Even at this time of day, the port was busy: barges clustered around ships at anchor; beetle-shaped ferries plied their way towards the mainland; neon advertising signs lit up the tenements on the waterfront. It was just as I remembered and my nerves tingled in anticipation. In spite of everything that had happened, I was glad to be back. When I’d arrived in Sydney I’d lived with Papa, who’d taken extended leave to recover from internment. Our rented house in Pymble was near the Ladies’ College where I’d repeated my final year of school. The appalling conditions in Stanley towards the end had meant that I hadn’t been able to concentrate on my studies. After that first Christmas in Australia, I became a weekly boarder. Papa was soon his old self; he’d joined a golf club where he spent the days putting about on the greens or socialising in the bar, knocking back the whisky sodas, and smoking his pipe as much as before the war.
