Bridge of Triangles Read Online Free PDF

those in the city wereexiled in the shadow of a half remembered world, where they once all belonged?
    The details of the Old Granny’s intuitive knowledge began to take further form one morning all those years ago when Sissy sat in the pale sun going through the kids’ hair. They sat as a group on the splintery floor boards. Rose and Clarrie drove up the dusty road. Rose, in a bright yellow suit left Clarrie in the car and clicked up the brick path to the veranda. She carried a bundle of rags.
    â€œWhat’s up?” Sissy’s hands rested on the girl’s head.
    Rose dropped the bundle on the wooden veranda. “A few jumpers there for the kids. We’re shooting through.”
    â€œWhat d’ya mean, shooting through? Leavin’ now? Pis-sin’ off?”
    â€œYeh. Clarrie says he’s sick of everything and, well, we’re shooting through. Car’s all packed and we’re goin’ back to the big smoke.”
    Sissy looked at the children whose eyes were screwed up against the watery light. “Well, what about, you know—our plan?”
    â€œLook. I can’t talk now. Clarrie’s waitin’, but don’t worry. You still come. But leave it a for a bit—let me get back and sort out things—but still come. Look I’ve gotta go. But don’t worry Sis, I’ll drop you a line, promise. Nothin’s changed. Well, ta-ta youse kids. Come and give your aunty a kiss.”
    Rose stooped down and kissed the children on their mouths one after another. She had a lace handkerchief half hanging out of the corner of her black handbag—very smart and no doubt her renewed homage to the big smoke. Rose, in a show of affection, held the girl’s head between both hands as she kissed her. “Oh, I hope you’ve been done!” she said as she wiped her red nailed fingers down her yellow skirt. “Now youse kids remember to behaveyourselves. Ta-ta.” Yes Rose had sure left sitting on the ground with family far far behind.
    Sissy had not stopped looking at her sister and as Rose walked to the red car which held Clarrie and the two little blond boys she said, “Well bugger me, you might see me a bit sooner than you think.”
    But Jack still lay in the hospital.
    The next day Sissy got a job in Brown’s laundry. She operated a mangle and took to wearing a scarf and an even more worried face. She stored most of the few pounds she got each week in a tea caddy where the young Queen’s face smiled in its golden border. She told Jack of her job but nothing, of course, about her Sydney schemes and dreams.
    It was way back then, as the winter set in and the white track in front of the saleyards turned to red mud and July clouds brought lightning that lit up all the fences and trailing power poles in the winter nights that the kids went over to the Old Granny’s place. Dimly Jack knew Sissy was working and so naturally Paula and the Old Granny stepped in. Or sometimes the kids would be taken over to Mrs Ladell’s who had a daughter who lived in a wheelchair with her legs covered by a tartan rug. The beautiful child’s feet stuck out from the rug in shiny blue satin slippers and this seemed somehow obscene to Chris. Did all the world have a secret, imperfect centre? But Mrs Ladell was kind and gave the kids rock cakes and let them help shake the rag mats that she and her alabaster daughter made. They lived near the big bridge and Chris could see its great white wooden girders standing up above the willow-swept dark waters down behind Mrs Ladell’s back fence. That was years before Mrs Ladell died in giving the life from her own bones for her child’s.

As Jack improved in the hospital Sissy felt vaguely cheated. She realised this and then felt guilty. But because whenever she was with him she had to fight him she said, “You haven’t changed. I thought you might get some sense knocked into you by now.”
    Jack,