.
Christie smiled. He enjoyed her letters, they were easy to read and he could imagine her talking to him, even though she was a long way away. He missed her.
I know you went to a lot of trouble to track down a lot of the stuff on Griffin - and I know I didn't end up using it all - but I couldn't refuse this offer. And I didn't really want to keep those bits. And .... and .... I didn't think you would be sentimentally attached to them either. So I sold them.
Five thousand dollars. American.
How about that?
He asked himself, who would pay that much for a few letters between Griffin and a couple of his friends, and some old photos?
Who would pay so much for this? I hear you say.
He smiled again.
Some Griffin collector. You know how collectors are - they'll scour the earth to add something new. This guy was an architect too, from Chicago. His cheque cleared okay and he wrote to me afterwards and said how happy he was.
So, five thousand American. For you.
For him?
Yes, for you. I put it into your company account. I don’t remember what it converted into, but it will be a bit more in Australian dollars. Some pocket money for you. Buy some bloody socks.
Socks. An old joke. He did miss her.
Where was I? Oh, yes, "The Grey Line". Like it? I don't know whether I'll stick with it, but it's the working title at least. Sarah Grey is my main character. The HEROINE!
Anyway, as I started to say, this one is progressing a little differently. Although I know where this one starts and I can visualise the last scene, the bits in the middle are still a little confusing. I know what's going in there, but not necessarily the order or the tense.
There are bits that have been filling my mind for a few weeks, so I got them out of my system and wrote them. I knew roughly what was coming before and after, but they weren't written. So it just sits there, waiting for the bits to go around it. And, so far, it's working.
He could see her twenty years ago, glued in front of the old typewriter. Sometimes she would gaze for long hours at the blank sheet of paper, agonising over what were to be the words that would break the pure white of the sheet. At other times she would type furiously, one page after the other in rapid succession, as if she was frightened that her thoughts would leave her before she had chance to commit them to paper.
I think it's the new technology. The same sort of thing which is writing this very letter to you. THE WORD PROCESSOR! Do you remember the agony of having to rewrite pages? I do.
He did too. She had had a sentimental attachment to the ROYAL typewriter and for ages shunned the thought of going to the “new” technology of computers and word processors and spell checkers (“that is way too lazy,” she’d said, “and does nothing to improve one’s use of English grammar.”). But she’d succumbed – even though the old typewriter had a pride of place in her study.
But this terrific little machine makes it all so easy. You can see what you write on the screen, you print it off, proof read it, correct it, add, delete. You can make the changes without having to re-do the whole bloody lot. You can actually see it cut and paste. I’m still fighting the spell and sense checker. I don’t like being told by the computer how I should construct my sentences or that the tense looks odd.
I know, I know – should have done it years ago. That was my romantic age – it didn’t have the same passion as being written by hand or on the trusty Royal. It’s more personal, somehow, but the past is past. I’m in the current century!!
So I can now write the bits and pieces - like they were jigsaw pieces. I know they go to making up the final picture, but because the picture doesn't have a border all round it just yet, then I'm not sure where it goes. Know what I mean?
Yes.
So I write a piece and put it aside. It can be because it's something that's been occupying my mind or just because I feel like writing in a particular way, or in a particular mood. I might feel happy, so I can go and write a happy piece. I thought about Mum a week or so ago, about the things that I miss most, now she's gone. And I went and wrote that down - as if Sarah Grey had those same thoughts about her own mum.
Their mother, he thought.
And if I feel sexy, then I can write better raunchy stuff.
Not that she ever needed much impetus in that direction.
Not that that's much of a problem, but you know what I mean!
So if you want to print these files off, they won't necessarily fit together, they may not follow in sequence. Some chapters have numbers on them, some don't. We can change those later. BUT ... the first two chapters are there!
And I need some help, please.
I've been doing some research on gold.
Gold?
There's quite a lot of good stuff here. I've gone into a lot of the geological background and done some research on mining techniques - especially around the middle of the last century - about the time of the Australian gold rushes. I've also been able to locate some interesting stuff on the California rush. I didn't realise that there were so many ways of getting gold out of the ground!
I met one particularly knowledgeable fellow by the name of Pollard. He works in Hobart, but spent his boyhood on the north coast and knows the place round there, and through the central Highlands, like the back of his hand. Apart from being an excellent fisherman - his words - he's also a bit of an expert on the early explorers. I spent a weekend with him and his wife. Including three hours sitting patiently on the bank of a river while he was after trout. How's that for dedication?
Nora fishing. What next?
Of course, I gave his name to one of the characters in the story. I think he'll be quite pleased. Anyway, he told me about a fellow called DeWitt. Augustus J DeWitt. Don't ask me what the "J" stands for. If Pollard doesn't know, I don't know who would.
Anyway, this DeWitt guy did quite a bit of exploring around the west coast of Tasmania. Like most men of the time he was anxious to find out more about the place, find the heads of rivers, new mountains - something that could bear his name. Actually he has a mountain peak in the north-west named after him (surname) and a small river (Christian name).
Excuse the ramble, I'm a writer!
Well, DeWitt was not only in it for the glory, but he was also a bit of a geologist and, as a consequence, a bit of a miner. Pollard seems to remember him having something to do with the tin industry in Cornwall before coming to Australia. Some of his travels took him close to some of the places where I have set part of this new book - around Strahan, Macquarie Harbour, Mt Lyell. And ... got there at last! - he was a great diarist.
BUT!!!!!!!
But the only known remaining diaries of DeWitt were donated to the Melbourne Library.
The sting in the tail, he thought.
Would you, James, my love, please see if you can track it down and extract some stuff out of it? I'm interested in his descriptions of the times, his impressions of the countryside.