Month: March 2022

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to see the planets – Episode 44

Back on the alien vessel

…

I was surprised the alien captain was not getting impatient with the way this matter was dragging on. 

If this was back on earth and we were dealing with an alien incursion, there would be a lot of shooting by short-tempered small-minded fools who only knew one way of dealing with seemingly insurmountable problems.

In that regard, these aliens were better than us, and I had to wonder if they were dealing with this problem in a manner we would understand, and if that was the case, what would have happened if my ship had not made a timely, or untimely, arrival.

It also begged the question of how either of us could move forward from this point, because the only logical outcome was to hand back the criminals.

I wonder what Nancy was thinking, the fate of diplomatic relations, if they were possible after this, in her hands.

There was also a question of what the Russian captain had been promised in return for trying to save them.  It would have to be significant for him to put his vessel and its crew on the line.

I looked at the Russian Captain, not looking very comfortable, on the end of a weapon he clearly knew could kill him, or worse.

“What did they promise you?”

His mouth moved, an indication to me he was going to say they didn’t, which to me meant that it was not something he wanted to talk about in front of the Aliens.

The alien answered for him.  “Technology, perhaps our secret weapons, the criminals are all people who have worked with or worked on some of our most secret projects.”

Which begged the question, what did they do wrong that they were labelled criminals.

Perhaps the alien could read my mind because he added, “and who had used that technology illegally, or tried to sell it to our enemies.”

So, a new piece of information; the alien has enemies.  It raised another question, what if we had met their enemies first?

“Sir.”  Number one had come back online, hopefully from the location if the so-called criminals.

“What the situation?”

“I’ve spoken to a chap named Midava, who seems to be the spokesperson for a group of seven I can see.  Firstly, they are different from the captain of the vessel you are currently on.  He tells me, and several of his colleagues are from a different world, as are others, who were recruited to work on advanced technology.  It seems their home planets are far more advanced than the captains.”

“OK.  Just hold it there for a minute.”  I looked over at the Captain.  His expression hadn’t changed, but he had been listening intently.

“Would you like to explain your planets existence among what it seems to me, a galaxy of other civilisations.”

“We are just part of a much larger galaxy, yes, though I would question our level of development in their eyes “

“So, these so-called criminals are from different worlds?”

“We do not discriminate, as some others do.”

There was no acrimony or anger in his tone.  He was relating information, and answers to my questions, from their perspective.  I realized that I could not judge these people in the same terms as I would one of my own people, and that was going to be the hardest problem we were going to have in dealing big with new people

Quite simply, they were not us.

And, equally, we had no right to judge them according to our rules.

“Sir.”  Number one again. 

“Yes?”

“Midava tells me they are being held against their will simply because they want to go home.  Apparently, their hosts do not want their homelands to know their level of technology improvement.  I think you can understand the implication.”

I could.  “Thank you, number one.”

“It’s all a matter of perspective,” the alien captain said.  “Other worlds, like other countries on your planet, group together in what you call blocs.  They are more technologically advanced, so they deigned to ignore us, and it has taken a long time for us to become as advanced.  Those people came to us and said they wanted to help us, without the knowledge of their leaders, because it was unjust.  We willingly accepted it and for years the association was mutually beneficial, they got the recognition they would not get on their homeworlds, and we got the technology.  This ship is one of the benefits, along with its weapons.  When they wanted to go home, their work, they said, was done, and they wanted to see their families, the high council decided against it, for security reasons, and when they tried to escape, they were detained.  You would call it political expediency.”

“But in an enlightened and just society such as yours, don’t you think that is wrong to deny them.  I suspect as you might give a bit more thought to the matter, that telling their homeworlds what they’d done would most like condemn them to death, so I’m sure telling anyone anything about their time with you was the last thing on their minds.  It’s food for thought.  However, since is not my objective to interfere in your sovereign right to dispense justice in accordance with your laws, I will have the prisoners returned to you.”

“You can’t do that,” the Russian captain said.

“I can, and you will.  There are far larger implications in play and if necessary, I will enforce our laws upon you, which will, if the Captain desires, hand you over as well.  I suggest, to avoid trouble you give the necessary orders to your crew forthwith.”

To the alien captain, “I expected as a courtesy that you, myself, and the leader of these so-called criminals sit down and have a discussion about their options.”

“I will need to deal with the high council.”

“Then do so now, before we make any arrangements.  And release my fellow captain.  Using force will not give what you want, and sets a bad precedent if you seek to have any sort of relationship with us.”

A nod from the alien captain to his subordinate, and she let him go, and it was hard to tell if she was upset or not.

Both then disappeared, leaving us alone on an empty bridge, if that was what it was.

“You do realize what will happen to them when he gets them back,” the Russian captain said.

“That’s not our problem.  If our roles were reversed, would you want them to weigh in on our affairs?”

“That’s not the point “

“That is the point.  Were not here to tell others what to do but to hopefully forge new relations with people who have the means to help us find a place in a new galaxy.  We’re here to learn and share if that’s what it takes.”

“And if they are the devil instead?”

“I’m sure you will be very well placed to discern whether they are or not, based on your own actions.”

He didn’t seem annoyed at the inference, which to me showed a marked disregard for anyone but themselves, underlying the people who had put him aboard his ship and what their purpose in getting out into the galaxy first was.

The cold war back on earth had just moved out in the galaxy, and if not now, they would eventually be a threat, not only to ourselves but anyone they came across in their travels.

“You’re making a mistake, once they get what they want they will dispense with us.”

It was a possibility, but the problem for the alien people was, we were here, now, and if he did destroy us, they had to know we knew about them and more of our ships would arrive in time, and they would be hostile, especially if we didn’t report back.  And if they had been observing life on earth they’d know we would seek retribution

Perhaps that was the reason why he didn’t destroy us in the first instance.

“How long do you think they will be?”  Nancy had found her voice, finally.

I’d almost forgotten she was there.

“How long do you think it would take to talk to a high council?  If it’s anything like back home, it could take forever.  Any ideas on how, if you get the chance, you’re going to approach setting up diplomatic relations?”

“None whatsoever, sir.”

“Good, a clean slate.  Start thinking about it.”

She looked around.  “You’d think there’d be a chair to at least sit down.”

A second later three chairs appeared.

“You only had to ask!”

…

© Charles Heath 2021-2022

An excerpt from “If Only” – a work in progress

Investigation of crimes don’t always go according to plan, nor does the perpetrator get either found or punished.

That was particularly true in my case.  The murderer was very careful in not leaving any evidence behind, to the extent that the police could not rules out whether it was a male or a  female.

At one stage the police thought I had murdered my own wife though how I could be on a train at the time of the murder was beyond me.  I had witnesses and a cast-iron alibi.

The officer in charge was Detective Inspector Gabrielle Walters.  She came to me on the day after the murder seeking answers to the usual questions when was the last time you saw your wife, did you argue, the neighbors reckon there were heated discussions the day before.

Routine was the word she used.

Her Sargeant was a surly piece of work whose intention was to get answers or, more likely, a confession by any or all means possible.  I could sense the raging violence within him.  Fortunately, common sense prevailed.

Over the course of the next few weeks, once I’d been cleared of committing the crime, Gabrielle made a point of keeping me informed of the progress.

After three months the updates were more sporadic, and when, for lack of progress, it became a cold case, communication ceased.

But it was not the last I saw of Gabrielle.

The shock of finding Vanessa was more devastating than the fact she was now gone, and those images lived on in the same nightmare that came to visit me every night when I closed my eyes.

For months I was barely functioning, to the extent I had all but lost my job, and quite a few friends, particularly those who were more attached to Vanessa rather than me.

They didn’t understand how it could affect me so much, and since it had not happened to them, my tart replies of ‘you wouldn’t understand’ were met with equally short retorts.  Some questioned my sanity, even, for a time, so did I.

No one, it seemed, could understand what it was like, no one except Gabrielle.

She was by her own admission, damaged goods, having been the victim of a similar incident, a boyfriend who turned out to be a very bad boy.  Her story varied only in she had been made to witness his execution.  Her nightmare, in reliving that moment in time, was how she was still alive and, to this day, had no idea why she’d been spared.

It was a story she told me one night, some months after the investigation had been scaled down.  I was still looking for the bottom of a bottle and an emotional mess.  Perhaps it struck a resonance with her; she’d been there and managed to come out the other side.

What happened become our secret, a once-only night together that meant a great deal to me, and by mutual agreement, it was not spoken of again.  It was as if she knew exactly what was required to set me on the path to recovery.

And it had.

Since then we saw each about once a month in a cafe.   I had been surprised to hear from her again shortly after that eventful night when she called to set it up, ostensibly for her to provide me with any updates on the case, but perhaps we had, after that unspoken night, formed a closer bond than either of us wanted to admit.

We generally talked for hours over wine, then dinner and coffee.  It took a while for me to realize that all she had was her work, personal relationships were nigh on impossible in a job that left little or no spare time for anything else.

She’d always said that if I had any questions or problems about the case, or if there was anything that might come to me that might be relevant, even after all this time, all I had to do was call her.

I wondered if this text message was in that category.  I was certain it would interest the police and I had no doubt they could trace the message’s origin, but there was that tiny degree of doubt, whether or not I could trust her to tell me what the message meant.

I reached for the phone then put it back down again.  I’d think about it and decide tomorrow.

© Charles Heath 2018-2021

In a word: Might

We might have to use some might to beat the mite.  Confused?

Might is force, so expending might is much the same as what Thor does with his hammer.

We might expend some force, we this might is a maybe.  You’re never quite sure when someone uses the word might, whether or not they will actually do it.

I might do a lot of things, but somehow I never seem to get around to actually doing them,

Of and just for the record, it’s the past tense of the word may.  You know, you may do something, or you might not.

You might also use the word might when being polite, which seems to be a rarity these days because everyone is terse, tense, and it a hurry.

So might I go to the movie will aways get a resounding no if it means you get home late at night.   And you’re only 10 years old.

I might be interested, but I don’t think so.  Let me think about it.  Which also means no.

Of course, if you’re slack in doing homework, you might want to try a little harder next time.

What might have been if only you tried harder?

Then there’s that little pest called a mite, though it goes by a lot of other names, one of which is everywhere, a termite.

Or a dust mite.

It also could be used slangily for a child in distress, that is, look at that poor little mite, he looks so tired.

Or another word for slightly, for example, the girl seemed a mite embarrassed.

 

 

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 35

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Chasing leads, maybe

 

She gave me a minute to think about the situation, and then said what I was thinking, “So he could be anywhere?”

“He was dead.  I felt for a pulse.  There wasn’t one.”

I could interpret that expression on her face, ‘you’re not a doctor’.

She turned another page, read a few lines, then made a note at the bottom.

It read, if my deciphering was up to scratch, ‘doesn’t know if subject dead or not’.

She looked up again.  “It appears these documents are out there,” she waved her hand in the air, “somewhere.  Fortunately, they have not turned up, not has someone tried to sell them back or to the newspapers, so we’re lucky.  So far.  That isn’t going to last for much longer.  Every extra day out there is another chance for the government to be embarrassed.”

“You know what the contents are?”

“Don’t be silly.  That’s above my pay grade, and besides, you and I are better off not knowing.  So, what you need to do is find O’Connell and/or find the documents on this USB drive.”

She slid a card across the table.  It had a name and a telephone number.  Monica Sherive.  A mobile number, a burner no doubt that couldn’t be traced back to her.

“You find either, you tell me first.”

“Nobbin?”

“Second, and when I tell you.”

“So you don’t trust him either?”

“At the moment, for both you and I have to be careful who we trust.”

I added her to the list of people I couldn’t trust, not that she had told me I could trust her.  Yet.

“And if I get contacted by Severin again?”

“Have you?”

I had thought about not telling her about that brief meeting where he told me about the USB drive, but it couldn’t do any harm.  At least she hadn’t asked me if I knew about the USB, which was something, I suppose.

“Yes.  Once.  Told me to keep my head down.  And asked me if O’Connell had time to talk to me.  It was the same answer I gave him back in the alley.  No.  I’d just managed to corner him when he was shot.”

“By Severin, or this other fellow,” she shuffled back several pages, then said, “Maury?”

“No.  That was what was odd about it.  The shot came from somewhere else.  A sniper I would have thought.”

And, my brain suddenly moving into overdrive, piecing together what might be a coincidence, but in our business, they were rarely coincidences.  A sniper shot him., say Nobbin or one of his people, he looks dead, waits for a call to the cleaners, intercepts it, and collects the so-called dead O’Connell.  It was a good conspiracy theory.

And as far-fetched as one.

Severin had to have the body somewhere, trying to figure out how to bring O’Connell back to life so he could torture the USB location out of him.

Hell, that was as twisted as the conspiracy theory.

Time to change the subject.  “Do you have any idea who Severin and Maury are?”

She went to the back of the file and pulled out some photographs, mug shots perhaps of staff members.  She put five faces in front of me and asked me if the two were there.

They were.  The first, with the name of David Westcott, and the fourth with the name of Bernie Salvin.

“Who are they?”

“They used to work in the training department for ten or so years ago.  Westcott was also a handler for several years.  They both requested a transfer to operations, and we give a mission.  Six agents were assigned, and all six were killed, an investigation after the fact found that their identities had been leaked to the enemy before they reached the target.”

“They gave them up?”

“Nobody knows for sure.  There were others in that group, but in the end, the department retired them all.  All their years in training served them well.  We found the place where you were trained.”

Another photograph of the main building.  I nodded.

“It was an old training facility closed down five years ago.  It was just sitting there waiting for an enterprising crew.  It won’t happen again.  Needless to say, we haven’t been able to find either of them, only the people they employed, who believed it was in good faith.  A mess in other words.  Now, go.  Find me answers.”

She stood.  The meeting was over.

© Charles Heath 2020

Short Story writing – don’t try this at home! – Part 7

Putting it all together: the short story

…

I had once said that Grand Central Station, in New York, was large enough you could get lost in it.  Especially if you were from out of town.

I know, I was from out of town, and though I didn’t quite get lost, back then I had to ask directions to go where I needed to.

It was also an awe-inspiring place, and whenever I had a spare moment, usually at lunchtime, I would go there and just soak in the atmosphere. It was large enough to make a list of places to visit, or find, or get a photograph from some of the more obscure places.

Today, I was just there to work off a temper. Things had gone badly at work, and even though I hadn’t done anything wrong, I still felt bad about it.

I came in the 42nd street entrance and went up to the balcony that overlooked the main concourse. A steady stream of people was coming and going, most purposefully, a few were loitering, and several police officers were attempting to move on a vagrant. It was not the first time.

But one person caught my eye, a young woman who had made a circuit of the hall, looked at nearly every destination board, and appeared to be confused. It was the same as I had felt when I first arrived.

Perhaps I could help.

The problem was, a man approaching a woman from out of left field would have a very creepy vibe to it, so it was probably best left alone.

After another half-hour of watching the world go by, I had finally got past the bad mood and headed back to work. I did a wide sweep of the main concourse, perhaps more for the exercise than anything else, and had reached the clock in the center of the concourse when someone turned suddenly, and I crashed into them.

Not badly, like ending up on the floor, but enough for a minor jolt. Of course, it was my fault because I was in another world at that particular moment.

“Oh, I am sorry.” A woman’s voice, very apologetic.

I was momentarily annoyed, then, when I saw who it was, it passed. It was the lost woman I’d seen earlier.

“No. Not your fault, but mine entirely. I have a habit of wandering around with my mind elsewhere.”

Was it fate that we should meet like this?

I noticed she was looking around, much the same as she had before.

“Can I help you?”

“Perhaps you can. There’s supposed to be a bar that dates back to the prohibition era here somewhere. Campbell’s Apartment, or something like that. I was going to ask…”

“Sure. It’s not that hard to find if you know where it is. I’ll take you.”

It made for a good story, especially when I related it to the grandchildren, because the punch line was, “and that’s how I met your grandmother.”

…

© Charles Heath 2022

Memories of the conversations with my cat – 59

As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.

Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.

For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1

These are the memories of our time together…

20160921_071443

This is Chester.  He’s gone AWOL.

I know he’s somewhere in the house, and hasn’t escaped.  He’s done this before, particularly when he has to go visit the vet for his three monthly checkup.

This time I suspect it is a major case of the sulks.

We had to change his scratching post as the previous one has been shredded.  It was made out of some old carpet and had a box in the form of a house at the top.

He liked to use my lounge chair as a launching pad to get into the house.  I’ve watched him do that death-defying act a number of times, and it explains the claw marks on my chair.

So, rather than admonish him again, I bought a new scratching post, with a new house that’s not so high up,, and moved it to a different position so he could not use my chair.

First day, he ignored it.

Second day, he went over and sniffed it, then walked off with a snooty expression.

Third day, he didn’t go in the room.

Fourth day, I took him down there and put him in the house.  You’d think I had tried to lock him up in jail.

This is the fifth day, and he’s disappeared.

But…

He doesn’t know I’ve got a secret weapon.

Some old friends we haven’t seen for a while are coming to visit, and he likes them and makes a special effort to come and see them.

They arrive, and after a few minutes, out he comes, trotting down the passage and straight to them.

I glare at him.  You can run, but you can’t hide.

And you will use that scratching post.

“Echoes From The Past”, a past buried, but not deep enough


What happens when your past finally catches up with you?

Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.

Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self-imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment Will’s life slowly starts to unravel and it’s obvious to him it’s time to move on.

This time, however, there is more at stake.

Will has broken his number one rule, don’t get involved.

With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally, make a stand.

But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved there is going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.

https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

newechocover5rs

Searching for locations: The remnants of the wall that surrounded Beijing, China

The fortification walls, both an inner wall and an outer wall, surrounding Beijing city were built from the early 1400s to 1553.

The dimensions of the Inner city wall are:
          Length: 24 kilometers or 15 miles
          Height: 25 meters or 49 feet high
          Thickness, at ground level: 20 meters or 66 feet
                            at the top: 12 meters or 29 feet

It had nine gates.  The fortifications included gate towers, archways, watchtowers, barbicans, barbican towers, sluice gates, sluice gate towers, enemy sighting towers, corner guard towers, and a moat system.

The outer city wall had a length of 28 kilometers or 17 miles.

From 1911, after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, the dismantling of the fortifications began.

In 1965, major deconstruction of the fortifications was commenced to allow for the construction of the 2nd wrong road, and Line 2 or the Beijing underground railway.

 In 1979, the government called off the demolition of the remaining city walls and named them cultural heritage sites. By this time, the only intact sections were the gate tower and watchtower at Zhengyangmen, the watchtower at Deshengmen, the guard tower at the southeast corner, the northern moats of the Inner city, the section of the Inner city wall south of the Beijing railway station, and a small section of Inner-city wall near Xibianmen.

For more reading, go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_city_fortifications

As for our guide’s explanation of the fortifications: Leaving the Square to go to the Golden Mask Dynasty Show, we pass remnants of the wall that used to surround Beijing.

This wall was built in the early 15th century and was about 24 km long, up to 15 meters high and about 20 meters thick, and had nine gates, one of which still exists today.  In 1965 most of it was removed so that the second ring road and an underground railway line could be built.

“What Sets Us Apart”, a mystery with a twist

David is a man troubled by a past he is trying to forget.

Susan is rebelling against a life of privilege and an exasperated mother who holds a secret that will determine her daughter’s destiny.

They are two people brought together by chance. Or was it?

When Susan discovers her mother’s secret, she goes in search of the truth that has been hidden from her since the day she was born.

When David realizes her absence is more than the usual cooling off after another heated argument, he finds himself being slowly drawn back into his former world of deceit and lies.

Then, back with his former employers, David quickly discovers nothing is what it seems as he embarks on a dangerous mission to find Susan before he loses her forever.

http://amzn.to/2Eryfth

whatsetscover

You learn something new every day (3)

It is almost a year since my mother died and I’m still coming to grips with it.

The thing is, it all happened so fast, a message from the aged care home advising she had been sent to the hospital with breathing difficulties at 6:15, a call from the nurse and then doctor at 7:45 ti tell me that her death was imminent, and then the call at 8:45 to say she passed at 8:30.

Those are the facts

It was not as if we didn’t know this was going to happen, and it came out of left field.

It didn’t.

She had been suffering from dementia for about the last ten years, and it only got worse where five years ago she was no longer able to remember any of us, and then a few months ago, she was confined to bed. The writing, as they say, was on the wall. I know she is in a better place now

Another fact; we didn’t get along in those last few years before I was erased from her memory, and by the time we could have made amends it was too late. It’s a recurrent theme in so many broken relationships; words spoken in anger, an unhealthy rift, and then it’s too late.

But, I did get to see her, after she died, before she took that second to last journey to the morgue, and although it was not a pretty sight, she was as I remembered her, even though in the last stages of her life she had withered away.

After I left, it wasn’t until I got home that the truth of the matter sunk in. My mother had died, aged 94. And in all of that time, I couldn’t say I knew her. I was thinking about writing a eulogy, but realised when it came down to it, what could I say?

If was not until several years ago when my brother started delving deeply in our ancestry did we discover all those relatives we knew nothing about

Prior to that my knowledge of her family extended to a mother, whom she treated badly, a brother we only saw when we stayed with her mother on Christmas holidays, a large and forbidding man, and a system of whom she was insanely jealous, and never met other than two times in my life.

For all intents and purposes she shunned them.

What were the reasons for this?

It was the same on my father’s side, but he’s a different story, and, for the time being still alive.

So my own memories of growing up were that of someone believing she had no other relatives because we never saw them. It is odd to grow up in a sort of bubble like that. No family gatherings for Christmas, or any other events.

It seemed also that she never kept track of her sister, or her brother, and rarely visited her mother. We were, my brother and I, privileged to stay with her over two weeks of the end of year holidays

And the difference between staying with her and living at home was as dark as day and night. She actually cared about us, and made that stay memorable. It provided, very early on, a reason to start asking questions. Clearly her parents had money, but instead of accepting who she was and where she came from, it seemed to me that she resented her, and had rebelled.

Until I left home, to be married, and start a family of my own, where I met a girl with three bothers, and a mother to die for one who could actually cook, and showed genuine interest in her family. Only then did I understand the nuances of families, and what I had been missing for the first 21 years of my life.

But it was not until my parents had to move into a nursing home because the onset of her dementia made living independently impossible. Left to clean up the residue of 80 plus years of their lives we found a treasure trove of letters my mother had kept.

At first it was disjointed, until someone realised that she had a previous boyfriend to my father, a boy who lived in the same country town, a boy we could imagine had been to school with her, and they had been friends for a very long line, a boy called Eric

Like a great many young men, he signed up to go to war, and while he was there, the war was made more bearable knowing she was at home waiting for him to return

We didn’t have her letters, but she kept all of his, and they spoke of undying love, plans for the future, together. In 1944 should have been 18. She went to Dandenong High School, and then got work in the city (Melbourne), staying during the week at a ladies only boarding house and going home for the weekends.

She had friends at school, and got up to mischief like any other teenagers, but this we only discovered when my mother thought mt wife was one of her old school friends. Dementia wrecks recent memories we discovered, but the older memories they were still there.

There was also some notes in the pile of letters of her own, that spoke of a loneliness while in the city, when friends were away, and of a temper, but I was not quite sure what that meant. This was disjointed information, the sort that doesn’t make sense at time time, but later when a series of events happen, the pieces begin to fit together.

The first question: what happened to Eric.

I’m still trying to get some history on him. There’s a letter, he was back home, they met, and then…
A note, a draft of an apology, to him for losing her temper. Over what? And if their love was all conquering, what was it sge said that had him disappear they way he had?

Stay tuned, there’s more to this story.

So, those letters end in 1946 when he was about to be discharged.

Nothing started again until October 1947.

That’s when my father got an introduction card from a lady who specialised in introducing young women to prospective husbands.

Wow. A dolly Levi event.

He writes the first letter, after going to visit her and she had gone back home for the weekend. This friendship was going to be fought with absence as her was a projectionist working at the Snowy River Hydroelectric scheme, and not able to visit Melbourne as often as he would like.

It was like ships passing in the night.

And the letters of his, not hers, were completely different in tone and substance. The word love was never used or expressed. It explained a lot.

He spoke of domestication, heaven knows what she wrote about, but it was abundantly clear this to her was completely different from her first love. In fact, if we fast forward 30 odd years, it seems to me, now that I know all this, that she had given up on the idea of a marriage built on love, that her first love had drained the life out of her, and what was left was a woman going through the motions.