'Letter from Maningrida' by Mary Ellen Jordan

I’m not keen to be at this dinner party at Carol’s. I find her hard to take sometimes, with her endless stories about her life in Maningrida. Her husband is away. Instead, there’s Graham, who’s been here nearly ten years; Laurie, who has visited the community from time to time since the 1970s; and Lisa, who is a few years older than me and who runs the art centre where I work. Five of us at a round table eating curry and rice and chapatis. Conversation meanders along at dinners like these. We’re not a naturally coherent group of people. These are not people I’d eat with normally.