We lit a fire under the quince — it recalled that other fire that ushered the baker’s death. Sparks wreathed the tree — there were no tart fruits, no blotting-paper stars. My grandmother’s skin smelt of ash. (And I will dream of quince-trees and fire twenty years later, when ice-flowers bloom at the window in a white city pelted by whiteness all night long.)

What we did not burn was thrown in the well. The fairies who stared disappeared with rusted tin and three marble nymphs that sank dully.

On the last day, when I ventured once more into the garden that was not a garden, death was all about: as a mouse — its paws drawn stiffly, its fur damp with rain; at my foot, as a one-winged blowfly stumbled; beside the plant I would not see blossom at its next seventh year; rotting leaves, abandoned snail-shells, a bone.

Imprint page

First published 1973

Published 1993 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
Reprinted 1998, 2014

© Jonathan Steele 1973, 1993

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproducted by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

Typeset by University of Queensland Press

Cataloguing in Publication Data

National Library of Australia

Hanrahan, Barbara, 1939–1991.

The scent of eucalyptus.

I. Hanrahan, Barbara, 1939–1991 — Fiction. I. Title.

A823.3

ISBN 9780702225161 (pbk)
ISBN 9780702260643 (pdf)
ISBN 9780702260650 (epub)
ISBN 9780702260667 (kindle)