She arrived on the 3.15pm train from Melbourne, and stepped onto the platform looking for me.
A smile of recognition broke across her face, and she came towards me through the crowd of people alighting and boarding. For a breath-taking moment it was 1955, and I was watching Mary come to me across the library quadrangle at Melbourne University. I couldn’t speak. She had the same startling blue eyes, the same luxuriant, dark brown hair, the poised bearing of someone moving through the world untouched by its ugliness.
It was Alison, grown into a young woman, and dressed in jeans, light blue checked shirt and sandals for the warm day. I felt tears, and struggled to disguise them. I wouldn’t be a maudlin old fool.
I bent to kiss her and took her heavy school bag.
‘You look well, Grandpa,’ s
