24/9/99: a quickening.

TODAY, on either side of the cycle path, have appeared irregular tapestries of everlasting daisies, phosphorescent yellow against the green of the new grass. Mothers with strollers pause on the pavements, less to chat than to present themselves like jonquils to the vernal sunlight. A man from the council has arrived in his truck to water the Manchurian pear trees that were planted a few days ago as replacements for Mulga Street's decrepit elders. The park's plum trees have now lost their papery pink blossom in favour of claret foliage, though the low crabapple trees beside the little bridge over the stormwater drain resemble six frothy ballet dresses. The bees go from flower to flower like so many lobbyists at a parliamentary lawn party.

And beneath the stringybarks near the children's playground there is parked a flash white car--a vintage Wolseley perhaps--with interstate numberplates. A girl in a long skirt and a short vest is arched backward across the bonnet of this vehicle. Her arms and her stomach are pale and she has radiated her long dark hair in a fan around her face. Between her legs there is a burly man, tanned, with buzz-cut hair, sunglasses, a white smock and dark trousers. He is moving gently from side to side, not thrusting ...