Many writers have shared their thoughts with the public:

"There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you." - Beatrix Potter

"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." - Anaïs Nin

"Sharing your writing, being enlarged by others' writing, is what makes you feel famous." - Gretchen Bernabei

"Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth." - Edna Ferber

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." - Ben Franklin

"One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones to form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment." - Hart Crane

"There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can agree what they are." - W. Somerset Maugham

Wombok Story

The highpoint of our relationship was when we bought a cabbage together. We’d been seeing each other for about a month by then. If there was ever a moment when I thought I might marry George, it was when he said, "I’ll carry it," and walked with me back to my car, cabbage in one hand, my hand in the other.

We’d met one night in early October when I’d ended up in a pub with some friends of an old school friend who’d gone home hours ago. Somebody’s boyfriend turned up partway through the evening and brought a few more of his own friends, and somehow I got introduced to them all as Angela, which isn’t at all my name. And George – very tall, wearing a corduroy jacket – got introduced as someone who did a very good impression of a lizard. "Let’s see it then!" I said, having just downed another glass of the Long Island Iced Tea that somebody kept buying jugfuls of. But George didn’t hear and was already on his way to find the bathrooms.

A bit later, when I decided I’d better spend some of my own money, I walked up to the bar and found him there too. He said, "Oh, hey Angela," collected his beer, and left.

I only talked to him once more that night. As I was putting on my jacket to leave, he said, "Catch you later, Angela." He was smiling at me, and for a moment I stood there and smiled back at him and wondered whether it was too late to ask to see the lizard impression. I decided it was and waved goodbye.

Over the next few days, I kept thinking about George from time to time, and eventually decided I might as well do something about it. So I asked my school friend who asked her friend who asked her boyfriend about him, and it was established that George had gone to uni with the boyfriend. The boyfriend talked to George and back up the grapevine came George’s phone number. I held onto it for a couple days, then sent him a message to say that I’d been the girl in the orange dress and was just getting in contact to say that my name wasn’t actually Angela.

The first time we met up he came and waited for me at the department store where I’d been spritzing old ladies with Chanel all day. "Sorry about the widow’s weeds," I said as we walked to dinner. "It's the uniform."

George coughed. "One thing you should know if we’re going to be seeing each other. You will never be able to meet my Uncle Ken. He’s allergic to all fragrances."

"Well, you can’t meet my Uncle Albert, because he’s dead," I said. "So we’re even."

Halfway through our meal that night, as George was telling me about a dream he’d had in which he’d become engaged to Vincent Van Gogh, some friends of George’s parents walked into the restaurant. George tried to hide behind the floral centrepiece, but they spotted him and he was forced to introduce me. I was thrilled.

"Don’t you think that’s the fun part?" I said to him as we were leaving. "The rumours start to spread and for a little while we’re like minor celebrities."

"Ugh," said George. We stepped outside and he offered me his corduroy jacket. "Mum will be ringing up next."

We met up several more times over the next few weeks. If my shift ended early, I sometimes went and met him at the government library where he worked. We usually just got dinner – I think we were both relieved that neither of us wanted to snorkel with cuttlefish or take pottery classes.

Then one Saturday I said I’d cook for him at my place. We thought it might be fun if we went to the markets together first, so I drove us into town while he read through my shopping list.

"What’s a wombok?" he said.

"It’s a Chinese cabbage," I said. "I’m trying something new. By the way, Marnie was saying the four of us should do something."

"Marnie?"

"You know, Chris’s girlfriend. She told you my name was Angela. We’ve been talking."

"Right."

"Oh, do you know Chris’s friend Tommo? Marnie was saying that apparently he’s moving to England for some girl he met while playing online videogames. Don’t you think that’s insane?"

"I think I heard something about it," said George. "How do you know Tommo?"

"Oh, I don’t. Never met him. But don’t you think that’s fascinating? He’s packing up his whole life."

George shrugged. "Good for him. What do womboks look like?"

"Not sure," I said. "Guess we’re about to find out."

At the market we found all the other ingredients, then went to track down a wombok. We spotted some eventually: lined up in a row and all the size and weight of small children. "How much cabbage do you need?" asked George.

I looked at the list again. "The recipe said one wombok." I picked one up, forced it into a plastic bag, and went to pay for it.

"I can’t see where my feet are going," I said as I carried it back over to where George was standing.

He laughed. "I’ll carry it."

We dropped it as I was handing it over and George bent down to pick it up. "Keep your back straight and bend your knees," I said.

He settled it into the crook of one arm, grinned at me, and reached for my hand. I laughed the whole way back to my car. By the time we got to the carpark George’s glasses had slid down to the end of his nose and I had to push them back onto his face for him.

I don’t remember much of our dinner that night, except that it only used a fraction of the cabbage. That was the only time I cooked for him – we went back to restaurant dinners in the following weeks. We never did get together with Chris and Marnie. Slowly I came to realise that I would have to break up with him.

One Sunday in late November I asked if we could meet for coffee. When we sat down with our drinks, I delivered the bad news. He just nodded for a while. Then he sighed and said he would like to know why.

I said, "We had fun for sure. I just don’t think we quite click. We’re quite different people, you know?"

He said, "Are we?"

I didn’t know how to say that I’d realised I was more excited at the idea of meeting his friends or his family soon than I was to go on another date just the two of us – that I wanted to meet his parents’ friends, Tommo’s British girlfriend, even Uncle Ken.

"I thought we had a lot in common," said George.

"We do," I said. I sipped my coffee and tried to think of something else to say. "Maybe it’s just little things. Like…how you’re always talking about your dreams."

George put his cup down. "My dreams are extremely interesting. You said so yourself."

"Well, I don’t think I went quite that far," I said. "It was more like, you said that Vincent had both ears still when he gave you the ring, and I said, 'Huh, interesting'."

George blinked at me. "So it’s the dreams. That’s why this is over."

"No," I sighed. "I wouldn’t say that’s the main reason. I just…don’t think we’re going to work long-term." We were quiet for a while.

"I’m still not sure I understand what you’re getting at," said George finally. "But whatever. Since we’re doing this, I might as well say there were things I found annoying about you too. You’re very gossipy. Always wanting to talk about people’s personal lives. It got boring."

"I think that’s unfair," I said. "But see? Maybe we’re just not suited for each other."

George sighed. "Maybe."

We stayed until we’d finished our drinks and parted with a handshake. I watched him walk away, and I had a moment of regret as I realised that in all our time together I’d never remembered to ask him to do his lizard impression.

That night when I opened the fridge to make dinner I stood and stared at the wombok for a while. It was still there, and somehow still as good as the day we bought it. I cut off a chunk to add to the soup I was making, which I ate in front of the TV. I watched half of a show about trees, and wondered what George was doing.

I never heard another word from him, and I only missed him once. I was at work, saying, "Have a nice day!" to a woman who’d just bought a present for her mother, and I was still holding the EFTPOS machine. For a second I stood there and felt quite happy, and wondered why. Then I looked down and realised it was because the EFTPOS machine was warm from overuse and about the same size as a human hand. Nauseated, I dropped it back onto the counter and vowed that I would stop being foolish.

While my feelings for George went away quite quickly, the wombok hung around for weeks. It went in stir-fries, in salads, and once in a strange, improvised coleslaw that ended up mostly in the bin. Finally, one day when my school friend had dropped in and decided to stay for dinner, I made one final soup with the last of the cabbage.

"You know what’s crazy?" I said to my friend, holding up a piece of wombok on my spoon. "I bought this while I was still with George." My friend made a face like she wanted to spit her mouthful of soup back into the bowl.

"Don’t worry," I said. "I don’t know how, but it stayed fresh the whole time. It’s all gone now. I should look up how long I had it." I got out my phone and did some calculations. "Bloody hell," I said. "Two months." I looked at my friend and shook my head. "A Chinese cabbage lasted longer than my relationship."

I’m grateful for my time with George, because the wombok story turned out to be a good anecdote at parties, and it got to be pretty well known. If I was out with friends, or with friends of friends, and the topic of relationships came up, as it does, someone would often say, "Tell the one about that guy and the cabbage that lasted longer than your relationship."

Sometimes I wonder whether it ever got back to George, that he was coming to be known as the wombok guy, or whether he ever found out about the second half of the story. If ever I see him again, I intend to tell him all about it.