I hope the arrival of this letter does not come as too much of a shock. I am quite alive and well. I have written and re-written this letter many times. In doing so, I find that telling you the story of what has transpired since we parted in San Francisco to be the best approach.
When I first arrived in Acapulco, it took some time for me to recover from the seasickness I was not prepared for upon departure from San Diego. The boat you kindly chartered for me took four days in its journey down the Pacific coast, past the Baja California. We arrived on Saturday, July the 20th. Once on land, and tucked away in my tidy suite of rooms at Señora Rodriguez's lovely seaside casa, I began to slowly recover from the seasickness and, to my surprise, I found my appetite restored. To this day, I do not know if it might have been the warm climate or what. All I know is that I began to feel better almost as soon as I arrived.
I will tell you, dear Parnell, that I spent many hours wondering if I should write with the good news. However, a now dear friend, Mrs. Hollingsworth (in fact, a member of the English aristocracy and a fellow resident at the casa), advised that I should wait. She suggested that perhaps I was having the sort of rally that cancer patients are known for just before they pass on.
So, I waited. When September turned into October and I found a need to let out some of my tighter-fitting garments, I began to realize that perhaps the cancer was curing itself. I consulted Dr. Jimenez, the local physician and a close cousin to our dear Señora, and he declared me quite healthy and not suffering at all from any tumors. Not content to rest upon the local doctor, however kind he was, I turned to a man I had come to know, Mr. Theodore Connelly, an Oklahoma oilman. He and Mrs. Connelly have purchased a large piece of land on the hillside overlooking the bay and are building a large vacation home there. Since there is only a single dirt road in or out of Acapulco, they arrive by plane and bring an entire retinue of staff: a butler, housekeeper, maids, a doctor, and a pilot. While their new home is under construction, they have purchased an older house, grand in the 19th century tradition, that is at the center of town, from an impoverished local family. Their doctor, one Joseph J. Harris, was kind enough to consult with me. He, too, arrived at the same conclusion as Dr. Jimenez. Both men are baffled as to what may have happened. I asked that they not contact any of the doctors in San Francisco since I still desired to keep things under my hat, so to speak, until I was quite sure of my cure.
As Christmas drew nearer, I continued to pray about whether to contact you and the children. It still breaks my heart to think of Nicholas and Janet spending their first Christmas without a mother. I know you did your best, no doubt. But, as I'm sure you will acknowledge, the entire family together is always best, whenever possible.
I was resolved to wait until the beginning of the year before sending word. On the first of this month, I asked Mrs. Hollingsworth to assist me in preparing what turned out to be the first of many versions of this letter. Mr. and Mrs. Connelly somehow received word of our endeavors and kindly offered the use of their aeroplane so that I might fly directly home to your arms and the kisses of my darling children.
Alas, a family emergency called the Connellys to Oklahoma. They did kindly bring me here to Mexico City. We arrived on the previous Thursday. Mrs. Hollingsworth has very generously accompanied me this far and will take the train with me to as far as Dallas, where I will arrange for my final train home (and where she will begin a tour of the southern states, as has been her desire for some time).
Since I arrived in Mexico City, I have been in contact, by wire, with my trustee at the Hibernia Bank on Jones Street. While I still possess most of the five thousand in cash that I left with (it being nearly impossible to spend any amount of money in Acapulco), I did want to see how my nest-egg survived the market fluctuations of the last few months. I was happy to learn that I suffered only a minor loss in the account. I hope you have done as well, if not better, although I trust your small "pile" is still as ample as ever.
We begin our train journey tomorrow, traveling to Dallas via Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo, and San Antonio. Once we have crossed the border, I will post this letter. I am assured that it will arrive much quicker in that way than if it is sent through the Mexican mails.
I will remain in Dallas until I hear from you. You may reach me by phone or by telegram at the Hotel Adolphus.
I have no desire to appear on the doorstep of the house without having given you ample time to prepare for such a shocking return. I hope that, as you read this letter, you will understand why I have waited this long. It is not because I do not love you and my darling children. I love you all with all my heart and all my soul. I so look forward to our reunion, when I can find myself once again in your loving arms.
I remain, faithfully,
Your loving wife,
Alexandra
Author's Note
Thank you for buying and reading this book!
This story, like all the others involving Nick & Carter, came to me out of thin air.
If you would like to know more about Henry's island, be sure to read Their Own Hidden Island which, although set in the far-off year of 2003, is a prequel to this book.
Many thanks, as always, to everyone who has read, reviewed, and emailed me about the Nick & Carter books. It is deeply gratifying in ways that words will never be able to fully express. Thank you.
Acknowledgments
Having never been to Australia, I relied heavily on friends who live there, in particular Janette Dalgliesh. Without her keen eye and ear, much of what makes the Australian characters in this book resemble the Australians of 1955 would have passed me by. Among many other things, I want to thank her very much for schooling me on Lamingtons. I've yet to eat one but, now that I understand what desiccated coconut is, I'm excited to try one as soon as I can!
Janette was immensely helpful in introducing me to the Doctor Blake Mysteries. These television dramas, produced by the ABC (Australia), are set in Ballarat in the State of Victoria and begin in 1959. I watched the entire series (the first three seasons which are currently available for streaming on Netflix in the US and possibly elsewhere) over about a week in an attempt to get an ear for the language. In the process, I learned a lot more about Australia than I expected (including Lamingtons - "The Silence" - Episode 7 of Season 2). As of this date (June 29, 2017), the series has been canceled by the ABC. Hopefully that will be remedied in the near future. I highly recommend watching the show if you can.
I'd also like to thank the National Library of Australia and their wonderful digital collection, which includes the Sydney Morning Herald daily and Sunday editions through the end of 1954. You can explore more here: http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/
Additional thanks go to the very friendly police officer at the Bondi Beach Police Station who, when I called on a Saturday morning, helped me try to figure out if their station had been where it was, near the Bondi Pavilion, in 1955. One of her colleagues popped outside to look at the plaque on their building and reported back that the station was built in 2000. I think my call really amused her, particularly when I said, "Thanks, y'all, for your help." I was then able to find the old station, built in 1931 at the corner of Wairoa Avenue and Hastings Parade in North Bondi, thanks to searches I ran on the National Library website.
To gain insight into the lives of gay men and women in 1955 Sydney, I turned to Gay Sydney: A History by Garry Wotherspoon, an excellent history of gay life in the city that spans the end of the nineteenth century to the modern era. Any mistakes in fact or assumption are completely my own.
Many thanks, once again, to the wonderful Beta readers who helped me flush out this story. I deeply appreciate your support and your help.
Historical Notes
This book takes place from Monday, February 21, 1955, through Saturday, March 5, 1955.
The primary characters are all fictional. There are, however, a handful of historical persons and locales portrayed in a fictional manner.
Sir Robert Men
zies was the Liberal Party Prime Minister of Australia from 1939 to 1941 and again from 1949 to 1966. He is, to date, the longest-serving prime minister of Australia. His time in office is generally considered to be one of industrial and economic growth, internal stability, and a shift in focus on developing a strong relationship with the U.S. He is also credited with steering the country away from the White Australia policies that had started at the time of federation in 1901. The policy was a pro-British, anti-Asian, and anti-Polynesian approach to all things Australian, particularly in regards to immigration. While initially tied to immigration, the White Australia idea permeated the culture, including the segregation of the indigenous population. Some of this segregation was by custom and some by law.
While reading Gay Sydney to understand more about gay life in Sydney in the 1950s, I was immediately struck by the fact that the discussion of that time period pertained only to the changes in the culture and the law, as well as the ridiculous lengths to which the New South Wales police would go to entrap gay men for the intention and/or commission of "unnatural acts". The author, Mr. Wotherspoon, goes into great detail about this, explaining what was happening and who was involved.
In 1953, the Supreme Court of NSW found that the state vagrancy laws, as they applied to solicitation, were being incorrectly applied to men who were soliciting consensual sex with another man when, in fact, the original statutes had been targeted at male pimps who were soliciting prostitution for their female sex workers. Throughout 1954, a series of high-profile trials and scandals in England, in one instance involving a peer, along with the constant claims of the NSW police to the state legislature and the newspapers that there was a wave of homosexual crimes sweeping the city, led, in late 1954, to a redefinition of "unnatural acts" in the statute, an expansion of the criminal penalties for those convicted, and a change in venue for where such trials would be held. The result was that it became more expensive to defend against these charges so more and more men simply pleaded guilty in order to avoid the scandal of a trial.
Just as in the US, Australia had its own "Red Scare" and attendant "Pink Scare". Anyone who could be blackmailed was suspect, and that included gay women and men.
What I found the most interesting (and somewhat irritating) was that the only reference to any gay bar of any sort that I could pinpoint with any accuracy and say that it definitely existed in 1955 anywhere in the Sydney area was, oddly enough, the Long Bar at the Australia Hotel. There were most certainly many others, particularly in the Kings Cross area, but the Long Bar was the only one I could document. The scenes I describe in that hopping hot spot are completely invented but, I suspect, not too far off from what was likely happening.
The Australia Hotel itself opened in 1891. Sarah Bernhardt, the renown French actress, was the first person to sign the hotel's register. The building was given a face lift in the 1930s and converted into a magnificent Art Deco showcase. After being considered the premier hotel of Sydney and Australia for 80 years, it was closed in 1971 and demolished to make way for the MLC Centre.
While Australia is now considered a surfer's paradise, the precise history of surfing in the Commonwealth is very hard to pin down. Duke Kahanamoku, the Hawaiian swimmer who popularized surfing worldwide, demonstrated longboard surfing at Sydney's Freshwater Beach in 1914. In every history I could find, this was pointed out as the seminal event. The next thing discussed was the development of Lifesaving Clubs and how they demonstrated their skills at the various beaches around the country well into the 1950s. Then, a leap would happen in the timeline and, most everyone agreed, someone arrived in Australia as early as 1956 with a Malibu board from either Hawaii or California and suddenly surfing exploded and the rest is history. So, the conversation in Chapter 1 about this topic is my very best guess. I was able to find photos of longboard surfers from the 1940s and early 1950s, but no photos of anyone surfing at Bondi Beach (of which there are many online photos) or any other spot in Australia during a busy summer day. The focus in the 1954 newspapers was on the Lifesaving Clubs. Any reference to the word "surfing" in newspaper articles was about their demonstrations, not surfing as we understand it now. Whatever mistakes I've made here may simply be a lack of skill in researching.
Vincent Costello was the owner and proprietor of the Hotel Garrick in Suva, Fiji, in 1955. His older brother, Patrick, was the first of the Costellos to move from the Australian state of Queensland to Fiji. When Pat discovered gold, Vince made his way to Fiji to help out. Or maybe not. There are conflicting stories about which of the Costello brothers (and there were several) made his way to Fiji from Australia, when they did, and for what purpose. What everyone agrees on was that Vince was the life of the party and owned the Garrick at that time.
One additional note (July 17, 2017): Previous versions of this book indicated that flying from Henry's island to Christmas Island would have meant crossing into a cut-out portion of the date line that moved the traveler from "today" into "tomorrow". That was incorrect in 1955. At that time, Christmas Island was on the east side of the date line (the same as Henry's island). When Christmas Island (part of the Line Islands) was ceded to the newly-formed Republic of Kiribati by the U.S. in 1979, that caused sovereign parts of Kiribati to straddle the date line. So, in 1995, the island once known as Christmas Island, and now more properly called Kiritimati, was declared to be on the west side of the date line so as to place the entire nation in the same time zone. In effect, there is a mostly rectangular cut-out of the date line that juts east and straddles the equator. This move was entirely consistent with the 1917 convention that first established the date line. I was made aware of this when I was writing Their Own Hidden Island (which is set in 2003) but failed to address this change in the prior versions of this book. My apologies for any confusion and my thanks to those who pointed this out.
A second additional note (July 20, 2017): I was able to finally locate and review a copy of Bombora: The Story of Australian Surfing, a documentary produced by the ABC in 2009. That led me back to the original story I'd read online (but failed to bookmark) about the introduction of a new kind of surfboard to Australian surfers. There is much more to this story than space permits. You can read about this event here.
In November and December of 1956, the International and Australian Surf Championship Carnival was held at various locations in the states of Victoria and New South Wales. An American lifesaving team from California was invited, along with one from the Territory of Hawaii. These teams brought along what we would now recognize as modern fiberglass boards that were significantly shorter than the long boards in use in Australia at the time and that had fins and allowed for turning. The arrival of those teams and their boards is considered a seminal event in the history of surfing in Australia. While it's possible that the New South Wales policemen whom Carter talks to in Chapter 1 might have been much more informed about surfing than I gave them credit for, I hope you will forgive me for making them appear ignorant on this topic.
More Information
Nick Williams Mysteries
The Unexpected Heiress
The Amorous Attorney
The Sartorial Senator
The Laconic Lumberjack
The Perplexed Pumpkin
The Savage Son
The Mangled Mobster
The Iniquitous Investigator
The Voluptuous Vixen
The Timid Traitor
The Sodden Sailor
The Excluded Exile
Nick & Carter Stories
An Enchanted Beginning
Golden Gate Love Stories
The One He Waited For
Their Own Hidden Island
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The Excluded Exile (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 12) Page 20
