Friends Like These

by Wendy Harmer

  They would gather at the Hazeltines’ property and Chazzie would be sent off in fine style. Jo had suggested that the children might like to come dressed as fairies and sprites of the forest so they could lift everyone’s spirits. She had a ritual in mind for them. Later there would be a bonfire and fireworks blasting into the night sky.

  The train stopped at Leura. ‘Yoo-hoo!’ The familiar salutation came from some way along the platform where Jo’s mother was waving to her.

  They took morning tea in the back garden of the rectory at the wooden table under the old-fashioned plantings of liquidambars and elms that were starting to show their famed autumn colours. The air snapped with a refreshing crispness and Jo regretted she hadn’t made time to take a long, invigorating walk through the township.

  As it was, she had only an hour to spend with her parents before the ceremony began, and her father had only a short time to spare between his Good Friday services. Jo’s mother clucked happily as she produced Jo’s favourite melting-moments biscuits and poured Earl Grey into the best china cups. Her father arranged his long legs under the table and cooed his appreciation. They were a pair of birds in a cosy nest. Mated for life. Jo felt a pang of regret that she hadn’t been able to achieve the same with her own marriage.

  A small blue wren hopped at the foot of the stone birdbath. ‘His wife’s there somewhere too.’ Margaret scattered the crumbs of her biscuit. ‘They raised three chicks this year after we ran a successful campaign against the feral cats and now there’s about ten of them in the family. Lovely things. Very social.’

  Blue wrens were Jo’s favourite birds too. Quick and elusive. Loyal to home and hearth. She wondered if she should move back to the mountains and make a fresh start here. Or would she end up a spinster, belling the cat and painting pictures of flowers? Sewing lavender sachets for her undies drawer and attending book-club meetings? Her parents, both in their early seventies, might appreciate her being close by. Although, inspecting them closely, she saw they both seemed extremely fit and well.

  ‘Perhaps I should buy a house in the mountains,’ she wondered aloud.

  ‘Here? There’s not enough blokes to go around as it is,’ her father snorted. ‘No, no, you’ve got a lot of living to do down in town. Get yourself a new fella and get on with life. Stop living in the past. What’s done’s done.’

  She should have expected that her father wouldn’t beat about the bush.

  ‘Your best quality is that you care about people,’ he said. ‘You’re a very kind and responsible person and your mother and I have always been grateful for that.’

  ‘You never got into any trouble. You were always good,’ her mother chimed in as she deftly placed an embroidered napkin on Jo’s lap.

  The comment was meant as a compliment, but Jo was taking no comfort from it this morning.

  ‘But be careful with all this celebrant business,’ Rev Albert warned. ‘Don’t get caught up in other people’s lives too much and forget to live your own. Otherwise you’re no good to anyone. Your worst quality is that you can be timid. You’ve let yourself be bossed about a bit over the years.’

  Ouch! That hurt. Jo winced.

  ‘But now you’re at that wonderful time in life when the children are grown and you can start to please yourself, take some risks. Look at young Jimmy. He’s off around the world. Sending some very interesting emails, too. I recommended he go to India. Then go off to see how the Hottentots get on with things.’ He winked at Jo.

  ‘Hottentots? You can’t call people that!’ exclaimed Margaret. ‘It’s not politically correct.’

  ‘Political correctness! The modern disease,’ he groaned. ‘Everyone’s listening to too much ABC radio in my opinion.’

  ‘Does he sound like he’s okay, Dad?’ Jo asked.

  ‘Having a whale of a time! We’ll talk about him later. Let’s hear about you first.’

  ‘Maybe you’re both right. I probably should jump on a plane to India myself. Join some ashram or something. Someone said I should stop being such a doormat.’ There she went, fishing for reassurance again. But surely that was allowed if it was from your parents.

  ‘What? A doormat? You’re not a doormat! A thing people wipe their dirty boots on?’ her father exclaimed. ‘Who’d say such a thing? And to you directly? Two decades in the teaching profession. Two beautiful children—’

  ‘And you’ve always kept a lovely home,’ said Margaret.

  ‘That’s self-sacrifice,’ he continued. ‘A fine and noble thing. I realise it’s unfashionable these days. Everyone’s supposed to be “following their dreams” or “finding themselves”—that old egotistical confidence trick—however, service to the greater good is something you should be proud of. I’m just saying—’

  ‘Just try and be happy, dear. The passing of that little girl should remind you that we never know when our hour will come. It’s terribly sad. Everyone’s so upset. Another biscuit, darling? I know they’re your favourites.’

  Jo couldn’t resist taking one more than was probably good for her, and her father also reached for the plate.

  ‘That’s enough, Albert. You’ve already had three!’ her mother scolded.

  ‘Did you know that the first creature Noah sent off from the ark was a crow? It never came back. Until now. She watches and pecks away at your old dad.’

  ‘He’s as honest as the cat when the meat’s out of reach,’ said Margaret.

  Jo and her father both laughed heartily. Maggie seemed to have an inexhaustible store of unfathomable old English sayings.

  They passed the time amiably, twittering like blue wrens, until it was time for Jo to leave. Her father had a little more time to spare and insisted on driving her to the Hazeltine property in his ancient Holden Commodore with the hand-knitted seat covers.

  When they were on the road out of Leura, seatbelts tightly fastened, he offered his advice—as one professional to another—even though Jo was always ten years old when she sat in the passenger seat with her father at the wheel.

  ‘It’s an important thing you’re about to do, Josephine. I’m not saying that men are not just as capable, but after being in this job for fifty years, you come to see that sometimes it’s a woman’s touch that’s required.’

  Jo loved to hear him talk. The sun flickered through the tall timbers and she rested her head on the window. She imagined it was thirty-five years ago and he was driving her to her grandmother’s place in Lithgow. Up and over the Great Dividing Range, down to the flat country. A good, long drive and she had him all to herself.

  She was surprised after this reverie to turn and see that his hair was grey. Her father was an old man, but, she thought with a surge of love, a wise one. Through the years she had witnessed him become more compassionate. Slower to pass judgment. Through those decades of ministering, just as Patrick said, his true nature had been revealed through the eyes of all who admired him. If she had ‘goodness’ in her DNA, it had come from him.

  ‘We’ve got Reverend Dorothy Devonport up the road at St Mark’s,’ he continued in that authoritative, sonorous voice that hadn’t aged at all. His lovely clear diction and elegant phrasing had always made the congregation sit up and take note. She’d got that from him too, she liked to think. ‘Got a nice way about her,’ he said. ‘Does a very decent and orderly funeral service. But in this instance the parents are not churchgoers, so they will want something to suit their tastes. You must feel very honoured they’ve given you the responsibility.’

  ‘I do, Dad. But I thought you’d be disappointed that the ceremony wasn’t going to be in the church.’

  ‘Dreary old pile of stones? Got nothing to do with God. You can find him in a back paddock as much as anywhere else.’

  A back paddock flashed by, then an apple orchard, then it was a ferny gully and a playful skip of sunlight on creek water.

  ‘The first thing you have to talk about, of course, is what makes the child so special, her virtues and her blessings.’

  T
hat was the first thing Jo had asked. She must have paid more attention to her father’s homilies than she’d realised. She was pleased to be able to tell him that was exactly what she had done.

  ‘Did you indeed?’ He patted her hand approvingly and Jo caught his fingers to squeeze them with affection. ‘Then you have to discover and communicate what it is that makes the person not only notable or interesting, but what it was about them that transcended our usual human limitations.’

  This was the stuff they never told Jo in her civil celebrant classes. She always knew this was at the heart of it, but had never found the right words to express it.

  ‘Do we all have something like that?’ she asked.

  ‘I think you’ll find that we do. And if you can put your finger on that certain unique quality, then that’s the very thing that will make the whole ceremony come alive and have meaning.’

  Jo thought of Suze and wondered what her unique quality might be. To steal for her family—no matter how misguided that was—and then keep it secret for so long? Perhaps, in a strange way, it was courage. The very thing about her Jo had been drawn to in the first place.

  ‘And then,’ her father continued, ‘there’s mystery. Something beyond our understanding. You must talk about that too. Oddly enough, it’s what gives the living the will to go on.’

  ‘You mean God?’

  ‘Well, of course I do, but with you? Let’s just settle with mystery,’ he teased. ‘I’m hoping that you might meet God one day. But perhaps you won’t.’

  ‘Would you mind if I didn’t?’ Jo was sitting up now, watching his hands on the steering wheel intently, still strong and in command after all these years.

  ‘I always knew you had trouble with your faith. I hoped for you, but I never minded. I hope you knew that.’

  She hadn’t known. She’d always thought her father must be deeply disappointed in her.

  ‘The thing I’ve always admired about you, Josephine,’ he said, ‘is that you see some people have religious faith. You recognise what joy it brings them and respect that, but you’ve made a decision that you can’t have it for yourself unless you know the truth of it in your own heart. I think that, in the end, that’s a brave thing. It’s honest. Even old God-botherers like me respect that.’

  The road ahead became a blurry trail as Jo’s eyes filled with tears. Here, in the car, with the vanilla-scented deodoriser swinging from the sun visor, her father had offered her absolution. That aspect of her character which she’d always thought of as a deep imperfection, he saw as a virtue in her.

  ‘You just keep heading down the path you’re on—giving over all you are, and all you have, for the enhancement of others. In that, you’ll find great peace and fulfilment,’ he said.

  ‘Sometimes it feels like you give and give and get nothing back.’ She put the thought out there, although she was already sure what he would say.

  ‘I know! And don’t think I don’t complain about that sometimes. I’ve had people pocket money from the collection plate. Steal the flowers off graves. But what’s the alternative? To somehow recalibrate your character to expect the worst? No. If there’s another way of going about things, in all the years I’ve been on this earth, I haven’t found it. Have you?’

  ‘No.’ It was exactly the answer she had been expecting.

  ‘Try to be forgiving. I’m not saying it’s easy, but don’t let your disappointments get in the way of loving or letting yourself be loved. It’s really that simple, whether you believe in God or not.’

  ‘I want to be with you forever, Dad.’ That childish wish in a small voice came from years ago.

  ‘I know you do, love. And I always want to be with you. I’m sure we will be. It would be a hard God indeed who would deny us that.’

  They turned off the sealed road and bumped along a dirt track. Up ahead cars were slowing at a farm gate where a bunch of lolly-pink balloons was tied to a fence. It was the familiar greeting for birthday parties, but today was a heartbreaking reminder of what was lost.

  Her father had a few final words. ‘Just keep your heart as open and loving as it is today, and whatever truth is meant for you will settle there and bring you peace. Now if you’d like to have an extended philosophical discussion about the role of religion as a means of moral direction or the contribution of scripture to modern ethics, I’m happy to have it...’

  ‘Perhaps not right now, thank you, Reverend.’ Jo laughed at his joke.

  ‘Quite right! Today you have to express everyone’s yearning to make sense of it all and I know you’ll do it well. You’re the perfect person for this task. You’ll bring comfort with your usual eloquence and grace. There’s none who could do it better. Now, off you go.’

  They gathered in a clearing towered over by Blue Mountain mahogany, ash, turpentine, ribbon gum and stringybark. The understorey was crowded with banksia, wattle and grevillea. Tiny wrens and honeyeaters revelled in the fragrant, bushy tangle.

  A band of drummers kept up an insistent beat as the mourners arrived and walked slowly up the hill to where Jo waited. There were some three or four hundred of them, she estimated. Their grief was plain to see in their leaden feet, bowed heads and muted greetings.

  Jo stood tall and felt strong, braced by the encouraging words of her father. She smiled to see the forest fairies threading in and about the congregation. They were already barefoot dancing. Garlands of leaves and flowers were woven into hair. Costumes of green capes, gossamer dresses and gauzy wings fluttered and caught the eye. Now and then an exclamation of delight from a child drew a smile from an adult and Jo was pleased to see that their fairy presence was lifting the spirits, just as she had hoped.

  ‘A shared joy is a double joy, a shared sorrow is half a sorrow,’ she recited to herself.

  At the top of the hill, Jo was waiting by the circle of logs which had been arranged around the fire pit. It would be the sacred circle for this ceremony—the setting for many gatherings on the Hazeltine property over the years. Earlier she had watched the fire being set and it now gave up smoke perfumed by pine, sage leaves and incense which rose in a grey spiral towards the afternoon sun, dazzling today in a blue sapphire sky. Tall Balinese flags were staked into the ground. Golden embroideries flashed when stirred by the slight breeze.

  Charlotte’s precious belongings—her saddle, bridle, a ragged blankie and a faded blue bear—had been arranged on a few of the logs. The more elderly in the crowd took the rest of the seats and Charlotte’s mother and father were helped by friends to find their places.

  As they all arranged themselves, Jo called the children. ‘I’d like all the forest fairies and sprites to follow me,’ she said as she walked a short distance away. They skipped after her. She bent down to quietly address them. ‘Now, today, as you know, we are saying goodbye to our lovely Chazzie.’ They all nodded gravely. They understood. ‘You know that she loved to ride her pony, Minty, in this paddock and along the trail, so I would like all you magical creatures to run about and find something that Chazzie and Minty might have seen and will always remember. Perhaps it was a flower, or some grass, or leaves from a bush.

  A small stone or a stick or a feather.’

  ‘A cloud?’ asked a cherub swathed in lime tulle.

  ‘Can you catch a cloud for us?’ asked Jo.

  ‘No, but Chazzie might when she goes to heaven.’

  Jo swallowed to fight the sudden stiffness in her throat.

  ‘Well, I imagine she just might. But today I’d like you to fly off and find a tiny, earthly thing. A little memory no bigger than your hand that will remind us of Chazzie. The sort of thing that small children and fairies are good at seeing, but big people often miss. When you’ve found it, bring it back to the fire to me. Can you do that?’

  And off they flew.

  The drums slowed and everyone crowded in, offering shoulders to cry on and hands to hold, united in their overwhelming grief. The children came back with their treasures and Jo had them stand by her, read
y to take their part on her signal.

  When the drums finally stopped and all was quiet, she began.

  ‘Welcome everyone. My name is Josephine Blanchard and on behalf of the parents and family of Charlotte May Hazeltine, I thank you all for coming to this ceremony where we will commemorate and celebrate her life.

  ‘We are gathered here today in respect of the bond we share, and that is our immense love for Charlotte and her family. Her death at such a tender age has come as a great blow. We are undone by it. Deeply wounded and raw with emotion. So utterly sad, we can’t find the words to express our feelings. Our hearts are heavy. We are living in a dark shadow. We are, inevitably, thinking about our own mortality and how brief our own walk on the earth might be. How we might go. When and where and how we’ll take our own leave.

  ‘Sometimes we berate ourselves for our own selfish thoughts, but, because we are loving, giving humans, we quickly move beyond them, knowing our time will come too, and ask: How can I ease the pain for Charlotte’s most beloved? What would she want me to do? How can I help?

  ‘By being here today, you are honouring Charlotte’s wishes by helping Eleanor, Geoffrey and their family bear the burden of her leaving without being able to say goodbye. They, in turn, want you to know that your presence has already lifted them up from the depths of despair and set them on the healing path.

  ‘Today they would like to tell you what joy Charlotte brought to their lives and share with you the gifts she gave. And through that, they hope you will cherish not only your own children, but children everywhere.

  ‘What Charlotte brought to her parents was her innocence and vulnerability, and through those qualities she connected Eleanor and Geoffrey to the tenderness and sweetness of life. That is a gift her mother and father will always be deeply grateful for.