Aladdin's Awakening by Joel

I was gazing rather distractedly out of the large picture window facing the bay when the sound of a car ascending the hill drew my attention. The car stopped and then started again and I guessed our trusty gardener had opened the security gate. My elder son, Francis, who had been standing beside me, went to the window overlooking the drive. The sound of the car had then increased and stopped again as it drew up below us. There was a moment's silence only broken by a low murmuring coming from the bedroom behind us and a slight slamming noise as the occupant of the car got out.

I went over to the side window and peered down. A small, dusty black Peugeot stood there with an equally small, dusty-looking black-clad figure by its side. A rather red face surmounted by a halo of reddish hair looked up at us. The figure waved. I waved back. The gardener came up the drive and the pair of figures went round the side of the villa.

The low murmuring from the bedroom became a bit more distinct as we drew nearer the door. I peered round the half-open door. My friend and brother-in-law number one was sitting, propped up in bed, a drip feed in his left arm, with a slightly younger man sitting reading from a manuscript at his side.

“I think that's the best you've ever written, Tony,” he said with approval, “I'll take the manuscript back with me on Monday and we'll have it out ready for the Christmas lists. The proofs should be ready very soon.”

“Sounded good, Kanga,” he said after mouthing the usual counting mantra, “I took down the last two chapters by dictation and it's only due to the good spell-checker on the PC that you can read what I typed up.”

Francis and his younger brother James, had always referred to my second brother-in-law as uncle as his sister Anne, my second wife, their step-mother, had brought them up from quite an early age after Kats had died in the crash with Kanga's brother, Roo.

Mike took one look at Tony, went over to the bed and gently kissed him on the cheek. The other three of us quietly withdrew without any further greeting. We knew Tony didn't have long and we knew he wanted to talk to Mike, not because he was a Catholic priest, but because he just wanted to say goodbye to another friend.

We three sat in easy chairs in the big room and looked at each other in silence for a time. I pulled out a handkerchief from the pocket of my shorts and wiped an eye. I was very close to tears. Tony, my first friend from infant school days was soon to die. My son had diagnosed lung cancer three years ago but even then it was too far advanced for any radical treatment. Still, as I thought over the many happy years of Tony's life, his and Francis's contentment, my long friendship with him and his other close friends I felt better. I thought also of his books, including the struggle he had had to finish this last one, the films made from them, the television plays and the enjoyment he had given to many and my sadness waned a little more. Francis speaking broke my reverie.

Mike had been a monsignor for many years and had worked at the Vatican ever since he had finished his studies at the Gregorian University well over thirty years ago. He was an expert on Canon Law and never spoke of the rather delicate duties he was required to undertake in various parts of the world. In his last letter he'd told me of the impending elevation. In his own deprecating way he'd said they were finding him a see in the Syrian desert or in the bogs of a remote part of Ireland.

Kanga laughed. “They're coming over at the weekend as Tim has got some respite from waving his arms around for a couple of weeks and she's bringing some new paintings she's done for Tony's collection.”

The door to the bedroom opened quietly and Mike came out. He nodded at Kanga and Francis who went into the bedroom and closed the door. I stood and Mike and I embraced. Two old, old friends. I clutched him tight.

True, I was six foot one to his five foot seven. But, he still seemed as stocky and muscular as I remembered from our adolescent years when he was a seventeen-year-old scrum half in the Catholic school XV and I ran the line for my school as a fourteen-year-old touch judge.

I and Anne had retired from our posts at Cambridge University a couple of years before and had spent a memorable two months in Rome being escorted around by Mike and fellow clerics but I had only seen him once since.

I murmured something about being so busy now I didn't know how I had found time to go to work before when the telephone rang. I was, as usual, startled, even after many years of experience, by the peculiar ringing tone of the French telephone. As it was nearest to me I picked it up. It was another familiar voice. It was Matt.

Matt and I also went back to school days and he was now also in retirement after his naval career. He and his companion, Jamie Morris, also a Commander, lived together in some style just down the coast outside Montpelier having sold, at a very handsome profit, their very successful yacht-hire business.

Matt wanted to know how Tony was. I told him, without holding anything back, that Francis thought it was now just a matter of a week or so. I heard Matt sob at the other end. Old friends are hard to lose. Mike took the 'phone from me. He spoke quietly to Matt and then smiled and put the handset down.

Of course it would be OK for him to stay and I said so - I didn't enquire what his business was in Lyon. In any case I would be in charge of Tony's affairs here now. My younger son, James, as his legal advisor, had arranged his Will with his French counterpart and as I was more than competent in French, as my dear son so cheekily put it, it was my duty to deal with the French side of Tony's assets.