The spur of the moment decision to steal some money led me to a foreign country, and a future I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams.

Prologue

The last of the mourners have finally gone, and the house is quiet now. My refrigerator is stocked with more casseroles than I can eat in a month, and I'll have to distribute them around the men in the morning. Kind friends have offered to stay and keep me company and I've had to gently refuse them with a smile. They mean well, but can't they see I just want to be alone tonight — alone with my memories?

I sit down in the old armchair — John's chair. Over the years it moulded itself to his shape, and now sitting in it, it's almost as if.....but I'm being silly. Tommy, the old black cat jumps on my lap, makes himself comfortable, and sits there purring contentedly as I stroke his glossy black coat — black on my black mourning dress. I stare into the fire and listen. Silence, apart from Tommy and the steady tick of the hall clock. Outside the window a board creaks on the verandah, as though a foot had pressed down on it and released. John always said he'd get around to fixing that board sometime. Now it will never get fixed, and I would prefer it that way, because it will remind me of him every time I hear the sound. I cannot bear to go to bed alone — not tonight - maybe tomorrow. The shadows seem to grow closer, like listeners waiting for the tale to begin, and why not? What else can I do to fill in the hours?

It all started so long ago......back in the sixties.........

Part One  Chapter One    Beginnings

I was born Leslie Robin Cobb in 1950 in the moderately affluent suburb of London called Finchley. My parents were Mary and Joseph Cobb. Yes, I know, but it's true. Perhaps fortunately for me, by the time I'd was born, thoroughly sick of the 'witty' remarks which grow tiresome at the thousandth hearing, my mother had abandoned her second name as the preferred one and reverted to her first name of Agnes. This at least spared me some rather obvious schoolboy jokes. You could easily guess my parents were Catholic, which makes it all the more puzzling that I was an only child. I don't know the reason for this, and even when they were alive, they were not the sort of people to whom one could put such possibly intimate questions. Perhaps they played 'Roman roulette' so successfully and for so long that Mum's body had forgotten how to have another baby.

As for my school days, I was a bright child — everyone said so, including my teachers. What they also wrote in my school reports was 'Could try harder'. With minimum effort I kept in the top one-third of the class, and progressed through each year. My course was set out — pass my final exams and then go on to university. What I would study there I didn't really know — university seemed an end in itself. I was good at Maths, English and Biology, and could muster a pass in other subjects. It all seemed plain sailing.

The final results when they came were a shock. Of course I should have studied more, but it was too late now — the dream of university had evaporated. I left school and mooched around the house, driving my parents mad, until finally, my father in desperation called in a favour from an old army pal who ran an accountancy firm. I was good at maths, surely I could make a career for myself there? I was reluctant, but lack of money is a great motivator, and I started in Smithwick, Jenner and Jones as a junior. I rapidly learned basic accountancy skills, and the work was too easy so the days dragged. The pay was not much, but then I was on the bottom rung. I started spending far too much time with other young workers in the local bars after work, and so my fortnight's pay barely lasted into the second week. I was often forced to borrow from other workers and of course this only compounded my financial problems.

I was usually out of the office door on the stroke of five, but one day I was presented with some extra work just as I was about to leave. The sweetener of some overtime was too much to resist. It didn't take me long anyway. I was now alone in the office. The cleaners would be in later, but for now, all I had to do was lock the door behind me. I packed away my things and headed for the door, and it was then I saw it. Stacked neatly on another desk was a pile of bank notes. The desk belonged to Redmond, to whom I had taken an instant dislike as he tried to boss me around from his superior status as a second year junior. If I had stopped to think for a moment of course - but I didn't, and in an instant the money was burning a hole in my pocket, and I was off to the bar. As I walked down the street, I saw Redmond on the other side of the road hurrying in the opposite direction. He didn't see me — he seemed to have something on his mind, and I grinned to myself. He was in for a shock when the cleaners finally let him in. My 'friends' in the bar greeted me enthusiastically, especially when I started generously buying rounds of drinks. I didn't see one of the firm's partners quietly enjoying a pre-dinner drink in the corner, but he saw me.

The next morning I barely had time to take off my coat before a clerk told me that I was summoned to Mr Jenner's office. There I found several senior staff, and also Redmond, sitting very pale-faced on a chair.

“Sit down Leslie”, said Mr Jenner. “Redmond here has told us about the cash he left by accident on his desk and how it was gone when he returned to the office.”

“Really sir?” I tried to look mildly interested, while still implying it was no concern of mine. “Has anyone spoken to the cleaners about it?”

Mr Jenner sighed. “Alright Redmond, you can go.”

When the door closed behind him, Mr Jenner fixed his eyes on me.

“It will save a lot of time if you admit that you took the money. Mr Jones here was in the bar last night and saw you spreading cash around very freely for a junior. He obtained several of the notes from the barman and we checked the serial numbers. There is no doubt they came from this office. Have you anything to say before I call the police?”

The police? I was in total shock. One stupid thoughtless action and now I had brought ruin on myself and disgrace to my family. Prison loomed. How could I have been so stupid? I opened my mouth but no words came. What could I possibly say? Then something strange happened. Mr Jenner spoke to his colleagues.

“Would you leave us gentlemen? I'd like to speak to Leslie alone.”

They all looked as puzzled as I was, but they did as he asked. When we were alone, he spoke again.

“Leslie, I may come to regret this, but it's the least I can do, not for you but for your father. He's a fine man, and he saved my life once. This news will break his heart — your mother's too.”

“I know sir,” I mumbled. “Is there anything I can do, anything at all to stop them finding out?”

“As a matter of fact you can. I'm going to put a proposal to you. Another old army friend, John Brodie now runs a cattle station in Queensland Australia. He's an excellent cattleman, but he's no accountant. His wife died about six months ago, and she handled the books for him. Now he's at his wit's end and people with accountancy skills are rare as hen's teeth out there. I've seen your work, and you easily know enough to manage a task like that, so here is what I propose. You 'volunteer' to go out there for two years and help him out. The official story will be that I asked for names and you responded in the spirit of adventure. When you return, the slate is wiped clean and you can start again. If you refuse, then I lift up the phone and call the police; it's a simple choice, and indeed it might make a man of you.”

“Can I think about it sir?”

“No Leslie, you can't. You have to make a decision right now.”

I was tempted to say that I thought transportation to Australia had stopped over a century ago, but for once I was sensible enough to keep my mouth shut.

“Then I accept sir,” and I added “and I won't let you down — again.”

“You've made a sensible choice Leslie, but there's just one more thing. It's a very different life out there, a vast empty country where people can be easily lost. Any repeat of last night could have serious consequences. Do you understand me?”

I gulped. “Yes sir.”

My parents were quite shocked when I went home that night and told them of my new job. My mother wept of course at the thought of her baby so far away, but my father muttered something about 'making a man of him' ( the second time I'd heard that in one day) and seemed pleased. If they suspected there was more to the story than I was telling, they made no mention of it. Things happened very fast after that. There were medicals and a passport to be obtained, a passage booked and a small suitcase packed. It seemed no time at all before I was standing on the upper deck of the 'Fairstar', looking down at my parents, two tiny figures among the crowd on the wharf below, clutching one end of the paper streamers that made a last connection between ship and shore. Then, as the ship moved slowly, the streamers tightened and broke. Soon mine was one of only a few left, and then it too broke and fluttered down into the water. My eyes were stinging and I felt truly alone. Ahead lay a month's voyage to a foreign country on the other side of the world, and an unknown future.