Nora looked away from the screen of the computer and smiled.
"It's coming together, yes." She always felt pleased with herself - a sense of achievement - when she finished a section of the book.
She watched Caroline as she undid the front of her blouse and wipe the sweat away. She was hot herself; this was not a good day for writing, but when the feeling took her it was worth the trouble sticking at it. Twenty pages written at a time when she felt like it - regardless of the time - were better than twenty pages written when she forced herself to be writing. Fewer errors, less need for re-writes. It felt better.
What she'd now done was to set the scene - what would probably become the first two chapters of The Grey Line. She'd introduced her heroine to her readers - Sarah Grey - a young convict girl, wrongly convicted following a run in with the local squire in England, facing an uncertain future in a strange land thousands of miles away. She could expand on elements of what she had written to underscore the hardships of the voyage. Insert some specific incidents. And sometime - probably later - she would be able to refer back to the young squire, flesh out the circumstances and a bit of lustful sex in the stable while the horses peer over the fence, she thought, a slight smile playing at the corner of her mouth.
And there was also the start of the relationship with the dashing Lieutenant Abbotsley. He would provide the second story thread. God, Nora thought, he was such a fascinating character. She had to try and get over that passion of his … his zeal. His obsession. It would work, she knew.
"Let's go for a swim."
"Great idea." Caroline handed the printed pages back to Nora.
"You go and get changed," Nora said. "I'll just organise another back-up."
"Okay," and she kissed Nora gently on the forehead and walked from the room, peeling her blouse off. Nora smiled at the sight of the shiny bare brown back and turned back to the computer.
She moved the mouse to the menu bar at the top of the screen and clicked on FILE.
From the drop down menu she selected SAVE.
From inside the machine came a short burst of noise – and it was done. The name of the file was across the top of the screen. GREY1+2. The file had been updated, incorporating her latest updates.
She wiped a bead of sweat from her temple and pulled a USB stick from the shelf alongside the computer. There was a tag threaded through the end of the stick with writing on it - neat capital letters in black pen. She inserted the stick into the computer and used the SAVE AS option this time to save the same document onto the stick, but with an A added to the file name. Then the same process with a second USB stick, this time adding a B to the file name instead. So now there was the copy on the machine itself, and two separate back-ups on the USB sticks.
Done, she thought, and placed the USB sticks into a small drawer.
Chapter 5
THE DEWITT DIARY
Melbourne
Gold.
Written on a single sheet of paper in big bold capitals and followed by exclamation marks. Then some notes in a smaller and neater hand.
Interesting, thought James Christie, as he passed the old man tidying up his desk in the Library. He noticed the books on Tasmania laid out in front of him, including Fish and Yaxley’s Geology and Landscape of Tasmania , a book Christie had used himself, only recently. What was it about Rolls Royces? You rarely saw one and then when you buy one everyone seems to have one. Maybe he should introduce himself and they could share insights? He smiled at the thought, and proceeded to the help desk.
On his return, with the DeWitt book, the old man was gone. All that was left of his visit was a closed Yearbook of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, for the year 1911. The old man had left a piece of paper in the book to mark a page, and Christie wondered why he would be looking in such a book. He placed the DeWitt book on the desk and opened the year book. The marker referenced an article called The Discovery of Gold in Australia. Christie quickly flicked through the pages – discovery in the various states, tables of production figures and methods of gold mining used – then returned to his own desk and made a note of the book. Unless he was mistaken, such data was available on-line and he could access it at home.
He worked for another two hours on the DeWitt book, making notes and writing verbatim extracts in the spiral bound notebook. He would address Nora’s e-mail tomorrow morning.
Amy had gone on a high fashion shoot with Robert Casey, at the Royal Exhibition Building in the city. Afterwards she was going to catch up with friends on the campus.
James Christie had their place to himself. He’d returned from his walk – recommended by the medical officer – and done twenty minutes of stretches. A quick shower. The dressing had come off the wound two weeks ago, but he still fingered the scar, stared at the angry coloured skin. He dressed and sat in front of the computer and waited while it booted up
It had been another hot Melbourne summer day - typical of those they'd been experiencing in the city for some time. They'd had a long stretch of these hot days, the air dry and still, and for the last two days the weather forecasters had been promising thunderstorms, but none had eventuated. Out above the bay some clouds seemed to be forming - perhaps tonight, he thought.
Grass was brown and flowers and shrubs wilted in the oppressive heat. It would take a lot of rain to change the colours now, but February was nearly ended and, by rights, the hot days should give way to cooler and wetter ones. On the northern outskirts of the city men and women of the Country Fire Authority were trying to contain a bush fire burning on a wide front. During his walk he’d seen the cloud of smoke on the horizon.
He’d walked into the city because the doctor had said the exercise was good for him. Any form of regular exercise is a good idea, Mr Christie. It doesn't have to be strenuous, just enough to get the heartbeats up for a while. Why don't you try walking? If you would normally get into the car to go to the shops or to see a friend, walk instead. Walk to and from work. Not just a stroll, mind you; a brisk walk. Something regular.
Exercise was good for the body, he couldn’t argue with that and he’d taken the words of the medical officer to heart. What had surprised him, though, was how long it had taken him to “mend” his thoughts. There was the obvious reaction to being seriously shot, but a large part of it had been about how close he had come to losing Amy.
The background image on the computer screen was a sketch of the figures at Abu Simbel, done by the Scottish artist David Roberts in the late 1830s. There was, to Christie, an awesome mystery in the image - noble figures carved out of rock towering over half a dozen locals, and half buried by drifting sand.
Christie scanned the e-mails in his In box and re-read the last one from his sister.
Dear James
Another delivery for you to look after. I've enclosed four files this time ...
He checked that the attachments were there.
... the writing is going really well and I seem to be churning out quite a workload. I will keep at it while the will and the ideas are still there. You know what it's like. Here one day, gone the next.
I must admit that this one is taking a little longer than I thought and is quite a bit more disjointed in its construction. I used to find it very easy - and convenient - to write from the first page through to the last without missing anything out and without jumping from one chapter to another. Write everything in sequence. You could develop with your characters, and ideas even used to emerge as the story progressed. "The Castlecrag Darkness" was like that. Straight through from page one to the end.
Oh, by the way, while we're talking about my last book I thought you might be interested to know that the story created quite a lot of correspondence from people all round the world. Some were critical. Some even said I shouldn't