(But then the photograph was new, and in black and white and grey. And, although I didn’t know it, I would never see some of its faces again. Some girls were going to the High School, where they would learn Latin and French. One was going to Methodist Ladies’; Miss Monk said she ought to be glad. The rest of us went across to the Technical School, and were shown the Art Room with its water-colour cabbages, the Science Room with its bunsen burners, the Dressmaking Room with its swollen-breasted dummies. And we all sat for our Progress Certificates, and I came second. On the last day, at the last assembly I would ever stand at, after the flutes screamed madly and the fat boy beat the drum, I went out to get my prizes. I was given a certificate which entitled me to one year’s free subscription to the library by the Daisy Dell. I was given a book called Hope’s Last Chance, about a girl who played hockey, and wore fawn gloves and lisle stockings and embroidered pockets and felt hats and enamelled badges. Something like at the Tech School.)

Twenty-Five

TWENTY-FIVE

As I grew older it was easy to forget the quiet, calm place I came from. I became accustomed to a world that others said was real.

I learn my lesson well and always wipe my feet, do the homework fast and after there is skippy and hidey and chewie and hoppy and mummy but no daddy (relax, little girl — you are almost safe), and copy down the things that pink-cheek Reverend says and Bible read and pray upon the seat; sing O Rock of Ages, hide Thou me! and listen to Rev. Voight and send in a donation very anonymous. Isn’t that enough? (Not far, not far from the Kingdom, Yet in the shadow of sin; How many are coming and going! — How few there are entering in! How few there are entering in! How few there are entering in! How many are coming and going! — How few there are entering in!)

I was seduced by the smooth voices of radio announcers, the banality of soap powder jingles, the empty glamour of film-star buccaneers. I paid homage without question to a sovereign and a flag and a sunburned land that were not mine. I believed that God overlooked Adelaide as surely as Colonel Light; that he was one with the castrated angel, the apricot cathedral, the Queen and the bronze explorers, the gentleman on the horse, the marble Greeks.

I told my every thought and action to my mother in the lavatory at night. I treasured the merit card with its swallow and headmaster’s initialled sprig. I observed the Sabbath and read my Bible and gave pennies in buff envelopes to missionaries in a field. I did not steal or lie or swear — I was pure of heart and virtuous and a prig.