Liz Taylor

One of my earliest memories is being trapped by an uncomfortably safe seatbelt into the back of a 1980s-hot family van and seeing a gigantic swimming pool come into view. This pool emerged, mirage-like, from a hazy horizon of eucalyptus trees and melting bitumen. I don’t remember first seeing the ocean, but I remember thinking the water at this place was similarly vast. Decades later, trying to place this vivid but untethered memory, I’m almost certain this was the Raymond West swimming pool – or swimming lake – in Shepparton, northern Victoria.