From my journal

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.........After a good chat in a coffee shop I took her to university and went home to do some work on my photos. Because I was absorbed I didn’t notice the passing of time and with a shock I realised that I would not have time to catch a train into South Brisbane to attend a book launch at the State Library. I hesitated. Either not to go or to take the car? I chose the latter. It cost me $10 for parking which was a downer but I am glad I went because the book, “The Third Metropolis” was about the Brisbane art and literary scene from 1940 to 1970 and, as you know I was on the sidelines in the early sixties. I decided to purchase the book, despite it costing $45, telling myself it would be a useful reference for my autobiographical pretensions. Before deciding I had a quick read about the Realist Writers and I was impressed. I lined up to get the author’s (William Hatherell) signature, as one is expected to do. I introduced myself and said that what I hastily read about the Realist Writers concurred with my memories. He said that he remembered my name from his research. I felt a little like the character, Enoch Soames, in a short story by Max Beerbohm who is an unsuccessful poet who desperately wants to know if he remembered by history and sells his soul to the devil so as he can travel into the future to find out. If you have read the story, the title of which I have forgotten, you will remember that he was only remembered as a footnote in an account of Beerbohm‘s short stories.

The author in his speech mentioned the book written by an elderly friend, and I was reminded that I should contact her. When I rang from the Library she sounded sick and frail. The bones of her back are degenerating, collapsing. I stopped at her place on the way home to have a cup of coffee. She I trying to avoid the painkillers because of the side effects but the pain won’t allow her to think and she wanders around the house, she said, in desperation. She is very proud and refuses to express self-pity -- which only makes my heart ache even more for her. She insisted on making coffee for me and engaged in her usual lively conversation about wide ranging matters, not including her parlous physical shape. She is pleased that she did not buy another car because she acknowledges that it is unlikely she will ever drive again. I drove off home not wanting to think about her situation and how I should respond... ... END