Missing Christina by Whitford Meredith

Author:Whitford, Meredith [Whitford, Meredith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2017-07-19T22:00:00+00:00

Part Two

Fifteen

Australia

I let myself forget about my family. I met up with old friends, partied, ate, drank, slept around a bit, moved on when I felt like it. Vancouver, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles for work, a couple of possibly OK films and television series coming up. And, as I travelled I knew I was starting to relax, I was getting over Mum, and one day I realised, talking to someone-or-other, that I had done a good deal of quick and probably overdue growing up.

From LA I went to Singapore, because I’d never been there and Granny’s brother is buried there; a PoW, he died in Changi in 1942. Then, because I like trains and my friend Rick, who played my older brother Django in Relative Causes, lives in Australia now and recommended it, I flew to Perth and took the train, the Indian Pacific, to Adelaide. I’d spend a couple of days there, visit Marian Elder, then decide whether to train or fly on to Sydney, to see Rick. For once it didn’t matter where and when I went, I had time and no demands, and being alone suited me.

I’d booked a hotel in the centre of the city, and after a superb dinner and good night’s sleep, I was up early to explore. I thought it a lovely place with its parks and gardens, its greenness, its Victorian buildings – hated some of the mindless 70s and 80s new ones – visited the surprisingly excellent Art Gallery, wandered along the river banks, which Rick and his boyfriend had warned me were notorious gay beats and scene of many gay bashings and killings; not that I cared, at least in daylight, with running shoes on.

That night, a very wet, thundery night, I rang up Marian Elder to tell her I was here and ask when I could call on her. Sounding younger than I’d for some reason expected, she said eagerly that any time would suit her – tomorrow? For lunch? Great – say twelve thirty? Did I have her address? Could I find my way to Glenelg? Great! Lunch tomorrow, then.

I didn’t know much about Marian Elder except what I’d gleaned from the bits of her book. She was chary about making personal information public; no photographs on her website or Facebook page, and the minimum of detail. Hobbies: reading, history, kickboxing. I knew she had three university degrees and had written two books and a couple of dozen papers and articles. She was a university lecturer. I didn’t know if she was married, single, gay, straight, childless or the mother of six. I figured she was over thirty, but that was a guess.

So I didn’t dress up to meet her, but neither did I dress down. I wore my usual jeans, my suede boots, an expensive but noncommittal sweater, and, because it was three degrees Celsius, pissing with rain and threatening thunder, a long overcoat and a rather too woolly scarf. Hair washed, teeth and

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