Araluen Read Online Free PDF

bitterly disappointed when Charles had refused to take even one sip.
    She'd been eleven then. Around the same age as Franklin is now, she thought. And that moment in the cellar had formed the basis of the lifetime bond she had shared with her father.
    ‘Why have you stopped drawing, Aunt Catherine?’
    Startled out of her reverie by young Franklin, she looked up at the sky. ‘We're losing our light. Let's do something else instead, shall we?’ Catherine packed away her sketching things. ‘Come along.’ And Franklin clasped the hand she extended to him and followed her into the cellar.
    Franklin had been inside the cellar only twice before. And then briefly and in the company of hisfather, the children being forbidden to enter unless accompanied by an adult.
    It was a fascinating place. Dark but not gloomy; cool but not dank; musty but not stale. It excited him and, as he drank in the smell and the look and the feel of it all, he barely noticed Catherine pouring a glass of wine from one of the sample bottles on the heavy wooden counter.
    Suddenly the half-filled glass was before him. ‘Try it,’ she said. And he stared at the rich purple wine. ‘Go over there and hold it up to the light. It's a beautiful colour.’ He crossed to the doorway and held up the glass.
    ‘If you roll the wine around gently you can see where it sticks to the glass,’ Catherine said. ‘That's a very good sign.’ She watched as the boy examined the wine from every angle. It was a solemn exercise and he was utterly engrossed — just as she herself had been at his age. She watched as he gently sipped from the glass. A bond was being forged between the two of them, just like the bond that had been created between her and her father all those years ago.
    ‘Do you like it, Franklin?’ she asked.
    Franklin paused for thought. ‘It tastes like wet flour sacks,’ he said finally.
    Catherine laughed. ‘Have you ever tasted wet flour sacks?’
    ‘No. But it tastes the way wet flour sacks smell like they'd taste.’
    It was a very serious assessment so Catherine didn't laugh again. ‘Is it a taste you like?’
    ‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘Yes, I think so.’
    Franklin wasn't sure whether he liked the tasteor not. But ‘taste’ wasn't really the right word anyway, he thought. It wasn't a big enough word. He was enjoying the whole experience — the smell, the texture, the colour of the wine. And he was enjoying being in the cellar and the closeness with his Aunt. How could he put all that into words? He took another sip instead. ‘Yes, I like it,’ he said.
    How unlike his father he is, Catherine thought fondly. ‘Come along, we'd better go inside. It'll be dark soon.’
    Two days later, the shocking news arrived. Uncle Harry, Captain Harold Johnston, Sixth Division, South Australian Light Horse, had been killed in action. He was one of many, many Australians who had fallen in battle at a place called Gallipoli.
    Mary contained her grief and it was frightening to see. She closed herself off from them all. She was fine, she said. People died in a war; it was to be expected — she wasn't the only widow. She must accept her lot.
    Her behaviour wasn't natural. They all felt disturbed by it. The whole family. But no one could break through the barrier. She insisted on seeing to the funeral arrangements herself, she didn't shed a tear during the service and, the day after Harry was buried, she started packing away his clothes and personal belongings for Charles to deliver to the Salvation Army headquarters in town.
     
    Surprisingly enough Catherine was the one who finally made the breakthrough.
    Late one afternoon, Mary turned up in the trap, a large trunk on the seat beside her. ‘Charles says you're going into town to collect your friend tomorrow.’
    ‘That's right,’ Catherine nodded.
    ‘I've packed the last of Harry's belongings and I wondered whether you might drop them at the Salvation Army for me. It would save Charles an unnecessary