Playing with Keys. Julia Osborne

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      Aunt Meredith was magnificent the day the Abbotts arrived in Sydney. Sleek in black Capri pants, crisp blouse and a skitter of high heels, red hair flying, she whirled into their new home with an armful of yellow roses, her wrists a jangle of bangles amidst the boxes of china and saucepans surrounding Angela in the kitchen. ‘Dinner at my place,’ she insisted. ‘I’ll drive over and get you at six sharp.’ And, heels clicking, she skittered out the gate, Angela giving a sigh of relief as she gathered up towers of discarded newspaper. ‘If only Meredith would just quieten down a little. Your father will get here tomorrow with the cat. We can manage.’

      ‘We can’t,’ Sandra objected. ‘We haven’t unpacked half our things yet. I want to go.’

      Thank goodness for auntie!

      At dinner, as Meredith poured a glass of wine for Angela and herself to toast a welcome, she summed it up in a few words: ‘Life is full of variables. All our paths – both real and imaginary – criss-cross down different roads.’ She sipped her wine, with a knowing smile. ‘Make of it what you will.’

      To a background of piano music, seated under the climbing roses in her courtyard garden, Meredith served quiche au fromage with salad in painted Spanish bowls, and the promise of cassata for dessert.

      Starving, Sandra immediately sliced her tart. Prue always ate like a pig, she thought, watching her sister across the table. She envied Prue’s ability to slide unruffled into any situation – there seemed nothing that she regretted. Sandra glanced at her mother, fussily picking at odd bits of salad on her plate.

      ‘Artichoke hearts,’ Meredith enlightened her. ‘I cooked them myself ... from the thistle family,’ she added, over Prue’s smothered laughter.

      Unconvinced, Angela pushed the odd little vegetables to one side of her plate. There was something about her sister-in-law that she couldn’t understand. ‘Flighty,’ she’d once told Don. ‘Generous, but flighty.’

      No matter how Angela phrased it, commenting: ‘Meredith lives very comfortably, but she hasn’t a job, so how on earth does she manage?’ Don brushed the question away. Or Angela would hint, ‘She’s never married, I can’t imagine how she provides for herself.’ With a shrug of his shoulders, ‘Meredith has always had private means,’ was all Don offered. ‘She did some dressmaking when she was younger, but our father didn’t believe in women working.’ So that was the end of it. Meredith kept her secret.

      Sandra probed her salad for the tiny sweet tomatoes, still pondering Aunt Meredith’s earlier remark about how all our paths criss-cross ... What paths, real or imaginary?

      She would think about it later in bed.

      15 Bentley St.,

      Curradeen, N.S.W.,

      17th December, 1960.

      Dear Sandy,

      Thank you for your letter. I hope you are well. I miss you too, its not the same now your gone. School has broke up and I have to work in the shop like always. Lucky you to miss some school, nothing happens at the end of term, its all muck up days.

      My Nonna (mamma’s mother) is coming to live with us because my grandpa is gone all strange and dont know who she is so his in hospital. I rode my bike to the cemetry on Sunday like we use to. There were people there so I didnt stay and I didnt see Angus’s grave.

      I never saw Nick yet but I will tell you if I see him. The new people in your old bank have a little kid. It’s nearly Christmas and I wish you still lived here. I’m sorry I dont write real good letters in English, I never wrote one before.

      Love from Emilia xxx

      P.S. Yes I remember our pact XOX