St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(96)
‘I’m sorry Charlie, I really am. About everything. You should go to her, she needs you. Call me if there’s anything I can do, anything.’
Berlin looked across the lawn towards the porch where Rebecca was sitting. Behind him he heard the passenger-side door of the divisional van slam shut and Roberts telling the driver to get moving.
He walked up the driveway, surprised at the silence all around him. As he turned right onto the pathway to the front door he saw the yellow-white paper of the telegram on the porch next to Rebecca.
She looked up at him. ‘It was under the front door when we got here. I tried to ring you at the hospital but the switchboard was jammed. By the time I got through you’d already left.’
Her voice was flat, emotionless, and Berlin turned ice-cold. He knew what was in the telegram, he could see it on Rebecca’s face and in her eyes and hear it in her voice. If I don’t ask, if I don’t know, it isn’t true, he said to himself.
‘You’ll have to telephone the Army tomorrow, Charlie, see if we can get compassionate leave for Peter. I need Peter to be here.’
Berlin would never know just how far his cry of pain carried in the crisp, still, spring night air. The dagger cutting through Egan’s heart must have hurt like this but Egan’s pain was brief and over quickly and Berlin knew his would never end. He had given Scheiner back his daughter and now he had lost his own.
He sat down on the pathway, sat down before he fell down, feeling the cold and the hardness of the concrete through the thin fabric of his borrowed trousers. He knew he would live with this pain to the end of his days and with something else, something dark and shameful. He would go to his grave with the awful knowledge that at the worst moment in his life he had asked God why he had taken Sarah and not his son.
FORTY-EIGHT
Sarah was buried the next day, in accordance with Jewish custom. Israel was half a world away and there was no way they could possibly be there. If there was anything good to be said about the situation, it was that Charlie Berlin had been spared the awfulness of having to arrange a funeral and choose a coffin for his only daughter. There was nothing for him to do apart from sit in stunned silence and listen to Rebecca’s weeping. Maria from next door brought them food but he couldn’t remember eating. Later he would remember visits from ministers and priests and a rabbi. He couldn’t remember hitting anyone so he guessed that he hadn’t and that surprised him a little.
There was a dusty bottle of sherry in the glass-fronted crystal cabinet in the living room and he’d stared at it for a long while. Sarah came up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘You know I wouldn’t want you doing that, Dad,’ she said in her soft, familiar voice. ‘You should remember what you told me about Pip.’ When he turned around there was no one there. His mind was foggy and he couldn’t understand what she’d meant about the dog. For a time he expected a visit from the ghosts of his crew but they’d long since left him to get on with his life while they got on with their deaths.
It was Alice Roberts who stepped up, taking charge of the house and of Charlie and Rebecca. She kept them fed, found vases for the flowers that were being delivered on what seemed like an hourly basis, sorted through the sympathy cards and admitted or gently sent away visitors according to Rebecca’s requests. The kettle seemed to be constantly boiling on the stovetop, trays of sandwiches and plates of cakes and scones appeared as needed and just as quickly disappeared.
And it was Alice who suggested that a memorial might be a good thing – nothing fancy, just a gathering where people could come and offer condolences and drink and talk as they would after a funeral. It was perhaps seven days after the telegram had arrived when the house was suddenly full of neighbours and friends and acquaintances and strangers. There was ice for the beer in an old concrete washtub someone had dragged out of the shed. The kettle was refilled constantly in a futile attempt to keep up with the demand for tea and eventually a large electric urn appeared, though it made little difference. Plates of freshly cut white bread sandwiches circulated amongst the guests and trays of party pies and little sausage rolls from the local bakery filled the oven.
The men arrived with freshly polished shoes and wore their darkest suits out of respect, though jackets and ties were peeled off quickly in the building heat of the afternoon. The women wore hats and gloves and sympathetically patted Berlin’s arm until he almost couldn’t stand it. The men shook Berlin’s hand and shook their heads and said nothing, which was the Australian way in times of great sorrow. Then, also in the Australian way, they separated quickly, the women finding the kitchen and the men the beer.
Lauren was there, helping in the kitchen, and there were other young people too, kids of Sarah’s age, school friends, people she had met in her after-school job at the doctor’s surgery, and friends she had made at her Jewish youth group. Rebecca was calmer now – too calm, he thought, though he was glad the weeping had passed. He initially regretted throwing away the sleeping pills the casualty doctor had given him but knew she would have rejected them if he had offered.
The traffic in the street and up and down the driveway was constant. The boy from the local florists would come on his bicycle, deliver his order, grab a sandwich and a soft drink before peddling off to return almost instantly with another carrier basket full. Flowers came in bunches or in arrangements, the cards carefully marked and put aside by Alice so thank-you notes could be sent later. Some names Berlin knew, most he did not. There were flowers from the Collins Street photographers Rebecca worked with and former staff from the long-defunct Argus newspaper. A too-ornate arrangement from Mr Bolte was delivered by his official Rolls Royce.