Beneath the Southern Cross (68 page)

‘What have I lived for?' he said, hating the fact that it sounded like self-pity. ‘I wanted to do so much with my life, Kitty, but I leave behind nothing. I have served no purpose.'

‘You call Roberto “nothing”?' Kitty said. That got his attention. ‘You call the fact that he's lived his life by your example “no purpose”?' Kitty could have held him to her and comforted him, but it was not her way. Kitty was a fighter. ‘I wanted to change the world too, Arturo, but I didn't know how until I met you. Both Rob and I have lived by your example. And the next generation will live by his. If that isn't changing the world then I don't know what is.'

She knew she was making sense. Strange, she thought, Arturo had always been the one with the sound advice, she the headstrong and irresponsible one. It was true, she had learned from him, and now it was his turn to listen to her.

‘You always said that perhaps the next generation would have the answers. Well, how do they get their answers without learning through us? Don't you see, Arturo, Rob wouldn't be the man he is, he wouldn't be doing the work he does, if it weren't for you.'

It was then that the idea had hit her, the perfect solution. ‘So why don't you write about the next generation,' she'd said, ‘why don't you write about your son?'

‘Yes, I'll go dessert, Dad.' Rob was thankful for the change of topic, his mother's preoccupation with Caroline's welfare could be maddening at times. ‘The cheesecake here's terrific.'

Both men shared a smile, and then the three of them talked about Italy, and Tuscany in the spring, and they all felt a little giddy with the wine and the sun and their love for each other.

On the trip back to Circular Quay Artie dozed off in the stern of the water taxi. Kitty had asked the skipper to go slowly so that she could enjoy the view from the water. Her chin resting on her hands, her elbows on the gunwales, Kitty looked out at the plush harbourside homes as they glided past. Many beautiful, some ugly and pretentious, and of course the most monstrous of them all, Wallace Kendall's twin mansions. Well, they weren't Wallace's any more, they were in the hands of the receivers now. But there they stood, rivalling each other in their ostentation, the larger of the two with a helicopter pad sitting atop it like an unsightly bonnet.

How everything had changed, Kitty thought. She didn't need to close her eyes to see Wally's old house lounging peacefully there on the point, surrounded by cool verandahs, shaded by the huge Moreton Bay fig. She could see them all now, in their tennis whites; she could hear the shrieks of their laughter. But Wally and her parents had gone, and now she and her generation were the next on the way out. Sobering thought.

It had been shock enough turning sixty. Sixty was old. And yet here it was, 1991, in just two years she'd be seventy, and people spoke with such glibness of the year 2000. It sent shivers down her spine. 2000 had always been light years away. She had never contemplated being alive at the turn of the millennium, and yet in a way it was only tomorrow.

Other water taxis sped past them, dodging busily like worker bees amongst the ferries and the yachts. Fort Denison glided past their starboard bow, to the left was Mrs Macquarie's Chair, and dead ahead, sitting in all its magnificence upon Bennelong Point, was the Opera House and beyond that the giant coathanger of steel. Dear God, Kitty thought, how she loved this city.

‘Hello, Mrs Hamilton. How are you today?'

‘I'm fine, dear, I'm fine.'

Caroline Hamilton wasn't fine, far from it. She was so desperately lonely that each evening when she went to bed she hoped she might not wake up. It wasn't a prayer, Caroline was not a religiouswoman, she simply wished that she could sleep forever. In sleep she could give herself up to her dreams. She could dance with Gene at the Trocadero and watch him running up from the water's edge at Bondi Beach. They could dine at the Roosevelt on oysters and champagne and always, in her dreams, they were young and beautiful.

During her waking hours, Caroline allowed herself to think of Gene only briefly, refusing to wander too long in the past, for that way lay madness, and she intended to keep her wits about her to the very end. But, when she dreamed she was happy, and in sleep she was free of the painwhich plagued her waking hours and of the emptiness of her interminable days. Days which stretched forever, broken only by the visit of the cheery young woman from Meals on Wheels.

Sally was fond of old Mrs Hamilton, she never complained like so many of the others, and she was always good for a laugh. Sally always tried to schedule Mrs Hamilton last on her list of deliveries so that they could have the odd game of Scrabble now and then.

‘You get the board and I'll clear the table,' Caroline said.

‘Aren't you going to have your lunch first?'

‘No, I'm not hungry today, the food can wait. Besides,' she called as Sally disappeared into the front room, ‘I'm hardly malnourished.'

‘It's lack of exercise,' Sally said, returning with the Scrabble set to see Caroline easing her bulky body into the chair at the head of the table.

It was difficult to imagine someone as old and as fat as Mrs Hamilton ever having been young. Sally wondered if she'd been pretty. Quite possibly. Her hair, though now white, was thick, and her eyes, amidst the folds of her face, were the deepest brown.

‘You really should try and get out for a walk now and then,' she said.

If only she could, Caroline thought. Every single movement
caused her pain. ‘I know, I know, dear. I'm thinking of taking up jogging. In those little tight shorts and a sweatband.'

Sally laughed. Old Mrs Hamilton was always good for a laugh.

Caroline played a similar game with Rob Farinelli when he visited her, and particularly with Kitty during their weekly telephone calls.

Kitty rang at the same time each Saturday, and the conversation always started the same way.

‘Are you well?'

‘Yes, I'm fine. Went for a five-mile hike this morning.'

‘Now don't be silly. Are you all right? Really?'

‘Really, yes, I'm fighting fit.'

‘Has Rob visited?'

‘Yes, on Thursday, as usual.'

‘Is there anything you need?'

‘Rob asked me that. There's nothing, Kitty, truly. I'm perfectly happy.' Then Caroline would change the subject. ‘I got your postcard. San Gimignano looks beautiful.' She was on safe ground there, Kitty would wax lyrical about the glories of Tuscany, the countryside and the medieval towns for a full ten minutes.

‘And Artie,' Caroline would ask before they said goodbye, ‘how's Artie?'

Kitty was always a little guarded in her reply. She didn't dare raise her hopes too much. ‘He hasn't gained any weight and he doesn't seem any stronger, but he's loving being here. It's good for him, Caroline, he's happy, I can tell.'

‘Oh my dear, I'm so glad.'

Then came the phone call three weeks before Kitty and Artie's planned return.

‘My God, the time's flown,' Kitty said, ‘it seems only yesterday we stepped onto the plane …'

Really? Caroline thought. To her the days and the months had dragged by, each day seeming longer than the last, each morning bringing with it the disappointing discovery that she was still alive.

‘… and now we'll be home in three weeks. I can't wait to see you.'

Caroline longed to see Kitty too, just once, to say goodbye. She had a feeling it wouldn't be long now. She'd stopped eating to help speed up the process. She was simply being practical. She knew
she would never survive long enough to see her son out of gaol, so what was the point in hanging around any longer than was necessary. The meals Sally brought her she wrapped in plastic bags and put in the outside rubbish bin. But she was amazed at how efficiently the body could cope without food, it had been a whole two weeks.

‘You don't look well, Mrs Hamilton,' Sally had remarked only yesterday. ‘Shall I call the doctor?'

‘No, dear, I'm perfectly fine, and I can call him myself if I feel the need. Leave the food on the bench, there's a good girl. Do you have time for Scrabble? I feel a winning streak coming on.'

A thought occurred to Caroline as Kitty chatted away. Was she coming home just because of her? If so, how terrible.

‘Kitty,' she said, broaching the subject with care, ‘if Artie is responding well, then surely you should stay in Italy longer.'

‘Oh good heavens no, it's time to come home. Besides, I'm missing everyone.' Then the hoot of Kitty's laughter down the line as she truthfully admitted, ‘Well, you and Rob anyway, the rest can go to buggery.'

Yes, Caroline thought, Kitty Farinelli was returning to Sydney for the sole purpose of looking after her friend. Her friend who didn't want to be looked after, who dearly wished to leave this mortal coil. Well, that was it, Caroline decided, she had a little less than three weeks inwhich to do it.

‘There's someone at the door, Kitty, I have to go. I'll speak to you next Saturday.'

Caroline brought up the subject of funerals with Rob when he called the following Thursday. He gave her the perfect opening. ‘I'm calling the doctor,' he said the moment he saw her. ‘You don't look at all well, Caroline.'

‘He's already been, dear,' she replied quite airily, ‘this morning.'

‘What did he say?'

‘I'm just a little run-down, that's all. I'm seventy-six, I'm allowed to be. And Rob,' she said before he could interrupt, ‘if I do drop dead, I want you to know that I don't believe in the fuss of funerals, I'm not a religious woman.'

Caroline had thought it all out. She didn't want to leave a note of instruction that Kitty was not to return for her funeral, it might look as if she'd suicided, and she had no intention of doing that.

‘For instance,' she continued, ‘I would simply loathe the thought of Kitty galloping home to sit on a hard church pew and listen to a perfect stranger saying sickeningly nice things about me. I detest funerals, I don't go to them myself and I don't expect others to come to mine.'

‘All right, Caroline, I get the message.'

‘Kitty's a practical woman, she'd feel the same way.'

Rob was sure she would. In fact Caroline sounded just like his mother.

 

Sally let herself in. She'd had her own key for weeks now, it saved Mrs Hamilton having to come to the front door. If the old lady was in her bedroom, it took her a month of Sundays to get downstairs.

‘Mrs Hamilton! I'm here!' Sally called.

The old lady wasn't in the kitchen. She'd be upstairs again, like she had been yesterday. ‘Just having a bit of a lie-down,' she'd said. ‘Leave the food, there's a dear, it's not a good day today.' Poor old thing, she really wasn't well.

‘It's me, Mrs Hamilton,' Sally whispered as she pushed open the bedroom door.

Caroline was in bed, propped up against the pillows, an open book resting upon her chest, her reading glasses halfway down her nose, the bedside lamp still switched on. She'd fallen asleep while she was reading, as she very often did. Only this time she hadn't woken up.

Oh, Sally thought, how sad. But then was it? Old Mrs Hamilton looked so beautifully peaceful.

Caroline's timing had been perfect. It was still a full ten days before the Farinellis' return, plenty of time for Kitty to alter her arrangements.

‘The funeral's on Wednesday,' Rob said when he rang his mother with the news, ‘and she didn't want you to come home for it, she was adamant about that.' He relayed his conversation with Caroline word for word. ‘She obviously knew she was going to die soon.'

‘If only she'd told me,' Kitty said, distraught. ‘If I'd known, I would have comehome.'

‘That's why she didn't tell you.'

Kitty was crying and Rob was shocked by the sound. Never in
his life had he seen or heard his mother cry. ‘I saw her, Mum,' he said gently. ‘The girl who found her, Sally, she had my phone number for emergencies and she called me. I was there before the doctor arrived. She looked so peaceful, I wish you could have seen her. She died in her sleep, a mild heart attack.'

‘Good.' Kitty pulled herself together. ‘That's good, I'm glad.'

‘So don't comehome, it's not what she wanted.'

‘No, I won't. Caroline was quite right, it wouldn't be practical.' Rob could hear her blowing her nose. ‘The plane trip would be uncomfortable for Arturo,' she said briskly, ‘and I won't leave him here on his own. In fact I think we'll stay in Italy for several more months, it's doing your father the world of good. You'll look after everything, won't you?'

‘Of course,' Rob reassured her. ‘I've arranged Bruce's prison release for the funeral, and I'm collecting Jim on the day, although God only knows what condition he'll be in, he was drunk as a skunk when I told him the news.'