I was going to tell you a funny story today but I find that I can’t because I’m thinking about Joseph, my Hungarian lover from my younger days, who died too young of a stroke in June, and whose ashes were scattered in the Brisbane River at six-thirty this morning (English time). Joseph’s friend, Delene, who found me on the Internet and wrote to me with the sad news, arranged a memorial service for this morning and even put up a poster in West End (where Joseph lived), inviting those who knew him to come along and pay their respects.

I would have loved to have seen Joseph again before he died, just to talk as old lovers without all the emotion and heat yet with the bond you retain as a result of all that emotion and fire, but it didn’t happen. I missed him. But although I had left him long ago, I always kept him, if you know what I mean…

There was a photograph of Joseph on the poster; his face was rounder and softer in middle-age, and I fancy he looked less edgy and tough than he did in our day. Now, after my tears (quietly, while no-one was looking) I’m feeling a bit peculiar and not especially jocular. Think I’ll leave that funny story to another time.