they too me home and did take me to the doctors.' 'Well, go on.' 'It's a long story.' 'I don't care. Get on with it.' The priest took out a handkerchief to wipe his nose and mouth. 'Go on. I won't interrupt you again.' Hercules sighed and started to speak. 'When I got to the doctor's they only took one look at me and said I was very sick. I have anaemia and I don't know how long I've got left. I'm forty-three years old. One of my legs is so swollen it looks like a tree trunk.' 'I'm sorry to hear that.' The priest was surprised by his apparent calm. He was a hardy sort of man. He seemed to have forgotten that he was now a priest and he had also taken up with this woman. Hercules would have felt ashamed but he did not. He just felt sorry for himself. He knew he was dying, but he had hoped for another long and vigorous life. Then he felt angry at the injustice of it. He had only been a worker all his life, a simple man, a working man, and now he was dying. 'What am I going to do?' he said. The priest patted him on the arm. 'Listen to me, Hercules. Jesus Christ came on the Earth to die. It's just the way of the world. There's nothing to worry about. Even if you have bad luck, you're still better off than most of the people here.' 'It's so unfair.' 'Jesus died on the cross for your sins.' 'So what am I going to do?' 'That's right. He died for your sins, even though you weren't a bad person. So accept that you are dying and ask Jesus Christ to forgive you for whatever sins you have done in your life.' 'How will I do that?' 'Well, just talk to Him. Talk to him.' 'But how will He know what to say?' 'Oh, He knows,' said the priest. 'He knows how to talk to everyone.' But Hercules wasn't convinced. He felt the priest had been talking more like a man who had been on the booze than a man who knew the Christian faith. 'If I can just get to Australia I could take care of myself.' He said, and it was only then he saw that the woman beside him was weeping quietly. Her blue eyes were overflowing, her face streaming with tears. Her skin was ashy grey and her beautiful hair hung limply around her face. She looked about seventy years old but she was even more beautiful now than when he had seen her last. Hercules put his hands over his eyes. This was not the time for her to fall apart. He wondered what he would tell the doctor when he told him she was dying. He didn't want to lie. 'When the train stops,' he said, 'I'll get you back to Brisbane.' The priest patted him on the shoulder. 'Just a little encouragement for me now, Hercules. I'd appreciate that.' The train slowed down. The engine driver sounded the horn and people started to shout. Hercules turned around to look out of the window. They were now in a small country town. Outside one of the houses a woman was hanging out clothes on a line. Two children ran past her and then disappeared around a corner. The woman glanced towards the train and then continued with her work. Hercules turned to the priest and said, 'Okay, I'm ready. What do I have to do?' The priest smiled, his face shining. 'Well, you've got to make a decision, that's for sure. And it's not easy, not easy at all. No one can ever know what it's like to die. But, in a way, you have been prepared. You've always been a good man. You've tried to be nice to your kids and to everyone else. You've never hurt anyone deliberately and, in the end, that's going to help you.' 'What decision?' Hercules asked. 'What decision is so hard?' 'The decision about whether you want to see it in your heart and in your mind. Once you accept that you can die and that you have nothing to be afraid of, then you'll be ready to say good-bye to anyone who is dying around you.' Hercules nodded. He could not stand it any longer. 'I'll make that decision,' he said. 'Right, good. Here's how it works. You don't need to say a single word but you do need to be open with your face.' Hercules nodded. 'I can do that.' 'Okay. Well, look at this lady. See how beautiful she is?' He gestured towards a woman sitting in the seat opposite. The woman turned her head to glance at him and then resumed her staring out of the window. 'She's dead already but look at her. She's wearing a beautiful dress. She's wearing a beautiful face and a beautiful hair style. Her skin's as pale as snow and she's sitting there like a statue, just like a dead doll.' Hercules took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. He wondered why he had been invited to come to Australia. Why was he so desperate to be rid of his family? He had always done his best for them, and now that they were about to be reared by other relatives, he could feel his strength draining from him like water into a cracked basin. But he had never had anything to complain about with his wife. She was a good woman and their children were fine youngsters. Now all his relatives were gone and now he was getting ready to leave them as well. He looked down at the woman and saw that she was a skeleton. She had no flesh left on her bones. In fact, she looked like a skeleton of a skeleton, a skeleton in its death agony. She would certainly have died for the greater good of Australia, so why was he so concerned? She could be no better than he was, and it wouldn't make any difference if he was one thousand or ten thousand years old. 'What can you see?' asked the priest, as though he had been listening in on Hercules' thoughts. Hercules shrugged his shoulders. 'I don't see anything. I'm just staring at a woman.' 'Ah, that's where the test starts.' 'I don't see anything,' said Hercules again. The priest patted him on the arm. 'Just try to see what she's doing. That's all you need to do. Just see what she's doing.' 'All right,' said Hercules. 'I'll try.' 'Good man,' said the priest. 'Good man.' He took out his book and wrote a few notes. 'Now, we will begin by introducing yourself to her. Make it easy for her, like this.' The priest took hold of his arm and started to squeeze it. 'Don't be afraid. You're not going to break. Just close your eyes. Look at her, but don't let yourself go to her. You're only seeing a face. You're not joining yourself up with her until you are ready.' Hercules took a deep breath and closed his eyes. 'What's her name?' asked the priest, still squeezing Hercules' arm. 'What?' 'What's her name?' 'Her name's Margaret,' said Hercules. 'Okay, she says. Let her say hello to you.' 'Hello Margaret.' 'Hi, Hercules.' 'Now you're talking to her.' 'I'm talking to Margaret.' 'She's not very bright,' said the priest. 'That's all right. She knows who she is, she knows her name, she's here to meet you and she's saying hello to you. She's telling you how she feels. It's like she's going to your office or to your home. She says hello to everyone as they come through the door.' 'But she's dead.' 'She says hello to everyone who comes through the door, whether they're young or old, healthy or sick. It doesn't make any difference.' Hercules shrugged his shoulders. He did not understand any of it. 'But I'm ready for it,' he said. 'Of course you are,' said the priest. 'You've been praying, that's why. You want to join up with her so bad you can hardly stop thinking about it. You can't wait to start living with her. If you could live with her, even just once, you'd have no fear of dying. You'd never die because you'd be in her love. That's what the Lord Jesus has come to do. He's come to make us all one. To put the love between us together.' Hercules opened his eyes and looked out of the window again. The woman was still there, staring out of the window. 'Do you remember that time when we were kids,' he said, 'and I fell into the river and got covered in sand? She went to the river and brought me out.' 'We were good neighbours then, weren't we? She didn't have much on her mind at that time, did she?