Read Online Eden by Dorothy Johnston - Free Book Online

Three female members of the Assembly sat side by side, with an air about them of getting through an ordeal together. I wondered what they’d thought of Carmichael. Everyone I’d talked to so far had agreed that Dollimore was the only MLA he’d been close to in the last few years.
    There were no Federal politicians. I checked the backs of heads again, then scrutinised the rows behind me to make sure. If the circum­stances surrounding Carmichael’s death hadn’t kept away his immediate associates, they had discouraged those with national agendas.
    The chapel was air-conditioned, but the heat outside was making itself felt. A woman at one end of the row in front of me shook out a bamboo fan and began waving it slowly in front of her heavily made-up face. A man padded his white handkerchief fussily into a square and mopped his brow. Extra chairs were lined up along the walls.
    I found Laura Scott behind the politicians, in a short-sleeved black dress that set off her tan. Dark hair dove-tailed charmingly against her neck. Two rows back from her, Chris Laskaris took off the jacket of his suit and placed it across his knees, then lifted his head in Laura’s direction.
    Still mourners kept arriving. The small foyer was full. Others stood outside, along the chapel’s glass wall, under dark-green awnings. Whoever had decided on the venue had seriously underestimated how many would turn up.
    A woman three seats along from me said, ‘Look at that. She’s got a hide, I must say.’ She’d spoken in the kind of hissing undertone that carries well. Heads turned. Margot Lancaster had joined the congregation at the back.
    If she’d heard the insult, then she gave no sign. She kept her head raised, eyes fixed on the coffin. Her skin was paler than the chapel walls, her lips the colour of deeply oxygenated blood. She was dressed entirely in black, her short hair once more resembling a helmet. Whatever else she might be, Margot was a woman who knew how to play a part, and face down the prurient and hostile glances she must have anticipated.
    My legs were sweating. I had no one to impress, and was glad I’d had the sense not to get dressed up. Still, Ivan would have laughed if he could have seen me. He didn’t understand my interest in Carmichael. In his last email, he’d said he didn’t think the pittance Electronic Freedom was paying us was worth the effort.
    The service began. The chaplain spoke. A hymn was sung. When Dollimore stood up to give the eulogy, I forgot about the heat.
    He began when they were children, boys together, first at primary, then at high school. Chalk and cheese they’d been from the beginning, Carmichael the younger by a few years and always the rebellious one, desperate to buck the system one way or another, while Dollimore had been devout and law-abiding. As adults, they’d gone their different ways, then come together again as political opponents. Ed had done his best for self-government, giving years of his life in service to the Canberra community, both before and after his election to the Assembly. As everybody present knew, they’d had more than their share of teething troubles. It hadn’t been an easy time. But Ed had stuck it out. And when his health began to fail—he hadn’t given up then, either.
    When Dollimore got onto God, my attention began to wander. I supposed it was his day as well as Carmichael’s. He was making it his, in any case. As an orator, he wiped the floor with the chaplain, and he knew it. He let his bass voice reverberate just long enough to give each word the right amount of weight. His eyes sought out, and gathered in, now this row, now another. He must have noticed Margot at the back, standing straight and tall. His voice didn’t falter at the sight of her, or change its tone. He was too good a performer for that. And his message was not hell and damnation, but forgiveness. He pitied people