Homes Is A Strange Country - Chapter 41

FORTY ONE
10th - 11th September 1912

     Later, in the very early hours of Tuesday 10th September morning George sat quietly in the doctor's office after a team of porters and nurses had carefully removed the body of Florence from the ward. They had gently covered her body with a long white shroud which obscured her body completely, and draped it over both the edges of the bed as well as the top and bottom. Placing her body onto a trolley which had been brought alongside the bed, they had finally wheeled Florence away down the ward and along the corridor away from where she had died. For the patients remaining on the ward, the only thing they would know about her death would come in the morning, when they were awakened by the nurses and they would see the empty bed at the far end of the ward.

     George sat alone on a hard chair in front of the desk where he had heard the news of Florence's condition just a few days earlier. He gazed around the office and dimly noted again the pictures and certificates on the walls of the room and the now familiar desk objects, and he waited. Some fifteen minutes later Doctor Blyth returned to the room and gently and sympathetically talked George through the Death Certificate form he would have to complete for Florence. He explained the reason, as medical knowledge of the time would allow, the cause of Eclampsia which had killed Florence so painfully. George sat motionless, trying to take in the words. Understanding some, but not even hearing others. The edge of the chair was digging hard into his thighs. George nodded his head in blank acceptance of the words coming from the doctors mouth, without really understanding or hearing most of them.

     'I'm sorry that Florence, your,' the doctor hesitated over using the word wife, then carried on. 'I'm sorry Mr Kent. But Mrs Lowe was not able to bear the baby to full term, and that is why she developed eclampsia.' George nodded silently without saying a word, he could think of nothing he wanted to, or indeed, nothing he could find to say. Doctor Blyth glanced down at the notes on his desk and hid himself in sorting through the papers in front of him, giving George some time in silence to come to terms with the death. Shortly, he cleared his throat quietly and looked up at George seated motionless across the desk from him. 'If there is anything else you need, or anything I can do to help you, well, you know where I am.' He half rose from his feet from the desk and George glanced up and accepted the hint, rising slowly from the chair, pushing it away from the desk with the back of his legs.

     'I understand doctor' he murmured. 'I'll be going now,' and accepted the outstretched hand of the doctor, shaking it silently, then walked from the dimly lit room into the equally dim and quiet corridor outside the office. As he walked along the corridor he became aware of the sound of his boots on the wooden floor. The sound echoing back at him as he approached the door to the darkened hospital.

     Leaving the hospital he walked down the steps onto the pathway, leading out onto the main road, George gradually became aware that there was only a little street lighting on some of the streets which he walked along, and the total absence of another human being. It was the middle of the night and there was nobody else around at that time of night. Only the occasional sound of a night bird calling in the trees along the roads edges were his company. The night sky was black, punctuated by glistening stars. The wind, which had blown for most of the previous day had died away, leaving a still quietness he had only experienced before when he used to rise early, in the hills and fields of Alexandra. At one point he stopped and looked up to the sky to try and find the Southern Cross, but was unsuccessful. When he arrived at the corner of Phillip Street after the long drag along Ben Boyd Road he stopped to rest a while and heard the sea in the bay only a few hundred yards away. To him it seemed much louder in the inky darkness of the night, rather than during the daytime. He took a few deep breaths and walked wearily on to his home, down the steep steps at the top of the quarry which separated the upper part of Phillip Street from the other lower part. The quarry Florence used to take baby to play. with the other children of the neighbourhood.

     The small house was in complete black darkness. He pushed open the garden gate and stepped through, closing it quietly behind him. Gravel on the short path to the front door crunched under his feet. He pushed opened the front door and walked though the short corridor and into the silence of the front room, pushing the door closed behind him softly, conscious of the other people and also the small child sleeping in their rooms. By the time George arrived back at the house exhausted, the clock on the mantelpiece in the living room was showing just after two o'clock. He stood for a moment listening for noises, but there were none. He was exhausted, not only from the walk home, but from the mental agony he had endured the previous week, which had built up day after day and painful night after painful night. He went into their bedroom, Florence and his bedroom, but now just his bedroom, and slowly removed his boots. He was beyond further undressing and so crawled fully dressed under the thin top sheet on the bed, and fell asleep for six hours. He awoke only when Clyda disturbed him with her gentle tugging at the sleeve of his jacket.

     George unglued his eyes and looked sideways across the bed at the small face looking at him. Her face was still creased and red from sleeping, and her hair was sticking up in untidy clumps about her head. He slowly reached out a hand and stroked her hair and tried unsuccessfully to manage it back onto the contours of her small head. A smiled lit up her face.      'Morning Pa' she said, planting a childish wet kiss on his lips. 'What’s for breakfast?' George rolled over onto his back and looked up at the lines of wooden board which made up the ceiling of the bedroom. How am I going to tell her? he thought. It would come to him soon enough though. He swung his legs towards the edge of the bed, and Clyda moved sideways to allow him to rise from the bed, which was level almost with her chin. Standing at the side of the bed he reached down and stroked her hair once more.

     'Have you had a wash?' he asked.

     'Not yet Pa,' the small child answered. 'I’ve only just got up.'

     'Well off you go then, get yourself a wash whilst I make you some breakfast.' Clyda walked silently from the room and George heard her in the bathroom running water for a moment, but no more than a moment, before she was walking back into the bedroom. There was no apparent alteration to her appearance. George grinned at her. 'Call that a wash?' he called to her quietly. 'More like a cat lick.' Clyda turned away from him to walk back into the living room talking to him over her shoulder.

     'It’ll do until I get dressed' she said. George grinned at the adult words his small beautiful girl had said, and mused at how the influence of her mother would no longer guide her to the use of such adult phrases. People had often commented on her seemingly adult turn of phrase from time to time, and the language she would use, words and phrases brought to Australia by her mother, all the way from England. George often thought of the words and phrases his own parents had used when he had been growing up in Victoria as a child, words brought from Scotland by his father and Sussex by his mother. It still didn’t help him find a painless way of telling the child that her mother was not going to be seen or heard in their home any more.

     He walked through into the kitchen and stood at the sink looking at his reflection in the small mirror placed against the wall on top of the sink. He saw a man in his mid thirties, five feet five inches tall, muscular and thickset, with neat brown hair cut short over his ears, and a luxuriant moustache gracing his top lip. He bent down and took water into his hands from the tap and splashed it onto his face, rubbing it around the back of his neck feeling the night lifting from his head as he did so. He reached for a comb lying close to the mirror and pulled it through his hair, conscious that a small face was now standing alongside him by the sink.

     'Now that’s a cat lick' the small voice said. He looked down at her and ruffled her hair.

     'Come and sit down Clyda,' he said quietly. For an instant the child thought of a cheeky response, then recognised the serious tone of his voice, she simply moved to the square wooden table set in the centre of the room. Hoisting herself up onto one of the four wooden chairs set on each side of the table she sat quietly in anticipation, her hands folded in her lap. George sat down on one of the other chairs to her left and reached across to take her small hand in his. 'I went to see Ma last night' he began. 'She was very poorly you know.' Clyda looked into his face, trying to take in what was behind the words she was hearing.

     'Has she died Pa?' she asked quietly. George paused for a moment and nodding his head said gently,

     'Yes love, she died holding my hand in the hospital last night.' For a moment there was no reaction from her, then her face started to disfigure before his eyes like a face seen mirrored in water disturbed by a stone. Her lips quivered and shook and her dark eyes filled with tears. The plump cheeks reddened and she started to cry uncontrollably. George stood and took her into his arms from the chair, hugging her to him to try and make the hurt and terror go away. He stood with her in his arms for a minute or two and then was aware of Alexander Campbell standing in the doorway into the room, silently watching the pitiful scene. George turned to look at his friend, tears dropping from his eyes onto his moustache. He nodded his head silently in answer to the unasked question forming on Alexander’s lips. Alexander walked the few steps across the room and placed his hand on George’s shoulder.

     'I’m real sorry George' he said, 'So sorry.' George nodded his head silently and hugged Clyda harder, holding her there until eventually she stopped crying. He lifted her down onto the floor and she stood alone by his side, rubbing tears from her eyes, her shoulders still lurching up and down with the sobs coming from her throat. She put her arms around George’s legs hugging and enfolding him to her. His hand rested down on her head. He turned to Alexander.

     'I don’t know what to do' he said, his voice almost breaking. 'I have to go back to the hospital to see the Registrar of Deaths this morning. Can you look after her?' The other man nodded saying,

     'Of course. I’ll take a day off work. I’m sure the boss will understand.' As he spoke, both men turned back to the door from the living room to the kitchen. George’s business partner, William, was standing there. George did not have to say anything before William said,

     'Oh George, I’m so sorry.' and moved to place his hand on George’s shoulder. For a minute the three men stood in silence in the kitchen with the small girl clutching to George’s legs. Eventually George broke the silence. He looked to William and said,

     'Alex says he will stay off work today whilst I get on with registering Flo’s death, then I need to go and arrange her funeral. Can you manage at the boatshed without me today Willie?' William nodded his head in acceptance.

     'Of course George. Take as long as you need.' He replied. George reached down and took the child into his arms again, holding her away from him so that he could speak to her face to face.

     'I need to go out and arrange some things for your Ma. I won’t be too long, and Uncle Alex will look after you whilst I am gone, but I’ll be back soon.' Clyda looked into his face and examined it closely before finally nodding her head.     'Alright Pa. I’ll be a good girl for Uncle' she said.

     After changing his shirt, George left the house to catch the tram into the centre of city to find the Registrar’s office and duly registered Florence’s death. Catching another tram he went to the sad offices of the undertakers on Cove Lane Road to arrange the funeral for the following day. In view of the high temperatures which Sydney was experiencing at that time it was necessary to have the funeral as quickly as possible. From the undertakers he went to the offices of the newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, and placed a notice for the following mornings edition about the death of Florence and of the funeral to be held later that day.

     George managed to keep his mind occupied during the whole of the day whilst he carried out all that he had to do, finally he arrived home late in the afternoon, when the heat was dissipating a little. Clyda was waiting quietly for him close to the front door as he opened it and walked through. She looked at him with a large degree of relief as he lifted her to kiss her. In her child’s mind, having only that morning lost her mother, she could not know if her father was also going to die. When he opened the front door and walked in, her face broke into a smile and she let out a big sigh of relief, then ran to him and hugged her to him in joy.