And my mother went quiet.
And then she said: "Well. You do it, then. You write and say we'll not be writing any more."
She thought she was calling my bluff. She told me so in 1986, which is the only time we ever discussed it.
And I called hers. I wrote it that night, on her paper, in my handwriting, and I posted it on the way to work in the morning.
One page. Eleven lines.
It is behind glass over a fireplace in Australia and I have read it standing up, at sixty-nine, with a kettle going in the next room.
What my letter says.
I am going to put the worst of it in, because leaving it out would make this a different and much nicer story.
It thanks him for his letters.
It explains that my mother is getting on and has a lot on, and that we will not be writing regularly from now on.
