Read Online Eden by Dorothy Johnston - Free Book Online Page A

who ­condemned themselves to living in a world bereft of faith.
    A prayer, another hymn, a few words from the cousin, who wisely kept them short, then condolence messages, including one from the Chief Minister. A Bach concerto accompanied the mechanics of the floor opening up, the coffin disappearing into a human fire.
    The moment I stepped outside, I noticed a change in the air. Thunderclouds massed over low hills the other side of Mitchell. The sun shining through them was a rich, pregnant yellow. I looked round for Margot, but she’d already gone, probably to avoid the TV cameras. Local politicians emerged in a clump, then quickly made for their cars, all except for Dollimore.
    I realised with a start how close the crematorium was to Margot’s club. I pictured her driving with the windows down, letting in thick, sweet air that carried the smell of rain, returning to her club to change. Or perhaps she’d keep her suit on all evening, greet prospective clients in her widow’s black.
    I spotted Chris Laskaris, jacket slung gracefully over one shoulder, looking down admiringly at Laura Scott. He hadn’t wasted time. She seemed suitably impressed.
    Dollimore was shaking hands with everyone, towering above them, eclipsing the poor show made by Carmichael’s relatives. A journalist stood at his elbow writing in a notebook, and two photographers were busy taking shots.
    As I watched, Dollimore lifted his prophet’s head and gazed solemnly past them, into the intense colours of the approaching storm. It occurred to me that, retirement plans aside, he possessed the kind of energy that strengthened with age, a resilience that derived, at least in part, from his ability to turn any situation to his own advantage; a swell that ran beneath the wave’s head, fluid, willed, long-lasting.
    . . .
    It began to bucket down as I was driving home, a true summer storm. I let Fred in—he was frightened of the thunder—and made myself a kind of high tea to compensate for not having been invited to the wake. I sat with my bare feet on Fred’s back, staring out the window. A branch broke off the crab-apple tree and landed on the porch. I wondered if it was raining at the coast. I wondered if Brook’s partner, Sophie, had arrived yet. After Brook had gone off in a huff, I wasn’t surprised to learn that Sophie had adjusted her holiday plans to fit in a trip to the coast as well. She was visiting her daughter, but due back any day.
    From Brook’s point of view, it didn’t matter that taking Peter to Tasmania had been Derek’s idea. Brook hated being reminded that his role as my children’s uncle was voluntary, and that biological parents could usurp it any time they chose. Before Ivan left for Moscow, they’d argued over the wisdom of his taking Katya. Brook was worried about Katya getting sick. Ivan, usually patient, had told him that she was his daughter. She was going with him and that was that.
    I looked forward to catching up with Brook at the weekend, talking things over—already hearing his dry, laconic voice, his way of cutting through the outer layers of a problem. Brook’s bone-marrow transplant had been a success, surpassing the doctors’ expectations, but no one who was close to him could forget that a recurrence of leukemia might be just around the corner.
    . . .
    By dusk, the sky was almost clear. I took Fred for a walk across the road. A last storm cloud rolled its golden underbelly over the O’Connor ridge. The sodden grass, the dark grey and yellow of the cloud, seemed like a fanfare that had missed its cue.
    Gold spread through the cloud, touching the spears of poplars that lined Sullivan’s Creek, vertical to its high horizontal, the last light massy, indiscriminate and yet precise. I thought of the divisions, within and through my city, small ones, cracks in pavements and in people’s minds, that were familiar, nondescript,