like pen pals. She wondered if he had not simply wanted to establish a new family before returning to the war, one to replace the father he had lost during his last tour of duty. Maybe he was just being a good soldier, simply setting up his firm base before going out on patrol. Somehow, perhaps unreasonably, she felt used, but resolved to make the best of the situation and try hard to make the marriage a success when he returned. She resolved to be supportive and use the year to build a stronger foundation for their lives beyond the tour.
Leanne mused over these incidents from her short married life with Gary as she guided the gold coloured Kingswood into the shopping centre carpark. The car radio played, ‘I’m leaving on a jet plane’, a song that had become the unofficial theme for the Vietnam War. Leanne turned the radio off, her lips drawn into a tight line with suppressed bitterness. She was meeting her mother for lunch, having lied that she had a day off from work as a reward for working overtime on a recent project.
She worked as the editorial assistant to the general manager of a small but successful publishing company, a job she had held since completing high school. She had worked on a number of manuscripts during her eight years with the company; but her most successful venture had been on an autobiographical book called, No Way Back. She had selected the work from the numerous piles of unsolicited manuscripts that came into the publishing house, she alone seeing some strange quality in the roughly written work. It took her a long time to convince her boss to let her work with the author to develop the book, but in the end he had agreed. The author was an old man, a World War II veteran and a bushie who spent much of his time on the booze or wandering in the outback. But Leanne saw beauty and feeling in the book and, after nearly a year of hard work, it had been ready for publication. The work became a bestseller, first in Australia, then overseas, the appetite of the reading public perhaps fuelled by the conflict in Vietnam. Now the film rights were being negotiated and she was confident of success in that area as well. She was very proud of the work and it had won her some modest acclaim within the industry. She was now well regarded by her employers, even to the extent that she had felt cheeky enough to apply for a newly created job as the editorial director, though she did not really expect to get the role.
But today she had to tell a white lie about the real reason for her day off. If her mother knew she had been to see a doctor the questions would be endless. ‘I won’t say anything about the baby to anyone for now’, she said aloud to herself. Her own voice sounded strange in the car, breaking the spell of her daydreaming. ‘Not to mum, not even to Gary, he has enough on his plate with the war.’ She left the car and walked briskly into the shopping centre, wondering what were her real reasons for the deceit.
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