The Winds of Heaven (33 page)

‘This is Fan,’ says Clementine to Sarah.

‘
Fan?
’

‘My cousin’s grandaughter. Cash’s child.’ Clementine laughs at the amazed delight on Sarah’s face. ‘She’s staying with us for the holidays. Before she goes back to university.’

‘Ah,’ breathes Sarah, and she stands quite still, gazing steadily at Fan, like someone gone quiet before a painting where it seems some rare and lovely truth of life is unexpectedly revealed. ‘So,’ she says, clasping her hands together. ‘So.’ She smiles at Clementine. ‘There are good things after all, eh?’

Clementine takes Fan’s thin brown hand in hers and holds it fast. ‘There are
great
good things,’ she says.

My thanks to friends and helpers:

Erica Wagner and Sue Flockhart

Margaret Connolly and Jamie Grant

Frances Floyd and Frances Sutherland

Laurie Mooney and Marnie Kennedy

Cathy Jinks and Kathleen Stewart

Robyn Barlow and Roswitha Dabke

Tracey and Tyrone Johnstone

Reis and Nima Flora

Allan Baillie and Graham King

Wendy Dickstein and Brian Gray

And to the librarians of Lithgow, Blackheath, Katoomba and the Lachlan Shire.

And to Dr Jo Tibbetts of Active Computer Support (for many rescues).

Fan’s poem in Part Four and the Epilogue is the eighth stanza of Henry Vaughan’s poem, ‘They are all gone into the world of light!’

The lines Clementine recites to Fan in Chapter thirteen are from William Wordsworth’s ‘A Slumber did my Spirit Seal’

The custom described by Daria in Chapter six is related in Henri Troyat’s biography,
Gorky

The poem Clementine reads in the school library in Chapter five is A.E. Housman’s ‘Into my heart an air that kills’

The song ‘Oh My Darling, Clementine’ is a folk song from the American gold rush

The story Fan tells Clementine in Chapter two is ‘Revenge of the Magic Child’ (Bidjandjara) – collected in
The World of the First Australians
, by Ronald M. and Catherine H. Berndt

Words of the Wiradjuri language from
A First Wiradjuri Dictionary
, compiled by Stan Grant Senr. and Dr John Rudder (Language copyright Wiradjuri Council of Elders)

To find help for depression, visit
www.beyondblue.org.au
or phone 1300 224 636.