflection of our choices.

Anyway, taking the scent of citrus as a message from an unknown source, I have taken stock of myself and washed my hair today after a long period of stubborn neglect. I have no patience for the other business of hair anymore, the rollers and styling etcetera, but the washing itself—I am not averse. My hair now smells better than the rest of me, is almost as soft as Owen’s, which I describe as ‘gossamer’ to anyone who listens. Mine of course is turning grey, and with greyness comes a brittle quality—it kinks and won’t obey me.