Mr Parish is an entirely different species. They pay him to speak on the radio and sit on boards of charities and philanthropic organisations. His poetry gets reviewed in America and Canada and Britain. It’s an honour really just to be taken seriously by him in conversation. We have had several lively debates, such as Ern Malley, that old chestnut, where I find him a harsh critic of MacAuley and Stuart. He says C-C (of Meanjin) is absolutely a snob, and every rakish detail I extract from him I put under my bonnet to savour later. (I have been rejected by C-C so many times that I can no longer pencil the address on an envelope.) I am happy not to speak of my own ‘work’ really (I can barely even call it such, not even to you, for fear that it might shrivel in the face of being taken seriously).

You would be bored to tears by the literary bent of our conversations, but to me, they are such a breath of fresh air, so full of first-hand anecdote and educated opinion. It makes me feel part of the literary world, even if as an interloper. Still, I am red-faced with shame when I recall the secret ‘package’ I lay on Mr Parish’s desk that time, creeping away afterwards and hoping for a word of encouragement. Which was, as I believe I told you, unforthcoming. Perhaps the package ‘blew away’ or ‘disappeared up the chimney’—it was fairly lightweight, after all. I nurture a mild vanity that the sheer brilliance of my poems was overwhelming. Still, I blush now. (I will come back, must attend to a roasting chicken that needs carving, gravy-ing … and the child is at large with crayons …)

Back. Owen asleep like a wind-tossed angel—all devils look like angels when asleep—so let me tell you more of our new friends the Parishes. Mrs Parish I like very much: she is hen-pecked (might a woman be ‘hen-pecked’? I turn it over in my head and think it perhaps unacceptable to say …) She is brown and dour, tall and square, with shoulders like a man’s, and beautifully set hair. Pale brown twin-set that forces her shoulders into a stoop as though the tension in the knit is too tight. I have put her in poems once or twice, as you can see above. I like her but I don’t know what to make of her: she is a figure of both ridicule and respect.