Beneath the Southern Cross (50 page)

‘Yes, I saw him last week.'

‘You knew?' He looked at her, surprised; he'd presumed that she received all the news directly from him.

‘Of course, I read the casualty lists every day. I spoke to Marge and she told me.'

Billy Kendall's son, Tom, had been reported dead only days after the death of young Robert. And, ironically, both had died barely two months before the war had ended in Europe.

The death of his younger son had driven Billy over the edge. He'd been unstable for years, and when both of his sons had enlisted, his wife had thought he would never recover.

‘They're too old, for God's sake,' he'd ranted. ‘They're in their thirties, they should have more sense, leave it to the younger ones.'

The thought that his sons might go through what he had was driving Billy to madness. But Wally and Tom were determined. They were going off to war, just as their father had. And their cousin Tim Kendall. And Robbie O'Shea. And the Putmans, and all the others who'd known the glory of war. ‘You did it, why shouldn't we?' was their argument, and there was nothing Billy could say which could possibly change their minds.

And now Tom was dead, and Billy had lost the last flimsy hold he had on reality. He needed constant medical care and, as Marge was no longer able to look after him, he had been admitted to Kendle Lodge.

‘You haven't seen him yet?' Kathleen asked. Billy had been at the hospice for two months.

Tim shook his head. ‘I didn't think I could face him.' He rose and smiled at her gratefully. ‘I can now.'

 

Tim Kendall was only eleven years younger than his uncle Billy. He could remember how he'd joked to Robbie O'Shea when they'd
all enlisted at Victoria Barracks. ‘A bloke feels a bit of a dill signing up with his uncle,' he'd said. But Billy had never really been an uncle to Tim, more like a big brother. The best big brother a man could have, and it broke Tim's heart to see him now. At sixty-three years of age, Billy looked ninety. Frail and near death. But it was the fear in his eyes and the nervous tics which were most disturbing.

‘He likes to sit here,' the nurse had said after she'd wheeled his chair down the specially designed path to the arbour at the bottom of Kendle Lodge gardens. ‘He enjoys the view, don't you, dear?' There'd been no answer from Billy and she hadn't waited for one. ‘Give me a call if you need anything,' and then she was gone, leaving Tim alone with Billy.

Billy paid no heed to his visitor as he stared out at the view. There'd been a flicker of recognition when Tim had first arrived, but that was all. ‘He's there when he wants to be,' the nurse had said in answer to Tim's querying look.

Now Tim sat on the garden bench beside his uncle, who was rocking back and forth in his chair, and watched the fingers of Billy's left hand, constantly weaving and twisting and entwining with each other, the stump of his right wrist moving restlessly upon his knee as if he wished he could twist the fingers of his missing hand too. And Tim watched the remorseless movement of Billy's clenched jaw, and listened to the grinding of his teeth. Billy was a soul in torment.

Tim forced himself to look away. ‘It's a big place now all right,' he said, staring out over Woolloomooloo to the tangle of the city beyond and the giant span of the Harbour Bridge. ‘Acity on any world map, I reckon.'

Billy said nothing, but remained rocking back and forth.

‘It must be good to have Wally home.' Wally had visited his father immediately upon his return; it had really broken him up, Marge had said, seeing his dad that way.

‘Wally,' Billy stopped rocking. His fingers remained in incessant motion but he stopped clenching his jaw and grinding his teeth. He started to rapidly nod his head instead. ‘Wally, Wally, Wally, Wally,' he said very quickly, over and over. Nod, nod, nod, nod. ‘Wally, Wally, Wally, Wally.'

Tenuous as it was, Tim was glad of the breakthrough. ‘I'm going
to offer him a job, what do you reckon?' For the first time Billy turned his head to look at him. ‘We'll find a top place for him in the company, a junior partner he'll be.' The head had stopped nodding, the jaw remained unclenched and the movement of the fingers had visibly slowed. ‘It's a family company, Billy,' Tim said enthusiastically, ‘and that's what we are. We're family, and the Kendalls look after their own.'

‘Tim.' The eyes, fearful as they were, were alert, intelligent.

‘Yes?'

‘Bloody silly, war you know.'

‘Yes.'

‘Nobody ever wins.'

Tim once more nodded his agreement. He'd heard these words before. A poem, written by a veteran of the Great War at the outbreak of World War II. He didn't know the poet, but he and Billy had admired the verses. He finished the brief quote:

“‘Men fight and die, and twenty years on their sons repeat their sins.”'

Billy's fragile face cracked into the vestige of a smile and, for just one moment, the old Billy Kendall was there. ‘Good poem. Simple. Says it all, doesn't it?' Then he looked out at the harbour and his fingers once more picked up their pace.

Billy showed no other reaction for the rest of the visit, but Tim was glad of that one moment. As he left, he hoped that Billy would die soon.

 

‘Fellow citizens, the war is over.' The announcement was made by Australia's new Prime Minister, Joseph Benedict Chifley. The indefatigable John Curtin, the man General Douglas MacArthur described as ‘one of the Great of the Earth', had succumbed to a heart attack barely six weeks before the unconditional surrender of Japan on 14 August, 1945.

A two-day holiday was proclaimed, and victory in the Pacific was celebrated throughout the country with all the exuberance Australians could muster. An effigy of a Japanese soldier was burned in Martin Place, the hokey-pokey was danced in the city streets, and endless conga lines were formed by soldiers and sailors, nurses and airmen whilst loudspeakers blasted out ‘Rule Britannia' and ‘Roll Out the Barrel'. Girls exchanged kisses for
servicemen's hats, and kerbside pedlars quickly sold out of their supplies of streamers, flags, rattles and whistles.

Her baby due in three weeks, Caroline did not risk the rowdiness of the streets and the jostling crowds, but she and Kathleen toasted the end of the war and Gene's safe return.

‘He'll cop a bit of a shock, won't he?' Caroline smiled at Kathleen, trying to sound braver than she felt. ‘He probably won't get home until after the baby's born.' She hadn't mentioned her pregnancy in her letters, not wishing to burden him with any added cause for anxiety.

‘It'll be a surprise, all right,' Kathleen agreed, smiling back at her granddaughter. She knew Caroline's bravado was a front, that she was really sick with worry. There'd been no word from Gene for over a month.

‘No news is good news,' Kathleen had said, and Caroline had brightly agreed, neither woman daring to voice her true concern.

 

A week or so later, Tim Kendall called upon Kathleen and Caroline and asked them out to dinner. He knew Caroline worried for her husband's safety, bravely as she disguised the fact, and his invitation was by way of distraction. ‘A family affair,' he said, ‘it's time you got to know Ruth and Kitty. And my cousin Wally'll be there too. I've booked a balcony table at Henri's this Friday and I won't take no for an answer.'

Kathleen was glad to see the old Tim Kendall was back. Confident, in charge, he was a different man from the haunted creature who'd sobbed against her bosom only a month or so ago.

‘Henri's. How posh,' Caroline raised a mock eyebrow but she was impressed. Henri's was a very chic and very expensive restaurant in Roslyn Gardens, ‘can Ada come too?'

‘Caroline,' Kathleen gently rebuked, ‘Tim hardly knows Ada.'

But Tim laughed, Caroline delighted him when she was brazen, which was often. ‘Of course Ada can come.' He'd met Caroline's friend briefly on several occasions, ‘the more the merrier.'

‘Thanks, Tim.' Caroline was not being perverse in inviting Ada along, she wanted to cheer her friend up. Ada too needed distraction. She'd received word from Pete that he was safe, but she was missing him dreadfully.

As Caroline threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, Tim could feel the fullness of her belly. ‘I hope you'll be there yourself,' he said, breaking from the embrace and looking her up and down.

‘Oh, I've got a full two weeks to go yet,' Caroline said. ‘Well nearly,' she added, stroking her stomach. ‘Anyway, she wouldn't dare get in the way of a night at Henri's, she's far too well mannered for that.'

‘She?'

‘We're both convinced it's a girl,' Kathleen explained, ‘a boy would have kicked more.'

‘Well, that's what they say, isn't it?' Caroline insisted. ‘I'm going around to Ada's to tell her about Friday.'

Tim watched as Caroline waddled off with none of her customary grace. The image of the little girl who used to sit on his knee and tell him about her day at great length and with great solemnity flashed through his mind. It was strange to see his princess about to becomea mother.

 

The following day, Caroline was dozing off in the upstairs front bedroom, Kathleen having insisted they swap bedrooms several weeks ago. ‘A pregnant woman needs space to move,' she'd maintained, ‘being cooped up in that tiny back room is not good for the baby,' and she'd swapped their belongings over, ignoring Caroline's attempt to argue the point.

As she dozed, Caroline didn't hear the knock at the front door. She didn't hear Kathleen's exclamation of heartfelt relief.

‘You're back.' Kathleen, who rarely cried, felt the tears spring to her eyes as she embraced him. ‘Oh my dear you're back, thank God.'

‘I'm sorry I couldn't get word to you,' Gene said, ‘I knew you'd both be worried, but it was impossible.'

Kathleen briskly wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. ‘Come in, come in,' she said, hauling him inside. ‘Heavens above, we'll have to get some fat back on those bones, you're so thin.'

‘I sent a letter out with a buddy, but I heard later that he didn't make it back. Has Caroline been distressed? I worried that …'

‘She's been very brave, she knew you'd comehome. I'll pop upstairs and get her, she's having a lie-down.'

‘She's not ill?' Gene looked alarmed, Caroline never rested during the day.

‘No, no, she's not ill. You go into the kitchen and put the kettle on, there's a good boy.' And Kathleen disappeared up the stairs.

Gene did as he was told. He filled the kettle and lit the stove, and then he heard her enter behind him. He turned. His wife stood, radiant, in the full bloom of her pregnancy, framed in the kitchen doorway.

‘Caroline,' he whispered, unable to move.

‘I hope you don't mind,' she said. Then she flung herself at him, crying tears of joy, laughing, kissing, hugging him fiercely.

‘Careful,' Gene warned, disentangling himself from her. ‘Be careful, the baby …'

‘Don't worry about the baby, it's a Hamilton, it's tough.'

So Gene held her to him as tightly as he dared, feeling the swell of her belly and marvelling at the thought of his child in her womb.

They didn't stop talking for the rest of that day. In the upstairs front bedroom, between kissing and caressing, laughing and feeling the baby kick, they talked of their lives together. The war was over and Gene had plans.

Caroline was thrilled to learn that he was being demobbed in Sydney. ‘So you don't have to go back to the States to leave the army?' she asked.

‘Nope, they give you a choice, so of course I said Sydney. And we're not going to live in America either, is that OK with you?'

Caroline nodded, she couldn't care where they lived so long as they were together. ‘And it'll be more than OK with Gran.'

‘It'll probably be Melbourne though.'

‘Well, she can't complain about that, Melbourne's closer to Sydney than Maine.' He was excited, she could tell. ‘So come on, don't keep me in suspense. What's so attractive about Melbourne?'

‘General Motors-Holden.' She looked blankly at him. ‘General Motors in the US has formed a partnership with the Aussies,' he explained. ‘They're setting up a plant just outside Melbourne to work on the planning stages of a new Australian-made car.'

‘And you think you could get a job with them?'

‘Matt says it's a cinch. Matt's my Commanding Officer and his brother's a big wheel in General Motors. He said they'd be begging for guys with my qualifications and experience and he's given me
contacts. Even said he'd recommend me to his brother as soon as he got back home.' Gene's exuberance sobered a little. ‘Of course we weren't exactly talking across a desk. It was the sort of talk guys have when they're in the thick of it. Plans for the future and all that. Big promises. A lot of the time it's just a load of hot air.'

She said nothing. It was the first time he had even hinted at the action he'd seen.

‘But Matt's no phoney,' he added with genuine confidence, giving her a reassuring grin. ‘General Motors-Holden here I come. A top-ranking, top-paying job, I'll accept nothing less.' He winked. ‘But I won't let them know it's a job I'd pay to do.'

‘My godfather Tim'll be disappointed.'

‘The mighty Tim Kendall? Why?'

‘Because he'll want to offer you a job. He likes to have a say in our lives, mine and Gran's. Don't get me wrong,' she hastily assured him, ‘Tim's a beaut bloke and you'll really like him. But when you come to dinner with us on Friday, I'll bet you five bob he offers you a job, and I'll bet you another five bob he says “I won't take no for an answer”.'

 

‘M'sieur Kendall. Welcome. Welcome.'