Glendenning drew a heavy breath. Because he was associated with the aid programs, he received all manner of misdirected communications. How many times had he not instructed the Central Registry to send such letters—of which there were hundreds each week—direct to the appropriate officer in the Fellowship Division? Tearing a sheet from the block beside him, he drafted the routine response.

Dear Sir,

Your letter of 6 March addressed to the Director-General has been passed to me for reply. I regret to inform you that, in accordance with the legislation governing our existing aid programs, applications for study grants cannot be considered by this Organization unless forwarded through the appropriate ministry of the government concerned.

Alternatively, may I direct your attention to the manual “Paths to Learning,” issued by the Research and Amplification of the Natural Sciences, Arts, and Culture Commission, an agency affiliated with this Organization, which lists fellowships and scholarships available under numerous international programs. A copy of the most recent edition of this manual (RANSAC 306/Ed.4) may be consulted in your local public library.

With good wishes for the fulfillment of your aspirations, I am

Yours sincerely,

UNCOLLECTED / UNPUBLISHED

WOOLLAHRA ROAD

Ida was supposed to be having her nap, but when she heard a horse and cart coming down the street she got off the bed and climbed on the window seat to look out. The milkman came in the morning, and it was too early in the afternoon for the baker; a cart at this hour could only mean a hawker—and, sure enough, it was a man selling clothes props. The decrepit cart was laden with saplings of eucalyptus, roughly stripped and forked at one end.

“Props for fourpence.” The horse dawdled down the road, pausing at each gate. “Props for fourpence.” Nothing moved in the street, not even a dog. The day was hot and very dry. The prim gardens, the lank gum trees were deaf, motionless. “Props for fourpence.” The cry was growing fainter.

The child, bored, went back to fetch a paint book and her doll, Rosie, from the crumpled pink coverlet. Returning to the window, she took up a crayon and did a little more work on a house she had been drawing. She added a plume of smoke to the chimney, because, although she could not remember ever having seen a smoking chimney, her picture books were full of them. Here in Australia, it seemed to have been summer all her life—breathless, burning days of drought. The pictures of smoking chimneys were like the snow scenes that arrived on cards from England each year during the Christmas heat wave—brief representations of that other, authoritative world where seasons were reversed (it was implied, correctly), and where children wore gaiters and mufflers and lived indoors.