Hello, Harriet: how the pandemic has led me back to an old friend, and my young self | Kate Cole-Adams

In a world without coronavirus, there are conversations that might never have happened. Their nature, too, is different

• This is part of a series of essays by Australian writers responding to the challenges of 2020

Early on the morning of my 59th birthday I carry a mug across the backyard and into the studio to wait for Harriet. We haven't been in the same country in nearly a decade, but through the alignment of datelines and digital technology we create a nest of impossible time: me in Melbourne (PJs, Ugg boots, celebratory cup of tea); she at her kitchen table in Devon, England, late evening on the second anniversary of the day her husband took himself to the highest point in the small town where they had loved each other for 20 years, and jumped.

I've known Harriet since I was 11. She was friends with Jo whose twin sister was friends with me. We all lived around the corner from each other in Islington, London, where my father was posted for five years as correspondent for Melbourne's Age newspaper. I'd seen her around and had a vague idea that she might be a bit annoying. Certainly, she was exuberant (the great wide smile; the sense of all of her bounding forward at once). My reserve lasted until we found we were enrolled in the same secondary school, at which point our parents arranged a get-together and we fell in love.