Bringing Home the Ashes by Jamieson Allom

Author:Jamieson Allom [Allom, Jamieson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780645062908
Publisher: The Book Reality Experience
Published: 2021-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

The Rijksmuseum lives up to their expectations. Behind its wonderful brick façade they enter an enormous light-filled atrium, where they pick up a brochure with floor plans. It is a little overwhelming: over a hundred rooms or galleries displaying the art and history of the Netherlands.

In the 1600AD to 1700AD history section, they come across a model of the Dutch sailing ship Batavia, which was wrecked off the coast of what is now Western Australia, a century before James Cook sighted Terra Australis. Barry and Carol had both read the story—one of mutiny, catastrophe, mass murder and an epic journey in a longboat.

They had been hoping to find something relating to the Dutchman Abel Tasman, who, as any Tasmanian schoolchild knows, in 1642 arrived at the west coast of Tassie—which he sycophantically named Van Diemen’s Land after his boss in the Dutch East Indies. But alas, they are unable to find him. Abel. He’s probably here somewhere, they figure, but time will defeat them.

Moving to the painting galleries, they are captivated by the quality of light in Vermeer’s painting The Milkmaid. An ordinary subject given extraordinary life by the artist.

The Night Watch, by Rembrandt, is one of the museum’s main attractions. The huge painting has a room of its own, and its crowd of admirers is four deep.

‘Look, Carol,’ Barry says. ‘It was painted in 1642.’

‘Oh?’

‘Imagine that. While Tasman was over there bumping into Tassie, Rembrandt was over here working on this incredible painting.’

Further along, Barry takes a photo of his smiling wife through a glass cabinet containing a classic sixties dress—a YSL design inspired by the work of the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian. He wonders how Vermeer might have portrayed a younger Carol in a nineteen-sixties dress, were he to be reincarnated three centuries after he painted the milkmaid.

Back in the main atrium, Carol buys a sticker for Graham, and they leave the museum. They spot a nearby café, Coscos, and settle down for a sandwich lunch with fresh ginger tea while watching a parade of cyclists pass close-by along a narrow pathway.

‘Let’s go back on one of those, darling,’ Carol says, pointing to a row of hooded rickshaws, each labelled ‘Staxi’.

‘They don’t look very safe, Carol.’

‘Oh, come on.’ She grabs Barry’s arm and tows him across to one of the pedal-powered contraptions. They clamber aboard.

Their driver turns out to be an outgoing Greek fellow, a former sales manager who left Greece when the recession hit. As the man responds to Carol’s questions, Barry is still trying to decide on the proper descriptor for the Greek charioteer. Is he a driver or a rider? It is clearly the man himself whose power drives the odd vehicle, just as the engine drives a car. Drives as in powers, not drives as in controls. So, in that case…

‘You’re miles away, darling,’

‘Oh, sorry.’ Barry glances down at the small gap between them and wriggles closer to his wife, who smiles and loops her arm through his.

They dodge and weave through traffic, travelling back to IJDock by a scenic, guided-tour route.

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