Beneath the Southern Cross (69 page)

‘You did all this before phoning to tell me she'd died?' Kitty asked in a tone of disbelief.

‘The time difference, Mum, remember? I didn't want to wake you at three in the morning …'

‘The time's neither here nor there, I should have been—'

‘… besides, I knew you'd want to know things were being looked after, so I used the time to arrange it all before phoning you at a reasonable hour.' So there, his voice said.

A pause. ‘How very practical. You don't just take after your father, do you?'

‘Nope.'

They could sense each other's smile on the other end of the phone. Then, ‘What about Emma?' Kitty asked.

‘She's not coming home for the funeral.'

‘What?'

‘Says she can't.'

‘I'll ring her,' Kitty said. And she did.

‘Why aren't you going to your mother's funeral, Emma?' she asked bluntly.

How rude, Emma thought. ‘Because it's on Wednesday, I'd have to leave tomorrow.'

‘So?'

‘Well it's too short notice. My husband has engagements, commitments we both need to honour.'

‘What a pity your mother couldn't have given you a little more notice of her death.'

‘I beg your pardon.' A touch of outrage down the line.

‘I presume you'll be going to Sydney some time shortly, at your convenience of course, to look after your mother's possessions. Your brothers are hardly in a position to do so.'

‘Naturally.' Emma's tone was as icy as Kitty's. ‘I shall look after my mother's property in due course and I shall pay my respects when I do so. Right now, however—'

‘Good, you do that.' Selfish little bitch, Kitty thought as she slammed down the receiver.

 

Three months after the funeral Rob rang his mother with further news. ‘There's a for sale sign up at Caroline's house,' he said.

‘Oh, so Emma's been home and sorted things out,' Kitty replied. ‘Well at least that's something.'

‘No, she hasn't,' he said. ‘I checked at the real estate office. Caroline left her house and everything in it to her three children and they've put the whole lot on the market as a deceased estate. Everything's been left there, lock, stock and barrel, and the agent's opening the place for inspection next week.'

‘Oh my God,' Kitty breathed, ‘the cow.' Then she hastily instructed, ‘Get in there, Rob. Get hold of her personal belongings before some stranger buys the place.'

‘I'll need permission …'

‘Bugger it, pretend you're a prospective buyer, that's what I'd do. Just get in there, and get her things out. Hang on to them for me until I get home. Your father and I will be back in a month.'

Rob didn't go off half cocked as his mother would have done. He got written permission from two of the owners instead. Bruce was deeply grateful for Rob's intervention, and Jim had no idea what he was signing, but two out of three owners meant that all was in order, and Rob set off to explore the old house in Woolloomooloo.

At the front door the real estate agent searched through the dozens of keys dangling from the huge metal ring he held in his hands, and he warned Rob as he did so that, upon instructions
from the owners' solicitors in London, the house was to be sold with furnishings, and that he'd advertised it as such.

‘Don't you worry,' Rob assured him, ‘I won't be removing anything of any value, just the old lady's personal possessions. And if you'd like to make an inventory before I do …'

‘I already have.' Henry Shortall stepped into the front room behind Rob. ‘Well, you never know, do you?' he hastily added, not wishing to offend the smart young lawyer.

‘Of course.'

‘The place wasn't going to be open for inspection until Monday,' Henry said, ‘mywife was going to clear out the old lady's clothes on the weekend …'

‘Well she won't need to now, will she, that's why I'm here.'

Rob stood for a moment waiting for the man to leave, but it appeared he didn't intend to. ‘Would you mind?' he asked politely. ‘I'd like to look around on my own.'

‘Oh. Yes. Well, the door isn't self-locking you see.' A pause. Rob said nothing. ‘I could leave you a key, I suppose.' The man was obviously loath to do so. ‘You could drop it back to the office.'

‘I'll tell you what, Mr Shortall. Why don't you go back to the office and I'll ring you when I'm finished? Then I'll wait for you to come back and lock up. How'd that be?'

‘The phone's not on.'

‘I've got a mobile.' Rob put hisbriefcase on the table, opened it, and took out his mobile telephone.

‘Oh.' Henry was extremely impressed. ‘Yes, well, I suppose that'd be all right.'

‘I might be some time,' Rob said. The man hesitated. ‘You can lock me in if you like, I don't mind.'

Henry Shortall gave a self-conscious laugh as if Rob was joking, and then left, pulling the door closed behind him.

It was eerie, standing there in the gloom. The traffic noises from the street outside seemed strangely distant, and Rob could feel the ghosts of the past as he looked about at the lace-clothed table, the antimacassared sofa and the hardback chairs, all immaculate. A china cabinet against one wall housed Caroline's best harlequin tea set and a collection of porcelain ornaments, and on the corner
mantelpiece, above the small fireplace, sat silver-framed photographs of her children. This was the formal room, unused by the family, reserved for visitors.

Rob wandered through to the kitchen. Pots and pans and utensils hung from the walls; a china teapot and mugs and tin canisters sat on shelves, and a very old, well-loved wooden table took up most of the space. Yes, this was where the family had lived. Where they had probably lived for generations, he thought. With the exception of the gas stove and refrigerator, it was obvious that little had changed over the years.

He climbed the narrow staircase to the bedrooms. The small back room was for guests, he supposed. Bare and characterless, with little else but a bed and an old stained-wood wardrobe, it had not been used for years. He gave a cursory glance around then continued on to the front bedroom.

This room was a different matter altogether. Lace curtains fluttered lightly in the afternoon breeze which found its way through the cracks in the French windows leading to the small balcony. A bright hand-crocheted bedspread dominated the room, a little out of place with the pastel wallpaper, curtains and furnishings, but cheery nevertheless.

The dressing table was scattered with an assortment of perfume bottles and atomisers, a bowl of powder, a hairbrush, a hand mirror, a clothes brush and comb. A feminine array. And on the large chest of drawers was a collection of framed photographs. At least a dozen or so. In the centre was a wedding photo of Caroline and Gene, and carefully arranged around it were pictures of their children. Gene with Emma in his arms, Bruce captaining his school rugby team, Jim in his army uniform, Emma and Gordon with their wedding cake. A family shrine.

Rob opened the wardrobe. Inside, Caroline's clothes hung neatly, the shelves to one side housing hats and scarves. He lifted them all out and put them on the bed, then he laid everything else on top. The articles from the dressing table, the photographs, Caroline's undergarments from the drawers of the dresser. He felt shockingly intrusive. A daughter should be doing this. His mother was right, Emma was a bitch.

As he was about to go downstairs to fetch the plastic bags from
his briefcase, he decided that he'd better check the spare room, just to be sure.

Thank goodness he had, he thought, when he opened the door of the old stained-wood wardrobe. For here, he guessed, was Caroline's treasure trove of yesterdays. He lifted out the tattered photo album, the hand-knitted hot-water bottle cover, the man's dressing gown wrapped intissue paper, probably her husband's, he thought.

There were baby dolls and teddy bears and children's books. Dozens of them. How sad that she needed to preserve them. Deserted by her children in their adulthood, she'd had nothing left to cherish but their childhood things. How lonely she must have been.

Having cleared everything else out, he discovered the battered suitcase at the very back of the wardrobe. Inside was a leather-bound journal. Very old by the looks of it. He sat on the bed and opened the cover to the flyleaf page.

Hannah Kendall. 1831. It was a young girl's diary. Written over a hundred and sixty years ago. A collector's item.

Beneath the neat copperplate, a rough family tree was recorded in an eclectic and clumsy mixture of handwriting. Rob turned the next page and started to read. This was no ordinary young girl's diary, he quickly discovered. Hannah told him so in her very first sentence.

The story of Thomas Kendall and Wolawara unfolded before Rob's eyes. Although it was told in a childlike manner, it was meticulous in detail.

It was a winter afternoon and dusk was setting in early. Rob switched on the overhead light and read on.

‘Mr Farinelli?' Rob started at the sound of the real estate agent calling up the stairs.

‘Yes, I'm up here,' he called. ‘I'm terribly sorry, Mr Shortall,' he said, stepping out onto the landing, the journal under his arm, todiscover the man peering up at him, ‘Icompletely lost track of the time.'

Henry Shortall was secretly relieved. He'd had the horrible feeling that perhaps the whole thing had been a set-up after all and that the fancy lawyer with his fancy mobile phone had ransacked the place and scarpered.

‘Yes. Well. I thought that perhaps you might have tried to get through to me at the office.'

‘No, I didn't try to ring you at all, I'm afraid, I completely forgot. Just look at this.' Rob galloped down the stairs two at a time.

Henry Shortall had turned on the downstairs lights and he watched as Rob placed a large book on the table and opened to the first page.

‘A journal,' Rob said, ‘written by a young girl in 1831. It'll have to go to the Mitchell Library of course, but I got carried away. Fascinating, isn't it?'

‘Oh. Yes. Well. It looks very old.'

The man had no interest in it whatsoever. Rob closed the book and said, ‘I've sorted through the old lady's things, Mr Shortall, but would you mind if I came back tomorrow to collect them?' He had to get home and finish the journal.

‘Yes. Well. I suppose that'd be all right. It's a bit late now anyway, isn't it?' For a fancy lawyer with a mobile phone, he seemed pretty excited, Henry thought.

‘Fine, I'll call into your office at ten.'

Rob played with the children for a half an hour when he got home, then he begged off dinner and went to his study.

‘You can eat in there if you have to,' Joanna said, exasperated, ‘it's just pasta and a salad, I'll bring it in to you.'

‘That'll be fine, thanks, darling.'

But she knew what would happen. He was excited. On one of his ‘missions'. He'd stay up all night and the meal she'd left him would be untouched in the morning.

She was right. Rob read on into the early hours, studying Hannah's every word.

Hannah was obviously a young woman now. Her writing style was less self-conscious and there was a maturity to her observations.

It was the entry, a month later, which excited Rob Farinelli most of all.

Much of the story Rob had already read in Hannah's first entry. But now he heard it in Thomas's words. Brief and concise. The rushcutting bay massacre, the interview with Governor Phillip, the secret bond shared between Thomas and Wolawara for the rest of their lives. Then, upon Wolawara's death, Thomas's attempt to explain to his widow the fact that the Parramatta lands belonged to her and her kinspeople.