Like DW said, another great part!
I love your take on canon Clark's interview with the old actress - of course, me being an LnC illiterate, I'm not too sure how the original interview went. Your version was delightful, though.
This was so moving:
"He hoisted me up onto his shoulders and when the siren went, I couldn't see much at all because I was crying like a baby. When my dad took me down, I saw his eyes were red and damp too. He stood me in front of him and put his hands on my shoulders, and just kept saying over and over again, 'We did it, Bess, my girl, we did it'."
Bessie reached into the sleeve of her pink cardigan and pulled out a lacy white handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes before continuing. "We knew it was special - to see South win a flag - we knew it was special, but deep, deep down in our hearts, we thought we would see another one together. We had a good team, and we had Bob Pratt to kick our goals and we thought ... we thought there would be another one."
Don't take this the wrong way, but this part of your story reminds me of something I asked a Swedish professor of islamology more than twenty years ago. I had tried to read the Koran, and I had read a good bit of it before I gave up out of boredom. Also, I had very recently heard a Muslim woman declare that her religion was the most wonderful thing in the world.
"What's so wonderful about it?" I asked the professor. What I have read in the Koran doesn't strike me as particularly wonderful at all."
"To many Muslim people, the best moments of their lives are often the great Muslim holidays, when the families are gathered and there is a wonderful sense of togetherness and celebration," the professor answered. "It's really not the religion itself that makes most Muslims so happy, but rather the sense of community and celebration as everybody 'gathers around it', as it were."
I was thinking about that statement when I read Bessie Bellchambers' story. Why does she love footy so much? Because she shared so many wonderful moments with her father when the two of them watched their favorite team play, and because she lost her father so early, her memories became doubly precious. Now she has created a "family of her own" which is centered around footy:
Clark asked a few more questions and discovered Bessie had never married - "one bloke was interested, but he barracked for Carlton, so that was never going to work" - and had taken dozens of children to the football on the proviso they wore red and white and cheered for the Swans. Those children, now grown, ensured she always had a ride to the footy.
That's so poignant.
Your fic is lovely without being sappy. That's a hard thing to pull off.
Ann
P.S. I found
this recipe for Lamington cakes. Sounds delicious!
(But as for Vegemite, I think I'll let the Aussies keep it, Corrina!)
