450

They all looked at each other, and then smiled simultaneously. 

“We are a silly bunch of plonkers aren’t we?” observed Eleanor.  “Going on an outing and talking of our sorrows.”

“I always mistrusted people who only talk about happy things life is so full of sorrow and what are friends for but to share our losses who else is there?”  Lucasta’s comment was so like her, so elliptical and wandering and yet to the point that Jason couldn’t help smiling at her.

“Don’t die yet, grandam.”

“I’ll try not to,” replied Lucasta drily.

“This visit here brought back memories of my son Bart.  We used to come here often.”

Lucasta looked at Eleanor and her eyes were so kind and wise that Eleanor found herself telling the other woman the whole story.

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449

“Yes, I feel that about Bolt, too.”

“I’ll look after him, Eleanor.  You don’t have to worry.”

Eleanor gave him a sad smile.  She had been put into a melancholy mood by the memories which crowded into her head. 

“Well, one day you’ll go back to England,” she said.

“No.  Not to live.  To visit grandam and my sister.  Yes.  But … no.  I want to stay here.  People here … people have made me welcome.  I’ve made some true friends.  Eleanor, I feel at home here.  As if I have a new family.  Who love me for what I am, or anyway, despite what I am, without judging.  You, and Key and Lou and Esmé.  Australians have been so welcoming and kind.”  He looked at his grandmother.  “You know what mum’s like, grandam.”

“So fussed about status and who you know and who you are but in the end what matters is who loves you and who is your friend your real friend.  I loved your grandfather very much but that was more because we were thrown together and I loved him though he could be tiresome but the basis was always love though it helped that we were from the same circles but with you and Brent I could see how much you loved it other and I just wish …”

Jason couldn’t speak.  He smiled at her, his eyes wet.

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448

Esther before Ahasuerus, by Valentin Lefevre

At the vineyard’s restaurant, they talked about neutral simple things until they had all ordered and had a couple of sips of champagne.

Lucasta had seen the hug Jason had given Eleanor, and she’d wondered.  She was too polite to quiz either of them about it.  And Jason didn’t want to say anything—it was Eleanor’s secret.

“I’ve offered to work for a couple of hours at the bar tonight,” he said looking from one face to the other.  “Between nine and eleven.  That’s when it’s busiest and Keith could do with my help.”

“Oh, my dear, I expect we’ll both be in bed when you get back.”

“Well, I’ll try not to wake you up!”  Turning to his grandmother he said, “When I first started to stay at Majorca Flats, Bolt would bark when I came home.  He has such acute hearing, it didn’t matter how quiet I was, he always heard me and would get so excited.  But I managed to train him not to bark.  He’s very intelligent.”

“Fox terriers are,” said his grandmother, “such clever nervy little dogs, almost like people really.  I have some friends who are less intelligent than my own dog.”

Eleanor laughed.  “What sort of dog do you have?”

“A little Pekingese.  I used to have a Siamese cat called Ahasuerus but he died.  Such a dignified and intelligent animal.”

“I remember,” said Jason.  He’d loved Ahasuerus, but Parker had adored the cat, even more than his grandmother.  “Why didn’t you get another cat, grandam?”

“You can’t just go out and buy a new kitten or puppy when you lose the one you’ve got.  They’re not interchangeable, dear.  And anyway I’m old.  I don’t want them to grieve for me when I’m gone.”

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447

On the way back to the car, Eleanor was looking pensive and a little sad. Jason slipped his arm through hers.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s an old pain, my dear, but it never goes away.  The last time I came here was with Bart.  Not long before …. he died.  And what your grandmother said made me think about how we keep on trying to force people to conform.  At such cost.”

“Yes,” he said.  “I’m sorry.  We shouldn’t have come.”

“Oh no, not at all.  Bart would have been glad we came.  I often wonder whether he would have got on with you.  I would have liked that.”

Jason remembered Bart’s diary, which, with all the dramas of the last few days, he had not read recently.  He resolved to read some more when they got home later.  It had been painful reading about Bart’s horrible life at school. About his loneliness, about the relentless mockery and bullying, knowing all the time what was going to happen.  But he owed it to Eleanor to read on, onto the end.  He owed it to himself too, because it was his own arrogance which had led him to desert Brent just when he was needed most.  And he would never be able to undo that.  What he had to do is try harder to be more genuinely compassionate and to care about his friends instead of seeing everything through a self-centred prism.  And Eleanor was his friend.

“Yes, it would.”  Impulsively he put his other arm round her and hugged her.

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Nikolaos' Place: Just lovin' ya

Nikolaos' Place: Just lovin' ya: Keith and Luigi, perhaps.

446

It was a perfect sunny autumn day, not too hot, with the trees in the countryside on the way to Healesville just beginning to turn, and leaves strewing the dry late summer grasses with splashes of colour.

Jason and his grandmother found the animal sanctuary fascinating.  There were kangaroos, stretched out on the grass, from the largest, the grey roo, through to small wallabies.  In a vast aviary, built outdoors out of chicken wire mesh and steel poles, they caught sight of wedge-tailed eagles, and in the darkened aquarium, though there weren’t many platypuses visible, they did see one or two darting across from one hidey-hole in the mud banks to another.

Jason could tell that his grandmother was starting to tire, so he was pleased when Eleanor announced that lunch was booked for 12.30 and they had better head off to the estate.

“So remarkable, animals quite unlike anything in the rest of the world it does make you wonder about God’s plan and all those fundamentalists who believe things should be the way they think and everybody else must conform I’m surprised they haven’t seen fit to declare platypuses and abomination laying eggs and with bills like ducks but still mammals Canon Green would find it most intriguing I must remember to write to him such a dear man but a little absent minded.”

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445

Lucasta and Eleanor agreed that a visit to the Healesville Animal Sanctuary would be interesting.

“Are you over your jetlag, grandam?”

“Such an interesting thing as if your soul is left behind no wonder primitive people mistrust lifts and cameras though the earth travels through space much faster than a jet doesn’t it and yet we don’t feel jetlagged but maybe we have a bond to the place we are like that Dr Thingumtight with his rituals and bright green turban so unflattering to his skin colour though lovely on an Indian or African I saw a few like that in Malaya lovely.”

“Is that a yes, grandam?” asked Jason, smiling slyly.

“Oh well yes of course I had such a lovely sleep and now I feel almost young again so nice but I want to write a letter to Parker though when she’ll get it is another question as she’s gone down to Cornwall with Mr Minim and I know it’s silly but I do worry about spring gales but I can write later so why not what fun.”

“The Domaine Chandon estate is on the way.  Perhaps we can have lunch there,” suggested Eleanor placidly.  “I’ll book, shall I?”

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