Excerpt from My Novel

Apart


Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road. - Isak Dinesen


While most of the people Diane knew were eager for life to return to normal during the Pandemic of 2020, she wasn’t so sure. The solitary life was suiting her and she finally had no excuses not to write. Wasn’t this the ideal writer’s retreat? She had her desk in front of a window with a waterfront view. She could drift and dream at her leisure, eat when she was hungry, sleep when she was tired, get dressed if and when she felt like it without a schedule or interruptions. A writer or poet’s dream if ever there was one.

But it came at a price. She hadn’t seen her family in several months, since she had been in Australia for five months prior to the virus outbreak. If social distancing restrictions didn’t start opening up soon, a year might pass before they could connect in person. Her parents were not computer literate, nor did they use a cell phone, so the old fashioned land line phone was their only form of communication. Her only child was in a city too far away and had roommates who worked in essential service jobs, putting Diane at risk should they meet in person. And then there was Mick on the other side of the world in Australia. When would borders reopen? When would planes start flying? When would his head be lying on the pillow next to hers again? The cost of her isolation was loneliness.

After all they had been through to finally create a life together, they hadn’t ever imagined being torn apart by something like this. Diane likened it to what one must feel when spouses go off to war never knowing when or if they will see them again. Perhaps that example is a bit extreme, but instead of an adversary with a gun, the enemy they both would need to avoid was Covid-19. The idea that their farewell kiss at the Brisbane airport could potentially be their last was a thought she needed to put out of her mind whenever it came.

At the last minute when she was packing to leave for Canada, she remembered to take the antique compass he had given her the first year they were together. It held so much meaning. It was almost an exact replica of the compass that was passed from character to character in the epic romance movie Out of Africa. It was a recurring symbol of finding one’s way home throughout the film.

Denys George Finch Hatten (Robert Redford) gives it to Baroness Karen von Blixen (Meryl Streep) to help guide her home across the endless dusty plains to her farm in Kenya several days away. At the end of the movie, after the great love of her life is tragically killed in a plane crash and her farm has gone bankrupt, she has to leave her beloved Africa and return to Denmark. In the final scene of the movie, she hands the compass to her faithful Somali man-servant Farah and says…

“This is very dear to me. It helped me to find my way home.”

When Diane told Mick that Out of Africa was her favourite movie, they had watched it together and he understood the bittersweet romance she found so powerful. A hopeless romantic, Diane cannot watch the movie without crying. For their first Christmas since reuniting after more than 30 years apart, Mick spent months scouring antique shops in both Canada and Australia for a gift with some meaning. They were still living on separate continents. Christmas came and went and Diane had not received anything from him. She was disappointed and a little hurt that he had not managed to get anything to her but he told her a gift was coming and he was sorry it would be late. He said it was something very particular and he was having trouble finding one. She had no idea what it might be.

When a package finally arrived two months after Christmas, Diane was beyond curious to know what this special parcel would contain. She opened the small box wrapped in plain brown kraft paper and inside was what appeared to be the exact compass from the movie and with it, a note that said,

“So you can always find your way back to me.”

She had to sit as it had taken her breath away. No gift had ever touched her more. He was her very own Denys George Finch-Hatten.

She had never felt so known, or so loved.




(Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals)