Now she was gazing at him intensely, her eyes suddenly on fire. “I have often visited a wonderful place in my dreams. It is like a beautiful garden, and in the midst of this garden I am walking down a long, white road through a grove of sweet golden wattle that is swarming with colourful butterflies. There are a lot of people singing and waiting for me at the end of the road and I feel so happy there.”
She stroked his face again, meeting his gaze, touching the wetness on his cheek. “Don’t be sad, Brennan. Promise me you will come and visit me when I go to this new world. Perhaps they will even let me come back sometimes and join you on your travels. Will you promise to look out for me?”
He smiled at her. “Of course I will,” he said. “I wish you could stay here and come along with me on my travels, and in the meantime you must promise you will try to. But if you do have to go, I will see you there in the other world one day; I know I will. And if I don’t find you right away I will continue to look for you; I’ll look for you in everyone I meet until I do find you.” And to himself he said, One day I will be able to help someone who is sick. The quick flash of power he had felt as he stared into Laura’s eyes told him so. For the first time, he wished that time could be now.
Her mother came to take her indoors; it was time for her to take a nap before lunch. Brennan rose and bowed politely to the woman; then turned and smiled once more at Laura as she sat quietly at the table. “I’ll call by and see you again later today,” he said. “Or tomorrow.”
She smiled weakly back at him. “Goodbye, Brennan,” she said softly; and he felt a deep chill run through his body.
Brennan called the next day to see Laura, but he was not surprised to find the iron chairs at the small table vacant. Her mother met him at the door. Her eyes were red and swollen. She said nothing, she simply shook her head, but Brennan understood. With a heavy heart, he turned and walked away down along the path and out into the road. “Goodbye, Laura,” he said simply. “I’ll look for you in that other world, and I’ll look for you on the road when I start my travels.”
Then he went for a long walk through the city gardens, and then out into the little valley to see Sly Joe. As he walked through the bush along the wagon road, he marvelled at the beauty of the world and wondered at the sharp, contrasting pain that now gnawed at his heart.
When he got to Joe’s hut, he sat on the rough bench seat under the many-fruited tree with Sly Joe and cried a little as he told him of Laura’s death.
As Brennan talked, Joe patted his back and kept a sympathetic silence; he had loved the girl very much himself. “This beautiful world can be cruel as well as kind,” Joe finally said quietly. “I’ve seen some terrible things in me time; man’s inhumanity to man, as well as the harshness and unforgiving ways of nature at times.
“But Laura was right: there is another place somewhere, sometime. I don’t profess to understand it, but I know it is there, and that we can enjoy this world we live in right now that much more when we know there is another beyond.” While Brennan stared back at him from red-rimmed eyes, Joe placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “And there is something special about you, Brennan me lad, some deep brooding force within you. I knew it the day you first came here out of the blue. Laura saw it, and I see it too. Life goes up in plateaus for those who will let it. I think you are about to move to the next plateau in your life. Face it bravely, and you will see Laura again.”
“Do you really think so, Joe?” Brennan said hopefully, his tears drying as he listened to his friend’s words.
“I’m sure of it,” Joe said firmly. “Now there is something else you should know – I am about to take a wife.”
“A wife?” echoed Brennan. “I knew you had someone in mind, but does this mean you are about to be a free man before the three years of your ticket is up?”
“It does indeed,” Joe said happily. “And the currency lass has accepted me. I love her and she loves me; in a few weeks it will be official.”
“I am so happy for you, Joe! Your good news softens the blow of my bad news. I feel much better now.’ Brennan stood up. “I will visit you again soon, perhaps after your wife arrives; I’d like to meet her.”
Joe smiled as Brennan set out quickly for the city.
* * *
A few weeks after Laura died, Brennan returned home one day to find Arthur and a collection of Arthur’s friends at the cottage. “Do not come inside for the moment, boy,” Arthur said curtly; he still did not like Brennan very much. “Ede has just passed away; we are in the process of sorting out her things.”
Brennan stared at him. “Passed away? You mean...?”
“Yes, yes, she’s dead, boy; what else could I mean? You are lucky I was here when she had the heart attack; otherwise you would have come home and found her on the kitchen floor. Now go out and amuse yourself for a while until I call you.”
Brennan ran from the house. On the back verandah he sat down and cried a little, just as he had done when Laura died, trying to understand what had just happened. He had expected to lose Laura, but how could someone who seemed perfectly healthy, perhaps a little eccentric at most, just up and die without notice? Was Ede with Laura now? He hoped so, she had been very fond of the girl. He suddenly thought of Ede’s promise to reveal the secrets of his beginnings with him; now she had taken those elusive secrets to the grave with her. Now he would probably never know from whence he came.
The only two people in the world he’d felt close to were dead, and he’d been unable to help either of them. He wondered if he should go to the university after all and become a medical man; he knew that he had some deep brooding skill in that area. Then he remembered Ede’s words and the words of Sly Joe, and decided that his skills were not dependent on formal studies. There was a deeper force at work; he would simply have to be patient.
As he had done after Laura died, he went for a long walk into the hills to see Joe, but when he got there, the farm was deserted. Perhaps Joe was already off getting married to his new wife. Brennan walked about the little farm for a while, looking at the neat rows of lush vegetables. His heart was happy for his friend, but some small inner voice was telling him they were not going to meet again for a very long time.
Finding a pencil and a clean piece of bark, he sat down and wrote Joe a long note. He told him about Ede’s death, and that he did not expect to be back at the farm for a long time, if at all. Then he walked back along the narrow track towards the city, his mind working on a plan for his future.
* * *
As they lowered Ede’s coffin into the deep hole that had been dug in the musty red earth, Brennan found his tears had dried. What became of people when they died? He thought of Laura’s story about the wonderful place she had seen in her dreams, and Sly Joe’s assurances that people found eternal peace when they died. There had to be another place after death, a place where even the sick and the poor would find happiness.
As he looked about at the crowd that stood with him in a half circle near the grave, he thought that most of them lacked genuine sincerity in their grief, especially Arthur and his cronies. Even right now, most of the mourners were almost certainly thinking how they could best avail themselves of Ede’s few possessions. What did the old lady own anyway? A few items of furniture and household effects, and the little cottage? Regardless, Brennan did not care. He wanted none of it; and he knew that Arthur would claim everything of value anyway.
No reason now to stay any longer. Nothing was keeping him here anymore.