Blaze (80 page)

Dear Alisson,

I read this article with a mixture of pride and sadness. How well you have done. Despite the terrible handicap I inflicted on you all those years ago.

I can't blame you for never wanting to speak or write to me. But I want you to know – and maybe when you are ready – to understand how it came to be.

It should never have happened. It was a dreadful, horrible accident. I had a drinking problem long before, but the mine closing and no hope held out to me was too much to bear and I broke. And in doing so, I lashed out at your mother. I didn't know how hard I'd hit her or that the fire would break out. They told me at the trial you tried to save her. God, I wish that it had been me who was taken. But Ali, the time behind bars, hard as it was, set me straight. I will never come to terms with what happened, but I have been dry for some years now, and have put my faith in the Lord for many years. I live quietly with an old cat by a pretty bay on the north coast. I couldn't go back to the Hunter area. I make a modest living as a wood-turner, selling my work at markets. I learned the craft in the nick. I read a lot, another good habit I picked up in prison, and find some poetry quite moving. I've included a verse from one poet I particularly admire. The work sprang to mind when I read the newspaper article about you and decided to write this letter. The poem says it all. It may help you understand me.

You are leaving Australia again and going on to bigger things, I read. Well done. If at some stage you feel moved to at least acknowledge this letter, it would give me great joy. Even a postcard perhaps.

God bless you, daughter.

Your father,

Alex Vidal

Ali looked in the envelope for the poem he said he had included, but it was empty. She studied the address at the beginning of the letter, then very deliberately tore the pages into small neat squares and pushed them far down into the seat pocket. She leaned back and turned on the headset to listen to Maria Callas and shut her eyes.

The jet streaked into fast gathering night. To the east, a distant streak of lightning for an instant ripped across the night sky. Then all was darkness once more.

The next day, in Los Angeles, a matronly woman cleaner methodically worked through the first-class cabin. She removed the torn letter and a few foil chocolate wrappers from the seat pocket where Ali had been sitting, and tossed them into a plastic rubbish bag, then reached under the seat for another piece of paper. The only thing that stopped her immediately consigning it to the rubbish bag was the handwritten poem that took up most of the page. She leaned against the seat and read . . .

                        A Dead Past

Spare her at least: look, you have taken from me

The Present, and I murmur not, nor moan;

The Future too, with all her glorious promise;

But do not leave me utterly alone.

 

Spare me the Past – for, see, she cannot harm you,

She lies so white and cold, wrapped in her shroud;

All, all my own! and, trust me, I will hide her

Within my soul, nor speak to her aloud.

 

Cruel indeed it were to take her from me;

She sleeps, she will not wake – no fear – again:

And so I laid her, such a gentle burden,

Quietly on my heart to still its pain.

 

Leave her at least – while my tears fall upon her,

I dream she smiles, just as she did of yore;

As dear as ever to me – nay, it may be,

Even dearer still – since I have nothing more.

 

By Adelaide Anne Procter (circa 1858)

The cleaner folded the poem carefully and put it in her pocket. ‘So beautiful, so sad,' she murmured. Then resumed collecting rubbish.