We followed it, anyway, until we reached the University of Western Australia, another demi-paradise for ingrate Australian academics not to take the full measure of their extreme good fortune in. I had heard that the university was beautifully situated, amidst tropical gardens and sunken outdoor theatres around which peacocks strutted; but I was still taken aback by the sumptuousness of what I saw. On the lawn in the front of Winthrop Hall – yet one more testimony to Perth’s Moorish/Tuscan origins – twelve golden Australian youths in judo outfits were bowing courteously, if somewhat indiscriminately, prior to settling down to throwing one another about. Their ceremonial costumes, against the dense jungle green of the lawn, glowed a ghostly white. At the furthest end of the lawn, beneath the Winthrop Tower, a bust of Socrates, resembling an early Australian explorer, looked on imperturbably, musing on truth. Three abstract sculptures in pastel colours, presumably meant to suggest sea life or sea monstrosity, rose from an ornamental pool.

We sat on a bench, Ros remembering how, as a girl inside that very hall, she had given her first public recital on the pianoforte, and I wishing that I were a student again, here, now, in this garden of the Hesperides.

Suddenly, and absolutely soundlessly, a couple of authentic Japanese in white suits materialized from the cool shelter of Winthrop’s Spanish cloisters and stood transfixed by the sight of the twelve Australian forgeries still exchanging elaborate courtesies on the lawn. I watched the two men scratch their heads and shrug in unison. Without any other communication each took a camera from his pocket and snapped. For the first time it occurred to me that the camera was not necessarily the mere means for the avid accumulation of second-hand experience but might actually serve as a mediator between the photographer and philosophical bemusement. Understood from this angle it is not surprising that the Japanese are the most tireless of photographers. Maybe between the opening and closing of the shutter and the final development of the negative, something will come clear about occidental culture.

I didn’t hold out much hope for them in this instance. Here on the lawn in front of Winthrop Hall (named after Sir John Winthrop Hackett) I was myself feeling increasingly like a phantom bit-part player in a surrealist film, a sensation not at all diminished when our second Easter bride of the day came running out from the abundant foliage of the adjoining quadrangle, pursued across the grass by two Tongan bridesmaids in pink organza Gone with the Wind ball gowns. Not having a camera I looked up to the heavens for help but there I saw only a pelican, fat, white and happy, gliding on warm currents of air.