Beneath the Southern Cross (34 page)

Beth held the baby upside down and slapped its bottom. It was blue. Quite blue. And flaccid. It was dead, surely. She heard a faint gurgle. Material dribbled from the baby's mouth. Breathe, Beth begged, breathe, and she slapped it again.

Then, miraculously, there was a loud squawk, like an angry chicken, and the baby squirmed. It breathed. And Beth held a living creature in her hands.

‘It's a girl,' Nellie whispered.

‘Good, good,' Mack said without looking up. He'd removed the placenta, dumping it in a bloody mess on the floor beside him and, with the flat of his hand, was cleaving a plain in the uterus. ‘Beth, tend to the baby. Nellie, I need that hot water, and clean hand towels and tea towels, whatever you can get.'

They formed a line, Spotty and Nellie kneeling beside the doctor, Spotty plunging the hand towels into boiling hot water, scalding his hands as he did so, then partially squeezing the towels dry and handing them to Nellie, who squeezed them again and handed them to Mack. Mack then packed them into the uterus.

Throughout the procedure the old doctor kept checking Norah's vital signs, expecting any moment to call a halt to the proceedings. She must have lost half her blood volume, they needed to get fluid into her. She was dying, and it was doubtful she would reach the hospital alive. Even if she did, Mack thought, she would die there. Of blood loss or infection. But in the meantime, somehow, the girl was hanging on and Mack was doing everything he could.

Norah was floating now. Somewhere beyond pain. A number of times she'd been shocked from her oblivion by a pain so unbearable that she'd prayed for death. And she'd gratefully accepted it, sinking into comfortable darkness. Then, only moments later, the agony had returned. When would it end? Let me die, she'd prayed and begged as she'd drifted on the border of life and death.

In the instant, however, that she'd heard the cry of her baby, Norah's prayer had changed. She would embrace death happily but, please God, not until she had seen her child. Please God, let her live long enough to see that the baby she had borne was healthy.

Drifting in her blackness, Norah talked to God. And the two of them made a bargain. God told her that He had given her a healthy baby. A girl, He said. She'd wanted a girl. And He promised her He would let her hold her baby. In return, she promised Him her life. It was a very good bargain and, as if to shake hands on the deal, God took away the pain and Norah sank into blissful, pain-free unconsciousness.

 

Ben sat at Norah's bedside, holding her hand, praying the only way he knew how. Not directly to God, that would be hypocritical, he'd never done it before, why should God listen to him now? But he begged forgiveness and promised to be a better man if only Norah could live.

She'd been in Sydney Hospital for over a week, barely conscious, in a fever, no-one expecting her to live through each day. But somehow she had.

Ben hadn't realised how much he loved her. He hadn't even been sure that he did. He certainly hadn't loved her in the beginning. He'd resented having to marry at the age of twenty-two, and he'd resented the fact that his wife seemed to think she was above the common herd of Surry Hills. There'd even been times when he'd thought, as his mother had, that Norah had trapped him into marriage.

Nevertheless, he'd done all the right things by his new-found family, worked hard and supported them well, but for the first two years of his marriage, he'd not been faithful to his wife. His sexual liaisons had been more a rebellion than anything; they'd meant little to him and he'd kept them discreet, but they'd been his way of showing his resentment, if only to himself.

Then, shortly after his son's second birthday, Ben had suddenly realised that he was happy. He loved young Tim more than life itself, and Norah was a good mother and a good wife who had given him a fine son. As the years passed, his fondness for Norah grew to a deep affection. But he'd not recognised it as love. Not until now.

Ben looked down at the thin pale face, almost as white as the pillow upon which it rested. ‘You can do it, Norah girl,' he whispered. ‘You can do it, I know you can.' He said it every five minutes or so. The nurses and doctors told him that she couldn't hear, but he said it anyway, just in case.

The doctors and nurses were right, she couldn't hear him. She couldn't hear him because, during her moments of semiconsciousness, she was too busy talking to God.

I must see my baby, she was saying. You promised me. I cannot die until I've seen my baby.

At the end of the second week, her eyelids flickered open. She studied the room. A white ceiling, white walls. Where was she? Someone was holding her right hand. She turned her head and there was Ben, leaning back in the bedside chair looking tired, very nearly asleep.

‘Where's my baby?' she whispered.

Ben heard a sound, something more than the rasping of her breath as she struggled for daily survival. He was jolted awake. He looked at his wife. Her eyes were open.

‘Norah?'

‘Where's my baby?'

They brought her baby to her, positioning it in the crook of her left shoulder. She couldn't move her arms, so they bent her left elbow and placed her left hand on the baby's chest. Then they draped her other arm over her body so that she was embracing the child. She turned her head on the pillow and looked down at her baby.

It did not matter at all to Norah that she could not move her arms, for she could move her fingers. And she touched the skin of her little girl's face, and felt the tiny hand clutching hers.

The nurses left the mother and father and baby alone. Just for a little while. It was a miracle, they said. A miracle that she'd regained consciousness at all.

Ben watched his wife silently. Then, ‘I love you, Norah,' he whispered. The words were more to himself than to her.

But Norah heard him. Ben's voice. He was sitting on the other side of the bed, she could turn her head towards him if she wished. She was loath to take her eyes from the baby, but Ben had told her that he loved her. He'd never said that before. Slowly she turned her head.

Good heavens, he's crying, she thought. She'd never seen him do that before either.

‘I do,' he said. ‘I love you, girl.'

She smiled as she closed her eyes. God had given her much more than they'd agreed upon in their bargain. How very kind of Him. But frustrating too. She really didn't want to die now.

 

‘There was blood everywhere. Spotty Putman told me. They had to throw out the old sofa. Red with my mum's blood it was, that's what Spotty told me.'

RobbieO'Shea was deeply impressed. Tim had known he would be, Robbie was always enthralled by stories of blood and gore.

They were sitting on the grass in Hyde Park, the pup gambolling about them, chasing the sticks they threw. Except the pup wasn't a pup any more, he was fully grown. Huge and gawky and clumsy, and far bigger than Kathleen had ever anticipated. ‘If he gets too big, we have to get rid of him,' she'd threatened, but Robbie had got round her, as he'd known he would.

‘She was in hospital for a whole two months,' Tim said proudly. ‘They said it was a miracle that she lived. After she lost all that blood,' he added, to impress Robbie further.

‘Yeah.' Robbie was dutifully impressed. ‘She's lucky all right, your mum.'

Tim wrested the stick from the dog's mouth and hurled it into the bushes. ‘Go get it, boy!' he yelled. It was a competition between him and Robbie to see who could throw the stick the furthest.

‘So what are they calling her?' Robbie asked as the dog lumbered off and disappeared amongst the undergrowth. ‘Your baby sister, what are they calling her?'

‘Emily. It was my dad's great-grandmother's name and Mum reckons she likes it.'

‘Do you like it?'

‘What? The name?'

‘No, the baby.'

‘I dunno,' Tim shrugged. ‘I suppose. It's hard to tell, she cries a lot.'

The dog crashed its way back through the bushes, the stick in its mouth, and stood looking about, momentarily disoriented.

‘Here, boy!' Robbie called. ‘Here, boy, over here!' As the animal
romped towards them, something suddenly occurred to Robbie. ‘Hey, Tim,' he said.

‘What?'

‘We ought to give the pup a name.'

Tim wondered why they hadn't thought of it before. ‘Yep,' he agreed. It was high time the pup had a name.

They both thought for a while. Tim wasn't sure if it was the talk of blood which brought Ernie Morgan to mind. He hadn't thought of Ernie as he'd boasted about the bloodied sofa, but suddenly Ernie was there, as he was every now and then and probably always would be.

‘We could call him Ernie,' he suggested. Robbie looked at him and Tim felt he owed an explanation. ‘Ernie was big,' he said. ‘All the Morgans are big.'

But Robbiedidn't need any explanation. ‘Ernie's a good name,' he agreed. ‘We'll call him Ernie.'

‘It's aridiculous situation and we should have kept well out of it from the very beginning. Why should the death of an obscure Austrian duke have anything to do with us? And where in God's name is Sarajevo anyway?'

Charles Kendle was holding forth at hisdinner table as he always did. And, as always, his son, Stephen, and his grandson, Mark, were offering little opposition. Stephen because he disliked confrontation and still lived in fear of his father, and Mark because he disliked the old man and didn't want to give him the pleasure of an argument. Twenty-year-old Mark, who invariably disagreed with his grandfather's views, had often spoken out in the past, only to discover that was exactly what the old man was after.

‘You see, Stephen,' Charles would triumphantly crow to his son, ‘the boy's got the guts to stand up to me. Something you've never done.'

Mark hated to see his father humiliated, but he hated far more the way his father accepted his humiliation. ‘Why do you take it, Dad?' he'd ask. ‘Why do you let him bully you?'

‘It's more peaceful that way,' was Stephen's simplistic reply. ‘He'll always win, why bother fighting him?'

It seemed a fair enough answer, Mark supposed, and for his father's sake, he stopped rising to the old man's bait. When his grand-father made outrageous statements in a deliberate attempt to arouse debate, just as he was doing tonight in talking so of the imminentwar in Europe, Mark held his tongue and said nothing. But it didn't mean that he'd given in to the old man. Not for one minute.

‘If there is a war, then of course we must fight, Charles, and you know it.'

It was old Howard Streatham who spoke out, for tonight the three generations of Kendle men were not clustered alone, as they usually were, at one end of the vast dining table of Kendle Lodge, the butler and maid hovering attentively. Tonight there was quite a party in progress. Mark's eccentric Aunt Susan, whom he rather admired, was present, along with Howard Streatham, his wife Helen and their eldest son, Godfrey.

‘It has gone far beyond the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. The Germans have declared war on France! They've threatened to invade Belgium!' Howard knew full well he'd been teased into debate, but he couldn't help it, the crisis in Europe demanded a passionate response. He adjusted his spectacles and continued. ‘The British are duty-bound to deliver an ultimatum. If the Kaiser continues to run rampant, why, then the British Empire itself could be at stake.'

Howard's false teeth had an unfortunate way of clacking slightly as he spoke, which always reduced the impact of his argument. Unprepossessing in appearance, he was frail, wizened, completely bald, and looked every bit of his seventy-four years. But Mark had always admired the way he talked back to Grandfather Charles. Howard Streatham was obviously undaunted by his old partner, and was still active in the family firm, despite having retired four years ago. Kendle and Streatham not only boasted the two biggest emporiums in Sydney but also maintained three supply factories, producing ironmongery, woollen and leather goods, and Howard was strenuous in voicing his opinions on each and every aspect of the company's concerns.

As the maid cleared the sorbet dishes, Charles signalled the butler to pour the claret which would accompany the main course.

‘Then let the British look after their Empire,' he said provocatively. ‘We're half the world away here.'

‘What an appalling thing to say.' There was sheer outrage in Godfrey Streatham's voice. ‘We are
part
of the British Empire.'

That was the trouble with Godfrey, Charles thought. He had no sense of humour, just like his father. He shared his father's tenacity too, and his stubbornness and strong moral sense, which in Charles's opinion was dangerous for business.

Charles Kendle, unlike his cousin Howard, had no intention of retiring. And certainly not whilst the other two co-directors of Kendle and Streatham were his and Howard's sons. Boring and dogmatic as he was, Godfrey Streatham would eat Stephen Kendle for breakfast.

Charles's son was a vast disappointment to him. A spineless man, he had many years ago concluded. One who possessed a moderate talent at the piano keyboard, a passable skill as a yachtsman (which was not surprising, he had been brought up amongst the yachting fraternity) and one who, in all other areas, was ineffectual and lacking any shred of leadership ability. Should the day ever come when he wished to retire, Charles had decided he would hand over the reins to his grandson. He sensed a strength and a leadership in Mark which reminded him a little of himself. His vanity chose also to believe that the lad looked like him, for Mark was a handsome young man. Dark of hair and brow, slim of build and with the bearing of an aristocrat, he could have been the young Charles Kendle, and although Charles suspected the boy didn't much like him, he wasn't overly bothered. His grandson would one day admire him; in the meantime, fear and respect were enough.

‘And as the most distant
part
of the British Empire,' Charles mocked the pomposity of Godfrey's tone, ‘we should have more sense than to waste manpower and money on a war which will not affect us.'

‘Ah yes, Father,' Susan interjected, ‘money! There lies the key. Money! Be honest now, if there were money to be made, you'd be all for the war, would you not?'

A shocked silence ensued. Susan had not intended to enter the conversation, quite aware of the fact that her father was deliberately provoking argument; but Helen Streatham had exchanged a conspiratorial look which had intimated ‘Men's talk, dear, we must keep well out of it', and such a look was, as always to Susan, like waving a red rag at a bull.

To everyone's surprise Charles gave one of his short barks of laughter. ‘But of course, my dear, I would look far more favourably upon this war if it were a sound financial investment.' He noted, with pleasure, that his remark had offended. ‘Why do you look so shocked, Godfrey? Many a sensible businessman will make
a great deal of money out of this war. It will not, however, be businessmen like us who live on the other side of the world, more's the pity.'

Stephen concentrated intently on his wine glass as the butler poured his claret. ‘Thank you, Arthur,' he muttered. He dared not look up. If he did, he might meet the challenge in his father's eyes, defying him to speak out. Or Godfrey might see the guilty flush in his cheeks. For it had been Stephen Kendle's signature which had accompanied his father's on the agreement to supply leather and woollen goods to the military in the advent of war. The government had not approached Kendle and Streatham, Charles had initiated the deal himself when the first rumblings of conflict in Europe had reached Australian shores.

The transaction had been far from ethical. Money had changed hands, no questions had been asked, and Charles had beaten any possible competition well before general tenders had been invited. For appearances' sake, however, tenders, when they arrived, were given due consideration.

The contract had required the signatures of two of the senior directors of Kendle and Streatham, and Stephen had ventured to suggest that Godfrey would not approve.

‘So he'll call me a warmonger, so what?' his father had snarled. ‘If we don't grab the chance, somebody else will. By the time Godfrey finds out, there'll be no moral decision to be made, the money will be rolling in and he'll be only too happy to take it. Now just sign the damnthing, Stephen!'

And of course Stephen had.

Charles glanced across the table at his daughter, rather wishing he could boast to her of his government contract, though he knew for the moment it must remain a secret. It was Susan who had inherited his strength, Charles thought; it showed in her face. The set of her jaw, the determination of her brow, not a marshmallow face like her brother's. Even in her midforties she was a handsome woman, although a little on the weighty side. But then both she and Stephen had inherited their mother's fleshiness and grown bulky in their middle years.

Charles wished it had been his son rather than his daughter who had inherited his strength. He never trusted strong women. And he certainly did not approve of his daughter. She had done the
most appalling things with her life, and her behaviour was at times most embarrassing. She even smoked in public.

A divorced woman, Susan had years ago left her husband and two children in Melbourne to return to Sydney and set up a small art gallery and handicrafts shop. In Manly of all places. Charles had thought of disinheriting her at the time—for propriety's sake—until he'd discovered that she had reverted to her maiden name.

‘It is a sorry enough state of affairs, Father,' she had stiffly remarked, ‘that, upon her marriage, a woman is required to relinquish all rights to her family name. But, should her marriage fail, it is nothing short of loathsome that she be expected to continue to bear the name of a man she no longer loves, in fact quite possibly abhors.'

It was a radical statement, and quite shocking, but Charles had been secretly delighted. The more Kendles the better, he thought, and he made veiled hints at monetary rewards for her two children, Lionel and Prudence, should they wish to follow their mother's example and change their name. But Susan appeared uninterested.

Although Charles did not approve of his daughter, he could not fail but respect her. She was outrageous. She had a far greater ability to shock than he, for he was too bound by social protocol. Furthermore, she stood up to him like a man. Susan had guts.

The claret had been poured and, unable to garner his daughter's attention and, like her, bored with the diatribe Godfrey Streatham had embarked upon half an hour ago, Charles rose to his feet.

‘Well said, Godfrey!' he loudly announced, and Godfrey was forced to stop midsentence.

Charles stood for a second or so at the head of the table, not only to survey his guests, but in order that he should be surveyed by them. He looked imposing and knew it. He'd weathered the storm far better than Howard. At seventy-six, he still had a striking head of hair, silver-white now, and beneath the aged eyelids the steel-grey eyes still glinted powerfully.

‘A toast!' he said and he raised his glass. ‘To King and Country.'

They all rose. ‘To King and Country.'

Two hours later, when their guests had departed, Charles insisted Stephen and Mark join him for a coffee and port. He seemed in a most affable mood. ‘My word, but we set a cat or
two amongst the pigeons tonight, didn't we?' he laughed.

Mark glanced at his father. Both of them had said barely a word all evening.

‘Well, Susan and I did,' Charles added, noting the exchange. ‘And you could certainly have stirred them up a great deal more, Stephen, had you wished. A right old hornets' nest it would have been, had you dredged up your nerve and spoken out.'

‘You made me promise, from the outset, to say nothing, Father.' Stephen heaved an inner sigh. He could tell that his father still wished to play games. Stephen hated it when Charles goaded him in front of his son.

‘Of course, of course, and you were quite right to keep your mouth shut.' The old man leaned forward and poured himself another glass of port from the decanter on the coffee table. He would probably regret having a second, but he had so enjoyed himself tonight that he didn't want the evening to end. ‘And I'm sure it must have cost you such effort to do so,' he said with gleeful spite. He had seen Stephen hiding behind his wine, praying that no-one would notice his guilty flush. ‘You must have been positively biting your tongue.' Charles sipped his port teasingly, ‘But we might perhaps tell Mark of our little secret, what do you say?'

Stephen apparently had nothing to say, as he stared at the empty coffee cup in his hands. Charles had expected as much. ‘After all,' he continued, ‘when Mark leaves university at the end of next year he will be part of Kendle and Streatham. Perhaps it is time he learned of our more nefarious activities.'

Mark and Stephen exchanged a look, and there was a query in Mark's eyes.

‘Well, Stephen,' Charles insisted with a touch of impatience, ‘shall we tell him or shall we not?'

‘He already knows.' Stephen savoured the moment. The look of surprise in his father's eyes, the fleeting knowledge that, for just one second, he had bested the old man. His life would be made hell for the next few days, but he must remember this moment, he told himself, he must not regret it.

‘He knows?' Charles put down his glass, the port no longer interested him. ‘About the government contract?'

‘Yes.'

‘But I told you to tell no-one.'

‘I did not take that to mean Mark, Father.' Stephen looked to his son and was pleased to see the encouragement in Mark's eyes. ‘I tell my son most things. He is very discreet.'

‘I see.' After a moment's pause the old man turned to his grandson. ‘And what do you think of the transaction, Mark?' his voice was cold, hisdispleasure evident.

‘I think it is an excellent business coup, Grandfather.' Mark didn't. He thought it was sheer warmongering greed but, not wishing to cause more trouble for his father, he was happy enough to humour the old man.

‘Yes,' Charles was slightly mollified, the boy showed sound judgement, ‘it is.' He was still annoyed, however, that the wind had been taken out of his sails. Why was it that the only time Stephen showed any character was in the presence of his son, why couldn't he do it in a boardroom?

‘I am delighted there is such a bond of trust between you and your son, Stephen,' he said archly as he eased himself out of the armchair, his left hip was aching now, ‘but your abuse of our confidentiality speaks poorly of your character. You are not a man of your word. I am tired now, I'm going to bed.'

 

Circular Quay was busy, as it always was on a Saturday night. Brightly lit ferries of all shapes and sizes churned the black waters of Sydney Harbour; small passenger ferries beetled back and forth from Milsons Point and Kirribilli and the other stops on the nearby northern side; large ocean-going ferries surged across the open waters of Port Jackson to the picturesque suburb of Manly on the far northern headland; and, dwarfing them all, were the behemoths, the gigantic vehicular ferries which transported all manner of vehicles. Sydney was still a city of horses, and daily, along with the queues of motor cars awaiting transportation, were the queues of horse-drawn vehicles of every description.