My friend Blanche d’Alpuget often spoke to me about death. She once likened it to ‘untying a million little knots’ | Derek Rielly

The woman so pivotal in Australian literature and politics blew into my orbit in a tornado of Doris Day hair and Sophia Loren lips in the winter of 2016 Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Thirty-six hours before Blanche took her last breath , I negotiated the plastic tubes and mask she wore over a still beautiful face and gave her one final kiss. I wasn’t sure, then, if i