Foal's Bread (51 page)

My great thanks also to Helen Salter, Edna D'Arney, Vera Doherty, Anty Tracey Price and Tatham, Mike Ladd, Cathy Brooks, Sandra and Johnny Watkins, Janice Goodies, Barbara Austin and Shirley Sampson of Bull Creek, South Australia.

To my Sisters of Mercy, Claire Aman, Sharon Jones and Jacque Elizabeth Rosemary Flavell—tremendous thanks for giving me such wholesome and wholehearted succour without which the final edits could never have been achieved.

George Papellinas, fellow stalwart, reading
No
fuelled my desire to write a novel as good as that.

A million thank yous to my brother-in-law Russell Pridgeon for buying me a new and trustworthy computer when it was most required.

Often my desk has been a scimitar cushion lovingly hand-knitted by Margaret Knight. The final proofs were completed on a scimitar, Mount Barker Hospital, 2011. I will always remember all the kind nurses and staff of those weeks. Thank you for letting my cat come to stay. Similarly, thank you so much, Evelina, Janet and Jaye.

Deepest thanks to my sister Karin Pridgeon for such loving kindness through any vicissitude afflicting me, and similarly to my dear friend Joan Carpenter.

Thank you my dearest Dad for your watercolour sketches of our lonely walk by the derelict carousel on the edge of the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris 1992. Their circles grow ever more beautiful to me, even as mildews cross onto the paper.

Many thanks are also due to my nephew Nicholas Murphy for his unerring geological knowledge regarding love heart stones.

Thank you Bruce Long, Dr Wei Bei Chen, Dr Allison Ramsey, Dr Dilip Kapur, Mary-Anne Edge from Multiple Solutions and Patricia James of DEEWR.

All my thanks Kate Herd for your etching ‘Midnight' 2008, beneath which in 2009 and '10 I typed the first and final drafts.

I doubt I could have written
Foal's Bread
but for the loving determination inspired by my previous agent Barbara Mobbs. My deepest thanks always for your comments on an earlier version of Chapter 1 and for your ongoing willingness to believe that I had another novel in me.

Deepest thanks to my present agent Gaby Naher for shepherding the book into such flourishing life.

To Ivor Indyk, thank you for first publishing in HEAT #09 my short story ‘The Third Triplet' from which much of the feeling of
Foal's Bread
then sprang. Your belief in my writing has strengthened my pen. Dear Meredith Rose, this too has been your impact in my life. When most my desire to keep writing has faltered, your presence has helped bring it back and in particular I'm remembering a long
Foal's Bread
talk in Carlton in 2008.

To Jane Palfreyman, Ali Lavau, Clara Finlay and Aziza Kuypers of Allen & Unwin, I'm still astounded at your unerring intelligence re what had to be corrected. Your editorial signposts were trustworthy and true. Thank you.

To be publishing my first novel in sixteen years, again with you Jane, seems nothing short of miraculous.

Finally, thank you to all the horses of so long ago, but in particular Trooper, Flicker, Winkle, Missy, Tarka, Amigo, Grey Chancellor, Star Rebel, Red River, Chester, Galla, Willy and Bellini. As poet Geoff Page wrote in his tribute to Silver Wind, his childhood mare, these were the horses that most taught me ‘a truth that still can be of use/ attempting other paddocks'.

Gillian Mears grew up in the northern New South Wales towns of Grafton and Lismore. Acclaim came early, with her short-story collections and novels winning major prizes. Her books include
Ride a Cock Horse
,
Fineflour
,
The Mint Lawn
,
The Grass Sister
and
A Map of the Gardens
. More recently she has been living in the Adelaide Hills, where she wrote
Foal's Bread
.