It’s been 50 years now since Clare and I met in the tiny Toll House in New Norfolk, Tasmania.
In 1974, it was one of many youth hostels providing accommodation to young people hiking or hitching (or in my case, riding a push-bike) in search of a cheap holiday and adventure.
A tailwind took me anticlockwise from Launceston airport to Devonport, then Burnie. Had the wind been blowing in the opposite direction, I would have arrived at New Norfolk in two or three days, not in seven – and Clare and I would not have crossed paths.
The long road from Queenstown to Hobart passed through New Norfolk, right by the hexagonal Toll House on the bridge across the Derwent. I was intrigued and glad of a rest.
As I walked in, I saw a young woman packing her bags, ready to fly back to Melbourne, after a trip around Tasmania. After swapping travellers’ stories and a brief rest I headed for Hobart.
“By the way, what’s your name?” I called from my bike.
“My name’s Clare,” was the last thing I heard from her – at least for a month or so.
Serendipitously, we were both among the several hundred students at the same teachers’ college in Melbourne where we got to know each other.
She taught me to knit, I taught her to ride and by the end of the year we were spending most of our time together.
At Christmas, Clare’s parents took the family back to Ireland to visit relatives for the first time since they had emigrated.
We wrote every week – a blue aerogram letter that folded into thirds to make its own envelope, with the help of a little saliva. Aerograms seemed to take forever when you started to write them, but the last side was always crammed with very small print as you realised you had more to express than you thought.
By week three I was feeling empty and alone. Dark imaginings took hold – what if Clare fell in love with Ireland or found an Irish lad? What if she didn’t come back? I decided to make a call of my own.
As the telephone had not yet come to Clare’s relations in Dublin, nor to the student house I shared in Melbourne, we arranged, by mail, for her to call me at my brother’s house.
At the Dublin post office, Clare had to pre-pay for a set time (her Irish pounds stretched to seven minutes), go to a booth, and wait to be connected to the Melbourne number by an operator, who would interrupt mid-conversation: “One minute left on this call”. We started speaking faster than the writing on the third page of an aerogram. Then suddenly, click, and the line went dead.
I hadn’t even said the three words the call was for in the first place!
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Because I had no phone, I asked my brother to send a telegram to Clare asking her to call his number the next day.
The telegram late on Friday caused Clare immediate alarm. Why was Phil’s brother asking Clare to call him? Something terrible must have happened!
The next day was Saturday; Dublin’s post offices were closed.
Her aunty came up with the plan: go to the local police station, tell the officer there’s been a family emergency and could we please make a call to Melbourne, Australia.
Her mum reluctantly agreed and explained to the young policeman the telegram was from Clare’s fiance’s family (never mind she’s not wearing an engagement ring), and Clare desperately needed to make a telephone call.
I’m not sure how many people in that police station heard the words “I LOVE YOU”, but I know Clare did and that’s all that mattered.
I think I heard crying from the other end of the line, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the policeman.
He just smiled and gave Clare a wink – and her wonderful mother some tissues.
A few months later, when Clare was back in Melbourne, we skipped lectures one Friday, drove to the registry office and got married. We picked up a ring from the pawnbrokers’ on the way and honeymooned boating on the Yarra with friends. After 45 minutes we had to return the boat.
The following year we began our teaching careers on the same day at the same school in western Victoria.
Later, I became the principal of a school near Hanging Rock and Clare came when a second teacher was needed. We lived in a residence attached to the other side of the blackboard, and held our weekly staff meetings in the bath.
We invested our holidays and weekends in building a house together, which became a home when our two delightful daughters arrived.
Where love is concerned there’s sometimes both a slow burn and an instant recognition that this is the one. Time and life itself will confirm. For all the time I have known her, Clare’s internal compass has always tracked true north. A perfect partner for our shared adventures. I like to think we’re still on the honeymoon.
Is there a moment you knew?
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