As soon as it was safe to return, the people of Unst marched back into their town. Excited and defiant, they dared the lava to come spilling down from the mountain top again and send them scurrying back to the mainland.
My grandfather was a man of sawdust and sweets, skinny legs and cardigans.
As Mary stepped into the river, she prayed it would be over soon.
Neville was in full flight.
Mrs Jemima Babcock was an anxious woman with too many years on her hips. She liked neither the bush nor ghosts, yet here she was in the fading light of a Sunday afternoon, pushing through the scrub with her two reluctant daughters in search of Mr Terry’s Spiritualist Retreat.
“Bye Ma, see you tomorrow. Love You”. We each hugged a tight hug and reluctantly let go. We eventually left turning to look back, at each step and smile with reassurance that we’d be back tomorrow but also, that Mum would still be there. Eventually we found ourselves walking out of the hospital at a slow melancholy pace.
“I wanted to kill her but, damn it, death was too good for her, too easy. I wanted her to suffer, long and hard. I wanted see her struggle, to hear the groans, know her pain and celebrate her agony.”
After my mother’s sudden death, I needed to spend a few days at the family home in order to sort out a few legal matters before her burial the following week.
It was only the revelations of the Banking Royal Commission that made Rhonda delve into the state of her financial investments. At 63 years of age, and divorced for some time, her mother’s inheritance had left her with a comfortable amount of money, that if spent wisely would see her through the remainder of her days.
The rain was picking up pace as O’Reilly finally dossed down to sleep. The downpour was deafening, but O’Reilly couldn’t have slept, anyway.
After two years of hard slog, that very morning, he and Greenaway had finally found gold in their pans from their endless sieving at Savage Gully.
They whooped and hugged and shared more than a dram of whiskey. Their hoots went out to an indifferent forest; in the Tasmanian wilderness, there was no one else around for 100 miles.
It was mid winter, and although they largely lived off the land – hunting and fishing and growing their own food – their meagre finances were rapidly dwindling and times lately had been grim indeed.
The rain returned with a vengeance, and they retired to their respective tents, having an early night, warm under their sheepskins.
The forest closed in around Michael O’Reilly and he got the heebeejeebies.
He’s never got used to the weird animal calls and wind in the trees of the dense wilderness. He would be glad to be out of here, as soon as possible.
But something else was gnawing at him. He soon realised that the gold they’d panned today was a fair haul, but was only enough to buy one man a bit of land, or a house, or a flock of sheep. It wouldn’t sustain two men.
The rain put paid to further panning for two days, but the men felt they’d earned a rest. But a thought came in to O’Reilly’s head.