Kismet X Numbers, Page 3

night. And day after day he would sit at his window struggling to decipher its meaning. He even tried to paint the dream - meticulously drawing circles in some sort of order within geometric shapes. Every day he moved a little closer to solving the puzzle but the final climax of enlightenment always eluded him. Then one afternoon at dusk, sitting at his window, he admired the beauty and simplicity of the falling leaves in his garden. He felt a sense of awe and joy. Time stood still. The penny dropped. Woomaree was revealing to him that after her death, she’d realised the folly of nursing a lifetime of animosity. She had wasted her life in torment, pitying her deformed body and hating all white men, except for 1. If she could now forgive 3 white men for their heinous crime upon her, then he could forgive McKenzie and accept the random acts of tragedy that had marked his life. It was so simple. Barclay writes that when he made that sweet release, he felt a heavy mantle exquisitely and gently fall from his shoulders. Suddenly his senses were free and alert. It was like someone had thrown the switch, after having been shut down for so many years. For the 3rd and final time in his life he let go and wept like he had never wept before. He enjoyed a sense of peace and joy for the last 9 months of his life.

  His life changed. He inherited 3 dogs from his late sister; Molly, Tara and Pippy.

  Just to sit and watch their antics made him laugh out loud and deeply, leaving him calm and refreshed. He couldn’t remember thet last time he did that. He writes of old Molly, Tara’s sister, that she had the eyes and aura of a saint. Even though she had arthritis in her legs, she could still manage a little shimmy - a funny little tap-dance when she knew dinner was coming. Molly’s daughter Pippy by contrast, always looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights and was a mad thing. So sweet and affectionate and she could fly like a bullet. Tara meanwhile was the tomboy in the family, all gusto, catching so many balls in her mouth, that her teeth were ground down to mere stumps. Barclay sounded so happy. He became a mentor to several young boys and girls from the village. For some reason he seemed to draw them in like a magnet. The children never came around before. They would drop in after school and he would regale them with his lifetime of travel and adventures. He wrote copiously. He read and took up his flute and violin again. And he sat. He wrote, ‘sometimes I sit and think and sometimes I just sit’.

  He knew death was approaching. He knew the exact moment was almost there. Outside it was dusk, that beautiful time in the day when the whole of life seems to hover between heaven and earth. He could see the falling leaves from his bed. He lay in anticipation. It was coming. He saw a dot. It came closer. He focussed on the dot…he allowed himself to let go… he felt empty, nothing. . He felt the core of himself dissolve into an ethereal, blissful pirouette. He rose and never looked back.

  Barclay died peacefully at 4pm, on the 4th of April 1866, his soul cleansed. He was a white pioneer. The Gringai were his black saviours. They were, ‘A Gentleman’s Tutors’.

  We come to the end of the story Jack.

  Always remember to honour the thread which is inextricably intertwined between white Australians and our indigenous people. They have lost far more than any white man, including Barclay.

  With lots of love,

  Mum

  PS: When I was pregnant with you, your father and I picked out 2 names. ‘Jack’ for a boy and ‘Grace’ for a girl. It’s ironic, because at that time, I didn’t know that Barclay had a daughter called Grace.

  So how did I know how Barclay experienced his death, you may ask? You’ll have to sort that one out for yourself.

  The Numeric Mandala

  Grace finally came to end of the story. She sat for an eternity, the book in her hands, to be shaken out of her trance by footsteps, thudding up the staircase. Barry leapt up the stairs 2 at a time and burst into the room, his vivid green eyes blazing. He stood in front of her on one foot, perfectly still. She smelt again, a whiff of that funny Patchouli oil.

  Breathless from running up the stairs, he blurted, “I’ve found out what my full name is, and I think it’s got something to do with this!’ Excitedly, he gently tugged at something inside his shirt and showed her what looked to be some jewellery. “Look, the date on it is the 5th of April, that’s tomorrow”. Her interested piqued now, Grace went to peer closer when Barry opened the little box and extracted something wrapped in tissue. It smelt like that Patchouli oil again. He gently unwrapped it to mysteriously find, a stick. “Let me have a look”, she said. All her interest was now focussed on the little stick. He gave it to her and she took it in her long, slender fingers, inspecting it closely. She was mesmerised. It had a tiny knob of something slippery on one end. She looked at the little box again with the inscription, she read ‘To BB, love AT. She stared at it for several long moments. Still breathing deeply, Barry puffed, “It’s a matchbox”. Grace stared wildly at Barry in what seemed to be abject horror! It was a surreal moment….head trembling and wide-eyed; her hands flew up to her face. Flushed now, she suddenly turned and doubled over, gasping. Barry was absolutely terrified and was convinced she was having a heart failure! Grace was so stunned she could barely speak. She steadied her breathing. Calming down she hissed, “Where did you get this”. In puzzled shock and relief that she was not having a heart attack, Barry replied, “From my Great Aunt”. She stared at the little box and he stared at her. He didn’t know what was going on. After several moments, she said softly in a measured tone, “What… is…your…full…name?” “Barrington’, he replied. Stunned,

  Grace didn’t know what to do, so in shock she just burst into tears. Laughing and crying at the same time. If someone was to take a picture of Barry’s face at that moment, it would be one of sheer comic relief, she thought, and started to hoot with laughter. Calming herself down again, she picked up the book and as she gave it to Barry, with all the authority she could muster to the gravity of the occasion, she said softly, “Read this, you’ll never believe it”. Baffled, Barry did as he was told.

  Barry’s great aunt had told him the pendant had been passed down in the family for generations by his great, great, great, great Grandmother, Woomaree. She had almost forgotten its existence until Barry started asking all these questions about his elders.

  Woomaree never forgot Barrington Barclay’s kindness and in his memory named her first son after him. She never had another. Barrington was followed by 3 daughters and were counselled very sternly to ‘never lie down with any white-fella’. No one dared to go against old Woomaree’s wishes. His great aunt said the elders passed on many tales of her. They said she was a cranky and feisty old thing, softened though at random by a quick wit and a biting sense of humour. Barry, sorry, Barrington, now finally understood how he and some other relatives, were named Barry and had red hair and freckles. Courtesy of an Irish timber-cutter. His great Aunt also told him that Patchouli oil was his mother’s favourite scent, because it was earthy, belonging to the land.

  11.00pm 4 April 2048

  Grace and Barry would never forget this day. Now at 11 o’clock in its honour, they clicked off the lights. In the darkness with sacred reverence, they lit a candle with the last wax matchstick. They held hands and looked out over the sprawling metropolis of Sydney savouring the magnitude of the occasion. They stood for what seemed an eternity. Their music was playing softly in the background. It started slowly at first and then the haunting rhythm of the didgeridoo gradually became louder. The music was so beautiful it made her belly ache in ecstasy. Based on an Aboriginal legend, they had named their composition ‘Earth Cry’. Grace looked at Barry admiring his velvety black skin shimmering in the candle’s glow. They smiled. What they didn’t know at the time, was the further special significance of that flame. 11 days after the flame extinguished itself; Grace felt the tingling in her nipples. 3 days later, she felt a gentle tug inside her belly. She had conceived their first child. They chose 2 names, Barrington and Woomaree.

  Barrington was mathematically gifted. He was studying for a degree in Physi
cs. He was obsessed with numbers and already had worked out their significance to this occasion; Grace had celebrated her 21st birthday, 2 + 1 = 3. Jack, her father, received the box on his 21st birthday, 2 + 1 = 3. She lived on the 54th floor, 5 + 4 = 9, divisible 3 times by 3. The date on the matchstick box was 5 April 1803 which totals 21, 2 + 1 = 3. The date of the book ‘A Gentleman’s Tutors’ was written, 3rd of April, 2002 = 11. Barclay died at 4pm, 4th of April 1866, =33 which is divisible 3 times by the number 11. Both Woomaree and Barclay’s daughter Grace, were 15, 1 + 5 = 6, divisible by 3… even their special code for the transportation dome had order - 1.618 – the code for Phi which was their symbol on their letterhead, added up to 7, 7 x 9 = 63 = 9, again divisible 3 times by 3. And on and on he went, obsessively calculating in his head. The chance of his and Grace’s connection was a trillion to 1.

  You see as a student of Physics, Barry had the unusual belief for a Scientist, that numbers, and in particular the 3 numbers, – 2, 3 and 11, underpinned the creation of matter and energy and therefore of life itself. It was no coincidence that their making love on the 4th of April, 2048,