Lucy Palmer is an award-winning journalist and documentary maker, author and editor.

Her most recent endeavour has been as the ghost writer of Playing the Game: Life and Politics in Papua New Guinea by Sir Julius Chan.

Lucy lives in the Southern Highlands of NSW with her children, and is happily imperfect in every way.

First published in 2016

Copyright © Lucy Palmer 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Arena Books, an imprint of

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

Email: info@allenandunwin.com

Web: www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

from the National Library of Australia

www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 9781743311530

eISBN 9781743433973

Set by Bookhouse, Sydney

Cover design: Lisa White

Cover illustration: Marisa Redondo

For my children, George, Charlotte and Meg—

May you live in your father’s light.

Contents

Part One

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

Part Two

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

part one

COME TO BED

Come to bed, you say,

I love you.

Across gloomy planets,

Great caverns of loss,

You strode towards me.

Our hearts burst with hope.

Your children love you and

Light your way.

Come to bed, you say,

I adore you.

Pale clouds are surging

Over the pitted moon,

The house sighs

As I hear you roll over.

While you sleep, your children dream

Your forgotten dreams.

Come to bed, you say,

I need you.

The news of your cancer

Like gnarled, dirty fingers, has

Snuffed out the sun

Of our long life together.

Sensing this emptiness

Your children are afraid.

Come to bed, you say,

Just hold me.

Those white pills I took

To save some of my life,

Have robbed me

Of my spirit for a while.

Your children love you

And understand your fears.

Come to bed, I say.

I need to be near you.

My life is yours.

Let me pour blue water

On your softest head,

To heal you, honour you,

My beloved husband.

Your children meet your gaze

And enfold you.

Come to bed, I say,

Comfort me.

The arid desert winds,

The great lonely spaces

I wept as I walked this ravaged land.

I prayed that you were coming

To help me find my peace.

Your gentleness and strength

Have freed your children from bitterness.

Come to bed, I say,

Let us feast on every moment.

Death may be roving,

Seeking his prey. Let him.

The life that you gave me

Has lit me forever,

Soothed my thirsting spirit.

Strong from your loving,

Your children walk the world.

1

The acacia pod in my hand is like a tiny sturdy boat;

two split points of its prow taper into air. It offers

itself, lies open like a raw, grieving heart.

Ten years ago, my husband became a mystery.

In a breath, a living man vanished and became ethereal, eternal.

On the day of Julian’s funeral, I remember a bright sun splashing on a lawn and the faint hint of fading blossoms on tall trees. There were drinks and food on a long table, Julian’s four adult sons, Oliver, Charles, Henry and Edward, talked with family friends in small, animated groups. Our three young children scampered around the garden and swung in the hammock, innocent and seemingly free of anguish.

To an outsider, it might have looked like a lovely party; it should have been another of the many celebrations we shared in our brief six years together.

Later, when everyone had gone, I opened our wardrobe. There were Julian’s clothes, some still laden with his familiar scent, and row upon row of now utterly redundant medicines. In our bathroom was his partly worn toothbrush, his shoes neatly placed outside the door.

Everything unchanged; yet everything transformed.

Overnight, my marriage changed into a relationship more akin to a journey of faith. Trying to remain close to Julian, once so effortless, turned into the desolate reality of his uninhabited silence. Like a desperate appeal to an invisible God, I hoped that he could still hear me, that we were still loved. Surely he had not just abandoned us – it could not be.

So I would listen for his voice and sometimes, I believed, I heard it. I would search for him in every crowded street, often convinced that I had just caught the flash of his old oilskin coat or the back of his head as he rounded a corner and disappeared out of sight.

I would walk alone in our orchard at night and wail like a madwoman, feeling no separation between the empty, cavernous sky and my own soul. At other times I felt a sense of hope restored, momentary flashes of intuitive certainty that Julian was still here, helping me in ways that I simply could not see.

Grief was the door that opened into a fathomless abyss, where the way was long, dark and lonely. It smashed so many certainties, and, for a while, severed me from myself: it was the crude cut between our old life and a brave new world without Julian. All the buried pain I had ever felt and tried to forget became tumbling rocks in an unstoppable torrent.

Grief was also, eventually, the friend that quietly showed me all the illusions of my life and gave me the capacity to rebuild on stronger foundations.

•••

Today the auspicious anniversary of ten years has arrived. A manufactured milestone perhaps, but significant nonetheless. I stand in the kitchen stirring a pot of soup, thinking back over this long decade; a blur of memories has been smeared across the pages of so many indifferent days.

The clock ticks soundlessly towards the hour of Julian’s death as our teenage children, George, Meg and Charlotte, mill around the kitchen.

‘What’s that smell?’ asks Charlotte.

‘It’s either the soup or the chicken,’ I reply.

‘Smells a bit burned,’ she says.

It’s a family joke that my cooking skills, kindly put, are rather basic.

‘It’s not burned,’ says Meg, coming to my rescue. ‘It’s caramelised!’

The wood fire in the family room crackles and spits, emanating warmth and safety. Our old dog, Stig, lies in front of the fridge, happily oblivious to everyone stumbling around him.

Have you seen my diary?

I’m sure I put my iPod down here.

Can I go to Sydney on Saturday?

I had been wondering for several weeks how I might honour this day. Should I take flowers to Julian’s grave, share the day with special friends, or perform some kind of private ritual? But when the morning arrived and the children had gone to school, I sat outside with a bland sun resting on my face and realised I simply wanted to be left in peace, to look back in solitude across the years from the vantage point of time passed and emotions softened.

I have said nothing to the children about this day. Rightly or wrongly, it seems a kinder legacy. Not having Dad in their lives has been devastating enough and I do not want to remind them.

I continue to stir the pot and, in the quiet rhythm of our evening rituals, I think of Julian, the ever-present absence in our lives.

A shadow moves briefly beside me, quiet and purposeful. For a fleeting moment, I feel a light weight like a familiar loving hand resting briefly on my shoulder. My heart fills and my breathing slows. Immediately a thought flies in – don’t be ridiculous.

And yet the feeling lingers for a few seconds more. I knew Julian better than I knew anyone, and even after all these years, I still know what it feels like when he is near me though the moment passes, I allow myself to believe that something of his spirit is here. Still here.

After a rather lacklustre dinner we play our favourite word game – a round of Bananagrams at the hastily cleared table. Despite my best efforts, George wins. He grins with quiet pride – he knows I never concede a victory. Meg and Charlotte run off to their bedrooms, giggling at a private joke, keen to escape the washing-up. George is not far behind.

And so this day, which had for months loomed before me like a terrible wall, crumbles into another ordinary evening.

I sit by the fire, Stig at my feet. The telephone rings but I have no desire to speak. The answering machine clicks into life and I hear the voice of Joan, the mother of my close friend Mary-Louise, calling from Melbourne.

‘Hello, darling,’ she says. ‘Just wanting you to know that we are thinking of you tonight and sending our love. We’ll raise a glass to Julian over dinner. God bless.’

•••

Eventually I force myself to leave the comfort of the fire and settle into bed, looking out of the window to the east, where the moon is up. Occasionally, when there are storms at sea, I sit up and watch the slashes of unexpected light. Tonight it is bright and clear.

Julian died here late at night on 28 September 2001.

On my bedside table is a dried-out acacia pod which I picked up on a recent bushwalk with my friend Celeste. Walking with her is a balm to my soul as we fall into a simple and companionable rhythm, sometimes talking, sometimes not. Near the end, we always stop and sit by the river and eat while the churning water washes our ghosts away.

I pick up the pod and hold it in my open hand – inside there is a shrivelled seed.

Before it fell to earth, this pod’s purpose was hidden, inner work; it plucked life from the empty air, the shallow sun, the panting earth. Perhaps the seeds already knew what they would be, dreaming on those long soaking days, visions of a tree, wiry and taut. I, too, still dream of the woman I am becoming; here, tight down, where nothing, I hope, can break me.

Turning the pod over, I see its shadow side. Dark stains of brackish water have pooled along its wavering ridge; it is damaged, blemished, altered from innocence.

In these years I too have come to know my own darkness. For a long time my inner world became like furniture in an abandoned home, covered in dusty, grey sheets. There were times when I no longer had any certainty that the day would come or the night would follow, and nor did I care. I wondered how I would ever survive, care for our children, or find a moment’s happiness again.

One of the dominant emotions I’ve wrestled with has been guilt that the children no longer had a father. Like all guilt it has an irrational component; I know I did everything within my power to save Julian’s life and to prolong it – as did he. But the regret remains.

The fact that Julian was so much older than me had never been an issue between us when we were together; after he died it haunted me.

‘How old was he?’ was often the first question that strangers would ask.

‘He was sixty-three,’ I’d reply. I could see them making a quick mental calculation. Oh, but you’re so much younger. Interesting.

‘Oh, well, he’d had a good life then,’ they would say with a hastily processed smile.

Yes, Julian had had an amazing life and no doubt people said such things to be consoling, or to assuage their own unspoken fears. But whatever his age, he was still the soul mate I had lost, the man I ached for. And surely the more salient point was that seven precious children were now without a father.

•••

The clock ticks steadily, punctuating my thoughts. Without my even noticing, the hands have moved past the hour. I sigh with relief – the tenth anniversary has come and gone. There has been no trauma, no tears.

Next to my bedside lamp is a photograph of Julian with his arm around my shoulder, the warm glow of a late-summer afternoon falling on our faces.

I look more closely at the image and try to conjure the wider remembrances of that day, of that life so long ago, but memories can be fickle. Over the years I have collected an amalgam of truths, of impressions, more like the colourful strokes of an urgent brush; sensory fragments, all distorted by time.

Sometimes the recollections are more acute, but often as I strain to preserve the thought and hold it up to the light, the moment dissolves. So many good memories became all but obliterated when Julian died; perhaps the only way is to try to paint the past with my imperfect words.

I settle back in bed with a clean pad of paper resting on my lap. It is time to be with him. I begin to write, edging quietly towards the familiar stillness of the night, overwhelmed by all I want to remember and everything I would rather forget.

2

Once upon a time I surrendered to love; my heart

opened as the warm night enclosed me. I was young,

willing to be shaken, to bear with fresh, open eyes

all the truths that would, in time, unfold.

It was 13 March 1995. I was lying on my bed under a creaking ceiling fan in my Port Moresby home, pale and weary from a mysterious stomach bug and trying to think of a way to get out of the evening’s party.

‘We have to go,’ said my friend Ros Nougher, cranking open the rusting louvred windows.

I had first met Ros in Sydney six years earlier, after I had arrived from the UK and found my first job at Australian Associated Press. She took me on as a personal project and introduced me to everyone she knew; within months I had become part of her extended community.

I sat up. ‘Do we really?’

Ros held out a packet of painkillers, smiling at me. ‘Yes, we do. I’ve only got two more days here. And you’ve got to go – it’s your job.’

I sighed and took the tablets from her hand.

‘Anyway, you never know who you might meet,’ she said, raising her eyebrows.

‘I’ve already told you,’ I shot back. ‘Not interested.’

•••

I had come to Papua New Guinea because of an inexplicable obsession that began when I was thirteen. It was 1976 – the year after the fledgling South Pacific democracy had gained independence from Australia – and I was sitting almost 20,000 kilometres away, with my back against a hot radiator, idly leafing through an encyclopaedia in my local library in Kidderminster, England. I loved going to the library. It had an appealing musty smell and carved mahogany balustrades and, in every corner, wrought-iron spiral staircases leading to a mezzanine level.

Papua New Guinea. The description was brief and the photograph was grainy but it was enough: remote villages in tropical forests, men and women adorned in ceremonial feathered wigs, furs and grass skirts. It appeared a more natural world, free of manufactured ugliness, a world as far away from my own reality – an industrial town in middle England in the mid-1970s – as I could imagine.

I was captivated by the idea of another life, in a world with a long, uninterrupted vista of the past. We had our own history, of course: so much of it. I caught the bus to high school from Chester Road, still as straight and purposeful as the Romans had intended. From our house I looked across long-established fields where the vast course of English history, from Viking invasions to medieval life, from despotic kings to the Industrial Revolution, had played out over centuries of turmoil and change.

Perhaps it was the sense of a less fragmented, more traditional society which appealed so deeply to me. Perhaps it was the lure of an island paradise. I really cannot explain it. I only know that PNG became the place I most wanted to live. If, as Graham Greene said, there is ‘always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in’, then this was surely that moment for me.

Shortly after I arrived home that day to our small two-bedroom house on the outskirts of town, I announced to my parents that I would be going to live in PNG one day.

‘Mmm, excellent,’ my father said from behind The Guardian.

•••

After a disastrous first attempt at passing my university entrance exams, in 1982 I finally won a place at the Polytechnic of Central London to study what was then one of the very few degrees in television and radio journalism in the UK.

My older sister Libby, who was also studying in London, rang me one day to say she’d heard that the Commonwealth Institute had invited groups of dancers from the South Pacific to perform at a festival in Kensington. ‘There’s a group from Papua New Guinea,’ she told me. I decided to make a radio documentary about them as part of my degree.

In a vast marquee in the centre of London, I found a group of dancers wearing grass skirts, bird of paradise headdresses, leaves, red-and-white-painted faces and gleaming body oil.

I introduced myself to a young woman standing near the door in all her finery and asked if I could interview her. We stood in the gloomy sunshine, away from the bustle of the tent. The tape started rolling.

‘My name is Susannah Wamp and I come from Mount Hagen in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea.’ Susannah spoke softly with a quiet reserve, but her English was good and she was thoughtful, warm and engaging. We spent some time talking about her life, her impressions of England and the meaning of the dance she was taking part in – tainim het (turning head), a courtship dance.

I discovered Susannah had not yet seen much of the city or the surrounding countryside, so after our interview I invited her to come out with Libby and me the following Sunday.

When we arrived at her hotel she was standing nervously at the main entrance with her friend Josephine. ‘I am happy to see you,’ she said.

As we drove out of London, Susannah was glued to the window. We passed a large hanging sign with the words Sunnyside Kennels written on it and a picture of a large black dog. ‘What is that?’ she asked.

I thought for a moment about how to explain. “It’s like a hotel for dogs,” I began. “People go away and they pay someone to put their dog in a house and look after them.”

‘People do this?’ she asked. She explained that in her culture, dogs were simply part of tribal life and survived by scavenging; in a subsistence lifestyle which was dependent on the seasons for a good crop, people always came first.

After lunch in a pub just outside London, we headed back home. Pulling up at some traffic lights, Susannah noticed another painting of a large fluffy dog, this time in a shop window below the sign Dandy Dog. She laughed softly. ‘Another hotel?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said slowly, my embarrassment rising. ‘Actually, that is a hairdresser for dogs. People take their dogs there to be washed and have their hair and nails cut.’

The car filled with hysterical laughter.

Spending time with Susannah and Josephine was the first opportunity I’d ever had to shine a spotlight on my own culture. I found myself trying to explain, with enormous difficulty, why we put old people into nursing homes rather than care for them, or why people begged on the streets when, as Susannah put it after seeing a dishevelled homeless man pushing his belongings in a supermarket trolley across Sloane Square, ‘There are so many rich people here; could they not give him some food?’

A few days later, before they were due to leave, I invited Susannah and Josephine back to my flat for what I told them was a traditional English summer tea: fresh strawberries drowning in clotted cream. Despite the obvious cultural differences, I felt Susannah and I were kindred souls and I sensed she did too. Every few months a battered airmail letter would arrive from Wilya village on the outskirts of Mount Hagen, reigniting my passion to visit her one day and fulfil a long-held dream.

•••

My eventual arrival in Papua New Guinea many years later had all the hallmarks of fate. In 1988, at the age of twenty-five, weary after two years as a financial journalist in London, I decided to go to Australia based on the flimsy advice from a member of staff at Oxfam who I had phoned about a voluntary job in Mount Hagen.

‘To be honest, you’re a bit young,’ I was told. ‘And the fact that you’re a woman might be a problem. If you really want to go to PNG, I’d say your best bet would be to get a job in Australia and work on it from there.’

I had wanted to travel for a while, as I had never taken a gap year, so I sold everything I owned and, with a mixed sense of fear and exhilaration, got on a plane.

After a few weeks of knocking on doors in Sydney, I was offered a job with AAP, which also happened to have an office in Port Moresby. But it seemed unlikely they would ever send me – the foreign postings were reserved as a reward for journalists who had stayed with the company for years, something I could never imagine myself doing. Four years later – having completed two long walks in the desert – I decided I could not live in the city anymore; I needed a new adventure. When I told the editor-in-chief that I was resigning, he suggested that instead I should go to PNG to fill in while the incumbent correspondent was on extended leave over the Christmas holidays.

I remember so clearly my anticipation growing as a thin green strip of land appeared in the distance on a hazy horizon. As I pressed my face against the aircraft window, I could feel years of inexplicable longing welling up inside me, tears coursing down my cheeks. The excitement was compounded when, on arrival, I learned the PNG correspondent had just resigned; applications for the permanent position were now open.

Within days I was smitten by the dishevelled city and its chaotic energy, the spontaneous friendly smiles and open affection. I worked like a demon, even writing stories on Christmas Day in my effort to impress. The support for my presence from my Papua New Guinean colleagues was overwhelming – they warmed to me instantly and I to them. They helped me to learn the ropes and even wrote to my editor in support of my application to stay in PNG.

A month later, by some extraordinary miracle – which probably also had something to do with the fact that hardly anyone else had applied – I was offered the posting.

After briefly returning to Sydney to pack, I stepped off the plane for the second time into a wall of blasting heat and I knew, with absolute certainty, that everything I ever wanted would be somehow found in this most unlikely and seemingly difficult country. Not even the prospect of living by myself in one of the world’s most dangerous cities had, even for a moment, dimmed the bright star of this longstanding passion.

By the time Ros came to visit, I had been working as a foreign correspondent in Papua New Guinea for AAP for more than a year. Every day was a new adventure as I was increasingly drawn into the layers of another, fascinating world, an ancient, complex culture full of contradictions, impossible to categorise.

I gave little real thought to my wider future; I was thirty-one, I loved my job and, while I had not given up hope of meeting someone who I could build a life with, I was philosophical about its likelihood.

Privately, of course, I dreamed of a lifelong, loving union. I became a little defensive when asked to explain, particularly by my mother back in England, why I had not settled down yet. I had sent her a postcard earlier that year, a cartoon of a young woman looking nonplussed while her mother hovers in the background.

‘Dear, the whole family wants to know why you’re not married yet,’ the mother is saying. The younger woman is rolling her eyes. ‘Tell them,’ she replies, ‘. . . tell them I forgot.’

I certainly did not imagine for a moment, as Ros and I got dressed for the party, that I would soon find my future husband. In the drugged air of that ordinary tropical night, a whole new life was stirring.

3

I want to carve a bright new world, a world that

springs from nowhere like the farthest aching star.

We drove out slowly through the electric gates, serenaded by the howls of local security dogs. The house, which had an office downstairs, was surrounded by razor-wire fences, mercifully camouflaged by huge swathes of flowering bougainvillea. The company’s loyal but ageing housekeeper, Geri, was carrying a long-handled machete as he scanned the darkness. Even though he performed the role of night security guard with gusto, I often wondered what he would do if anything serious should ever happen.

Leaving and entering home was well-known in Port Moresby as a vulnerable point for carjacking. Most expatriates did not worry about robbery alone; it was the potential for gratuitous violence that most people feared. And rape, of course, such a terrifying violation of tenderness. Among my Papua New Guinean friends, the situation was much, much worse – they often did not have the economic advantages and fortressed homes of their foreign counterparts and their level of safety was much poorer by comparison. They relied mainly on their substantial family networks – but often this was not enough to protect them.

‘Okay, go now!’ Geri called out.

As we roared up the street, our doors and windows locked, Ros twisted a tissue in her hands and stared out into the dark night.

Fear of crime was a big part of Port Moresby life and thankfully there were many times when I travelled around the rest of the country and had absolutely no apprehension at all. But my general wariness while driving at night in this fractured city and a year of broken sleep spoke volumes about the level of underlying anxiety I had learned to live with.

Although accurate statistics were hard to find, crime in the city was frequent and every incident resonated. Sean Dorney, the long-standing ABC correspondent, advised me simply to keep a level head when I first arrived, saying that reasonable precautions should be enough. Just to encourage this serene state of mind, he had welcomed me with a lovely card. Inside was a copy of the front cover of a book written in 1974 about life in Port Moresby entitled Not a White Woman Safe.

•••

Razor wire and high security gates flashed in our headlights as Ros and I snaked our way around the narrow streets of Touaguba Hill, one of the city’s most prestigious suburbs, which housed international diplomats and the political elite.

‘I take my hat off to you, Luce,’ Ros said as we headed up the hill towards the brightly lit Australian High Commission. ‘There’s no way I could live here alone.’

‘I’m used to it,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m exactly where I want to be.’

My mood lifted as I registered the presence of many familiar faces. I introduced Ros to a colleague and, true to form, she immediately engaged in an animated conversation. Perfect – the guest who did not need propping up. I wandered off to talk to the hosts, Bill and Elaine, determined to make the most of the evening.

Two hours later, the crowd had dwindled as I sat at a table with my friend Ian Boden, deep in conversation. We were interrupted by the appearance of Ros at my side.

‘Are you ready to go?’ I asked.

‘Luce, you have to come and meet this really interesting man I’ve been talking to.’

I shrugged. ‘I’m really tired and I think I’m all talked out.’

‘No, really,’ she insisted, ‘I think you ought to meet him.’

‘I believe you’re being summoned,’ Ian said with a raised eyebrow, standing up to signal his gracious acceptance that I might be wanted elsewhere.

Tired and crumpled by the heat, my dress sticking to the back of my legs, I reluctantly followed Ros towards the corner of the garden.

A man stood there alone. He was tall – at more than six feet he towered over my five-foot frame – and broad-shouldered, with a rather attractive patrician face hiding behind some impossibly thick 1960s glasses. He held out a large freckled hand and his face hesitated into a shy smile.

‘Ros has been telling me about you.’ His voice was deep, his British accent strong and crisp. He exuded nervous energy, charging the air around him.

I shot her a look. Not too much detail, I hope.

‘I’m Lucy,’ I said, assessing him in a glance: good-looking, conservative, possibly pompous, hopelessly English.

‘Julian Thirlwall,’ he said.

•••

Geri was waiting by the gate, his machete dangling beside his spindly legs. He nodded a greeting, satisfied that we were home safely, and waved us through.

‘What a lovely man,’ Ros remarked as we pulled into the driveway.

‘Geri?’ I replied.

‘Julian.’

‘He seems nice,’ I said. ‘What does he do?’

‘A lawyer. He’s been here for years.’

‘Oh, right.’ I began to unlock the security door.

‘He was telling me his wife died in a car accident. It’s terribly sad. He said they have four boys who live in Australia. They’re at school or maybe uni. I can’t remember. He’s a really lovely man, Luce.’

‘Good night, Geri. Thank you!’ I called to the apparently empty garden.

A reply came from the darkness. ‘Night!’

‘I’m going to bed,’ I told Ros. ‘I’ve had it.’ I went into the kitchen to get some water.

‘Did I tell you Julian invited us for dinner tomorrow night?’ she called after me.

‘Really? What did you say?’

‘Well, I didn’t think we had any other plans, so I said we’d probably go.’

•••

The next morning I persuaded Ros that it would be much nicer to spend our last night alone.

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure. I’ll let him know.’

In the privacy of my office I found Julian’s home number in the phone book and left a brief, polite message explaining I had an important news deadline. As I put down the phone, I hoped that would be the end of it – I really could not imagine Julian and I would have much in common at all and I was nonplussed as to why Ros seemed so enthusiastic about him.

The day slid effortlessly into night as Ros and I sat on the veranda drinking wine, watching a huge buttery moon rise over the Port Moresby hills. The phone rang. I hoped it would not be Julian.

‘It could be work,’ I told Ros, running downstairs.

‘Hello,’ said a cheerful voice. ‘It’s Julian. Just wondering if you’ve got all your work done and if you might still make it for dinner?’

‘No, sorry,’ I fumbled. ‘I’m absolutely drowning in this story on the economy.’ Above me on the balcony I could hear the faint clink of glass on glass.

‘Oh, really? I happen to follow financial matters quite closely. Which particular aspect are you looking at?’

I scrambled through the paper on my desk looking for clues. I could feel my face flushing as I blustered through an excuse.

‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘if you’re not free tonight, since you’re absolutely drowning as you say, what about tomorrow?’

Damn. Damn.

‘No, tomorrow’s not good either.’

‘Thursday?’

‘No, sorry,’ I said, my exasperation rising. ‘Thursday is going to be really busy.’

There was a long pause while he assessed, as a showjumper might, the height and difficulty of a looming fence.

‘I see. Well, as your evenings seem to be problematic, let’s have coffee on Saturday. I don’t believe there are any newspaper deadlines at that time?’

Before I knew it, I had agreed that he should come to my house on Saturday morning. I put down the phone, dismayed by my inability to be more assertive.

‘Anything important?’ Ros asked as I came up the stairs.

‘No, just the office checking something,’ I said.

•••

We sat among the detritus of our dinner. Ros had recently left a stable relationship which she’d been in for many years. Everyone liked her partner and many could not understand her decision to leave him. Although she was still relatively young – she was the same age as me – I hoped she would not regret her decision.

‘I know I’m not exactly the relationship poster girl right now,’ she began, ‘but let’s focus on you for a minute.’

‘What?’ I said.

‘Don’t work too hard,’ she said. ‘There is a life outside the office and you deserve to be loved.’

That night I lay in bed, unable to sleep. The persistent heat pressed down on my still aching limbs and yelping from the neighbourhood dogs savaged the silence.

I knew that my immediate life was a happy one, that I was living in a country where I had longed to be, work was always interesting and I had some wonderful friendships. I did not see myself as ambitious for career success at the expense of everything else. To me, it was simply a matter of pragmatism – in the absence of a better offer, I would simply make the most of the opportunities I had.

At the heart of these ruminations, however, lay a deeper kernel of self-doubt; a part of me wondered whether I was even capable of the kind of love that I aspired to. Under all my bright banter lurked a very real fear that, when love came too close, I might be seen in the full light of all my complexities, contradictions and inadequacies – and then abandoned.

I thought back to a rather dramatic resolution I had made a year earlier – that I was not going to have another relationship unless it was for good. I simply could not be bothered with all the drama and uncertainty anymore.

I had come to this decision after weeks of soul-searching while I walked, with seven others, for more than 850 kilometres across the Great Sandy Desert – from west of Alice Springs to the outskirts of Broome in Western Australia. Hours, days and weeks of silent trudging across the ochre dunes in an endless landscape of sand and sky induced a deep and almost constant state of meditation, and gave me an opportunity to reflect more deeply on where my life was really going.

Going to the desert had given me no escape from my problems; it was, in fact, a total stripping down, a confrontation with my essential self. Like many people, there were aspects of my life and events from the past which I had not yet made peace with. With little else to distract me, my propensity to be highly self-critical was given free rein and I was forced to come face to face with all the things I had tried to forget.

As we trudged on, day after day, I found myself shedding not only physical weight but emotional burdens. I knew I was stuck somewhere in my life that I did not want to be – a place that was very familiar but utterly unhappy. I cannot say I found any answers, but I certainly felt more strong and resolute when I returned.

I kept my promise and battled on through all the challenges of building a new life in Papua New Guinea. Sometimes the feeling of isolation and loneliness was overwhelming, but I had to keep trusting that all would come right. Surely, I thought, it was not a question of if my hopes would be fulfilled, but only a question of when.

I got out of bed and walked to the window. Outside, the moon hung in the sky like an open, unblinking eye; it reassured me that there was boldness in waiting, adventure in standing still. It told me that I must simply surrender, and have faith that if real love ever came my way, I would be ready.

4

I remember the sea that day, the bursting sun, the lilt and

slap of wood and water; the harmony of our silence.

At the open-air market in Gordons, a suburb of Port Moresby, brightly coloured bilums, locally made string bags, hung from a wire perimeter fence. Cement benches were laden with organically grown produce – oranges, sweet potatoes, peanuts, coconuts, cabbages and greens.

Clutching a handful of notes and coins –I rarely carried a bag as I did not want to tempt anyone to try and steal it – I wandered through the market early in the morning. Some expatriates said it was too dangerous to go there, but if you listened to all the scare-mongering, I realised, you would never go anywhere. Anyway, Julian was taking me sailing and I wanted to buy some fresh limes.

Yes, Julian was taking me sailing. After Ros had left, he rang again to suggest we might sail to a nearby island instead of having coffee. I usually grabbed any chance I could to get out of the city, so without really thinking it through, I accepted. How the mighty fall, Ros would have said, laughing.

As the day approached, I became more anxious about the prospective outing and wondered what on earth had possessed me to agree to it. Julian and I would be thrown into each other’s company with no chance of respite. I worried that it might be awkward but it felt too late to back out now and I was too cowardly to try.

•••

The markets were overflowing with people haggling, chatting, exchanging news. One of the most quoted facts about Papua New Guinea is that it contains more than two-thirds of the planet’s languages; walking around the streets of Port Moresby, it was extraordinary to hear so many voices lilting and dipping in so many different tongues. Even the vividly patterned clothes, from overseas and bought from second hand-stores, added another layer of colour to this dynamic and fascinating melting pot of cultures.

The women arranged their displays of fruit with pride as though they had prepared them for a still-life painting. Nests of peanuts were tied on their stems and perfectly spaced in neat rows, oranges were in small pyramids. Even the knobs of peeled garlic were laid out in delicate, measured sequence like tiny fat moons.

Suddenly people started to chase an erratic figure amid wild shouts of anger. I stepped behind a stand of vegetables where a middle-aged man was observing the melee.

‘Ol i mekim wanem? What’s happening?’ I asked.

‘Wanpela raskol em stilim bak. A rascal stole a bag.’ He shrugged and squinted, his eyes barely visible inside the drawstring lines of his face.

There was a loud cry from the corner of the market and a huge crowd disappeared into a storm of dust.

‘Ol paitim ya. They are beating him.’ He turned to me with a satisfied grin. ‘Yu no ken wori. Don’t worry.’ His teeth were rotted black, his gums a garish, bloody red as he chewed on his betel-nut. He grasped my arm. ‘Mipela bai lukautim yu. We will look after you.’

•••

Julian arrived promptly at 9 o’clock, wearing blue shorts, a white t-shirt and a khaki hat. Extraordinary. We were wearing identical clothes.

He got out of the car and immediately came around to open the door for me.

With a bottle of chilled lime juice in hand, I clambered into his four-wheel drive. He had packed the back seat with gear – a flask of coffee, a bag of fruit, petrol, an extra sail, a few ropes. I imagined a rather sweet little boat which we would sail on the morning’s glassy sea, leaving behind the dry, dusty city.

Port Moresby was not, by international standards, a particularly beautiful capital. Carved into brown, rocky hillsides, and subjected to an almost permanent drought, it was, like so many other cities in the developing world, a place of increasingly sharp economic contrasts. The poor were heartbreakingly so; families eked out a living selling the few crops they had ingeniously grafted onto the steep hills from tiny stalls on the side of the road. Thousands of people from all over the country, who had left their villages in far-flung provinces in search of a better life, were now crammed in sprawling settlements, in tiny airless homes made from bits of wood and discarded tin. Boarded-up shops, derelict buildings, dust and litter, as well as the never-ending sight of razor wire and the gradual loss of so many tropical trees, made much of the city aesthetically depressing and bleak.

By comparison, on the hills overlooking the sea, there were mansions in glorious colourful gardens and, near the port, shiny new high-rise offices with huge windows and gleaming tiled floors. There were growing numbers of expensive cars on the roads and plush restaurants for the Papua New Guinean elite and their international counterparts, discreetly hidden behind fences and patrolled by security guards and dogs. The small but increasing middle classes – the public servants, entrepreneurs, doctors, engineers and university lecturers – largely lived in the sprawling suburbs down endless potholed roads.

What saved Port Moresby from lapsing into ugliness was the sea, which pooled at the city’s ankles like a glorious silk gown, bringing the changing trade winds and the scent of other possibilities. Looking out across the Torres Strait, there were long, thin-lipped islands in the distance; sometimes a lone fisherman on an outrigger canoe appeared on the horizon, his silhouette perfectly still, seemingly blissful in his solitude.

•••

The first surprise was that Julian owned a catamaran. My mental image of the sweet little boat was rather abruptly replaced by this rather strange flat craft which looked as if it required real skill to handle.

I’d been a little vague when he had asked me about my experience with sailing, telling him that I had once sailed a yacht. This was true. After walking across Corsica with a Belgian friend, we had hitched a ride with some Brazilians who were sailing to Monte Carlo. Surely, I must have tacked or jibed at some point. But now I stared at the catamaran with barely disguised dismay.

‘We’ll just go out for a little run,’ Julian said confidently.

•••

My anxieties about the expedition were soon quieted as we manoeuvred with ease out onto the open sea and began to chat. Julian had been living in Papua New Guinea for more than fifteen years and seemed to have a very level perspective on its political and economic progress. He’d worked for the current prime minister, Sir Julius Chan, at one point, and had a lot to say about the encroaching corruption that was eating into the administrative fabric of Papua New Guinea’s daily life. He also lamented the high number of deals and alliances between corrupt politicians and international contractors.

He mentioned one man in particular. ‘He was in my office a few months ago, talking about buying a property. I was very happy to help him and was just asking for a few details when he chucked a large envelope on the table, full of foreign currency, probably about forty thousand dollars.’ Julian shook his head and gave an exasperated smile. ‘I told him he’d have to bring the deposit as a bank cheque and he went very quiet and I never saw him again.’

•••

The sea that day was a brilliant, slow blue. The wind nestled into the sails as we cruised away from land and I could feel the tension ebbing from me as I melted into the day. It was not long before Julian guided us to the edge of a small sandy island still within sight of the city.

‘Let’s stop here – I don’t think there’s enough wind to get much further,’ he said, stepping out of the boat into knee-deep water and, once again, offering me his hand.

Julian had brought the day’s newspapers and we settled down in the sun to read.

After a while I began to get hot. ‘Do you want to use this?’ I asked, proffering a snorkel mask.

Julian blinked through his large, thick glasses.

‘No point. I brought it for you. I can’t see a thing without my glasses,’ he said.

•••

On the edge of the island a new world opened, a slow feast which echoed the sound of my breathing. I slowly made my way around to a small reef, leaving Julian deeply ensconced in the news. Where the water was shallow the sand lifted as I swam past, settling itself in minutely perfect patterns. There were fish, transparent skeletal forms with golden fins, and a small stingray that passed underneath me, flapping like a strange bird. Tiny glittering fish darted past my groping hands. I let myself drift with the slow current as the sun burned down.

When I eventually surfaced, Julian was leaning back on an esky. Behind him the arc of the beach was flung out like an outstretched arm. He broke into a smile which I remember to this day: a wide grin under a lopsided floppy hat.

‘That was absolutely amazing,’ I said. ‘I had forgotten how beautiful it could be.’

We opened the flask of lukewarm coffee. In the distance we could see the city, draped in brown and parched by endless days of summer. The sea seemed to hover above itself in the heat; the horizon was a blur of light.

I thought back to my childhood and our family holidays on the coasts of Wales and Devon. Some of those days faded gloriously into one another, the darkness only arriving late at night. But even at the height of summer the beaches could be obscured by driving rain. When the sun timidly emerged, my sister Libby and I would run down to the dunes, the gritty sand scraping the bottoms of our feet, and shriek as we ran into the churning waves. Now I sat under the tropical sun, soaking in the years of lost warmth, my body heavy like a stone.

•••

Without much prompting, Julian began to talk about the loss of his wife, Charmian, at the end of 1993. His father had also died in the same car accident and his two youngest boys, Henry and Edward, had been injured – though, thankfully, their injuries had not been life-threatening. Julian spoke with particular pride about all his sons, deeply concerned about their ongoing welfare.

Even though I had experienced suffering, loss on such a scale as this was completely foreign to me. I felt as though I had been leafing through a book only to find a jagged tear with pages missing and a story that had ended unexpectedly.

Listening to Julian, I also realised how little I really knew about the larger realities of life, the stories of tremendous pain hidden away in the folds of other people’s lives.

Gradually our conversation drifted on to other topics, but I remained awed by his story and struck by his evenness and self-possession. What an extraordinary person he must be, I thought, to have survived all this and retain such equanimity.

‘It’s getting pretty hot,’ Julian observed. ‘Shall we go?’

We gathered our things and crunched over the hot sand to the waiting boat.

•••

On the way back to shore, I tried to make myself useful and asked Julian if there was anything he wanted me to do. He mumbled an instruction. Could he perhaps say that again in English? I bantered. He laughed at my confusion and repeated himself slowly.

As we neared the marina, disaster struck. The engine, which we needed to help us guide the boat back into its berth, would not start. Julian struggled to coax it into life as we began to drift towards a large retaining wall.

‘If you could jump in . . .’ Julian said . ‘Get on the rocks and push back if I get too close.’

Without any hesitation I jumped in fully clothed, swam to the wall, hauled myself out onto the rocks and wrestled with the side of the slippery boat. Some men from the marina came running down to help. Somehow the engine was restored and the boat began to move towards its berth.

I suddenly noticed that blood was running down my shin from a large gash on my knee.

‘Marvellous!’ Julian called out and then peered over the side of the boat. ‘No damage at all.’

•••

‘Do you have any plans for tomorrow evening?’ Julian asked as we drove up the hill to my house.

‘Yes, sorry, I’m going out,’ I said. I wasn’t.

‘Well, I’m having dinner with Chilean friends. I’m sure you’d really like them.’

I thanked him for the thought and reached down for my bag.

‘You’re sure? It would be marvellous if you could come.’

I was plunged into confusion in the face of his polite insistence. With other men I wanted to avoid, I had found that I could always rely on evasion or, if that failed, my library of brutal putdowns. But as I was to discover, Julian was a truly formidable adversary – he had absolutely no interest in negotiating on my terms alone.

‘I’ll ring them,’ I heard myself say, incredulous at the sound of my own lies.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven.’

5

Love will find me if it wants to. It will creep through

sap-stained undergrowth, rustle under that old twisted fig tree

and nudge at my heart like the first stirrings of life itself.

Like a tributary trickling into a stream, quietly and without fuss, my life with Julian began.

Dinner on Sunday, lunch on Monday and a game of squash on Wednesday. A loaned book, a dreamy rendition of ‘Caruso’ by Pavarotti on a long drive home, a moment of shared laughter.

Before long I was telling my friends I had met someone I really liked. They were delighted but puzzled – Julian did not sound like the young, bohemian, left-leaning adventurer they had imagined for me. They questioned the age gap between us – I was thirty-one and he was fifty-six – and while I agreed it was something of a cliché, somehow I could not translate this statistic into anything resembling genuine concern.

It’s early days, I told them. Let’s just see what happens.

However, I knew from the day we went sailing that something unusual was afoot. My concerns about how Julian and I might get along had evaporated, leaving only curiosity and an unusual feeling of contentment. I did not even stop to think about why I began to leaf through the vast economic reports that had previously sat mouldering in the corner of the office. Nor did I give a great deal of thought as to why I started swimming every day, suddenly conscious that a year of largely sitting down at a desk and not getting enough exercise had taken its toll on my body.

I even began to look for clothes more appropriate to an expanding social life in the few Western shops that Port Moresby offered. I also wanted to improve my wardrobe from the constantly recycled outfits which had so far seen me through an erupting volcano in Rabaul, a week in an abandoned house during peace talks on Bougainville, and an unexpectedly large amount of walking in Papua New Guinea’s liquid heat. My clothes consisted of an endless array of white cotton shirts, floral skirts and what one friend teasingly referred to as my collection of leather ‘missionary sandals’.

‘You’ve got to get rid of that dress,’ said my friend Mary-Louise, referring to a rather gaudy blue and orange outfit I had stunned her with during her last visit to Port Moresby.

‘Why?’

‘I’m serious! Get rid of it,’ she said. ‘It makes you look like a sofa.’

‘But I bought some matching earrings from the second-hand store,’ I protested.

We laughed, despairing at my fashion sense.

I had met Mary-Louise a few weeks after I had arrived in PNG at the end of 1993. The government had invited a group of Australian businessmen, mostly from Queensland, to travel around the major centres of PNG looking at investment opportunities. A group of journalists had been invited to accompany them. I had driven out early one morning to the airport where a bustle of middle-aged men with dated outfits and haircuts were hovering. I exchanged a look with one of my colleagues. ‘We’ll just have to hope for the best,’ I said.

A group of journalists, most of whom I knew from the daily national newspapers – The Post Courier and The National – had gathered in the departure lounge. We all shook hands, greeting each other warmly.

‘Lucy,’ one said, ‘meet Mary-Louise O’Callaghan.’

I turned to see the bright smiling face of a woman about my age.

‘People call me ML,’ she said.

ML had a reputation as an insightful and passionate foreign correspondent and, after more than a year away from my close friends in Sydney, I missed having a meaningful friendship with another woman. I was immediately struck by ML’s force of character. Over the course of the trip her warmth, lightning wit and capacity for a devastating one-liner had me in stitches – finally, someone on the same wavelength.

ML had made her own unorthodox match several years before when she married a leading Solomon Islands political figure, Joses Tuhanuku. They’d already had the first of their four children, Erin, and ML was in the midst of forging a fruitful and meaningful relationship with her two stepchildren. In some ways, she was a little further down life’s road than me and had a refreshingly honest perspective on her own mistakes and successes. I had no idea then, as we careered around the country, laughing, working, talking nineteen to the dozen, what an extraordinary robust and generous friendship we would forge in the years ahead.

•••

On the plane to Mount Hagen, I told ML about Susannah Wamp and my hope that I would find her. I had not heard from Susannah for more than a year. I had written to her as soon as I had arrived in Papua New Guinea but had no idea whether the letters I’d been sending had ever reached her.

When we stepped onto the tarmac to see a long line of dancing women wearing identical costumes to the one Susannah had worn in London so many years before, my heart was racing.

I could not wait for the official greeting party to finish, and as soon I could break away, I approached one of the dancers. Underneath the resplendent headdress was a face I felt was familiar, shining with sweat and bright red paint.

‘Hello,’ I said, shaking her hand. ‘I am looking for a friend. Do you know Susannah Wamp?’

The young woman’s face opened up into a broad grin.

‘Em i cousin bilong mi. She is my cousin.’

We were only staying in Mount Hagen for a day, so with a sense of urgency I asked for details about how I could find her.

The official party was moving off the airstrip and into several waiting minibuses. ML began to frantically signal to me to hurry up.

‘She is a friend of mine – I met her in England,’ I said, wishing I could speak Tok Pisin more clearly. I often felt clumsy with this apparently simple language, stiff with the echoes of an old colonial. By now, several other dancers had gathered around and were listening to our conversation. ‘Do you know where I can find her?’

‘Em stap long Hagen Park. Em i wanpela tisa. She’s at Hagen Park. She is a teacher.’

I looked around at the gathered faces, so strange yet so familiar. ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘I have to go,’ and gestured to the waiting bus.

I felt a hand on my arm.

‘Mi save nem bilong yu. Em Lucy,’ the woman said, smiling. ‘I know your name. It’s Lucy.’

•••

Shortly after we arrived in the shambling town of Mount Hagen I managed to slip away from the official business lunch. I must have cajoled someone into driving me to Hagen Park School, because the next thing I remember, I was sitting in the back of a car heading down an empty driveway towards a row of classrooms. A few students straggled towards the gate in crisp white shirts under a blistering afternoon sun.

My spirits sank. If school was over I had missed her. I had no phone number, no way of escaping the tight schedule once again to go looking. With a heavy heart, I asked the driver to take me back to the hotel. The bus would be leaving for the airport in less than an hour.

Just then a half-empty minibus appeared on the drive. As it manoeuvred past us on the narrow road, I looked across and suddenly caught sight of a face I had held so lovingly in my memory for almost a decade, staring back at me with astonishment.

The two vehicles suddenly braked and there were whoops of excitement as Susannah and I hurried towards each other and hugged on the dusty road.

‘You’re here,’ she kept saying. ‘You’re here.’

•••

Seen from the air, the jungle landscape of the PNG highlands was rugged and mountainous. People had settled in tiny hamlets barely visible through the forest canopy, or in larger villages where the houses were built in rows. The land was covered with the most exquisite patchwork of vegetable gardens.

When I arrived a few weeks later in Susannah’s home in Wilya village, the noon sun was beating down. In the valley, the women were gossiping and laughing as they washed their clothes and scrubbed the dirt off newly dug potatoes.

Low-lying thatched houses with hand-woven bamboo walls were nestled into the hillside, surrounded by mounds of sweet potato, corn, taro, pineapples and carrots. Susannah led me up a long, steep valley to a small house where thin curls of smoke wafted into the air.

We sat on the floor in her unadorned home, catching up on the events of the last ten years. A small Bible and a sign printed on bark were the only items in the room. Yu no ken pret, the sign read. Yu mas bilip tasol. I asked her what it said.

‘Do not be afraid,’ she explained. ‘Only believe.’

I discovered a great deal about Susannah that weekend. I had not known it at the time, but she had been a nun around the time I met her and, shortly after her trip to London, she had left the convent and given birth to her only son, Edward.

I also learned, to my surprise, that her father had been knighted by the Queen and was Sir Wamp Wan, a polygamist with six wives and fourteen children. He had been one of the first indigenous leaders to meet the Australian gold explorers Mick and Danny Leahy and Jim Taylor on their ground-breaking patrols in the 1930s, expeditions that opened up for the first time the extraordinary hidden world of central Papua New Guinea.

After lunch we walked to a nearby hut, where we found Sir Wamp slouched on a wooden bed, a loop of plastic rosary beads dangling from his hand. I noticed two fingers were missing. Susannah later explained that, as a sign of mourning, he had chopped them off after the deaths of one of his wives and an aunt.

‘This is Lucy, a friend from England,’ Susannah said.

He smiled in greeting and held out his hand. His fingers were cool and dusty.

When he spoke to Susannah, the sound of his language, Melpa, was tumbling, guttural, like a fast-flowing river. She nodded and pulled out an old cardboard box from under his bed while I sat on the dusty floor. ‘He wants me to show you these.’

Inside the box was a tattered photo album with faded captions. There were pictures of Sir Wamp at the Ford factory in England in the 1960s, shaking hands with a grinning manager; Sir Wamp in an ill-fitting suit outside Buckingham Palace; Sir Wamp smiling nervously on the steps of an aeroplane.

Susannah opened up several yellowing letters with impressive letterheads. In one, Lord Louis Mountbatten thanked Sir Wamp for organising the spectacular ‘turning head’ courtship dances that were conducted on the nearby ceremonial sing-sing ground.

‘When the white men came, Daddy heard people say that there were some dead spirits – white dead spirits,’ she said. ‘People said these white spirits might be killing people off. They were so frightened!’ She briefly spoke in Melpa to her father and Wamp laughed softly. ‘Daddy said he was not afraid. He told the people they should make friends with the Australians, but not touch anything that belongs to them.’

Susannah explained that her father had walked through enemy territory to meet the Australians and was pleased that they treated him with respect. ‘Daddy says Danny Leahy saw our system of making gardens. He told him this was a well-organised society.’

Sitting in Wamp’s house I felt an incredible feeling of déjà vu; this was the encounter I had always imagined all those years ago, sitting in a quiet library so many thousands of kilometres away in another world.

•••

Shortly after we arrived back at Susannah’s house, she said she had an errand to run and would be back in an hour. I sat outside on the grass looking down into the valley, listening to the children play, soaking it all in.

When Susannah came back she was carrying a shopping bag.

‘Where have you been? Did you go back to town?’ I asked. When I’d arrived that morning Susannah had organised for a relative to take us in his car from the airport back to the village along a winding and rocky road. It had taken several minutes by car, so it must have taken her about half an hour to walk to town and back. Saying nothing, she disappeared into the house, eventually emerging with two small plastic bowls.

In each bowl were some small wild strawberries (she told me later she had grown them in her garden) and a blob of fresh cream she had somehow found at the town supermarket.

‘For you,’ she said, handing me a bowl with a shy smile. ‘English afternoon tea.’

6

Love woke me from an unknown sleep.

Shortly after I met Julian, my father Tony arrived from England. I waited at the airport for him to walk through customs, looking for a short man with dark brown curls swept back into an aristocratic bounce. At last I spotted him, striding through the crowds with a delighted smile.

At sixty-seven, my father could still exude all the energy of a younger man. I knew that he would love Papua New Guinea; he had a rare gift for making instant connections with people.

‘As you can see,’ he announced as we hugged, ‘I am wearing my Empire shorts and appropriate footwear.’

I looked down to see his legs poking out of a pair of towelling socks, his feet encased in a pair of sandals. I groaned with mock disapproval – he truly was the image of an Englishman abroad and had partly done it on purpose to embarrass me, I was sure. My father’s feet were so small he still went to the boys’ section of the shoe shop and we had all laughed when my mother discovered an old school report of his which read: Though small, is nimble.

My father was composed of two personalities. One was a natural eccentric, full of warmth, playfulness and humour; the other was a reclusive intellectual who brooded on the past. As a child I quickly divined that I must never ask him certain questions; so much of his past seemed to be accompanied by darkness, by memories that must never be prompted.

I was once given a photograph of him as a teenager, sitting at a school desk in the half-light of an English winter afternoon. Thick cloud, slung low like a hammock, obscured the faint sun. I could imagine him in an austere schoolyard: a boy in a pale grey suit with cold knees, surrounded by high windows and shouting boys.

My father was the youngest of three sons – all very creative but quite unusual men. None of them had flourishing careers despite their enormous intelligence. They were all lucky or smart enough to marry extremely bright and capable women.

It was something of a risk having him visit me in Papua New Guinea, as experience had taught me that his mental state could be unpredictable, but I felt reasonably confident that there would be enough distractions to keep him stable. If not, then I would simply have to deal with it.

‘My God, the heat!’ My father was sweating profusely and wiping his face with a large white handkerchief.

‘Are you feeling okay?’ I asked as we walked to the car.

‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s quite marvellous but I could really do with a cold drink.’

On the way home he talked constantly, his excitement palpable. He greeted Geri with warmth, even making jokes about how hard it must be to ‘keep Lucy under control’. Geri just kept squeezing his hand and saying ‘Oh! Oh! Papa bilong Lucy.’ I woke him several hours later from a deep sleep, his hair now wilder than ever in the humidity.

‘Good God. Where am I?’

‘You’re in Papua New Guinea.’

‘How marvellous.’ He brushed his hair back with the flat of his hand, grinning.

•••

A brooding sunset was just beginning as we sat on the veranda. When I had told Julian that my father was visiting he was very keen to meet him.

‘Sorry, I’m a little later than I’d planned,’ Julian apologised as he walked into the house with a bag of clinking beer bottles. ‘How’s your father?’ Dressed in a checked blue shirt and cream trousers, he looked very debonair.

‘Fine, just a bit jet-lagged,’ I said.

‘I’ve heard so much about you,’ my father said, standing up to shake Julian’s hand. This was so typical of his humour – I had told him absolutely nothing about Julian at all.

‘He’s very nice,’ my father whispered when Julian went to the kitchen to pour the beer. ‘What was his name again?’

‘Julian.’

‘Well, Jonathan,’ my father said as Julian returned, ‘it’s very good of you to come and see me.’

Dusk soaked into night as we chatted away. I sat and observed them both, silhouetted against the night. They were seemingly quite different characters – Julian reserved and gentle, my father ebullient and energised.

‘Lovely chap,’ my father said with a slightly wistful tone after Julian had gone. ‘Yes, very impressive,’ he repeated, looking at me.

I didn’t say anything.

‘But he must change those ridiculous glasses.’

•••

In a very short time it became clear to me there was no possibility my fledgling relationship with Julian was going to creep quietly under the radar of Port Moresby life.

‘I hear you’re going to be at the picnic on Sunday. I’ll see you there,’ said someone I hardly knew as we stood in line at the supermarket.

‘You’re a breath of fresh air,’ one woman said, affectionately squeezing my arm. ‘He’s been quite lonely,’ said another. I wondered if she was implying that Julian might be desperate.

At first I found it quite intriguing to be the subject of people’s curiosity. While I was unused to such scrutiny, it was partly because I had unknowingly edged onto the stage of a much larger story. Julian and Charmian’s marriage had spanned more than twenty years and several continents. As a couple who had lived in Port Moresby since the late 1970s, they had been both well-known and well-loved. Julian had worked as a barrister for Kirkes Lawyers and Charmian was an accomplished academic editor. Her unexpected death in 1993 had clearly devastated their family and their tightly-knit group of friends. Julian’s father, Victor, had also died in the accident.

So when yet more change came to Julian’s life, while some were happy for him, it also struck a jarring note for many. I was very conscious of this discomfort although it was rarely directly expressed; there was another history and greater loyalties, a vast network of connections across time, of bonds and experiences which I knew nothing about and to which I simply did not belong.

•••

Early one morning while my father was still sleeping, Julian and I went horseriding in the foothills around Port Moresby. As we spent more and more time together, I was discovering not just how physically fearless Julian was, but how much energy he had. It was ironic that, despite the age difference, far from Julian having to keep pace with me, I was the one who constantly struggled to keep up with him.

Julian had started riding at the age of fifty because, he said, everyone else in his family had learned to ride and he wanted to be able to play polo with his sons. Even after he’d been thrown from his horse and landed on the roof of a car, breaking his collarbone, his enthusiasm for the sport was undiminished. Julian simply put up with a permanently lopsided shoulder and carried on. At a time when many men his age would be slowing down, it seemed that he was speeding up.

However, horseriding presented me with something of a challenge. As a young teenager my confidence had been gradually sapped and finally crushed by a rather fat pony with a sadistic streak and a vicious sense of timing. Often my forays into the countryside would end with me flat on my back in a ploughed field listening to the sound of drumming hooves as the pony, riderless and exuberant, galloped home.

It was something of an achievement on Julian’s part that he had persuaded me to get back on a horse. He assured me that we would take the ride very quietly and that it was important to regain my confidence because, as he saw it, I was missing out on one of life’s great pleasures.

Julian led the way as we walked the horses past tiny hamlets in the hills that edged Port Moresby where young children would run out from their small kunai grass houses calling, ‘Morning! Morning!’, grinning with delight at our unexpected appearance.

As we headed into the rain-starved hills, it gradually came back to me how much I had once loved to ride: the higher perspective, the sweetness of the horse’s sweat, the feel of strong leather reins between my fingers, the freedom and sense of adventure it brought.

Julian was true to his word and did not push me to go any faster than I felt comfortable with, but I imagined he was a little bored. After about half an hour, I too began to weary of the slow pace.

‘I think I’d like to try to canter,’ I said to the back of Julian’s head, surprising myself. ‘He won’t bolt, will he?’

‘Absolutely not, I’ll be in front of you the whole time,’ Julian assured me.

The sudden lurch of the horse’s change in stride threw me off balance for a second but thankfully my dormant instincts were still intact, and we surged up the hillside track in a flurry of dust. Grinning, I pulled up beside Julian at the top of the hill, my heart pounding.

‘That was amazing,’ I said.

He smiled, saying nothing.

We ambled home, the horses sweating, and talked about Julian’s childhood in the north of England. He told me he had left the UK at the age of ten with his family – ‘we were typical ten-pound Poms’ – and had been raised in Sydney by his Irish mother, Pat, and English father, Victor. Julian said the boat journey to Australia with his two younger brothers, Adrian and John, had a huge impact on him.

‘We stopped at the Canary Islands,’ he told me. ‘It was a completely different world to the one I’d known. The bright beautiful skies, the laughter of the people, their open cheerfulness; that’s when I decided I wanted to live abroad.’

I had already told Julian about my long-standing dream to live in Papua New Guinea; it seemed we had a similar sense of destiny.

‘Do you think you’ll stay here or go back to Australia?’ I asked as we drove back home. I knew Julian’s sons were all living in Sydney, either at school or university.

‘No, I’ll stay here for the time being and see what happens. The boys certainly love coming home in the holidays and I’m not sure I want to live in Australia.’

He deftly changed gear as we climbed the hill towards my house.

‘Who knows?’ he said casually. ‘Perhaps I might even marry again.’

I felt something nudge at my heart like a drop of slow rain.

7

I let the days unfold, waiting for the deepest

wisdom of my heart to speak.

One night we went to dinner at Julian’s house. His younger sons, Edward and Henry, were home for the Easter school holidays, and I was meeting them for the first time.

Singapore mud crabs were apparently Julian’s signature dish. He loved nothing more than to head down in the afternoon to the local fish market at Koki with a couple of old woven flour bags and select some of the meatiest live crabs on offer. The fact that they were filthy and covered in oozing mud only increased his delight in working with such elemental ingredients.

Julian was an enthusiastic cook, happily splattering the kitchen as he expertly hammered the shells and plunged the crabs into vats of steaming broth. I stood in the kitchen doorway, watching him work, enjoying his obvious pleasure.

•••

Later, we all sat around the large dining table in the centre of the house, which sat on the edge of a rocky hill overlooking the Coral Sea. Nancy and John, Julian’s Chilean friends, had brought some wonderful Spanish music, the conversation was lively and animated, and the house was filled with laughter and warmth.

In between courses I talked to Edward, already at fourteen so thoughtful and measured.

‘I don’t think Dad should get married again,’ he said casually and without rancour.

I was caught off guard. Why was he was saying such a thing to me? As far as I was concerned, there was an element of courtship to our encounters but so far nothing of any substance had actually happened.

‘Well, I don’t think one-night stands are much fun,’ I said in what I hoped was an equally nonchalant way.

During dinner I asked to use the bathroom. The main one was already occupied so Julian suggested that I go to his instead. We stood by the door talking and then, quite out of the blue, he squeezed my arm affectionately then let his hand casually linger.

‘Better get back to the party,’ he said, smiling apologetically.

Walking in I immediately felt an unexpected sense of intimacy: the cracked porcelain pot, the packet of cotton wool balls, a dusty box of unopened aftershave. Here was a glimpse of the private Julian, a more real and ordinary man than the one I had witnessed so far. Through my slightly wine-muddled haze, I could hear music from the other room and the scrape of chairs as Nancy began to cajole everyone into dancing.

Leaving the bathroom, I had to pass through Julian’s walk-through wardrobe. I stopped to look at the rows of pressed shirts and trousers hanging in the semi-gloom. Without thinking or even knowing why, I found myself gathering an armful of Julian’s shirts and pulling them close to my face, inhaling a faint tang of his unmistakable scent.

I stood there, drinking in the moment. And as I did, a small clear voice spoke to me: You are going to marry this man.

•••

After my father had gone to bed that night, I stayed up, reading the many letters I had kept from my mother, neatly written in her long, elegant hand on pale blue airmail paper.

My mother, Eileen, who had married in her early twenties after training as a nurse, performed with great skill the expected domestic duties of her time. Observing her through the adoring gaze of childhood, I was also in awe of all she could do which fell outside the duties of a normal middle-class housewife: she built a rock wall, rode horses, plucked pheasants, hung wallpaper, constructed shelves and made home-made wine out of potatoes (she labelled the vintage Pot Chab).

My father’s demands and what appeared to be her escape into busyness often made her seem remote. I sometimes missed the opportunity to talk with her now that I lived so far away, and instead we relied on letters and infrequent, expensive phone calls.

My mother and I expressed ourselves more honestly in our letters; she would allow herself to confess how much she missed me and I sensed she found it difficult to understand the life I was pursuing. Ultimately she wanted me to return to England, to see me settled into a more conventional life in which she could play a greater part.

You ask what to look for when considering marriage, one letter began.

Lucy darling, when you find the right person, you will know. However, here goes. He should be: someone who loves you – warts and all. Someone you love and want to be with, someone who cares for you – your feelings, your point of view, your ambitions, your failings and vice versa, someone who you are never ashamed of or who causes you embarrassment, and someone who is kind and considerate of others, someone with whom to have children and to whom a family is important and worth striving for. And perhaps, above all, someone who makes you laugh. When you have found this paragon of virtue let me know and I’ll be right over.

•••

Could this be Julian? While a part of me still felt strangely elated by the evening’s unexpected revelation, another voice began to remonstrate that I was simply lonely and getting broody, that Julian was still grieving and that at any moment he would come to his senses. While we were affectionate with each other, so far there had been no outright declaration of anything more serious from either of us.

And what about Julian’s children? How would we all get on? Such relationships, I knew, were notoriously difficult for everyone involved. I wondered whether I had the fortitude or maturity to navigate such demanding waters.

In the late-night hours, however, my anxiety demanded action. I crept down to the office. After several attempts, I settled on the following:

Dear Julian,

I’m not quite sure if this is a good idea. If you’re not serious about embarking on another relationship, I’d like to know.

Lucy

•••

I hurriedly fed the letter into the fax machine and dialled Julian’s office number.

•••

When the sun came up, I went downstairs to see if he had replied to my somewhat melodramatic message. Nothing.

I heard a slight shuffle on the pathway and Geri appeared at the window. ‘Morning!’ he sang out with a tired smile.

Geri and his extended family had looked after the AAP house for many years. It was hard to see how life in Port Moresby in a tiny house at the end of a suburban garden could be better than the pristine coastal village he came from. But like many Papua New Guineans, he was passionate about education and did not want to lose the highly prized school fees the company paid for his children.

Geri was a modest man, a kindly soul who loved to chat. I opened the door and we stood in the quiet heat of the early morning under the shade of an enormous twining tree.

‘Mi les long ol wantok bilong mi. I’m sick of my relatives,’ he told me as we stood in the doorway. ‘Yu mas rausim tupela bois, ol i givim trabel long mi. Tok strong long ol. You must get rid of the two boys, they’re giving me trouble. Speak firmly to them.’ Two young teenage boys had arrived about three months before, the children of his village-based brother. I could see that Geri, who was earning a reasonable wage, was struggling under the pressure of tribal expectations to care for his extended family.

I heard the fax machine whirring into life and made my excuses. I hoped it was not one of the many press releases I received every day: updates on the crisis in Bougainville, press conferences on the economy, accusations of government incompetence.

The thermal paper slowly inched out.

Let’s talk tonight. I adore you. J

FOR JULIAN

Let our love flow like a river,

Winding gold throughout our dreams.

Let our love roar and sing like the ocean

And our blue eyes shed saltwater tears.

Let your hands caress my body

As the soft vine embraces the tree.

Come and lie, half awake in my meadows

And sleep on the bed of my sea.

8

Love, that tender feather,

pierces me and leaves no mark.

In a dark green desk diary for that year, I keep a treasured photograph of Julian. One weekend we took my father away to see the Huli tribes of Tari. In the background of the picture there is a line of young men wearing handcrafted wigs made from their own hair as part of a traditional initiation ritual. The wigs were shaped like upturned canoes, decorated with shells and everlasting daisies.

Julian is in the foreground, his long patrician nose shining with light sweat, his blue eyes squinting under the noon sun. It is the only photograph I have of him where he is not wearing glasses. Without them he looks softer somehow, more vulnerable. But what really stands out for me, behind his shy expression, is the innate and immoveable stoicism that not even the most trying experiences would alter.

•••

It was not long before Julian and I began to talk about a future together. This was not just giddy love on my part; clearly Julian felt exactly the same way as I did. It was as though I was already a part of him and he a part of me.

One night I went out with him alone, leaving my father happily ensconced at home with a good book. Later, I rang to let him know I would not be coming back.

‘I see,’ he said wryly. ‘Developments are afoot.’

•••

My father had observed the blossoming of our relationship with kind, uncritical eyes. He may have had misgivings about the age difference between us, but if so he did not express them and was delighted when, towards the end of his visit (which had stretched into several weeks), Julian formally asked him, with some irony, for my hand in marriage over a long lunch to which I was deliberately not invited.

After arriving home in the UK my father penned a rare letter.

I’m glad you and Julian are growing closer together – I have a strong affection for him. Possibly because I see in him the brother that I would have liked to have had.

I cannot imagine a more exhilarating, exciting, entertaining, or interesting seven weeks in my life. Without everyone I met in PNG, there would have been no sublime experience. Thank you so much, both of you, for everything you did.

He could not resist a parting shot, however:

PS Julian, I think Lucy is faking her orgasms.

A few weeks later I fell quite ill. I was constantly nauseous and could barely touch any food; even the smell of alcohol made me vomit. My body felt like porcelain as I moved around the house, aching, vague and preoccupied.

When I saw the doctor, I regaled her with a list of symptoms: constant nausea, unexplained tiredness, light-headedness.

‘Your last period?’ she asked.

I couldn’t remember. They were irregular at best.

‘Is it possible you are pregnant?’

I stared at her.

‘I can do a test now, if you like,’ she said briskly.

A few moments later she came back into the room.

‘It’s all very straightforward,’ she said. ‘Congratulations. The test is positive.’

•••

I left the surgery feeling dazed.

Although Julian and I were now almost inseparable, I wondered how he would react. We had discussed having children, but I think we both imagined this would happen later rather than sooner. I rang his office and asked him to meet me for lunch in a downtown café.

I sat near an open window, ordered a soft drink and kept breathing deeply. Out in the port I could see large container ships, rusting and ugly, against a hopeful sky. A sickly smell of copra drifted through the air.

Julian arrived and apologised for being late. He had barely sat down before I blurted out my news. He took my hand and kissed it.

‘That’s marvellous, darling,’ he said. ‘Well, we should get married as soon as we can. I’ll organise everything.’

•••

Looking back, it still amazes me how quickly my life changed in a matter of weeks, how I had gone from staunch independence to a deep level of connection and commitment in such a short space of time. This transition took place without any hesitation.

Before the wedding, Julian decided we should fly to Korea so that I could meet his second son, Charlie, who was studying at university in Seoul. I had met his other boys, Oliver, Henry and Edward, when they had come home on holidays. We had managed to negotiate these initial meetings without too much difficulty; in my own mind, I was simply someone their father knew. However, with a baby on the way, whatever Julian’s sons thought of the situation before, it would have been very confronting for them to realise that I would now be a permanent part of their lives. At the time, I was quite naïve. I had no real idea of how they felt, nor any real ability to empathise; their situation was completely outside my experience. I was caught up in the bubble of being in love, and had little insight into the enormity of what was happening for them.

Surprisingly, I found being a stepmother in waiting slightly nerve-racking. I really wanted to be accepted by Julian’s sons and I could see it was not going to be easy. My presence created a minefield of bruised feelings – there was no point in pretending it was otherwise – and I felt powerless to change it. For the most part, we all got on very well and I liked the boys a great deal. However, I was excruciatingly aware, at times, of the undercurrents between us, of what was not being said. Naively, I just wanted to be myself, not occupy some awful maligned stereotype. But the relationship between children and their step-parents is one that has everything stacked against it from the start. I often found myself feeling self-conscious and slightly intimidated by the power of these confident, strong-willed young men.

Julian was more philosophical. While he was not immune to the deeper emotional layers at work, he managed to stay above the fray and, like the sailor he had been since his youth, resolutely maintained an attitude of quiet understanding and a determined focus on the far horizon.

•••

I was happy to go to South Korea to visit Charlie, but my enthusiasm was somewhat dampened by the fact that I was constantly nauseous and tired and hardly in the mood for travel. I shuffled off the plane, creased and bloated. At the end of a long sloping gangway, hundreds of people milled around quietly.

‘Dad!’ A dark-haired young man pushed through the crowds to embrace Julian. Unexpectedly, an enormous bunch of flowers was thrust into my arms.

‘You must be Lucy,’ said Charlie, looking at me with a warm smile. ‘It’s really great to meet you.’

•••

During our time in Korea we took a trip to Seoraksan National Park, about a four-hour bus ride from Seoul. One night we went for dinner at a hotel which boasted several karaoke bars. After a few drinks Julian suggested that we should all get up and sing. Charlie and I laughed.

‘But you can’t sing,’ I said.

‘I know,’ he replied.

I thought he was joking. For a start, Julian was deeply reserved – singing in public was the last thing I’d imagine he would ever want to do. He walked over and collected two books of lyrics from across the room.

‘No way,’ I said. ‘I’m not doing this.’

Julian sat idly flipping through the song sheets.

‘Ah, yes. This is the one,’ he said. He walked over to the stage and a group of men started clapping. Oh no, I thought, surely this isn’t happening.

Julian nodded to the operator and the opening bars of the unrepentant ‘My Way’ began to float across the room.

In that moment, I was in absolute awe of his ability to put fear aside and launch into the moment. Julian genuinely did not care that he couldn’t sing or that people were watching; he was having the time of his life.

•••

My mother flew over from England the week before the wedding to ‘give me away’. Having never met Julian I can only imagine the trepidation with which she anticipated meeting her prospective son-in-law, who was only slightly younger than she was. Like my father, she was gracious, but I could tell this was not an easy situation for her.

One day she had gone out shopping with one of the young men from the AAP house, John. Although she was relatively young, still in her late fifties, I was concerned that some young street boys or raskol might take advantage of her.

My fears were well founded. They soon returned home, John brimming with the story of how a young man had grabbed my mother’s small purse as they left a shop. My mother could be quite an anxious person in many ways but in a crisis she was amazing; clear, level-headed and in no doubt about what needed to be done.

‘I let the bag go because I didn’t want to lose my finger,’ she said very matter-of-factly with no trace of trauma. ‘John went with the police to track the lad down but they couldn’t find him. When he came back from chasing the chap, he said to me: “I find him, I kill him, I fuck him.’’’

My mother’s instinct for understatement, a very English trait, came to the fore.

‘I said to him, “I don’t think you want to do that, dear.”’

•••

The wedding day was memorable but perhaps not for all the reasons I’d anticipated. Unbeknown to me, I had contracted malaria, and I spent the entire day before the late-afternoon ceremony drifting in and out of sleep, wondering if my blinding headache was a sign that I was having second thoughts.

That morning, ML had organised a raiding party to steal branches of bougainvillea from various hotspots around the city with my mother and another friend from Australia, Steph Clark. When I arrived at the cathedral in the late afternoon, dosed up on paracetamol in order to loosen the large vice of pain squeezing my forehead, I walked into the service through a glorious arch of vivid, tropical flowers. Even in my happy daze I could see it was hard on Edward and Henry. They were polite and friendly, but this was a very uncomfortable, painful and confronting occasion for them.

Our vows seemed imbued with the age-old spirit of the tribal cultures that we lived among. ‘With my body I honour you. I share with you all that I have. Where you go I will go. Where you stay I will stay. Your people shall be my people.’

‘I take you as my husband to have you and to hold you from now on; for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. To love you and take care of you until death separates us.’

At the time, I did not realise that this was not just a promise I was making to Julian – it was a much deeper declaration about the kind of woman I wanted to become. I had no idea, of course, how hard these promises would be to live up to, or how much I would come to rely on them in later days, when so much of our marriage dissolved into darkness.

•••

In my mind I trace back over those early, heady days, searching for missed clues. Were there any signs, even then, that Julian’s health might be compromised in some way?

I certainly thought he drank a lot, but it was no more than many did. It was just a normal part of being an expatriate and living in constant oppressive heat. At least, I reasoned, he did a lot of exercise. I knew his mother had died of cancer but I dismissed that as not being a particular cause for alarm – rather, I had focused on his father, who reached nearly ninety before his death in the accident.

To me, Julian seemed invincible. His life force was so strong that it was impossible for me to imagine him in any other way. So I was surprised when he casually mentioned one day that he was going to hospital to have a blood test which had been organised by an old friend of his, haematologist Dr John White. He’d been having them regularly for years because of a permanently swollen left calf, the result of a botched operation several years before.

Julian was a little vague about why he was being asked to do this, but he had a huge respect for the medical profession and was content to follow instructions. I certainly had no concerns at all. I felt that Julian’s zest for life and passion for sport would keep him active for many years. There was nothing to suggest that anything but a long and robust life stretched before him.

8 December 1995

Christmas greetings and tidings of good cheer. Life has been eventful in our little box 109 and here is some of it.

I am glad last year is a receding memory. A fresh outlook developed towards its end, and then I met Lucy at a Moresby party in March, and everything moved pretty rapidly from then. We announced the wedding and Lucy’s pregnancy in June and were married in Moresby at the end of September. There were a hundred or so people and a bit of formality which went swimmingly. The church was brilliantly done up, the food good, music a little old-fashioned and speeches so-so. Between times we have ridden horses and sailed a bit.

A photo or two comes with this epistle. English with a Midlands/Aussie accent, 32, about five feet one-and-a-bit inches, blonde, blue eyes. See the pic. A good writer and strong, down to earth, warm personality – er, that’s it, she subedited this part. She likes her job and loves PNG – at any rate for the time being.

After the wedding we went to Argentina to find out that our Spanish was not all that good, and Argentines are better at polo than we are. It was a lovely honeymoon and we will go again someday. Previously we had visited Charlie in Seoul where he is enjoying the experience of learning Korean.

Oliver graduated from Sydney University last year and started doing a crummy job selling junky software but enjoyed the perks such as new cars and suchlike. On my urging he eventually got to China in July and is now studying at Tongji University in Shanghai, which he says is to his liking, but is not explicit as to why. He says he is comfortable with everyday speech but is a way off reading and writing with any ease. He will probably stay another year. If you want a penfriend in China he is in room 705 of the foreign students’ building, or qi ling wu as we now say. Charlie has spent the year in Seoul and speaks Korean easily, though at the end of the day a knowledge of Chinese characters is needed for an indepth understanding. He returns early next year and will spend Xmas in China with Oliver. Henry has just done his final school examination and hopes for enough marks to follow his brothers to Sydney University, where he will probably learn languages. He spends next year in Sao Paulo on a Rotary exchange. Edward has another three years in school and has just joined us in Moresby. He is getting taller and is doing well at rowing. I would like him to do as well with his school work.

Life in Moresby continues much as ever. The country is beautiful, the people friendly and there is no crowding. The Pacific is a nice backwater to wallow in and for 8 degrees south of the equator the climate is surprisingly good. The economy took a dive a year ago when the currency was devalued 50 per cent. Plenty of envy of Asian growth rates and terrific corruption schemes. We plan to take a month off after Xmas whilst we wait for the baby, and for once I will be glad to be out of the place for a while. Most people suffer one way or another from higher prices and there are too few local producers benefiting from the situation. The feeling is that PNG should not necessarily become another Nigeria but then again it might.

Lucy is continuing to work as a journalist for AAP. Right now her new boss is unimpressed with the thought of two months’ absence to have a baby, but does not necessarily want to lose her either. At the same time, she would like to get away from straight political reporting, which is largely attending press conferences to hear the lies and then writing a piece which shows the right level of doubt.

We all look forward to catching up sooner than later. Present plans are to visit England next year, Sao Paulo, China and wherever family and friends are.

Julian

9

Married life in those early days was magical;

the world seemed to gleam anew.

The spirit of generosity between Julian and me transformed my rather immature and untested ideas about the constraints of married life. Among all the dinners and jazz, laughter and sailing, there were moments where life leaped out at me, full and vibrant: the early-morning screech of birds, the sight of an aching sky at sunset, the frangipanis outside the window whose scent seduced me as I slept.

I felt so blessed to be living with someone who had such a level perspective on life. Even though I could see that our union was unconventional and clichéd to outsiders, the marriage made absolute sense to me. For the first time in my adult life I felt absolutely accepted by a man. Finally, here was someone who was not at all troubled by my extremes of mood; the force of my temper and my capacity for deep tenderness were both accepted within the safe harbour of his personality.

Julian was an introvert who led a very external life – I was an extrovert who led a very internal life. While I was spontaneous, disorganised and fiery, Julian was fixed, methodical and always calm. Strangely, I did not feel stifled by his predictability and never felt he was trying to impose his values or opinions upon me. We were polar opposites politically. I was definitely left-leaning with a few twists and he was conservative with a flair for surprises. He was an absolute creature of habit, eating the same breakfast – two Vitawheat biscuits with lime marmalade, half a pawpaw with fresh lime juice – and the same lunch – ham and coleslaw sandwiches – every day. After work he would immediately go out for a run or a walk. If the boys were home, they would play squash together at lunchtimes.

Somehow, despite our differences, we managed to find a sense of harmony and oneness of purpose without a great deal of effort. We both valued our independence and it amazed me that we seemed to be able to accommodate each other’s needs while still doing pretty much what we liked. The age gap between us seemed immaterial. I was clearly not his equal in either wealth or life experience and yet I never felt anything other than his true companion.

I moved into the family home overlooking Ela Beach, continuing to maintain my office just around the corner. Julian’s family home was a simple fibro building with wooden floors, large walls of louvred windows and glorious views. It was one of the very few remaining Queenslanders left in the city – most were being bulldozed to make way for high-rise apartments.

My new home had even less security than the AAP house. Even though there were bars on all the windows, there was no alarm, no guard, no security lights – there was not even a proper gate. For years, Julian and his family had simply parked in a rocky alcove in the street below and walked up a long, open flight of concrete steps to the house.

This was a complete throwback to the days when Port Moresby was a far safer place for everyone. It also helped that Julian had such a strong sense of confidence in the community of people around him; he simply did not register the same signals of potential aggression that other men appeared to feel.

Although I had become used to living behind barred windows at the AAP house, I knew that it would be even worse to continue to live as a prisoner in my mind as well. So I steeled myself against the frequently expressed fears of other expatriates, and went every day with Julian for a long walk after work. It felt better to be living something more akin to a normal life.

•••

The slow pace of life in Papua New Guinea had taken a while to get used to. When I first arrived, I could not believe that what I would consider to be a simple daily task, such as going to the bank, could sometimes take two hours. Every transaction had to be checked and double-checked and then written out by hand.

Once I became accustomed to delays, however, I found it easier to surrender to the inevitability of waiting and instead embraced the freedom from the tyranny of the clock that the languid Melanesian pace of life offered. If time was not of great importance, people were. I saw that in Papua New Guinea so many people had time, real time, for one another. Everywhere I went, people were talking, engaging one another in a way I had never witnessed in a more formal Western culture, where people were so much more focused on getting things done. In this very open, tactile society I had felt the reserve of an English upbringing melt away and a greater sense of connection to everyone around me.

Daily life brought me into frequent contact with Nina, Julian’s housekeeper, and her husband Maseus, who lived on the same block of land with their two adopted boys, Mok and Manu. They had begun working for Julian and Charmian many years before as a young married couple.

Every morning Maseus went off to work at a nearby apartment building. Nina arrived at the house to begin her morning tasks with quiet, methodical purpose. Everything went in a certain place and if I ever unthinkingly moved an object it would not be long before she had put it back. I worried that she disliked me and was unhappy about my arrival – it took me a while to realise that beneath her natural reserve there was a loyal and loving person who accepted me completely.

•••

At first, it felt odd to be immersed in a new home belonging still to what I felt was another family. I remember walking into the house alone one day and being so struck – as I never had before – by the overwhelming sense of Charmian’s presence; her spirit seemed to permeate every room, drape over every empty chair and hover around the salt-licked picture frames full of smiling faces. It was a benign presence, even strangely comforting.

As I gradually settled in, I frequently came across Charmian’s belongings: old medicines in the fridge, tiny silver bells and pendants tucked away in a cutlery drawer. Once I was idly looking through the bookcases and discovered that not only did we have identical collections of poetry and literature but, as we were both writers and editors, had a similar habit of writing pencilled comments in the margins. I would take out these books and peruse her thoughts on and insights into poetry I also loved, carefully deciphering her handwriting which looped and curled with precision on every page.

Charmian was someone with whom I’d had no earthly relationship, yet I was living in the spaces and places, visible and invisible, where she had lived, sharing in some strange way a very intimate part of her life.

One of Charmian’s closest friends had summoned up the courage to speak to me after the wedding, saying how difficult the day had been; she had found it hard to accept that Julian had married again and felt conflicted about her loyalties.

‘The funny thing is,’ she said as we meandered to the end of this rather surprising but not uncomfortable exchange, ‘that I think if you’d met you would have been friends. In many ways you are very alike.’

I drove home feeling slightly nonplussed by this conversation. How should I approach or understand this most unusual of relationships? There was no obvious rivalry here and yet irrationally I continued to feel a private unease, as though I had somehow been a heartless usurper. The effects of her absence were tangible.

One evening, when Julian was out, I went onto the veranda with my notebook and pen. Below, on the beach, I could see dark figures huddled at the water’s edge and, beyond them, tiny ripples of foam. I lit a candle to repel the mosquitoes and began a letter to Charmian.

When I’d finished, I held the paper at the edge of the candle. There was a small wave of relief as my words slipped away in smoky fragments onto the rising wind above the rocky hillside and out into the fading sky. I could only have faith that somewhere, somehow, my words would be heard and understood. As I sat lost in thought, a small particle of the letter, no bigger than a thumbnail and only slightly singed, came floating through the air and landed quietly on my arm.

•••

That Christmas we moved to Julian’s family farm in the Hunter Valley to await the arrival of the baby. In February I was admitted to hospital in Newcastle, north of Sydney, after a rather exhausting pregnancy; I had contracted malaria again. I discovered I had it for the second time when I began to vomit rather dramatically in the middle of a supermarket.

The labour was life-changing for me, although Julian seemed to take it all in his stride. Of course, he had no real idea of the excruciating pain which was building hour after hour, wave after wave. There was one moment, however, just after midnight, when he had clearly decided a little sleep might be just what he needed and, without any discussion, lay down on the bed, leaving me on the edge of the birthing pool. I was staggered.

‘Get . . . out . . . of . . . that . . . bed . . . right . . . now,’ I managed to hiss.

Julian must have heard my barely suppressed hysteria because he immediately came to my side.

I could not get comfortable and moved constantly, trying to follow ML’s instructions, which had arrived by fax the previous evening, to ‘just keep breathing’. There was a terrible moment in labour when I realised there was no going back. Whatever was happening, could not stop. For several hours my body took me on a journey I had never thought possible and while I struggled and cursed, I was also in awe.

I felt myself descend into a long, grey tunnel where all I could focus on was a faint light up ahead. I did not even ask for pain relief, which I had planned to do – I was so busy just getting through each intense second. I remember looking down at the top of Julian’s head as he kneeled beside me on the floor and wiped the blood off my legs. In the midst of this extraordinary experience, this was the pinnacle of trust and intimacy between us; never before had I felt so vulnerable and yet so protected.

Finally, in the early morning, our baby boy was born.

A short while later I was lying, battered and pale under a green surgical sheet, when the doors burst open and the jubilant face of Charlie appeared.

‘Where is he? Where’s my new brother?’ He could not wait to hold him.

Julian was completely elated by the arrival of his fifth son. He shortly came back into the room with a smuggled bottle of champagne – it was 10 am – to let me know he’d called our family in Australia and the UK, and to announce that he had chosen several potential names.

‘I’ve marked them,’ he said, gesturing to the baby name book we had bought the week before.

As Julian already had four sons with decidedly English names, I had been quietly toying with ideas about how we might maintain that tradition. Later, I flipped through the first few pages.

Alphonso, Godwin and Lysander had been given a firm tick.

‘They’re quite splendid, aren’t they?’ Julian said with a confident grin when I asked him about his choices. He then proceeded to give me an explanation of why each name would be perfect.

‘Thirlwall’s tough enough,’ I replied. ‘You have to constantly explain to everyone how to spell it. You can’t be serious about Lysander? That’s a lifetime of teasing. There’s no way we’re going to do it.’

Reluctantly Julian agreed that these rather more florid names might turn out to be a terrible burden for a child. So we named our baby George. Gorgeous George.

10

We’ll help you walk on fledgling feet, and laugh

away your tumbling tears, To meet life’s dragons

face to face, and overcome your human fears.

Julian soon had to return to Papua New Guinea so I went to Sydney to stay with Jim and Elizabeth Hammond, the parents of two of my closest friends, Meg and Steph. With their quiet support and vast experience – they had six grown children and the first of their nineteen grandchildren – they guided me through the first days of motherhood, keeping me company, and nursing me through yet another bout of malaria.

Luckily for us all, George was a great first baby – contented and easy. Elizabeth advised me to try her time-honoured routine of two daytime sleeps – for the mother as well, when possible – and this became my blueprint for the future. George was so adaptable that even when other plans took over, he simply went back to sleep or lay awake smiling.

I was coping reasonably well, but I had moments of panic, particularly when I was on my own with him; there seemed to be so much to learn. It was overwhelming to realise, when I held George’s tiny body in my arms, that after many years of pleasing myself, I was now responsible for another human life.

Julian had seemed quite unfazed by the arrival of a newborn child – this, after all, was his fifth son. But he was not a particularly hands-on carer, as he came from another era, and so when I returned to Port Moresby he decided that his contribution should be to take over the shopping and cooking – something I was quite happy about as he was a much better cook than me.

With a new baby in the house, Nina was transformed. She immediately fell in love with George and, because of him, the two of us grew closer. I observed how carefully she swaddled and carried him, how she soothed him to sleep. Sometimes I would watch from the window as she sat under our mango tree, quietly rocking George in her lap when he would not settle. And later, as she walked up into the sunlit house, I could see her stroking his hair and hear her humming to him.

Alongside ML, who I visited in the Solomon Islands two months after George was born, Nina became my main model of motherhood; my own family was really just too far away. She showed me through her actions how to care for a young baby. I tried to emulate her example and find within myself the unique quality of deep tranquillity that so many mothers in Papua New Guinea seemed to possess. I never achieved it.

Nina had never been to school so could not read or write; her wisdom came from a much older, less fragmented place. For so many years she had brought order and consistency into Julian’s family life and had looked after all of the older boys from a young age. Even many years after Charmian gave birth to their youngest son, Edward, in Port Moresby General Hospital, Nina would speak about him as if he were her own flesh and blood.

‘Bebi bilong mi. My baby,’ she would say about Edward with shy pride. And now George, also ‘my baby’.

•••

When George was about six months old, we went to England. It was wonderful to take him home to see my parents, my sister Libby and her children and my ageing grandmother, Granberry, who was now in her nineties. Charlie was travelling through Europe and also came to stay with us. After about three weeks, the holiday ended and Julian went on to Brazil to see Henry, who was on a student exchange, while I stayed in the UK to spend more time with Libby and her three young children, Hannah, Beatrice and Samuel. Florence was to come later.

When Julian and I were reunited in Sydney a fortnight later, however, I was surprised to see him walking slowly with a slight stoop.

‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he said as we threw his bag into the back of the car. ‘I sneezed on the plane and I think I’ve cracked a rib.’

I laughed. That was ridiculous. ‘It’s not like you to be a hypochondriac,’ I teased.

I soon felt bad for making light of his injury as it became clear that he really was in a lot of discomfort. The next day he organised to see a doctor who confirmed his diagnosis. It was strange to think he had done such damage due to something so seemingly trivial.

After we returned to PNG and the pain had subsided, we both shrugged off the incident as one of those inexplicable events and, once Julian had fully recovered, I thought no more about it.

Dear darling Lucy,

Twenty-eight storeys up with a splendid view is a fine place to think of you and George and reflect on the world . . .

I love being alive and I love having you. Little Georgy fills a lot of gaps. The feelings always get stronger and I’m looking forward to tomorrow very much.

. . . I get in at ten to seven – should we go to early church? There is a lot to be thankful for.

Love you, darling, very, very much xxx J

I wrote in reply:

Darling,

Thank you for your lovely letter. I will treasure it always. With your care I feel as though I am blossoming in many ways. For everything you do, everything you are, thank you. You, who have been a parent for so long, might have got used to the feelings I am only just experiencing now. That feeling of belonging, a sense of place in the world. Thank you for all the beautiful things you have given me.

All my love,

Lucy xxxx

I had stopped working for AAP just before George was born, but after a year of sporadic and unsatisfying freelance work, I started to miss the intellectual stimulation of daily journalism and the contact with my former colleagues. ML was now working for The Australian and had just broken an extraordinary story about a decision by the government of Sir Julius Chan to hire mercenary soldiers from Sandline International to wipe out the leaders of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army. The cost: a staggering US $36 million. By the time the story became public, the soldiers were already in the country and preparing to launch a military offensive. With this news causing international outrage, it seemed a good time to travel to Australia to see if The Sydney Morning Herald needed a part-time journalist on the spot.

There was another reason we wanted to go to Sydney. Since cracking his rib, Julian had been complaining of back pain and of a general feeling of malaise. He decided to have some more blood tests – he was not at all confident in the services offered by the increasingly decrepit and often dysfunctional Port Moresby hospital.

Once my discussions with the newspaper had concluded and we had agreed I would be their new correspondent Julian told me he’d been asked to stay on for further examinations.

‘Well, I could stay as well, if you like,’ I suggested, thinking there was no need to rush back.

‘No, I’ll be fine. I think you should start working.’

I felt a little nonplussed by Julian’s attitude, however there seemed little point in arguing about it – he clearly wanted to be alone.

•••

I arrived back in Port Moresby to absolute turmoil. My friend Jo, who picked me up at the airport, said she’d heard there had been a military revolt and many expatriates were considering whether they should leave.

We turned on the radio. It emerged that early the same morning, Brigadier-General Colonel Jerry Singirok had ordered the Papua New Guinea Defence Force to place all the mercenary soldiers under military arrest. He then publicly demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Julius Chan and two of his colleagues.

Thank God for Nina. As I struggled up the stairs with George and our luggage, she took the baby from my arms and deftly swung him onto her hip.

‘Tripela hevi long guvman,’ she said, shrugging. ‘Big problems with the government.’

•••

I walked into my humid office to a spewing fax machine and an answering machine in revolt.

For the next few hours I worked feverishly on the Sandline story, completely absorbed in all the intricacies of the crisis. Very late that night the phone rang again. Surely not the foreign desk again.

‘Hello, darling, I’ve been trying to get through. What’s happening up there?’

Breathlessly I told Julian all about the day’s events. But as I talked on I could tell he was not really listening – he sounded flat and distracted. I felt a sliver of unease; he was normally so passionately interested in politics.

‘How’s everything with you?’ I asked eventually. ‘What did the doctor say?’

There was such a long pause I thought the line had dropped out.

‘Jules?’

‘Yes, I’m here.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘I’m sorry to tell you this, darling . . .’

My palms began to sweat in the still night.

‘The doctor says I’ve got cancer.’

11

On the edge of love lies the precipice of fear.

That night I dreamt of a lake surrounded by arching trees, their towering shapes perfectly shadowed on the still surface. Out of the empty sky, a large brutal stone suddenly fell, scattering droplets of startled water as it plunged down to the muddy deep.

A moment later, everything was apparently serene. But that disturbance, although fleeting, was too great to ignore. When I woke the following morning I felt a dull pain, like a large weight, pressing on my heart.

•••

Cancer had never touched my world. The word felt bitter on my tongue, insidious. I tried ringing Julian before breakfast, still half wondering if his words were something I had imagined. But as the phone rang out I gradually remembered, with dull clarity, the conversation we’d had the night before.

I’m sorry to tell you this, darling . . .

As soon as I got to the office, I received a message saying that Singirok had been sacked but was still demanding that the prime minister resign. It was going to be another day of drama.

Against the backdrop of the greatest political crisis to engulf Papua New Guinea and the most critical story of my career, Julian returned to Port Moresby.

We had managed to have another brief conversation before he left Sydney, but I was totally consumed by work and found myself quite confused by the contradictory accounts he was giving me.

‘I don’t think the diagnosis is all that bad,’ he said quite cheerfully as we hurtled home from the airport.

Large crowds were milling around the streets and the city was tense. Most people were not there to cause trouble – they were passionately concerned about the future of their country and wanted to be engaged in the decisions of their leaders. But some soldiers had begun to disobey orders and there had been a very ugly standoff outside the army’s weapons storage building. Extra police units were being drafted in.

‘They’re not talking about immediate treatment, just regular tests,’ Julian said. He slammed on the brakes as one of the city’s many wild and mangy dogs sauntered across the road, oblivious to traffic. ‘It seems there are a few options. Lots of people live a long time with this situation.’

I glanced at him. Situation? The word cancer seemed to have vanished from his vocabulary.

He gave a tight smile. ‘I don’t think there’s much to worry about yet.’

We had no time to talk that day. In between caring for George, who was still occasionally breastfeeding, I was frantically gathering updates on the crisis.

•••

Several journalists from Australia had flown up to cover the story, including Ray Martin from Channel Nine. The next morning Ray rang me to say he was on his way to the army barracks to interview Colonel Singirok and suggested I follow him in my car. As we drew up outside the gates, I watched as his vehicle slowly inched forward through the crowds. Suddenly, the atmosphere turned to excitement.

‘Eray! Eray!’ People began to converge on Ray Martin’s car, smiling and waving. Another group surrounded my car and one man started banging on the roof. Feeling very anxious, I lowered the window slightly.

‘Yu go we? Where are you going?’ Several faces jostled for space in the small gap.

‘I’m with Ray,’ I said hastily.

‘Okay, okay,’ the man replied with a huge grin. ‘You with Eray, you can go!’

Still shouting, ‘Eray! Eray!’, the crowd parted like the Red Sea and I sailed through the gates like royalty.

•••

That night, after I’d finished work, Julian and I went out onto the veranda to a relatively cool, dry night. Although my mind was swimming with the events of the day, I was still keen to get a full and uninterrupted account of his meeting with doctors at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney.

‘Just tell me what they said again.’

He sipped his beer. ‘They said I’ve got something called myeloma – it’s a cancer of the plasma cells. Apparently that’s why I cracked my ribs on the plane.’

‘Really? You mean it’s in your ribcage?’

‘I suppose so. That’s why I stayed on – to have the scans.’

He hadn’t mentioned any scans.

‘How did they find out there was a problem in the first place?’

‘Do you remember I told you my friend John White wanted me to have regular blood tests? I didn’t know what they were for, but apparently I’ve had a high level of protein in my blood for quite a while. It’s not usually a huge problem, however if the protein levels get too high, it’s indicative of other issues.’

‘Like this cancer?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’ Julian sounded resigned. ‘I think John must have known a long time ago. I wonder why he didn’t tell me?’

Julian was not a man who often expressed his deeper feelings; he definitely had a case of the classic English stiff upper lip, a quality of self-restraint and dignity I admired and understood. He wasn’t a cold person, not at all, but his true feelings often remained unspoken. Even so, I could sense what a terrible blow this was for him.

‘They can slow it down,’ he said, trying to sound reassuring. ‘They also said I might be a candidate later on for a bone marrow transplant, which could be very effective. I may have to start some very low-dose chemotherapy in the next few months.’

I stared at him, bewildered. I just could not make sense of what he was telling me. In our earlier conversations he had been optimistic, so why was he now talking about chemotherapy? Later I discovered that there is a common phenomenon when people are given an initial diagnosis of a serious illness – particularly if they are alone: afterwards, they don’t necessarily recall clearly all they have been told.

Julian’s account seemed to come back to him in disjointed fragments like an unsolved jigsaw, incomprehensible and impossible to frame. But the underlying facts were clear enough – after only eighteen months of marriage, any certainty we had about our future was over.

I reached over and took his hand; our wedding rings glowed in the evening light.

‘I don’t want you to worry, darling – I plan on being around for quite a while yet,’ he said with a pale smile. He squeezed my hand.

Exhausted, we sat for a long time, buried under the rubble of our own thoughts.

•••

It was not long before news of Julian’s cancer was common knowledge. It came as a terrible shock to his older children. They all came to visit as soon as they were able, something that cheered him up enormously.

On the surface, Julian dealt with the diagnosis with his usual grace and equanimity; at times he was even quite upbeat. Learning about his particular cancer became his new mission and he threw himself into the task with his usual gusto.

Julian was not easy to pigeonhole or predict; the layered rock of his personality defied simple labels. After the diagnosis I presumed he would take the most conventional route and simply follow an orthodox medical path.

However, when he came home one day enthusiastically brandishing a newsletter from the Ian Gawler Institute in Melbourne – a radical approach to life-threatening illnesses which recommended meditation, a strict diet and daily enemas – I was surprised to say the least.

Julian was a red wine, red meat, cheese and brandy man who lived life at an intense pace; I found it hard to imagine him sitting quietly meditating with a bowl of vegan salad and talking to a group of strangers about how he felt. To my amazement, he decided to go.

The course, held just outside Melbourne, was to last ten days. Partners were welcome to attend too, but we did not think it was feasible with a young baby.

I certainly did not harbour any hopes of a miracle cure but going to the retreat made sense to me – even if he could not ultimately beat his cancer, Julian might have more chance to live well for many years despite it. And if he was going to be dealing with any kind of traditional cancer treatment in the future, it was clear he needed to be as strong as possible.

•••

While he was away, the national elections were held. Herald photographer Palani Mohan and I followed the main political campaigns. At one point we went to Milne Bay Province to accompany Sir Julius Chan on the campaign trail. After a long day on the hustings, it was decided that we would go to the house Sir Julius was staying in that night to conduct a long interview.

It was strange to find him alone, without the entourage he had enjoyed as prime minister. The strangest moment of our evening came when someone raised the issue of dinner. By this time, it was long past ten o’clock and no-one had eaten. In the kitchen we found some eggs and bacon, an electric stove with one working ring and some dusty plates. We began to cook. When Sir Julius left the room, Palani and I both began to laugh quietly at this rather strange turn of events. It was extraordinary that we, currently regarded as his enemies in the media and the reason for his political downfall, were planning to share what should have been a hearty breakfast. Papua New Guinea. Always the land of the unexpected.

12

We sailed over deep, still waters, undisturbed. Our world was

calmer then. The storms came later, capsizing our certainties,

leaving us stranded, on other, more distant shores.

Julian returned from Melbourne having lost a little weight, no doubt a result of the strict diet he’d been on.

Initially he seemed quite flat. His verdict? Not bad but the food was terrible, meditation was boring and the only thing that might make sense would be for me to administer the recommended daily coffee enemas to give him a bit of zing.

‘What?’ I said in disbelief.

‘Well, we have marvellous organic coffee here,’ he said.

I took a deep breath. ‘I can’t tell whether you’re serious,’ I said. ‘But if you are, you need to know this is absolutely not going to happen. Coffee in a cup, yes. Anywhere else, not a chance.’

While Julian had obviously benefited from his break, I was disappointed that he had not really connected with anyone he’d met. I’d been hoping he would make some new friends, others who shared and understood his experience, people who could support him and take a little of the burden from my shoulders.

I later realised that talking about his situation was my need, not his. Like many women I found a sense of strength and comfort through talking; empathy and connection had always been very important in my emotional world view.

Selfishly, I really wanted to understand what Julian was feeling in order to lessen my own feelings of fear and isolation. He said so little about what he really felt since his diagnosis and I could sense myself retreating from him, a little bruised by his apparent self-absorption, muted by the vastness of everything we could no longer talk about.

Later that year Julian went to another alternative cancer treatment workshop, this time in Brisbane. Again there was lots of talk of meditation and a diet free of alcohol, sugar and meat. He returned with a huge bag of apparently immune-boosting vitamins.

I remember him lining up all the bottles of co-enzyme Q10, vitamin C and I honestly can’t remember what else along the open kitchen shelf. Every morning he would down several of these tablets with his morning juice.

‘Delicious,’ he would say with heavy irony.

•••

The most obvious obstacle to Julian’s continuing good health and the possibility of receiving the best treatment was the fact that we lived in Papua New Guinea, where medical care of the kind he might need was almost non-existent.

But this was our home and we both had careers, friends and a life neither of us wanted to leave. With Nina and her extended family, we had a quality of loving care for George I knew would be almost impossible to find in a Western society. I had certainly thought I was in PNG to stay for many years to come and I know Julian did too. Where would we go and what would we do?

We put off any decision for as long as possible. While Julian was relatively well and trialling low-dose oral chemotherapy, which seemed to have little ill-effect, there seemed to be no real pressure to leave. So we coasted along in denial, working, living, enjoying our daily walks and life with George.

Then we experienced first-hand the potential horrors of the health system. A young man, Joe, had travelled to Papua New Guinea by ship from Australia, bringing horses. While breaking them in with Edward, he had a terrible accident.

Julian and I arrived in the emergency department at Port Moresby General Hospital to find Joe in agony with a partially severed foot – the horse had reared, he had fallen backwards and been dragged along with his foot caught in the stirrup.

The sweltering waiting room was full of people, and there were patches of dried blood on the walls and floor. This painful vision illuminated the true human cost of years of corruption and ineptitude in the country’s public service. The triage team insisted they could not administer any pain relief until the doctor had come. I stood next to Joe as he lay on a dirty mattress, gripping my hand in agony.

Port Moresby, despite its status as the country’s capital, was basically a small town. Julian knew a surgeon who was not rostered on that day and drove around the city looking for him. It took two hours and eventually, after brief surgery at midnight and three days in recovery, Joe was flown back to Cairns for further treatment.

Up until that point Julian had always been quite light-hearted about the failings of the health system, often pointing to the safe birth of Edward many years before as an example of its adequate levels of care. He wasn’t light-hearted anymore. Even as a relatively wealthy foreigner who could afford to fly out in an emergency, he could see that the time would come when he might need a much higher level of expertise and care. It probably would be wise, we agreed, to leave PNG in order to give Julian the best chance of keeping cancer at bay for as long as possible. We began to talk of moving back to Australia by the end of the year with a degree of melancholy resignation and inevitability.

•••

While Sydney was an obvious option and certainly the one that I preferred, Julian was keener to investigate the Southern Highlands – which also happened to be within striking distance of St Vincent’s Hospital. Like a lot of men who have spent much of their working life in an office, there was a touch of the gentleman farmer about Julian. He wanted wide open spaces to imagine a new life, new possibilities.

All of my adult life had been spent in towns or cities – London, Sydney and now Port Moresby. I loved a more bustling existence and had no great hankering to live permanently in rural Australia or, indeed, rural anywhere. However, given the situation Julian was facing, I decided I had no right to deny him his wish. If it had been the other way around and I was the one dealing with a life-threatening illness, I would have wanted his wholehearted support.

After visiting Julian’s brother John and his wife Mary in Sydney, we headed off to the Southern Highlands. I hid the fact I felt somewhat bleak as we rattled along the country roads in a borrowed car, past mile after mile of paddocks. George was not overly thrilled to be pinned into a tight car seat for hours on end and there were frequent stops along the way.

Despite the distance from Sydney, though, I had to admit I liked the area. The main towns – Bowral, Mittagong, Robertson, Moss Vale – were all uniquely different and it was the first time in many years that I had been in a place which reminded me so much of England with its rolling green hills. After a few days, I began to see the benefits that a new life might offer and we made arrangements to rent a house outside Bowral the following year to give ourselves time to find a permanent home.

•••

At the end of our visit, I had planned to stay on alone at the Douglas Park monastery south of Sydney for a two-day retreat. Julian was returning to Port Moresby with George. I wasn’t a Catholic, but the retreat centre had been recommended to me by a dear friend. Many people made fun of me when I said the retreat was silent. ‘You’ll never last,’ they said.

I was not so sure. As sociable as I could be, there were times when I needed to escape, and the desert had taught me a great deal about the necessity of solitude – it was the only way to reconnect with myself. The last few months had been especially challenging. Shortly before Julian’s diagnosis and the relentless demands of the Sandline affair, I had also suffered a devastating late miscarriage. Even though Julian was more accepting of the loss, I grieved for the life of our second child. I wondered what the future now held in terms of the larger family I had set my heart on.

There is something about being in the presence of someone who has spent a lifetime focusing on mystery and contemplation, something so beautifully simple about the peace they possess. Immediately on meeting Father Terry Naughton, I sensed that nothing I could say would disturb or surprise him.

‘Tell me about yourself,’ he said.

For so long I had been able to ride the wave of my more uncomfortable emotions and often pretended to others that I was feeling alright. But from the moment I began to speak, all my defences fell away. I held nothing back, pouring out all my anguish about Julian’s diagnosis and the loss of our baby; I finally felt free to acknowledge how lost and bewildered I felt. It was an opportunity to bring the darkness of my more difficult emotions into the light.

I had been trying so hard to be positive around Julian, to be encouraging, but the truth was I also felt a deep sense of loneliness in our marriage now that the ghost of cancer threatened our future.

Whatever I said, Father Terry did not flinch. When I told him how angry I felt at times, he responded with compassion and understanding.

‘Do you think you can befriend your anger?’ he asked after a while.

I looked into his kind eyes. What could he mean? How could such toxic emotions be acceptable? My hope was that simply by voicing them, these deeply uncomfortable feelings would magically disappear.

Father Terry suggested that I spend the rest of the day contemplating the words of Christ: ‘Come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest.’

‘Is that it?’ I asked.

‘See how you go,’ he said.

I wandered off to my room to collect a hat and a journal. The monastery had been built in the most beautiful bushland and the prospect of a long walk was irresistible.

The suggested mantra echoed in my mind as I strolled down to the river. The day was bright but the light in the winding forest was dappled and soothing. Eventually I found a lovely spot under a tree.

Since childhood, I had felt a strong connection to mystery and was captivated by the stories of Christ. Much to the bemusement of my atheist family, as a young teenager I had covered our garage wall with bold green and orange stickers proclaiming THIS WAY TO JESUS! I had never really pursued my spiritual curiosity in a more formal sense and was absolutely averse to what I felt was the impersonality and rigidness of religious institutions. I sat alone by the riverbank, my mind in turmoil. All you who are weary? You have no idea.

My discomfort began to border on embarrassment. I fidgeted, looked in my bag for something to eat, and tried to feel inspired. Nothing, just the hot day, the buzzing flies and the distant drone of the freeway.

I felt like a fraud. I did not know how to hand over my burdens – whatever that meant. Someone like me was clearly not cut out for a contemplative life, my mind was too busy, too relentless. The novelty of the retreat was wearing off, and my hopes for a blinding light on the road to Damascus were clearly far too ambitious.

I had created this opportunity for a deeper experience of life, a way to gather myself and find an unshakeable place of peace, but all I could hear were the endless voices in my head berating me for being so pretentious, so inadequate.

I took out my journal, hungry for distraction. I leafed through the pages, ashamed of my past attempts to say something profound or insightful about my life. Instead I sounded like a tormented teenager. I quickly flicked to a blank page, unable to bear reading any more.

I picked up my pen and waited. Surely I could find something to write, to slip unseen past this watching moment and find the peace I was seeking. I felt my breath dropping down into my lungs, my exhalations heavy with anxiety. Come to me.

The sounds began to melt into one: the brooding wind, the swish of brushing leaves, the staccato call of a distant bird. I leaned back on the rough tree, its bark rough against my hair, and began to write, so slowly it was as if I was a child again, looping each letter together with unusual care.

There is so much silence.

I closed my eyes, allowing a sense of deep exhaustion to wash over me.

•••

For the rest of the retreat I mostly slept or walked around in a minor trance. During those two days, there was no great moment of revelation. However, I did find unexpected solace. I allowed myself to speak to mystery and to consider that my words would be heard and understood, somewhere, somehow. It comforted me but gave me no answers. For the moment, that would have to be enough.

•••

When the retreat ended, I was handed a fax from Julian.

Darling Lucy,

Porgy is keeping me happy taking the stuffing out of his nappy where it was torn by a plant on the veranda. He is now into the paints. Next he will be back to the films. In a little while we will set off for the beach. He is extremely nice and I would like to hear him speak. When he does I don’t expect complaints!

Today is perfect. It is nice in this house and in many ways I would like to stay and not move away from it. But I also think a move would be better for us. I find it difficult to see us growing without a new start in a new home.

There is more that I want to say but at 11 pm I have lost the wit and the energy. I am looking forward to seeing you, my darling, and I confess a small part of the reason is that Porgy is a bit of a handful without help. We had a nice day together and played with a lot of laughing instead of talking. He managed to make a terrific mess and we sort of slobbed out together. I am very much in love with you.

Lots of kisses,

J

To: Julian Thirlwall

From: Your loving wife!

Darling,

I just happened to see your fax – I shall follow your lead and write instead of telephoning.

I am glad for you that this break has given you some breathing space as my retreat did for me. You have really needed it.

I don’t feel as though I have been much of a support to you at times this year. The bad news has taken a long time to sink in and I think I tried to pretend for a while that I did not feel terribly sad. Thank you for being patient with me.

My greatest fear is that this myeloma will drive us apart, and that you will withdraw and not share the difficult times. I hope we can find a way of being more and more united as time goes by. I want to be your rock, to be strong for you when you need me.

We have a lot to grapple with – after only a year and a half of marriage there is so much to digest. You have enriched my life in so many ways and given me so much to be so deeply thankful for. You have given me yourself and allowed me to feel such a sense of completeness to be entirely yours. You have also given me George, Edward, Henry, Charlie and Oliver to love and share my life with.

Let’s have some special time together soon, darling, before we leave Papua New Guinea, to help prepare us for the next chapter in our happy and unforgettable marriage.

All my love,

L xxxx

•••

To mark our imminent departure from Papua New Guinea, Julian and I decided to go on a long walk from Goroka down to the Ramu Valley with a group of local guides. We had initially talked about going on a boat trip up the mighty Sepik River – Julian had never been and it was one place he really wanted to see. But ultimately, we both wanted a real adventure, to do something we would never forget. We arranged that George would stay in Port Moresby with Nina.

I always knew most Papua New Guineans who lived a subsistence life in the mountains were robust, but on this expedition the resilience and good humour of our guides was extraordinary. It wasn’t actually a walk, more a bush-bashing scramble up and down ridges, hanging on to slippery tree vines and trying not to look down into the chasms below. At night we camped in heavy rain, our meagre tent buckling under sheets of water, the incessant noise of the forest animals making it almost impossible to sleep.

The guides’ consideration of my poor agility knew no bounds – wherever I looked there was always an outstretched hand to steady me across a precipitous log or help me find my footing in the mud. We even took a young boy of six whose father was accompanying us, and watched in awe as he deftly negotiated spindly rope bridges over raging rivers without a moment’s hesitation.

One night we stayed in a remote hillside hamlet consisting of two tiny, almost bare woven huts where a middle-aged man lived with his two largely silent wives. As darkness fell and the rains came once again, the temperatures dropped dramatically and we were grateful to be given space to sleep by the smoking fire. We shared our food with the family and in turn they offered us what tasted like cooked meat from the hearth, although what we were eating was impossible to see. When we were packing up in the morning, I asked one of the guides if we should give them anything to say thank you.

‘Do you have any shoes?’

Sporting a pair of Julian’s old sandals, our host gave us a rousing farewell. I could hear his long cries echoing down the mountain as we slowly made our way towards the coast.

Filthy, tired and damp, we ploughed on until we reached the bottom of the Ramu Valley. There was little point in looking back to see how far we’d come – the forest was so dense. We then made our way by road to the northern coastal town of Madang, where Nina and George were waiting for us at a beach resort, and spent three heavenly days swimming in the pristine ocean and recovering from the trek. It was now only a matter of weeks before we would ship all our possessions back to Australia and begin another life.

•••

Sadness washed through me as we packed up the house and gradually said goodbye to all our friends.

•••

The moment I dreaded most was leaving Nina. Her loving constancy and good humour were qualities I had come to rely on to lift me during my darker days, and I wondered how George would grieve for her when he realised the finality of our departure. Having been such a powerful presence in Julian’s family for more than twenty years, I knew our departure weighed heavily upon Nina and as the time grew closer, neither of us could speak about our uncertain futures without tears

On one of our first ‘dates’, Julian and I had decided to see a play at the University of Papua New Guinea Arts Theatre on the other side of town. When we eventually arrived on the dimly lit campus, I began to have second thoughts about the wisdom of our venture. We slowly cruised around looking for lights that might suggest a performance, but after ten minutes it was clear that we had got the day wrong.

Slowing down outside an open shed, I noticed the partially carved figure of a life-sized woman with a child in her arms.

‘Look at that,’ I said. ‘It’s beautiful.’

I was haunted by that statue for many months, and when I knew we would be leaving, I decided to go back and see if the carvers working at the university could make me something similar – out of all the PNG artefacts I had ever seen, this one had really captivated me.

When I returned to the campus, I was amazed to find that the half-finished statue was still in exactly the same place. Talking to the men working there, I was told that the student who had been carving it had died midway through the process and out of respect for him and his wife it had been left as it was.

‘It’s Jesus and his mother Mary,’ one of them said. ‘If you want us to finish it we will have to speak to his widow.’

So began several weeks of protracted negotiations as the carver’s widow, Elizabeth, decided how much she wanted us to pay and, more importantly, who should finish her late husband’s work.

The arrival of Mary and Jesus a few days before the removalists came felt like the completion of a circle. Standing on a round plinth, soaked with oil, her wooden hair slightly blackened with a pig’s tooth, Mary gazed down adoringly at a rather odd-looking Jesus with a long neck and an old man’s face.

There was something in her lowered gaze that immediately drew me in, a quiet sense of strength and endurance, the deep confidence of a mother’s devotion. From the moment it arrived, this statue was never just an object; for me it was the face of unconditional love and perseverance, an embodiment of Nina which meant her presence would always be with us.

COMING HOME

That brighter field, lit by an unseen sun

Draws my soul like breath floating

From my lips in the soft morning light.

Above me, the bending, naked trees

Yearn towards the darkening skies.

A dark bird hovers, and is gone.

Still the bright field remains

Bathed in a glowing light,

An illumined space,

Graced in its own being.

This moment will surely pass.

It cannot hold against

Life’s tightrope.

13

I surrender into the day’s embrace and let

it teach me what I need to learn.

By the time we moved into a rented house outside Bowral about nine months after his diagnosis, Julian was still in good health. Though determined, myeloma was a relatively slow-moving cancer – medical advice suggested that, with some intervention, Julian could live for many years. He immediately began to look for legal work to immerse himself in.

As we settled into our community, I watched Julian throw himself into his new life with typical relish. His energy amazed me – even with such a cloud hanging over his future and not always feeling his best, he was nevertheless enthused and excited about what each new day might bring. He took up horseriding again, joined a weekly cooking school for men, started a course in agriculture and learned how to fix fences.

My desire for another child remained strong, yet the obvious questions that hung over Julian’s future raised major issues for us both. Having more children in such circumstances was clearly an enormous gamble.

We had been discussing this somewhat fraught issue for several months, taking it in turns to play devil’s advocate. If we decided against having more children, to me that would be a tacit acceptance that he was not going to survive. To say no would be to give up on him, to begin to live with the thought, ‘What’s the point? He’s going to die anyway.’ In the end, it was this prospect that I could not accept, a choice that seemed so utterly bleak and depressing. I simply could not allow myself to think that Julian would not triumph in the end.

After months of difficult conversations, we chose hope. And then we waited.

•••

Julian began to talk to a lovely lawyer friend, Philip Boyce, in Bowral as he thought the impending Goods and Services Tax being introduced by the government of John Howard might yield future work for him.

‘I went to university with Howard,’ he said.

‘He’s so unimaginative and depressing,’ I said. I missed the insightful acerbity of former prime minister Paul Keating. For me, politics in Australia after the excitement and unpredictability of Papua New Guinea was extremely dull.

I had largely given up on the idea of continuing work as a journalist – reporting news in a small country town did not seem very appealing.

Luckily, the BBC World Service got in touch and asked if I would be interested in being a regional freelancer for Australia and the South Pacific. I was told I would only report on significant events, which meant the workload would not be too great. Then they dangled another carrot – I had to spend a week in Jakarta for some training.

•••

The week away was a huge boost to my professional confidence and it was thrilling to be working with other journalists from South-East Asia, many from countries that I knew little about. The days were intense and interesting as we sat around in an airless hotel conference room. I had not worked this hard since the Sandline crisis and I enjoyed it immensely.

However, after a few days I began to wonder whether our evening sorties into the clogged and choking city had made me sick – my appetite was dropping and I felt unusually tired.

I dragged myself off the plane in Sydney to be greeted by Julian and George.

‘You look very pale,’ Julian said as he took my bag. ‘Did you catch a bug?’

‘Must have done,’ I said, gathering up George. I held him close, breathing in his scent. It was good to be home.

•••

Within days of returning, I had all the symptoms of pregnancy I had previously experienced with George, but this time accompanied by a level of nausea and vague preoccupation I had not thought possible.

A test soon revealed my suspicions were true – it was not some nasty bug from Jakarta but an overload of hormones. A double dose. I broke the news to Julian. We were having twins.

He was delighted and immediately began suggesting boys’ names.

‘No, Jules,’ I said. ‘I really think I am going to have girls.’

Julian immediately dismissed my prediction. ‘I only have boys,’ he reminded me. ‘There are no girls in the Thirlwall family. It’s absolutely impossible.’

•••

With the news that our twins would arrive around Christmas, we increased our efforts to find a permanent home. However, we had completely different ideas about what we wanted. I was looking at what I thought were gorgeous old, rambling weatherboard homes near the centre of a town or village, close to shops, people, activities and places for children to play.

Julian, on the other hand, was driving to the most remote corners of the Southern Highlands, enthusing over wilderness and miles of bush. Where I saw charm and convenience, Julian could only see suburbia and boredom; while he was carried away over miles of rocky, windswept bush, I could only see isolation and the hours we would spend driving just to buy a carton of milk.

Eventually we were persuaded to look at a farm in East Kangaloon, about a fifteen-minute drive from town. We had driven past it on several occasions but the house seemed too close to the road, something that neither of us found particularly appealing. A friend urged us to go and have a proper look.

We were in the depths of winter by then. Frost had destroyed most of the lush paddocks and the wind was icy. After years in a tropical climate it seemed I simply could not get warm no matter how many clothes I wore. I had hoped the pregnancy would boost my internal heating system but so far that had not happened. When we arrived at the house mid-morning to meet the agent, we were greeted by the owner’s daughter, who was still in her dressing-gown.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m just waiting for the pipes to thaw so I can have a shower and leave.’

I raised an eyebrow at Julian.

‘We’ll come back,’ the agent told her, then suggested to us: ‘I’ll take you for a drive instead.’

We headed out across the open paddock, the ground dry and brittle after months of drought. Beautiful stands of towering trees clustered around the bottom of a perfect hill. The sun came out and we got out of the car to drink it all in. Julian and I stood together, mesmerised. There was a still, dark dam, a vista of green paddocks through gaps in the bush, and a cluster of paperbarks. Sunlight carelessly threw itself in pieces on the ground near our feet.

Julian squeezed my hand and we exchanged a knowing look.

This was it.

•••

As we prepared to move, Julian said he would quite like to go to China and Tibet with Oliver and Charlie, who were living in Beijing and Korea. I always felt it was important for him to spend time alone with his children and completely supported the idea.

‘How long will you go for?’ I asked.

‘About a month or so. You’re invited as well, of course.’

I laughed, thinking about the logistics of preparing our new house alone, dealing with my increasingly weighty body and caring for George.

‘I think that’s what they call a Clayton’s invitation. Can’t quite see myself on a trekking holiday right now.’

I thought all about the friends I could see, the books I could read, the freedom to hang out with George in my own way, all unencumbered by anyone else’s agenda.

‘Send me a postcard,’ I told him.

Julian did in fact send me a postcard from his travels – just the one. I still keep it on my bookshelf.

Darling, we went up to the Potala Palace on the first day and spent the morning. The building was tremendous but a little lifeless with only 50 resident monks.

Love,

J

Dearest Jules. A man of few words.

•••

We moved into the farm a few weeks before the twins were due. By this stage, I had become rather ungainly, so my role was largely restricted to emptying but not lifting heavy boxes and making endless pots of tea for anyone who was doing any real work.

After we had settled in and consigned most of the boxes to the shed for unpacking later, Julian and I went to Sydney for his next consultation at St Vincent’s in Darlinghurst.

I wanted to know what options the doctors were suggesting to Julian, and to better understand the language of his illness and its treatments. I certainly did not have any fixed views about the path he should take; I simply hoped to support him and have a sense of what was coming.

The oncologist was pleasant but avoided engaging with me and spent most of the consultation speaking directly to Julian. The news was not good. Having lain relatively dormant for several months, it seemed the myeloma was on the move. It had been previously suggested that a bone marrow transplant would give Julian the best chance of a long-term remission. His brothers John and Adrian had already undergone tests to see if they could be donors. Neither match had worked.

The only remaining option was an autologous transplant. This would mean Julian’s stem cells would be removed from his bone marrow and stored. He would undergo a gruelling dose of chemotherapy to kill the cancer cells and then his stem cells would be infused back into his blood. This would mean a month in hospital, largely in an isolation ward. It was a risky procedure as his susceptibility to opportunistic infections would be very high. However, if successful, it could mean remission, possibly for many years. Myeloma could not be cured, but it could be postponed. It was our best option.

We debated about when this should happen. Julian naturally wanted to be around for the birth of the twins, and the extended family – including Nina – were coming to the farm for Christmas. We settled on mid-January and I began an earnest search for a live-in nanny to help me while he was away.

•••

On 16 December 1998, I went into an induced labour in Bowral hospital. Unlike George’s birth, which was natural and drug-free, this time I opted for every legal opiate available. An epidural, pethidine, gas, any barricade against pain was lined up and ready to go. I wanted the experience to be as stress-free and as devoid of unpleasant surprises as possible. It had already been a long year.

As the labour slowly gathered pace, Julian sat by the side of the bed, occasionally telling me to remain calm and reading aloud what he thought were interesting snippets from The Economist.

Having an epidural was like experiencing pain from a distance. I could certainly sense that my body was in increasingly intense labour, but I could only feel a fraction of the pain I had felt with George. Or at least I did until the drugs began to wear off.

Once again, my body took on a life of its own. However, this time I could not stand up or move around on the bed a great deal. Due to the numbing effects of the drugs, and despite the fact that I was pushing as hard as I could, it was time for some medical intervention and out came the suction pad. I was frankly beyond caring at this point.

The first baby’s head began to crown. I kept breathing as deeply as possible. And then I heard a sharp intake of breath and a strangled cry. I thought it was the baby but it was Julian.

‘It’s a . . . girl.’

He took off his glasses and wiped his eyes. He could not believe what he was seeing.

‘Well done, darling, well done.’ He kissed me several times and squeezed my hand.

The baby was whisked away for testing and soon the second labour was upon me. It seemed this baby was in far more of a hurry. I grabbed the gas mask, wondering what state my body would be in after going through another labour so soon.

‘This one’s coming feet first,’ said a voice at the end of the bed.

There was another gasp from Julian. ‘I don’t believe it.’ It was another girl.

Swaddled in blankets, their wizened little faces peered out, pink and delicious. I began to cry. The babies I had dreamed of, Meg and Charlotte, had arrived.

12 December 1998

The big news has not yet happened. Lucy is extremely pregnant with twins which are due just before Christmas, but were expected to arrive yesterday. The call may come before this hits the post. One, we think, may be a girl, but I am not putting any money on it. Everyone has been alerted and all is ready for the big day which may well, as things are going, coincide with the birth of Our Lord. Meantime Lucy tries to rest and George, who is nearing three, enjoys our constant attentions. I dabble at soliciting and tractor driving.

In August we finally found our new home and are very happy here. It’s a small 100acre farm near Bowral, two hours south of Sydney in the Southern Highlands, in what is a pretty, gentrified area that has become too expensive for real farmers who are leaving the land to the likes of us to play around with – doing very little properly but enjoying it greatly. It has numerous paddocks, cows, a beautiful wood, a treelined stream, a tractor, and very attractive trees, shrubs and roses in the garden. We are close enough to drive in each day to buy food and to check the post office for news of the outside world.

Oliver and Charles are coming home for Christmas. Oliver has been in Shanghai for the past three years and plans to do an MBA course next year but is not sure where – possibly Sydney, but he likes the idea of America and Europe. Charles has been living in Seoul working for a French sports goods chain but is ready for a change. He has plans to go to Argentina next year where he would like to play polo. Henry has finished his second year at university learning Chinese and Spanish, and Edward is halfway to Zambia, where he will work on a chicken farm owned by family friends for a year, having just finished school.

I was diagnosed with cancer some time ago but fortunately am still in remission. I am due to have a bone marrow transplant early next year which I am not particularly looking forward to but which should keep the disease at bay for quite a while.

Apart from a little work and infrequent trips to PNG – Lucy did her last stint up there for the BBC World Service in August – the current outlook is babies and probably not much else until they are old enough to be put on view.

Julian

14

In our newly planted orchard, the trembling plants

struggle not to wither and die under this summer’s

unforgiving sun. Enclosed by the night, I walk outside

barefoot with a watering can, and will them to survive.

Julian went to hospital in January, four weeks after the girls were born. The time passed in a smear of anxiety, sleep-deprivation and crying babies. The nights were the hardest. Fear sprinted, without obstacle, through every pathway of my mind, obliterating contentment; at night I gripped a stone from a river bed, torn and tossed to perfectly fit in my hand, to earth me.

I was only able to visit Julian twice during that long month as the logistics of getting to Sydney while breastfeeding twins, coupled with the fear of passing on any kind of infection from the children, were just too difficult.

‘Don’t come tomorrow,’ he would say, his lovely voice now fractured by the ravages of chemo. ‘It’s enough for me to talk to you and know you’re there.’

Fortunately, the boys visited him frequently and kept me up to date with how he was. This relieved the pressure and gave me more time to recuperate from the birth of Meg and Charlotte. As Julian’s main carer, I also needed to gather my energy for when he returned.

•••

Achingly thin, completely bald, pale and more brittle than I could ever have imagined, a semblance of Julian returned home. Such high-dose chemotherapy seemed akin to having smashed a peach with a hammer and I privately questioned whether this had been the right course to take.

Gone were Julian’s normally colossal appetite and energetic zeal, gone were his enthusiasm and strength; I found it hard to recognise the shadow of the man he had become. The side-effects of the treatment were harrowing – he was nauseous, weak and exhausted. It broke my heart to watch him, normally so fastidious and dignified, shuffle around the house in a pair of sheepskin slippers, hollowed out and grim-faced.

I read the hospital notes carefully, made sure he had his daily medications and focused on finding foods he could tolerate. He also seemed confused at times and uncharacteristically down – he struggled to find the energy for reading or watching films he would normally have enjoyed.

Caring for him was enormously draining. Even when I was not with him, I thought about him constantly, wondering what more I could do to ease his suffering. I also found myself impatient and frustrated by him at times – exhausted by his needs, resentful that my life had been reduced to such petty details and overwhelmed by the enormity of all my responsibilities.

By this time, I had given up any idea of continuing my life as a journalist. I had once tried to record a radio interview for the BBC at midnight, but I’d been forced to hide in a spare room with pillows stuffed around the door to shut out the sound of the children crying.

Deadlines, babies and a sick husband were clearly not a happy mix. It was obvious that my career would have to go.

•••

Within a few weeks, Julian became bored with the life of an invalid, and began planning what he would do when he was fully better – the horses he would ride, the friends he would visit, the tree planting he would undertake.

Gradually, he got stronger and we were able to christen Meg and Charlotte in May. It was a lovely celebration and many of our family and friends said they had been deeply moved by the day; bittersweet hours of joy and anguish. ‘Love and longing, deep and abiding, summoned you forth to light our world,’ one friend wrote.

Buoyed by his improving health, Julian suggested we should head up to Byron Bay for a holiday during the winter. I had not really anticipated the challenge of driving for several hours with three tiny children, but we eventually limped into the north coast town and collapsed into a rented apartment.

The next day the children and I woke up with heavy colds. I was very concerned that Julian should not get sick as well so I encouraged him to leave us alone as much as possible. Julian was improving and I thought a few leisurely bushwalks and the fresh sea air would do him the world of good.

After lunch one day he came back to the apartment looking very excited.

‘I’ll just have a bite to eat and then I’m off,’ he said.

‘Are you going for another walk?’

‘No,’ he said, sitting down to pull on some running shoes. ‘I’m going hang-gliding. Do you want to come?’

•••

For several months, life settled into a period of relative normalcy.

We made the most of what we believed was Julian’s long-term reprieve from cancer. He embarked on a massive tree-planting exercise at the farm, cleaned out the dams, repaired fences and agisted horses for breeding. Julian and my father, who came over from the UK for a month, created an orchard of peaches, pears and apples. We also found a lovely old weatherboard cottage which the owners wanted to knock down – so we had it cut in half and relocated to the farm to be used as an office.

Many years later I sorted through boxes of photographs of these peaceful days: Julian and George flying a paper plane; Julian tickling Meg’s chin with a piece of long grass; Charlotte sitting on his lap with a commanding smile.

Even though these images resonate, there are so many empty rooms in my memory of this time. I’m confused as to why this particular period of my life, more than any other, is now so obscure. It was as though all those days had simply melted together, and become indistinct and unrecognisable.

•••

Cracks in our apparently stable world began to develop the following year. They began as small fissures: an irritating cough, strange aches and pains, unexplained tiredness.

I believe we both had a sense of what might be coming as we drove up to Sydney. Julian had recently undergone more blood tests – today was the day of the results. Living with such uncertainty was hard to manage as I found myself oscillating between occasional despair and giddy hope. Julian was far more philosophical, at least outwardly.

The news was bad – the bone marrow transplant had effectively failed. It had been our best hope; in fact, our only hope.

It appeared that there were a few remaining options – all unpalatable and all incapable of permanently halting the progress of the myeloma. The best that any additional treatment could achieve would be to hold off the illness, but there was no way of knowing for how long. More chemotherapy was inevitable but Julian could also try thalidomide, the controversial anti-nausea medication that had caused so many birth defects in the late 1950s.

‘It will probably make you quite tired and you might get some nerve damage,’ the doctor told us. ‘But it can be quite effective and could be worth a go.’

The proposed treatments would not have the impact that the transplant had promised, he warned us. Their effectiveness would now be measured in months, not years.

We walked out into a tired, grey day, stepping out, once again, to an uncertain future.

•••

Julian and I had often gone to church in Port Moresby, largely because we had friends who went and because the services, with their sea of warm embracing smiles, were such a heartening contrast to Port Moresby’s daily diet of crime, curfews and corruption.

On moving back to Australia we had found our local Anglican church empty and flat and, to my mind, revoltingly right wing at times. It was as though the move to allow women priests had not impacted on the rigidity of the institution where the Sydney diocese had any influence. After one service I walked out in disgust when one rector clumsily tried to argue homosexuality was a sin and that AIDS was its bitter reward. Our new neighbours, dairy farmers Greg and Trish, invited us one Sunday to the Catholic church in the nearby village of Robertson, which is where we stumbled upon a Vietnamese priest called Father Francis Tran.

Relaxed, sincere and urbane, Francis was a breath of fresh air. His sermon was direct, inclusive and uplifting. He chatted after the service and invited us to his home the following morning, promising the best coffee in town. Any spiritual curiosity aside, that was incentive enough.

The coffee was good but the conversation was even better. Francis wore the mantle of priesthood so lightly it was easy to forget it was there. He told us stories of growing up under communism, about his imprisonment and eventual flight from Vietnam, and his gradual entry into the church. In turn we talked to him about our lives in Papua New Guinea, how we had come to the Southern Highlands, and Julian’s illness.

It was quite a surprise to me when, on standing at the door to say goodbye, Julian asked him, ‘So how do you become a Catholic?’

Francis put his hand on Julian’s arm and gave him an open, almost mischievous smile.

‘You have to live your life with a sense of awe,’ he said.

•••

This became our private mantra, one that we sometimes repeated to each other when it seemed that we were losing our way. Although we agreed to receive ‘instruction’, we ignored the more regressive and institutional aspects of the Catholic faith, concentrating only on what held meaning for us.

This new path led us both towards a more contemplative marriage. I never could speak for Julian, so I cannot explain from his point of view why he decided to become a Catholic. It was something very special to us both yet we rarely talked about it.

Julian wasn’t a crazy convert, he wasn’t in love with the church, he didn’t rave about Jesus, but I could see that in his own quiet way he drew sustenance from his many conversations with Francis Tran. It gave him the space to ask the questions he wanted to ask, to search for some sense of meaning and comfort. Opening up his spiritual life did not give him any protection from the realities he was facing. Instead it gave him – gave both of us – a framework from which he could approach the question of his declining health with greater openness.

Julian was always a big-picture person – through these conversations I sensed his vision of life was enlarged and he understood what living with a faith meant to others, even if he himself did not share it to the same extent.

As the English playwright Dennis Potter once said of his own faith, ‘It is the wound, not the bandage.’ In the months ahead, we both found sanctuary in the sacred places we visited, where it was normal practice to face our darkness and make whatever amends we needed to make; it was a choice that, in our situation, inspired us to choose courage in the face of inevitable suffering.

Journal entry, Mollymook, January 2001

I have needed to get away for a couple of days; I am struggling to stay afloat. Julian has not been well and I sense we’re on the brink of a new chapter.

Jules, I am overwhelmed by the thought of life without you. There’s a bird flapping furiously over the sea; now it glides, sheering over the tumbling waves. I feel like that bird right now, briefly pausing in the down-drift to gather energy for what is coming.

I look longingly at other families, crashing hand in hand into the rolling surf, knowing that this will never be our life together.

There is a heaviness within me, separating me from a carefree life. And yet there are moments where I can still surrender to joy and the possibility of hope.

I sit and draw shapes in the sand with a sunbleached stick, and watch the evening slowly seep across the sky.

•••

There are few people who are completely at home when dealing with all the unspeakable stuff of life: loss, despair and life-threatening illnesses.

I had gone to see a counsellor a couple of times at the Quest for Life centre in Bundanoon to try to get a better grasp of what was happening in my life and to find a way through feeling constantly overwhelmed. Julian’s thalidomide treatment was proving exhausting – he slept for hours on end and had little energy for anything. George, Meg and Charlotte were largely at home, with the occasional respite of preschool or babysitters for a few hours. I felt the strain of managing everything was becoming too much and I had no idea how to make the burden lighter.

The truth was, most of the time I was drowning, not waving. I’d always believed that people caring for others needed to be patient and loving and always willing to go that extra mile; I’m not sure from where I constructed this impossible ideal, but it was always there in the back of my mind – do more, be more, care more.

We sat in the counsellor’s spacious study on the edge of the Morton National Park, autumnal trees shading the window under a slow sun.

‘How is everything at home?’ she asked.

‘It’s bloody hard going,’ I said. ‘I feel completely out of my depth, and I’m frazzled pretty much all of the time.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Oh God, where do I start? Well, yesterday is a good example of where we’re at. Julian was in bed with oxygen as he was having trouble breathing. I was in the kitchen when I heard him calling me so I started to go upstairs. Then I heard a thud and the sound of crying – one of the children had fallen down the stairs. Another one started shouting for me from another part of the house and then the toilet door flew open and a voice yelled out, “Wipe my bum!”

‘I just stood there. I couldn’t decide who to go to first.’

She looked at me with sympathy.

‘I’m just so tired,’ I said. ‘And the worst part is that no matter what I do, I feel I’m doing it all badly.’

There was a long pause while I allowed myself to feel the full force of the despair I had buried for so many months.

The counsellor, as she had probably done a thousand times, passed the tissue box.

‘So,’ she said eventually, ‘what do you think are the gifts of cancer?’

Even now, when I recall the question, a sense of shock still resonates. The gifts? What the hell was she talking about?

Bewildered, and playing for time, I looked around her ordered, peaceful room: a pinboard covered with hopeful children’s drawings, and on her desk a small vase of pale flowers. As she waited patiently, I tried to think of something good. Gradually, like the first sprouting of a tiny plant, a thought manifested.

‘Well, we’ve certainly been able to spend more time together,’ I began, realising with some irony that Julian and I rarely spent a minute apart.

She nodded.

‘And although we have become more distant in some ways, in others we’ve become much closer.’

I thought of Julian’s gruelling treatment regime, about how all seven of his children were coping, seeing him so unwell, so reduced.

‘I have no idea what the future holds. So I suppose one gift is that a lot of things I would normally worry about, no longer matter. What’s important to me now is a lot clearer.’

Then, in the silence that followed, like the first sprouting of a tiny plant, I began to think about all the good things that Julian and I had experienced because of his illness; amid the strain and fear we had shared precious moments of kindness that might not have otherwise happened.

‘Perhaps you could think of Julian’s cancer in another way,’ the counsellor suggested. ‘Maybe it’s like a little bird on your shoulder that’s reminding you how to live.’

December 2000

Meg and Charlotte achieve two on Saturday, and so it will be a party in the back paddock with a few friends to fight and make a mess where it doesn’t matter. It’s been a pleasure watching the changes, bigger helpings, reacting and recently accepting orders. They still enjoy disgusting food and behave moderately well. Charlotte – the redhead – is the most volatile and has a big personality and Meg is talking the most. George is delightful, going on five, and will have another year in preschool, along with the girls this time, which should be fun for all of them.

The farm is quietly moving on with a small herd of cows and some brood mares which have just foaled. Fortunately, it is too small to be a financial drain. We have planted a lot more trees, which seem to be growing slowly, and every now and then I try growing vegetables with absolutely no success whatsoever. Being an hour and a half away from Sydney, the only problem is that it gets a bit cold in the winter, a bit of a shock after so long in the tropics.

We have postponed plans for a local newspaper, and I have given up my efforts to start a local law practice – all a bit hard after PNG, and my health kept letting me down this year with three sessions in hospital, and I have decided I am tired of law anyway and glad to be shot of it. I spend my time being a house husband and baby minder. Lucy may try to get back into some sort of part-time journalism, perhaps covering the Pacific, which has been in the news, although the coverage in the local papers has been thin considering the disasters in the Solomons and Fiji. PNG is picking up but everyone worries what will happen if Mekere Morauta does not survive the election next year. As you can tell, I still take a keen interest in non-Australian affairs.

It’s already 14 December and no cards have been sent yet. Let’s have your email addresses. Fortunately, I remain in remission with my myeloma taking heavy doses of thalidomide, which sends me to sleep a lot of the time.

My older children are still scattered. Oliver is in Barcelona finishing his MBA and hoping to work for an investment bank. Charles is still in Seoul, spending time in North Korea planning power stations – a big step up from his last job as party organiser for a Seoul hotel. Henry is in Sydney finishing off his BA and Edward is flogging mobile phones before going back to South Africa to play more polo. They are all coming home for Christmas, which will be the first time all my children have been under one roof.

Hepi Krismus na gutpela niu yia,

Julian

THE SUN

I cannot see the sun and

The moon is pressing on my back.

Hush my darling, the sun is there.

But I can’t see it,

The dirt has soaked into my eyes.

Quiet now, my darling.

I cannot see the sun today,

I’m too sad.

Yes, you are, my darling,

But stay a while, let the

Earth whisper its warmth to you,

Hold on to that small rock.

Here, let me press it in your hand.

I am sometimes frightened

By things I cannot see.

Come here, my darling,

Let me hold you fast in my arms,

When you are ready,

You will feel God’s light all around you.

Will I see it?

Yes, my darling,

It is just inside you, resting.

15

Christmas Day 2000

Lucy darling,

In recent weeks I have been battling lethargy which has returned with a vengeance in recent days. Little energy to do the simplest things let alone put careful thoughts on paper.

I adore you completely. You made me very proud. I am only sorry not to be able to return your love adequately. My thoughts are completely centred on you and the children, to whom I am devoted, even though I have far too little energy to play with them. It is super to have the boys home and Nina as well.

Above all, I love you, especially knowing I am a pain to put up with most of the time. Darling, thank you for the past five wonderful years, they have given me absolutely everything, the children and above all your love for me for which I am utterly grateful every day. It is the one thing that keeps me looking forward to the next day and the next.

I like your cleverness and your way of handling people. I like your generosity, so it is no surprise that you attract people – without you I would be left alone most of the time. I love your sparkle and wit, the way the conversation takes a lift when we run into people. Even your putdowns are fun, although I’m glad not to be on the receiving end too often.

Right now I will put my trust in thalidomide and hope that it works. If, after a couple of months, it doesn’t, then I will have another go at the chemo. I want to have another Christmas with you, with the girls talking and reacting more. If that happens, I will be grateful. The main thing is to concentrate on each day as it comes.

Love,

J

The thalidomide treatment was over by the beginning of 2001. Julian decided to stop, and I agreed it was for the best. It was having too much impact on his quality of life; it made him so tired and created pain in his feet which made it uncomfortable for him to walk. I was concerned too that it made him quite depressed, remote and closed off from me. I tried several times, probably clumsily, to raise this aspect of the treatment with him but it only made him defensive and upset.

‘I don’t have depression,’ he would say with rare irritation. ‘It’s only your suggestion that is making me feel depressed.’

Abrupt and unresolved exchanges like this made me feel even more hopeless and alone. The natural ally and friend with whom I could normally discuss anything was withdrawing more and more from me. Although I understood in part why this was happening, it did not make it any less painful.

I felt increasingly frustrated and at times incredulous at the high expectations Julian seemed to have of me. When, after several exhausting weeks of almost constant ill health, I suggested he might go to respite care for a few days, he absolutely refused.

‘I don’t need to be in care,’ he would say.

‘I know,’ I said wearily. ‘It’s so that I can have a break.’

Instead, when he was feeling more upbeat, he would make suggestions of things we might do in the near future – such as start up a local newspaper. When I tried to explain the enormity of what this might involve, he seemed disappointed in my lack of ambition and simply continued to create budgets and make plans without me.

I was disheartened by the diminishing intimacy between us, the difficulty we had in talking honestly about how we were both feeling. Marriage in the early months had felt like a dance, coming together and moving apart but never truly separating. Now, when I watched Julian occasionally gaze off into space, I could sense that another reality was making its presence felt, placing itself between us like a rival lover, more seductive and enticing.

As if to mimic his acts of self-protection, I too began to distance myself. I found myself speaking to him at times in a more perfunctory way – only focusing on practical matters and not allowing myself to say what I truly felt. I started sleeping in the spare room next to our bedroom, close enough to hear if he needed me in the night, yet far enough away for me to forget about him and get the rest I so desperately needed.

I began to seek more and more opportunities to leave the house and take the children out to the local parks to meet friends. I felt enormously guilty but told myself it was for my own sanity. By myself, briefly and happily in denial, I was so much more content.

•••

One day, ML came to visit us on a brief trip from the Solomon Islands. She and Julian had developed a very warm and affectionate relationship over the years – they also enjoyed ganging up on me in a gentle but pointed way which was always fun. She was looking forward to an evening with us both and was clearly taken aback when, alone in her room, I insisted we go out without Julian. I think she could tell just by looking at me that this was no time to argue.

‘Okay,’ she said sadly, ‘if that’s what you want.’

Our friendship was such that, under normal circumstances, if I said something she considered outrageous, she would not hesitate to challenge me. It was one of the great joys of our friendship that we could have a very robust, even confronting, conversation without doing any real damage. She buried her disappointment under a quiet smile and we left for the restaurant.

I knew she was upset with me. When we arrived, with mounting anxiety I talked on, trying to defend my decision from her imagined criticisms and continuing my litany of complaints. ML listened thoughtfully, occasionally swirling her glass of red. I knew she was unconvinced by my protests – the only question was how to tell me.

‘So,’ she said eventually. ‘Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?’

I met her level gaze. ‘Can’t I be both?’

‘Sorry, no.’

She then proceeded, gently but firmly, to dismantle everything I had said, reminding me of just how much I loved Julian, asking me if I could not use this opportunity to grow rather than shrink into a smaller, and more limited person. Everything she said resonated – even though I could justify why I felt the way I did, I knew I was letting myself down, allowing self-pity and petty concerns to overwhelm my world view and my ability to be compassionate.

She reminded me of my vows – what I had made a sacred promise to do, the person I had pledged I would become. I told ML that the internal struggle to maintain a spirit of generosity in the face of all the daily challenges was enormous.

‘I understand that,’ she said. ‘But you have a choice. And I know which direction I would rather you chose.’

Tears spilled down my face. ‘I hate you sometimes,’ I told her.

She smiled and took my hand. ‘That’s what friends are for,’ she said.

•••

After thalidomide, another possible delaying tactic was lost. It was back to chemotherapy, bisphosphonates, infusions and an uncertain waiting game.

I could see that the children intuitively knew something was different, although we kept any comments about Julian’s health quite vague and minimal when they were around. George became even more careful, something I particularly noticed when Julian’s energy was really low. He would often sit next to his dad playing quietly for as long as possible, occasionally looking up and drinking in his father’s face.

At two years old, Meg and Charlotte usually only had eyes for one another. When Charlotte was distracted, however, Meg would often approach Julian with some tiny object she’d found, such as a little flower head or a leaf; if he was sitting in an armchair she would place the object next to him where he could see it.

‘Thank you, Megsie,’ he would say, putting down his book.

She would smile shyly at him, hover for a while in his presence, then wander off in search of other treasures.

Charlotte was far less likely to notice any of Julian’s barriers. If she wanted his attention, she would simply climb up onto his lap, unaware of his discomfort, and force him to stop whatever he was doing. She’d sit for a few minutes, chattering away incoherently. She seemed to glow in those moments – any attention from Dad was very special and it was always clear that, however he was feeling, she loved being with him.

It was bittersweet to watch them.

In a sense, Julian and the children were living in a far more ethereal place than I was and I often longed to join them there. Instead, I felt smothered by the daily realities of cooking, shopping, fixing, washing, ensuring that everyone had everything they needed. I felt like a circus act, a mad woman spinning plates, rushing from one wobbling pole to another. When I could escape, I did. Reading bedtime stories to the children was something I found especially soothing, as were books, music, wine, prayer or conversations with my closest friends.

Fortunately, there were so many moments of kindness towards us all during this time, so many thoughtful gestures. These acts of love were sometimes my only refuge as, exhausted and despairing, I drew strength from everyone else to help me push back against the fear of what was coming next.

•••

During our holiday in Byron Bay, Julian had bought a size-able bag of marijuana leaves from a street seller in Nimbin. We had been pushing the pram along the street when Julian, looking every inch the patrician lawyer in his checked shirt and leather brogues, disappeared down a side street. He had already flagged this possibility with me but I tried to talk him out of it, convinced he would get arrested. I carried on walking down the street pushing the pram, feigning innocence. A few minutes later he returned to where we were waiting, looking very pleased, with a plastic bag stuffed into his jacket pocket.

Julian had been reading about the effects of cannabis on pain and nausea following chemotherapy – his attitude about everything was pragmatic. Conventional drugs were not always effective, so why not try something else?

One night, after a particularly trying day, I walked into the kitchen to find him attempting to roll a large joint. For the first time in a long while, we began to laugh together. I fetched a bottle of wine and we sat by the fire, smoking.

Emboldened by the effects of the joint, I fetched my guitar and a Beatles songbook and we began to sing. I can see us now, standing at the messy kitchen bench, me with one foot on a stool playing out of tune and Julian singing loudly and enthusiastically with a large glass of wine in his hand, all pain forgotten, all fears dispelled.

Later, we lay in our bed watching a storm at sea; erratic flashes of light danced on the dark horizon, illuminating our faces.

He leaned over and kissed me in a way he had not done for a long time.

‘I adore you,’ he said. ‘I absolutely adore you.’

I put my head on his chest and began to weep. He took me in his arms as he had done so many times before and, in the quiet, unfolding night, we stepped back into love.

I had never felt more exposed, or more grateful to rediscover the love between us. But, more than that, I was in awe of Julian’s willingness to show himself in all his spent humanity as we danced in the darkness and remembered who we were.

FRAGMENTS

I am the vast forever in every ocean’s roar

I am the tiny seed-shell that lies upon the floor

I am the foaming waves of fury dashed upon the rock

I am the helpless wheels that turn inside an ancient clock

I am the tender breezes within a crumbling flower

I am the fresh tomorrow that life will never sour

I am the loving mother with a baby at my breast

I am the weary traveller, longing for some rest

I am the lonely fighter who rides across the hill

I am the stoic heartbeat that fear will never still

I am the soothing lover with joy upon my face

I am the gentle grass that sways with unrepentant grace

I am the silent footsteps that walk around your soul

I am the one who loves you, imperfectly but whole.

16

We turn our shining faces towards the sun, towards

the world, and secretly we long for a place, a friend,

a space to be where can tell all of our truths.

There were several occasions when neither of us realised how ill Julian was. The day might start with a slight cold and develop into a slightly raised temperature by lunchtime. By midnight it could be full-blown pneumonia.

One evening I came home after swimming with my friend Celeste. The house was quiet. The babysitter had managed, by some miracle, to settle all the children into bed.

Later in the night I heard Julian coughing. When I went to him, he was sitting up with a handkerchief to his mouth, his eyes watering.

‘Don’t fuss, it’s nothing.’ This would often be Julian’s initial response as I hovered around him with a thermometer.

‘It’s 38.4,’ I would say. ‘Perhaps we should go to hospital?’

I left the room to phone for an ambulance. He went placidly, grateful to be helped, gracious as ever in defeat.

Dear Dad,

I hope you get better.

How many more sleeps until you come home?

I know you can only carry a little thing.

When you come home let’s play but not I-spy or rhyming games.

Do you see the rainbows when they are coming to you?

We love you, Dad,

George, Charlotte and Meg

Within six months Julian was admitted to hospital with pneumonia three times, each occasion taking an enormous toll on his overall health. I knew this could not go on indefinitely, but while he was being treated I took the opportunity to breathe a little more deeply for a while.

While he was convalescing one afternoon and the children were being cared for by our wonderful eccentric babysitter, Francie, I went to Hartzer Park, an imposing and almost ugly gothic convent a short distance from our home. From the outside the convent appeared cold and unwelcoming, its plain brick façade imposing, covered with veins of brown, frost-burned ivy. I was welcomed by an elderly nun who said little, but walked ahead of me down the austere corridors to a tiny prayer room, lit only by the fading sun.

I let the peace in the room soak into me, observing my heavy out-breaths, my laden heart. Unobtrusively, another sister who had been expecting me came into the room and sat in a chair next to mine.

‘Perhaps you would like to tell me why you have come,’ she said.

There was such a peace in this simple, unadorned room that I had instinctively relaxed. There was so much to say, I did not know where to begin. So much of our lives had turned into a waiting game – waiting for results, for tests, for appointments and crises. We were at the mercy of a vast and unknowable medical system, and an unpredictable disease.

Gradually I felt drawn into a deeper place. When my words came, they were spoken by a voice I rarely heard: a voice of calm.

I told her about Julian and the pain of loving someone I had already begun to grieve for.

‘I feel as though I am at an airport,’ I told her, ‘and I’m waiting in the transit lounge. Every time we go to the emergency ward I never know whether Julian is coming out again. It’s as though a flight is called, and I prepare as best I can for what is coming, and then it is cancelled. The doors are suddenly shut and I am left to walk back to my seat in the lounge and find, somehow, the energy to go on.

‘I don’t know how to live with all this uncertainty. I feel terrible for saying this, but there’s a part of me that wants it to be over. I’m so exhausted and afraid of what’s coming. It’s the moment that I am waiting for, and it’s the moment that I dread the most.’

Somewhere in the bowels of the vast building, a bell rang for suppertime. I noticed for the first time a painting on the wall, a boat plunging in a stormy sea, men’s contorted faces tilted skywards, their anguish and fear palpable in the dusky light. From the sky a strong, muscular hand was reaching down, while one man’s straining arm reached up towards the only hope in sight.

We sat there in the gloom as the light dimmed; the huddled outline of winter trees faded against the window.

‘Can you surrender?’ she asked.

Soundlessly, without warning, the tears began. Emptying and then gathering again like a returning tide, the tears spread across my face and soaked my neck, soothing a space inside me where I could no longer speak.

Mercifully, the nun gave me no advice about being prepared and facing reality, nor did she exhort me to find a deeper understanding of our situation. She must have known that my logical mind could not help me anymore – even my imagination had failed. I felt my heart ripen into a strange peace, a deeper knowledge that I was not in control, that I never had been. None of us were. It was, once again, an invitation to yield, to hand over to mystery and let whatever lay in store unfold in its own way.

I felt the anchor of her companionship, the comfort of having her just sit and be with me. Breathing in, breathing out, I was lulled into the pause where there is no future or past, only the soothing present, in which nothing was happening. In that fleeting moment, I slipped through the cracks of my life and glimpsed, with exquisite relief, a place of deeper tranquillity.

And in the simplest of human gestures, in that dull room, with its outdated, daggy furniture and kitsch statues of Jesus, this gentle woman gave me an unexpected and much-needed gift – she returned me to myself.

•••

With cancer, no peace lasts for long. At the end of July, pneumonia struck again. I had noticed one afternoon that Julian seemed to be sleeping for an unusually long time. He eventually woke just before dark, his skin strangely pallid. I took his temperature – 36 degrees, somewhat lower than normal. Despite his appearance, I took this as a good sign – clearly he did not have a fever.

However, by about 9 pm I was becoming worried as his sentences became more disjointed and he seemed to be increasingly disorientated. I took his temperature again – 35.4 degrees. It did not make any sense. I decided to ring a family friend and local paediatrician, Nils, who I knew would not be offended by my calling at such a late hour. I described Julian’s symptoms, adding that it was definitely not a fever as his temperature was so low.

‘Actually, that’s not a good sign,’ Nils said. ‘It’s probably an infection. I’d get him to hospital.’

There was no way I would be able to help him to the car by myself nor at this late hour find someone to come and care for the children. I rang an ambulance and sat upstairs with Julian. Before long the paramedics were knocking on the door.

‘Jules,’ I said, placing my hand on his huddled form, ‘the ambulance is here.’

‘I’m fine . . . thank them for coming . . .’

‘Jules, seriously, you need to go to hospital – you’re very sick.’

No answer.

‘Jules, please.’

‘I’m not going.’ He pulled the covers up around his shoulders.

I went downstairs and explained to the ambulance officers what was happening and they went to speak to him. Returning soon after, they said that Julian had refused to go with them.

‘We can’t force him to go,’ they explained. No, not yet, not yet.

There was another knock at the door.

It was Nils, who had somehow divined without even being asked that his presence was needed. The four of us sat together, quietly discussing our options. It was clear that if Julian got his way there was only one outcome – he would die at home within a short space of time.

‘Nils,’ I said urgently, ‘this is not what he wants. He was talking only this morning about wanting to be here for Meg and Charlotte’s birthday at Christmas. He’s not thinking clearly because he’s so sick. Please, see if you can talk to him.’

As I waited with the ambulance officers, I could hear the low murmur of Nils’s patient voice and Julian’s occasional rasping response.

I sat in dread until I heard the sound of footsteps and felt a hand on my shoulder.

‘He says he’ll go,’ Nils said.

The officers nodded and headed upstairs.

‘Thank you – thank you so much,’ I said.

•••

The following evening I went to the hospital, where Julian was in a private room in the intensive care ward. He was very pale, but glad to see me.

‘It was a close call last night,’ I said. ‘I thought you’ve given up.’

‘No, darling,’ he said weakly, with a sad but undefeated smile. ‘I’m still here.’

I did not stay too long as I knew my presence was tiring him and he needed to rest. I still had not spoken to the doctor and wanted to find out more information before I left.

I hovered by the nurses’ station for some time, waiting to speak to the registrar in charge. I watched him as he spoke to the other patients, largely indifferent to the throng of anxious assistants around him, hanging on his every word. He held his plastic clipboard in front of his chest, speaking over the patients’ heads, rarely meeting their eyes as they sat wide-eyed and respectful as he pronounced upon their lives.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, as he stood in front of a small sink, his slim fingers soapy with pink froth. He ignored me.

‘I wondered if I might talk to you about my husband.’ I cringed at the pleading tone in my voice.

‘And he is?’

I named him, the grey-skinned man in the isolation ward, the man currently eating his dinner through a straw.

‘This is not really a good time; I have other patients to see.’

‘I just want to know how he is, what’s happening. I haven’t been able to get here because of the children.’ I stared at him expectantly – he would not meet my eyes.

‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? He’s dying.’ He began to wipe his hands on a paper towel. There was a long pause while his words cut through me.

‘If you have any questions, I’m sure the staff here will be able to help.’

I walked out of the ward and into the lift. I felt disembodied, at once exhausted and yet strangely energised by the shock of his lacerating words.

Anger and outrage hit me on the way home as I drove towards our sanctuary, our children, towards the fragile life I had so painstakingly created and now could not protect.

A few kilometres out of town, I pulled onto the side of the road. I was shaking with fury.

‘Bastard!’ I screamed out loud; tears and snot dripped into my lap as I gripped the wheel. ‘You absolute bastard.’

•••

When we spoke a few days later, Julian’s voice sounded stronger. I told him nothing of my conversation with the doctor; I knew it would only distress him.

‘I’m coming home,’ he said. I could tell by the tone of finality in his voice that he had passed through a profound turning point. There was a long pause while I digested what he was not saying. He was coming home to die.

OUR CHILDREN

Three budding flowers

In the summer of my life,

The autumn of yours.

Their ripening petals

Unfurl around you,

Softening your winter memories,

Warming with gentle breezes

Your falling, fading blooms.

Out of season they came,

Unexpected, joyful blossoms

To feed your weary spirit,

Offer their soul’s essence,

And lead you back home.

They know all about death,

More than we do. They know

These stars, this moon, this firmament

Is within them, that what we

Bend down to whisper as magic

Is really the endless mystery

Of creation,

Breaking and mending,

Beginning and ending.

They burst into your life like blossoms

Carried on a southern wind

From a far, faraway place

To call you home to rest.

17

Those days were like dry brittle leaves, dropping

unseen; another cup of tea and child crying.

The next morning I sat in the shivering garden watching the children play in the sandpit. A small hunched figure in a woollen hat. A slab of sorrow.

There was a swish of tyres on gravel and the sound of an old car door clunking shut.

Julian smiled ironically when he saw me, as if to say, ‘Well, I’m still here. Just.’ His skin looked drained and pinched as he shuffled into the house and I followed him inside to make tea.

I stood by the kitchen window, one hand on the warm kettle, the other on the bench. I pulled my cardigan tighter around me as I gazed over the garden. A magpie flew down and began pecking at the clothes pegs on the grass. Its sleek black tail bobbed and flitted under the flapping sheets. I wanted to stand in this spot for as long as I could, to remain in the safety of this eternal moment, to make it last. The worst is happening, I told myself. It’s here.

•••

Later that night, Julian confirmed what I had already guessed – that he would not return to hospital under any circumstances. It was clear that we had passed through yet another invisible door and were now in a place where our life together would be measured in weeks, possibly days.

Julian’s decision brought both anguish and relief. He had already done so much to prolong his life and stay with us – I did not feel I had any right to ask any more of him than he had already given. Even if I had, what difference would it make except to alienate us when we needed each other the most? He wanted to die at home, surrounded by his family, and that was what I wanted too. That night I made a promise – I would do everything possible to give him the death he wanted and deserved.

Ever my mother’s daughter, I immediately started to address the practicalities of our situation. I needed the guidance and advice of a palliative care team; I needed help with the children, knowledge of any medications and what to do if pneumonia, which he had only just narrowly overcome, should strike again.

Driven by a sense of urgency I called on all the local resources I could muster. Julian’s older sons also needed to be kept abreast of everything that was happening – particularly Charlie, who was away in Seoul, and Oliver, who was also overseas.

My relationship with the boys had, by this time, spanned more than six years, and we had all settled into a state of comfortable friendship and respect. Now I needed them; this was not a journey I felt able to take alone. Although I was conscious that the experience might be especially difficult for them, as they had already lost their mother, still I felt confident they would know what they needed to do; I admired the support they had always given Julian and was grateful for their presence.

•••

While doctors were helpful in explaining Julian’s likely medical needs in the days ahead, I focused on his emotional and spiritual life. I had already been reading as much as I could – Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s On Death and Dying had become my bible, a blueprint of a path I should try to walk when the time came. I was trying my best to prepare but Julian’s death was impossible to imagine. I would never be ready. I could only hope that I would be enough.

Henry organised for us both to attend a conference on Spirituality in Palliative Care at the Nan Tien Buddhist temple in Wollongong. Catholics, Buddhists, Aboriginal healers, palliative carers all spoke about what they had learned about caring for someone.

One speech began in a very unexpected way when a diminutive Filipino woman with greying hair quietly shuffled onto the stage in an old-fashioned blue housecoat, pushing, as I recall, a tea trolley. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one in the room wondering if she was lost.

Then, quietly and with enormous dignity, she walked to the microphone and began to explain her role in a Sydney hospice.

‘When I am with the dying,’ she said, ‘I take them tea. But that’s not what is important – the tea is just my excuse.’

Relieved, muffled laughter scattered across the room.

‘I bring my presence, my brokenness, my humanity, and we sit together.’

Driving home up the winding Macquarie Pass with its ancient outcrops of weathered rock walls, I felt grateful to be reminded not to get caught up in the detail and distraction of what was happening to Julian’s body alone. I needed to love him, to stay connected with the man he truly was; and to allow us both to love one another, no matter how imperfect either of us might be.

•••

As the days passed, time no longer felt like a seamless line along which we could move at will – remembering the past, thinking about the present, worrying about the future – but was now almost one continuous, almost static moment.

In this sacred time, so many things that did not really matter simply fell away. There were times when, instead of fussing about the play dough all over the floor, I stepped over it and noticed instead the way the light was falling through the kitchen window as dusk approached, the sun squandering its last offering of warmth. Rather than worry about the mud that would be coming into the house, I felt the wind hurtling past the trees as the children repeatedly climbed and leaped to the ground. I inhaled, as I never had before, the sweet decaying stench of rotting earth and the touch of thin fibrous leaves. I found myself leaning more towards another reality, absorbed and transported by all the extraordinary details of everyday life.

Without my fully realising it, I was being slowly stripped down. I moved into Julian’s space, seeing the things that he was noticing, the details of life that we both might have previously overlooked. I focused as much as I could on sensing and trying to tune in to where he was even though he was often in a world I could not reach. I looked on with envy at times as he moved into ever deeper acceptance and a seeming contentment.

One day, when a flurry of morning snow came, I took him tea. He was sitting up in our large bed, reading Mountaineer by Chris Bonington. He was so terribly thin. The hardback book was cracked open, his glasses were off and his nose was almost touching the rigid paper peaks.

‘It’s snowing, Jules,’ I said.

The book was closed with a soft sigh.

I expected Julian to complain, to say something about the frost on our newly planted trees, and about how cold these days could be, these long, uncertain days. Instead, he took my hand and gazed out of the window at the falling flakes, his expression full of awe.

‘The snow,’ he said, and then repeated it. ‘It is so beautiful.’ I remember crying in his arms, my hot red face buried in his shoulder, his hand on my back. I cried not because he was dying, but because he was seeing, as I was through his eyes, the pure and simple beauty of snow, possibly for the very first time.

•••

I often wondered whether Julian would ever break down, whether there would be a moment in which he cried, raged or protested against his fate. That moment never came.

When Spring arrived, I brought branches with tiny poised buds of blossom from the garden and laid them in his vulnerable hands. His skin had the fragility of fine, dried-out paper.

‘Thank you, darling,’ he said, always gracious and grateful for every act of kindness he was shown.

I had decided to ask Allan, our main source of physical strength, to re-landscape what I considered to be quite a depressing section of our back garden.

Behind our house, in the middle of the extraordinary landscape of Kangaloon, with its wild ghost gum forests and silken hills, was the vision of a 1960s suburban dream – a great concrete slab with a Hills hoist in the centre. I couldn’t deny its usefulness, but I cringed whenever I saw it.

The children had a mixed relationship with this part of the garden too. While it was great for wheeling a tricycle or pushing a doll’s pram, they often fell over on it, scraping the flesh of their knees and arms, while all around the patient trees with their dappled, dancing light beckoned us to their shade and softness.

When I explained my plan to Julian, he disagreed. Ever the pragmatist, he thought the concrete was useful for the children – and if I dug up the ancient hoist, where would we hang our washing?

It was hard to answer – I only knew that my heart and soul needed more beauty and that the harshness of that awful grey concrete just outside our back door affected me deeply, irrationally.

Despite his initial protest, I think Julian understood for he said nothing more against the idea. Within days the offending area was excavated and replaced by a tentative lawn with stone steps leading to a small cubby house for the children under the wisteria. Our friend Maur donated an outdoor table.

When it was finished, Julian shuffled down the stairs in his dressing-gown to stand at the open door.

‘I rather miss that washing line,’ he said with characteristic irony.

And I remember thinking as I looked at him, He knows we’re going to be okay.

•••

Many people came to visit Julian during his final weeks. Most times I loved to see our friends, to bask in the kindness they brought us. Late one afternoon, however, an acquaintance of Julian’s came. Initially I was pleased to see him at the door and I knew Julian would be happy too.

But as he walked into the house, I realised he had brought two of his young children with him. I watched in dismay as he settled in a chair next to Julian and opened two bottles of beer, already oblivious to where his children might have gone.

I went into the garden, where they were all playing, seething with frustration. It was typical of a certain kind of man to turn up announced with two small children and then effectively abandon them without a word into my care.

As the sun went down I called Meg, Charlotte and George inside for dinner, keeping an eye on the other two visitors through the kitchen window as they continued playing in the sandpit.

A short time later our guest came in.

‘Oh!’ he said, glancing at our children. ‘Where are the others?’

‘I have no idea,’ I said, not looking at him. I was in no mood for explanations.

He went outside, collected his children, said a stiffly optimistic ‘cheerio’ and left.

Even though he later apologised, incidents like this played into my sense of struggle and a certain level of self-pity – it seemed very few people understood the load I was already carrying. One afternoon Oliver drove down from Sydney.

‘What’s for dinner?’ he asked.

‘That,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘is becoming a very dangerous question. Perhaps you could try something else? Do you have any dinner planned? Do you need any help or do you need me to go to the shops? And would you like me to cook?’

I knew that I sounded curt but I was, at that moment, beyond caring. I had always been hesitant about seeming to be too bossy or demanding with Julian’s boys, although their recollections may be quite different. But the days when I could happily accommodate their needs were over. I knew I was risking a great deal by being so direct. Despite my outward confidence, I nurtured a very real and secret fear that if we seriously clashed during this stressful time, that our relationships might not recover.

I realise now, knowing them as I do, that this said a lot more about my fragile state at the time than about their resilience, generosity or sense of family loyalty. When I did raise my issues with them after hours of private agonising, they were often surprised that I had so much trouble saying what I needed. They understood more than I realised how much I was struggling, and that ultimately it was all about making things right for Julian.

•••

One morning I woke up with a strong intuitive sense that something was different; the world had somehow shifted overnight. I went downstairs to make some tea and as I passed by a bookcase, a small piece of folded paper came fluttering down in front of me and fell at my feet.

I opened it up. It was written in Charmian’s handwriting and appeared to be a short recipe. I looked up to see where it might have come from. The books on the shelf were all in place with their spines facing out. I sat at the kitchen table trying to decipher the hastily written words, and wondering what I was supposed to make of this strange event.

Later that day, I was sitting in the garden at dusk while the children were playing. The sky was watery and the day was fading without fanfare. A dull light about the size of a person, perhaps slightly smaller, moved slowly around the garden. I watched as it gradually disappeared, wondering what I was seeing and experiencing, half sensing it was a woman I should have known.

The following night I sat with Julian, who was occasionally using an oxygen tank to help him breathe. Just under our window was the front door, where there was an old wooden statue we had brought from Papua New Guinea: a carved naked woman carrying an open-sided bowl. I had made a raku pot which sat inside its alcove. The night was unusually still.

The next thing I heard was an almighty crash. I ran downstairs and found the statue had toppled to the ground, my bowl smashed into pieces.

I had a strong intuition who it was – a feeling of energy and light that seemed so familiar.

‘Okay, that’s enough,’ I shouted to the seemingly empty garden. ‘If all you want to do is frighten me, go away. Otherwise, come and help.’

When I went back upstairs Julian said, ‘Who were you talking to, darling?’

‘Oh, don’t worry, it’s just me, talking to myself.’

I never told Julian about any of these experiences – they were unnerving enough for me.

As I lay in bed that night, I felt a sense of softening, as though the air from an overinflated tyre had been let out. Beyond the medical care, beyond what I could physically do and beyond the love I could give, it was clear that I now needed help of a very different kind.

COME CLOSE

Come close and sit and talk with me a while,

We need to be more honest with each other.

I know I make you smile, and sometimes cry –

You know I have a love I cannot smother.

We are made such by facts we do not will,

And like great standing stones – the facts stand still.

I cannot check your skill to move my heart,

I cannot pass an hour without a thought of you –

Strongest when we are most apart.

I long to break the ties that keep us bounded,

To fly with you in some forgotten place,

Untrammelled, free to love as we are able,

And wipe away the tears upon your face.

18

Outside my window, a branch scuttles against the

glass. A leaf leans out, not straining, but flowing

out to a tapering end; effortless like death.

As Julian’s health declined over the first two weeks of September, we were extraordinarily blessed by the arrival of an amazing and deeply compassionate palliative care nurse, Jean Warburton. Out of all the people I met during this time, she was one of the few who had the soothing presence of the truly kind. It also helped that she had trodden this road so many times before and knew what lay ahead. One afternoon she rang to see how Julian was, explaining that she had been delayed and could not come to see him unless there was something important for her to do.

‘No, everything is fine, Julian is resting,’ I said, ‘but the girls have come home with lice, so they can’t go to preschool tomorrow.’

Without my saying anything, Jean suggested that she would find time to come after she had finished work. She could sense that all was not well with me.

‘No,’ I insisted, ‘leave it for today. I’ll be fine.’

After I put down the phone I burst into tears – no preschool meant no rest at all for me and a potentially exhausting trip to town with three children to fetch the lice treatment.

I began to prepare dinner. Thankfully, Edward and Henry were expected, which I knew would cheer Julian up and give us all a much-needed morale boost. A few minutes later I heard a light knock at the front door.

It was Jean, carrying a small paper bag and looking slightly sheepish.

‘I thought you might need this,’ she said, handing me two bottles of lice shampoo.

•••

I knew that the time for Julian to leave us was getting closer. It was not just his physical self that was fading, but his gaze was increasingly focused on a faraway point. He was sleeping a great deal and eating less and less.

I rang Charlie and Oliver and suggested they should come home as soon as possible.

We managed to have a family dinner one night with John and Mary, a bittersweet celebration that week of Edward’s twenty-first birthday and Henry’s twenty-fourth.

After we’d eaten, Julian removed one of his favourite possessions, an old Rolex watch, and handed it to Edward.

‘Happy birthday, darling,’ he said.

Half an hour later, Julian could no longer walk. It seemed all the strength had suddenly gone from his legs.

‘When I can no longer walk or care for myself, I won’t be here for long,’ he had said to me a few days before.

‘I don’t think you get to choose,’ I said.

Julian gave a quiet smile. ‘Well, that’s what I have decided,’ he said.

•••

The boys supported Julian up the stairs to bed. The next day, our neighbours, Greg and Trish, organised for a local priest, Father Terry Herbert, to give Julian the last rites. Whether he could hear anything being said by this point was hard to tell. But it gave me comfort to hear someone speak about the journey of his soul. Then the long vigil began.

•••

The following afternoon, as Julian drifted in and out of consciousness, Celeste rang to see if I wanted to go for a swim in a local pool.

‘I think I need it,’ I said.

Celeste had nursed her first partner, Damon Courtenay, until his death from AIDS in 1991. (His father, the author Bryce Courtenay, wrote about Damon’s life in his book April Fool’s Day.) Even at the time of Damon’s death, Celeste was only twenty-two, but already poised and compassionate beyond her years.

By the time Julian, George and I moved back to Australia I already knew about a woman called Celeste as Edward had given me a copy of the book as a gift, insisting that I should read it. As fate would have it, Celeste and I met at a yoga class in Robertson, where she and her husband Stephen had moved not long after our arrival, and discovered we had children of the same age – George and their daughter Jasper went to the same preschool.

A deep friendship was gradually forged – Celeste was the only contemporary I had met who really understood the deeper layers of what was happening in my life. But standing on the veranda waiting for her to arrive, I was in turmoil. Although Julian was stable and the children were being cared for, I felt terribly torn about leaving. I was needed, always needed.

‘It’s okay,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ll ring you if there’s any major change.’

The swish of tyres on gravel broke my indecision and I hurried to the waiting car.

We climbed the winding country road towards the town, the sun setting in a bruised purple sky. My discomfort mounted with every moment that we sped away from the house – despite the glorious vistas of lush paddocks and stands of magnificent eucalypts which flashed by in a blur, in my mind’s eye, I continued to watch over Julian.

There was an openness between Celeste and I, an honesty forged through the many painful conversations we had already had and an unspoken understanding of the increasing bond we shared.

At the water’s edge, I hesitated, wrestling with a sense of panic. How could I be standing here when my husband might be dying? What sort of person would leave her family to go swimming on a night like this?

Celeste was already in the water, the lone swimmer. She had already faced something of the void that I feared so much; she had survived and lived on through all the pain, the betrayals and the anguish of the bereaved. Her arms rose and fell in long, graceful arcs. I watched, mesmerised by her steady strokes. Guilt came in waves.

Between thoughts of Julian, there was a split second of peace. I let my body lean forward to the point of no return, and in the instant that I hit the water, it pulled me down into a shock of coldness.

There was no time, no world, no other reality but the slow and steady beat of my heart as I ploughed up and down, water sluicing over me, all dreams of past and future forgotten.

•••

When I climbed into bed next to Julian that night, I just held him.

‘I love you,’ I said. A slight pressure from his hand reminded me of the words I had always loved to hear, I adore you.

•••

Death came in small moments.

It came in the sound of cars pulling up at the house, a toilet flushing, a telephone trilling and the soft steady heartbeat of a morphine pump. It arrived in the soft touch of a hand on my shoulder and the wide-eyed gaze of a child. It moved quietly, like a lover, in the safety of the dark.

Julian lay upstairs, drifting, dreaming.

Jean arrived and put in a catheter to make Julian more comfortable and left some vials of morphine to cope with breakthrough pain if the pump was not adequate. She sat us all down and explained what was likely to happen.

She said that Julian would probably die within the next two days and briefed us on what to do if there was an unexpected haemorrhage, or if he developed pneumonia. Her matter-of-fact words floated around me as we walked outside towards her car. She gave me a heartfelt hug.

By early evening, Meg and Charlotte had fallen asleep, seemingly oblivious to the events around them. George’s eyes quietly betrayed his unspoken concern and he would barely leave my side. Nestled on a small mattress in front of the fire watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, he refused to let me leave him until he finally drifted off.

The telephone rang again – a relative, a friend. ‘How is he?’

Oliver, Charles, Henry and Edward stayed with Julian. Mary and John had already arrived, their faces tight with apprehension.

As the evening unfolded, miraculously, a meal appeared. We ate in shifts.

I sat at the table with Julian’s long-standing family friends, Meg and John Bell, who were visiting from England – without hesitation they had driven five hours to be with us, to offer comfort, support. In every room there were candles burning, warming the sacred space.

My body ached and my mouth was dry. I stared down at the remnants of my uneaten dinner while above us doors quietly opened and closed. I wanted to stay there, safe and cocooned, away from what was waiting for me upstairs.

Then I caught Meg’s kind gaze and read her unspoken thought: You need to be with him.

I moved slowly, as though tranquillised; the journey to our bedroom was the longest walk I’d ever taken. Ten tall steps. I knew there was no turning back now, no miracle, no ambulance to call. There was nowhere left to hide.

Opening the door I saw a room full of figures; alongside the family, half-formed shadows now inhabited our room. I had a strong intuition that these were the spirits of people who had loved Julian and I was mystified, but strangely relieved, that such loving help in the only form that was of any use now, had finally arrived.

The bedroom was full of candles; faint lights threw unsteady patterns on the walls. From somewhere I could hear the swirling voice of Andrea Bocelli. I kneeled by Julian’s side, put my cheek against his chest and drank him in.

My love, my dearest love.

•••

In my mind’s eye I saw him, striding up Paga Hill in Port Moresby, a colossus full of vitality, stamina, determination. I thought I heard his deep, joyful laugh as he made fun of my short legs. ‘Come on!’ he called. His greying hair glinted in the afternoon light as he disappeared over the brow of the hill. The sun was impossibly bright.

•••

In the dimly lit bedroom, his breathing was becoming more laboured and he sounded uncomfortable. But was it pain? It was hard to tell what it meant. We were not doctors. We hovered around him, looking at one another.

‘Should we give him some more morphine?’ someone asked.

‘I’m not sure. Do you think he needs it?’

We began to rummage through a wardrobe drawer full of prepared syringes, vials of mysterious drugs, endless crinkling packets of unpronounceable pills.

For a moment we could not quite remember which syringe was which or where we were supposed to inject him. The moment bordered on farce as we stumbled around in the gloom. Finally, someone made a decision.

We waited, watching Julian. It was hard to tell if the morphine was helping.

Another hour passed.

Gradually his breathing changed again. This time it was slower, heavier. From somewhere came a quiet internal nudge. It’s time, be with him.

I squeezed his hand, wondering if he could still hear me. My mouth felt numb.

‘Jules, I love you,’ I said. ‘We all love you.’ As his breathing dropped again, I leaned in closer, my mouth brushing his cheek.

‘It’s okay if you need to go. We’re all going to be alright.’ I gripped his hand, my eyes intent on the soft folds and fine lines of his beloved, living face. And all the while I could sense he was slowly receding, being pulled away by some vast, unseen current, taking him somewhere that none of us could follow. I pressed down on a volcano of tears.

Don’t go. Don’t leave me.

There was a long, quiet, lingering exhalation. The seconds passed as we waited for him to draw another breath. The beams of a passing car lit up the arc of intertwining roadside trees like a cathedral and the smell of jasmine, sickly and sweet, floated up through an open window.

There was a shift in the air, so brief, and then I felt my heart fill with the most profound sense of happiness. I looked around the room, imagining I would see something tangible to explain this unexpected exhilaration. The living faces I saw around me appeared frozen in sadness but I hoped this feeling was not mine alone.

Then I suddenly knew, without any hesitation, that this was not my joy at all. It was Julian’s. It was his relief that I felt, his absolute lightness now that he was free from the heavy pain of living. I stared at his face. He was absolutely gone.

I felt a soundless scream. At first it was slow, gathering like a storm in my belly. It surged upwards towards my throat then hurtled through my head, filling my ears, tearing at my hair, smothering my mouth, trapping me in silence.

The spirits who had inhabited the room only a few seconds before, faded into darkness. There were quiet prayers and then we gently washed Julian’s body with lavender oil and water and removed the intrusive tubes and needles. Not knowing what more we could do, the boys went in search of a sofa to sleep on.

I walked around the house in a daze for a while, then called ML in the Solomon Islands and Ian Boden in Port Moresby to tell them the news. Their voices comforted me. Ian was working at the time as a columnist and deputy newspaper editor. He finished work around midnight, often taking several hours to wind down after the crescendo of the deadline. I would often call him in the middle of the night when I could not sleep and, despite my inability to articulate how I was truly feeling, he was always able to divine the exact timbre of my underlying mood.

Eventually, just before dawn, I lay down next to Julian, careful not to disturb the sheet we had placed over his body. There was no strangeness in this at all. It felt just like any other night, creeping back to our bed after settling a child who had woken in the night. Waves of exhaustion, after several days with little sleep, carried me away.

•••

As morning light filled the room I became aware of the sound of feet drumming up the wooden stairs. Three small, anxious faces appeared bedside me.

I struggled out of a deep slumber, my mind coming to life to remember death. The events of the previous night pushed me into the day with a jolt.

‘Mum?’ said George, placing his hand on my shoulder. His wide eyes asked me the question I did not want to answer; it seemed he already knew.

I got up and quietly ushered the children out of the room, closing the door behind me.

I’d not had time to really think about what to tell them. What should I have said to children who were only five and two? I crouched down and gathered them into my arms, and inhaled with gratitude the sweet earthy perfume of their bodies, their tousled, sleepy hair. We sat on the stairs while they waited for me to speak.

‘Dad died last night,’ I began. I could not say any more.

The children all began to wriggle into me, their bony limbs jostling for space on my lap. I held them; held them tight.

‘Daddy not here,’ Meg said finally, putting her arm around Charlotte’s shoulder. She gazed out of the window into the clear spring morning. ‘He in the sky. I see his legs.’

FOR JULES

The hidden heart, inside you

The unled life, beside you

The unknown dreams, above you

The greater path, before you.

part two

Boroko, Papua New Guinea

Dearest Lucy,

I have been part of the death of so many people but the transition of Julian last night has been like no other. His reserve cloaked a depth of perception and a sense of the immutable destiny denied most. And your joint quest for an informed spirituality has been a spur to those of us also prompted by our own aching need and who, no matter how falteringly, reach out to the same timeless mysteries.

My dear, you are not now required to perform. What the host of friends and acquaintances ‘expect’ of you now is entirely a matter for them. Forget the proprieties, the baked funeral meats and the appalling humbuggery with which humanity can surround this moment of supreme achievement by you and Julian.

‘Nothing became him in life so much as the leaving of it.’ Julian’s exhausted body may have bowed to the inevitable but I know that his ineffable spirit is with you now and will always be with you.

The ache to feel the strong clasp of those familiar arms just once more will twist the very core of you. All the intimacies will crowd like spectres into your mind and you will often feel overwhelmed by them.

Stop when that happens. Ask yourself why those memories are so pervasive. If they are the casual debris of a passing passion they would twinge a regret here, twitch a wry smile there. But your memories are the true delineation of the quality and the vastness and the spirituality – yes, spirituality – of your relationship. Head up.

Know that your closest friends are beside you, day and night. Draw strength from us as we have often drawn from you. For what you have gained through the death of Julian is immeasurably more than what you have lost. Cruel words?

No – not if you believe as you do in the primacy of the spirit and the transparency of death, for you and Julian have conquered that artificial spectre and he now has the full measure of ‘the peace which passes all understanding’.

And so, my dear, do you.

I ache for you and I am here for you, whatever, whenever.

Ian

19

In my garden there’s an imperfect, serrated rose with

a forest of stamens reaching upwards like towering

suns and jagged edges like a torn memory. I can crush

it in my hand like a truth that can’t be faced.

One of my first calls that morning was to our friend Maur and her teenage daughter Charlotte. They soon arrived to help care for the children as the activity in the house increased. Drivers arrived with bouquets of impossibly beautiful flowers, and the phone rang constantly as friends and loved ones tentatively asked if the news was true.

Yes, I repeated like an automaton, Julian died last night. This was a strong, palpable fact, my only confident reality on that strange day. Oddly I felt no trauma in saying it; the strong sense of peace I had felt only a few hours before still remained.

Meg and Charlotte appeared in the hallway chasing George, who was at the wheel of an ancient, squeaking tricycle, perfectly designed to squeeze through every doorway if correctly steered. There was a sound of splintering wood.

‘Me go now.’

‘No, me!’

George raced off again at high speed, his little legs pedalling madly, pursued by shouting toddlers.

•••

Our family doctor, John Barnett, arrived to hear the stories of the previous night, conduct his examination and sign the death certificate. After he had gone, I stole away to sit with Julian while the children were distracted. I sat and soaked in the comforting, suspended air of our bedroom.

As Julian had begun to decline during the previous months, I had started to read many books about the care of the dying – The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying was one of my favourites. It had helped me to remember to move more consciously into the spiritual space Julian occupied, beyond his body and mind, and connect with him there. According to the philosophy of this fascinating book, after death the soul hovers in a kind of limbo known as the bardo, a word meaning suspended in between, a transition.

The job of the living was to consciously nurture the passage of the spirit to a new, more fulfilling existence. Far from the idea of one’s life ‘flashing before your eyes’ like a film on fast forward, this alternative vision of Julian’s death allowed me to imagine his soul slowly and naturally expanding, his future a deliberate choice of his highest intelligence, beyond our immediate world, unencumbered by the burdens of an earthly ego. It also suggested in very powerful terms that there was no real division between this world and any other – a liberating and comforting thought which fully resonated in every part of me.

By lunchtime, Charlie suggested we ring a funeral home. I was reluctant – surely there was no hurry, I said. The truth was I did not want to face Julian being taken away from the house; it would be the first step towards acknowledging that he was truly gone. While he remained at home, where he lived and where we had a life, I could reassure myself that nothing had really changed at all.

As with Oliver, Henry and Edward, Charlie and I had grown closer over the past few difficult months. Like his brothers he was someone with enormous sensitivity, someone I could always be honest with and by whom I never felt judged. I instinctively knew that we understood one another – he would have guessed why I did not want to make that call. But when I saw the kind and fearless expression on his face, I acquiesced. I regarded Charlie as the likely barometer of how everyone was probably feeling, and clearly, for everyone’s sake, this was something that must be done. I began to trawl through the numbers in the local phone book.

•••

In the middle of the afternoon a white hearse arrived with two burly, friendly men. I followed them upstairs. I had already chosen the clothes I thought Julian would be most comfortable in but when I suggested I stay and help to dress him, they ushered me out of the room.

‘This could be very distressing for you,’ they said. ‘There are things we have to do and it would be better if you weren’t here.’

I went outside and sat alone on the grass in our hopeful orchard. Under the shade of a blossoming apple tree and through its hesitant, budding branches, I watched with wonder the slow passing of indifferent clouds.

The branch nearest to my face was finely smothered in a soft, green lichen which fanned itself out into bold and intricate lacy patterns. In the grass under my hand, I could feel a papery object of decay. Squinting, I held it up against the grey sky and saw the skeleton of a leaf, dried and discarded.

I am being plucked out of my life by a guiding, unseen hand, the unknown path I know I have to follow.

Its deepest imprint looked like a thumb. I imagined that at one time this leaf might have bent, drooping as I had so often done, to shoulder unexpected rains. Under a summer sun it might have curled like a cat, heavy with heat. But in these softer, shaded moments, as we waited for Julian to be taken away, it simply lay open in the palm of my hand.

•••

The men appeared on the front steps, pushing and pulling a shape on a stretcher to the waiting car; Julian was completely enclosed in a zipped white bag.

I think they spoke to me. Something about the visiting hours and then being asked if I had any special requests.

What are these people talking about?

I went upstairs, avoiding the rumpled, empty bed, and scurried around looking for the death certificate they needed. I might have signed a piece of paper. I don’t remember. I returned to the sanctuary of the orchard.

Finally, there was the sound of a heavy car straining to gain traction, digging deep into the gravel drive. It drove past me amid a slow cloud of dirt.

•••

The love that Julian’s older boys had for our children was something I never doubted, not for a moment. I, on the other hand, had long been insecure about my place in the family, even though I knew the boys had a high regard for me and appreciated how I had cared for Julian.

Despite this, I still felt the quiet agony of the outsider. Over the years, I had witnessed the boys’ joy around the children and, with enormous goodwill on all our parts, we had weathered many storms together. I loved my stepchildren but I had to be realistic – they were young men who I had only known for a relatively short time and they still had lives and adventures to follow elsewhere. Without Julian, this new, uncharted landscape of family life stretched out before me, leaving me empty and fearful.

Without Julian, I reasoned, perhaps I would not be tolerated anymore? And if I was to be cast out, what would this mean for the children? There was no logical basis for this feeling – but I had a very strong, almost visceral intuition that my place in the family was under threat from a force I could neither see nor understand.

As if drawn by the clamouring voices in my head, Oliver found me in the orchard and sat down beside me.

We talked about possible arrangements for Julian’s funeral and the plans we had for the next few days. ML was flying over from the Solomon Islands as soon as she could get a flight and her parents, Joan and Michael, were cancelling all their plans so they could drive up to the farm from Melbourne and help in any way they could.

‘I would hate to think that we won’t see you guys anymore,’ I said abruptly.

Oliver looked genuinely surprised. It was clear the thought had not entered his mind. Like Julian, he was reserved and rarely expressed his deeper emotions – he was simply always consistent and honest. He looked at me directly, his sad eyes full of kindness.

‘We’re not going anywhere,’ he said.

•••

Last impressions count.

The middle-aged woman at the funeral home was squeezed into a black suit. She greeted Mary-Louise and I with a fixed, sympathetic smile and gestured towards the open door.

‘Mr Thirlwall has been prepared for you and is in the viewing room.’

I remember a door closing and the sound of retreating shoes squeaking on a padded carpet. ML, who had just flown in from the Solomons, was bundled into one of my warm winter coats. The lighting in the room was dulled by orange lampshades, and the air smelled slightly of industrial cleaner. ML put her arm through mine, a deeply comforting presence that neither held me back nor urged me forward.

The world seemed to hover at a distance as I digested the unnatural scene. I had been adamant that I should come and say my last goodbyes, in part because I feared that I might regret it if I did not, but also because I had such a strong desire to see Julian again.

I could feel ML’s breathing, long and heavy; life moving slowly in the presence of death.

As we moved towards the coffin, there was Julian in his familiar clothes: a blue-and-white-checked shirt, green corduroy trousers, brown leather brogues and his wedding ring. A discordant thought flew into my mind. He was normally so fastidious. Why was he lying down with his shoes on?

For a moment I debated whether to ask if they might be removed. I thought of his long, bony toes with the rounded toenails, of the drugs he took which made it too painful for him to walk on bare feet; the eight pairs of identical unworn shoes from England that sat in pristine boxes under the stairs.

A telephone rang in another room, another life. ML squeezed my arm.

I was transfixed by the absurdity of it all; the quietness, the awful piped music, the contrived stillness. I wanted Julian to wake up, to open his eyes and speak to me. ‘Hello, darling, how was your day?’

I scattered onto his chest a bowl of wax petals that George had made the day after Julian died. Our small boy had been hunched for hours in fervent concentration as he dipped his fingers into the multicoloured candles that had filled the house, peeling the wax from his fingertips into a bowl when it had cooled. Around him, the air had swirled with visitors, voices, tears, flowers and phone calls. Later that morning, when Julian’s body was driven away, George continued to make his petals and did not look up.

I put a handwritten letter by Julian’s side and drawings from the children. I had asked them that morning if they wanted to come with me – no, they did not. Perhaps, I suggested, they would like to send a letter to Dad? They should tell me what they wanted to say and I would write it down.

Dear Dad,

Are you comfortable in your box? I found your magnifying glass. What’s your favourite thing in the whole wide world? Is it your yummy lollies, your polo or is it me? That’s all I want to say now.

Sleep, love, dream.

George

Charlotte. Charlotte Barlotte. Charlotte is beautiful. Charlotte is beautiful to Mum. Daddy is so beautiful. Daddy loves me so much and had a lot of medicine. xxxxxxx

Dad,

I love you, you’re a good man.

Meg xxxxx

Before we left, I paused to look at Julian again, still unconvinced, and steeled myself to touch his hand for the last time. A stone on a windswept beach. As I closed the door behind me and stepped out with ML into the brisk October air, the chasm of a cold new world, alone now with three small children, so far away from my family, quietly opened at my feet.

•••

Early the next morning, I woke up to the sound of the phone and heard the familiar, faint and quavering voice of my grandmother calling from England.

Already in her nineties and plagued by bad knees, she confessed she had partially crawled across her living room just so that she could call me, something she had never done in all the years I had been away.

‘How are you?’

‘I’m okay,’ I said.

The line began to hiss and crackle.

‘Hello? Granberry? Can you hear me?’

‘I just wanted to know, love. How are you really?’ Her voice sounded hollow, cored like an apple.

‘Not great,’ I said.

She sighed. ‘It’s terrible, isn’t it, Luce? Terrible.’ The line went quiet again. ‘How old are you now, love?’

‘Thirty-eight.’

‘Yes, that’s right. It was the same for me too. Oh, love.’

Granberry had rarely spoken about the loss of her husband John, a bus driver who had a heart attack in his early forties. If she ever talked about him, it was only to speak about how deeply affected my mother had been, as she was only a teenager when she found him dead.

When we were young, Libby and I would often go and stay with her, and be subject to her strict and sometimes bizarre rules: only one sheet of toilet paper to be used after a wee, no pulling on the cord above the double bed we shared as it would cause the house to explode, and no entering alone into the most treasured room of all, the dusty attic full of family treasures. There was to be no picking damsons off the tree before they were ripe, and no-one was permitted to place more than one lump of coal into the tiny grate she called a fire.

Libby was definitely her favourite child: quiet, polite and helpful. Granberry made it very clear that she did not like me very much at all. I used too much lavatory paper, I was cheeky, I complained, I kicked too many footballs near the windows, I ate the forbidden damsons off the tree and gave myself a well-deserved stomach ache. Furthermore, I secretly climbed the fence into the neighbouring garden to steal their fruit, causing mild suburban annoyance.

When she put us to bed at night, she would come up the stairs like a shrunken ghost in a long white nightgown, minus her daytime wig and the set of dentures she had worn since gum disease destroyed all her teeth as a teenager.

‘No monkey business,’ was all she ever said.

One night, as Libby and I lay in my mother’s old double bed with its unbearably hard bolster pillow, I said I was going to pull the forbidden cord.

‘Please don’t,’ Libby pleaded. ‘We’ll die.’

I weighed up the risk. At the age of seven I had already grasped the frequent absurdity of adult logic. If this piece of string would destroy the house, why was it even there? Who in their right mind would tie a bomb to their own bed?

I sat up in the dark and fumbled behind the headboard. ‘There’s a plastic end!’ I whispered.

Libby started moaning and pulled the covers over her head.

I took a breath then pulled – the overhead light, something we were never permitted to use ourselves, came on.

‘Look! It’s just the light! Ha!’ Within seconds, I heard the bottom of the stairs start to creak and hastily pulled the cord again and we lay, trembling in the darkness, waiting for the wrath to descend. I could sense Granberry waiting and then, after a few agonising moments, retreating to her room where she slept with Monster, her similarly toothless and ancient poodle.

The next morning, she buttered our pieces of Weetabix and sprinkled them with sugar, her mouth tight with disapproval.

‘Little monkey,’ she said, glaring at me.

Granberry had a very unforgiving and Victorian view of children, believing they should be seen and not heard. She was not a particularly affectionate person, but by the time I was around the age of fourteen and she had moved into a small flat near our home in Kidderminster, I began to earn her love and approval by helping her with her shopping and calling in to see her whenever I could. It took many years for us to make our peace, but once achieved, we became extremely close.

‘I don’t suppose you feel like fetching us some roe and chips, Luce?’ she would ask.

So I would either walk or cycle to the tight little row of terraced houses in nearby Lorne Street to collect our dinner from Magg’s fish-and-chip shop. By the time I returned to the flat, she had laid a small table with beautiful plates.

I never saw my grandmother as boring or provincial, even though she had rarely left the town or had much of a career apart from working in a printing factory and as a dinner lady in a local school. I was drawn to her stability and quiet courage; she became a wonderful refuge during my turbulent teenage years and a living example of deep acceptance, healthy cynicism and wry pronouncements on the shortcomings of others.

We spoke for a few minutes more; her face, etched with lines, so familiar and loved, appeared in my mind as she might have been all those years ago, a widow, devastated and alone with two elderly parents and a young child.

‘I love you,’ she said.

‘I love you too,’ I replied.

‘Put the phone down then.’

‘No, you go first.’

Our echoing laughter filled the distance between us as we hung up.

When she died just a few months after Julian, I often thought of her as a small but brightly burning candle; not glamorous or extraordinary but, in the best sense, very ordinary and simple and true. In the brief few minutes that we spoke, I had the strongest feeling that she was telling me – without saying a word – that whatever must be done, I could do it and she would lead the way.

20

Wreaths of gaudy flowers are piled up against a

small white wooden cross in the late afternoon sun,

in the dirt. The children play hide-and-seek among

the gravestones. Now you see me, now you don’t.

I had never realised the extraordinary amount of administration involved in organising a funeral: the lists, phone calls and family consultations; choosing a coffin, working out who to notify and how, newspaper announcements, arranging who would speak and what music should be played. Family friends in Port Moresby rang to say they were organising a memorial service in the Anglican cathedral to be held at the same time as the mass and burial in Australia. So we would all be together.

Over the next few days and weeks we received many letters, cards and faxes. I particularly loved the ones from the children we knew, their bluntness so liberating and sincere.

Don’t you cry because your father’s dead. God will look after him in heaven.

Caitlin.

I am sorry that your dad died but his spirit will always be with you. My cousin’s mother died from cancer but her spirit guided her and now she is a teacher at my school so I think your father will guide you too.

Erin xxx

I also loved people’s recollections of their friendship with Julian: his generosity as a host, his treatment of people, his reserve, his humour and eccentricities. Julian’s physical energy was an aspect of his life I was fully aware of, but it was not until he died that friends told me stories of just how reckless he had been as a younger man. Simon Leigh, a poet living in Canada, sent a brief and affectionate portrait.

I first met him in 1956 when I happened to be climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge from the north side (over the barbed-wire cage and up the metal supports) and on reaching the upper span, quite pleased with myself, I met a chap strolling towards me from the other end, and that was Jules.

Soon after we went skiing to Guthega in a uni group and on arrival it was dark and the steep, icy road outside the hut was lit by a single streetlight, and I can still see Jules, taking his first-ever run, on hickory skis with a pine-tar base and rattrap bindings, wearing army pants and a beret, rattling down the road. The guy was fearless. When I told my wife, we both cried for Jules. Of all people he seemed indestructible.

•••

A condolence letter from my somewhat eccentric uncle, Terry, opened by telling me that he had been impressed by Julian during their brief meeting, adding with his usual tact: as I would be by anyone who took you on. He urged me to:

. . . grieve, don’t bottle it in; give yourself time and think of how honoured and happy you have been to have known him.

One always feels terribly useless on these occasions, which one is, but we send our love. You’ll survive.

Somewhat brutal, perhaps, but amid the sea of well-meaning flower and angel cards, there was something rather comforting about his lack of saccharine sentiment.

•••

The night before the funeral, ML, her father Michael and mother Joan and I sat up after dinner, talking and threading deep navy ribbon through the funeral booklets. We had the same emblem on the book – a small bird – and the same PNG basket which we had also used for our wedding and both christenings. Still tied to the handles were the remnants of yellowing cream ribbons from happier days.

I was in good company. There was nothing I had to hide, nothing I could not say. A small fire crackled in the grate as we talked late into the night.

•••

St Peter’s Catholic Church in Burrawang stood alone in its own timeless space on the edge of the village. The long weatherboard building, originally built over a hundred years before with shutters and a shingle roof, was simple and unadorned both inside and out. Behind, in the graveyard, carved headstones were covered in moss and lichen, some weathered beyond recognition.

This, the most English of Australian landscapes, overlooking green, slumbering hills, was where Julian had wanted to be.

The village itself was quiet on that seemingly ordinary Friday morning as cars made their way to the church; people were walking their dogs, the pub sign was on the pavement as usual. It was just another day. I left George, Meg and Charlotte in the car with ML and raced into the small grocer’s shop.

The shop, just opposite the pub, also doubled as a post office. A bell tinkled when I opened the door, and the owner heaved himself off a wooden stool with an odd air of resignation. Yellowing ceilings were obscured by bundles of garlic, large orange gourds and clumps of fading lavender.

‘Nice day for it,’ he said, with no realisation of the irony of his remark.

‘A packet of mints, please,’ I said. This was a last-minute idea I’d had in case of emergency – a way to distract the children during the service if they began to get restless.

The hearse was drawing up to the front steps of the church as we found a parking place on the grass. We sat for a moment – I wanted to wait for the coffin to be taken inside. Then, accompanied by friends and family, the children and I entered the church as Joan, accompanied by a cello, violin and flute, continued the opening hymn, Psalm 23. As I passed each pew, I gratefully drank in each loving, familiar face.

The service went on for some time. Charlie, restless at the best of times, went outside, pacing quietly in and out of my line of sight. The children soon fled through an open side door during another desultory hymn to play on a gnarled old tree; a long branch, stretched out like a loving arm, delivered them repeatedly back to the ground.

I listened keenly as Oliver gave his eulogy and spoke about both his parents, and all the opportunities he and his brothers had been given, particularly the chance to be raised in Papua New Guinea and to follow Julian in his love for sport and adventure of every kind.

‘My father was a gentleman in every way. He was also a gentle person and he treated the people of Papua New Guinea like he did everyone else, with respect. As I speak there is, in Port Moresby, another large gathering of people who feel as we do.

‘News of his cancer was an undeserved curse for Dad. He had just remarried and was otherwise in high spirits and good condition physically. However, he battled his cancer, giving no heed to the suffering the drugs bestowed upon him. And in his struggle we can see his love for all of us; right up until he left us he did not give up fighting, his iron will unrelenting and his spirit indomitable to the last.’

The cadence and beauty of Oliver’s final line was almost my undoing. I stared at the floor, my chest tight, conscious that the priest was waiting for me to stand and deliver a few lines I had prepared.

Eventually, I nodded to him that I was ready and stepped forward to say a few final, inadequate words.

•••

Julian’s sons, his nephews Mark and Simon, and brother, John, carried his coffin to the grave, where the basalt earth, so rich and pungent, yawned into a perfect, deep rectangular hole. A small earth mover was discreetly hidden behind a shed, waiting, presumably, for the mourners to disperse so the somewhat unseemly shovelling could begin.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

I pulled Charlotte away from the edge of the grave; staring intently at the coffin, she seemed about to topple in. Meg allowed a fistful of soil to fall from her tiny hand.

Gradually, there was a sound of cars pulling away, heading to a gathering back at the farm. We were the last to leave.

Tears fell slowly as we drove home. For whom or what I did not know as they were unaccompanied by any change in my somewhat numb state; but I was glad of the relief they brought, draining me just a little of a deep and long-gathered sorrow.

That night, when the children were asleep, I felt drawn outside. Dressed in Julian’s old oilskin coat to protect me from the light rain, I felt in the pockets, which were still stuffed with twine and a box of matches. I stood, shivering in the dark. Above me the clouds seemed to hurry past as I stared into the empty spaces between the stars. It seemed that so much of me had travelled with Julian into that vast eternity, that nothing, nothing could deny me connection with him.

21

I will tell you everything, my darling, in the quiet

whispering hours where only you can hear me.

In the weeks following Julian’s death I lived on heaven’s edge.

While my logical mind could comprehend that he had died, the remainder of my awareness was foggy and indistinct.

My life seemed concentrated in a small area just above my head, a hovering cloud like a cartoon bubble, while the rest of the world loomed into sharp and breathtaking focus. I saw, perhaps for the first time, the way the wind drifted through the patient trees, and noticed as if I had never heard it before the sibilant softness of the children’s sleeping breaths as I stroked their hair. In, out. In, out.

When sadness came I retreated to our bedroom to be close to Julian. It felt like a chapel, the air still heavy with a sense of sacred stillness.

I did not feel the overwhelming devastation I had expected. I was not even sure whether this was grief; certainly it was not of the textbook kind. I read repeatedly that the first stage of bereavement was denial. Was I in this state? I certainly didn’t feel as though I was denying anything. My mind was clear – I knew exactly what had happened and yet I could hardly feel anything. I told a friend, ‘I don’t feel too bad. I think I’ll handle grief pretty well if this is all it is.’

Normal life went on around me and I was apparently taking part. Shopping, caring, cooking, and talking to friends, fielding with confidence their anxious enquiries. ‘How are you, really?’ ‘Really? I’m okay, I think.’ I could not put into words the sense of a strange and soundless force that seemed to linger on my inner horizon, the fears that hovered around my heart late at night when I was alone and the house was quiet. For several weeks, I managed to dispense this unease with a glass of wine or a conversation with a friend.

Lovingly prepared meals appeared in eskies on the doorstep, ute-loads of firewood were stacked on the veranda, and friends volunteered to whisk the children away for a few hours of fun and brought them home, tired, fed and happy. For several weeks our family was borne along on a tide of thoughtfulness. We were given a lemon tree, a rose, a box of lavender and rosemary ready to plant from neighbours we had never even met. Just thinking of you, the note said.

•••

The first cracks in my unconscious armour came in dreams.

Julian and I were standing in our kitchen. He towered over me as he always had, talking in his deep English voice, mild irony infusing every word. He was quite matter-of-fact about being dead, saying he was getting bored with it – there were so many tests that he had to pass, apparently, before moving on. To where, he did not say. I listened, bemused. He sounded a little mad, a little too esoteric for the very practical man I married.

‘There are so many things I’d like to do now,’ he said.

I was staring at him, listening intently, but all the time I was thinking, Oh my god, how am I going to explain this to everyone? Jules has come back to life!

He continued, ‘It’s all a bit tedious but I’m hoping they’ll send me to Eastern Europe.’

Julian had always been a great traveller and adventurer so what he was saying made sense. I could well imagine that the wanderlust which had characterised his life might also define him in death. But who were ‘they’? Who was sending him away?

I then noticed that he was dressed in unusually dapper clothing – a flamboyant silk shirt and a velvet jacket. Even a cravat. He was also talking as if to an imagined audience, never meeting my eye.

‘Aren’t you coming home?’ I asked him.

Julian looked around and I followed his gaze to the dishes in the sink, the clutter on the kitchen table.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said dismissively. ‘It’s time for greener pastures.’

•••

The moment of my long unravelling came on Christmas Day, the first without Julian, only ten weeks after his death. First anniversaries, I knew because I had read about them, could be poignant and painful reminders of what was missing, but as yet I had felt very little real emotion.

The day began well enough with presents and laughter and the gradual arrival of relatives throughout the morning. I remember at one point looking around at all the smiling faces, feeling the kindness and warmth of our gathering. The children were particularly excited to have so many people and presents, and, despite Julian’s absence, were still young enough to revel happily in the attention and affection of their extended family.

It was as I was gazing contentedly around the table, feeling so nurtured by the presence of other adults, that I felt a deep visceral pain, as though a large knife had suddenly sliced into my heart. And in that seemingly ordinary moment, grief hurtled into my life with unimaginable violence.

•••

Amid brief periods of relative peace, my whole being was ravaged by sudden waves of extraordinary pain. These waves, which felt almost like labour contractions, gave me barely enough time to snatch a breath before I was once again dragged into a vortex of overwhelming sorrow. Sadness assaulted me, left me confused and disorientated; just when I thought I had reached firmer ground, that the worst was surely over, this extraordinary force would take me under again to the deep, the lonely deep.

I felt a sense of increasing disconnection from the world which deepened when I started seeing spirits everywhere, the same shadowy forms that had appeared on the night that Julian died. Driving the children to school, I would see figures walking on the side of the road, then suddenly disappearing; I might be standing in a circle of people and would intuitively move aside to allow room for someone who had just arrived – yet when I looked around no-one was there.

This was the world of the newly bereaved, a life on the border of madness. Heaven’s edge indeed.

I had not realised until then that people in crisis have such a profound effect on everyone around them. It was a shock to realise that I could no longer make people laugh, cheer them up or support them in the ways I used to. Even my closest friends approached me hesitantly, not wishing to say anything tactless. It was as though some strange unspeakable stigma was now attached to me. I sensed that some people were afraid of me, of what to say and what I might say in return.

•••

I found myself increasingly enthralled by the apparent simplicity of other people’s lives. For so many, it seemed, there was no great struggle, no agony to be endured, no feverish questions of identity or ultimate meaning that lay unresolved. Their lives continued as normal; they laughed and argued, made plans for the future. How, I wondered, were they living through this experience so unscathed? Had their worlds not stopped as mine had?

‘How are you?’

‘Not so bad,’ I would say with a frozen smile. I must hide this bloodied heart.

I began to avoid people whom I intuited were not strong enough to deal with the reality of how I was feeling when I had no energy to pretend. I protected myself and others by hiding away, weary with the burden of not feeling great.

Every day was a private Everest.

This effort consumed my days. It was a valiant struggle to keep the void hidden, to show others that I was coping as they all so desperately wanted me to. I never realised grief could be so complicated, so layered, such a delicate nest to build so high up in a wind-battered tree.

As the one most obviously afflicted, I had unknowingly been conferred the power to reduce others to tears, to prompt them into confessions, to unearth, simply by my presence, moments of anger or resentment. Every encounter had its own unspoken conversation, the one I now listened to more attentively than the words that were actually being uttered.

Even if the people I spoke to were only wearing a mask of tranquillity and contentment, it was an enviable one.

•••

One morning I had stopped outside the bank, trying pathetically to remember the pin number for our account. There were so many details of everyday life that seemed to have been washed away. A woman I knew, an acquaintance and neighbour who had children the same age as mine, walked up the steps to greet me.

‘How are you?’ she asked in a tone of woe, the mournful emphasis seeming to invite a long and heartfelt response.

‘I’m okay,’ I answered in a non-committal tone, trying desperately to remember her name.

The woman put her hand on my arm sympathetically. A hammer began to hover over my fluttering heart. I am not strong enough for pity today.

She had dyed her hair several warring shades of gold and aubergine and leaned forward, her face glowing with tiny sparkles of silver make-up, badly applied like a teenager. Her voice was unsteady, as though she was listing like a ship in a storm.

‘I was sorry to hear your news,’ she began, then changed her expression to a pained smile. ‘It must be a relief though.’ She looked at me searchingly. ‘I mean, I wish . . . it’s so difficult.’

I nodded.

‘I know it must be hard for you but . . . it’s simpler isn’t it?’

I stared at her.

‘I mean death is simpler, isn’t it? It’s not like divorce, they don’t forgive you for that.’

I began to rummage in my bag. She clutched my arm.

‘I wish I was in your shoes,’ she said. ‘You’re so lucky.’

Her previously caring expression had completely fallen away, leaving her face strangely hollow. Without another word, she turned and walked quickly away.

•••

A few weeks after Julian died, the actress Ruth Cracknell came for tea. Her daughter, Anna, was a friend of mine and she had suggested we meet, thinking perhaps that it would be an encounter we would both enjoy. The previous year, Ruth had published Journey from Venice, a memoir about her marriage and the death of her husband, Eric Phillips.

Ruth was one of the most special visitors I’ve ever had and I cleaned the house as if it were the Queen coming, which in some ways it was. She was not well at the time – in fact she was to die a few months later – and the few steps up to our house were negotiated with care and caution.

We were left alone to sit in the quietest room in the house. Even sitting on our old sagging sofa, she managed to maintain such poise. The late afternoon light fell through the window where she was sitting, illuminating her sensible shoes in a pool of golden light.

I knew that the moment of Eric’s final breath had been a profound and beautiful experience, as I had read some of her book. Like Ruth, this had also been such an unexpectedly joyful moment for me – I felt she was someone I could talk to and try to make sense of it all.

‘Could it really have been the way I thought it was? It feels so strange to say this but all I could feel was his absolute joy,’ I told her.

Her sky blue eyes held me in a perfect, level gaze. ‘Ah, yes,’ she said without hesitation. ‘That was his great reward.’

BEFORE SLEEP

Goodnight, goodnight, my darling.

Above me the stars are reaching down

Lighting that walk to infinity.

The children think you live in the sky.

Perhaps you do. Burning as bright

And as brave as you were with us.

Goodnight, goodnight, my darling.

I can hardly bear this desolate bed,

The bowl of dried-out jasmine

Still lies next to me, death’s perfume.

The children think you are a flower.

Perhaps you are. Still unfolding,

Blessing our lives with silent mystery.

Goodnight, goodnight, my darling.

I’ve lit a candle tonight, to call you,

Beg you to stay just a little more,

Just one, one minute longer.

The children think you are a flame.

Perhaps you are. Its warmth is

Glowing and leaping out to touch me.

Goodnight, goodnight, my darling.

I breathe deeply while I’m weeping,

Tears tumbling, body longing.

The children say you’re all around them.

Perhaps you are. I wrap your memory

Around me tightly where you lay,

Nest in your blue, dog-eared jumper.

Goodnight, goodnight, my darling.

Tonight the wind is nudging the doors,

Spinning and lifting drifting leaves.

The children think you are the breeze,

Caressing their faces in the morning sun.

Perhaps you are. I hear your voice

Murmuring in the hollow of my shoulder,

I adore you, I adore you.

22

This is my world, a kingdom complete; never

ending, always connecting, life pouring from

me where I and the universe meet in air.

Grief had a way of coming upon me unannounced, springing around the corners of a conversation, lying in wait on the radio, cunningly suspended in an aching sunset at the end of a long summer day.

Alone with the children, life was a simpler affair. I did not have to pretend; indeed, I often had no energy to do so. I felt I could endure the desolation better by myself, away from the demands of others – or at least hoped I could.

When I had to go out into the world and negotiate what had previously been the simplest of social encounters, it was as though I had an enormous gash in the middle of my chest that everyone could see, making me feel exposed and strangely humiliated.

‘You are every woman’s worst nightmare,’ an older friend suggested matter-of-factly.

‘People look at you and they see that this could also happen to them. They sense the devastation you feel. It’s incredibly confronting.’

It felt impossible to negotiate the daily challenges of life when I felt so brittle, so broken; I viewed the world entirely through the prism of loss.

I had always been such a social person, but having to deal with others now filled me with dread. The loss of Julian began to change the way I felt about other people and the way I imagined they felt about me. I could not conceive of a world anymore that was unaffected by his absence.

I staggered through each day, weighed down by emptiness.

•••

One day I went to a lunch in Sydney with a group of women, hosted by a friend. ‘It will do you good to get out. Please come,’ she had said. I was late, badly dressed and conscious, by the muted expressions that greeted me, that they had already been briefed about my ‘situation’.

The other women gathered in the garden. In normal circumstances I would have introduced myself and been friendly and warm, but now I hovered like a teenage wallflower at a dance, anxious and self-conscious. I stood on the edge of the group and picked at a bowl of nuts, aware that I was overeating, but not hungry. Not hungry at all.

The day was overcast, the clouds were lying low; in the distance there was a faint suggestion of blue like a glad memory.

Over lunch I caught some of the women observing me with wide, doleful eyes. I wondered what I was doing there and how soon I could leave without causing offence.

It pained me to so keenly feel this schism, the loneliness of the outcast. I tried to join in, even managing a tinkly laugh as one woman recounted how her husband drove their children all the way to the city to see a show, only to discover he had the wrong day. ‘Husbands,’ the woman said, as she beamed around the group. ‘Hopeless.’

A champagne cork popped in the kitchen.

The conversation weaved through the safe topics of the external world – renovations, school choices, the nights of broken sleep with small children. My mind drifted back to Burrawang, to the graveyard and the coffin, deep in the freshly wounded earth.

The talk turned to family pets and then, unexpectedly, there were tears. A cluster of faces turned, like fluttering flowers towards the sun, to focus on a weeping woman. An arm was placed protectively around her shoulders. Someone offered tissues.

I tried not to stare.

‘It’s our cat,’ the woman began. ‘He had to be put down last week, and I am so upset that I have not been able to tell the children. I just made a joke of it, and said he has probably found a girlfriend and when he’s bored, he’ll come home.’

There was a muted chorus of sympathetic sighs.

Someone began to clear the plates as the story was told in detail – the cancerous growth on its underbelly, the vomiting, the plaintive mewing in the night. The final decision.

I remained as still as I could manage. My heart was forming into a scream, the sound in my ears like thick, black globules spilling over the white tablecloth.

The crisis subsided seamlessly into dessert. Baked pears in a glutinous syrup.

‘It’s been a lovely lunch,’ I said as soon as I could, retrieving my coat. ‘I’m sorry I have to go, but I have to get back before the end of school.’

‘Thanks for coming,’ my friend said with a warm hug. ‘It’s good to see you out and about.’

Faces turned towards me, a huddle of smiles. ‘Goodbye, see you again.’

‘It’s just awful,’ I heard a woman say as I left the room, her voice dense with exasperation. ‘It really is, I’m at my wits’ end. He’s hardly ever home before six.’

•••

It was confronting to feel so inhibited by the company of other people, yet suffocated by loneliness when I left them. It was as though the world had no space for me anymore, that as a single parent and widow I had been relegated to the shadows. It frequently pained me when people talked about ‘we’ in reference to their partner. I had no idea how to protect myself from being hurt by the ordinariness of other people’s lives.

•••

I felt safer at home with George, Meg and Charlotte, where there were no unpleasant surprises. There were many days when I managed well and enjoyed the fun they were creating. But there were other days when I withdrew from them, feeling guilty that I was failing them, unable to laugh with them and be fully present. There were times when they appeared like mirages, three tiny souls looking to me for love and comfort. I wished so desperately for their sake that they could have a mother who was serene and happy, someone who could fill and smooth this vast chasm, who could say that Dad would be coming home.

How would I be able to raise our children alone? I wondered. How could I care for them and provide for them when I felt so adrift? Soothing their daily tears and reading them stories in bed at night was often my only comfort and the spur that kept me going. I drank in their innocent beauty and bathed in their affection. Holding them close always brought some relief from the dull aching weight that had become my life.

In my darkest times, it no longer seemed to matter that I or the children had once been loved; the only reality I could comprehend was that I had not stopped loving Julian but that he, the source of so much care and support, the rock upon which our everyday life had been constructed, was no longer able to love us in return.

•••

It took me a while to organise a gravestone for Julian. I found a mason who could carve a beautiful old-fashioned slab of sandstone and work began. I had decided that underneath all our names should be written: Nothing is as gentle as strength. Nothing is as strong as true gentleness.

Many years later, a friend visiting the grave with me asked about the first line as it seemed slightly odd.

‘Nothing is as gentle as strength,’ I read aloud, somewhat puzzled. At the time I thought I had known exactly what I wanted to say, but looking at it again something was definitely wrong.

‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I have absolutely no idea what that means.’

She laughed. ‘Oh well, it’s rather like Julian then. Slightly mysterious.’

•••

After several months I felt drawn to return to Douglas Park for two days, hoping that the hours of contemplation and a chance to talk to Terry Naughton would give me once again, even for a moment, a place of peace and comfort.

I told him how I felt, angry that Julian was no longer here.

‘I know it makes no sense but I feel abandoned by him,’ I said. ‘We never talked about the future, about what my life might be without him, caring for the children by myself. Perhaps it was just too painful or too hard. But I really don’t know how I’m going to do it.’

‘One thing you might consider is writing a letter to him in the evening to tell him about what has happened that day,’ he suggested.

I raised an eyebrow – I had in mind a few choice phrases.

‘Let everything unfold gently,’ he said. ‘All of your losses will be felt during this time. Try to be still and hold in each hand the joy and the pain.’

I found a book in the retreat library called The Desert: An anthology for Lent. Since my long walks from Birdsville to Alice Springs and then west of Alice to Broome, the desert had held a special place in my heart and imagination. It was in this apparently empty space that I found something essential within myself, a certainty about my own resilience that had eluded me for many years.

I made notes in my journal and stole a quote from the book to reflect on. The way you must go is the way you already know. He has set it in your heart. The solitude will speak to you.

Although I was drawn to the deeper truth of these words, I instinctively felt conflicted by their implication. I already felt banished from the ordinary world; to turn towards solitude even more meant the possibility of greater despair and disconnection. Yet if this was where I might find healing, what choice did I really have?

That afternoon, I set off along the same track I had walked on my first visit to the monastery. Australia was in the grip of a deep drought by this time and the ground was cracked and parched, the grass a morose brown.

The path wound around a series of hills while from the ravine below came the faint smell of water. Seeking some relief, I crashed my way through the bush to what had once clearly been a magnificent river, now a listless stream. Everything seemed to labour under the heavy heat of the day.

I sat down under a spindly tree and rested, silently asking for the grace to be peaceful. It finally felt safe to stop. For a moment at least there was no need to keep running, to keep turning a shining face towards the world. Alone, I could simply feel the way I felt; shattered and lonely, ashamed of the smallness of my fearful heart that still cried out: Don’t go, don’t leave me.

I stretched out on the dirt, my head propped up on one hand, and allowed my mind to wander back ten years to a rather desultory night shift in the AAP Sydney newsroom, when a story from Wollongong University had popped up on my screen.

For twenty-five days in September six men will trek across the Simpson Desert in Central Australia. A female member is sought to balance the expedition. The start point is Poeppel Corner at the junction of South Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. The expedition will trek 450 kilometres to Alice Springs. Camels will carry supplies and an Aboriginal guide is being actively sought.

Up to this point, I had told very few people about another longstanding desire that I had – to one day venture into one of the world’s great deserts. In my teens I had not only developed an inexplicable obsession with Papua New Guinea, I had also collected several books about expeditions into the deserts of Africa and the Middle East: Venture to the Interior, The Empty Quarter, Arabian Sands, Beyond the Last Oasis. And well before I left the UK I had read Tracks, Robyn Davidson’s account of her incredible solo camel expedition across Australia.

None of these accounts painted a glamorous picture of desert life – far from it; the stories were riddled with disasters, physical suffering and near-death experiences. With their descriptions of the nomadic life and the rare beauty of the silent land, however, they also awoke in me a longing to venture into an apparent nowhere, to lose myself in emptiness.

I had always known that a relatively easy life would never give me the sense of achievement I wanted; yet while I dreamed of transformation, so often, seduced by laziness, I took the easy way out. I also knew that in order to blossom from the anxious and insecure young woman that I was into a person of greater substance and purpose, I had to do something extraordinary, something I could never imagine myself doing. The possibility of a long walk in the desert seemed like an answer to my prayers.

I did not offer any of these esoteric reasons to the team when I contacted them, of course. Instead, I spoke of my sense of adventure (limited), my fitness (exaggerated) and my willingness to undergo discomfort and hardship (also exaggerated). Striking a more pragmatic note, I suggested that as I was a working journalist, this might help garner publicity for the expedition which was relying partly on sponsorship funds to succeed.

The organisers agreed that I should join them and thus several weeks later, after some panic-induced training, I found myself with a group of strangers – including two army officers, two sergeants, a builder, a doctor and another woman – and a herd of camels in Birdsville, south-west Queensland. The aim of the expedition had changed by then; we were now going to walk about 750 kilometres to Alice Springs and be the first people to reach the geographic centre of the Simpson Desert on foot.

•••

The walk took forty days and forty nights.

Sometimes we would walk by the light of the full moon, taking advantage of the cooler hours; at other times we would press on through the heat and walk more than thirty kilometres a day so we could reach our next water supply. For weeks we saw no roads, no buildings and no cars, and we heard no news of the outside world. While we focused on the near horizon, battling along in stinging wind storms, around the world another life continued: wars broke out, political boundaries changed, elections were held and democracies fell. Blissfully, we knew nothing; this was a true break from the daily drip of doom-laden news.

In that vast, open landscape, the wind soon destroyed all signs of our passing, and the vast and brilliant night skies mocked our insignificance. The only constant sounds during the day were the wind rattling the leaves of dried-out shrubs and our footsteps trudging over the baking ochre sand.

While it was physically punishing, I had not expected such a deep level of mental struggle. There were times when another footstep seemed an impossibility; I wanted to give up, go home, anything but continue. And yet I had made a contract with myself that, unless I was too ill to do so, I would finish – and thereby change my perception of what else I might be able to achieve in life.

When I did reach the end I felt an enormous sense of elation. On one level I had completed an arduous physical challenge. Privately, though, I knew it was more than that. I had wrestled my own demons and found some answers to some very old questions. The experience had been so profound that I volunteered again two years later, this time to walk 900 kilometres across the Great Sandy Desert from west of Alice Springs to Broome.

Even though I left the desert when the expeditions finished, the desert never left me. My previous longing for solitude and abandoned beauty, far from being sated by the experiences, had only made me yearn for more.

At the end of the second walk I declared that I would return to the desert when I was forty and complete another trek.

•••

Sitting by the river, I let my fingers rub through the dirt, conscious that this promise would now not be fulfilled or at least not in the way that I had planned.

My life would now be a desert walk in another form.

A WIDOW’S LAMENT

Oh, fuck this bloody widow crap,

I’m as lusty as a bath of smashed apples,

Scented like dreaming days of summer,

Wild like a storming ocean

That lifts and roars, but cannot break.

Oh, sod this mad widow bullshit,

I’m not wearing black forever.

I don’t need them now, these weeds,

They have decayed, melted into me,

I will never be free of this sorrow.

Oh, bugger this lonely widow tale,

I never felt more married to you,

More loved, more understood.

They don’t realise, these innocents,

They don’t know what it is to be split open,

Lost dreams pouring from me, unfettered.

Oh, stuff this lonely widow crap,

Can’t you see I’m more alive than ever?

But today I’m not strong enough for pity,

I can only feel the unspeakable anguish

Of your absence, the unreachable

Heaven of our love.

Oh, forget this weeping widow nonsense.

To walk that lighted journey with you

Along the high road to your death, has

Been the greatest blessing of my life.

I gripped your hand tightly, and a part of me

Went with you, never to return.

23

There’s a door ajar with promise but I am unable to

move. The past looms over me like a great wall.

Julian came to me in fragments of memory. I could still assemble glimpses of his face, his body, his voice; his particular way of blinking. In the mornings when I woke I sometimes could feel the heaviness of his warm, freckled hand on my shoulder, and I thought I could sometimes hear in the distance the faint but enthusiastic sound of his deep, discordant singing.

Dealing with strangers who had never met Julian was especially hard. Some people did not even react when they learned he had died but asked instead how old he was. This was immediately followed by: ‘Oh! So he was quite a lot older than you?’ Walking away from these encounters I sometimes wondered if people would have been more sympathetic if it had been a real tragedy, if he’d been thirty-eight years old like me.

It seemed that, for many people, it was far more interesting why I might have married Julian than the fact that he had died and as the conversation wilted I stumbled for the words to explain why I had indeed loved a man so much older than me. In these moments I felt I was being punished for stepping outside convention. The slightly pursed lips spelled it out: You broke the rules. What did you expect?.

‘That’s quite an age gap. Did that bother you?’

‘You’re young, you can marry again.’

Naturally these comments troubled me, and made me think hard about my own motives. Was it because Julian was English that I felt so at home with him? Was it because I liked the lifestyle he offered me? Was I just odd? Or was this just who I was?

During my teenage years I began to feel different to my peers, and instead felt drawn to the wisdom of those older than me. I even dressed quite conservatively if I bothered to pay attention to the way I dressed at all. It was not a conscious choice necessarily but I liked a wide circle of friends from a variety of backgrounds. I was instinctively more comfortable with those who had lived a life, who actually knew things I thought were worth knowing.

I was very serious, far more so than perhaps I should have been, but I gradually accepted my own eccentricities and knew I would never be able to turn myself into somebody I was not. While many of my friends headed to weekend parties across London, I was more likely to be found on a long train ride to Dorset for a weekend of walking alone and unexpected adventures, always more entranced by musty bookshops than glittering nightclubs. It was not that I was unsocial, not at all. I loved people. But I wanted to meet all kinds of people, not simply be limited to mixing with people my own age.

It was one of the reasons that life with Julian suited me so well. Within our own extended family were people from every generation, and I was happy to talk to everyone.

Now, however, with the reality and stigma of widowhood enveloping my life, I found it hard to relate to anyone closer to my age apart from Celeste who had not experienced the kind of grief that I was enduring.

I was impatient with other people’s shallowness and complacency, angered that so few really understood what Julian’s death had done to his family.

•••

Often there was a colossal gap between the way I sensed a person was really feeling and the way they projected their life outwards. I was easily tired around those who were not authentic because social conventions meant I had to go along with their brightly told stories, even if I did not entirely believe them.

‘No, everything is great. We’re all really good, just planning the next holidays. Just busy, so busy.’

‘It would be lovely to see you, you must come over, we’ll drop by, sorry we haven’t been in touch, but we’ll call you . . .’

‘We must get together soon.’

Sometimes I tried to convince myself that what some people said was true, even though I sensed through their awkwardness that it was not. I wanted to think the best of them and I hoped their offer or invitation would eventuate into something real. But I had no choice but to allow those who wanted to leave my life to do so.

This was not easy. While a great deal of my emotional energy was absorbed in grief and caring for the children, I had not been blind to the subtle and not-so-subtle shifts that had taken place in our network of family, friends and acquaintances.

Losing Julian was not the only loss we had to face as a family. The first and most obvious casualty was my social life with other families, many of whom quietly regrouped without us.

Thankfully, with many of my closest friends I could feel their empathy and no reassuring words were necessary – they were there for the long haul, no matter what.

•••

One day our part-time housekeeper Mandy came to help me begin to pack up Julian’s clothes. She had come into our lives around the time of his death. I cannot remember exactly when, which probably had a great deal to do with her incredibly capacity to merge into our family life as if she had always been there.

She clearly sensed the enormity of the task for me and approached it with her usual calm, practical attitude.

It was awful. We took it very slowly, sitting on the floor surrounded by mounds of clothes and plastic bags. No, yes, no, no.

One of Julian’s habits, which had always amused me, had been his propensity to buy clothes in bulk. He had more than two dozen matching white t-shirts for running in, some already worn, some not, and piles of interchangeable blue shorts. His clothes took up two-thirds of our wardrobe.

Mandy clearly found this as perplexing as I had.

‘Oh my god,’ she said, as another pile of identical clothes appeared.

This habit also extended to his shoe collection. While living in the UK after he and Charmian were first married, Julian had found an old-fashioned shoemaker called Crockett & Jones in Northampton who made beautiful brogue leather shoes by hand. This must have been a particularly attractive option for Julian as they could make the same shoes in different sizes for each of his feet – one in nine and a half and the other in size ten.

Tropical heat and leather are not the best companions. When Julian decided a pair had passed their prime, he would give them away and pull out a new one. One day, early in our marriage, an enormous box containing a dozen brown and black shoes arrived, each one satisfyingly encased in a green cotton pouch with a drawstring top and printed with a proud golden crest. Many of these still sat, unworn, in the bottom of the wardrobe.

‘I can’t part with them,’ I told Mandy.

So back they went, with all the other treasures I could not bear to give away. Not yet.

•••

The first anniversary of Julian’s death was upon us, and a few close friends gathered at the farm. The children and I wrote letters and tied them to helium balloons, watching them float away until they disappeared into the sky.

That evening during dinner with Celeste and Stephen, the candelabra above the dining table began to slowly move of its own accord.

‘Perhaps it’s Julian,’ I said.

‘Of course,’ said Stephen, gazing up. ‘Where else would he want to be?’

That night I had a vivid dream, a visitation so real that when I woke I could not be sure whether it had actually happened or not.

Julian had appeared, striding into the living room where I was sitting alone. He looked so well, so vital.

‘You’re alive?’ My words came out in a thickened whisper.

‘Yes,’ he said with a smile, then added, ‘and I’m living in London again.’

A tall woman, almost the same height as Julian, entered. She leaned against him possessively confronting me with a poised and silent profile.

I stopped breathing. ‘But how did this happen? I thought you had died!’

‘No,’ he said wearily. ‘I just got sick of you. This way was easier than divorce.’

‘But what about the children?’

‘Yes.’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry about that.’

There was a roaring in my ears, and I woke up trembling with rage.

•••

Confusion, exhaustion, resentment and self-pity permeated my days. Some of my anger was directed at Julian, even though I knew how unreasonable this was. Every Thursday night I found myself cursing him as I dragged the stinking rubbish bin down the drive towards the road. It felt like the final indignity, even though we had never quibbled about the division of any household chores. ‘It’s alright for you,’ I muttered aloud as the bin bounced over the gravel, ‘floating around in a fucking cloud, leaving me to do everything.’

No-one else is here. No-one is coming.

Caring for the children largely alone, my vision of life was reduced to a few tiny square metres at a time. I was engulfed by a miniature world: tiny socks and shoes, tiny beds and plates, toys everywhere. I missed Julian, especially at the end of a long day. I missed our conversations and the person I used to be. Without another adult present, I found the separation between day and night or children and adults, which had been so effortless when Julian was alive, became more difficult.

During the day I seemed to manage because there was always something to do, and my tasks played out against the noise and activity that nature provided – sunshine, birds, movement. But after the children had gone to bed, this was replaced by silence and darkness. Someone recommended reading the classics, like Tolstoy, as a way of remembering the bigger picture of life, the sweeping chaos of political and emotional upheaval. But I didn’t have the brain power for it.

Television worked for a while, and so did wine. These socially acceptable anaesthetics were enough to blunt my senses until exhaustion overtook and I crawled off to bed. After several months, however, I woke up to the horrible realisation that this limited existence was now my life. It was bad enough that Julian had died, but I had now replaced him with a new nightly companion, a demanding idiot sitting in the corner of our family room that talked loudly and constantly with no regard for me. Much to the children’s dismay the television soon ‘broke down’ and was not replaced for years. It may have only been a small victory over apathy but, as I was beginning to discover, it was better than doing nothing at all.

•••

About a year after Julian died, a new family member came into our lives.

Stig was a present from fate. A few weeks earlier he had wandered into a bakery one Sunday morning when George and I had were having a warm drink, feasting on the smells of hot crusty bread. Next door to the bakery was a pet shop, closed for the day. I watched as a small puppy, white with a comical black patch over one eye, came through the door with no collar, lead or owner in sight.

I stopped the waitress as she passed by the table. ‘Does the dog belong to the bakery?’

‘No, not at all,’ said the woman, glancing down. There were three empty holes pricked into the lobe of her ear. ‘They often drop them around here; they think the pet shop will take them. Another Christmas present gone wrong.’

A short while later we found him tied up in the back alley next to a bowl of water.

‘He’s a lovely dog, Mum,’ said George.

My heart sank. Not a dog, not now. Not another responsibility. They both looked at me with wide eyes.

‘Oh, darling,’ I began, but he was already on the ground, lovingly stroking the puppy.

We called him Stig after a favourite children’s book. Stig became my partner in care, another pair of loving eyes that followed the children everywhere as they meandered around their worlds of trees, ropes, paint pots and power struggles. He helped to repair the void that we all felt, soothed our sorrows and quietly assumed the role of our protector and guardian.

•••

The reality of being a migrant added another layer of isolation. While I had always missed my family in the UK, the lure of returning was never strong enough, and once Julian had died, the thought of beginning a new life again was just too daunting. But I felt deeply saddened by the fact that I did not have my own family around to support me. While Julian’s boys were around, they were mostly living overseas so we only saw them from time to time.

In Australian terms, the farm was not that remote – I knew that other people were coping with isolation much more valiantly than I was. But the village shop in Robertson was still a ten-minute drive away and meant I had to strap the children into their car seats and make a half-hour round trip just to get milk.

So many times, perhaps after visiting friends after school, I would gather up the children and start the drive along the long, winding country roads back to the farm, while in my rear-view mirror the soft homely lights and smoking chimneys of town gradually disappeared from view.

One evening, driving home at sunset, we reached the top of the hill which marked the border between Robertson and East Kangaloon; the landscape of the sky was so arresting that I stopped the car. Thick bulbous clouds hung over the horizon, while perfect rays of late-afternoon light shone through them, touching the patchwork fields below.

‘A lot of people call those the fingers of God,’ I told George.

He stared through the open window, seemingly unimpressed.

‘No,’ he said finally, ‘I do not think they are his fingers.’

‘Really? What do you think they are?’

‘I think they are the roads to his face.’

24

There are days for picking flowers, days to enfold a

moment in my arms and have the courage to remember.

I walk outside to see the drooping garden heavy with

rain; a petalled head falls on its own chest, crucified.

An element of coming to terms with grief, people told me, was to learn to care for myself. When I first heard this advice I immediately pictured a series of predictable monuments to womanhood, like a portrait from a glossy magazine: luxurious underwear, pots of expensive facial creams and plumped up cushions on a gorgeous bed. Was that the kind of self-love I needed?

Instead, my treasured belongings included an old cedar box with three compartments given to me by my paternal grandmother. Grandma Palmer had an endearing habit of continuing to talk to me from the toilet, where she would go every morning after breakfast to inject her slabby thighs with insulin, sending a hot sharp sniff of surgical spirit wafting through her tiny flat.

I also had a bowl made from a sycamore tree to remind me of my childhood garden, containing snake skins, leathery leaves, intricate woven pods. On the windowsill of my room there were smooth stones from the beach, and a pair of stiff leather hobbles that I used on my camel in my desert days.

My capacity for self-love was limited, I had always known that. I felt more comfortable giving to others than receiving myself, so when a kind friend bought me a session of reflexology, it seemed fitting that I should begin caring for myself from the bottom, with my feet.

•••

Even at almost forty, my feet looked like a child’s. They were not the slender, elegant woman’s feet that I had always dreamed of; they betrayed me, the part of me that was standing still, stunted.

The reflexologist, Jenny, inspected them. Middle-aged, she had gel-spiked her hair and had wrapped it up in a bright orange headscarf. Her voice was soft.

‘We’re all damaged,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it shows in the feet.’

She began to prod at my feet with a small stick. There was a smell of peppermint cream and the muted sound of a busy highway.

‘Baby feet,’ she added admiringly. ‘Whatever’s happened to you, it hasn’t really got to you at all.’

She began to massage the bottom of my feet and, within seconds, I was drifting away, drugged by the sensation of her touch.

•••

Once they were tiny toes in a row, neat and soft. Papery nails, deep rose, a fading sunset, wriggling and wavering like petals in a breeze.

I thought of my first steps, tottering through the small carpeted English bungalow with its square of suburban lawn. There were long, light summer evenings with children on the streets, the sound of a football slamming into a brick wall. An ice-cream van with its wavering tune of sunny beachside happiness. Please can I have a double cone with a chocolate flake and strawberry sauce?

At five, my feet were forced into tights, then black party shoes with a shine. I had a band in my hair and I didn’t like dresses.

‘Keep your foot still, push down, push.’

Then, after the party and home, the shoes were discarded and I was delighted to feel the earth once again and scramble up the smooth bark into our old sycamore tree, where I could watch its helicopter seeds spinning madly down to the ground. My feet crushed autumn leaves and dangled defiantly over the corner of my tree house, my fortress of twining boughs and dancing light. Feet with punch in soccer boots, streaming down the right wing to turn and strike that flying ball to forever.

•••

Jenny rubbed the cream into the top of my foot and I could feel the bones, their lightness, and intricacy. Then down to the underside, the soft animal pads of heel and ball, yellowing and roughened. Her fingers press down into my instep, into the slightly arching valley. I felt a strange pain.

I realised that in all these years I had neglected my feet, pushing them into ridiculous shoes, forcing them to move at improbable angles. I had asked too much and given so little in return.

I wondered, as I sat there in that quiet suburban home, how many other parts of me had survived such indifference.

•••

Another suggestion for my improved wellbeing was to become a volunteer for the Red Cross, visiting old people in their homes. It seemed like a reasonable idea. The children were at school every day and it would be my first independent foray back into the outside world.

‘Mrs Bennett is ninety and lives alone,’ the organiser had told me. ‘Other volunteers say she’s a bit difficult and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. I’m not sure how you’ll go but good luck.’

I arrived at a mock Tudor home high on a hill outside Bowral, full of precarious bonhomie. A tiny woman, beautifully dressed, opened the door and ushered me into a formal sitting room where morning tea was already waiting.

We sat by the long French windows; a faint fog hung over the house like a shroud. Looking at Mrs Bennett, upright and dainty in her chair, I felt I should have been more feminine, more fittingly dressed for the visit. I was wearing my widow’s weeds: black jumper, brown jeans, and scuffed leather working boots.

Mrs Bennett, by contrast, was a picture of elegance. She wore a cream dress with a wishbone belt around her tiny waist, pale stockings and shiny beige shoes. Her fine grey hair, still wavy, was beautifully coiffed.

‘The secret to a long life,’ she said, ‘is chocolate.’ She gestured to the open box on the table. The beautifully wrapped chocolates gleamed with indulgence. ‘Take one,’ she commanded.

‘No thank you,’ I said. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘You don’t want one?’ Mrs Bennett stared at me with surprise. ‘Oh dear. I do hope you’re not one of those silly girls who worry about their bodies.’

I was lost for words. My fixed smile felt strange, as though it had perched on my face unexpectedly, like a bright bird alighting on a dirt heap.

I looked around. There was a low glass cabinet in the corner of the room, filled with lustrous green tea cups and a gleaming coffee pot that appeared never to have been used.

Mrs Bennett leaned forward a little in her chair.

‘So,’ she said. ‘If you don’t eat chocolate, how do you live?’

And then, having delivered this casual hand grenade, she turned away to look through the window, chewing politely.

I continued to visit Mrs Bennett for several months and gradually absorbed her simple and unaffected philosophy. I was in awe of her stoicism, the fixedness of her beliefs and routines; my life felt so chaotic by comparison. Listening to her, I felt quietly encouraged to try a little harder and perhaps to emulate her brisk matter-of-factness as part of my necessary armour to repel the apparent helpfulness of others. Even after several visits, Mrs Bennett showed no interest in my life, something which did not worry me at all. I found it soothing knowing I would not be ambushed by the questions that others often asked. How are you? No, but how are you really?

‘I live by a strict routine,’ she told me one day. ‘I take a tot of sherry before lunch. I take an inch, only an inch, of brandy before dinner at six sharp. I go to bed at seven and listen to the radio.

‘I then wake, without fail, at two am precisely. I eat a piece of toast, drink a cup of tea and then I return to bed.’

By contrast, the only order I succumbed to was imposed from the outside: the children’s sleeping habits, the beginning and ending of the school day, the necessities of shopping and cooking, and the demands of simple survival.

I found Mrs Bennett slightly intimidating, and I was careful not to overstep any boundaries, nor to make enquiries of a personal nature. She had made it very clear that she had no interest in divulging anything at all. Instead, I made harmless remarks and encouraged her to repeat previous observations about the state of the world or its unpredictable weather. It seemed to comfort her. She, on the other hand, could be far more direct.

‘And your husband?’ she had once asked.

‘He died,’ I said.

‘Yes.’ She sniffed and looked away. ‘They have a habit of doing that.’

If Mrs Bennett ever complained about her lot, she did so indirectly by describing not her internal state but the external world that continued without her. I could sometimes tell by the intensity and colour of the slash of lipstick Mrs Bennett had hastily applied before opening the screen door how low she was feeling that day.

‘Nobody comes here,’ Mrs Bennett said one morning, in obvious contradiction to my presence.

‘People are so busy, but of course I don’t want just anyone coming. Not like the old nuisance from over there.’ She gestured to a house just visible through the dark pine trees. ‘She complained about next door to me when they started building, said the new garage would block her view. I knew she wanted to get me on her side, but I refused.’ Mrs Bennett beamed with malicious satisfaction.

I came to understand that Mrs Bennett could make pronouncements that were as firm in her mind as she believed they were in the world. To her, it was not due to any fault of her own that other people were unfriendly, only an indication of their lack of generosity or kindness, only a sign that the world had changed for the worse, that the spirit of community and solicitude she had once known were now gone. Mrs Bennett, marooned in this unfeeling world, was determined to denounce it at every opportunity.

I was unaffected by these outbursts. I came to understand that, in many ways, we were very alike: detached, with half an eye on another place.

25

Even when life cracks us open, even when the boldest stars are

obscured, even at our worst and most desperate, we hold on.

One day, while the children were at school, I got ready for a bushwalk with a friend, a man I knew. He once belonged to the world of couples I had also inhabited before Julian’s death cast me onto more distant shores. At the time he was also marooned on his own island, in the throes of a separation.

So he was available, as I was. For what exactly, I was not sure. Certainly I longed for companionship, for understanding from another adult. I had no sense, no conscious sense at least, of wanting to replace Julian in any way.

I heard the crunch of gravel on the driveway and went outside. The clouds were thickening, but we were both eager for the walk and, putting on raincoats, we headed off.

The road through the scribbly gum forest wound through the trees which loomed over us like entwined fingers. Black cockatoos were dipping and screeching overhead. We followed the path over a river, which twisted its way downstream over vast exposed platforms of sandstone, talking less as we went.

Spatters of rain began to fall and we decided to turn back.

By the edge of the river, he held out his hand for me to step across the rushing water onto an isolated rock. From this vantage point we could see right down the river, the crude edges of the small cliffs and great boulders heaped in careless piles. The rain began to fall more heavily.

I turned to look up at him, silhouetted against the sky. Then, without a word, he held me as the clouds hurtled down onto my upturned face.

I had not realised how disastrous it might be to allow myself to fall in love while grieving for Julian, but that was what I did. Surrendering to someone else was, for a time, profound and beautiful; I truly believed this would make me whole again.

•••

I also felt overwhelming relief – someone had opened the door of my prison and offered me the tantalising possibility that all this pain could soon be over. Without hesitation I grabbed the promise of another life for us all. I would now have a soul mate and my children would have a father figure; love would be the key to my restoration and a release from all our suffering.

Any concerns I had were immediately and ruthlessly suppressed, and I dismissed all the cautious advice from well-meaning friends. I thought I would simply float off into a magical future; this was going to be my wonderful reward. It had to be.

The first signs that all was not well came from my body.

Within weeks I experienced my first-ever panic attack. These were not, as I thought, the first flutterings of romantic love, but the beginnings of a descent into paralysing agitation.

Without warning, I frequently found myself in a cold sweat, my heart pounding, my breathing short and shallow. At any moment I could feel waves of anxiety wash through me as though my body was being flooded. Having lived with uncertainty for a long time, I was used to a level of stress, but it was clear that something was terribly wrong. Lying in bed at night, I listened to hours of meditation and music CDs, anything to calm me down and stop my whirring mind. I felt constantly uncertain, and any encouraging thoughts I might normally have had were drowned out by a voice, the soundtrack behind every moment which asked: Am I enough? Am I enough?

My response to this was to cling to the relationship even more tightly. With him or alone, I found I had little ability to feel secure and content as the possibility of failure, of being alone again was just too terrible to contemplate.

It soon felt as though my very survival was at stake and any indication of uncertainty on his part was like a knife in the wound of Julian’s absence. When the relationship began to collapse, as I knew it would, my devastation turned to animosity and despair. I was angry with him but mostly with myself – I had lost faith in my own judgement and aspects of the relationship and my own behaviour, which I would never have tolerated before, horrified me. Only people in pain behave badly.

Deep in the cocoon of depression and an excruciating painful lower back where two discs were bulging, there was nothing else to do but take the medication my doctor had prescribed for depression. For someone who had always been quite resilient and capable, this was a new low. I crawled back into bed when the children had gone to school, counting the hours until I had to face my responsibilities again. Where had my spirit gone? Where was my faith?

The relationship gave me a very stark self-portrait; it exposed my loneliness, my need to be loved, my insecurities. Until then, I had no idea of the depth of my vulnerability.

I struggled to care for the children – the ever-faithful Mandy was, with the help of others, doing that for me. Of course, not coping on a permanent basis was unthinkable. I was fortunate that when those absolutely critical times came, I had extraordinary friends I could turn to even though I found it hard to ask. Father Terry reframed that for me on one of my visits to the monastery at Douglas Park.

‘Asking for help can be a gift to other people,’ he said.

‘How?’

‘It gives them an opportunity, if they want it, to feel good about themselves.’

•••

One morning I could hear the children calling to one another ‘No, put it there, that’s right, you stand there.’ ‘You’re not the boss of me!’ The alarm rang out, shrill and insistent, and my heart sank. Another day. I really did not know if I could face it: the lunchboxes, the cajoling, the remonstrations.

I was too tired to shower and instead washed my face in the sink, shuddering in the cold. I had no patience that morning for all the arguments and petty bickering that often became part of the morning rush and I lost my temper. The children stared at me, stunned.

I remember the bus pulling away from the end of the driveway; the shame I felt was still stinging. Grief had edges that were black and vicious. I wanted to call them back, hold them close, say that I was sorry, that I did not know what desperation was moving in me. I imagined myself as my children must have seen me, wild-eyed and hair askew, screaming in my pyjamas about a pair of lost socks.

That day I returned to my long-abandoned journal.

There is the loneliness of no longer sharing everyday realities, hopes and disappointments. There is the sadness for the children. There is the loneliness of other people’s laughter, of memories shared, of making late night cups of tea, just for myself.

I feel both tiny and yet somehow magnificent in this awful void; just to live is to be lonely, it is to touch mortality.

I know I must go on alone. It is not fair that the children have less of me than they deserve. It is not fair if I stop fighting for all of us. I have to find another way to truly live. I really hope that one day I discover that loneliness has been one of the greatest blessings in my life.

That night I woke from another fitful sleep. It felt as though someone was pressing on my shoulder, an unmistakable energy that I recognised as Julian. His presence was as vital as it had ever been.

I sat up and addressed the dark empty room. I was trembling.

‘Is that you?’

Silence.

I put on the lamp, feeling my breath coming light and quick. I knew I was depressed but this – so fleeting, yet so real – this, I knew, was bordering on serious madness.

‘Who’s there?’

More silence.

I sank back and closed my eyes. Just as I felt I was drifting off I felt Julian’s spirit near me once again and his voice spoke.

‘You must endure,’ he said.

•••

I could not always hear the kind and encouraging remarks of those dear to me, and my life became what someone once described as ‘dancing beside the abyss’ – and frequently falling into it. I felt imprisoned by inertia, daunted by all I should be doing.

My father’s periodic battles with depression were something I had been frightened by for much of my life, I found it hard to comprehend that someone so vibrant, so capable of fun, and someone so intellectually vigorous and fortunate could feel this way. When I began to suffer myself, I began to understand his struggle. I had more compassion for him, which developed into a softening attitude towards my own situation.

Many years before, during a visit to my parents in Kidder-minster from my home in London, I had sat with my father at the kitchen table. Dinner was finished and my mother had gone to watch television.

We sat chatting among the detritus of plates, discarded silver napkin rings and two opened jars of mustard. The dull ticking of an electric clock filled the room.

‘I often wonder . . .’ my father began, rearranging his knife and fork on his plate and looking at me with his pale distant eyes. ‘I feel my life has been like a desert,’ he said. ‘And I often wonder, when I look back, how did I get all this way without any water?’

•••

There were times when the energy for pushing on and staying strong, something I learned from my mother, was an incredible gift to lift me out of sadness and self-pity and catapult me back to life.

Gradually, with the benefits of medication and more help, I slowly, very slowly, got better.

It was not easy. The need to embrace my vulnerability became a matter of survival – if I was going to get through this terrible sorrow, I needed to allow myself to feel, which meant feeling everything. I also had to look deep inside myself at the shadows in my psyche, for everything that held me back and stopped me from healing.

I realised my life could not be restored by another relationship or by being busy. So if it could not be instantly fixed, it just needed to be faced. No-one is here. No-one is coming, and you’re going to be alright, I told myself.

During these darker days, as my sense of connection with the living Julian grew fainter, I constantly forgot to remember that small bird on my shoulder.

I often thought about the counsellor’s profound observation, but positive thinking about my own life did not always come naturally, I had to work at it. After Julian died I found it very easy to see all the things that I didn’t like or wanted to change, and to fall into a trap of despair and self-pity.

I often wondered, what if it had been me who had been diagnosed with cancer. How would I have chosen to live? Would I have really cared that the house wasn’t tidy, that the children stayed up too late or forgot their reading books? If I had been facing my own mortality, how would I have wanted to spend my days and what would I have focused on? The washing-up?

I was conscious too that I was not living in a way that honoured Julian. I thought back to the desert walk and how I had found a deeper sense of self there, and decided I needed to get outside. In the early mornings, I began to ramble around the hills and forests of Kangaloon before the children were up, enchanted by the light and the morning sky. It was nature which brought me back to life again, and every time I went outside I would wake up a little more.

Having small children during such a seismic shift brought its own challenges and rewards, and the joys of having them around me far outweighed everything that was hard.

Unlike me, they were present in every moment, their lives a series of magical discoveries: a leaf, a trail of ants, and the joy of swinging effortlessly on a rope. I found it hard to pull away from the responsibilities of motherhood, but when I did allow myself to fall into their slipstream, everything became so much easier. I envied that at times, their ability to just live without any other concerns, and they had such wonderfully simple philosophies regarding the bigger mysteries.

The girls were looking at photographs of me one day and Charlotte said, ‘Where was I in this photo, Mum?’

‘Oh, you weren’t born then,’ I said.

‘No we weren’t born then,’ Meg said confidently.

‘Well, where was I?’ Charlotte asked.

‘You were with me and we were in heaven, packing our suitcases getting ready to come,’ her sister replied.

•••

As I got better, I began to realise that there was something dangerously seductive about the status of widowhood. Without knowing it, I sometimes used my pain as a way of connecting to others and receiving their kindness. While there was a time when I had craved this, I knew it was not healthy in the long term. I tried to be more conscious of how much I was also allowing Julian’s absence to keep me stuck in a state of sadness in which I had become quite comfortable. It took me a long time to understand that letting go of my grief did not mean letting go of him as well.

One sign that I was changing was that I began to find other people’s pity stifling, and I had more energy to engage in what was happening in the lives of those around me as well as in my own. I discovered that sometimes it took more courage for me to surrender to deep and painful emotions, than to hold them at bay with a bright and brittle smile.

My gradual restoration and healing was a communal effort. Friends began to talk more openly about their lives, their concerns, and their occasional disappointment with their partners. It helped me to realise that no matter what the circumstances, there were many people who were deeply frustrated and quite lonely at times.

I no longer believed that everyone had it easier than me, and as my strength returned I no longer felt I was a special case, and I was able to give back to others some of the kindness I had been given.

My slightly wicked sense of humour began to emerge as well. Whereas before I would have been quite cast down when someone said, as they often did and still do, ‘Oh, it must be so hard doing this on your own,’ now I would smile and respond mildly that it was not all bad, that in fact there were many aspects of being a single parent that I loved. Meanwhile, in the back of my mind, I’d be thinking, Keep your pity to yourself. Actually, life must be so hard for you . . . because you’re married to a complete idiot.

I decided that I would no longer look at the far horizon of where I wanted to be – getting there seemed just too daunting. I began to heed the sensible advice of those who said, ‘Just deal with what is in front of you. Take one day at a time, put one foot in front of the other, and just keep going.’ Or, as my father would say, ‘Onward, ever onward.’

•••

Three years after Julian died, I made my first significant decision. General wisdom had dictated caution– make no major plans within the first year – but the statute of limitations on that was well overdue.

George was now eight years old and Meg and Charlotte were five. It was time to take them to Papua New Guinea. I had no idea how this would happen or what I might do once I got there, but I wrote to some friends to see if they had any ideas. Clearly full-time journalism was out of the question and I had no desire to return to Port Moresby permanently; I knew that would be far too hard.

There was also a growing desire in me to reconnect with the person I used to be, to leave this place of sorrow and remember, once again, the living Julian. And I wanted the children somehow, mysteriously, to also find something of him there, an echo of where he had been during the happiest years of his life.

I had remained in contact with several friends, one of whom was Ian Boden. When Julian and I had left Port Moresby, Ian had been the deputy editor of The National, a local newspaper, but in the intervening years he had secured a place at Divine Word University in Madang, on PNG’s north coast, as a lecturer.

Sometimes, in our email exchanges, I would ask Ian to look out for a suitable job for me volunteering at the university. My emails did not betray the hunger I really felt but I always trusted that Ian, who knew me so well, could divine what was in my heart.

One day, I went with the children to visit some friends in Robertson who ran an alternative community and the conversation turned to Papua New Guinea. They let me ramble on for quite a while; as I spoke I felt a keen longing to return and was grateful for the opportunity to talk.

As we drove home, I remembered that I had two copies of Frank Hurley’s collection of extraordinary black-and-white photographs taken in Papua New Guinea. I ran into the house, grabbed a copy and, with the children still strapped in their car seats, raced back through the country lanes to my friends’ house and presented them with the book as a gift of thanks for listening.

I tried to ignore the squabbling in the back seat as we drove home; my mind was full of Papua New Guinea. How could I get back there? If I did, how I would I manage with the children? What would I do with the house and Stig? Was it a good idea? Would the children even want to go?

By the time we arrived home I already felt deflated. Back to reality. Baths, dinner, stories, bed, and the yawning emptiness of another evening alone.

After the usual scuffle and pleadings for ‘another story, another story’, the children eventually fell asleep, and I wandered upstairs to check my emails.

My inbox showed one message. I half-heartedly clicked on it. It was from Ian. It began:

My dear,

There is an unexpected vacancy in the Communication Arts department as two of our staff have been offered overseas university placements next year. Interested?

It seemed the gods were on my side.

ASKING

I pray to be open to life

To all the gifts that lie within me

To cherish every day, every moment,

And to be open to letting go, for

Every opportunity to heal, to forgive.

I give thanks for all the joys that come with living,

To have been loved and to love.

I pray for the grace to listen to truth,

To embrace the constantly flowing

Source of love within my heart.

I pray that I will live before I die.

26

I dreamed I was standing in a room surrounded by thousands

of tiny notes, tied together with spidery silver threads. A sign

on the blank wall said, These are all the moments, the

chances, and coincidences, every step that led you to Julian.

Quite a few eyebrows were raised when I announced we were going back to Papua New Guinea for a year and that George, Meg and Charlotte would be going to school there.

People asked me whether I was worried about the level of crime or the culture shock, but strangely enough I only ever experienced that sense of displacement when I returned to Australia, where so many aspects of life no longer made any sense.

I remember once taking Nina to see Ros Nougher who had just given birth to her first daughter. She had been home for a few weeks, and was adjusting to the enormous responsibility of having a brand-new tiny baby, April, and a partner who worked full time. When she opened the door, she had the look of many new mothers in the West: exhausted, overwhelmed and dishevelled. We tiptoed in and stayed for a couple of hours, just long enough to see her beautiful baby awake. As we stood at the doorway, saying our goodbyes, I felt enormously sad that I could not stay and help her more.

The same thought obviously occurred to Nina, because as we drove away, she said, ‘Ros is tired. Why is no-one helping her?’

I explained that her husband was working.

‘But where are her sisters, her aunties, her mother?’ Nina pressed.

I explained that they all lived in different parts of Australia and that this was quite normal for a woman in our society. Many new mothers were left to their own devices, and did not receive the tsunami of care and support that many women in Papua New Guinea would have been brought up to expect.

Nina gave a mild snort of disapproval. ‘Someone should be helping her,’ she said.

Like the hotel and hairdressers for dogs that had shocked Susannah Wamp when she visited England, there were moments when I felt ashamed and concerned for the humanity of my own culture. I found it hard to explain to Nina why a woman in such a vulnerable phase of her life had no family around to help her. It troubled me, too, that it did not trouble me; that I saw Ros’s circumstances as normal, and so too stories of post-partum depression and isolation, despite the obvious cost to the quality of a person’s life.

I privately longed to return to PNG, to bask in the support and affection of a caring community. That said, I wasn’t seeing the country entirely through rose-tinted glasses. Living there with Julian had been one thing, but returning alone with three young children presented greater potential risks. However, Madang was a much quieter coastal town than Port Moresby, I reasoned, and robberies and violence were much less common.

Health care was another issue. After my experiences in Port Moresby, I knew that in comparison with Australia the health services across PNG were rudimentary at best. If the children were seriously injured, we would be in trouble; I already knew from Ian that the local hospital in Madang regularly ran out of anaesthetics and had little or no resources for dealing with a life-threatening illness or emergency.

But the children were healthy and I felt confident that I could care for them. Nevertheless, I began to fill a small suitcase with medicines that might not be readily available once we were there.

Everything began to fall into place. Some family friends offered to stay at the farm for the first few months while their home in Robertson was undergoing renovations, and they would also take care of Stig. It was a perfect solution for everyone.

After several frustrating delays with visas and work permits, we finally left for Madang at the end of January 2005. A delighted Ian was at the airport to greet us and take us to our new house.

The university campus was on the edge of town. Like all the staff working there, we were allocated a tiny two-bedroom fibro house, fortunately for us at the heart of a bustling community.

The children started at Madang International School two days after we arrived so that I could begin work. This was not an ideal introduction to their new life, but I had little choice – and I had absolute faith that they would cope, as indeed they did.

I arrived at the office for my first day at my new job to be greeted by the department head, Valia Papoutsaki.

‘Wonderful to meet you, I’ve heard so much about you from Ian,’ she said, looking at her watch. ‘Okay, we have ten minutes until your first class on international news and research. Here’s the course outline and I’ll catch up with you at recess.’

The classrooms at the university were large, open rooms with louvred windows down each side and creaking fans. I soon learned that if the fans were left on, we could not hear one another, so the only option was to sweat our way through the class. The students wandered in and sat down at old-fashioned wooden desks, surprised by the sight of a new teacher.

I scanned the notes as they settled in. With no time to properly prepare, I was desperately scrambling for ideas. One student sitting near the front had carried with him a copy of that day’s Port Courier with a story on the front page about the war in Iraq. It was as good a subject as any, so I began by asking what they thought about the conflict.

There was an immediate chorus of support for the American-led invasion.

‘The Iraqis have weapons of mass destruction,’ one said.

‘Saddam Hussein is a terrorist,’ said another.

I already knew the political bias of the newspapers in the country from my days as a journalist. I also knew how easy it was to present a very one-sided view of any event. The internet was far from pervasive in PNG at the time, and was still expensive and cumbersome, so I would have to rely on common sense to challenge their strong views.

We started a discussion about who owned the newspapers, who wrote the news and how many war reporters were not being given free access to all sides of the conflict. In a culture where tribal fighting was still a fact of life and inter-clan relationships were bogged down in political complexity, the students immediately grasped that there might be far more to the Iraq war than they had realised.

‘Are you saying that every story is biased?’ one girl asked.

‘A lot of the time in war, yes it is,’ I replied. ‘One job of a journalist is to read as much as possible and to question everything. Don’t believe it just because it’s written down.’

‘Well, how do we know what we read is true?’

‘We don’t,’ I said. ‘But we’re going to try to work it out.’

•••

Returning to full-time work after several years of absence and being back in the realm of journalism, albeit in a role somewhat removed from the everyday news cycle, was exhilarating. It was stimulating to think about world events again and to be focused on something other than domestic life.

I was no longer surrounded by people who were wary of me, wondering whether I was about to burst into tears or nervous about what to say. Living in the centre of the campus, there was always someone dropping in for a chat or to play with the children. The community of students absolutely saved my sanity and, without a grand display, gave me all the support I needed.

•••

Life in PNG was such a far cry from the isolation of the farm and it was wonderful to spend so much time with Ian, my old friend and new neighbour. He was particularly solicitous towards the children, patiently playing chess with George and encouraging the students to do so as well.

I worked every day, teaching journalism and creative writing. I found an old room which could be used as an art studio, and with the help of friends like Stephen and Celeste I began to gather materials from Australia. I even launched a poetry competition with a $100 prize which was donated ‘from the estate of the late Julian Thirlwall’ – it was fantastic to see the outpouring of creativity among the students and I felt so privileged to be part of that.

When possible, I took the children travelling during the holidays. Papua New Guinea has so many extraordinary, unspoilt destinations and I was up for as many experiences as we could afford.

‘You took the children to so many dangerous places,’ someone commented later.

‘Well, I wanted some adventures,’ I said, ‘so they didn’t really have much choice.’

•••

Julian had often talked of exploring by dugout canoe the mighty Sepik River near PNG’s western border with Irian Jaya, but he never got there. After weeks of research – where to stay and what to do – the children and I boarded a tiny aircraft run by the Missionary Aviation Fellowship and headed into the wilds.

The river twisted beneath our tiny plane like a lazy brown serpent. Wisps of smoke, just discernible, rose up from the roofs of thatched village houses clustered along the water’s edge.

Our young pilot, Bartholomew, occasionally turned and grinned at the children in the seats behind, their small white faces already bathed in sweat as they gazed in fascination at the view below. Meg was clutching a small white bear.

‘Ambunti. Em I stap we? Where is Ambunti?’ I shouted into my mouthpiece.

Bartholomew pointed ahead and I could see the gleaming corrugated-iron roof of a church. As we descended I could see a lone man standing up in a long dugout canoe, like a gondolier.

Julian’s forgotten dreams.

‘Why are you crying, Mum?’ asked George.

‘Sorry, darling, I’m fine,’ I said, giving him a hug.

As the tiny mission station of Ambunti came into view, I began to look for the airstrip. On seeing a tiny strip of grass, I wondered how we could possibly land, but seconds later, with a lurching descent, we were bouncing over the runway in a blur of incredible noise.

I could already see several women with small children laying their woven mats under a huge rain tree next to the church – we were being treated to an impromptu market of shells, armbands and bracelets. The children immediately ran to see what they were selling.

Several treasures later, we moved to sit in the shade of the church porch and wait for our host, Robert, to arrive and take us to the guesthouse. Well, that’s what I had told the children. The truth was I had no idea where we were staying that night because, after buying some very expensive and non-refundable tickets, I was told that the Ambunti guesthouse had not been open for two years. I decided, perhaps somewhat recklessly, that we should go anyway.

Word of our arrival must have spread around the mission station because Robert soon arrived.

‘Hello, hello, welcome,’ he said, and shook hands with the children – not formally, like a Westerner, but fondly, enclosing their fingers in his large brown hands and continuing to hold them.

‘Are you from Australia?’

‘Yes.’

‘This is good, very good.’ His smile was infectious.

I asked about the guesthouse and Robert’s face suddenly clouded.

‘Oh, big problem,’ he said. ‘It’s empty, finished.’ He gestured towards a long building. Then he smiled again. ‘I will talk to my brother.’

None the wiser as to what any of this might mean, we walked behind Robert towards the dilapidated guesthouse, where we were ushered into a seemingly abandoned kitchen and offered some warm cans of fizzy lemonade. Crowds of laughing children hung around outside the door, occasionally peeping in.

After a short while Robert excused himself and suggested we might like to look around. We put on our hats and walked towards the river, passing an old man sitting on the front steps of a small house. His torso was covered in tattoos, neat scars which emulated the skin of a crocodile. He beckoned us over.

We sat down and started talking to him. He was interested in where we had come from and what we were doing in Ambunti.

‘And your husband, where is he?’

‘He died,’ I replied.

Without another word, he pulled George towards him and held him in a tight embrace. This complete stranger, whose name I did not even know, began to speak to my son with the most genuine and loving kindness I had ever seen.

‘Oh, sori,’ he crooned, stroking George’s hair. ‘Sori, sori, sori. Papa bilong yu em di pinis. Sori tru. Your father has died, I am truly sorry.’

Not long after, Robert returned with a younger man and asked us to follow him. As we walked around the corner of the building, I could see that the path had been strewn with vivid petals – orange, purple, and the deepest pink. Nearby a small crowd had gathered around the open door of a small leaf house. It was built on sturdy poles and the surrounding lawn had been carefully clipped. A woman stepped forward out of the shade.

‘Welkam,’ she said shyly and gestured for us to go inside.

Four woven sleeping mats had been arranged on the floor and there were more flowers where there should have been pillows.

Robert came in.

‘Whose house is this?’ I asked him.

‘This is my house,’ he said, with an enormous smile. ‘The new Ambunti guesthouse.’

•••

My new boss, Valia, was hard-working and disciplined. She soon dragged me, as she had with so many staff and students alike, into her vortex of energy, constantly encouraging us all to strive for the best we could achieve.

One evening I walked over her house and sat down while she brought me a cool drink.

‘It’s lovely of you to have me over,’ I said.

She looked at me hesitantly. ‘I don’t want to alarm you,’ she began, ‘but there is a very tall man with red hair who is kneeling on the floor beside your chair.’

I immediately felt a sensation of light breath near my face but could see nothing.

‘What’s he doing?’ I said.

‘He’s looking at you with enormous love.’

I sat for a few minutes, basking in this unexpected, invisible gift.

I had already sensed that Valia was no ordinary academic. Even in her everyday remarks about the students she had a rare sensibility and insight that was very refreshing. Unlike other expatriates living in Papua New Guinea, she really did intuitively understand a lot more about the cultural realities facing the students: the presence of sorcery, suspicion and the power of deep tribal connections. So her remark about Julian, while surprising, was not entirely a shock.

‘He’s just asking if it would be alright for him to sit here for a while,’ she said.

I hear your voice murmuring in the hollow of my shoulder, you say I must endure.

A few weeks later Valia invited the children and me for dinner. I went into the house ahead of the children, who were larking around in the garden. I said jokingly, ‘So, do you have my husband with you?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘he’s sitting there in that armchair.’

When the children came inside, the most extraordinary thing happened. They all ran to the chair she had gestured to and fought and tussled with one another.

‘Hey, there are plenty of chairs to sit in,’ I said, mildly embarrassed by their antics.

They ignored me. George, by far the biggest child, held his own for quite some time but eventually gave in to the more aggressive tactics of Charlotte and moved to sit on the arm of the chair, signalling his own private victory. Meg continued to wrestle with her sister for the coveted spot and, although stronger, gradually conceded defeat and sat on Charlotte’s lap instead. I can see them even now. Gentle George, who marched to the beat of his own drum, thoughtful Meg, who preferred to concede a hollow victory and Charlotte, always competitive and determined to win at any cost. They sat there grinning at me, all triumphant.

Dad’s here, I wanted to tell them. He hasn’t left us.

27

God staggered out of the pub holding a can of beer. ‘What can

I do for you, mate?’ he asked. ‘I want the town and everyone

that’s in it to be the same again, like it was before,’ I told him.

So God drew a door with his finger and on it, it said REALITY.

George, aged 9

Not long after we returned to Australia from Madang, my dear friend Ros, who had introduced me to Julian, was diagnosed with breast cancer and became very ill for three gruelling years as the disease metastasized into her bones.

Ros had married Kent by this time and had two young children, April and Meri. Every time I thought of going to Brisbane to see her, I dreaded the emotional pain it would inevitably bring. I often felt confronted by my own inadequacies; to remain open and loving while witnessing her suffering was terribly hard but nowhere near as difficult as the path she was on.

Reflecting on my own somewhat cowardly reaction, I also began to understand the fears that had driven people from my side or prompted them to make the same inadequate and insensitive remarks that I was now undoubtedly repeating myself.

I should know better, I told myself.

I knew the importance of spending time with someone who did not have long to live, not chatting about inanities and avoiding difficult subjects, but being truly present. I knew what I had missed in my encounters with people, and yet, at times I struggled to offer that same gift to Ros and her family.

•••

Eventually, with her health deteriorating, I summoned the courage to get on the plane to Queensland with my friends Jo and Meg. We had been talking for some time about recording her life story. Ros, who had been a wonderful journalist, said that she felt she might have done ‘a few interesting things’ that she would like her children to know about. She had wanted to write them a series of letters to open on their birthdays, but her physical pain due to the numerous lesions in her bones had made this task impossible.

The woman I saw before me that day bore little resemblance to the strong vibrant woman I had known and loved for more than twenty years. I sat on the floor at her feet, unable to speak.

‘It’s okay, Luce,’ she said, reaching out a pale hand to touch me. ‘I’m going to be alright.’

Our recording session was delayed by the arrival of two women who had come to shave Ros’s head following what turned out to be her last session of chemotherapy.

As they waited in the kitchen, she whisked off her headscarf and said, with characteristic black humour, that she felt like something out of a horror movie. There were sprouts of dark hair sticking out of her shiny skull.

‘What do you think, Luce? Should I go for a number one?’

‘The hats were okay, but the tufts have to go,’ I told her.

She laughed weakly and her eyes met mine. Despite everything, it amazed me that Ros could still find moments to savour the life she still had to live.

After the bright headscarf was back in place, we resumed our seats in the corner of her room. I could feel the tension in my heart until, with a sad smile, she finally spoke.

‘Well, come on, Luce,’ she said with an ironic smile. ‘I haven’t got forever.’

So I switched on the recorder and held the microphone near.

‘What are you going to ask me?’ Ros said matter-of-factly.

‘Why don’t we start with the children’s births?’ I suggested.

And so began her last letters to her children.

Over the next hour, Ros spoke directly to them, as if I was no longer there, but was simply a witness to her most honest and sacred self. She told them some of the stories of her life, her passions, her regrets, her hopes for them.

Through tears, she told them, as only a dying mother could, how much she loved them.

I wept on the train to the airport.

It was not just Ros’s eccentricities, her sense of fun, her serious, frustrating earnestness that I loved; it was her ability to tell the truth and, even at this most critical point in her life, to speak with such honesty to the people she loved most. Having cancer had given her permission to be more real than she had ever been and allowed those around her to set aside the usual inhibitions that can ruin so many potentially wonderful friendships.

I had watched her open up her heart as the illness progressed, and felt privileged to be a part of her warts-and-all journey. Her cancer was not pretty; it ravaged her. It was such an extraordinary journey through gratitude, shattered dreams, anger and then back to love.

‘I often think of Jules,’ she said later that day.

‘What do you think about?’

‘I think of the moment you met at that party.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘I felt such a strong sense of light between you,’ she said. ‘I have never forgotten it.’

After she died, for many years I kept a photograph of her on my desk. Behind her, in the foothills of Madang, was a blur of women dancing in a line, their bodies oiled, their hair festooned with feathers. She is looking back towards me over her shoulder, and in her eyes the same old Ros is always there, her gaze direct and full of kindness.

•••

A year after Ros died, my father also died from cancer.

George and I flew over to the UK and decided that we would go with Libby and her children, Hannah, Beatrice, Sam and Florence, to see his body at the funeral parlour, a modified terrace house in the backstreets of Kidderminster.

Bizarrely, he was clothed in a silky white outfit with a high winged collar, a waistcoat and a bow tie. He looked like a cross between Liberace and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

It was somehow fitting that this self-deprecating man with such a wonderful sense of humour would be clothed in something that was more akin to fancy dress. We laughed and held one another, none of us really knowing how to speak about the departure of such a complex man.

I could not cry for my father at his funeral, and I never have; it has always felt as though there was no unfinished business between us.

Before he died, I had flown to England to spend some time with him and to offer my mother whatever meagre support I could. He was already so weak and unsteady on his feet that I could not imagine how he would survive the weeks of radiation that were planned.

One day, running late, I rang him from the side of the road. Our conversation was punctuated by long pauses as he gathered his breath to speak. After one long break he said, ‘I love you, I hope you know that.’ The world seem to suddenly hover in the space around his words.

‘Yes, I do know that,’ I told him, ‘and I love you too.’

The people I have loved who have left this physical life have become a part of me; I carry them, embody them.

Over the years I have discovered that death and grief are such inadequate terms to describe or evoke the mystery of what happens when someone dies. Even language itself shrinks in the face of the enormity of its mystery. ‘I’m sorry to hear that Julian passed over’ or has gone ‘to his eternal rest’.

The only peace I have ever found is in the space beyond words.

Instead of asking questions or seeking answers, I prefer to sit and watch the trembling light as it falls through the open window on my lap, or to follow the cloud’s shadows on the long, waving grass outside my window.

28

All love ends in loss, eventually.

Ten years ago, at Julian’s funeral, I attempted to say something about him, something defining and memorable. I failed. I found it impossible to describe, in such turbulent days, the essence of who he was.

In this past decade, I have come to know Julian in a different way.

I retraced him through the meals he cooked, the books he read on the Spanish Civil War, the opera and jazz he loved and the long life he lived before we ever met, a life I could never possibly know.

The children and I developed little rituals to include Julian in our daily lives, often to do with his poorer choices in food. Dad’s Worms – two crackers squashed together with butter bursting through the tiny holes. Dad’s Pies – revolting meat pies that he loved. Dad’s Lollies – a tin of travel sweets covered in fine icing sugar.

We had old trunks into which we put some of his belongings – wallets, glasses, old credit cards, pens and – the perfect Harry Potter costume – his black lawyer’s robes.

I carefully put aside a well-thumbed copy of The Economist that he was reading before he died into a box with his belongings – family photos, his MBE, his Independence medals from his years in Papua New Guinea.

He still has a life in me as he does in all the people who loved him.

•••

One of the greatest gifts Julian ever gave me was very simple; he believed in me with a faith that never wavered. He saw me as a very capable, gregarious and loving person. He knew my faults, of course, and tolerated them, but these he always saw through a much kinder and more forgiving lens than my own.

Julian never imposed on any of us a sense of his own suffering. He never wept and said, ‘Why me?’ He never said cancer was unfair, that it shouldn’t be happening. While he certainly became very gloomy and inward at times, he was always at great pains to protect us all.

While I lamented in the past his inability to talk to me honestly about how he was feeling, over the years I began to see the greater wisdom of his decision to leave us with peace and in peace. I was in awe of what he had done for love, for all of us.

When Julian died, I crossed the threshold into another life, seeing everything but understanding nothing except for the enormity and extraordinary miracle of death. I felt strangely awed and elated, privileged by my momentary glimpse into its impossible, beautiful truth.

Sometimes I still go out at night and stand on the edge of that mystery; I have come to love the comfort of the sky. To stand on that threshold with Julian and then to return to life empty-handed was, in fact, an enormous privilege, and I sometimes dare to wonder – what if it all makes sense in the end, the things that seem to make no sense at all?

Ten years ago, I stepped through an invisible door and found myself in another life.

My whole being became a scattered landscape, a series of fragments all slightly askew.

In this emptier world, it became my main task to reassemble the pieces of myself that I wanted to keep, and to leave behind the attitudes, emotions and relationships that could not be sustained.

It was deeply painful, to realise that there were people that I had loved and valued who had walked away without explanation. This was something else that I did not expect, that the world I knew would undergo such enormous, unpredictable shifts. These betrayals, if that is what they were, brought another sense of bewilderment, a cruel reminder that Julian really had left and that the world, as I had known it, had inexorably changed.

Life can have so many untidy endings.

In my lowest moments, I often thought of my mother and her resolute determination. There were only a few times I had ever seen her truly crumble under pressure but it never lasted long – the strength of her will to keep going was just too strong. And while I sometimes found her tough and unyielding, there were many moments where I relied on her example and remembered the lessons she taught me.

As a student, I had moved to a dilapidated house in Battersea for the summer and found a job at the famous Price’s candle factory. In the evenings I renovated and painted, slept on a mattress on top of newspaper and lived mostly on packet soup.

The factory was oppressive, full of booming machines, fluorescent lights and the sickly stink of hot wax. Over the machines, I could hear the remote sound of a tinny radio blasting out Stevie Wonder: ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’.

One evening I was feeling very down. All my friends were away for the summer and I knew few people. I went to find a phone box and called home.

‘I think I’m going to come home for a while – it’s miserable here,’ I told my mother.

There was a pause while she considered my request.

‘You just have to pull yourself together, Lucy,’ she said eventually. ‘You’ll be fine.’

I remember putting the phone down, numbed by her response.

But as I walked back home along the empty streets, I had a moment of rare clarity. She’s right. It’s all up to me. I can do it.

The fortitude I gained from my mother’s remark has remained with me all these years, the last defence against giving up. With three children to care for, I knew I had no choice but to keep going, to keep growing as Julian would have wanted me to. It was also the kind encouragement of others that got me through, when people gave me the greatest gift we have – time.

I have gradually healed and learned to be grateful for so many things: close friendships, a financial legacy that allowed me to be a full-time mother when the children were small, and the sanctuary of the farm where we have now lived for so many years. Most of all I am thankful to the children, who gave me a reason to get up every day and keep going.

Remembering Julian’s quiet determination helped me to gradually rebuild my life: socially, as a parent alone, the daily care, the homework, holidays, disputes and emotions, the flat tyres, the bills and the broken pump. I have done my best to provide the love and support the children have lost. I hope it is enough.

And somehow, very much in keeping with the persistence he always possessed in life, Julian’s spirit is still here. I sit at his desk and look out at the orchard that he planted. A pair of his old corduroy trousers hang on my study door. I’ve accepted that the door of my love for Julian will never be shut, and I no longer wish it to be so. Love did not die when he did.

I remember how he dealt with so many disappointments and setbacks; I was at his side as he faced every trial, every dashed hope. Cancer repeatedly brought him to his knees. And yet I saw again and again his true calibre, how he maintained a deep, inner calm and remained gracious to others even in the face of his own suffering. Not for a moment did he relinquish the freedom to embrace everything that life offered, even death.

Tonight, I simply want to be with him, to sit in the same companionable cocoon that marked so many hours of our life together over those brief six years. I have been on a long journey, and now I want to rest and remember.

In my hand, I hold an empty acacia pod with one seed remaining. It has laid itself bare, an offering with no apology, no regret. Its long once-cupped hands are tilted back, parted to take in the first crack of light, the moment where life and surrender began. I gaze upon this lonely seed and drink in its contentment, and begin to write:

My darling Jules,

It’s been ten years, hundreds of human days, since you left us.

These days have drifted away like the slow turning of another page; not the laughter and intimacy of our life together, but with quiet reading by a solitary lamp.

I still sleep on the same side of the bed. If I lie down on your side I feel marooned, as though I am in the wrong body, disorientated. For months after you died I woke all the time, my breath sharp and short, thinking you were there. Were you? Did you really come and speak to me? I may never know.

I read a lot about grief after you died, the sort of books that would have made you quietly roll your eyes: self-help books, spiritual books, accounts of the afterlife and the meaning of death. I know you would have found it embarrassing, you with your stoic English attitudes and deep, unshakeable peace. But I never hid anything from you in life, so why start now?

There were times that I blundered so far into my internal forest, I doubted whether I would ever come back. I was in denial, people told me. I needed closure. I needed to let go.

You would have understood. You knew the intricate fabric that binds people together, the strong threads of unbroken love. You knew that whatever I did, even if I remarried a hundred times, there would always be a place in my heart for us that nothing could assail.

I hope you sometimes glimpse me now, in my stronger days. I hope you know your children are all thriving. They miss you, Jules.

But when the sadness lifts, I feel so grateful that I knew you. I would suffer it all over again to have spent those exhilarating years with you and to know what I know now. If the pain of loss is the cost of a real, enduring love, then that is the price I have paid.

All my love, L

Epilogue

Our home is full of personal treasures, including several videos I made of Julian with the children when they were young.

But there is one I have never seen. For some reason the video cassette which just had 2001 written on it was unplayable on the machine that I had, so for many years it just lay in an old black box at the back of a cupboard.

In 2016, fifteen years after Julian’s death, I decide it’s time to watch it so I have it sent away to be transferred onto a DVD.

The first image that flickers onto the screen is Julian sitting in the garden, near the cubby house, pallid and thin in the faint winter sun. The children are playing nearby, occasionally coming in to hug him, and I am holding the camera, asking questions as usual.

‘How are you feeling, Jules?’

‘It’s so nice to be out in the sun, the first day I’ve been able to get out.’

He tries to give me a heartened smile but I can see it is an effort.

‘It’s not cold at all is it? How are you feeling?’

‘Tired, very tired,’ he says. ‘I’ve still got a bit of a queasy feeling. But otherwise I’m enjoying the day. Just letting the time go nicely.’

There is a long pause while I film him and he stares back at me, saying nothing. The children run in and out of earshot.

‘This is lovely, darling,’ he says finally without irony, coughing slightly.

I zoom out a little. Julian is framed by spring flowers and the budding promise of long days under a kind tree.

‘These days and hours are precious,’ he says, ‘they really are.’

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my children, George, Meg, and Charlotte, for their patience and understanding while I took time away from them to write this memoir.

My heartfelt thanks to Oliver, Charles, Henry and Edward for their friendship, love and loyalty. Without the support of all of Julian’s children, this book would never have been written.

To the extended Thirlwall family, especially Jordana, Mark, Cat, and their children, whose generosity and integrity have brought such light and joy to our family.

To my mother Eileen, for her resilience, strength and unconditional love. To my sister Libby and her children Hannah, Beatrice, Samuel and Florence, who have brought us so much joy.

To the formidable Mary-Louise O’Callaghan and the extraordinary Harry Moore, whose love, constancy and wisdom are the bedrock of my daily life. To Celeste Coucke and Stephen Fearnley, my dear friends who lift my soul and are a constant source of inspiration.

To Steph Hammond, Meg Harris and the wider Hammond family. I could not have done any of this without you by my side, encouraging me every step of the way. To Joan and Michael O’Callaghan, whose love and support for us all has been truly remarkable. To Tara and Craig Elias, who kept me going with fresh fruit, laughter and friendship, my heartfelt gratitude.

To Jo Shepherd, my loyal and loving friend, and to Susie Smith for her fearlessness and loyalty.

To John, Meg and Lydia Bell, our beloved friends. Thank you for filling an important space in our family with laughter, love and warmth. Every moment with you is memorable.

To Janine Shepherd, who has not only opened doors for me but led the way with courage and dignity. To Judy Benjamin, who convinced me that being a single parent was a gift and not a burden. Thank you both for your vision, inspiration and the love you have given us all.

To Emma Calver and the extended Gordon-Calver family in Robertson and Braidwood. Thank you for standing by me and for all the love and care you have given my children, especially in the days when darkness descended.

To Mandy Fleming, the children’s second mother and my unswerving supporter. Thank you.

To Maur and John Huskisson, Philip and Shelley Boyce, for your wisdom and friendship.

To Caroline Jones AO, one of my first friends in Australia and a wonderful support for us all. Thank you for your wise advice, and your extraordinary example of a dignified and private spirituality.

To Petrea King, for inspiring the title.

My deep gratitude to publisher Jane Palfreyman whose passionate belief in this memoir gave me the fortitude to keep going, and to my editor Siobhan Cantrill for her steady hand, her eagle eye, and her compassion.

To Nina Kareng and her husband, Maseus, from Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Our family would not be the same without the years of loving kindness you have shown us all.

I would also like to thank my community of long-standing PNG friends who were there in the early days of our marriage and stood by us all the way: Dame Meg Taylor, Daisy Taylor, Sir Mekere and Lady Ros Morauta, Sir Julius and Lady Stella Chan, David and Jo Frecker, Annmaree O’Keefe AM, Bill and Elaine Farmer, Charles and Kathy Lepani, Sir Wilson and Lady Winifred Kamit, and Susannah Wamp.

I would like to thank Drew Lindsay and Karl Zabel for so generously giving me a quiet space to write.

Finally I would like to thank all of my friends who remain very close to my heart, the teachers of the Southern Highlands and the many families in this wonderful community who have helped us.

Your gifts will never be forgotten.

Table of Contents

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT PAGE

CONTENTS

PART ONE

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

PART TWO

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS