9
THE CAR HIT A PAVED ROAD with neat rows of bushes along the sides. It was a kind of absurd scene: African scrub seen from over the top of a garden hedge.
Then the scene opened up for an immaculate lawn—a golf course, I realised—with a creek through the lowest point. The grass was blindingly green, standing out against the surrounding countryside, brown and leafless because of the season.
A man on a ride-on mower moved over the grass.
The road wound around the golf course, past a lake with a variety of water birds.
The house came into view when we crested the hill on the other side of the golf course. It was a low, spreading affair, with wide verandas and French doors that opened onto them, surrounded by a flower garden and immaculate lawn. It lay on a hilltop with a view of the low
