Dear Helen

Author's Note: this story was started for the 2022 Letters of Love anthology, but I didn't get it finished in time. But here it is, a reminiscence of youth and older days.

Part One

Dear Helen,

I am already the thing I dreaded I would be, when I sent that text out of the blue - an unreliable correspondent. No matter. Ferry's Landing has had another flood warning, the news is alarming, such high water. And whilst you live in Wallaratta, one hopes that, in a high house on a high hill, you are safe. So it's time to try again, to write to you.

We've moved. Still in the same city, but higher up in what almost qualifies as "the Hills". I'm sitting out on the deck, built by me as the Christmas project, one of many, for the house. It's a 1960s double red brick house, standard quarter acre block, but Helen, the trees! Three tall gums out the front, one like a weeping willow, one huge gum actually in our back yard, and in the line of the small creek past the back fence, five more gums, and up the ridge beyond, a dozen more, with a stand of tall pines along the crest of the ridge. It's a tree change, in suburbia, with five fire stations within a ten kilometre radius. Safe from fires!

We have resident koalas, or the trees are on their range. They pass through on a two-weekly rotation. Big boofy Boris, a large lazy male who manages to grunt and carry on, but doesn't seem fully convinced; his paramour, Ludmilla, who last season carried a joey, Svetlana, on her back, who then climbed higher than she did.

Why Russian koalas? you ask. Simple: when we moved in, we engaged a pair of tree cutters to lop massive dead branches from the big gum. A pair of young "speakers in tongues" turned up, children of God and good for them, because they both had that distant look of several drugs too many, not so many years in the past.

The climber was Isaac - I suspect a stage name with his church - and his mate Boris, who most likely was from Russia or thereabouts, judging by his very thick accent. So, the big koala became Boris.

Isaac clearly had his faith in God and with Russian Boris on the ground watching him, his swing from a rope belayed thirty metres in the air was incredible, then lowering a 200kg length of timber to the ground on a pulley system, astonishing. We've got a couple ton of timber in a wood shed, and a glorious Norwegian pot belly stove in the back room for those cold winter nights.

Choc and Chip the two kookaburras come every day, pulling worms and bugs from the turned soil where Maureen is planting ground cover roses, and five magpies, a family, are becoming more fearless at the bird feed table. They'll be eating from our hands, soon, I think.

Brown snakes, too: a little bugger I found in my shed but luckily had an immediate wooden box to place over him until the snake catcher arrived with a very long pole and a deep bag.

"Those little ones are the worst," he said, "they're too bloody small to grab behind the head."

Look, there's Choc the kookaburra on the arch - he's obviously seen me and is hoping for food - but Flick has instructed, don't feed them every day. You mustn't make them dependent, she says - and he got the ham scraps yesterday. Or she. I don't know which sex is the bigger bird.

And that, lovely Helen, is me, 2022, second quarter.

And I remember your touch on my shoulder in that restaurant by the river (and I guess that restaurant got flooded), so:

Much love, David xx

* * * *

Well hello stranger, long time no hear!

It was lovely to get your email filled with all of your doings, comings and goings.

Spoiler alert!!! Epistle following!

You have moved and look like you are loving the bush change! It sounds amazing. Loved the pics, thanks for thinking of me! You have also scored a good-sized shed too by the look of it. Watch those eucalypts near the house, won't you. They drop limbs without warning, especially in dry times followed by wind. Koalas and bird life to enjoy as well. You will love it. Just have a fire safety plan organised and super good insurance!!! Yes mum!!! Gutter guard???

We have also moved! About fifteen months ago we were offered a ridiculous price for our Wallaratta home, which was not a good home to retire in, as there was so much upkeep with gardens, a sloping site for mowing and whipper snipping and large areas of unprotected decking and railings that rotted in the coastal weather with monotonous regularity and required painting and oiling every year.

So, we decided to take the money and run! We actually moved to the Ferry!! 20/20 vision in hindsight, it wasn't a good move for me. Too close to the water and I never aspired to live in a swamp! In saying that, we missed the flooding thank goodness, both of the floods. They were significant and we were evacuated as the expectation was that Ferry's Landing, the whole island, was going under by two metres! We stayed with friends inland a bit. Luckily the water spread out wide across the plain and didn't rise as high as they predicted. It came in about 4 - 5 blocks from the river, though, but our place was above the highest water. Scary, not what you want going into dotage!!

I love the very original names you have chosen for the wildlife. Your delightful sense of humour in describing the reasons why had me laughing. Our kookaburras have just arrived back recently. I don't feed these ones because they dig up big grubs daily from the soil. I'm reluctant to feed them here as human food depletes calcium in their bodies and then the females have soft shelled eggs, hence the chicks don't survive. The same with the magpies apparently. I thought of getting mealy bug larvae from the pet food shop and putting it out on a tray, but haven't got around to it and probably won't. They are remarkably healthy. Mind you, if I accidentally kill a gecko, I throw it on the back lawn and they go like hot cakes.

The pot bellied stove sounds fabulous. Nothing like a fire to warm the house and the spirits. Great on a wet day to dry things out too. Get all of that wood chopped up and stacked so it can dry out and season. It might take a couple of years but it will smoke a lot less when burned and be hotter.

I'm trying to stay as strong as possible to keep my parent's legacy of osteoporosis at bay before I have to go on the bad drugs with the hideous side effects. Currently, I leg press 130kg, squats are between 50 and 60kgs (bar across the shoulders) and dead lifts between 30 and 40kg depending on my tweaky hip! So, I'm not mucking around and playing with girlie hand weights as you can see! I still only weigh 56kg, so I'm not a Sumo wrestler!

Yes, that restaurant was totally flooded, (you old softie, the things you remember!!!) as was the entire main drag and much more. Thankfully, it wasn't too deep but it did a lot of damage.

On that cheery note, it is time I stopped dribbling! I will always send you a reply dear David, and wouldn't have it any other way, so if I haven't replied, then there must be a reason. You should still have my mobile number so just flick me a text to check if necessary.

Love, Helen

* * * *

Helen, Just one quick comment before I again read and properly digest your delightful letter.

I'm reading your third last para again, and you can lift your own weight? That's incredible! But look at you! You must weigh pretty much what you did when you were eighteen.

I'm actually very, very impressed, but I have a feeling I should be a little scared, because, well, strong women who can still wear tight dresses...

David

* * * *

I lift more than my body weight! A lot of training! It has taken a while to gradually build strength in my legs and butt but I'm doing remarkably well for an old chick!! Just trying to stay strong in my dotage.

But David, you are a worry! Strong women in tight dresses -- I thought it would be every man's dream to have a fit young woman wrapped around them!!!

I'm just doing it for me, as I have always done, to try to stave off old age and decrepitude for as long as possible. I ain't no picture postcard any more, sadly, considering I was 32 when I had my first kid and 36 for the second! A late bloomer shall we say. I had been an old 'spare' for so long I had decided never to marry. Now look what I have done!! The things we do.

Well lovely David, I bid you good night. Take care, and don't work too hard!!!!!!

Hugs, Helen

* * * *

Helen, you seem to have a different idea of yourself, being not a postcard and being the parked up spare. That's not as I remember you, way back then, and not so long ago. Ageing gracefully, I'd have said; unlike me, who is more ageing disgracefully!

Moving right along, it was you, wasn't it, who I sat next to in Geography, in fifth or sixth form, playing that paper and pencil game where you'd draw dots in a matrix all over a page, then take turns drawing lines to make boxes, the object being to surround the other player's territory and score the max number of boxes. God knows how we ever learned about isthmuses and archipelagos, but it seems that I did!

Oops, just interrupted with a phone call, so will send this, even if it's a bit unfinished.

Love, David

* * * *

Hi again,

Thank you for remembering me as you do. You were pretty cute too at 17 as I recall. Always thought you were out of my league though. Ah well. I felt like a little bush scrubber from the farm. Now sadly, I just see the day to day me with lots of bits heading south and going saggy and wrinkles appearing. It is a joy to behold!!!! NOT! But I'll do my best to be fit underneath.

Nothing wrong with ageing disgracefully -- there's not enough of that these days. All too proper! I guess ageing is much better than the alternative and a privilege denied to many. So stay on the right side of the grass young man!!

It was probably me in Geography, we used to play that game, 'Boxes' I think we called it. Very original for high schoolers! Gosh we must have been bored. I loved Mr Smith and thought he was a hunk!! Oh dear! Hormonal teenagers! You have a fantastic memory -- I hadn't remembered that.

Love, Helen

* * * *

Truthfully, you underplay yourself, Helen. But you always were the quiet one, weren't you? The country girl who came to school every day on the bus. I guess that's why you never made it to all those parties, coz they were always Friday or Saturday nights and you lived in the next little town, fifteen miles away. So you were never at those parties. Such a shame, because...

But look at me, all these years later, sorta kinda saying you might have been the girl I never went out with, but probably wanted to. Is that something even sensible to say? It must be all the years in between, lovely Helen, always quietly there in the back cupboards of my mind. Ha, that makes me sound like an old house, you know, that deserted one on the edge of town where the door still creaks open and there's a broken down chair on the porch. Someone else's life, not mine. Lucky someone else, though.

God, as I write about it, it all comes flooding back. So much simpler than today - smoking dope, kissing my girl behind the curtain at Pedro's party. Although, that must have been earlier, because I'm sure that was Robyn, who I went out with in third form. My god! When we were fifteen! Sometimes it seems only yesterday.

But I shouldn't do that, should I? Write to you as the girlfriend I didn't have, then mention a girl I did go out with. Perhaps I'm getting too old, and want them all to come back. Those high school girls. God, you were all so lovely with your long hair, bright eyes. Short tunics in junior high, then those tighter skirts in the last two years!

I've just read those last paragraphs over. It's contemplative, too revealing, shouldn't be said. But I have a philosophy, once written, must be read by someone. So I'll send this, even though I probably shouldn't. Or maybe tomorrow.

Love, David

* * * *

Dear David,

Looks like you sent it, your confession, straight away. You're not serious, really? Are you??? That's so strange, you writing that, remembering the young me that way. I barely remember me then, so I went and looked at old photos. God, that Tasmania trip, do you remember it?! Two weeks on that bus, driving around the island, staying in hostels and camp sites. And that silly photo of the ten of us, jumping in the air!! Me in those flares, and you with your long hair!! My lovely hippy friend! Those were the days!!!

It was nice, wasn't it, us just being good friends? It didn't complicate things, because we didn't ever "go out", so there was never a dramatic teenage break up. We didn't even hold hands, although I think I might have wanted to, as well. I always thought you were a keeper. Well, you and Tony Jones, lol. Can I write that, at our age: lol??? We were kids then, so I reckon we're entitled to now.

But you're not really serious, can't be. You'd be in for a shock if you saw me now, all gone south and those saggy bits!! I'm not going to think about it, young man, so don't you dare.

But time marches on, doesn't it? We're getting old and ancient, and school was so long ago. But your reminiscence has got me thinking, about then.

So huge, affectionate hugs from me. Thinking about us, then.

Helen, no!!! (I'm not listening. Not to myself, anyway!!!)

H. xxx

* * * *

Helen

I think I might have been serious, but I could also have been influenced by seeing you in that serpentine dress, when we had that lunch. It was... very eye-catching. Very flattering, for your 56kg figure :)

* * * *

God, that burgundy dress!! Maybe I shouldn't have worn it, inflaming you!!

* * * *

No, it was perfect. It how I want to remember you, now.

* * * *

Part Two

As I waited for my bag at the small regional airport, I flicked through the email string with Helen. I was indeed that thing I had feared, an unreliable correspondent; or perhaps more truthfully an unwise one, my revelation a step too far, taken no further at the time.

But then, later, I'd gone up north for a quick consultation task relating to flood recovery, and was staying in Ferry's Landing, where Helen lived. I sent her a text, - - Can I see you? - - and provided a few more details.

She'd replied, - - Of course, and there's a hug, dear David - -

And there was, and she'd worn her burgundy dress again, and looked stunning. There had been so much left unsaid the last time we met, but by her wearing it, no words were needed. No words were spoken, nothing needed to be said. I did wonder how it would happen, but I had no doubt that it would. Her serpentine dress told me so.

Helen had a car, and so did I, hired from the airport, but I left mine at the restaurant she'd taken me to the last time, the one down by the river. The restaurant where she'd first worn that slinky dress for me, and touched me on the shoulder as she passed by on her way to the loo. "You old softie, the things you remember."

We ate, and we chatted, and possibly the waiter thought we were married. There was such a comfortable familiarity between us - we'd known each other for years, after all. Decades.

What we were doing, though, was remembering when we were both seventeen, when our lives were just starting, before we'd even lived them.

As she drove around her town, to show me the school where she taught and her old house, but not her new one, I admired Helen's calm confidence, her hand on the gear stick down by my knee. I looked down to see the cling and rise of the dress on her leg, the limb tightly muscled. Helen, able to bench press her own weight.

She saw me looking, and laughed. "I'm a country girl, David, learned a manual when I was fourteen. On an old Land Rover, on the farm."

"I'm in safe hands, then."

"Very," she replied. "Very safe. Safe and practical. You saw my advice about trees!"

"I did. You are. Very safe, for a young man!" I laughed, knowing my reprehensible age.

She laughed too, and touched my knee, to signify that really, this was quite straightforward, given that we'd both waited many decades and we were both adults.

"We don't quite know what we're doing, do we?" she said, as we went round a roundabout and took the exit onto the main road out of town. "I don't, anyway." This wasn't the shy Helen I'd known at school, this was a woman with a self-contained confidence, quietly spoken, sure of herself now she was older.

I'd rented a small holiday apartment on the north side of the town, for the few days I was here, and Helen knew the area. It seemed simpler this way, for her guided tour to end there. We could sort out my car later.

"Not really. But it's lovely, being here with you. Being driven around your town. Doing what we're doing."

I reached over and touched the back of her head, touched her hair, which was coiled up in a loose twist. Helen didn't have much grey through her hair, unlike me. She didn't look sixty, that was for sure, however much she thought she was parked up, going south.

She looked across at me, and her eyes were bright - as I'd remembered her face back there in school, a vibrant, fresh young girl. I'd been too young to know what to do with a quietly confident, but shy girl, but smart enough to say, "You're my friend." Or to know that she was, at least, even if I'd never said it.

"Playing "boxes" in Geography. Do you remember?" She was a mind reader, too. And with that little memory of the things that we did, our minds were cast back decades, and we let it all unravel.

Helen pulled up in the drive to the apartment, parked the car and turned off the engine. She turned to me, touched my arm.

"Well," she said, "here we are. Your little place."

"Yes," I replied. "You'd better come in."

"I've been waiting for you to say that."

"How long?"

"A while. Since those emails, they made me remember."

I looked at her gazing at me, and she was very lovely, the smiling creases of a lived, loved life in her eyes, a gentle smile on her lips.

"Seventeen again, huh?"

"Seventeen. And twenty-seven. Thirty-seven. Remember those school reunions, going back?"

"I do. I spent most of them talking with you. And Mac, and Tony Jones."

"There was a reason for that," Helen said. "You were my keepers, the boys I wanted to go out with, I guess. But I didn't. Those other girls always got to you first."

"Just good friends? We were silly boys, all of us."

Her hand was still on my arm. "More than good friends," she replied. "Keepers."

"Let's go in," I said.

"Let's." She turned, and got out of the car. The door closed with a satisfying thunk. An expensive car, not a flash one. It suited her. Under the dappled sunlight, its colours shimmered through many shades of red. It was hard to say what colour it actually was.

Like Helen's dress.

"I know your favourite colour, now," I said.

"You do," she replied, walking ahead of me to the door. I admired the sway of her hips, her slim legs. "That's why I wore it. You commented on it in your emails, so I knew you'd like it. You old flatterer, you!"

She looked back at me, and this was not the young Helen, not the girl I remembered. That shy girl had gone long ago, but her free spirit was still here, in this woman's eyes.

"Would it be all right, Helen, if I kissed you?"

"Young man! Surely you don't need to ask." She smiled at me, as she undid the top button on her dress. "You've taken your time. Forty years, at least." She undid another button, continuing her invitation, and came up to me, tilted her head up, took my cheeks in her hands and kissed me.

Her tongue was delicate at first, then insistent. Her hands went behind my head and pulled my mouth down onto hers, and we held the kiss, breathing in those long lost years.

"Gosh," she said, when we finally broke for breath. "I didn't know I was that kind of girl. You know, hasty!"