Antony Wickens

Dear hearts,

When I was little, maybe 7 or 8 or even 9, Antony Wickens was my best friend. He lived in the Duplex above my Grandparents in Premier St, Neutral Bay. I loved going to see Nana and Pa. I loved even more going to see Antony. Antony was English. Very English. He wore long shorts with a belt, had dinner at 5 o'clock every day and a mother who never really came outside. I used to think it was because she found the sun too bright. Because she was English. She had the same pale gold hair that Antony had. And the same pale gold skin.

Outside Antony's front door was a beautiful big Frangipani tree. Frangipani tree's grow into the most beautiful of shapes. They are like ballerina's in my mind. Their branches reach out like the extended arms of a ballerina. And the tufts of yellow flower clusters that grow out from the ends of those extended arms have always reminded me of tutu's and Swan Lake feathers. I don't really know why.

Antony and I would climb into the branches of that frangipani tree and sit and talk for hours. We thought we were terribly brave and clever for climbing so high (my father could look us in the eye when he came out to check on us). One summer afternoon after twirling frangipani blossoms between our fingers and sending them downwards in spirals into the garden from our great height, we made the startling and hilarious discovery of the word idiotic. We laughed for three hours. I still remember, and it still makes me laugh to think of us saying the word to each other. Over and over again. It was so ridiculous, so exotic and so, well, idiotic. We collapsed into giggles and into each other. We nearly fell out of that tree. Several times.

It was a summer of cicada's in the plum tree, big fat blood plums and too much sun. Antony and his pale mother and even paler father came to my parents house for an Australian barbeque. I wore my best dress. Pale pink stripes with puffed sleeves and a big bow that tied around my waist. My mother made me wear white tights and black patent leather shoes with little buckles. My best Mary Jane's. My hair was the same colour as Antony's only brighter because I was Australian. And my skin browner because I loved the sun.

The sun didn't love Antony. He had been to Balmoral Beach and on his back the skin was peeling. We played in my back garden on the swing. We couldn't climb the plum tree because it was too big and the branches too high. The singing of the cicadas became louder and louder as the sun went down and it felt like the absolute middle of the summer school holidays. We had a black labrador called Bear who wasn't very friendly. If he didn't like you he would sit and stare you down. If you came near him he would growl as he looked at you. Very quietly. Very deliberately. Sometimes I think Bear lives within me. Or I like to think so.

After our Australian barbeque and after it became very late, my mother put Antony and I top and tail into my single bed. Antony in his singlet and shorts and me in mine. We were quite inquisitive Antony and I. And we had known each for as long as we could remember. I peeled the skin from Antony's back in long strips that you could see in the streetlight that fell through the window. I was fascinated and he didn't move. He just lie there while I worked away at that deeper gold skin. Underneath, the new skin revealed itself the same pale gold as I had always known. The same pale gold of his hair and that of his mother's. My bright light hair and my brown Australian skin showed itself in the streetlight as well and I thought how similar and yet how different we both were.

Antony was very English and I was very Australian.

With love
Miss Mich