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.

We walk along the road past the boarding-houses and the chalky cliffs laced with grass. Below us is the sea. Above our heads gulls circle ceaselessly; shiny bull-ants scamper at our feet. We climb jerkily down the slope, past the crooked pines and the shelter shed where yesterday my mother and I read True Confessions in the rain. We take our shoes off, for we have reached the sand, and I am conscious that the man lying on his stomach with the peeled skin map on his back has turned his head to look at Reece.