Page 116 of The Pearl Sister
‘Yes.’
There were more pauses and staring, and I realised he didn’t know how to play this moment any more than I did, because we both knew it was BIG.
‘Can I take some water?’ he asked me, indicating the fridge. I was thankful that he’d broken the moment, but also wondered why he was askingme.After all, he was an ‘elder’, whatever that meant, so I was pretty certain that he could take as much water as he wanted.
I watched him stride over to the chiller cabinet. The way he walked and then stretched out a muscled arm to pull open the glass door belied how old Phil had told me he was. How could this strong, vital man be in his seventies? He was far more Crocodile Dundee than OAP, which he confirmed as he used the lightest touch of his thumb and forefinger to screw off the bottle cap. I watched as he drank deeply, perhaps using the gesture to play for time and think what to say.
Having drained the bottle, he threw it in the bin, then turned to me once more.
‘I sent you that photograph,’ he said. ‘I hoped you’d come.’
‘Oh, thanks.’
A long silence ensued, before he gave a deep sigh, a small shake of his head, then walked around the counter to me.
‘Celaeno . . . come and give your grandfather a hug.’
As there wasn’t room to actually go anywhere in the tiny, confined space behind the counter, I just reached forward to him and he took me in his arms. My head lay against his heart and I heard it thumping steadily in his chest, feeling his life force. And his love.
We both wiped away a surreptitious tear when we eventually parted. He whispered something in a language I didn’t understand, then looked heavenward. As he was closer now, I could see fine wrinkles criss-crossing his skin and ropes of sinew in his neck, which revealed that he was older than my first impression had suggested.
‘I’m sure you have a lot of questions,’ he said.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Where’s Phil?’
‘Gone off to look for snakes in the . . . dunny.’
‘Well, I’m sure he won’t mind if we use his sleeping hut to chat.’ He held out his arm. ‘Come, we’ve got lots to talk about.’
Phil’s sleeping hut was just as it said on the tin. A small, low-ceilinged room with an ancient fan dangling above a rough wooden bed that boasted only a sleeping bag on top of the stained mattress. Francis opened the door that led from the bedroom onto a shady veranda beyond it. He pulled out an old wooden chair for me, which wobbled as he placed it down.
‘Sit?’ he asked.
‘Thanks.’ As I sat down, I saw the view in front of me immediately made up for any lack of facilities inside. Uninterrupted red desert in the foreground rolled down to a creek. On the other side of it, a small line of silver-green shrubs that depended on sucking out the limited water supply to stay alive grew along the edges. And beyond that . . . well, there was nothing until the red land met the blue horizon.
‘I lived along that creek for a while. Many of us did. In, but out, if you understand what I mean.’
I didn’t, but I nodded anyway. It dawned on me then that I stood at the junction of two cultures which were still struggling to come to terms with each other two hundred years on. Australia – and I – were only young and trying to work ourselves out. We were making progress, but then making mistakes, because we didn’t have centuries of wisdom and the experience of age to guide us.
I felt instinctively that the man sitting opposite me had more wisdom than most. I raised my eyes to meet his again.
‘Ah, Celaeno, where should we begin?’ He steepled his fingers and looked at that distant horizon.
‘You tell me.’
‘Y’know,’ he said, turning his gaze back to me, ‘I never imagined this day would come. So many moments that one wishes for don’t.’
‘I know,’ I agreed, wishing I could place his strange accent, because it was a mixture of so many different intonations that every time I thought I’d cracked it, I knew I was wrong. There was Australian, English and I even thought I recognised a hint of German.
‘So, you received the letter and the photograph from the solicitor in Adelaide?’ he prompted.
‘I did, yes.’
‘And the amount that went with it?’
‘Yes. Thank you, it was really kind of you, if it was you that sent it.’
