The Year It All Ended Read Online Free PDF Page A

her voice sounds. Not like Thea at all. Papa folded his newspaper and disappeared down the hall. He came back a different person. Tiney barely recognised him as he stepped into the kitchen from the cool, dark hallway.
    ‘Who was it?’ asked Mama.
    ‘It was Father Alison,’ said Papa.
    ‘But why didn’t you ask him in?’
    Papa didn’t reply, nor Thea, who was standing behind him, staring at the kitchen linoleum. And then Tiney knew. She knew before Papa even spoke. And so did Mama. Because Father Alison had never come to call before. Because the Flynns were not members of his church, or of any church in Medindie. Because there was only one reason why Father Alison had come to their door. In Adelaide, it was always the local minister who was the bearer of bad tidings.
    ‘Louis?’ said Mama.
    ‘We’ve lost him,’ said Papa, his voice breaking as the words left his mouth.
    For a split second after her father spoke, Tiney felt as though she was out of her body, above the room, watching the scene unfold. Mama crumpling, folding over and crying out. The basket falling from her hands, the eggs breaking as they hit the freshly waxed floor, the plums tumbling onto the linoleum, the blood-coloured juice staining the pale yellow squares, Mama on her knees calling out, ‘Mein Sohn, mein einziger Sohn, mein Liebling, mein liebster Sohn ist verschwunden .’
    Nette coming through the back door, frowning with disapproval at their mother speaking German, not listening, not realising. Opening her mouth to admonish and then seeing Papa and Thea and Tiney, their faces frozen. Nette letting out a low groan and collapsing onto a chair, calling out, ‘Louis, not Louis!’ Minna following behind her and screaming, screaming as she stood in the doorway, then covering her mouth to stifle her screams before bursting into tears.
    It was Tiney who moved first, who took Papa by his arm and led him to a chair, who knelt on the floor and put her arms around Mama and helped her gently to her feet. As if the spell was broken, Minna began gathering the bruised plums and putting them back in the basket, while Nette fetched a cloth and a pan to clean up the mess of broken eggs.
    Then everyone was still, sitting around the old table, numb with shock. Papa’s face was drawn, his mouth strangely loose, his head in his hands. Mama was trembling, ripples of agony shuddering through her.
    Thea, ashen but calm, was the first to speak. She put her arms around their mother and held her firmly, as if to stop Mama from crumbling into small pieces. ‘Father Alison gave Papa a telegram from the War Office. Louis died of wounds in a field hospital at the front in September.’
    ‘He’s been dead for three months ?’ said Nette.
    Papa pulled a crumpled scrap of pink paper out of his pocket and laid it on the table. Nette seized it, smoothed out the paper and stared at it disbelievingly. ‘Father Alison should have come in and comforted us,’ she said, her voice small.
    ‘What comfort can a stranger bring?’ said Papa. ‘I didn’t want him in my house. There’s nothing he could say that would comfort us.’
    Tiney looked at her father. His blue eyes were glazed and his beard seemed more peppered with silver than she remembered. He looked like an old man, not her Papa, as if the words Father Alison had spoken on their doorstep had robbed Augustus Flynn not only of the dream of his son’s return but future years of his life.
    ‘Ich will ins Bett gehen ,’ said Mama.
    ‘Don’t, Mama. Speak English, please,’ said Nette.
    ‘What does it matter?’ said Minna. Bitter, bitter was her tone, like sour limes. ‘The war is over and even if it wasn’t, there’s no one to hear us. No one can shame Mama now. Not now we’ve lost Louis . . .’
    Then the numbness descended again, like a shroud over the room. Thea helped Mama to her bed and Minna made a pot of strong tea, but when Tiney drank a cup it tasted salty, as if her tears and the tears of her