The day passed, and another night; we went back to the city, and my grandmother looked different after two days’ absence. At the end of the year I was presented with an Enid Blyton book as the most improved Junior.

When the new year came I remembered my box (toadstools, an empty snail-shell, ivy leaves that looked like stars, pebbles that were cool against my cheek, some wattle, gum leaves with holes, a feather) and did not go again.

TWENTY-ONE

MRS. Newton, at the end of Rose Street, was important for a summer. She had a mulberry-tree in her garden; Carol and I had silkworms. Each day after school we lifted the latch on the gate, followed the winding path to the tree, climbed its twisted branches. Mrs. Newton was a widow; she cried when she thought of her husband. We saw her, through the heart-shaped leaves, weeping like a little wise monkey; stick-fingers shielding her eyes.

We came home with the leaves and exchanged them for old ones nibbled away. There was the smell of savoury greenness; our fingers parried gently with pale silkworm flesh. One day we found our worms become crooked shadows — brides in veils of silk. Then the cones grew opaque; we stopped gathering leaves. Mrs. Newton and her tears were forgotten.

I was anxious to see what would happen next, but I had to forfeit my box. I was going away for my first holiday with my grandmother, my mother, and Reece.

We were going past the trees at the end of the street, the parklands and spires of the city; past Glenelg and the gum-tree, the Cove Roads and Ocean Boulevards of Marino, to Port Noarlunga.

Tinker was sent to a dogs’ home, and my cardboard box was put on the roof. I left the lid off so the moths could fly away.

We waited at the bus station with our cases, and I heard a wireless play a song about a little organ-grinder with a monkey on a stick. And the chorus mocked saucily: ‘Oh mumma-mia, a monkey on a stick.’

We drove past the almond orchards of Marion and crossed the Sturt River, climbed O’Halloran Hill and saw the Happy Valley reservoir. We passed the churches and vineyards of Reynella and a house with an iron roof that hurt my eyes and candle pines cut into roosters and peacocks. Then I saw sand-hills, and the loops of the Onkaparinga River, and blueness that stretched for ever.

We got off and walked up the hill and there were bushes spotted with strange red insects and a house called Western Glen. We had three rooms on the first floor. We shared a bathroom with the other guests, and my mother told me not to stand on the wooden mat as I might get foot disease.

Soon the days exactly the same dissolved into one long day.

We walk down the steps and round the side, past the entwined bushes of old man and old woman. We carry a beach-umbrella and a rug, raffia baskets and towels, a rubber ball and a thermos. The sun falls boldly on my city body; I am aware of my white skin, the thinness of my legs, the veins that nestle inside my elbows. Nan’s linen bodice swings rhythmically under its rows of pin-tucks and pearly buttons. Reece clasps her hand and trots stiffly, wearing her public expression and print frock, her face an ugly shade of plum, her eyes sulky under the brim of her hat. My mother disengages herself, and lags a pace or two behind, the Kodak camera round her neck.