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out the more insidious misdemeanors occurring in the neighbors’ bedrooms. The lawns were tightly cropped inside picket fences, knee high and glistening with fresh paint. In some gardens there were roses, in others there were pretty annuals planted, tended, uprooted, replaced by seasonal bulbs and winter blooms. There was a German woman with an eye for garden ornaments, and a Greek family with pretty daughters, and older residents; no renters, no harried huddles of housing commission residences.
    There were children, too, young boys who cruised slowly past on BMX bikes, stopping outside the heavy tangle of shrubs that made
our house like no other on the street. Sometimes they slipped off the seats of their bicycles and crouched low to peer into the gloom. I knew that they were trying to catch a glimpse of us. Sometimes they threw stones that could not penetrate the thorny tangle. Sometimes they called out names. They thought that my grandmother was a witch, or perhaps that we were some kind of religious order. They had seen the two young girls, my sister and me, hurried from the car and into the house. They knew that we were not allowed to play on the street or in the little park just around the corner. They knew that we were a crowd of women, and if they had seen my grandfather skulking in the garden at twilight they did not mention it. Their curses were always female: witches, whores, harpies, sluts.
    Inside our garden it was cooler than out there in the world. It was always dark and damp and there were special places; the branches low enough to climb on, the patches of tender leaves and the little purple violets that smelled sweet as clouds when you pressed your cheek into the leaf litter and breathed in hard.
    I was not allowed out except for when I was walked to school by my mother or when we all went out together to the shops or to the movies. Sometimes they let me walk our pet ferret on a lead, but I was always accompanied by one of the adults. There were frequent family visits to the library and rare treats, journeys to the museum or the gallery. It was a goal of sorts, but I was not bothered beyond a slight sense of regret when other kids gathered for parties or school
camp or when they talked about sleepovers, staying up all night playing games. I sensed instinctively that I would be out of place at the parties or sleepovers anyway. On camps I might spend my time alone. I read constantly, and when I was not reading or sneaking off to indulge myself in the pleasures of my newly swelling flesh, I helped the adults with their work or played games with my sister, arguing till mealtime.
    My sister was three years older than me and she had just discovered Ayn Rand. Fat American novels that helped her to bully her way into a life of self-interest and capitalism. I had become obsessed by the Russian revolution, perhaps as a direct reaction to her change of style. I changed the pecking order on the chessboard, refusing to play unless the object was to protect every last pawn, killing off the aristocracy one by one. My sister called me Commie and Pinko. There was a cold war brewing in the darkest places of our garden fortress and I suspected that her armory was better stocked than mine.

FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOUR FRIENDS
    Brisbane 2008

    I watch Christopher work and I am overwhelmed by my affection for him. He is tall and gentle-faced and when he bends to child-height there is nothing but affection as he takes the book out of the toddler’s hand and waits patiently for the release of coins from his sweaty palms.
    It is impossible to separate the urgency of this feeling from the urgency that fills me in the moments before an orgasm. It is all liquid pleasure and, dare I say it, love. I might be in love. I might be falling in love. I have somehow overstepped my vow of friendship and fallen into a place where my hard shell has dissolved. I am all soft-bodied mollusc. I am oyster and in this moment I would lay myself in