It's the week following the unforeseeable loss, Harves is sitting there surrounded by the committee in a softly lit room. Some Vivaldi softly playing. It's too early from a Margaret River shiraz but he is tempted. Pushing the thought aside he reaches for the newly sharpened HB.
The page is blank apart from a lightly pencilled in oval shape. He picks up the pencil and first name appears on the page..Pavlich...but of course. The committee exhale the breath they have been holding and murmer amongst themselves about the sagacity of Harves. He IS a wise man.
But they notice him pausing, the HB still apart from an almost imperceptible tremor as repressed Melbourne memories surface.
He reflects. He picks up the pencil, pauses again but then with an air of certainty begins to write.
What is the name emerges? What name would always follow the Pav, every week? The committee strain to see the letters on the page. Slowly they are revealed.
C.R.O.W.L.E.Y
The pencil point breaks as the wise man pushes forcefully into the page in reaction to the thought "If only we had some more like him...."