As my grandmother rubbed me dry, the stout woman stirred; brushed away the dried sand that looked like bread-crumbs; surveyed my chest with interest. I felt unaccountably ashamed and hurried on with my clothes, remembering another outing to another beach, when I wriggled from my bathers in the room that smelt, and saw the ugly woman — all oily skin and bell-shaped breasts. And shuddered; tried to forget.

Dressed again, I tucked my skirt into my bloomers and paced the sands; was scolded when I forgot my bonnet. I played with strange children and asked them to be my friends, I dug for water and found instead shells like the moons on my finger-nails — prised them apart, and discovered wedges of pearly jelly. Nan called me: we ate tomato sandwiches sprinkled with sand; I sucked at an orange, she sighed for a cup of tea.

(The tide comes in, the families depart — seagull scavengers take their place. The sea lingers on the deserted sands, slowly creeping towards the caves under the Esplanade. It sucks away one by one the sand castles stuck with cockles and Venus shells. It gorges itself on silver-paper, orange peel and newspapers; leaving in their stead pebbles veined with marble, driftwood, an old boot, sausages of jelly-fish, sea-gooseberries and dead men’s fingers.)

It was time to go back to the tram stop. I dragged my feet as we shuffled through the sand behind the blurred voices of anonymous others. I grasped my bucket of shells and felt sad as the whisper of the ruffled sea grew fainter. We left Peter Pan’s Playground, now ablaze like some lurid Hell. We left the criss-cross jetty and the line of lamp-posts, each topped already with a rosy moon. We left the dolphins’ mouths and the old-age pensioners, Madame Alicia and Gipsy Rosalee. And I felt sad.

I felt better when we reached the stop, for I saw we stood outside the house I remembered from the year before, with a garden that merged in stained glass fuzziness. On a stone toadstool, beside a gnome and a windmill with motionless sails, a petrified girl proffered frozen roses.

I was admiring her when the tram arrived.

I forgot her and the sea and everything else as I sank into the seat. And fell asleep.

FOURTEEN

Aunt Poll and Uncle Will lived in the hills.

I remember rising while it was still dark to visit them; dressing, half asleep, in the warm kitchen; gazing through the early-morning twilight at the moon; watching the sky turn pale and frayed with light; seeing houses jump forward from the darkness; hearing the cold voices of first roosters, the kookaburra’s ruffled peal.

The moon was a smudge when we got to Victoria Square; the sky was streaked with sun. Little buses waited, and seemingly at random, my grandmother chose one; we clambered on, and the other buses became unimportant — they waited for those whose destinations were not ours. Yet I deciphered their chalky markings; learned that there were names that were not Houghton that made the hills spring near.