This is one hell of a story. For those who haven't read Cate Kennedy, she is an Australian poet, author, and short story writer. She has just written her first novel, The World Beneath, which Jo Case described as "a thought-provoking journey into contemporary Australia". Cate Kennedy is also the only person I know of that has won The Age Short Story Competition twice (!),  and in reading What Thou and I Did, Till We Loved, it's not hard to see how she pulled it off...