I did not acknowledge the blight during the day when I was the one who trod the Rose Street path to school, who played under the pepper-trees and stood before the flag. I did not acknowledge it in the evening — lulled by the firelight and Tinker’s snores and Reece’s knitting, in the room lit with the brighter day of electric light. But when I stepped outside the enchanted circle, and entered the night of the garden, it was different.

The familiar screen which shielded me from recognition of that other world, that I saw only as a shadow picture, was gone. Cryptic messages wafted to me from all sides in all seasons: the dark green perfume of rosemary scented my fingers and clung to my skirts as I passed the hedge, the prunus-tree stuck with red paper blossoms rustled, oranges glowed through closed-in cloud; the Easter daisies fluttered, the climbing geraniums winked, lilies stared.

All about me was a wild world that broke through the symmetry of prim brick borders, neat vegetable rows, tortured roses. With the night, rats wove between the creepers on the fences that divided the yards. With winter, the galvanized iron sheds were lapped by sour-sobs and grass; the houses became Noah’s arks, bobbing in a swollen sea.

I watched it all, and it was in the wild night garden that I discovered I did not fit into the snug electric world as others did — as they thought they did. I discovered I was different, yet I did not know where the real world lay (I was still too blinkered to know its face; I was not yet simple enough to know that it dwelt inside me, waiting to be reclaimed).

And because of this night-time half-knowledge, I tried doubly to re-enter the other circle — to be the same. I formulated long, intricate ceremonies. If I could, I would have climbed Rome’s sixty-five holy steps on bended knee; as I could not, I compromised with prayers said kneeling beside my bed. I did my homework, accomplishing the hated arithmetic first; I collected the sacred images of the film star buccaneers. I submitted to home-perm afternoons and intricacies of snail-curls. I looked the same as all the other girls (shortie coat, pleated pinafore, tartan shirt like a cowboy). I conformed (gold heart on chain, autograph album, stocking-cap for Torrens, yo-yo, scooter, Malvern Star bike).

My masquerade almost succeeded.

It was spoilt by its very success.

I did not know there was a secret rule to the game I played so well (you must not believe). I did not realize that those fabled others who formulated those rules I kept too well were perplexed by my passion, confused by my too thorough conversion.