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Chapter 2

Her little hand reached up to ring the bell.

There was a delight to the sound of it, like the oncoming tune of an ice-cream van, so she pressed it twice.

‘Sarah!’ her mother said shortly, ‘at least give them some time to answer before you go pressing the bell a second time.’

‘How long should we give them?’

After a moment, they could hear someone inside coming to the door.

‘Hello!’ an enthusiastic woman’s voice greeted them, as the door swung open. ‘How are you Sarah?’

‘I’m well,’ Sarah replied with a giggle.

‘How about you Brett, are you as well as your sister here?’

‘Yep.’

‘I see you’ve brought your reading with you.’

‘Yep.’

‘Are you going to read for us in a loud, clear voice today?’

‘Yep’

‘Lovely! Hello Rachael. Hello Matthew. Come in everyone! Come in!’

‘Hi Sonya,’ Rachael replied warmly, shepherding the children before her and stepped in front of her husband, holding out a large cake tin to their hostess. ‘This is still a bit warm,’ she said apologetically, ‘I hope the icing hasn’t run.’

‘Warm and fresh!’ came the reply, ‘Marcus has arranged all the chairs in the living room, but it’s such a lovely sunny day, I wondered if we wouldn’t be better moving them all out into the garden?’

‘Do you want me to move them?’ Matthew volunteered, following his wife down the hall and into the sitting room.

‘Marcus has gone for a walk while he goes over his address,’ Sonya replied with a sigh, ‘I better wait until he gets back.’

‘We can always move them back again,’ Matthew remarked without concern. ‘It’s better to have kids outside.’

‘We can eat cake outside,’ Sarah observed earnestly, her fair hair bobbing around her little shoulders as she gave a nod.

‘It is lovely out there,’ Sonya said tentatively, ‘We might as well make the best of it, after all that rain.’

Matthew picked up the closest wooden chair, balancing its cushion against his thigh as he carried it into the hall. Brett was not far behind, having taken up a chair of his own, banging its legs loudly against the doorpost in the hall as he came.

‘Brett! Put that down,’ his mother called to him, covering her ears and wincing in sympathy with Sonya’s woodwork.

‘Just leave it there mate,’ Matthew said calmly, ‘I’ll bring the chairs out through to the back door and you can arrange them in the garden for us.’

Sonya looked to Rachael, giving a small grimace, followed by a smile as Brett caught the legs again whilst trying to put down the chair.

Outside lay a grassy space, bordered by a meandering flower bed that had been turned over ready for planting. Behind the garden bed stood clusters of Bottle Brush and red flowering Grevillea. Further back stood some citrus trees, behind which ran wire mesh and a handful of chickens. By the time Matthew and Brett had finished arranging all the chairs in a circle on the grass, several couples had arrived, two with children, and they began to settle themselves on the assembled seats.

‘Who brought the sun with them?’ Serge asked in his deep, Slavic voice, taking his place by his young wife and daughter, ‘I thought you were going to carry that around for me,’ he joked with Marie beside him, reaching to tickle under her chin. She pushed his hand away from her neck with a smile, but held on to it, and put her other arm around their daughter, in a lazy, stretching motion that seemed to reflect her contentment beneath the mild, winter sunshine.

The back door opened again and several more of the regulars stepped out to wander over the grass. They exchanged greetings as they took their places amidst the chairs.

‘Hello Prue, how are you feeling?’ Rachael called, upon seeing Prue emerge out onto the back step, her hair subdued in a tight bun high on her head.

‘I’m not too bad now,’ Prue replied as she came to sit beside Sarah, who dangled her legs carelessly before her mother. ‘I brought the Tupperware that you sent Matthew over with. I don’t know what he thought of me lounging about in my dressing gown in the middle of the day. I can tell you, your lasagne got me through a few days of inactivity in the kitchen.’

‘You look a lot better-’

‘What’s everyone doing out here?’ a dismayed voice cut across the general conversation so that everybody looked up.

‘There you are my love!’ Sonya called back, ‘I thought it would be nice for us all to sit out in the garden.’

‘Oh no. We’ll have to move the chairs back inside,’ Marcus said definitely.

‘I think it was a wonderful idea to sit out here,’ a woman called from the far side of the circle. ‘If you were sitting in a garden like this in Hong Kong, you would either be very rich, or in a public park.’

‘Dad,’ Brett said, tugging at Matthew’s elbow.

‘It is lovely out here,’ Marcus replied across the circle, ‘distractingly lovely, but as we’re supposed to be looking within ourselves, not basking in the sunshine, I suggest we take the chairs back inside and focus our thoughts-’

‘Dad!’ Brett called more urgently.

‘Brett, I’m not going to tell you again,’ Matthew remarked, getting up from his chair and grasping it’s spine, ‘I actually moved the chairs outside,’ he said to Marcus frankly, ‘Sonya wanted to wait until you returned, but I thought it would be good to get the children out here. However, I can appreciate your concern, and I think it’s a valid one.’

Rachael stood up beside him, and she prompted Sarah with a pat on the shoulder, to slide down beside her. Prue stood up as well, checking with her hand to see that her hair had not escaped from its clasp.

On the other side of the circle, the others kept to their seats, waiting to see if it would be necessary to rise.

Matthew took the weight of the chair in his arm, but hesitated for a moment, so that it stood as it was.

‘We’re out here now darling, let’s just stay as we are,’ Sonya appealed to her husband wearily, ‘I’m sure it won’t make very much difference.’

‘It will make a difference,’ Marcus asserted, ‘it will make a difference-’

Out from the back of the house, a young, pregnant woman appeared tentatively, grasping the door post. ‘Sorry we’re late!’ came her cry, as she settled her weight upon the back step then proceeded out onto the grass, catching hold of Marcus’s arm and crying out ‘ooow! Paul, you should be walking in front of me! What’s the good of being way back there? Sorry Marcus.’ She was so well rounded, that everybody relaxed when she found the closest chair.

‘Nieja, this will be your last meeting like that!’ Sonya called, with a look of delight in her eyes.

‘I hope so!’ Nieja replied in mock alarm. ‘If I’m still like this in another month, I’ll be rolling about the place,’ she added with a smile.

Matthew still stood, his chair in his hand, and Marcus, hand on hip, had also yet to move, but Rachael sat down again. There was no question of moving now, and even Marcus made no more objection than a thoughtful look toward the grass before finally taking his place in the circle.

‘Now, Brett is going to start the conversation off today with a reading from the Children’s Bible,’ said Sonya, in a clear voice.

‘Dad,’ Brett whispered urgently.

‘Remember what we talked about the other night,’ Matthew said quietly, to his son, without taking his eyes off their hostess.

‘What story are you going to read for us Sweetheart?’ Sonya prompted gently.

Brett sat by his father without reply.

‘Well, tell everyone what you’re going to read us mate, it’s not a secret,’ Matthew urged.

‘I can’t find the page,’ Brett replied to his father in a cross and anxious whisper.

‘Just open it up at the red marker,’ Rachael prompted him calmly.

‘The marker fell out,’ Brett protested, ‘I just had to put it back anywhere to help with the chairs.’

Rachael reached across Matthew and lifted the book from Brett’s lap, opened it deftly and turned to a certain page before handing the book back to her son. ‘There you are.’

He settled himself awkwardly, with the open book on his knee and waited a moment before beginning to read aloud.

‘And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree,’ he began, then continued on with the story, without looking up to Sonya to see if he was on cue. ‘And all went to be taxed...,’ he read earnestly, ignoring the soft giggles which emanated from his sister.

He read slowly, but with a reasonable fluency, so that...