Paris, December 1948

Grace Woods danced out of the Paris Metro with a buoyant step and visions of an enticing future whirling through her mind.

‘Oh!’ she gasped. Having been in Paris for just three days, she still found the icy air a shock — Grace had never felt its knife-like penetration in Australia.

Home signified heat and a pure, brilliant light; lofty cobalt skies; the sharp, sweet smell of eucalypts; the shrill cries of milky cockatoos, vibrant rosellas and rainbow-coloured lorikeets. Here, on wintry avenue Montaigne, everything she gazed upon — the charming townhouses, the bare trees, the boutiques and cafés — was veiled by a pearly luminescence as captivating as it was strange.

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