"After hearing the war reported like sports commentary between gardenias and kittens on the radio, Boynton retreated to an empty large park in an unfashionable suburb, where the unfashionable pines are getting removed by the reconstructed creek, and the vistas are getting landscaped – and on opposing open hills these are quite beautiful. Bare. And barely anyone there. It was partly nostalgia for the kind of remnant bush and exotic dotted ex-orchard country of her outer-suburban childhood, with the strong, wet smell of pine needles, and the brick villas always on the fringes of the frame. Nostalgia because neither landmarks nor family are to be found out there anymore, sentimental because yesterday boynton saw a low cream brick fence of the fifties and lamented a lost world."

Boynton, I never knew...