Jo reached across the table. ‘Veda,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry darling, I just kept forgetting … I don’t know why. I was so busy, Veda …’ I could see he was trying to keep my lid on so I didn’t explode.

But I did explode, Tilde. All the wine, and the resentments of the evening—they overcame me. I felt myself rise up like some sea-creature from the depths of the ocean. Jo got out of his seat, fearing the worst, saying: ‘Veda, Veda. Bloody hell! Just stop for a second …’

But I couldn’t stop. I picked up my full glass of red wine and I threw it at him. Across June’s beautiful table linen, across the front of Jo’s shirt and Mr Parish’s grey jacket, and across the book of original limited edition prints Mr Parish had open in front of him.

Yes, Tilde, red wine.

And then I was properly ashamed. Straight away. Immediately. I shrank immediately to nothing. Mr Parish called me a ‘fucking idiot!’ Mrs Parish ran for salt, vinegar, water. The table setting, the shirt, the jacket … these were all forgivable. But not the book of prints, Tilde. Not the book of prints.

I will not report on the rest of that evening. Suffice to say, Jo and I left. Mrs Parish presumably dropped Owen at school this morning; I will pick him up at half-past three. Beyond that there has been no word. Jo phoned half an hour ago to say he will stay at Ornella’s until I ‘feel better’.

I am being rightly punished. I have wept and wept, but now I am cold, like stone. I am a stone-cold statue and, of course, that’s what I should’ve been in the first place, and none of this would ever have happened.

Write to me.

Veda x

† † †

24 APRIL 1967

Dear Tilde,

No, don’t come. Of course I’m alright. I’m just under a period of probation—you know what I mean. Jo has locked the liquor cabinet (a move I suspect you approve), which I’m sure is all very responsible. I concur with you entirely: if I had not had anything to drink, I would have kept my temper. But you really don’t have to worry. Owen is at Ornella’s tonight and tomorrow with the Parishes. For my part, I’m just very tired and am sleeping a lot and thinking about my poems. Will write to you properly again very soon and love you and everything else. And thank you for reserving judgement of me, yet again.

Veda x

PS. No, of course I don’t want money to pay for the prints.

† † †

7 JUNE 1967

Dear Tilde,

‘A distinctive Australian poetry,’ says my silly little Scots editor at Vellum, ‘needs, at its heart, an engagement with the particularities of Australia.’

I do not know how to make sense of this comment. Is it a statement, an exhortation, a criticism? How would you take it? Is my life not rich with ‘particularities’ and is it not ‘Australian’? Next time, I am going to send into the world some of my absurdist nonsense: