When they came to Australia from Sri Lanka, his mother, the doctor whose qualifications weren’t recognised here, became someone her friends wouldn’t recognise anywhere. His mother, the doctor who never wore makeup, took to summer’s white heat in Perth’s baking, bleached suburbs to sell cosmetics door to door. He was too young to be anywhere other than by her side, so, with a button-down shirt tucked into polyester shorts and leather-look shoes on his feet, he walked alongside her. From one white family’s front door to the next.

Her customers lived two bus rides away, sometimes three. Three was better. The farther they were from home, the nicer the day would be, the greener the lawns, the more shade across the footpaths. Once (and it only happened once) selling took them four bus rides from home. Balconies bulged from two-storey homes, driveways climbed in curves, backyard pools threw shimmering shapes onto eaves. He imagined they were visiting palace after glittering palace, messengers from a faraway kingdom.