(We go for a hike, and pass houses with rhododendron drives and columns. I see pears hanging to ripen from the rafters of a verandah, foxgloves, a notice that says: plums toms kidney beans victorias for sale. We pass trees full of apples, black and white cows, sunshades fallen on the lawns of a hotel. I see sheets hung to dry amongst dahlias, trees that look like umbrellas … We cook our food over a fire and buy black currant éclairs at a shop. I think we must have walked miles, and my sock keeps slipping under my heel. I go behind a bush to wee; get stung by nettles — do it on my shoe. It begins to rain again, and we get soaked. I am conscious of how dirty we look, of our mud-stained shoes, our unruly hair, the way people in cars stare as they pass … We walk back through the hills that are wet and dark; all the time I miss my mother and grandmother, Tinker and Reece … I feel hurt by the talk and laughter of the others; the way they tramp uncaring through the grass — ignoring the orchids, the curly rims of the geraniums, the sweet-scented fluff of the thorn … My face feels strained from trying to smile — it is a mummy-face wrapped in gauze. My smile grows stiffer; at last it disappears … I plod on; comfort myself by remembering that tomorrow I will be home … Yet even as I do, I wonder why it should be that once I leave the Rose Street world, I am no longer me.)

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

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.