The bosomy woman in her floral frock and shiny shoes  dandles her grand-daughter for somebody’s camera. The baby, swathed head-to-toe in hand-knitted white wool, looks astonished to be perched on the lush curly back of a golden retriever. The dog stares sphinx-like and, behind,  the long lawn unrolls its stripes in the sun, like bolts of silk. Now, that land’s awash with feathery grass, the dog’s grave’s  long-lost, along with its name and that of its owner. The woman  writing this, with untidy hair and bare feet, has no one now to record her life free from ties of children,…