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I try to behave with some sort of grace. I try to be pleasant and generous. But I actually feel I’d like to give up this draining attempt to be married, to go and live somewhere high and sunny, on my own. With the windows open. Yesterday my fantasy was to ask him if we could each write down a list …

The play was ‘splendidly written’, in that Irish style that half of me wants to relax and swoon into, while some drier, more English aspect of me draws back in scepticism: Look out, you are being seduced.

Bought myself a sewing machine at Grace Bros, a demo model which, the Brother consultant earnestly assures me, ‘only Vicki and I have ever sewn on’. Vicki (big hair, raking red false nails, missing side tooth, gold-rimmed specs) tells me the shop runs classes. ‘You learn to make a skirt with a zip,…

I think I am in the classic position of a woman artist who in order to maintain a marriage is obliged to trim herself so as not to make her husband feel—what? Something a man is not supposed to have to feel? This must be one of the reasons V is so against it when I have to do publicity. It’s also p…

The Age calls my agent, offering me ‘six figures’ for ten pieces a year, on anything I fancy. I say I’m happy at the Independent Monthly. The editor of the Australian summons me to his office. I go out of curiosity. He lolls behind his desk, I perch on a chair. Sums of money are mentioned, and a ca…