You know the sort of stuff.
God bless these darling people who kept diaries. The one of Captain Abbotsley, the one I wrote to you about before, is a beauty. Did I ever tell you how we came by it? It was quite by accident.
Caroline and I were returning from a trip to the north-east corner of the State, coming back down the east coast. And we dropped into one of those little museums that seem to exist in every bloody country town. We'd stopped to get a drink and while we were stretching our legs, there was this little place tucked alongside the fast food place and we drifted inside. There was the usual range of bits and pieces. Old convict manacles, farm implements, some nice old paintings and old coins, original deeds and stuff like that. And hanging on the wall was this pen sketch of a quite magnificent looking soldier. It was his face that caught my eye and his bearing. Incredible, it was.
"Captain Abbotsley," the old lady who looked after the shop said. "He's a charming looking chap isn't he?"
"Quite remarkable. There's something about the way he looks."
"Oh, you're not the first to notice that." she said. "Many have commented on him. His descendants still live in the area. Well, the last remaining member of his family. Old Mrs. Franks donated this sketch. She's a funny old stick. She had some diaries of his. Kept when he first came to Tasmania. About ten volumes I think. But she wanted to keep them. Didn't want to let them out her sight."
Like a red rag to a bull, do I hear you say?
Anyway, I found out where she lived, a small property near Swansea and we dropped in to see her. A charming old dear with great stories of her family. She kept us talking for ages that first time and we had to stay overnight in Swansea. She buried her only son ten years before, following a car accident and her husband had died of cancer about five years ago. No one to talk to, so she bent our ears.
We talked about the history of the place and she mentioned the diaries. The man who had kept the diaries was her great great grandfather. They had, apparently, been handed down through the family from one generation to the next. She said that there had been quite a lot of them at one stage but over a period of time some had just been lost. She thought her sister had taken some with her when she had married.
And she brought them out, the ones she had. Nine volumes, all finished in leather. One or two were a little ragged, and a lot of loose pages, but all were readable. Immaculate! A small neat hand, not the sort of thing I would have expected from his sketch.
That first night she watched me as I flicked through one volume, page by page. James, they are magnificent! There's that word again. Bring out the thesaurus, Nora, and find something different!
In one or two of the volumes there were some loose pages and I had visions of them being lost in this old house of hers. Lost for all time! It got to me once – there were all these loose pages and I started putting them back into the diaries in their right places. But it was evident that many had been lost. I borrowed – no stole is probably a better and more accurate word – about twenty pages that I couldn’t find places for in the diaries. Some had small diagrams of trees and mountains and stretches of coastline. Magnificent. Extraordinary, splendid, and all those other synonyms. Reminded me of shoplifting when I was twelve. But I’m not keeping them - I’m looking after them for old Mrs Franks and making sure they don’t get lost.
The next time we took a tape recorder and recorded all her tales, all her anecdotes. And instead of writing down excerpts from the diaries, I spoke into the recorder. She sits nearby, drinking innumerable cups of tea, and chatters away, alternating between me and Caroline. Caroline tried to divert her once and give me some quiet time, but they walked in the garden for about ten minutes and then she was back there again. Still, the life of a writer is not an easy one and one must be thankful for these small treasures.
And that reminds me. Don't you bloody well get rid of these letters of mine. I know what you're like. Read it, carry out the instructions, then into the bin. Well don't! Some years from now, when my name is chipped in the marble of great Australian writers - no, great writers of the western world! - then these letters will be worth a small fortune. And someone will come along when we are both long gone and write the definitive life story of yours truly. Based on her diaries and her letters.
The making of a novel. Thoughts of the novelist. Student notes for university undergraduates. Pity I won't be here then, it sounds fantastic!
Well, don't you think so?
Talking of diaries, as we were, I came to the conclusion that I am NOT a diarist, but, at times, a writer of journals. I found some useful words by a French poet called Rombussiere about diaries. Might use them in my book.
He smiled.
That's it, James, my love. Now, how are you? Has that secret little organisation that you work for been looking after you? Taken from the scene of the crime on a stretcher – seriously wounded, the press said. Still healing well? I wish I knew all the gory details. Your secret little organisation didn’t keep it all that secret when they let the media get hold of it, did they? You will tell me one day, won't you? There's a book in it, I know.
He smiled again. She didn't stop.
Maybe we could co-author. Oh, no, it might be a bit awkward, using your proper name in such a public way.
And how is the lovely Amy? Give her my love, won’t you?
Anyway, keep well and follow those doctor's instructions. It's Mum's birthday on the fifteenth. Don't forget to put some flowers on her grave for me, please.
I love you. Will write again soon. Caroline also sends her love.
Your loving (and lovely) sister,
Nora.
P.S. I am well and in training for a bit of bush-walking. More of that later. Love Nora.
Lovely Nora, he thought. Yes he did miss her.
Outside the clouds were getting serious, gathering in the sky, and the slight breeze he had felt earlier was getting stronger.
Despite all the years that had gone by, neither he nor Nora had changed that much, he thought. He could see so much of her in her writing. In her books or in her letters - her madly tantalising, rambling, wonderful letters. She was right – her letters would make a charming addition to her slowly building library of fiction bestsellers.
He stared at the computer screen and the stone-faced gods changed to her face - and the other reflection, next to hers, was his. His hair was getting a few flecks of grey in it, maybe more than a few, but still the basic brown, and he was in need of a shave. He ran his hand around his chin, feeling the slight rasp of a day or two's growth. Eyes that were brown - the same colour as Nora's - stared back at him.
Nora forwarding copies of her work to Christie had started about eighteen months ago. Nora had had a bad crash early on, using a new machine, and managed to successfully lose a lot of her work. She had, James knew, always been somewhat impetuous, and she had gone onto the new machine without doing all her homework. It had been an expensive lesson.
So now she was fanatical about backup. She held all her files on hard disk, but each update of her manuscripts or her notes she backed-up to two separate USB sticks. The sticks were kept in a place different to her study and she copied all the files for sending to Christie, on a regular basis. Off-site backup, she’d said, if it's good enough for big companies and government departments, then it’s good enough for me – after all, my stuff is much more important, isn't it, brother? And any work he did for her went through the same process once she received it.
He called up the file that he had started last night and read a little of what he had put in. He'd called it DEWITT. There were more typographic errors than there should have been and as he read through it he corrected the errors.
Dear Nora …
Excerpt prior to one of his trips:
I have learnt from my previous excursions into this wilderness. I remember my first, early last year,