Many years later she recalled meeting “at a gathering, a handsome, reserved, and pleasant person, still young, who was introduced as Miss Scott-Moncrieff,” of whom “it was at once explained, in her presence, that she was—the niece, was it, or a cousin?—of the great translator” of Proust, adding, “She was one of the few women to hold, then, a distinguished, and beneficent, position in the colony: and it occurred to me that she possibly wearied of her reflected glory.” Just as Shirley’s political understanding was developing as a consequence of her proximity to intelligence work and by virtue of simply being present while an event of the magnitude of the Chinese Civil War proceeded across the border, so too the boundaries of her cultural world were being extended by these associations. Alec was central to this, with his affinity for poetry, but also important was her friendship with Chris Cooper. Their correspondence over the next few crucial years, he in England, she in New Zealand and then New York, would open up for her a world of contemporary high culture—music, ballet, art—that was as yet only nascent. And this would be crucial to her maturity, as important as the experience of romantic love: a way of defining herself, finding imaginative connection and solace beyond the remit of her family.