by Paula Hayes
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
The Black Hat
“It’s so dull without Leo around,” said Dylan. “The front room smells nice. It makes me feel sad.” He picked up a book and flicked through it distractedly. “They are only words … boring.”
“What is wrong now Jan Brady?”
“I don’t want to talk about THAT yet,” sulked Dylan.
“Everything is so ordinary now. Once one has dabbled in the Occult everything else becomes mundane. The aftertaste is boredom. I shall never be satisfied again.”
Dylan inspected his hands. Nina had stencilled a henna tattoo on the back. Kelsey had asked her to paint an identical one on the back of hers.
“Although I must say, this chrysanthemum tea and tiny raspberry tarts are helping to rally my spirits no end.” Dylan scooped up three at a time and shovelled them into his mouth. He smiled sweetly at Kelsey exposing his gluggy crumby teeth. A smidge of raspberry jam slid down his chin.
“You look like a vampire,” laughed Kelsey.
Anna, Jacqui and Dylan eyeballed each other and tried not to laugh sweet crumbs into the air.
“Yes I’m loving these brownies Kelsey, you are an excellent cook,” Anna said quickly.
“Thanks,” beamed Kelsey.
Anna looked down at the empty vintage china plate, “Did I eat five or six pieces?”
“Who is counting sweetie?” said Jacqui as she devoured her tenth rum ball. “I’m feeling a bit tiddly.”
“It’s just that I’m feeling sick like I’ve eaten too much. I’ve got indigestion.” Anna attempted to burp.
“Funny that, I feel a bit queasy too.” Kelsey rubbed her chest.
“I do so love a good cup of tea. Do you have any plain butter cake? This is all a bit rich for an old girl like me.”
“Nice Irish accent Dylan,” smiled Anna, slurping down a green tea.
“Whath? I’m thill thewing.” Dylan resumed chewing his cakey cud.
Kelsey looked behind Anna. Mary Ellen was prodding the beanbag disapprovingly with her boot. “What do we call this, it can’t be good for a lady’s posture or dignity.”
“What’s going on?” said Jacqui, looking at Kelsey and Anna’s shocked faces.
“Mary Ellen missed the party but is here for a spot of tea,” whispered Anna.
“I wish,” said Mary Ellen wistfully. “I can only enjoy the smell.”
Dylan swallowed his mouthful with a choke and a cough. “I can smell rose water.” He sniffed the air thoughtfully. “Mmm, it’s gorgeous.” He breathed in deeply. “Oh,” he said, “it seems to be sullied by potato peelings.” He crinkled his nose. “I hate potatoes.”
“It’s Mary Ellen. She is wearing her Sunday best, the Black Hat.”
Dylan pulled his feet up onto his chair and got his puffer out. He put it on the table, “Just in case.” Kelsey took his hand in hers.
“This must be Dylan, Leo said he was a character.” She inspected his henna hands with distaste.
“Have you been talking to Leo? I thought you were most displeased with him,” said Anna in a very bad Irish accent.
“Ah and you must be Anna,” replied Mary Ellen tersely.
She looked hard at an oblivious Jacqui, “Quite a wild looking lass.”
She turned her attention to Kelsey. “You must be Kelsey, you are very pretty dear but the green hair suggests you have a psychiatric disorder.”
Kelsey put her hand on her head. “I was thinking of changing it to red.”
Mary Ellen raised an eyebrow.
“Hmm. An improvement. There you go. Good girl.”
Loud thumping footsteps came from down the hallway.
“Has Kelsey been baking again?” asked Natalie as she swung the fly screen door open and made a beeline for the brownies.
“And that’s enough cake for you.” Natalie paused and looked at Mary Ellen and slowly put the cake down without breaking eye contact with the spectre.
“Good morning Mary Ellen.”
“That is Grandmother to you three girls.”
“Yes Grandmother,” replied Kelsey, Natalie and Anna like chastened schoolgirls.
Mary Ellen sat down primly on the free floral armchair. She inspected it for dust and flicked away a stunned cricket.
“Natalie dear, you need to work harder on your housekeeping skills. It is quite a health risk sitting out here. Not for myself of course. I was constitutionally very sound before I became one of the dearly departed.”
Natalie overcame her shock and straightened up, “What are you doing here Grandmother Mary Ellen. Leo has been reunited with Daisy, Rex and Les too. Hopefully, he is slapping Bill on the back and shaking hands with Pat.”
“Very funny Natalie dear.” Mary Ellen gave a tightlipped smile.
“I know all that. I keep an eye on things.” She bristled and then relaxed. “It is all taken care of now dear, no need to worry about it any more.”
“Did you apologise for your rude and interfering ways?”
Mary Ellen’s black hat wobbled slightly on top of her pointy face.
“It’s not a matter of saying sorry, we commune our feelings,” she snapped haughtily, “But yes, he knows I am sorry.” Mary Ellen looked down at the uneven floorboards, “I am sorry that my words and deeds hurt those two. I am very sorry that Leo wandered confused for over ninety years—typical though,” she smiled. “He was not very bright.” Mary Ellen continued on. She put her hand up to silence Anna's protest. “You may not believe me but I really liked Leo. He was a very good sort of fellow. So good to his dear mother.”
Anna managed to get out, “You called her a scarlet woman!”
“Did I? Oh dear, I am sure it was in the heat of the moment.”
“For six months.”
“Enough! Impertinent girl, where was I? Ah yes, Leo from across the road. My Lesley took him under his wing and Agnes,” she faltered, “you do realise she was sweet on him too. I simply could not have him popping up and chatting to her for the rest of her life. She was a fragile little thing. I had to tell him to keep away for Agnes’ sanity.” Worried she had said too much, Mary Ellen distracted the group by levitating the teapot, “What tea is that? The smell is quite insipid.” Mary Ellen screwed up her nose as she peered into Kelsey’s cup.
“It’s herbal,” offered Kelsey.
“If only I could have a whiff of an Irish breakfast teapot. It would surely gladden me heart.”
Anna relayed the message to Jacqui who quickly went inside to get the tea and pot.
Mary Ellen watched the swish of her long hair as it touched her pajama bottom. “As I said, quite wild looking.” Jacqui returned with the brew and Mary Ellen wriggled her nose in pleasure.
“Where was I, oh yes that is right. I have come to tell you the final resting place of Leo.”
“How do you know it?” Natalie spat out her tea.
“Natalie dear, manners,” tisked Mary Ellen.
“After the war, another letter came for poor departed Angelika. I took the liberty of opening it and any further correspondence from the AIF. It was from a Captain Downing. He said a Private Bill Sadleir had gathered what he could of Private Nolan’s remains; he had insisted that his mate would not end up in the belly of a rat or in the bottom of a bog. He had wrapped them up in Leo’s trench coat and placed his pay book in the pocket and then put him in a sand bag. A couple of other soldiers helped him make a shallow grave with a plain timber cross. Leo 1908.
However poor Bill, who was not right in the head for a long time after that, was sent to hospital and didn’t manage to finish any paper work. After the war, around 1920 when Bill was recovering, he contacted the Captain with the information. Leo was moved to the Boulogne Eastern Cemetery. By then, the AIF had sent a circular form asking for a personal epitaph as well as a choice of religious emblem for the headstone. My dear son Daniel paid for the inscriptions, three and a half pen
ce a letter! He did all the correspondence. He even wrote to Daisy to get her thoughts.”
“Dan? Dan didn’t like Leo. He was a coward with a jealous competitive streak.”
Mary Ellen sat straight up, pointed her knobbly finger at her and said, “How dare you! How dare you young lady, my Daniel was especially kind and goodnatured. He became the backbone of our family. Oh yes, he took his cricket far too seriously and excuse him for following the Lord’s advice not to kill. Devout Catholic, girl. And yes, he made some money but I will have you know that he financially supported his surviving brothers and sisters, in particular, Agnes and Leslie. Whatever they needed, he provided. How he tried to get Agnes to wear her new false teeth. She could be very stubborn, her love of bananas was her undoing.”
“So Leo does have a proper grave?”
“Yes dear, he is there with all the other brave Australian lads.”
Plus one thoroughly confused compulsive card player named Fred, thought Anna.
“Would you like to know what it says?”
“Of course,” said Kelsey breathlessly. Natalie was crying in anticipation. Mary Ellen touched the chipped old coffee table and slowly it took on the image of a white headstone visible only to the three of them.
1908 PRIVATE
L . R . NOLAN
54TH BATTALION
21ST MARCH 1918
ALL THE DAYS ARE NIGHTS ‘TILL I SEE THEE,
AND NIGHTS BRIGHT DAYS WHEN DREAMS DO SHOW THEE ME.
“That’s Shakespeare! You let Daisy choose?”
Mary Ellen released the table and looked at her hands. “Yes, of course … I’d made a mess of the bereavement notice and I felt … very troubled by my transgression. It was a heavy burden on my heart.” Her prim face sagged into sorrow.
“It’s perfect,” cried Anna. “Thank you.”
Mary Ellen rallied and patted Anna fondly on the head. “I’ll be seeing you again soon dears.” She sniffed deeply into the pot and vanished.
Anna and Kelsey looked at each other in shock, “AGAIN!”
“THAT IS IT!” shouted Natalie as she ripped off her Eiffel tower embroidered pinny. “WE ARE ALL GOING TO FRANCE.” She ran inside to tell Kevin the good news as she shouted over her shoulder, “I must buy a copy of German for Dummies.”
“France! Est-ce que je puex venir trop?” said Dylan.
“Oui, oui,” laughed Anna.
Dylan turned to Jacqui as he bounced up and down on his seat, clapping his hands together and sung out, “Cheap flights, cheap flights. Jacs, quick doll, get surfing.”
“Cheap flights yourself. You start searching!” bellowed Jacqui. “I still don’t have a phone. And I feel very chilled without it,” she shouted.
“Okay, okay.” Dylan took out his phone and compulsively checked his pics first.
“Ooh, look at that pic of you, Jacqui. You look gorgeous. Your left side is really your best.”
“Dylan get out of your pics and into the Internet,” bossed Anna.
“Really? Show me,” said Jacqui. She held out her hand, Dylan clung to his phone and continued to zoom through his pictures. He shooed her away with his free hand.
“Oh, I remember when I took this, we were interviewing Leo. I was showing off the superiority of my pixel over his Kodak. Oh look at the one I took of the ceiling, there is a web falling off the light fitting, with an enormous huntsman spider hanging from it—that is randomly artistic. I love it. I’m so talented. I’m uploading that one gals.”
He continued to scroll through fast. “Hmmm Anna’s foot, pooh stink delete, the window, delete. No idea what that is, delete. OMG, no, phew, it’s only a picture of the photo of Mary Ellen. Okay, delete, delete.”
Suddenly Dylan jumped up and ran around the front yard while shouting in joyful Bengali, “Ami dekhte peyechhi, ami Leo ke dekhte peyechhi, shotyi shesh porjonto Leo ke dekhte pelam!”
He leapt over the front hedge, out onto the road and back over the hedge again. He grabbed his tee shirt and pulled it over his head, Beckham style as he punched the air wildly.
The three girls watched him indulgently. Their amusement turned to alarm as he continued to run and scream.
“You haven’t sexted him have you?” whispered Anna.
“NO, yuck no way, that is disgusting. Does he often get like this?”
“No, this is extreme, even for Dylan.”
“It’s my main man. It’s my homie Leo. It’s Leo. It’s Leo!”
“He has really lost it big time, this time,” said Jacqui shaking her head.
Dylan sprang up the verandah steps screeching, “Follow me. Follow me. Follow me!” at the bemused girls.
Anna shrugged her shoulders and said, “Come on, let’s get this over and done with.”
They entered the green room to be confronted by Natalie’s bottom. She was on her hands and knees, lifting up the edge of the new mat, which revealed a loose floorboard. Dylan charged past her and started fiddling with his tablet that lay dormant on the oak table.
“What are you doing Mum?”
“Oh dear, I’m busted.” She put her hand out to Anna, “Please help me up.” Natalie nearly tipped Anna over. “I think I have put on weight since the weekend,” she said red faced.
Jacqui looked around Anna and into the cavern in the floor, “Ooh yummy, Tim Tams. Is this your never ending hidey hole of treats?” she asked.
“Yes, I was going to empty it and seal it up, I want to lose weight for the wedding and Paris.”
“Is that why Larry goes crazy for the rug?”
“Yes. Now let us never speak of it again.”
“Leo! Here he is, here is Leo.”
Up on the tablet screen flashed a beautiful blue-eyed soldier. He was smiling and waving and slightly out of focus.
“It is Leo!” gasped Anna
“Yep that’s Gramps alright!” laughed Kelsey.
“Show me,” cried Jacqui. “OMG, what a honey! We did it! We captured him! Fuzzy and pixilated but drop dead gorgeous!
“Har Har,” giggled Anna, “and we released him!” she beamed. “Tick!”