talking to Rozafa, who belongs to a shawl-knitting group in Shepparton. It was she who had given Helen the idea.
‘We had eleven people at the initial meeting,’ Helen tells her. ‘We have about twenty now. We’ve sort of adopted Afghanistan and most of them go there.’
‘The old lady—she would be happy, I think?’
‘I’m sure she would.’
Ana comes to fetch her mother, and Helen moves on. Sandy looks up and smiles as she approaches with a young family in tow.
‘You remember Paul, Tom and Nessie’s son? And this is his wife Cate and their children, Charlotte and Julian.’
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