And they say the camera doesn’t lie.
‘You going to be all right, CP?’
‘Yep.’
‘Give my best wishes to Stefi and Magda and say a special hello to your mother.’ He wrapped me in his arms and I rested my head on his shoulder. His voice rumbled in my ear. ‘Good luck, old thing. Steady as she goes.’
I leaned on the rail, watching him stride down the gangway and arrange himself on the dock like an A: feet apart, hands behind his back. Black shoes, white socks, white shirt. Beside him Helen, in a floaty silk dress, looked like a butterfly beside a magpie. I tossed her a streamer and she blew me a kiss. Tart, trollop, floozy.
Beloved friend.
The gangway was hauled in, the funnel belched and we drifted away from the wharf. The streamer tightened. Broke. I pulled Josie’s dark pink frangipani lei from around my neck, slid the blossoms from the string and dropped them, one by one, over the railing. They bobbed gently among the broken streamers and oily reflections and drifted away, like paint freshly dropped into water.
em tasol
Acknowledgements
My heartfelt gratitude to everyone who helped bring this book through all its stages to publication.
To my husband, Alec, for his unwavering support, love and perspicacity.
To Rose Allen, my writing buddy and mentor, for her insight and editorial nous. For their help, love and encouragement, to Margaret Courtney, Peter Svensson, Annie and Lyn at Annie’s Books and my friends in Akaroa, New Zealand. To Shelley Kenigsberg and Lauren Elise Daniels for their astute feedback; likewise to my Picador editor, Emma Rafferty, and publisher, Alex Craig.
A special thank you to Kate Grenville for her wise and timely advice.
In particular, I’d like to acknowledge the role of Varuna and its benefactor, Mick Dark, in the development of The Beloved. Varuna provides both a nurturing writing environment and valuable opportunities for writers to bring their work to the attention of publishers. My gratitude to Lis Bastian for her support and to Deb Westbury for her editorial assistance.
Finally, to the lady who informed me ‘pigs don’t fly’ – thank you for inspiring me to prove that they do.
Annah Lee Faulkner
In 2011, The Beloved won the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for an Emerging Queensland Author.
Annah and her husband live on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast and spend extended time in the South Island of New Zealand.
She is presently working on her second novel.
Photographer: Alan Hughes
First published 2012 in Picador by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000
Copyright © Annah Lee Faulkner 2012
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Faulkner, Annah.
The beloved / Annah Faulkner.
9781742611556 (pbk.)
A823.4
Adobe eReader format: 9781743347645
EPUB format: 9781743347652
Online format: 9781743347638
The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Cover design by Nada Backovich
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