Across the miles

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Ten years ago, Jacqui McKeand made a long-distance phone call to a Swiss bank in the middle of the night as part of her job as a futures administrator. “I had a problem with my Swiss trading position so I just needed someone to fix it,” she recalls. There was nothing extraordinary that set this overseas call apart from the many others she made each night, except that this one was about to change her destiny.

At the same time, thousands of miles away in Switzerland, a 23-year-old lad named Florian was going about his business as a futures account manager when his phone rang. “It was a woman’s voice speaking English... She told me she was from Australia and asked me what the weather was like in Switzerland,” he recalls. “So I asked her what the weather was like in Australia and there was this instant friendliness, which made the business side more enjoyable.”

As the pair began to chat casually amid their business dealings, they both realised there was more than just professional pleasantry between them. “It’s always a novelty to talk to someone on the other side of the world but there seemed to be an immediate friendly chemistry between us,” explains Jacqui. “We started talking about all sorts of things... it was easy and natural.”

When the phone call finally ended, both Jacqui and Florian were left with a strange but pleasant buzz, not to mention a niggling urge to call the other again. The next night, Florian gave in to that urge and phoned Jacqui at work. Over the next couple of weeks, Jacqui looked forward to her night shifts where she could spend a few minutes talking with the friendly young man from Switzerland. The pair soon developed a long-distance friendship and decided to exchange personal phone numbers so they could continue their conversations after work. “We’d spend hours on the phone at home talking about our lives, our dreams, our relationships,” says Jacqui. “Sometimes, we’d talk about things we perhaps couldn’t talk about with our local friends... I just felt safe and comfortable with him because we had nothing to lose and no repercussions.”

As time went on the calls became almost a nightly occurrence and the phone bills began to mount. “Sometimes we’d be on the phone from the moment I came home until I went to bed; the [phone] bills were around $1,200 a month – and that was in 1996!” Jacqui laughs.

The pair also exchanged gifts, but it didn’t occur to either one of them to exchange photographs for quite some time. “I didn’t know what she looked like but I didn’t care,” says Florian. “She was a good friend and we could just be ourselves without all the pressure of physical attraction.” When they finally did swap photos, both were impressed. “I thought she was very cute,” says Florian.

To anyone on the outside, Jacqui and Florian were obviously a young couple falling in love. But despite their growing chemistry, neither of them admitted their feelings to the other, or even to themselves. The pair continued in blissful denial of their feelings for many months, but finally decided to meet up while they were watching the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympic Games ‘together’ over the telephone. “We made a bet about which of our two countries was going to take out the most medals at the Olympics, and whoever lost would have to take the other person on a trip somewhere in the world,” explains Jacqui. “I knew Australia would beat Switzerland, and I think Flo did too!”

Florian made good on his bet and booked flights and accommodation for the two of them to Hamilton Island in Queensland’s Whitsundays. “It felt like we were about to have an adventure and there was no real romantic pressure; just two friends meeting up,” explains Florian. “But I was a little more excited than if I was meeting up with a male friend, I think.” In the months that followed, the lead-up to their rendezvous triggered the same excitement in Jacqui, along with a few nervous twinges. “I was looking forward to meeting him but I knew this wasn’t quite the same as meeting up with an old girlfriend and I was also aware that this would change the dynamics of our friendship so it was a bit of a risk.”

As the countdown to their holiday approached, fate stepped in. Jacqui was suddenly swept off her feet by a young Australian man. “I told Flo I’d met someone straight away and he seemed happy for me. I guess that’s how much denial we were both in.”

The pair decided to go ahead with their holiday plans, but when Jacqui told her new Australian boyfriend about her Swiss friend, he was not impressed. “He didn’t like the idea of me meeting up with a guy and I completely understood how he felt so I told Flo I had to call it off... I offered to buy the tickets from him.”

While Florian was disappointed by the decision, he understood Jacqui’s position. “I was sad that my holiday and chance to meet Jacqui in person had been cancelled, but I understood how it must seem from this new man’s point of view. It wasn’t a terrible blow.”

A terrible blow did come a few weeks later however, when Jacqui’s new boyfriend told her he didn’t like her liaising with Florian at all. “I told him [the new boyfriend] that Flo and I were just friends, but I put myself in his shoes... I had to respect his feelings.” Nevertheless, saying goodbye to Florian was one of the hardest things Jacqui had ever had to do. “I remember saying the words and I felt so sad and guilty to be ending such a good friendship.” Hearing her say goodbye was also one of the hardest things Florian had ever experienced. “It was not a good day. Every phone call we’d had since the beginning was always full of laughing but now there was no laughing,” he says. The first month without their phone calls was the hardest for them both. “I missed her calls but I knew the message was clear,” says Florian.

Five years after saying goodbye to Florian, Jacqui married the boyfriend who had come between them. In the meantime, Florian also married. Although they occasionally thought about each other, Jacqui and Florian never made contact during those years. “When I broke up with my first girlfriend I thought about calling Jacqui and going for a visit to Australia, but I decided against it,” says Florian.

Ultimately though, fate stepped into Jacqui’s life. “I found out my husband was being dishonest with me,” she explains. “I left him fourteen months after we married.” A year later, in April 2003, Jacqui was feeling good about her life again and decided to catch up with some old workmates. As they chatted, a fond memory from seven years before popped into Jacqui’s mind. “I suddenly remembered that first phone call with Florian,” she says. “I had this overwhelming urge to call him.”

Words: Linda Peatling. Photography: Sam McAdams.