‘I love you too,’ I replied, but my face was pressed into his jacket and to this day I don’t know if he heard. We hadn’t said it before and, though we’d write it, we wouldn’t say it again. He walked aboard and disappeared into the swell of uniformed men and the shouts and calls. The women on the dock all screaming hysterical farewells, me just another with her handkerchief to her face, trying to stem the ridiculous flow of tears. I waited there until the ship blasted its deep, bone-rattling horn—three blasts as the tugs pulled it away from the dock—and watched until it disappeared over the horizon. And then I picked up my bag and walked through Woolloomooloo, through the Cross and Potts Point and Darlinghurst, all the way home to Surry Hills, stopping only to buy a meat pie and eat it in front of a shop window, watching my own reflection, wondering why it was I looked the same when everything had changed.

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 13

That morning after breakfast, in the cabin, Grandma pulls out an old book, the cardboard cover a soft, mottled grey. The cover is tied closed with a fraying piece of string.

‘What’s inside?’ I ask.

I sit beside her on the bed. There is a wedding photograph on the first page—taken in the church, perhaps. Her hair is up in rolls around an unsmiling face, and her narrow frame is swathed in this long dress with puffy sleeves. Her eyes are clear, serious, and her hands clasp those of the groom, who stands behind her, his arms wrapped around her. He wears his dress uniform and cap, and he’s grinning over her shoulder, his eyes laughing.

‘You look so young.’

‘We were both nineteen.’

There’s another photograph beneath it of the two of them leaving the church, in a shower of confetti, people all around them. He’s looking at her, saying something, and she looks as though she can’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Her eyes are liquid.

Grandma turns the page and letters spill out. They are untied, loose, some in their envelopes. We lay them out on the bed, finding pages that go together, deciphering dates, until we have achieved some semblance of order. I read them aloud.

Dear Roy,

It is only the morning after you left and already I have to write. Mrs Mulligan’s seems horribly dull after our hotel by the docks, and last night was the loneliest of my life. I almost wish we hadn’t married and spent a night (and morning!) in bed together, because if we hadn’t I would never have realised what it is I am missing.