“‘But the you who you are tonight is the same you I was in love with yesterday, the same you I’ll be in love with tomorrow. I love that you’re fragile and tough, quiet and kick-ass. Hell, you’re one of the punkest girls I know, no matter who you listen to or what you wear.’”
Funny, tough-minded and tender, this is the story of Matilda and her two sisters growing up in Sydney, Australia, in the early 1950s. Their father is mentally unstable and largely absent, their mother is possibly in the thrall of his brother, and a headline-making Russian spy defection is taking place next door.
“Of course there were many children in this class that were untidy and whom I did not like. Some were tough. So tough that I was afraid of them. But at least they did not have to sit right across the aisle from me. Nor did they try to be friendly as Edith did - whenever she happened to come to school.”
“When I left I promised I’d try to help him someday, although I couln’t see how. The rope around his neck is about the biggest, toughest rope you can imagine, with so many knots it would take days to untie them all.”
“He had the dearest little red float. His rod was tough stalk of grass, his line was a fine long white horse-hair, and he tied a little wriggling worm at the end.”