Tess Evans - Book of Lost Threads

Paul offers his hand. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you again, Mr Sandilands-Sandy. Dad’s kept us posted on the working bees. I believe even old Cocky pitched in to help.’

Sandy grins. ‘Might have been the free beer Merv put on- but seriously, everyone did their bit and I have to admit that Cocky earned that beer.’

Freda D’Amico joins them and gestures towards the gardens. ‘Beats a great galah, eh, Sandy?’ She gives him a playful nudge.

‘New plan, Freda. I’m building one just opposite your home paddock.’

‘Beware the protestors, my friend.’ She waves to an elderly woman who is flustering about in a floral apron. ‘Okay, Liz. Coming.’ She turns back to Sandy and Helen. ‘Got to go. Have to deliver these scones to the tea girls.’

Tom Ferguson and Ned Humphries want to discuss business. ‘Hey, Sandy. When do you reckon the council will approve the river walk?’ This was a plan to extend the garden along the river to join up with the Memorial Gardens.

‘Not yet,’ Sandy replies. ‘But I’d say it’s in the bag.’

Book of Lost Threads Sandy walks hand in hand with Helen, accepting backslaps and handshakes from friends and neighbours. They stop by a corner garden bed, planted with fine-leaf tussock-grass, bluebells, everlasting daisies and a shrub that Sandy can’t identify. Sharon Simpson is there with a group of children.

‘It’s a sweet bursaria,’ Sharon tells him, pleased and officious. ‘Has these white flowers in summer and then red seed pods.’

Her mum had bullied her into coming to one of the Sunday working bees. Sharon had been standing around, feeling awkward, and fearful for her new acrylic nails, when Moss, in overalls and gloves, had grabbed her.

‘You want to help? Look after the kids. They’re driving us crazy.’ In this way, the Children’s Corner was born, and Sharon lost three expensive nails. It wasn’t part of the original plan, but Hamish was pleased. As he said, it was Opportunity’s garden, not his.

The night before, there had been a candlelight gathering of the first people of the book. Each of them had walked the labyrinth and placed their stone on the curving pathway.

Finn had found Jilly’s stone on Blackpool Beach when he returned to England for a maths conference. He laid it on the path with care. He wasn’t doing it for himself; he did it for her father, Andy Baker. ‘He’d want this for you, Jilly,’ Finn said as he patted the pebble into place.

Moss is to sing at the opening, but she came a day early and stooped to lay a sharp piece of glittering quartz with a vein of gold at its centre. ‘Just like you, Mother Linsey.’ She smiled.

Hamish drove Ana up with her mother and sister, Uncle Visar following to take Rozafa and Miri home. They brought two stones from their garden in Shepparton. That way, their beloved Jetmir and Edvin could share in their new home in this land so far from their common grave in Kosova.

Sandy placed five stones. Foreseeing this day, he’d gone down to the river even before the plans were approved, and spent hours sifting among the pebbles on the riverbed. He wanted each one to embody the person it represented, and he chose with care. For Rosie, he selected a smooth flat pebble, its creamy white surface shot with a roseate vein. He laid his mother to rest with gentle hands.

He thought sadly of his Aunt Lily, wishing that she could have been here for this final act of homage on behalf of her own dead.

‘One for you, little Tiger,’ he said, laying a small white stone, perfectly round, with a soft luminescence. For Arthur, he had found an odd-shaped stone the colour of military khaki. ‘I never knew you, mate, but I know Aunt Lily loved you, so here you go.’

In the end, Sandy couldn’t bear to exclude Lily from this family of stones. Technically, she didn’t fit the criteria for a place in the labyrinth. She lay in peace, under a headstone bearing her name, in the family plot at St Saviour’s.

‘I can break the rules for you, Aunt Lily. You and Arthur and little Tiger. You were apart for too long. You can all lie together now.’ Lily Pargetter’s stone was curiously banded in yellows, browns and greys. ‘Just like a tea cosy.’ Sandy grinned affectionately as he placed it next to the others.

He reached into his pocket and took out a rough blue-grey stone. He was breaking another rule. ‘I think you belong here too, Errol.’

The gardens are finished, but only time will reveal their full beauty. News of the book had spread by word of mouth, and other names were added to its pages, so that Sandy had to commission a second volume. Many of those who had written in one of the books are here today to complete the ritual with the laying of a stone.

The opening is to be simple. Sandy has staunchly fended off publicity-seeking politicians and numerous clergy who wanted to make a speech or say a prayer. He was adamant. ‘All we need is some music and a simple dedication.’

Moss waits nervously. Remembering her panic before Linsey’s funeral, Finn hovers nearby in case she needs support. He’s dying for a smoke but will wait now until the formalities are over.

Helen pushes Sandy gently, and he moves to the front of the makeshift platform and takes the microphone.

‘Ladies and gentlemen-and children, too, of course. Today we are opening the Opportunity Gardens, the gardens where we have all worked so hard for the past two years. What an effort! Congratulations, Opportunity.’ Cheers and whistles from the crowd as Sandy pauses. ‘For many of you, the gardens are simply a place of beauty and pleasure, a place to enjoy with family and friends. But for some, this is the day when you will complete the act of remembrance you began when you signed one of the books that we are keeping in our beautiful rotunda. Today is the day that you will lay your stones in the labyrinth.’ His expansive gesture embraces the spiral path with the exquisite little structure at its centre. ‘But before that…’ He smiles fondly as Moss climbs the steps to the platform. ‘Before that, I’m pleased and proud to introduce Opportunity’s adopted daughter, and our dear friend, to sing for the loved ones we remember here today. Miranda Sinclair, with “An Eriskay Love Lilt”.’

Moss is nervous, fearing that emotion will get the better of her. She catches Finn’s eye. Hamish and Ana smile their encouragement. All these people have faith in me , she thinks . I can do this . She steps forward and sings.

Vair me oro van o,

Vair me oro van ee

Vair me oro o ho

Sad am I without thee.

When I’m lonely, dear white heart,

Black the night, or wild the sea,

By love’s light my foot finds

The old pathway to thee.

Thou art the music of my heart,

Harp of joy, oh cruit mo chridh

Moon of guidance by night

Strength and light, thou art to me.

Vair me oro van o,

Vair me oro van ee

Vair me oro o ho

Sad am I without thee.

A shaft of sunlight pierces the clouds and strikes the stained-glass windows of the rotunda. Splinters of coloured light fragment the air as the clouds part. The garden is drowning in light; a light that pours comfort and grace over the patient lines of pilgrims waiting with their stones.

Helen and Sandy have invited Moss, Finn, Hamish and Ana back to the house for a private celebration. The wisteria is flowering early this year, and the long verandah is draped in a graceful blue curtain. Sandy and Helen smile a welcome at the door. The house has not forgotten the sadness it has witnessed. Houses never do. But it has woven this into its new story with such subtlety that it is transmuted into something softer, more bearable and, finally, hopeful. Moss, of course, knows this. She feels such things in her bones.