Last

I picked up the diary yesterday and realised that further pages have been removed since it arrived.
I am abandoning the blog.

hurry

Got to hurry. Things have changed. Not sure who to trust. Should probably delete all of this because I'm really not sure what's going on. Had my singing lesson last night and told M. about what was going on and he suggested that I have a psychological disorder and am making all of this up. I was so upset that I ran out. Can't trust him. He was looking at me in a weird, creepy way. Hadn't occurred to me before to suspect him, but why not?

Can't trust Mr W. either- he told me today that my work was becoming sloppy and if I didn't improve he was going to fire me. I told him to stuff his stupid boring job. Then I left. I didn't even say goodbye to Mariko. The thing is, I'm not even sure about her anymore. She acts so nicey nice around me but I've heard her yabbering away in Japanese to her sister- she thinks it's too complicated and fast for me to understand but I have heard enough to suspect that she says some nasty things about me behind my back.

So I'm on my own. I'm not going to take any more advice from anyone. I'm going to deal with this in my own way.

Letter

Cam sent me a reply letter today.

Dear Jess-

I'm sorry you feel like that about me writing to you. I didn't think there was anything so wrong with telling you that I miss you and want you back. Maybe I didn't say it in exactly the right way but I guess all I wanted to do was show you that you don't need to be so proud and that if you miss me you are always welcome back.
But maybe I'm wrong about you. Or you've changed. You always used to listen to me but at the moment I don't feel like you are at all interested in anything I have to say.

As for the website I have no idea what you are talking about so I can't take it down. But thanks for the accusations. Always nice to be the suspect when something bad happens. At least I know you're thinking of me.
Don't worry, I won't write to you again.
love Cam.

Do I believe him? I'm not sure. It never really seemed like something he'd do but I'm actually more scared if it's not him. Because that means there's someone else following me around. Don't know what to do. Should I contact the police? I probably should, but then this whole thing could be a stupid joke.

I'm going to my singing class tonight and I'm not going to think about this until tomorrow. Which is almost definitely the wrong thing to do but I'm tired of thinking about it.

Additional

I just had another look at the letter that the URL was sent to me in.
On the back, written very faintly is this:
I know all about you.

Cyber Stalked

When I got home last night there was another letter waiting for me.
Hand delivered.
It contained was a web address which I looked up as soon as I got in the house
{put link here}
Photos of me- so many of them I didn't even bother counting.
I am still shaking.
The photos are from all over the place- some from when I was little, which must have come from our album at home. Some are from various parties and school events I've been to over the years, which must belong to at leat half a dozen different people.

And some, the scariest ones, are from the last 18 months.
Someone must have been following me around and taking photos of me.

At first I was too shocked to do anything and then I thought "It's got to be Cam". And then I stopped feeling shocked and found myself incredibly angry about it. I still having a hard time believing he'd do anything quite so creepy but logically, it's got to be.

So then, while I was still furious, I wrote him a letter.

Cam- I don't know why you've suddenly gone beserk but if you don't stop sending me letters I will call the police. I am giving you 24 hours to take down the website and then, similarly, I will be in contact with the authorities.

And just in case you were in any doubt, there is more likelihood of you turning into a Greenpeace activist than there is of me resuming our relationship.

Jess.

It's not particularly eloquent, but it was all I could manage. I've sent it to him express post.
I just want this all to finish.

Shopping

I spent all of the weekend trawling op shops- I must have visited at least 50 stores.. It was the most concerted effort that I've put in so far to refind the toys of my childhood. It's a bit of a strange hobby, I'm fully aware of that, but it's also deeply satisfying. I was particularly happy with the progress I made this weekend:

1 hungry hungry hippos game (with the little white balls all there and the hippo mechanism still working)
1 Chitty Chitty bang bang memory card game
1 ballet fuzzy felt set and 1 zoo fuzzy felt set
1 Hanky Panky magic set.

I'm really happy with this last find- it's been high on my list of things I wanted to recover and although I've come across various loose items, I'd never seen the complete set before.

It's a good day today. Mr W is at the suppliers and so it's just Matsuko and me. I'm supposed to be translating an article for a motocross magazine- the title is: The Secret World of Gasoline so you can see why I'm not overly looking forward to working on it. The first line is "pump gas, race gas or propane?" I have no idea what the Japanese word for propane is. So I'm just letting myself be entertained by Matsuko, instead.

Matsuko is taking spray-painting lessons from a grafitti artist she met in a bar on the weekend. She showed me how her tag looks but she had to mime it, of course, as her dad would not be impressed if she sprayed paint in the office.

She looked like an elephant with an uncontrollable trunk.

We have the radio on and I'm doing some (very quiet) singing pratice. I am trying not to think about what has been going on- I know there is a way of explaining it all, but I'm not quite sure as yet what it is. I think I'm getting a cold too, but I'm dosing up on vitamin C so it should be fine.

Snotty Singing

After reading the letter from Cam I chucked it in my bag and left work to go to my singing lesson. I felt perfectly fine, I really did. I was nervous about the lesson but really excited, too.

M had made a pot of lemon tea with honey (which he said is good for warming up the throat and is what professional singers often drink as part of their prep, which made me blush- fancy thinking of my lessons as in any way associated with something professional!). We had a bit of a talk about my expectations of these lessons. I said "I just want to be able to hold a tune so I don't hate the sound of my own voice when I sing in the shower."

M thought that was funny and said "Well, that's a good starting place at any rate."

Then we started to do some warm up exercises- some scales and things. And the weirdest thing happened. Halfway through a C major scale I felt this sensation in my throat and chest and before I knew it this enormous sob had burst out of me. I had no idea where it came from or why it chose that moment to emerge. And then I was crying uncontrollably, in front of this guy that I've only met once before, when I thought I was feeling perfectly fine.

M. was amazing. He didn't try to stop me or ask me what was wrong. He just handed me an enormous hankie and poured me another tea. He didn't even make those "there there" noises that most people seem to think they should. And because I wasn't being pushed I started telling him about the horrible week I'd had with the diary and the letter from Cam. I'm so embarrassed to think about this now- he must think I'm a nutbag, but if he did, he certainly hid it well.

He eventually asked me about my family and I explained how it was only mum and me. I even told him about Stevie and how dad had left after the accident and we hadn't had any contact since. And M. said "That's a lot to be carrying around. If I were you I'd be crying all the time." This made me feel better, even if I also felt slightly fraudulent because I hadn't told him everything, of course.

After this I thought I should go home, but M. convinced me to stay. I said "I don't think I can really manage anything much at the moment" and he said "Ok, let's sing some advertising jingles." I was a bit dubious, because this didn't really seem like proper singing but it was actually a lot of fun. And by the time the hour was up I was feeling a lot better. And M. said "We'll have you singing in the shower in no time."

Our next class is on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to it.

Alphabetical Beaus

Have just thought of something odd. I've been working through the alphabet with my boyfriends.
A = Anthony
B= Brett
C = Cam

I wonder if I should start looking out for Davids and Darrens? Or should I be avoiding them?

Letter

Eventually, on Friday afternoon, I read the letter from Cam. It's convinced me that it wasn't him who sent me the diary with the erased page. It also convinced me that I made the right decision about calling off the wedding.

Dear Jess,

I hope you will at least do me the favour of reading this letter all the way through. As you know, I'm not much of a one for expressing my inner feelings and am also not great at letter writing. You should see how many versions of this are already in the bin! So I hope you understand how much effort I've gone to.

When you first left South Lake I admit that I thought "She'll be back." I guess I didn't ever really see you as a particularly strong person. You seemed to depend on me a lot to help you out. Plus you'd never lived away from home before so I was really surprised when you weren't back in a week or so.

I guess I was pretty angry at you too, as you made me look stupid in front of everyone here. I don't want to sound vain but I'm generally considered to be a good catch around here and I had a lot of girls throwing themselves at me after the word got around you'd dumped me. But the thing is, Jess, that after a month or so I realised that none of them made me feel like you did. None of them listened to me and talked about how I was feeling. I know I used to complain and tease you when you wanted to talk about this kind of thing but now I don't have it I realise that I kind of liked it. It's like a mozzie bite that annoys you at the time but once it's healed you find you still itch your leg.

So the thing is Jess that I've forgiven you now and would be happy to have you back. You should stop being so proud and just admit you made a mistake. Everybody here thinks I'm nuts for still being hung up about you but I can't help it. Richo has also said that if you want to call him he'll tell you about what a great guy I am and why we should still get married. This sounds like I'm up myself but Richo made me put it in the letter.

I'm going to stop this letter now as I'm running out of things to say. But to sum up I guess I'd say that you should stop being so stubborn and just come back and we'll forget about all of this stuff that's happened over the last year.

love you honey
Cam

ps in case you're wondering how your mum got your address someone sent it to us on a postcard but didn't put their name on it. Maybe one of your Melbourne friends who was worried about you I don't know.

I read this and thought this : whatever.

The PS, of course, has me perplexed and a little nervous. Who would do that?

Translations

I'm sure there aren't many little girls that dream of being a translator when they grow up, but I did. Admittedly, I never confessed to this publicly- I pretended I wanted to be an airline hostess or a model like all the other girls. But I was fascinated by languages very early on, particularly Japanese with its beautiful written form.

I think what initially appealed to me about being a translator was the sensation of "decoding", of finding out the meaning of a word and then changing it into another word, that conveyed the same meaning in another language. I saw it as being a code with only one solution and this was soothing and reassuring to me. Of course, after a while I realised that it wasn't quite like this; that words wriggle around between countries and take on slightly different tones, slightly different weights when they cross borders.

Words slide around and there is nothing you can do to fix them in place. And because I spend my working day reading words and thinking "how else could I express this? What else are they trying to say?" I find that this colours everything I read.

I received another mail item yesterday- a letter from my mother that contained another letter, from Cam. So I know they have my postal address now. Mum's letter was more of a note:

Jess- I've included a letter from Cam who was worried you wouldn't open it if he sent it to you directly. I think you should know that you've broken his heart and he's still grieving for you.

Blah blah blah.

I haven't read Cam's letter yet, maybe at lunchtime.

I cancelled my singing lesson last night and M. somehow convinced me to come tonight instead, although I really don't feel like it. He is one of those people with a skill for convincing you to do things you don't want to do. Typical teacher.