The Apricot Colonel PDF
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Apricot Colonel pages 20/10/05 4:29 PM Page i Marion Halligan was born in Newcastle and grew up by the sea. She is rather surprised to find herself living in Canberra, instead of on the coast. She always believed she was going to be a writer, though took a while to get started. Halligan has now published some nineteen books (including a children’s book, The Midwife’s Daughters) and has written short stories, articles, book reviews and essays for various publications. Her most recent book is The Taste of Memory, a memoir about food and gardens, travel and home. But she believes that it is fiction that illuminates our lives, and for this reason she loves to read it as well as write it. Apricot Colonel pages 20/10/05 4:29 PM Page ii Also by Marion Halligan The Taste of Memory The Point The Fog Garden The Golden Dress Cockles of the Heart Wishbone The Worry Box Lovers’ Knots Eat My Words Spider Cup The Hanged Man in the Garden The Living Hothouse Self Possession The Midwife’s Daughters (for children) Out of the Picture Collected Stories Apricot Colonel pages 20/10/05 4:29 PM Page iii Apricot Colonel pages 20/10/05 4:29 PM Page iv First published in 2006 Copyright © Marion Halligan 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. TheAustralian Copyright Act 1968(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 Email: [email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Halligan, Marion, 1940- The apricot colonel. ISBN 1 74114 766 2. I. Title. A823.3 Edited by Rosanne Fitzgibbon Text design and typesetting by Midland Typesetters Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Apricot Colonel pages 20/10/05 4:29 PM Page v For my beloved Lucy who read this novel and asked excellent questions Apricot Colonel pages 20/10/05 4:29 PM Page vi Apricot Colonel pages 20/10/05 4:29 PM Page vii Man thinks, God laughs. JEWISHPROVERB It pleases me to think that the art of the novel came into the world as an echo of God’s laughter. MILANKUNDERA Apricot Colonel pages 20/10/05 4:29 PM Page viii Apricot Colonel pages 20/10/05 4:29 PM Page 1 This story happens in that last overheated sinister summer, in a space of time beginning with the fires that in a day burned over five hundred houses and the Police Academy and the animal hospital and the great telescope at Mount Stromlo, so that for a short while people who lost their houses were giddy with a strange excitement, that fate had marked them but not for death, they were still gloriously alive. It ends with the announcement that our country was at war with Iraq. From the sixteenth of January to the twenty-second of March, in that year of little grace, 2003. The summer is over now, the garden is sharp with autumn, dry still, the sun benign and the air remembering that frost will come. The cat has vomited up a fur ball and is asleep in a warm corner of the wall as though it had never been. 1 Apricot Colonel pages 20/10/05 4:29 PM Page 2
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