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them you get a beautiful, slow flash of golden light through the whole tree. The grass on the field is thin and tough and there are bare patches of brown dirt. When someone runs across and scuffs the bare patches it kicks up a small cloud of dust that catches the sun. If enough people are running about and scuffing the bare patches, you seem to be looking through a haze of dusty light across the whole field. The knock of the bat against the cricket ball makes a good sound, dry and solid, and makes you feel good somehow because that sound means that the bat has caught the ball cleanly in the centre and the ball is racing along the ground very fast. If the ball reaches the main wall it’s worth two runs, or if it goes down under the trees it’s worth two also. It’s best when it goes down to the trees when you’re fielding and you can run down after it and hurl it back with a big throw and then stay near the trees for a minute, looking up through the leaves with the brightness and shadow of them on your face. Sometimes the ball is hit right over the wall and a screw has to unlock the gate and go outside to find it in the scrub, and while you’re waiting you can lie down on the ground, or roll a smoke, or just stroll about and think your thoughts.
    The ball’s over the wall now and we’re waiting for the screw. There’s Horse McCulloch sitting cross-legged in some long grass. He’s called Horse because he’s small and barrel-bellied like a Shetland pony and has a sandy coloured forelock. He’s talking to Geoffrey Cleary who got four years for being a peeping Tom. Geoffrey is talking about how it felt in court.
    “Were the women in the court?” Horse wants to know.
    “Yeah, they had to testify.”
    “What sort of things did they say?”
    “They told how they saw me sneaking outside the windows and stuff like that.”
    “What else?”
    “Whether I had a horn or not.”
    “Fair dinkum?” Horse is excited.
    “Yeah. The charge is more serious if you had a horn while you were looking in the window.”
    “Did you have a horn?”
    “Not every time. I had one in court though.”
    The ball has come back. Clarrie Morton is batting. Clarrie used to be a boxer in the tent shows, and his nose and ears and eyes and mouth are all bruised out of shape. His mind’s out of shape too from so many punches. Sometimes he thinks he’s a cowboy film star called Dan Bunyip with a clever white stallion named Alligator. Or that he’s Tony Palomino, a famous crooner that girls faint over. But now he’s batting and doesn’t think he’s anyone. His reflexes are all wrong and he can’t hit the ball at all. He’s getting angry and very red with effort. After he’s missed the ball ten or twelve times he grabs the bat by its blade and stares at the writing on it.
    “No wonder this bat’s no bloody good,” he yells. “It’s made of English willow!”
    “Christ, no!” says Ray Hoad. He’s shocked at the news.
    Everyone gathers around the bat to look at the writing.
    “Clarrie’s right! It’s English willow!”
    “I’ll be buggered!”
    “Shockin’!”
    “We can’t play with this!”
    “We need a proper cement bat!”
    The cry goes up for a replacement bat. A proper cement one. One of the screws pretends to run back to the ward. Everyone is shaking their heads and clicking their tongues over the worthless bat. The screw comes back to say there isn’t a cement bat to be had.
    “Well, this is a fuckin’ nice how-do-you-do!”
    “A bloody disgrace!”
    “What’ll we do?”
    “We’ll just have to use the willow bat.”
    “Yeah, s’pose so.”
    “Nothin’ else we can do.”
    So the game goes on and Clarrie is bowled out. But he doesn’t feel so bad now because everyone knows it’s the bat’s fault.

3
    “You’ve got a visitor,” a screw tells you.
    You go into the dining room, which is also the visiting room, and your mother is there. She looks towards you with her face very pale. She’s looking you up