The first thing we notice as we crowd around the display case is that this is the last entry in the diary. There are no more pages after this.

“This is it,” says Lael. “Our last chance. If this doesn’t tell us what we want to know, I don’t know what will.”

“It was written a few months after the last entry,” says Ms Waise. “About eighteen months before she died, the poor girl.”

“It’s quite long,” I say. “And the handwriting is tiny.”

We each take a picture with our phones and then retire to the Sisulu House common room to read it. I sit down in the chair that Jim always used to sit in. I’d come into the common room, and there he’d be, checking out the girls in the quad through the window. Probably making inappropriate comments about them, too.

I wonder if this was the chair he died in. It certainly looks ancient enough.

Then I open the photo and I start to read.

Dear Diary
March 1969

I hardly know what to make of what just happened. My mother tells me not to worry – that it’s all nonsense – but I’m not sure. But let me tell you from the beginning.

I have been going to the Sandra Pullmann Secretarial College in Brits during the day, and doing my homework at night. It hasn’t been easy, although I haven’t complained to my parents. I know they have been through a lot and that they don’t deserve a moaning, ungrateful daughter to add to their problems.

I did a bad thing and I deserve all the punishment I have got for it. If I hadn’t been bad, my baby wouldn’t have been taken away from me and I wouldn’t have had to leave school. It is all my fault and I must face the consequences.

I know I am lucky to have this second chance in life and that I must work hard and not mess it up. I am lucky that my baby is being brought up by a wonderful, kind family who will be good to her – much better than I could ever have been.

It is just my ungrateful nature that makes me cry sometimes and feel so much pain. My mother says so, and of course she is right. It is time for me to pull myself together and start behaving better. I think I am managing during the day, but at night I don’t have as much control. I often wake up crying. I don’t always remember what I’m dreaming about, but there is usually a baby crying in the distance and I can’t seem to get to her.

I fear I am rambling, dear Diary. Probably because I don’t want to write about what happened. But I must and I will, because it is important.

Two days ago, I was taking my lunch break after my morning classes at Sandra Pullmann. We get an hour for lunch. I normally make my sandwiches the night before and take them into college in a brown bag. I go outside to eat them on a bench in a little park close to the college. Sometimes, one of the girls comes with me, and sometimes I am on my own.

Officially the college knows nothing of what happened to me, but sometimes I wonder if they suspect. Most of the girls are eighteen, you see, Diary, and I am just sixteen. They know I dropped out of high school and they probably suspect that I might have got into Trouble. Still, nobody has said anything, which is a relief.

Two days ago, I was sitting on my favourite bench in the park eating my sandwiches when someone came to sit next to me. Oh, Diary! You will never guess who it was! I thought my heart would leap out of my chest in a single bound.
It was Jim!

I remembered that school holidays were starting, and of course he lives near here. How I managed to keep calm, I will never know. I wanted to scream and cry, and hug him, and…
Well, of course I did none of those things. There were people all around us, after all – including people from the college who would certainly report me if they saw me fraternising with a boy during college hours.

I asked him how he was and he said he was well. He said I looked pretty – prettier than he remembered. Oh, Diary! Wasn’t that lovely of him? Jim Grey called me pretty. He hadn’t spoken so kindly to me in such a long time.

He asked me what I was doing and I told him all about my college course, and how I was going to be a qualified secretary when it was finished, so I could get a good job and save my parents the expense of looking after me.

I kept glancing at him, dear Diary, at his dear face. It seemed to me that he did not look well. He was pale and his hair was unkempt. He who had always taken such pride in his own appearance. His manner seemed subdued to me too – almost depressed.

There was a long pause between us, Diary, and I knew he was steeling himself to ask me about the baby. I was sure he would be pleased to hear that she had been placed in a good family.

“So … um … what did you have in the end?” he asked. “Was it a boy, or … or a girl?”

“It was a little girl,” I said.

“A girl…”

Diary, I wish I could describe the look that came over his face at that moment. It was as though he were struggling with himself, as though he longed to give way to the tender-ness within, but didn’t know how.

“A little girl,” he repeated. “A daughter.”

I couldn’t help smiling, although the words were melancholy to me.

“Yes,” I said. “You are the father of a daughter.”

“We still won’t pay anything,” he said quickly. “Don’t think you can go bleeding my father dry. He’s wise to those tricks. But I might want to see her, you know. If that happens, you must make the necessary arrangements.”

I told him then, Diary, as gently as I could, what had happened to her, what had happened to my darling little Meggie. There was a long silence and his face was unreadable.

“Good,” he said at last. “That’s good. I’m glad.”

But, Diary, he did not look glad at all. He looked shocked. Whatever he had been expecting me to say, this was not it. He sank into an attitude of deep thought.

Several times he turned towards me as if to say something, but no words came. He did not know how to express what he was feeling. I noticed that the back of his neck was dirty, Diary, and that a sour smell rose when he moved. He had not been taking care of himself.

I tried to be cheerful and talked about how the baby was with a loving family, just as my parents had reminded me, but it didn’t seem to help. He became increasingly withdrawn.
My lunch hour was running out, but then he began talking so recklessly, I couldn’t leave him. Diary, it shocked me to my core, but he said things that made me believe he had been thinking about self-harm. It was as though he could no longer see the point of his existence.

I would have taken all this as the ravings of an exhausted mind, but the more I looked at him, the more I could see how he had changed – how thin he had become, and how he was neglecting himself. This wasn’t the same boy I had left behind at Brentwood College all those months ago.

He started talking about how he would do it, if he were to end his own life. He said he would take Valium pills from his mother, and whisky from his father, and consume them together. He said that would “do the trick”.

Oh, Diary. I started sobbing at this point. I couldn’t help it. And I’m glad I did because it seemed to recall him to himself. He stopped ranting about killing himself, and put an arm around me instead. He said I wasn’t to pay any attention to him because he was just talking nonsense, and of course he would never do anything to hurt himself.

Then he stood up abruptly and walked away, without even saying goodbye. It took me many minutes to compose myself sufficiently to return to college. I was late for my shorthand class.

Diary, I have been filled with dread ever since. I told my mother, and she said that people who talk about killing themselves never actually do it, and that he was just looking for attention. I want to believe her, Diary, I really do, but I can’t help feeling terrified.

If anything were to happen to Jim, I don’t think I would survive it.

Love,

Amelia

***