Babylon South. Jon Cleary
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had come out the other side as lubricious as ever; if there had been any hot flushes, they had been due to passion from the several affairs she had also been going through. There had been no thought in her agile mind that from now on life would run downhill. Yet for the first time in her life she felt this morning a certain fear; she had never before had to bury anyone close to her.
Justine, already dressed for the funeral, came in. ‘Mother – you’re not dressed! It’s almost time to leave. Funerals aren’t like weddings – they like you to be on time.’
‘What do you know about funerals?’ Venetia began to dress. ‘Black doesn’t suit me. Nor you, either.’
Justine looked at herself in the tall cheval mirror. ‘No. Who are we trying to impress – the dead or the living?’
‘Your father, I suppose. He always wore the right thing for the occasion.’
‘Why did you love him?’ Justine was still examining the dark stranger in the mirror. ‘He was handsome and all that. But he was so much older than you. You must have had lots of young guys running after you …’
‘I don’t really know.’ She did know, exactly. She had been looking for a father figure, someone to replace the drunken shearer who had been killed in a pub brawl when she was five years old. But no one would believe that, except her own mother. ‘He was kind – well, he was to me. He had the reputation of being very tough when he was on the Bench – he had no time for anyone who broke the law. But with me … He loved me,’ she said simply.
Justine turned away from the mirror, irritated by what she had seen. The Italian black suit had cost her 2,000 dollars at Maria Finlay’s and she couldn’t imagine that she would ever wear it again. ‘May I borrow some pearls?’
‘Take your pick.’ Venetia gestured to her jewel box. ‘Leave the single strand – I’ll wear that. There, how do I look?’
‘Ghastly.’
‘After all this time – widow’s weeds. But it’s what he would have wanted.’ Her father had been the same, when he was sober; so her mother had told her. To be more exact, he had been conservative towards women and what he expected them to be. Walter had been very much like that, though she had realized it too late. ‘The family will expect it, too.’
‘After yesterday, I don’t care a damn what they expect.’
She and Venetia had talked for four hours yesterday evening, but both had known that their thinking had not been too straight. They had had one shock too many.
‘We’re on our best behaviour this morning,’ said Venetia. ‘Don’t forget that.’
‘Is Nana going to be there?’
‘No, she’s staying home to organize the reception afterwards. The wake, if you like.’
‘What did Nana ever think of Father? They couldn’t have been far apart in age.’
‘I think she was in love with him.’ More, I think, than I was.
Justine looked at her curiously. ‘Was there any jealousy between you?’
‘Of course not. Nana was happy that I was happy. But she was – still is – a romantic. Walter was everything she’d dreamed of in a man. Sometimes she couldn’t believe her daughter was married to him.’
‘So she must have missed him as much as you when he disappeared?’
Venetia nodded. ‘She’s never really got over it.’
‘Have you?’
Venetia had a last look at herself in the mirror, looking for the truth in her image. ‘Yes.’
They went out to the grey Bentley (more chic than a Rolls-Royce, Venetia had told her daughter). She had thought of having pink upholstery as a joke; but that would only have brought more sneers from the family. Occasionally the sneers rubbed her raw and she tried to avoid them. The chauffeur, dressed in grey with a pink shirt and a dark-grey tie, drove them, out of habit, at his usual brisk speed to the cemetery. His mistress, he knew, prided herself on her punctuality and he wondered why she had been a little late coming out of the house this morning.
Walter Springfellow was being buried in the family vault. The first Springfellow had been buried here ninety-nine years ago when the cemetery had first been opened. It was called the Field of Mars and Justine thought it an ideal meeting place for the warring family. She hoped that, for the sake of the father she had never known, there would be no battle today.
An old jacaranda stood just behind the vault, its blossom lying like purple snow on the white marble. Two magpies sat in branches carolling a warning to the humans below: don’t hang around or you’ll be dive-bombed. A bulbul, as cocky as its red crest, sat on the cross atop the vault. A blimp drifted by overhead, tourists in its gondola busily snapping the grieving ants far below. Edwin Springfellow had used his influence and the media photographers had been stopped at the gates. Some of the more enterprising, however, were perched like magpies in distant trees. Cameramen hate to see grief kept private, especially if it is moneyed. The public, while t’ch, t’ching in disgust, never turns its eyes away from the pictures.
Malone and Clements were also there, though standing well away from the mourners; looking, indeed, like visitors to another grave. Venetia had asked that the burial be kept as private as possible, but at least fifty mourners had arrived, most of them elderly. Malone recognized several retired judges; Fortague, from ASIO, was there too. There was one surprise mourner: John Leeds, Commissioner of Police.
‘What’s the boss doing here?’ said Clements.
Malone was watching the neat-as-always Commissioner standing in the background, making no effort to approach those gathered around the vault. Malone was too far away to see the expression on Leeds’s face, but the Commissioner did not seem to have his usual stiffly upright stance. It was hard to tell whether he was grieving or suffering from lumbago.
Venetia turned away as the door of the vault was closed until another day, another death. Edwin stood in front of her, looking at the closed door as if expecting it should have been left ajar for him. She touched his arm. ‘Not yet, Edwin. Perhaps you’ll be next, but not now.’
‘What a cruel thing to say!’ Emma had come up behind them.
Edwin, recovering his focus, shook his head; he wanted no scene today. ‘No, Venetia has hit the nail on the head. As usual.’
‘There’s a time and place for hitting nails on the head.’
The three of them were slightly apart from the crowd of mourners. Their voices were low; good manners were everything in front of non-family. Emma and Edwin came of an old school where even murder, if committed, would be in a low key; Emma’s behaviour yesterday in the boardroom had been an aberration, something for which Edwin had berated her, in well-mannered terms, on their way home. She had not welcomed the admonition, had secretly enjoyed being bad-mannered and outspoken.
Edwin said, still in a low voice, ‘Let’s behave ourselves. We still have to come back to your house, Venetia. We’re still welcome, I take it?’
‘Only for today.’
‘I shan’t be coming,’ said Emma.
‘Yes, you will,’ said Edwin quietly but firmly. ‘We keep up appearances today. Out of respect for Walter.’
Emma said nothing. She glared at them both, then turned and walked away, stumbling in her blind anger over a nearby grave. As she passed the other mourners she managed to produce a smile that sat on her face like a slice of thrown pie. Justine, hurrying by her towards the Bentley, gave her aunt a look of hatred that only the more elderly, dim-sighted bystanders missed. Accustomed to hypocrisy at funerals, some of the women were shocked. The retired judges and the ASIO chief, more accustomed to hypocrisy, wondered what the man they had just laid to rest would have thought of this enmity.
Venetia left Edwin, who had been joined by Ruth,