Fragile Blossoms (50 page)

Then again it might be what it is, an old lady’s thoughts meandering across time and space. As the note says, it’s a matter of choice.

‘
A diary is like the earth in winter filled with sleeping secrets. Some secrets should remain hidden for as with nettles they burn the hand in the pulling. Others secrets are like bulbs, they bring forth flowers to gladden the heart. In finding this diary, and comprehending the word, La bella Italia, a secret is discovered. Knock on Solomon’s Door and another door will open.

As with all things it is of course a matter of choice. Things underground are often best left to their own devising, and sleeping dogs always sleep best undisturbed. The same could be said of knocking on doors, one never knows what is behind them. In the end one must decide which weighs heaviest a silver sixpence or a bag of gold sovereigns. If the heart be light, and the purse none too thin, it might be best to let the secret sleep. In the end it is as we know there is Purpose to all things and the Purpose is good
.’

Luke pushed the note behind the lining. Doors locked he dropped the keys through the letter box. Then he went round to the shed and took out a spade and buried the diary among broken Meissen china and the skeleton of a beloved dog.

The hole he dug might have taken old Betty, his horse, never mind a diary. But that’s alright. He wanted to be sure it would stay down at least for his life-time. And so what if old lady was once amused by seven-year-old boy and thought to remember him in her Will? Why would he need a fortune when he has one already waiting in the Nelson her lovely face anxious to see him?

It’s as August Simpkin said
, ‘
if this right stranger was to step forward we wouldn’t be able to buy the cottage, nor you, Dear Mrs Roberts, able to sell. It would hang in the balance and no doubt lead to all sorts of bother.’

The hole smoothed over he stood wiping his brow when the sky exploded.

‘Oh my Lord!’

A shooting star sped across the horizon. First one, and then another!

Soon the sky was on fire with a meteor shower or some other wondrous celestial phenomenon.

On and on they flew these bolts of light. It was incredible like Nature’s Bonfire Night and a dozen Mattys jumping up and down with sparklers in their hands.

‘Until the stars fall,’ wasn’t that the word to bring down the Wall?

He went to the cart and pulling the heaviest hammer took a swipe at it.

Nothing, not a dent! Whoever built this meant it to last. He pulled back and this time when he swung he thought of Old Joe Carmody and his hatred of the wall and the plants forever whisked back and forth.

It was warm, the night on the edge of summer. Luke took off his shirt, and taking the hammer swung again. This time there was movement all along the top section and sand trickling. Bang, he hit it again, this time for Callie Masson and her disappointed hopes, and then again for Susan Dudley and her baby.

Soon there was a gap in the wall. A little more than year ago Luke almost drowned. Someone or something saved him, got between him and Hell. It pleases Luke to think that it was his beloved brother Jacky, along with Daniel Masson who helped haul him from the pit, one man alive in this world, the other ever alive in memory, and the maggot-ridden corpse of a dog.

When a thing like that happens, a second chance to live and love, it changes a man. He stops thinking of himself as alone. He knows he is loved and so is able to give love, and such love, a beautiful wife, a loving child, another on the way, good friends, and whole of the world opening up before him.

Now he has this, a lone witness to the skies falling.

‘Awhoo!’

Luke laid back his head and howled with the sheer wonder of being alive. He is grateful and always will be that the Lord God loved enough to reach down from Heaven and in springing a trap set this Wolf free.

The End

Kaiser Chalmers: A Hero.