"When I was young, my mother wove me a sleeping mat." "She said that if I got lost in a bad dream, all I needed to do was roll over and feel the very seam." "That seam was the current that would carry me home." "But what if home was a bad dream?" "Our teachers told us that the place we lived was called Bougainville, part of a small group of South Pacific islands owned by Papua New Guinea." "But according to my mother, our island was a woman and we lived in her heart." "She said no-one could own that." "But Papua New Guinea sold our heart to a mining company." "My dad used to work at the mine, but when all the trouble started, he left to find work in Australia." "Mum and Dad argued a lot about that." "We were going to join him later Mum said we'd go on the next boat." "That's what she said after every boat." "Higher." "It's high as I can get it." "supplies are running low." "News of war came to our little village in bits and rumours." "We heard that some of our people declared war on the mine and shut it down." "We heard that Papua New Guinea was sending in the army." "We heard they were going to seal off our island so no-one would be able to get in or out." "First, they closed the mine." "They cut off our supplies and closed down the schools." "All the whites left." "All except Pop-Eye, that is." "Mum said he stayed because his wife Grace would never leave the island again." "Pop-Eye!" "Pop-Eye!" "Pop-Eye!" "Pop-Eye!" "Argh!" "We thought Pop-Eye's tribe had forgotten him." "Or that maybe he was being punished for an old crime." "Whatever his reason, it was easy to see that Grace was mad." "Pop-Eye was more of a mystery." "Pop-Eye!" "Pop-Eye!" "Mind your own business." "The PNG government mean to starve us out, but Abraham said, 'God will provide the lamb.'" "Amen!" "We still have what we always had." "We have our fish..." "Amen!" "our pigs, our chicken, our fruits, and we have our faith." "Amen!" "♪ All good gifts around us are sent from Heaven above" "♪ Then thank the Lord" "♪ O thank the Lord For all His love. ♪" "Mum." "Mm?" "Me laik askim yu samting." "We speak English in this house." "Do you miss Dad?" "Why do you ask that, girl?" "There's not going to be another boat, is there?" "The blockade won't last forever." "Does it make a difference?" "Sometimes I miss him." "Sometimes when you look along the beach, there is your father, Matilda." "He's walking towards me." "And me?" "And you, yes." "Your father is walking towards us both." "Get up." "Come on, lazybones!" "You've got school." "What are you talking about?" "School's been closed for months." "We haven't got a teacher." "You do now." "He's coming!" "Sit down, sit down!" "Thank you for coming." "I wasn't sure you would." "Wasn't sure I would." "Look, I'll be honest." "I..." "I have no wisdom." "I'm not a teacher, but I will try my best." "That is my promise to you children." "Yes?" "Yes, Mr Watts." "Yes, Mr Watts," "Yes, Pop-Eye!" "Oh, I know that some of you call me 'Pop-Eye', and... that's fine." "I actually quite like Pop-Eye." "Yes, Mr Pop-Eye." "I want this to be a place of light, no matter what happens." "So, the first thing we must do is clear this space for learning." "I have been saving some batteries for a special occasion." "So let's open all the windows and clean all the rubbish off the desks." "'My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip... my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip." "So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.'" "Yes." "Well, I welcome questions." "And if you do have a question, perhaps you'd be kind enough to tell me your name." "Daniel, sir." "It's nice to meet you, Daniel." "Should we call you Pop-Eye, or Mr Watts, or Mr Pip?" "Those words were not mine, Daniel." "They belong to Mr Dickens... words that I think can make a difference in our lives." "And tomorrow, I will introduce you to Mr Dickens." "That's a white man's name, No, Matilda." "You heard wrong." "Pop-Eye is the last white man around here." "There's no others." "But Mr Watts says there is." "Hey, Leola!" "Mr Watts!" "Mr Watts!" "Mr Watts!" "Whoa, whoa, whoa." "What's your name?" "Mabel, Mr Watts." "Very pleased to meet you, Mabel." "My mother was thinking Mr Dickens might have some malaria tablets." "My dad wants some kerosene." "What about some beer?" "Where is Mr Dickens?" "He's right here." "The line you heard yesterday was the first line of Great Expectations by the greatest English writer of the 19th century," "Charles Dickens." "Now, when you read the work of a great writer, you are making their person's acquaintance, so you could say that you've already met Charles Dickens on the page, so to speak." "Although you won't know him for a while." "When will we know him?" "Well, I hope some of you will know him by the time we finish the book." "The book is 59 chapters long, we'll read a chapter a day... 6th February, 1990." "I'm sorry?" "We'll know Mr Dickens on the 6th of February next year." "Alright, well, I'll take your word for it, uh..." "My name is Matilda." "Matilda." "That's a lovely name." "Where did you get such a pretty name?" "The Australians at the mine gave it to Dad to give Mum to give me." "In a way, you could say that Mr Dickens got Pip's name from his father too." "Who knows what else you might have in common?" "Right." "Who wants to meet Mr Dickens?" "Me!" "'I give Pirrip as my father's family name on the authority of his tombstone and my sister," "Mrs Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith." "As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them, for their days were long before the days of photographs, my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones." "The shape of the letters on my father's gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair." "From the character and turn of the inscription," ""Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,"" "I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly.'" "'To five little stone lozenges, each about afoot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine, who gave up trying to get a living" "exceedingly early in that universal struggle." "I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of existence." "At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place, overgrown with nettles, was the churchyard.'" "Who are you?" "What are you doing here?" "I came to see my brothers," "I'm sorry." "I never really knew them." "I actually used to think they'd been born like that, on their backs with their hands in their trouser pockets." "Just never taken them out." "I prefer to think of them that way." "You there!" "Get down." "Stay there." "Wait." "Come here!" "No, don't..." "Stop!" "Hold your noise." "Keep still, or I'll cut your throat." "Don't cut my throat, sir." "Tell us your name." "Pip, sir!" "Pip!" "You know what file is?" "Yes, sir." "And wittles?" "You bring the lot to me, at the old Battery." "You do it." "And you shall be let to live." "Now, what do you say?" "A battery, sir?" "Yes." "Not like the battery in my radio." "'Battery' in this case means a military encampment." "A place with guns." "Like the no-go zone?" "Where the rebels are." "Yes." "Kind of." "That's very good, Sam." "So he stole his mother's pork pie?" "Pip's an orphan." "He lives with his sister." "Brought him up by hand." "Sounds like she needed to use her hand on him a little more." "What would you do, girl, if a man was hiding in the jungle and asked you to steal from me?" "Would you do that?" "No." "Pop-Eye should be teaching you kids proper behaviour." "From now on, I wanna know everything that happens in that book," "You hear me, Matilda?" "Yes, Mum." "'That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me." "But it is the same with any life." "Imagine one selected day struck out of your life and think how different its course would have been.'" "Let's go grab the malaria tablets." "'Pause you who read this and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.'" "Where are they taking him?" "Exile." "Sending him to Australia," "My Dad's in Australia." "Do you miss him?" "I guess I'm lucky." "Why?" "I never knew my father long enough to miss him." "Are you ready, Pip?" "Wed best get back before your sister goes on a rampage." "Will I see you again?" "Who's that?" "She's a friend," "Does she have a name?" "Matilda!" "What the heck you doing, girl?" "Mr Watts?" "Yes, Daniel." "What's it like to be white?" "You mean what's it like to be white, or what's it like to be white here?" "Both." "A bit like what the last mammoth must have felt, I suppose." "It's lonely at times." "I don't know." "What's it like being black?" "Normal." "We only feel black around white people." "Yes, well, I'd say the same is true for me." "Matilda, would you like to do the honours?" "This is my mum, Dolores." "Dolores Naimo, Mrs Naimo, please come in." "Thank you." "I know you kids have been hearing some story from Mr Watts, but I'm here to tell you that stories have a job to do." "They can't just lie around like lazybone dogs." "They have to teach you something." "That's why I brought a book..." "the Good Book." "When the missionaries came, they taught us to believe in God." "But when we asked to see God, they wouldn't introduce him to us." "So many people prefer to live by the wisdom of the crabs and the firefish that is shaped like the Southern Star." "You must believe in something." "'God said, "Let there be light,"" "and there was light.'" "There is no sentence more beautiful in the world than that one." "Yes, Violet." "What is the wisdom of the crabs?" "♪ Hallelujah" "♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah... ♪" "Mr Watts, can I ask you something?" "Of course." "Is it strange to feel like I know Pip?" "I mean, really know him?" "I think that is probably the greatest compliment you could pay Mr Dickens." "Do you know him too?" "My Pip is probably not exactly the same as your Pip, but, yes, I believe I do." "Today, we are not going to start with Great Expectations." "Today we are very lucky to have Mabel's mother." "Mrs Tanganani." "Thank you, Mr Watts." "I am here today hoping to surprise you kids." "What if I tell you that some gardens begin their life in the ocean?" "The heart seed floats on the water, then it washes up on the sand." "Seven days later, the sun and the wind dry it as light as the husk." "Three months later, a little seedling grows, its white flowers open and look back to the sea where it came from." "Why am I telling you this, children?" "Because its stamen makes a fierce flame and keeps away the mosquitoes." "Right Mrs Tanganani, the heart seed." "Thank you." "Alright, then." "Uh..." "Yes, of course." "Thank you." "There's a place in the back." "Now, where did we get to?" "The best place to find broken dreams is down on the wharf." "AH those dead fish with their eyes and mouths open, they just can't believe that they are not in the sea and will never be again." "By the way, fish, they go to Heaven." "Don't believe any other shit you hear'" "Silence is good for a lot of things." "Boys who shout have mud in their souls." "Stay away from boys who abuse silence." "Other than that, I don't want to tell you girls where to shop." "To kill a pig, you get two fat uncles to hold it down and whack it on the chest." "How big do these uncles have to be?" "Fat ones." "Fat is good, Skinny is no bloody good." "Pop-Eye's no bloody good." "Right." "'Our conference was held in the state parlour which was feebly lighted by one candle." "It began with the strange gentleman's drawing the candle to him and looking over some entries in his pocketbook.'" ""My name is Jaggers." "I am a lawyer in London." "Now, Joseph Gargery..."" ""Yes, sir?"" ""I am the bearer of an offer to relieve you of this young fellow, your apprentice." "You would not object to cancel his indentures?" "'" ""Well, the answer is no." "Very well!" "Recollect the admission you have made and don't try to go from it presently."" "'Well, who's a going to try?"" ""I didn't say anyone is going to try!"" "Hmm..." ""Now, I return to this young fellow." "The communication I have got to make is, that he has Great Expectations!"" "Shh." "Shh." "'It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home." "I had believed in the best parlour as a most elegant saloon." "I had believed in the front door as a mysterious portal." "I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence." "Within a single year, all this was changed." "Now it was all coarse and common." "The change was made in me." "The thing was done." "Well... or ill-done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done.'" "Is that you, boy?" "Where have you been, girl?" "Just playing on the beach." "I don't want you out alone at night anymore." "Sam!" "Sam!" "Aah!" "Sam" "You can't send them away." "They're just boys." "They're your boys." "Not anymore." "Where's Sam?" "'What could I become with these surroundings?" "How can my character fail to be influenced by them?" "But I knew very well that it was not all good.'" "I think the sooner you leave here, the better." "Thank you, Mr Jaggers' Thank you so much." "Matilda?" "My dream is out, Matilda!" "What are you talking about?" "I believe that Miss Havisham intends me for Estella after all." "Matilda, I'm leaving." "Leaving?" "Pip has been given the opportunity to become whoever he wants." "It means he's free to make bad choices." "Like Estella?" "You're not very fond of Estella, are you?" "She's cruel." "Matilda!" "Matilda!" "Are you alright?" "It's alright, it's alright." "It's alright, darling." "It's alright, darling." "It's alright." "Dolores?" "No!" "No, no!" "No!" "Matilda'" "Matilda'" "Go and find your own kid!" "Do you believe in the Devil, Matilda?" "Mr Watts says that the Devil is just a symbol, not living flesh." "Nor is his Pip." "But you can't hear the Devil's voice." "You can hear Pip's." "That's it." "You're not going back to the school anymore." "Why?" "So I can be dumb like you?" "If it wasn't for you, we'd be in Australia with Dad." "'Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard heads." "I was better after I had cried, than before... more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle." "We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on." "And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me." "My daughter, my lovely Matilda, says she doesn't believe in the Devil." "She believes in Pip!" "Well, Mrs Naimo, what if I were to say to you that on the page" "Pip and the Devil have the same status?" "Each one strikes out on their own, each one has the chance to make their own mistakes..." "And to abandon his family?" "!" "How will Pip even know if he's made a mistake?" "If there is no God and no Devil, how will he know what's right from wrong?" "Mr Watts here thinks he can know all things, but for the rest of us people... and that includes you, my beautiful flower, Matilda... pack the teaching of the Good Book into your person." "That way, you kids will be able to save Pop-Eye here because I'm not going to." "Thank you, Mrs Naimo, for such an illuminating lesson on the relationship between good and evil." "Once again, you've given us much food for thought." "A shrine." "Pip in the Pacific." "Well, why not?" "Great Expectations doesn't tell the whole of Pip's life." "In the..." "Yep, you're quite right." "All in good time." "Mr Watts?" "Miss Naimo." "Pip's different in London." "I don't understand why he lets Herbert Pocket call him Handel." "Pip is like an immigrant." "He's moving from one level of society to another." "A change of name is as good as a change of clothes." "We all need a change sometimes to help us on our way." "He abandoned Joe." "Yes, he did." "H's not easy to be a perfect human being, Matilda." "No!" "Let me." "Matilda." "Get dressed." "Hurry up!" "Move, move, move, move!" "Hurry up!" "Go, go, go, go!" "Go!" "Go on!" "Move, move, move, move, move!" "Please, no-one wants to hurt you." "We would just like your names for security reasons." "You!" "Hey." "Name." "Dolores." "D-O-L-O-R-E-S." "Now you." "Matilda." "I notice there are no young men in the village." "Plenty of girls." "Mabel." "But no young men." "Why is that?" "We saw a signal on the beach." "What's P-I-P?" "What is P-I-P?" "Daniel." "Pip!" "Mr Pip!" "Mr Pip?" "Is his name on this list?" "Pip belongs to Mr Dickens, sir." "Who is Mr Dickens?" "Move, move, move, move!" "Hurry up!" "Psst!" "You are Mr Dickens?" "Yes, I am." "Where is Pip?" "Sir, Pip..." "Pip is a creation." "He's a character in a book." "I understand the confusion, but if you will allow me to show you the book, you will see that Pip is a character from the novel Great Expectations." "It's a novel." "It's a story." "A wonderful story." "Matilda, would you mind?" "I've left the book on my desk." "The book isn't there!" "There is no book?" "There is." "I just can't find it." "I will not be lied to." "Sir, I assure you..." "No." "Stay there." "You say there is a book, fine." "Find me the book, or find Mr Pip." "Move, move, move!" "Hey!" "I will give you one more chance." "Bring me this man Pip, or I will burn it all." "Please, sir!" "The man you're looking for is..." "He's a fiction." "He's a character out of a book." "No." "You will speak when I ask you." "I am not interested in any more of your lies." "Go back, go back, go back, go back, go back, go back." "You have been foolish." "You cannot defeat me with your lies." "Next time I come here, I expect this man Pip to be handed over." "I'm so sorry." "What's going on?" "You stay here." "No!" "Matilda!" "Don't be foolish, girl!" "Let go!" "It's OK, Matilda." "It's alright." "Matilda." "Matilda!" "No, leave it, Matilda!" "It's your father's!" "Hold your noise!" "Estella." "Whoo!" "Understand that." "I know you lost all your books." "I wrote some things..." "Hold your noise!" "That's very good, Matilda." "Would you like me to leave it?" "Put it in the pocket of my jacket." "Thank you." "Wake up." "I have something to tell you," "Our Father which art in Heaven..." "Mr Watts, your Grace was the cleverest of all us girls." "We all went to school together," "Thank you, Dolores." "Grace could speak German." "And hold her breath underwater for longer than anyone." "And anyway matter, she was beautiful too." "And remember the day she lost her tooth?" "She was lying in the canoe, watching the fish and the sea wave came and smacked that canoe right in the mouth." "When she got her first pair of shoes, she was so proud, she carried them everywhere, 'cause she didn't want them to get dirty." "What about you?" "Grace lived in a beautiful big house in London." "She lived in one part of the house, I lived in the other." "But... it was very hard not to notice Grace." "I'd never seen anyone so black with teeth so white." "She would come by every evening for a cup of tea and she would sit across the table from me." "And then one evening... she brought her chair around to my side and she took my hand and she placed it in her lap." "My darling Grace gave me great happiness." "None greater than when she gave me a child." "A baby girl to whom we gave the name Sarah." "And we couldn't stop looking at her." "We had a room in the middle of the house, between us, for Sarah." "We filled this room with our thoughts, our memories, our histories, which we'd take it in turns to write it on the wall." "And Grace traced Sarah's lineage from her all the way back to a flying fish." "Was I on this wall?" "Uh, yes, I believe you were." "Sarah fell to meningitis before her first birthday." "Grief..." "Grace couldn't..." "she couldn't move, didn't speak." "She never left her bed." "And I tried..." "I..." "We moved homes, we moved countries." "Finally, I thought that the best way would be for Grace to reinvent herself." "I don't know how many of you here know who the Queen of Sheba was." "It's in the Bible." "The Queen of Sheba was a very wise black woman who wanted to see if she could match Solomon's legendary wisdom." "And she communed with him of all that was in her heart and nothing was hid." "We've all lost a lot in recent times." "And those losses, I think we should use them... lo remind ourselves of the things that we could never lose... our minds and our imaginations." "Where are our imaginations?" "Out there, and in here." "Alright, let's try something different." "All of you close your eyes." "Now, in a voice that only you can hear, I want you to say your name." "Just say it to yourself, everyone." "Matilda Naimo." "Matilda Naimo." "Matilda Naimo." "Now, no-one ever..." "in the whole history of the world... no-one has ever used your voice to say your name." "It belongs to you." "Matilda Naimo." "Matilda Naimo." "No-one can take that away from you." "When Mr Dickens sat down in 1860 and started to write Great Expectations, the first thing he had to do was to clear a space for the voice oi Pip." "And that is what my friend Matilda has done." "She's started to write the story of Pip." "She has given us a special task, a sacred task... we have to retrieve the story of Great Expectations." "So, who's with me?" "Yes." "Christopher." "Pip wanted to be a gentleman." "Yes, he did." "Can anyone be a gentleman?" "Yes, they can." "Even a poor person?" "Absolutely a poor person can be a gentleman." "A gentleman... a gentleman is someone who never forgets their manners, no matter what the situation is, no matter how terrible, how awful." "Money and social standing have got nothing to do with it." "A gentleman always tries to do the right thing." "Where have you been?" "School, of course." "What, with the dumb bugger, Pop-Eye?" "Mum, I know you talked Mr Watts into coming back." "This will remove Pip from the protective comfort of home to the unknown metropolis." "Metropolis." "Uh..." "Alright." "Let's say that this here is our little village." "In Pip's time, greater London would be this immense metropolis." "We've got a new roof on our place." "Tag!" "Can't catch me!" "Pip!" "Sorry, would you excuse us, Herbert?" "What's wrong?" "It's nothing." "I'm just..." "I'm running late for a meeting with Miss Havisham." "I'll walk with you." "No, it's the young Miss Havisham, Estella." "Anyways, it was very nice to see you." "Who was that, Handel?" "Nobody." "His name is Pip." "Or have you abandoned that too, along with Joe and everyone else?" "And you're so much better?" "I'm sorry, Matilda, but you have no idea what is expected of a gentleman." "I do." "I just don't see one here." "Do you not have your own shadow to play with?" "Shit." "Matilda." "What are you doing creeping around here?" "What Estella says to Pip... do you not have your own shadow to play with?" "Yes." "Very good." "Do you want to write this down?" "Did Mrs Watts read Great Expectations?" "Grace?" "Sadly, no." "She fried." "Till finally she said that she would reach the end if I would do the same with the Bible, and that was that." "The thing is, you can't really pretend to read a book." "Your eyes will always give you away." "Your eyes and your breathing." "The house could be on fire and a reader deep in a book wouldn't even notice until the wallpaper was in flames." "And for me, Great Expectations was such a book." "It gave me permission to..." "change my life." "Reinvent myself." "Matilda." "There's a boat leaving the night after the full moon." "Gilbert's father could take us out to meet it." "A few hours on the open sea and you'd be in the Solomon Islands." "And Australia?" "Well, in the Solomons, it'd be up to you." "Your mum too, Matilda." "But it's very important that you don't tell anyone about this, not even Dolores, until I give the word." "Understand?" "Hurry up!" "Go!" "You." "Move, move, move, move." "Hey!" "Move!" "Move out, move out." "We need medicines." "What medicines we had, you burned." "Last time we were here, you were concealing a man named Pip." "Have you decided to hand him to me yet?" "I thought not." "Move" "Move" "I will ask you again for your name." "My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip." "So I called myself Pip and came lo be called..." "Shut up!" "Shut up!" "Shut up!" "Hey, shut up!" "I'm finished with being lied to." "Move, move!" "Look up!" "Who saw this?" "No, Daniel." "I saw it, sir," "Sir, he doesn't know what he's saying." "He doesn't know what he's saying, sir." "Come." "No, he..." "No!" "Please, he doesn't know what he's saying!" "Would you like to go with him?" "Yes, sir." "Get up!" "Get up!" "Get up!" "Get up!" "Get up!" "Get up!" "Now, once more I will ask you... who saw the white man die?" "Who saw?" "I did." "Sir, I saw your men chop up the white man and feed him to the pigs." "He was a good man." "I'm here as God's witness." "I am God's witness." "Sir, I will be God's witness." "Take her." "No!" "Stay." "You." "Are you related to this woman?" "She's my mother." "OK, girl." "Move, move." "Move." "Move it." "Move it." "Does anyone else have anything to say?" "Move, move." "No" "No!" "No!" "No!" "Matilda, my darling," "Oh, Matilda, my darting." "Yeah." "No!" "Let her go!" "Please!" "Stop it!" "Stand up" "Stand up." "Please..." "Please, sir, I beg you, have mercy." "She's just a little girl." "Now you beg me, and for what?" "What will you give me to save your daughter?" "Take me instead." "My men have had you already." "You have nothing left for me." "Take my life," "Did you hear that?" "Your mother has offered her life for you." "What do you say?" "Matilda, don't say anything." "No, I wanna hear." "What do you say to your mother?" "Very well." "Move Move." "Move." "No." "You stay here." "Hold onto me." "Hold on!" "I saw something." "It is." "It's her," "Wait!" "We have to go, Matilda." "Keep going." "Slowly, slowly." "Keep going up." "Right." "Say 'ahhh'." "Ahhh." "Matilda... that's a nice name." "Where did you get that name?" "Oh!" "Here we are." "You've got some eating to catch up on." "I bought you birthday cakes for every one I've missed." "Guess you were still a little girl in my head." "It's nice." "Alright." "Well, I'll let you settle in." "You alright?" "I love you." "We've got a new student today." "Welcome, Matilda." "Matilda is from..." "I came here from Honiara in the Solomon Islands." "Oh, right." "It says on your form..." "My mum couldn't come, so I came hereto help look after my dad." "OK." "Right." "So if everyone can open their maths books to page 348, we're just gonna pick up where we left off yesterday," "So yesterday we were having a look at making up equations with algebra." "Today we're just gonna carry on with using equations to solve problems." "So that first example there at the top of page 348." "If I think of a number and then multiply it by seven..." "I get the same result as if I had multiplied the number by four... and then added 15" "So if we're writing an equation for this information..." "It couldn't wait till after school?" "The man travelled from Sydney to see you." "Some kind of lawyer." "So what's this about exactly?" "Uh, you're aware of the situation in Bougainville since the blockade was lifted?" "You've been there?" "How long since you were there?" "It's been ten years." "I assume you remember Mr Thomas Watts?" "He was my teacher..." "in Bougainville." "Well, Mr Watts passed away during the conflict." "Did you know that?" "I'm sorry." "But it seems he left a will which bequeaths much of his property to you." "Mind you, we've had a devil of a time trying to find you." "It's primarily his house..." "half a house." "It's a flat, really." "The other half reverts to his wife." "His wife's dead." "No." "No, loan assure you June Watts is still very much alive." "And where's the flat?" "In Gravesend, in London." "Platform four..." "Mrs Watts?" "I thought you were from Australia." "I am." "Go ahead." "It's yours." "I'll put the kettle on." "Don't get many visitors." "Went out and got the strawberry creams especially." "Thank you." "It was lovely of you to see me today, Mrs Watts." "Your husband had a big influence on me." "Tom did?" "He was my teacher." "A longtime ago in Bougainville." "So you knew her then?" "The other woman." "I married a weak man, Matilda." "I don't want to sound unkind, but it's true." "Tom was not a brave man." "He should have left me properly rather than carry on the way he did." "I'm sorry, Mrs Watts." "I didn't know about any of that." "Water under the bridge now." "We were young." "Everyone was young in those days." "I suppose you knew about Tom's theatre thing." "There she is The Queen of Sheba" "He had some funny ideas, that director." "'Avant-garde,' Tom said." "The Queen of bloody Sheba." "I didn't think about Grace much." "I didn't give her nearly enough thought." "She was always laughing." "It was like living next door to someone who was permanently drunk." "Couldn't imagine him on her island." "What was he like?" "When you last saw him." "He was a gentleman." "He was always a gentleman, Mrs Watts." "I'm not going to take the flat." "It's not mine." "It's yours." "Thank you so much, Mrs Watts." "I'll pour the tea." "No." "That's OK." "Thank you." "You've given me so much already." "Take it if you want." "But it's yours." "Never read it." "Tom would want you to have it." "So what brings you to the Dickens Museum?" "It's a long story." "Did you meet Mr Dickens?" "I've met Mr Dickens, and that is not him." "Yes, the Dickens I knew told stories too." "And he wore a while suit and a red clown nose and collected shells from sparkling blue waters." "Pip..." "Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our fears for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts." "I was better after I had cried, than before... more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle." "We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on." "And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me." "What is the wisdom of the crabs?" "Well, my mum always said that wind and rain are on the way if a crab digs straight down and blocks the hole leaving marks like sun rays." "Who is your mum?" "Matilda!" "Sometimes I miss him." "Sometimes I will look along the beach." "There is your father, Matilda." "He's walking towards me." "And me?" "And you, yes." "Your father is walking towards us both." "My mother's name is Dolores Mary Naimo." "My father's is Joseph Francis Naimo." "My father worked with the Australians who gave him the name 'Matilda'." "He gave it to my mother for her to give me, and so they called me Matilda and I came to be known as Matilda."