Ambrose Ambles

 Twelve Caesars..

Book three.. "Twelve Caesars".

Part  secundus.

 

It was into that once thriving community between the world wars that my Cornish / Irish ancestors stepped with faltering feet just as the great depression bit into the soul of the nation….and like those early German pioneers, they were on their own.

There is a direct correlation between the two time periods…not solely through any genetic or ethnic association, but rather; that with the passing of my mother’s generation, there ended that last epoch of casual anonymity. For much of their lives, over that entire history, many, many people had little or no individual documentation..they were lucky in the early days to even have a birth certificate, or at least a real one, never mind the plethora of personal information each of us has available to information gatherers now!..and so it was from the earliest times…one only had the word of the giver that he or she was whom they said they were..no drivers licence, or ID. card or banking card at all..just the word of the giver..just their honest word; “I am Jack,  the son of Jack the elder, the son of Jack the eldest “and so on and on..and women barely figured at all..

 

I do not use my own mother from any sort of filial loyalty, but rather as the best example I know of that generation and that social class who struggled from absolute poverty and obscurity to hunger for a modicum of self- respect and independence in a world saturated and suffocated under the blanket of obsessive middle-class materialistic banality..and also being hamstrung by obligatory religious adherence. She failed and died in absolute obscurity..but oh how she hungered to be able to express her desires into the written word..let me tell you a tale of her early life..

 

The collected poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon.

 

Once upon a time, out in the deep Mallee forest near the Murray River there lived three sisters, aged sixteen, fourteen and thirteen…for as was common in those days, children came in quick succession. Their names being..from the eldest : Rose, Maggie and Tess. It was the years of post-Great Depression and the second world war raged another world away…in the deep Mallee where the sisters lived, the war was only a policy inconvenience, or in their case an opportunity for their father and mother to gain steady employment at a charcoal burning camp as he; a mechanic, and she ; as cook to around a dozen men who cut the mallee wood to burn in the pits to make charcoal. The two younger girls helped their mother with the preparation of the food, while, Rose, the eldest worked not far away at Portee Station, a sheep station on the rim of the Murray River.

Being of a family that by necessity throughout the Great Depression had to make their living moving from town to town, seasonal crop to seasonal crop for work, the girls were schooled at home by their mother who was fortunate back in her native Ireland to have had an excellent education because of her middle-class family…coming to this country to be suddenly married and a mother of three girls at the start of the worst set-back for the nation’s economy in its short history while moving around seeking casual employment left her to make do on her own capabilities.

A long time back she had abandoned her middle-class sensibilities to the practical bent of survival..another thing that she had abandoned was her Protestant religion to swing to Catholicism…and she embraced that faith with all the fervour of the religious convert…she was unbending and unyielding in her reverence toward the belief and standards of that faith…and as such would not tolerate her daughters becoming corrupted by such a deviant subjects like romantic novels or poetry, herself having a long time before cast out such publications from her possessions till the only tome of any literature in her domestic enclave…which by frugal providence was a hand-stitched, split wheat-bag tent of her husband’s own design, for rarely was there a actual house over or around them…was her large, prized edition of The Bible (with illustrations).

So when her eldest daughter brought home a second-hand book of poetry, “The Collected Poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon”, accompanied by Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights”, her lips pinched, her eyes narrowed and her heart hardened and at first opportunity, she cast both editions out of the tent-flap with an admonishing chastisement and appropriate irony considering their present establishment to her daughter that such wanton literature will not be tolerated under HER roof while she yet lives!

This did not deter Rose from pursuing her secret inner desire to one day become a poet herself…she dreamed of lines of absolute beauty written with the most delightful script on pages of soft paper..Her favourite poem from the book she now held most dear to herself was “Thora’s Song”..her romantic heart ached for the chance to just feel the same emotions Thora felt for her lover…and Rose would dream of one day meeting just such a poetic soul as herself to be able to exchange that similar felt emotion in tender moments of love…As such a time had not yet come, Rose would stroll to the river’s edge on her evening off perambulations and there under the fading light of an afternoon’s umbra shine, read softly out to the air the works of Adam Lindsay Gordon, taking particular care on that most loved poem “Thora’s  Song”, her lilting Irish falsetto matching tune with the many river birds calls and warbles there so that the lingua franca of the evening on the river’s edge was a song in itself..a melody of harmonies that lay a hymn of sound floating just above those primrose-lit waters of the soft flowing Murray River.

To this dream of poet, Rose would, in between chores in the kitchen of the riverside station where she worked, take time to compose poems of her own hand. Most of these crude attempts she screwed up and burnt in the big kitchen stove…some..a few she felt happier with she placed between the pages of a school exercise book she used for her home school lessons that she taught to her younger siblings when she went home for two days a week to the charcoal camp where her family lived.…Rose would sometimes read these poems out to the giggling frivolity of her siblings who had little interest in literature and more in ribbons and hats. 

Now the world of that district held to habit and routine and the celebration of “Empire Day” was one of fan-fair, parade and concert in the main town institute, where a repertoire of songs and short skits of plays and dances by locals were encouraged. So that when Rose arrived at her parent’s tent on the Friday afternoon, her sisters excitedly greeted her with the news that they were going with old Eddy in the truck to Truro to audition as sailors in a skit dancing The Sailor’s Hornpipe…and surely Rose would come along to watch!...Of course Rose was as excited and delighted and went to sleep that night formulating a desire to approach Miss. Josie Rudge, the organising person, on the morrow to see if she could perform a poetic recitation at the event.

The dour Miss Rudge, school teacher and choralist for the Truro Congregational Church, was a disciplinarian type who “took no prisoners”, as she was want to say whenever the children got out of hand…

”In line! In line!”..she’d demand “and no fooling around…I’ll take no prisoners if I see anyone mucking about!...you there!..back in line..watch the markers on the floor…in line!”

But yes, They were seeking appropriate recitations for the “in-betweens” of the songs and dance routines and Miss Rudge gave Rose a time that afternoon for a reading. The piece Miss Rudge picked was a short poem that tested the elocution of the reader..more suited to one of the preferred young ladies from a “good family” of the district who were favoured with an exclusive schooled education in Adelaide and spoke the “King’s English” with just a little bit of plummy accent. Of course, Rose, coming from the Mallee bush with the hint of brogue of her Irish mother slipping off her lips like a syrup of Sligo was hard pressed to wrap those words around her tongue and she stumbled in quite a few places with the desired entrapment placed there by the cunning Miss Rudge.

And as she finished the reading from the elevated stage, Rose, who had prided herself on her practiced poetry was somewhat shy and reticent of her chances..The stern Miss Rudge did not dismiss Rose there and then, but rather encouraged her to practice when at home and she will be notified of her placement with in the fortnight.

Rose felt encouraged by that short advice and regardless of a faint feeling of caution, spent the following days at and after work bending her spoken language to deliver to the best of her capability those immortal words of her beloved bard ; Adam Lindsay Gordon, and his poem ; “Thora’s Song”.

Unbeknownst to Rose, from the first introduction of herself to Miss Josie Rudge, she hadn’t a chance of stepping out on that stage at Empire Day to deliver any thing at all, as her family situation was already known and scorned by the stern protestant Miss Rudge, who despised anything Catholic entering within her perimeter of “England forever”..and after Rose and her sisters departed, she was heard to say to her assistant most viciously..:

“The nerve!..to think I would allow the daughter of that Irish Catholic woman to stumble and ramble with her atrocious interpretation of the good King’s English upon my stage…On Empire Day of all times..The poor child threw out more “Haiches” from her mouth than Clem Highett would hen’s from his hatchery!...and that mother of hers!.a face the map of Ireland...”As Catholic as Connaugh” they would say..No, I won’t have it..I will send a letter to her this week or so..don’t want to break the poor kitchen maid’s heart here and now…I’ll let her sisters dance The Hornpipe though…don’t want to appear too officious…do we?”

Unaware of the futility of her ambitions, Rose kept softly practicing her recitation whenever she had time..so that the Lady of Portee Station..Margaret Esau, would smile to herself when she heard her young servant girl softly reciting poems on the back verandah of the Portee Station Homestead on many a quiet evening.

Margaret Esau encouraged Rose to work on her pronunciations, for she was well aware of Rose’s poetical ambitions which were innocently and proudly confessed when Margret first interviewed Rose for the position of kitchen maid… an ambition that made Rose’s eyes shine with delight when she said it and brought a sympathetic smile to Margaret’s lips..for she could see that while the ambition was worthy, the letter Rose had written and the language of her spoken words displayed a working class accent with less than ready education. And so  Margaret would sensitively correct any of the more exaggerated mistakes of interpretation when Rose served at the table… even promising Rose a day off so as to be able to attend to rehearsals when required. So it was a rather worried Margaret Esau that heard the gentle sobbing on the back verandah outside the kitchen one evening…Upon enquiry, she was shown the letter of rejection from Miss Josie Rudge of the Empire Day Hall Committee, citing (dishonestly) a lack of space within the program for Rose’s poetry recitation. Margaret comforted the sad Rose and taking the letter from her hands, Margaret said she would see if she could persuade Miss Rudge to find space for Rose’s reading.

This reassurance did little to comfort Rose’s unease, for she had read something unsettling in the tone of Miss Rudge’s letter..a hint of slighting tone of voice..even the opening address of “Dear Child” felt like a dismissal of her as a working girl with a place in the household of a large station..a position of responsibility that Rose wore with some degree of pride…And even though the wording was seemingly polite and respectful, Rose (as did Margaret when she read the letter ) could feel her eyes burn with indignation when the writer had consoled her with the expression that “. . .regardless of this lost opportunity to recite with those fine young ladies from the Adelaide private finishing schools, she was sure to use her accrued skills learned at the kitchen table to further herself in the arts of scullery maid or another hand trade”.

This example of passive snobbery on Miss Rudge’s part did not go un-noticed by Margaret Esau and while Rose wept for the burning insult, Margaret’s lips pinched together in anger for the presumption of Miss Rudge’s to insult her ; Margaret’s young study, with such language reserved for that middle-class to use against one of their own…”She has no right to presume” Margaret hissed and took it upon herself to sort Miss Rudge out by putting HER back in HER place in the order of status in the district.

Rose had gone to that spot on the banks of the Murray River where she felt most private and secure, she took with her that tome of poetry of Adam Lindsay Gordon’s that she felt in kinship with and began to read out loud that most private of her favourites ;

“Thora’s Song”

“We severed in autumn early,

Ere the earth was torn by the plough;

The wheat and the oats and the barley

Are ripe for the harvest now.

We sunder’d one misty morning,

Ere the hills were dimm’d by the rain,

Through the flowers those hills adorning —

Thou comest not back again.

My heart is heavy and weary

With the weight of a weary soul;

The mid-day glare grows dreary,

And dreary the midnight scroll.

The corn-stalks sigh for the sickle,

‘Neath the load of the golden grain;

I sigh for a mate more fickle —

Thou comest not back again.  . . . ”

The soft lilting of her voice now pitched less high as a sadness weighed down upon her soul..that gentle wash of the Irish brogue inserted from her mother’s talk and homeland as sweet as the honeyed air of summer skies.. Her Irish tongue a whisper of angels in the voice when saddened enough to sing a lament to her own destiny. for there was growing in her heart a dread that her ambition to aspire for a poet was but a pipe dream…the words of her mother damning such heathen verse to Sheol and the tittering laughter of her sisters when she tried to share with them her love for the written word in rhyme and metre and now that letter from Miss Rudge, a teacher at the Truro school no less, that gave more than hint of Rose’s incompetence with the language, all buffering down on her spirit and telling her that she was just being a silly girl to try to reach for a place above her station in life..the life of a servant girl and workhorse for her betters and nothing more..her dreams of one day writing poetry that sang with the spirits of the Gods of air, fire and water…a dream of smoke and mirrors..a will o the wisp that will vanish with the first puff of wind…silly person…silly girl.

Rose stood and straightened her skirt and turned to go…she had noticed the silence of the birds as she read her verse..and she sensed that even they were in accord with her sombre mood and were wont to intrude too cheerfully upon her mood there…Rose stopped for just that moment in her departure and,turned to address The River….

“Goodnight” she said.

A few days later, Rose was called to the telephone to receive a call from Miss Rudge of the Empire Day Concert Committee..the short of the conversation..for it was short and terse..was that, yes, there now appeared a place in the program for her to recite some poetry and it was imperative that she MOST PROMPTLY attend to rehearsals on the fifth of the month ten am SHARP..at the Civic Hall Truro..and report to her, Miss Rudge. And the telephone went dead at that demand. Rose was beside herself with joy and handed the receiver back to Margaret who smiled in kind.

“Did you….?” Rose asked and then stopped.

“I think Miss Rudge looked into her heart and reconsidered” Margaret cut any further conversation on the subject short…”I always say, Rose…that The River has ways of letting a poor man live like a king and in turn making the wise man look like an ass!…You know..I wasn’t always the wife of Mr, John Esau…”

It was after Rose had left to walk to the river that evening on receiving the letter, that Margaret Esau placed a call through to Miss Josie Rudge’s residence…there was a controlled anger in Margaret’s voice as she explained that it would be a pity for herself and her husband John, who were quite generous to the school and hall committees, to make the trip to Truro for the concert only to find that her house-maid, Rose was being denied a chance to recite a most favoured poem that she had been practicing assiduously for the last few weeks…

“Oh but really, Mrs Esau..the girl is totally unsuitable to recite on stage” Josie Rudge complained “She is almost illiterate and her elocution is as deep and broad as an Irish bog!”…Margaret let a long silence hang in the air before she answered..

“I have been coaching her, Miss Rudge.”

There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the line..then a new tack was tried..

“Well, the McBain twins have come back for the holidays from their finishing school in Adelaide and I have promised them a quartet of songs with piano accompaniment in the program”…

“Yes, we are well acquainted with the McBains of Anna Creek Station…quite well acquainted and I can assure you that they will not mind if you reduce their girls to a triplet of songs and make shift to place young Rose into the repertoire.” This last with the stern voice of the Lady of the Manor…of course, Miss Rudge complied with Margaret’s wishes and a telephone call was put through several days later to tell Rose the good news.

Rose walked out onto the stage of the Truro Civic Hall on the evening of the Empire Day Concert and stood proud to recite her favourite poem..;

“From the collected poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon.” She spoke in a clear an precise voice..the hint of Irish brogue adding a lilt of delightful colour to her words..

“Thora’s Song” Rose announced..and she began the recital.

And when Rose had finished the poem, and a suitable round of applause rent the high ceilings of the hall, she surprised everyone to announce that she . . . 

“ . . . would now like to do a short poem of my own hand in recognition of our benefactor Mrs Margaret Esau of Portee station…on a theme gratefully borrowed from Mr Henry Wadsworth Longfellow .. ;  “Hiawatha”…and Rose began ;

“On the shores of the mighty Murray,

By its calm and tranquil waters,

Stood the halls of Portee Station . . . “

 

John Esau leaned over to whisper into Margaret’s ear..

“Be blowed if she hasn’t stolen some of the thunder of Mr Longfellow”..and he chuckled.

“I suspect Mr Longfellow can spare a bit” Margaret smiled.

“The cheek of the girl” John smirked.

“Yes” Margaret agreed “marvellous isn’t it?”

There is an announcement in the regional newspaper of the times of the proceedings of that Empire Day evening..it reads thus:

“ Items that were particularly well received were “The Flag Makers”, a patriotic tableau presented by grades VI and VII . A nautical song ; All Over the Place by Pauline Harris assisted by the senior girls who danced The Sailor’s Hornpipe.

Films were also shown on the school’s projector, interesting and instructive films in keeping with the observance of Empire Day. They were entitled “Battle for France” the “Evacuation of Dunkirk” and the fall of France (two years ago) and “The Navy at Work”.

A variety of songs and poetry recitals were given by the young ladies of the district..Of particular appeal was the recital of a poem “Thora’s Song” from The Collected Poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon, by Miss Rosaline ThomasThomasThomasThomasThomas of Portee Station.

The dancing and other items were arranged by Miss Josie Rudge and Mrs I. Richards was the pianist for the evening..A grand time was had by all!”

 

 

And while we have the word of the first Caesar ; Julius..and HIS wars and HIS adventures..even the histories others have written of him are soaked in doubts and mystery…oh, we have a ”definitive history” of the man, as much as two thousand years of  telling cannot but help to develop into Chinese whispers!...But HE being a bullshit artist as well, it is close enough, our own experiences and accrued living knowledge informs us of both the capability and limitations of one person’s actions in one person’s lifetime…the rest is conjecture…beautiful confected conjecture.

 

It goes like this :

 

 

Twelve Caesars.

 

“Now at last I am free!

Off through the scrub I run

Where sheep tracks only are seen

Nothing but bush and sun

Till all of a sudden I come

Out where an axe swings free.

Cutting, for love and money

The axe bites deep in a tree…”

 

A passing moment does not a lifetime make, but a moment’s passion can be a lifetime’s mistake. A life brought into being by the strangest union in the most unusual chances and circumstances one could imagine. He from the north of Italy, in the Dolomites, she from the ‘heartbreak country’ of the Murray Mallee in Australia..

 

They met on the banks of the Murray River, He there to collect a truck-load of water for the charcoal burning camp where himself, along with a dozen or so fellow countrymen were interned as “enemy aliens”,  cutting mallee trees to burn to charcoal for the war effort..she on an evening ambulation from the riverside  sheep station where she worked as a servant girl.

 

He being able to speak barely a word of English, she not being able to understand a single word of Italian..But they met and exchanged pleasantries as only such ethnically diverse  strangers could.

 

He asked (in Italian) if they ate well at the big house…

 

She replied ( in English) that the evening light spread a certain calm over the waters of the river, didn’t he think?

 

He was a stone-mason by trade.

 

She desired to be a poet.

 

They got on well.

 

Indeed, They eventually wed..the youthful composer of the above doggerel ; Rosaline Thomas and the refugee Italian ; Enrico Corradini (whom she would call; “Ricky”). And as she describes her running through the scrub to meet with her lover, I can now ask, knowing the ending of her story ; Was she running to embrace life, or running from a destructive lifestyle?..And Enrico, the refugee , HE we know was running from hunger and war, but did he realise then as he surely did later, what and where was he running to?

 

A myth surrounding their meeting and courtship arose in the family circle..It seems the erstwhile Enrico was out hunting rabbits one day and he got lost..only to stumble onto the dusty bush camp where, coincidently, the young Rosaline was in attendance to her mother ; Grace Thomas, who was expecting her fifth child. Rosaline’s father, having difficulty understanding the gesticulating “eyetalian”, instructed Rose to show him the track leading to the presumed wood-cutters camp from whence he came.

 

A week or so later, Enrico turned up again, gun in hand and lost again..the same procedure as last time was followed and that was that, until again..another week later Enrico shows up again, lost and hunting rabbits…this time, as Rosaline is leading the gentleman away, Richard Thomas scratched the back of his head in thought…he turned to his wife..:

 

“You know..that eyetie must be the worst shot in the world…he’s never got one single bunny!”

 

But it was a lie..they lied..we all lie..you lie, I lie, all our loved ones lie..soft lies, lies to protect reputations, to enhance the myth..the whole of history is a lie..a comfortable lie, a necessary lie..admit it!..we love the lie.

 

But wait!..Richard and Grace Thomas have their own story of their courtship to tell..is it too another myth?

 

It goes like this.:

 

“Now, for the love of Love and her soft hours, let us not confound the time with her conference harsh. There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch without some pleasure…”

 

It is the year of 1926.

 

Both were unknown to each other and were travelling on the same ship from Adelaide to Sydney. He for escape from a detested blacksmith occupation in the Moonta mines, she to join a nunnery.

 

When the ship berthed at the quay in Sydney, they were both meandering aimlessly on the wharf, she expecting to be collected by a couple of sisters from the convent, he just rubbernecking at the surroundings , neither looking where they were going and they bumped into each other. After apologies and pleasantries were exchanged, Richard Thomas invited Grace for a cuppa at a nearby café while she waited.

 

It was here she confessed her ambition to join the nunnery as a novice in preparation to take holy orders. Richard was shocked, as he had by now decided that here was the girl of his dreams and had already resolved that she would be his future wife. He tried to dissuade Grace from so final a decision, but her mind was made up…the reason being (and she poured her tale out to the sympathetic Richard who gasped and sorrowed for her in all the right places) that she was broken-hearted by a broken promise from the man she loved and followed from her home in Bandon  City, County Cork, Ireland to this end of the Earth in expectation of marriage…only to discover that in the time of his arrival in Australia some ten months before her recent arrival, he had found and married another woman. Grace was heartbroken. It was the cloistered life for her!

 

“He would lean down from his police horse and whisper to me” ( Gracie confided tearfully) ; “ ‘Gracie..you’re my angel of grace’..and I’d stand on my tip-toes and turn my face to his lips…” and she faltered and gulped. Richard blushed for her and his heart melted.

 

She at least had divulged the name of the convent to Richard before saying goodbye and  finally departing with the two nuns…Richard fixed that name in his memory, he underlined that name in his mind and went to find some digs as close to the convent as convention would allow!

 

From this vantage point, Richard Thomas set out every day to sit upon a flat rock right outside the convent gates of the “ The Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart” , patiently trying to catch a glimpse of the woman he had designs to marry . This devotion of patience and diligence was the first and last time he exhibited such dedication to another person in his entire life..and after three weeks of  stoic sentinel waiting, feeding solely on apples plucked from a low, overhanging branch over the convent wall, he was rewarded.

 

The Mother Superior, becoming concerned at the attention this handsome young man by the gate was gaining amongst her bevy of novices, called a recently admitted novice; Grace Johnson (who admitted a passing knowledge of the young man) into her office and addressed her thus:

 

“Sister..while there are those of us who are called to serve the will of our Lord Jesus in these cloistered environs, we must accept that there are those who are better suited to serve His wishes in the world of man…May I suggest you relinquish both your temporal vows and habit as a novice and go out into that world and attend to this young man and his relationship with yourself.. and should you wish to return after it has been sorted out ..you will be more than welcome…”

 

Grace Johnson and Richard Thomas were wed three months later by one : Father McCarthy in a small chapel in Surry Hills with a stranger dragged off the street as witness…Neither had a birth certificate on hand to validate their identity, but seeing as Father McCarthy had just the day before taken their confession as devout Catholics...he knew he could trust them.

 

That..is the family story of how Richard and Grace met, courted and married. It has a certain romantic ‘ring’ to it, does it not?...it sounds good to me!...but I have doubts it could hold up under even a light forensic examination…for instance:

 

Let us start with Grace’s point of departure from Ireland in the year of Our Lord 1923..:

Bandon City in County Cork, was one of the most murderous places in the British Isles at that time. There was a civil war in progress between the Irish Republicans which were predominately Catholic and the British Loyalists, who rejoiced in the Protestant  Church of Ireland. The name ; Johnson is a primary giveaway and the fact that two of Grace’s uncles were killed by the IRA. because of the suspicion of their working with the “Black and Tans” militant terrorists against the IRA., and herself only saved from what must result in at least serious injury by a ricocheting bullet being deflected by the large, brass belt-buckle around the waist of her dress as she leaned out the second floor window of their residence in the High Street of Bandon Town…leans her to the Loyalist / Orangemen side of politics and religion. Her parents were very middle-class merchants and solid Church of Ireland.

 

So why suddenly become a Catholic in Australia? And given that the order she chose already had a large following and capital city headquarters in Adelaide, why go to Sydney to join?

 

I have heard three different versions of why Grace left Ireland from three of her children..all assuring me that they were told by herself..here is an example..:  The Love Bowl.

 

It stood on my grandmother’s dresser in the lounge. A strange, glass bowl about eight inches across, of several soft colours, neither striped nor layered, but like clouds in the sky, their burred edges blended and vague..touching and yet not..where one colour would have a common border , then interrupted by another intruding between the two.

 

When I was around twelve years old I asked her what it was. My grandmother came from Ireland, she was a tiny woman with a wealth of stories from the old country. She saw my curiosity in the bowl and after a moment’s hesitation, she got up from her arm-chair and came and reached up and took the bowl down from its place on the shelf.

 

“It’s called a ‘Love Bowl’ “ she spoke, not necessarily to me, as to a distant past. “Or at least that’s what my mother called it…It was hers …given to her by my father when they were courting..it is the only thing of my mother’s that I have carried with me from Ireland.” She touched the bowl tenderly, turning it around slowly in her hands, the familiarity in which she caressed its surface demonstrated that she had done this thing many times in her life.

 

“Here,” she said , once again noticing my interest “ look at this..if I hold it to the light in a certain manner, like this..look..you can clearly see the blending of the colours..it all becomes clear and concise..you can see it all plain as day…But then, if I turn it this way..now look!..by just the slightest effect of the light, see how it now is clouded and opaque..like you have no clear idea of where one colour stops and the other starts...it becomes confused..you no longer can trust your own eyes…that’s why it is called a “love bowl”…because that is how love works”.

 

“What do you mean, gran’ ? ” I asked innocently.” How does love work?”

 

Gran’ placed the bowl on the wide board top of the dresser and leant on her fore-arms and we both stared at the bowl while she explained.

 

“ When one is in love..truly in love, one trusts and one gives oneself completely over to that trust so that one’s eyes become clear and focused…like when the light falls in the right place on the bowl and you can see the blending of colours clearly..you have no doubts, you have no fear in your heart.” and grandma suddenly stood straight and threw her arms up in the air “ You feel full of life and full of joy..you feel you could take on the world and win!..and why not?..you are in love..”

 

Gran’ stopped in her enthusiasm and once more came to rest her arms on the dresser. She turned the bowl to another side and slowly spoke again;

 

“ But then..if you suddenly start to doubt your love..like the colours in the bowl when turned against the light, you can no longer see your way clearly..you start to doubt even your own eyes and you start to imagine what is not there..suspicion creeps into your soul and you blame others for what you yourself conceive..and then anger, jealousy and spite enters into the relationship and that’s when love leaves the house..” She took a deep breath and straightened..”That is why the bowl is always left so that the light strikes it at the right angle…so love will stay in the heart and in the home.”

 

I remember then reaching for the bowl and I nearly upset it, so that gran’ quickly grasped it and held it away from my greedy fingers. She was frightened.

 

“No!”..she cried “In the name of heaven, boy..be careful!..” She must have seen a look of hurt in my eyes, so she softened and explained..; “It’s the glass, lad..and the way it is made..It is worked in a certain way , of such glass, of a certain temperature that if it were to break, it would not just break into several bits, but shatter into a million pieces so that it can never be put back together..it would break like a broken heart..”

 

“Your dad must have loved your mum.” I remarked casually.

 

“ He did, lad..he did..but she died in childbirth with her fourth child…and not more than a year later he remarried...” Gran was silent for a minute “He married his younger secretary..and I sometimes wonder…” She looked at me and stopped.

 

She then replaced the bowl up on its shelf, adjusted it to her satisfaction and dusted her hands on her skirt and stared for a moment.

 

“I suppose I should be thankful it is still in one piece then .”

 

Gran’ passed away a long time ago now, but I have often wondered what happened to the bowl.