I notice him as he leaves the stage at the start of intermission. Tall, thin, spectacled, a halo of wiry brown curls. The cellist from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is the image of my late friend Robert.
For almost 20 years we wrote to each other - the correspondence beginning not long after he left Victoria to return with his wife to live in Sydney and ending with a card which he wrote from his bed in a palliative care unit two weeks before his death in September 2003.
It was, I suppose, an unusual friendship. Our connection was forged when he was far from here. My husband had begun as the correspondent and then one Christmas for reasons I cannot now remember I took over. Books, our children, teaching, writing, travelling. Over time, we became attuned to each other in ways neither of us could have expected. Perhaps it was the simple freedom that long distance friendship offered. All I knew was that a silent solidarity grew in those small tight bundles that appeared in my letter-box every few months.
He viewed the world with an exceptional intelligence and yet I sensed that because of this, found it difficult to accept that so often people behaved irrationally. He just couldn't understand why..
When he became ill we visited him in hospital. I was shocked by his appearance. He'd lost weight and had little energy to move around the ward.. He told us he'd made the decision not to pursue further treatment after the oncologist's report suggested there was no prospect of recovery.
I saw a sad dignity swimming in his eyes.
The cellist's appearance on stage the other night was extraordinary..
I could only see my friend..
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