The Vintner's Letters

By Peter McAra

Maurice George O'Shea, legendary winemaker, was also a man of passion. His romance with Marcia Fuller, his enduring sweetheart, was a many-faceted and, like other great loves in history, it was not without huge obstacles. Not the least was Maurice's other great love – his passion for making fine wines. Maurice and Marcia were also tested by religious differences, long separations, and career and health setbacks. Despite all, he loved her from the day they met until the day he died.
The Vintner's Letters is a fictionalised account of the often stormy relationship between them. It is, however, based on the true story.

If James Busby was the founder of wine growing in the Hunter Valley, it is equally true that its greatest exponent was Maurice O'Shea. No other vigneron anywhere in Australia has ever made better wine. In fact, some of his finest wines have been at least as good as, if not better than, anything in the world.

Maurice's success with wine was due in part to the fact that he was a true artist. He used wines like a painter uses colours and textures. He had certain aims and standards, which he constantly improved, and he spared no effort to achieve a desired result in a wine once he had formed an assessment of its potential.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CUSTOM BOOK PUBLICATIONS
• Release date: Jul 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301226399

Peter McAra

Born a miner's son in Western Australia, Peter learned about love and life in a string of rural towns across Australia and New Zealand, where he grew up with his mum, dad and three sisters. Over the years, his day jobs ranged from miner and truck-driver to academic positions in Australian and US universities. Along the way, he wrote several academic textbooks. Why the switch to writing romance? The moment eight-year-old Peter read Anne of Green Gables, he was hooked. (He's still in love with Anne, actually, but his understanding wife, a relationship psychologist, handles any conflicts professionally). Now, after a tree-change to green acres in coastal NSW, he farms by day and writes by night - the best time for romance.

Book preview

PREFACE

If James Busby was the founder of wine growing in the Hunter Valley, it is equally true that its greatest exponent was Maurice O'Shea. No other vigneron anywhere in Australia has ever made better wine. In fact, some of his finest wines have been at least as good as, if not better than, anything in the world. Harry Cox

Maurice's success with wine was due in part to the fact that he was a true artist. He used wines like a painter uses colours and textures. He had certain aims and standards, which he constantly improved, and he spared no effort to achieve a desired result in a wine once he had formed an assessment of its potential. The late Dr Max Lake

Maurice George O'Shea, legendary winemaker, was also a man of passion. His romance with Marcia Fuller, his enduring sweetheart, was a many-faceted and, like other great loves in history, it was not without huge obstacles. Not the least was Maurice's other great love – his passion for making fine wines. Maurice and Marcia were also tested by religious differences, long separations, and career and health setbacks. Despite all, he loved her from the day they met until the day he died.

The Vintner's Letters is a fictionalised account of the often stormy relationship between them. It is, however, based on the true story.

This book is dedicated to the O'Shea family, Maurice,

Marcia and their daughter Simone, who inspired the story.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many people assisted me in the preparation of this book, and I am indebted to them for their help and advice. Any errors contained in it are entirely my own.

I am most grateful to the winemakers who work in the little corner of the New South Wales South Coast where I live. Brian Jackson of Crooked River Wines, and his expert staff   Jovo Zecevic, Ben Fields and Ron Sharp   welcomed me to their vineyard over the harvest season, letting me help with picking, and escorting me through the winery as the crushed grapes began their transformation into the elegant wines for which the winery is becoming famous. They also allowed me spend hands on time trimming and training their new sangiovese plantings. I hope the vines will forgive me.

Kate Khoury and Gaynor Sims of Silos risked letting me into their winery over harvest time, explaining the intricacies of yeast, sugar content, and temperature management, which are now a little less of a mystery to me.

Michelle Crockett, winemaking consultant, helped me revisit some of the nuances of fermentation chemistry which I dimly remember from my days in undergraduate chemistry classes at university.

French is still the language of wine. I'm grateful for the help I received from Diana Roberts and Al Heman in converting my schoolboy French into a more grammatically acceptable version.

This story would not have been possible without Simone Bryce, the only daughter of Maurice and Marcia O'Shea. Simone was endlessly patient and supportive as she recounted details of her parents' lives to me, giving me insights into their characters as only a daughter could. My deepest thanks to her for all her help and advice.

Peter McAra

PROLOGUE

On a grey and threatening day in October 1909, a page turned in the story of twelve year-old Maurice O'Shea's life that would rewrite his destiny. That day his father, John O'Shea, schoolteacher turned wine and spirit merchant, took his son on a rite-of-passage visit to the weed choked Hunter Valley hillside that he and his Parisian wife, Leontine, had visited some years before.

A jolting horse-drawn cab took them the five miles from the Cessnock railway station and dropped them at the gate of a Pokolbin property just as a downpour blotted out the landscape – but they had not come this far to be turned back by rain. John O'Shea's wet fingers fumbled with the latch, finally swinging open the gate. Then, mindless of their city shoes and the cold rain dribbling down their necks, he strode over the wet ground to lead his son to a vantage point at the top of the highest hill.

Maurice hurried to keep up. Myopic since birth, he wore thick glasses that now blurred as rain smeared its way across his vision. More than once, his feet stumbled upon the uneven ground hidden beneath the wet, clinging grass.

Miraculously, the rain stopped as they reached the top of the hill. Maurice wiped his glasses on a folded handkerchief so that he could see the land below, to which his father grandly gestured. He tried to hide his breathlessness as he surveyed the view before them.

Here and there, afternoon sunlight broke through the clouds, creating sloping shafts of gold and lighting up the drizzle. The faint curve of a rainbow took shape, its colours strengthening as Maurice watched. The left side of the arc bathed the eastern corner of the field in a full spectrum of tints, from violet to red.

Maurice breathed deeply as he surveyed the view and drew in the aromas of wet grass and damp earth.

John O'Shea laughed with delight.

'There's a pot of gold down there, son,' he said. 'That rainbow. A sign from the Heavenly Father, to be sure.'

He rested a hand on Maurice's shoulder. 'One day you'll grow grapes here, my boy… make beautiful wines… and I'll sell them in York Street.'

For as long as he could remember, Maurice had loved visiting the wine and spirit shop, and not simply because it was often the only way he could spend time with his father. In the cool, gloomy basement, he breathed in the musty smell of damp floors and the vinegar of spilled wine. Upstairs, in the shop itself, the shelves sagged with bottles from distant countries, their labels sprinkled with foreign words. Maurice had looked up the magic names in the family atlas – Loire, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Mosel. Now, his father's words swam in his head.

'Shall I truly do that, Papa?' he asked. 'It's… I love it, Papa.'

'Really?'

'Yes.'

'I'm pleased to hear it… very pleased. You mother and I, we stood on this very spot and dreamed. We hoped we'd have a child who'd take to it. A son who wanted to do more than what I've done, who showed a bit of an interest in the land and in making fine wines. In France, they talk about winemaking as an art and as a science. We dreamt of a son who could take on the job of making wine and put his heart and soul into it. I wish I could have done it, but I didn't have the opportunities.'

Maurice had known for years that when he finished high school, his parents planned to send him to Montpellier University in southern France to earn a degree in wine science. He understood how important it must be to his father for him to take three whole days away from his business in order to bring him to this hilltop.

'Yes, Papa. I could do that… I think. I'd like to try.'

Now, feeling his father's enthusiasm, the fresh breeze in his face and the openness of the land, he could at last picture his parents' dream – a verdant vineyard in this sweeping, red-soil valley. The plan suddenly made sense. A dream began to dance in his head.

'I think you'll be very good, Maurice,' his father said, pleased with the happy expression that had suddenly swept over the boy's face.

John ruffled his son's wet thatch of straight dark hair. 'When you come home from Montpellier, you'll know everything there is to know about wine.'

CHAPTER ONE

Sadly, John O'Shea did not live to see his vision turn into reality. He died when Maurice was just fifteen, from complications following an earlier stroke. Leontine O'Shea now had her hands full with Maurice's four younger siblings. Her beloved Jack was now twelve, and the girls, Leontine, Adelina and Nora were almost more than she could cope with. The youngest was just five years old. Maurice was in boarding school, and the sooner he could be set on his career path to improve the family's fortunes, the better.

The following year, at his mother's urging, Maurice left school and Australia to study at the universities of Montpellier and later, Grignon. The years he spent in France were to turn him from an awkward and bullied schoolboy into a knowledgeable, more confident and sophisticated young man with an impish sense of humour. The Great War delayed his return to his homeland, and he was tempted to stay and work in the chateaux wineries of Bordeaux or Burgundy, or perhaps even venture to wineries in South Africa. However, family ties and obligations eventually proved too strong and drew him back to Australia. He booked his passage home on a ship leaving from Marseilles, returning to Australia as a highly qualified viticulturist and analytical chemist. He stepped ashore at Sydney's Darling Harbour on a chilly winter's day in July, 1920.

In the time he had been away his widowed mother had become a portly matron who spent most of her days at her embroidery. He quickly discovered that his sisters had become – there was no other expression for it – abrasive young hussies. They had taken up smoking quite openly, and were keeping company with young men who, according to his mother, were not quite desirable, encouraging the girls to drink hard liquor. If Maurice had thought that his return might temper their ways, he was soon set right.

After just a fortnight at home, he put the confused emotions of his family reunion behind him, and with a sense of relief caught the train to Cessnock, to journey back to his father's dream. He had spent his short time back in Australia finding out what land might be for sale in the Hunter Valley, and that train journey was about to begin another chapter in his life story.

Maurice was anxious to put his hard-earned knowledge to use, as his father had planned. He leaned his elbow on the carriage windowsill and, with new eyes, watched the countryside slip by. He could see how different it was from the wine regions of his beloved France – it was a drier, harsher land. He might know something about winemaking now, but there would still be much to learn about growing grapes in these different soils and sunnier climate.

At Cessnock, a lone buggy waited near the station. Its white-whiskered cabby dozed, slumped forward in his seat, reins dangling from one hand. Maurice cleared his throat to announce his presence.

'Excuse me… Pokolbin. Could you take me there… the King brothers' place?'

The cabby turned his head towards the intrusion.

'Yes sir.' He coughed and straightened in his seat, looking down at the young man standing on the street. City feller, he thought. Maybe he could risk himself a decent fare, but honesty was the best policy when you worked in a small town.

'That's the Kings' rig over there.' The cabby pointed to a cart across the road. 'They'll be in the pub if you want them.'

'Er…perhaps later. When they're not…'

'They're always there, propping up the bar. Might go back to the property once or twice a week. Place is getting real run down these days, but that's not for me to say.'

The buggy ride jolted Maurice around in his seat, much as it had when he had visited with his father.

'Road hasn't changed much,' he said.

'Yep, hear that often enough around here.'

The cab stopped at the gate that announced the King vineyards. This time, in place of the downpour that had drenched him and his father on their first visit to the valley, a warm spring day greeted Maurice – a good omen. He asked the cabby to collect him at four o'clock, then set off through the paddocks to see the vines for himself.

He picked up a rich red clod of earth and ran it through his fingers, feeling its gravely texture and watching the way it crumbled under his touch. He knew these vines had survived for more than forty years. Charles King had planted this first vineyard in the 1880s. There was old wood here, and strong, deep roots. They would provide a quite different wine to the younger vines. Maurice had made it his business to taste the King wines in Sydney, and although he sensed the grapes had been picked a day or so too early, there was something in their depth that piqued his interest.

It was hard to walk through the rows of vines and not bend down to pull out weeds. He climbed the hill to the place his father had taken him. This time he did it without effort. There, on a deserted hillside, a mile from the nearest neighbour, he felt the same sense of happiness as he had that day when he was twelve. He could set aside the inhibitions that had stifled his emotions all his lifetime. He wished his father was here.

'Papa.' He said the word tentatively. The sound of his voice freed him. He shouted to the distant trees. 'I'm back, Papa!' He strained to catch an echo, but a lone crow's call was all he heard.

'I'm ready now, Papa. Ready to grow our vines.' Again, the silence swallowed his words but this time a surge of energy pulsed through him. For the first time in his life he felt invincible, empowered. He had never been able to talk to his father this way when he was a small child. He wanted to change that now. He closed his eyes, and felt the sun warm on his eyelids.

He continued more quietly, as though his father stood beside him. 'When I was six, Papa, I learned something very important. One day at school, I got this big sum right – the only kid in the class who did. The teacher gave me a chocolate wrapped in gold paper. Was I proud! I wasn't allowed to eat it in class, though. I felt it in my pocket all afternoon, afraid that it would melt. After school, I showed the other kids my chocolate. They grabbed it out of my hand and tossed it in the air and threw it from one to the other. When one of them dropped it, they stamped on it. They laughed when I got upset, swung my satchel at my head, then threw it over the fence onto the railway line.

'From that day, I never showed off again, Papa. There were times when I’d have liked to because I was terrible at every other thing boys do – sports, gymnastics, climbing trees, chasing girls – but I wasn't too bad at maths and science. And I liked schoolwork, Papa. That was your fault. You encouraged me. Just as you encouraged me to be proud when I got my sums right.'

Maurice opened his eyes and laughed at the relief that washed over him. He filled his lungs with the warmth of the country air, and savoured the faint smells of the eucalypts and distant cows.

'Well, Papa, now I've gone and done pretty well at oenology …. as you said I would, I want to show off , just to you… so you can be proud of me. So watch these hills. Watch the vines grow. I learnt so much in France about making a difference to the way the vines grow. Pruning for the amount of sunlight each vine needs, allowing breezeways through the branches to minimise mildew. Whether the slope of a hill makes the vines lean towards the sun or away from it, knowing how hard the roots have to work to find moisture that in turn influences the way the grapes are nourished by the vine. I want to know each of my vines as well as you knew every bottle on the shelves in your store. I want to taste how the grape sugars change from day to day at vintage time so I'll know just when to pick them. I want to breathe and taste the wines as they ferment and mature in their casks.’

'Then, Papa, if you can, you'll tell me how it tastes when we're ready to bottle, and it'll be our first vintage.'

He scanned the broad green valley below him to the horizon, and took a seat on the lichen covered bench that waited for him at the top of the hill. He thought about what he had seen below in the paddocks he walked through. There was potential here. He would need to attack those weeds soon, before budburst, so the growing vines would not compete for nourishment from the soil. The vines looked neglected – sad, even. His mentor in France, Professeur Chevalier at Montpellier, would have said they were begging, weeping for nourishment. Maurice had always enjoyed the elderly scholar's preference for teaching in metaphors.

The memory took him back to his days at Grignon – walking the slopes of the university's vineyard, scribbling notes as the professor mumbled his way along the rows. Professeur Chevalier liked to say he scattered seeds of knowledge over his class, seeds that waited to be planted in the fertile soil of his students' minds, bursting to grow into ideas, commitments, achievements. Now, one of those seeds had found its way to the fertile ground of this remote Hunter Valley hillside.

The vineyard was more sloping than most. It reminded Maurice of the vineyards of France. He knew this land could grow vines that would yield grapes of such quality that they could be made into brave, exciting wines of the New World – vigorous, ground-breaking wines that would stake their place in the history of the Hunter Valley. He wanted his wines to be exquisite, to be savoured with fine food so that the nuances of the food melded with the depths of the wine.

He sat, deep in thought, for an hour. Could he really be happy living here day-in, day-out in these remote conditions? On the other hand, could he realise his dream and not live here? Right now, the strained environment in the Chatswood family home was hardly an appealing option.

Eventually, he walked back towards the gate. In the distance were two makeshift shacks. This must be where the two King brothers lived. He could see children and chooks and dogs. There were enough children living here to start a school; a fertile valley indeed. He wandered into the winery with its concrete tanks, wooden barrels and presses. He was tempted to tap one of the barrels to taste the maturing wine, but that would be taking a liberty.

He looked into the lean-to shanty – a shabby afterthought that the King brothers had propped against the wall of the winery. The kitchen was a maze of cobwebs. He walked through to the next room and his shoes crunched on a carpet of dry rat droppings. Morning glory vines wound in through a broken window. But the floor was dry, so the roof must be solid enough.

If he lived here, the lean-to would have to be his home. He would have to hire a man to get the place into shape… some internal walls, some plumbing… decent glazing. He would have to share this small space with his brother Jack. His mother, who had promised to finance the project, had insisted that it was for her two boys. Mustard gas used in combat during the war had ruined Jack's health. Now, it meant that he was unable to find conventional work. Leontine might think it a perfect solution for Maurice to employ him in the vineyard, but Jack was not enthusiastic about the prospect. He did not even want to come with Maurice to look at the place. Maurice shrugged. Ah well – Maman was trying to do her best, and Jack would be company.

The King brothers agreed to hand over the place when they moved on, but seemed unable to put a date on it. 'When we find another place,' was the best Maurice could get from them. In the meantime, he would move into the shack next to the winery.

After a second visit to the neglected old vineyards, Maurice climbed into the buggy waiting at the gate. 'Could we get to a store before closing time?' he asked the cabby. 'I've decided to move in. Need some groceries, and a bit of gear.'

'We'll give it a go, mate,' replied the cabby. 'Pettigrew's' is what you need. They'll be closing near the time we get there, but I dare say we'll make it. Carry everything from hams to harnesses.' He flicked the whip over the horse's back and it broke into a trot. 'By the way, the name's Ces… Ces Partridge. Looks like we might be seeing a bit of each other.'

'And I'm Maurice O'Shea, Ces.' They shook hands. When the cab pulled up outside the rambling general store near the railway station, Pettigrew's was about to close. Ces introduced Maurice to Archie Pettigrew.

'Pleased to meet you, Maurie,' said the white haired man in black apron and dusty dungarees. Archie Pettigrew wiped a beefy hand on his apron before shaking hands with Maurice. 'Nice to hear somebody's going to clean up the old place. About bloody time. Going to make wine, are we?'

'I aim to give it a try.'

'Well, we'll help out whenever you need us.' Archie opened the shop's doors and stood aside to let Maurice in. He gestured to the high shelves that stretched into the gloom of the big, unlit warehouse. 'We've everything you'll need for fencing, horses, ploughing… the lot.' Archie smiled at Ces. '…and a bit of a discount, seeing you're Ces's mate. I know a bit of what you'll be needing.' He called to a young man at the end of the counter. 'Put some tucker together for the gentleman, Reggie. Few tins of jam, bully beef, tongue, sardines. Bit of butter, loaf of bread. And one of them fruit cakes – Mrs. Hegarty's.' He turned to Maurice. 'Help you get started, Maurie. Now, what'll you be wanting for the vineyard?'

Next day, Maurice met Harry Brady, the Kings' foreman for the past twenty years. He seemed to know what he was talking about and knew every nook and cranny on the property. That knowledge would fit perfectly with Maurice's book learning. Maurice was later to feel that his big achievement that first week was in persuading Harry to stay on.

For the next fortnight, Maurice threw himself into weeding and clearing the rows between the sleeping vines. His arms ached from hoeing, his back from bending. His hands were rubbed red from the handle, and his neck was a warm pink from the sun. The bare branches of the vines were notched with tight buds. Each day, Maurice watched them grow and swell. Any day now, the vines would wake from their hibernation, and shoot tangles of green tendrils up to the trellis wires. In all his life, he had never worked so hard. Each night he limped painfully back to his quarters, checked the carpenter's progress, bathed, cooked dinner, then lowered himself achingly onto his sagging bed. It was a good tiredness. Next time he went to Sydney, he would bring Jack back with him.

Gradually, Maurice's conversion from young man-about-town to vineyard labourer reached a comfortable levelling out. The ache in his back eased, the blisters on his hands turned to shiny calluses, his pale Celtic skin took on the glow of the outdoor worker.

A few nights after he set up house at Pokolbin, he took a glass of wine and sat outside, in the quiet of the evening. It was then that he decided to call the place Mount Pleasant, even though he had been told the hill itself had been called something else… what was it again… Mount Bright… Mount View? No matter. Mount Pleasant Wines had a nice ring to it, sketching a picture of a cultivated, lush rural landscape in place of the weed-covered hillside draped with its patchy lace of tired vines. ‘I’m going back to Mount Pleasant,' he would say to his mother and his friends on his Sydney visits, and it would not sound so bad.

After several weeks of working in sun and rain, Maurice reckoned he earned a taste of Sydney life – the luxury of a proper bath, dining out, perhaps a couple of theatre visits. Then refreshed, healed, he would return to get on with his life's work. The quietness of the vineyard, the long nights, had made him hungry for company.

'Just company?' he mused as he washed his dinner plate. Very well then, female company. His sisters might have friends of their age. He wondered where his school friend Maureen O'Sullivan might be now… he thought of her slender body, her long flaxen hair. He met other women in France, women who taught him about love, women who had caused him immense pain. Now, against all common sense, he hungered for the company of a woman. Someone to love. A companion to share his dreams, the perfect soul mate. What would she look like? Where could he meet her? How would he know she was the one? What would it feel like– the certainty that at last, he had met the woman he would love for the rest of his life?

CHAPTER TWO

On a still chilly afternoon during the tentative spring days of early September, seventeen year-old Nini O'Shea led her friend into the living room of the Chatswood family home, nestled in the heartland of Sydney's middle class North Shore.

'This is Marcia Fuller, Maman … the one who plays the piano like Liszt.' Her mother looked up from her embroidery at a petite young woman wearing a long dress of fashionable cream silk, her hair a black waterfall tumbling down to her waist.

'Good afternoon, Mrs. O'Shea,' the visitor said, resisting an impish urge to curtsy to the eminence in the throne-like armchair. 'So kind of you to invite me.'

'You are welcome, Miss Fuller. You will have tea with us? Please make the tea, Nini. Miss Fuller and I will talk.'

Marcia Fuller sat down in the straight-backed chair Mrs. O'Shea indicated. Marcia saw a woman who was the opposite of her daughter – formal, elegant, substantial – and if the elegant furnishings of the living room were any guide, cultured. Though the crucifix and the holy pictures slashed across the room's elegance, they nonetheless told a story.

‘Nini tells me you are something of a musical genius,' Mrs. O'Shea said. Her smile was kind.

'Hardly,' Marcia said. '…but I do love my piano.'

'You practise very much?'

'Four, five hours a day usually.'

'Four, five hours? Sacré bleu!'

'It's no hardship. I'd rather do that than anything else. Except perhaps to play in the Town Hall, to a huge audience of serious music lovers. Then I'd really feel pleased with myself.'

'Ah, my Nini, I think she has the gift.' Mrs. O'Shea shook her head. 'But practise, never. I tell her to practise, but she prefers to go shopping, dancing; read novels… anything but practise.'

'She might still change. I was ten before I…'

'Nini change? Never! She simply gets more distracted by… life.' The middle aged woman shifted in her chair, as if to shift the subject. 'Tell me more of yourself, Miss Fuller. You are a special friend for Nini.'

'Oh, dear. I'm a very long way from perfect, just ask my mother.'

'Nini, she loves your neatness, the lovely way you dress. She tells me you are very – what is that word – organised. And of course, your playing. Where do you live, cherie?'

Marcia smoothed her skirt. 'Roseville, not two miles from here. That's how I met Nini. We both went to the music appreciation lectures at the Mechanics Institute.'

'My feeble attempt to lead Nini onto the right path,' Mrs. O'Shea sighed.

'Nini really likes music.' Marcia wanted to put in a good word for her friend. 'I'm more inclined to the classical, but she…'

'Ah, yes. At least she likes Debussy. I am French, you know, born in Paris.'

'I did know that; Nini told me… and your beautiful accent.'

'I still love all things French. You do not travel, Miss Fuller? Perhaps to France?'

'Travel? Oh, no. Certainly not overseas; only to the Blue Mountains. My mother loves it there; we go there most summers. It's cooler.'

'And forgive me, Miss Fuller… your church?'

'St Mathews Anglican at Roseville.'

'Ah, we are Catholic, of course.'

'Some of my best friends are Catholic. You have some beautiful religious music.'

'Yes … not that my children would agree. They want only the popular music.' Mrs. O'Shea smiled, waved a finger at her guest. 'Miss Fuller, I ask you to take Nini in hand – teach her to love proper music.'

'I do my best, but now that the War's over, everything's so modern.'

'Ah, the War. France was devastated. Thousands of people killed. Many beautiful buildings… and that evil mustard gas! My son Jack was gassed at Passchendaele. He will be sick all his life now. So sad… when we heard the news, we cried. His sisters, they cried for a long time'

‘Nini told me. I was so sorry to hear it. Wars are horrible.'

'Ah, those Germans … agents of the devil.'

'Yes, indeed,' Marcia agreed from the heart. 'And yet I can't understand it, their music is so beautiful – Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, many others.' She moved to the edge of her seat. 'I wish we'd never had the War. All those people killed and your son hurt. I remember when we first heard about the War. Do you remember the women who held protests in Hyde Park? Mothers of Australia, they were called. I asked my mother if we could go and help but she was not pleased. I was only ten at the time, but I wanted to help, and…'

'Ah, my child. We women, we are the weaker sex. Men, they run the world … and badly, I am afraid to say.'

'Oh, oh.' Nini entered with a tea tray and set it down on the small table. 'I should have warned you, Maman. Don't encourage Marcia to go on about the War. Next thing, she'll start on men.'

'Your mother and I see rather eye to eye on wars,' Marcia said. 'We must talk about it again some time.' She smiled at Mrs. O'Shea.

'Best you drink your tea, then perhaps you could play something for Maman,' Nini said. 'Otherwise, in the next five minutes you two will be marching down Archer Street holding a banner.'

Marcia put down her cup and walked to the piano. 'I'll finish my tea later. I was going to play some Brahms, but perhaps you would like a little Debussy. A piece from one of the nocturnes.' She played circumspectly for a few minutes, then seemed to forget the people in the room and let herself flow into the music, exalting in the high notes, bending her body to the music, and lingering longingly in the melody.

Mrs. O'Shea let herself lean back in the chair, closed her eyes, her head swaying gently to the rhythm.

Maurice had come home to Chatswood for a few days of respite from the labour of the vineyard. He heard the music as he entered the house after a walk. It was good… a classical piece played with technical polish but also awash with emotion. Who could be playing it? Certainly not one of his sisters. He let himself in quietly and tiptoed to the living room door. A young woman sat with her back to him. He saw the flow of her shoulders through the fabric of her dress as her fingers flew lightly over the keyboard. She tossed her head with a rise in the music and her hair flew suddenly over her right shoulder. Then her slim body curved towards her instrument as she bent her ear to the adagio. He stood unobserved for several long minutes, watching her silently until the music finished. She kept her back to the room for a moment, as if unable to leave the music, then turned to her audience.

Maurice stopped himself from calling out 'Bravo!' and instead stepped backwards out of the room. She saw the movement and their eyes met. He nodded in acknowledgement, then realised, for the sake of good manners, that he was trapped. For some inexplicable reason his heart leapt. He raised his hands towards her and clapped softly, and smiled his praise.

'Bravo! Quite wonderful. A Debussy nocturne, was it not?'

'Yes,' Marcia said, smiling back at him. She saw a young man – neat in suit and tie, clean-shaven, dark hair groomed, and apparently having at least some knowledge of music. It was not often that she came across such a combination. She turned and bowed her head to the women in the room, acknowledging their applause, then moved back to the sofa.

'My son, Maurice… my eldest,' Mrs. O'Shea said. 'Maurice, meet Nina's friend, Miss Fuller.' Marcia held out her right hand as Maurice took the few steps across the room towards her. He was a mite shorter than average, but his neatness, his formal bearing, the spring in his step, took her attention. His face – the cheekbones, the intense brown eyes magnified by his thick glasses, the aristocratic arch of his eyebrows – caught her gaze. He took her hand, bowed over it, and with a flourish, kissed her fingers. She had seen courtly older men kiss women's hands before, but this was the first time a young man had greeted her so. She smiled up at him, hoping the heat that had flushed her cheeks did not show.

'Maurice is just back from France,' Mrs. O'Shea said. 'He spent six years there, studying at university, and then held a lecturer position at Montpellier University.'

Marcia watched her hostess's eyes glow with motherly pride. She looked up at Maurice from under her eyelashes and saw that he was gazing back at her. There was much of his mother in him. His European manner, the foreignness of his clothes, his grooming; all labelled him as an elegant Frenchman. How different from Nina, and even more so from his other sisters.

'A delight to meet you, Miss Fuller,' he said, and sat beside her. His accent was decidedly Australian. It