One day I might meet my father, on a street in the town. But probably I’ll be far off; by the time he’s free, I’ll be in some other city of the world. If I met him I might hear another story of my life. Or one about his own troubles, about why he’d left a friend after the accident in that van. It was hard to confess to a fatal mistake, my mother said, after you’d already run from it. She herself had put harm in others’ way and for this she was ashamed. As for Peter, he’s doing his time.
‘So much has gone,’ my mother says again. And I know what she’s thinking about, as her eyes search the scarred ridges and crests, the mists or dusts furling around the remaining forest trees – I know who. ‘Yes. Pip is gone,’ I say, willing her to turn towards me. ‘But we are here. Look, here we are.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A generous community fostered the research, development and creation of this novel. A special thanks to Michelle Moo for her attuned reading through several drafts. Huge thanks to my family – Blake Ayshford, Evie, Emile, Madeleine, Roger and Guy Juchau and Yvette Vignando. My gratitude to Helen Garnons-Williams for her thoughtful editing, to Sarah-Jane Forder, Elizabeth Woabank and Oliver Holden-Rea. Thanks to Kate Cubitt for her calm guidance, to the dynamic Brendan Fredericks, to Lucy Barrett and to everyone at Bloomsbury for their enthusiasm and belief in my work. Thank you for wise counsel Jenny Darling, and for friendship and support Gail Jones, Michelle de Kretser, Karen O’Connell and Saskia Beudel. Thank you Deborah Levy, Pam Newtown, Jim Crowther, Rebecca South and Rebecca Leacock.
This book could not have been written without generous support from The Australia Council for the Arts and two artist residencies at the Bundanon Trust.
CREDITS
Extracts here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here from The Life of the Bee by Maurice Maeterlinck, Copyright © 1911 by Maurice Maeterlinck. Reprinted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc.
Extracts here and here from Milestones by Marina Tsvetaeva. English translation copyright © 2003 by Robin Kemball. Published 2003 by Northwestern University Press. All rights reserved.
Extract here from ‘Sleepless City’, from Collected Poems by Federico García Lorca, translated by Christopher Maurer. Translation copyright © 1991 by Christopher Maurer. Copyright © 2010 by Adam Phillips. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Extract here from ‘Sleepless City’ by Frederico García Lorca, Copyright © 2001, translated by Christopher Maurer. Reprinted by permission of the García Lorca estate and Casanova & Lynch Literary Agency.
Extracts here and here from Honey Bee Hobbyist: The Care and Keeping of Bees by Norman Gary, PhD. Copyright 2010 i-5 Publishing, LLC. Used with permission.
Extract here from A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit, Copyright © 2005 by Rebecca Solnit. Reprinted by permission of Canongate Books and Penguin Random House LLC.
Extracts here and here from ‘A Clear Day and No Memories’ by Wallace Stevens, Copyright © 1954 by Wallace Stevens and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
Extracts here and here from ‘A Clear Day and No Memories’, from Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose by Wallace Stevens, Copyright © 1989 by Holly Stevens. Copyright © 1957 by Elsie Stevens and Holly Stevens, copyright renewed 1985 by Holly Stevens. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Extracts here, here, here and here from Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by David Young. Copyright © 1978 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company Inc.
Extract here from On Balance by Adam Phillips, Copyright © 2010 by Adam Phillips. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Books Ltd and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Extract here from ‘Walking Out of the Treasury Building’ by Rumi, from Open Secret: Versions of Rumi by John Moyne and Coleman Barks, Copyright © 1984 by John Moyne and Coleman Barks. Reprinted by arrangement with The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Shambhala Publications Inc., Boston, MA. www.shambhala.com.
Extract here from ‘First Elegy’ from Duino Elegies by Reiner Maria Rilke, translated by A. S. Kline. Reprinted by permission of A. S. Kline.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
Mireille Juchau is an award-winning Australian writer and The World Without Us is her third novel. Her first, Machines for Feeling, was shortlisted for The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1999 and the second, Burning In, was published in 2007. It was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award 2008, Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2008, The Age Book of the Year Award 2008 and the Nita B Kibble Award 2008.
@MireilleJuchau
www.mireillejuchau.com
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Machines for Feeling
Burning In
First published in Australia 2015
First published in Great Britain 2016
This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
© Mireille Juchau, 2015
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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