How the wrong set of keys at a Sydney rental inspection sparked a lasting friendship

A chance encounter sparked a deep, long-lasting friendship between educator Bee Solomon, 38, and quantum physicist Dr Xanthe Croot, 36.

XANTHE: We might not have met if it weren’t for a wrong set of keys. We were both waiting outside a rundown terrace in [Sydney’s] Glebe for a rental inspection on a sweltering November day in 2009. The agent had brought the wrong keys and we started chatting. We were both churchgoers at the time, recognising each other from St Barnabas on Broadway; we were also both in our second year at Sydney Uni. Bee had to rush off to another inspection: she offered to tell me what that place was like if I told her what this place was like, which was pretty bad.

Bee contacted me on Facebook about a much nicer, but more expensive, house, imagining that because I was a law student staying at St Andrew’s College, I came from a wealthy family. What she didn’t know was that I was on a scholarship and came from a struggling farming family who’d been experiencing years of drought.

Bee and I stayed in that house for the next nine years as a roster of flatmates came and went. We had such great times. I’d come home from being in a lab all day to find Bee and our flatmates watching The Bachelorette; I’d sit down and fire off emails to the producers complaining about the show’s sexism.

Bee threw the best dinner parties – she’d hang fairy lights and cook amazing dishes – and often play guitar and sing; she had loads of creative friends. Before a big date, she’d sweep into my room in a range of different outfits, asking me which one looked best. Whatever it was she was wearing, I  knew I could never look as good.

Bee lives with a chronic, complex health condition. When she first got sick, we didn’t know what was happening to her. She went from running marathons to spending months in bed, barely able to move. I used to drag my mattress into her room so we could talk whenever she felt up to it.

In 2018, within months of finishing my physics PhD, a job came up at Princeton [University, in the US] that I couldn’t turn down. All the same, I felt I was abandoning my friend at a time when she was facing incredible hardship. I wrote her a letter, telling her that I felt as if I was leaving a part of myself behind.

I’ve honestly never known anyone as kind as Bee. Once, when I was home on a visit, Bee was dropping me off at the train station when we saw this woman, deeply distressed, getting off the train. It had been delayed and she’d, apparently, missed the bus to a prison, about 90 minutes away, where she was due to visit a loved one. Incredibly – I knew how tired she was – Bee drove her there.

I came back to Australia four years ago to take up a position at Sydney University [Croot is director of its Superconducting Quantum Circuits Laboratory and has been awarded a Westpac Research Fellowship] and immediately caught a train to a coastal town in the Illawarra region where Bee was staying at the time. She met me at the station. There she was in her van, with her rescue dog, Trooper, and surfboard in the back. Even with her health challenges, she’s always been physically more adventurous than me, always encouraging me to step outside my comfort zone.

BEE: There were lots of people outside the inspection on the day I met Xanthe. I didn’t have time to wait; I had to see another place, so we agreed to swap notes. I rode my bike to this house in Hereford Street, which was clean and spacious, but more expensive. We ended up staying there for almost a decade.

Our friendship wasn’t based on partying or clubbing but shared values and interests. We both grew up in Christian families and, although we haven’t been to church for years, I do think it fundamentally shaped who we are.

We shared everything in that house: uni course changes – Xanthe from law to physics, me from med science to education – a health crisis, a succession of housemates, excitement over new partners, new jobs. Our conversations, from the personal to the big issues like feminism and politics, lasted for hours. I relished listening to her play the piano; whenever we went somewhere and there was a piano, she’d play it, classical mostly.

When I became ill – the condition that I have affects multiple systems in my body – my world shrank almost overnight. Xanthe was finishing her PhD at the time, yet for three months she dragged her mattress into my room and slept beside me.

When she was offered a fellowship at Princeton I was so thrilled for her, but I knew it meant the end of an era. Before she left she gave me a letter, which I read in a cafe, crying, after dropping her at the airport; her feelings mirrored mine.

Our friendship didn’t weaken while she was away; we spoke every Sunday and exchanged letters and cards. I wasn’t well enough to visit her there but, on a visit back for a wedding, Xanthe came to stay with me. It poured for seven days and we barely left the couch. I’d missed her – and her laugh – so much.

Over the years, whenever my health affected my ability to work, Xanthe would transfer money into my account with the reference, “Snacky snacks”, which helped cover the cost of my medication. My illness significantly affects where I can live and work. Wherever I’ve ended up over the years, Xanthe has made the effort to travel to be with me. In January this year, I had a miscarriage; my medication affected the pain relief I’d been given and I was in agony. Xanthe stayed for a week, sleeping on the lounge beside me.

She’s a brilliant quantum physicist, artist and pianist, among many other things. It seems almost unfair that one person should be so talented. But remarkable as her intellect and talents are, they’re not the qualities I admire most. During a visit to her family once, I saw a quote she’d pinned to the wall of her childhood bedroom: “The making of a true genius does not consist of a lofty intelligence. Love, love, love – that is the soul of a genius.” It struck me as incredibly apt.

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