This country is indeed ‘the Arabian desert of the human mind’. (That’s A.D. Hope, you know.) ‘A landscape lost in its thoughts.’ I mangle the quote possibly … though I’m not sure Australia is lost in its thoughts. It seems to me Australia does not think enough! Or it thinks silently, stoically, like Father does, but is endlessly unforthcoming, doubtful of its originality …

In poetry I can say the things I’d like to say but otherwise can’t. I can’t really say the political things—one has to come at it from an angle. It can’t be literal. And I have to pretend much of the time that I’m not a woman, because the female sensibility is considered a little on the nose (you know what I mean: not tough enough, too sentimental). But I can explore things through a sort of code when I write poetry. Most of the time I’m not even sure myself what I am saying; it’s as though there’s a background part of my brain at work: my reptile brain. Though sometimes there are moments of brightness in it too: flashes of sun, something coming from the pen like an electric shock.

So, there’s hope for me yet. I am refreshed and ready to work. Write soon of your own triumphs, large or small. Send latest recipes for jam, clippings from newspapers about agricultural news and local gossip, piano compositions in A minor, knitting patterns for superior winter scarves. All of it interests me at this moment!

Love Veda x

† † †

20 JAN 1967

Dear Tilde,

Listen to this:

On Wednesday last, Jo was putting up the latest exhibition by an artist called Frank Healy—abstract blots and shapes and lines; it was not clear whether the images were landscapes or strange writing characters from an ancient civilisation. Anyway, I said to Jo: ‘Gosh, doesn’t it remind you of Egyptian symbols, those blobs and shapes and wedges. It’s like hieroglyphics!’ No response. Twenty minutes later, witness the arrival of James Parish, and this is what I hear come out of Jo’s mouth: ‘It really is fabulous stuff, James. Reminds me of hieroglyphs!’

Well, knock me down with a feather, Tilde!

Thing is—and this really is the thing—I don’t even think he was aware of it!

I begin to think I have no purpose of my own. Am I just my husband’s echo? (Or, more aptly, is he mine?) I started out an exotic creature he couldn’t tear himself away from, and I’ve ended up an empty, dry-sucked shell useful for sending an echo out across the landscape. Is this some age-old secret that men know and women don’t?: they get us by way of ruse, a conspiracy of flattery and attention that quickly evaporates once their object is attained.

I feel vaguely traitorous when I speak of this, because Jo is not bad or unkind. He is a good man and, probably, better than most. But he is neglectful. He will let me die like an old plant for want of water. And then he will be inordinately sad. I almost feel a comforting revenge as I write and imagine that.