She was so deeply unhappy that there were no words for it, no tears for it. She was empty, empty as Sydney, almost . . . and yet there was still a corner that was herself. But she must pretend happiness, or contentment at least, or she might be chained again. Life would become an even smaller space, her body weighed onto the ground. At Overflow she had at least the distant sounds of country, beyond the bleat of sheep. She knew the sky, the heartbeat of the earth, how the sky would change in the next day or the following season.

She and the perambulator reached the end of the street. It was time to turn back, for Miss Clementine had had ‘enough sun’, a concept impossible to understand.

And why should the little girl be crammed in this contraption instead of learning to use her legs properly, walking longer and longer distances each day, climbing hills and mountains, learning the best way to scramble down and not fall, and when she was tired of being carried on Rose’s back, the warm comfort of skin as well as hair to cling to, learning already what leaf tips to pick, or fruits or seeds, poked back into her mouth like leaves to a baby koala.

It hurt not to do this for the child she loved. Impossible not to love this little girl with her weird blue eyes, the pink flush on white cheeks, the hair blonde as ashes, the smile whenever she saw Rose wider than a baby snake. ‘Rose, Rose, Rose!’ she cried, the only word she used more often than ‘Mama’.

One day, thought Rose, she would teach Miss Clementine real language, name the plants, explain the world. One day, when they were back in a world that could be explained, that made sense.

She fed Miss Clementine bread and milk when they returned, the child clutching the spoon wanting to feed herself, which she was not allowed to do, for it would create a ‘mess’, a term Rose did not think could ever be explained. How could people want to stop a child using her own hands to feed herself, to be made dependent on others even to eat?

Once that was done she changed her, yet again, first of all the dirtied napkin that must be washed — had these strange people never thought of using moss or paperbark that could be left behind, or that a small girl on one’s back simply dropped a tiny mess onto the ground that was gone within a day? After being prisoned in the napkin, Miss Clementine must also have a ‘nightdress’ even though it was still day, and be put down to sleep even though she was awake and would like to play, as Rose would like to do as well.