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thought about the poetry of bus trips. Where, I wondered, was the poetry about young women with babies who must struggle onto buses (the hands-full juggle for the fare, the fold-up pram hooked over the arm, the baby spinning a web of drool over the mother’s shoulder, the lurching progress up the aisle to fall down into a juddering seat, the other passengers staring at you as if this was just what you deserved ).
    The bus wound away from the shops and through suburban Lismore. I held Hetty on my lap and we both looked out the window, swaying gently with the movement of the vehicle. I thought how dull it all was: the fast-food places clustered on Ballina Road, the timber cottages set in inevitable gardens, and yet inside me there was a spark of anticipation. At the university the bus spat us out onto the footpath. Its doors sighed loudly as they shut, and it roared away, as though pleased to be rid of us.
    The university looked like a fortress. The entrance had a boom gate and sentry box. I saw young people in cars trying to bluff their way in, attempting to drive closer to the top of the hill, but they were banished to the student car park at the bottom. Being on foot with a pram I was able to whisk past the grey-uniformed men unnoticed.
    Buildings straggled up the hill, connected by winding paths. At the foot stood the Union building, and a plaza where people sat eating and drinking in the sun. Beyond that, I found a building that said School of Contemporary Music . Because Hetty’s father Marcus was a musician, I’ve always exposed her to music in case she turns out to have an aptitude for it.
    So I went in. There were sounds that you might have called music coming from various rooms, most of it hesitant or discordant, starting and then stopping. I went down corridors where people stood in little knots talking to each other, people with dreadlocks and glamorous ragged clothing that exposed glimpses of beautiful flesh. I felt like such an outsider. Everyone around me was purposeful; they knew what they were doing; they belonged. No one else toted a baby; no one else wore a pilled cardigan over a dress that had seen far better days (though in truth, I dressed that way deliberately to show that I was above such considerations as appearance).
    I stopped to read the notices posted on the walls; most were lists of class groups. I read some of the names, trying to get a sense of the real people they must belong to. That boy over there in the long black tailcoat over torn jeans and bare feet – surely he couldn’t have one of these ordinary names – such as the Michael Hart who did drums on Tuesdays at one p.m.? I saw a beautiful girl greet him warmly; as I watched them hug (it took a long, long time and involved much caressing of her smooth bare back) I felt a pang of sorrow. No one here knew me, nor would I ever be greeted in such a way.
    I slunk away, feeling even more of an alien and an outsider. I pushed Hetty up the hill till I reached the building that said School of Arts and Humanities , which was where I had enrolled. The people there appeared to be even busier and more purposeful than the music students. I looked down at Hetty, who lolled back in her pram with her big toe in her mouth. She looked so delightfully unimpressed by her surroundings that I immediately picked her up and kissed her.
    I found the library, bought a cup of tea from the cart outside, and sat in the sun with Hetty at my breast. Self-consciously, I took Madame Bovary from my bag and read, aware that no self-respecting university student would be caught dead with such a book. I had only just begun reading it, and at that stage thought that it was entirely delicious. I loved the bit where Emma Bovary licked the last drops of wine from the bottom of a glass with her tongue.
    I finished my tea and, leaving the pram at the entrance, carried Hetty into the library. It was modern and airy and light; a stairwell in front of windows two