In my daring moments, Tilde, I have thought I will hawk my writing on street corners. On a soapbox. I will be thought a religious preacher, no doubt, and will bring disgrace upon my family. I will self-finance a run of chapbooks and keep them under my bed; if they do not sell, I can line a ceiling with them. (Yes, insulation is my fallback plan!)

Would you buy a book of poetry, I ask, if some bolshie female waved it in your face as you passed her in the street? Well, you might be curious enough to look … would you? (I have gone so far as to wonder what colour to make my imaginary chapbook. Red, I have heard, is more attention-grabbing in shops.)

Happy happy, merry merry and all of that!

Veda x

† † †

7 FEBRUARY 1962

Dear Tilde,

You’re very good and kind and loyal. You always were. I never understand those women who say they are not friends with their sisters. I feel I have never had a friend but a sister! And now I feel positively Rossetti-like …

The refurbished ‘La Coccinella’ (not sure why I put that in inverted commas) is close to opening. I am needed to play maitre d’ and must leave Owen in the hands of Ornella while I do so. Ornella makes me nervous. I can’t help suspecting she will thwart me in some way or other, undermine me. She has never liked me. But she’s too damned convenient to do away with, I’m afraid. However, Owen is a lamb, and is good with anyone—only difficult with me. And what can I do? Who do I put first in the end: Jo or Owen? The needs of my husband or the needs of my child? That, it seems to me, is the greatest conflict in a woman’s life, if truth be known. Or so it seems right now, when they both demand my attention so.

Hmmmmmm. Advice sorely needed, gratefully received.

Meanwhile … I have met an interesting and possibly advantageous character who might avail me of new opportunities. Not sure. (Narrow your eyes when I say such things.) Mr Barrington Knox runs the bookshop across from the restaurant on Little Collins. Sells a lot of poetry—modernist imports mainly. He is a frequenter of the Savage Club, where he hobnobs with doctors and lawyers and bankers and gets them investing in his projects—one of which is an annual poetry and art magazine called Strident. It’s not Meanjin, but I like what I’ve seen of it. He wants to read my work. Eeeek. I feel like a deer trapped in headlights. Paralysed. I will slip a wad of ’em under his door and run like ‘the wind’.

Give me a moment: sudden nappy mishap. My laundry is the deep pit of hell …

Where was I? My new friend, Knox.