Lucasta Wellbury didn’t
think much of the architecture and buildings of Melbourne she saw on
the way from the airport. But she didn't mind. That wasn't
important. Jason seemed happier, which was. The black despair had
gone. She had no illusions about grief, and anyway came from a
generation which gave it its proper respect and space. She knew
Jason would always love Brent. She'd seen them together and she'd
seen how they looked at each other when no one else was looking.
She'd seen their body language together, the unmistakable ties which
connect a loving couple. And she'd watched Jason's bleak
self-disgust after Brent killed himself. His mother had been quite
useless and his father … well he was her son, and she loved him,
but there was no getting away from it, he wouldn't argue with his
wife. Her icy silences and poisonous sulks made life for everyone a
misery—unless she got her way. Always.
Lucasta had tried hard to
provide the motherly love her grandchildren needed and weren't
getting from their mother. It wasn't always easy. Their mother
combined a solipsistic perspective of all that happened around her
but was also jealous of the relationship her children had with their
grandmother. Jason and Amanda were closer to their grandmother than
Mark was. Lucasta should have loved Mark more, because he was the
spitting image in every way of her own son. Instead she found him
too conservative and conventional. She wondered why women became
more unconventional and ready to break the unwritten rules as they
got older, while men became on the whole more conservative and
crusty.
She dozed. She was
tired. She wasn't as young as she'd been, it was true.
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