The Last Double Sunrise

by Peter Yeldham

  “I got to know London better than my home town, becoming a sort of useless member of society, what the tabloids called ‘the gin and tonic set’. In fact I was a drone, supported by my father’s cheque at Lloyds Bank each month. In 1939 his cheque was accompanied by a letter saying Chamberlain was a bloody old fool, and war with Germany was certain. In that case there’d be no more funds to support my way of living, so I’d better get on a ship before it was too late, as ships would soon be for transporting troops instead of idle dollies like me. With it he sent a ticket on the Moravia, rescuing Jewish escapees. It’s where I met Sigrid, who also had a ticket. He knew her family and heard they’d ended in a concentration camp. So he bought her an exit visa through the French escape network. It was one rare good deed in his naughty world,” she said, in a quote that seemed familiar to Carlo. But his thoughts were interrupted when Sigrid arrived with their lunch.

  It was dark across the distant hills when they next met, but a faint glow reminded them the wrecking crew were still at work, burning the timber used to camouflage marijuana in the vineyard. Like the demolition team Carlo had made good progress on the sketch that afternoon. Tiffany had been at ease, content to stay in the pose he favoured, silent for most of the time, even the telephone had not interrupted, her eager solicitor probably busy with his other clients.

  They sat companionably on the upstairs balcony, invigorated by the day’s work. He wanted her to continue with the rest of the narrative. Her strange and lonely childhood leading to the bizarre marriage and its end in such a tumult of blinding rage was just a part of it. There were other elements of the ferocity after Thompson’s arrival that were still puzzling him.

  The rape spray or whatever it was called could not have been there just by accident. Nor could the convenient chain and padlock, used to immobilise Tommo. She must have been expecting hostility and had prepared for it. And how much had she known about the marijuana hidden in the vineyard? Was that the reason she’d warned him not to speak of his experience working with his father among their own vines? He thought back to that first meeting, and Thompson’s odd grimace about the vineyard. Of course she’d known, but blunt questions were not the way to get answers out of Tiffany. Carlo knew he could not confront her like that. He’d learned the best way to prompt her memory was a casual query.

  “That quote about good deeds, was it from Shakespeare?” he asked, and she nodded in reply. “My friendly guard who taught me English was strong on Shakespeare, but I hardly ever remember the exact words.”

  Intuition told him she’d repeat them, and she did. “How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.” Her soft accent made the words sound like music.

  “By which you meant rescuing Sigrid was his good deed?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “In your father’s naughty world?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Beautiful words, Tiffany.” With the subject raised, he knew asking a straight question would not seem like interrogation. “Was he really so awful?”

  “He was, until I came home about a month before the war began. I didn’t know he was ill until then, or that his close new friend was Tommo Thompson whom he’d admired as a boxer. I didn’t even know they bought racehorses in partnership. When I saw my father again, it was evident he was very ill indeed. He was doing certain things that made me feel sure he didn’t have long to live, like paying for the rescue of Sigrid from Nazi Germany and asking me to take care of her. He was a different kind of man from the one I knew in childhood.” She gave a wry smile, hesitated, and then went on.

  “But some things hadn’t changed. Tommo was his trusted new friend and they owned a stable of fine horses. It was clear to me who’d bought them, but no doubt Thompson would have pocketed the prize money if any of them won.

  “I met him soon after I arrived home. That was when I found out my father had invested most of his money with this new best friend, who’d promised him a high rate of interest. If that was not bad enough he’d left Tommo the rest in his will—his entire estate, although the bulk was already in Tommo’s pocket. My father had a new lawyer who explained the will to me; even if I wanted to contest it the will would stand, as it openly stated I had never been a good or a true daughter to my father. He claimed his life had been ruined by my indifference.

  “God Almighty, I told this pompous thousand-pound-an-hour-lawyer, he had never been a decent or true father to me. I spent half my life avoiding him because our house was a cold unpleasant place, forever filled with his tarts whom he shagged noisily. Even when I was a five or six year old, he and his women walked around the house without a stitch on, half pissed and using the sort of language you wouldn’t hear in a dockyard.”

  “How did the lawyer react to that?”

  “He laughed. Said I was wasting my breath.”

  “Why?”

  “He told me to go ahead. If I sued he’d make himself a fortune in court, with heaps of lewd headlines, and for what? There was so little money left in the estate, it’d be like believing I’d quench my thirst by drinking from an empty horse trough. A real charmer, he was. So I did the only thing possible. Rang Tommo and asked if we could meet for a friendly conversation.”

  She paused, leaving Carlo to wonder if she’d continue. “Talking of horse troughs, I think we could both do with a decent-sized drink,” she suggested.

  “You’ve earned it,” he said as she went downstairs to fetch a bottle of French Chablis. He poured, they touched glasses, and after a few moments she continued.

  “Tommo was different then. It might surprise you to hear me say he was charming, but it was true. Polite and courteous; he felt I should be reinstated in the will. He also assured me the huge investment my father made was safe in his care and would be half mine. He asked me to marry him, saying all I had to do to avoid my father’s final malicious action was to become his wife.”

  “Which you did,” Carlo observed, having studied her frequent changes of facial mood throughout this disclosure.

  “Which I did,” she admitted, “because it was the only way to subvert the will. Now it seems like an act of insanity but three years ago he was so utterly different.”

  “I can’t imagine how,” said Carlo, feeling they were in question time now, and interested to see the way she would react to this.

  “You’ve only seen the current version. The bastard who treats POWs like shit and wasted all my father’s money on this camp so he could grow an illegal fortune in drugs. I would never have married that sort of man.”

  “So what sort of man was he, when you said yes?”

  “For a start he helped me get Sigrid into the country.”

  “I thought your father did that?”

  “He paid for her to be smuggled out of Germany but he was too ill to do anything when she got here and was stuck in a migrant compound. I was supposed to get her out but my father seemed to forget he’d made me penniless. Tommo used all his influence to free her, for which I’m still grateful. He then tried to have the will changed but the lawyer had done too good a job obeying the client’s wishes. The will could only be changed in my favour, if we were husband and wife. So I married him.” She looked flushed and tired. “Carlo, can we stop?”

  “Too many questions?” he asked, “or would you like more wine?”

  “No more wine.” After a pause she said, “I seem to be defending him when I really want him in gaol. But it’s difficult to make you understand how we ended up together.”

  “You don’t have to make me understand that, Tiffany.”

  “But I want to,” she answered. “I think I need to.” He realised she was distressed, looking at him with what seemed a mute appeal.

  “Whatever you say, it stays with me.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I promise,” Carlo said.

  “Well then…” she took a deep breath, “can you imagine what it was like when the town thought I was lucky Tiffany Wats
on, with deep pockets?”

  “I heard you called that the day we arrived here.”

  “I assure you it’s no longer true and hasn’t been since I landed back home with hardly a cent and nowhere to live unless I was prepared to occupy the spare room in the house I’d fled for most of my life. My father, who’d disinherited me, was dying in the front room, there was a For Sale sign in the garden, and one of his former girlfriends was playing nurse, hoping she might be lucky to get the house as a goodbye gift. If I even went shopping I could hear the gossip and see the smirks that were saying I’d fallen flat on my arse.”

  “I admit I’d been totally spoiled and couldn’t stand this lack of status. So the civilised conversation with Tommo was about a marriage settlement. He’d make good on his promises, he said. The investment money, the will, it would be apparent to the whole district that I hadn’t fallen in a heap. I was merely home from abroad to marry and was still the same Tiffany.” She gazed at him, as if trying to assess how much she should say. “I’ve never revealed this to anyone Carlo. He agreed to the subterfuge, a big white wedding, then buying this property and putting my name over the gates as though I owned it. But I don’t own it. I own this homestead and enough acres to live on, the rest belongs to him. That’s where it all went wrong. He had friends in the government who said we needed an additional smaller POW camp, and told him to apply. The land and the vineyard is all his. He bought it with the investment money from my father, that he’d promised to repay me but never did. Never intended to.

  “The promises were broken even before the honeymoon began. For the past two years I’ve known he lied to me and cheated me. Our civil conversation was about as authentic as a treaty between Hitler and Joe Stalin. But I’ve been patient, letting him think he always had control. I made sure I had no role in the marijuana plants. Sigrid can verify that it was never discussed. I’m sorry it all came to a head that awful night, Carlo. I didn’t want to involve you but when he started to fight I knew we had to use the situation. It was a chance that might not ever come again and had to be taken.”

  She suddenly looked troubled and tired. “I hope he gets a long prison sentence, because when he comes out he’ll be angry enough to want to kill me.”

  Carlo lay awake that night thinking of her, wondering what he would do in the weeks before the trial and what would happen in the court. Would she survive what was bound to be a ferocious cross examination? Would she lie about knowledge of the vineyard and if so, would she get away with it? It had been an ordeal for her telling him those lurid details of her childhood, forced to live with the kind of women her father craved and her ultimate betrayal by both him and Tommo. Money, he thought, is the true evil. Thank God it had little interest for him. Once this war was over and he could return to Rome, he tried to think what it would mean. Reunion with his mother and sister, his grandparents…the Villa Medici and perhaps… It was about then he fell asleep.

  He dreamt he was at last in bed with Silvana but she seemed a little older, in her mid-twenties. Her dark hair was blond; it was longer and her voice? Was that different, too?

  “Do you mind,” she whispered. “I’m so bloody lonely and I need you.” She had on a flimsy nightgown. He could not see it in the darkness but heard it rustle when she took it off. He felt her warm nakedness as she slid in beside him. She kissed him, but it was not Silvana. His pulse raced and his heart beat with sudden excitement as her hands ran down his chest and between his legs. He was just as naked as her for he had no pyjamas and since moving into this room he liked the feel of his bare flesh on the crisp clean sheets. Even more, he loved the feel of his skin against hers in the magical moment when he knew he was about to enter her warm body and make love to her.

  “Yes, please,” she whispered eagerly in the dark.

  He woke in the morning to find her already awake, her eyes inches from his face as she studied him. Then smiling as she took one of his hands and kissed it. She sought his mouth, then slid a slender leg between both of his. After that it was a return to the heights accomplished in the night, this one a slower and more tender climb, until they reached a moment when they could no longer prevent themselves from coming together in a pulsating orgasm.

  “Oh God,” he gasped, “I never knew it could be like that.”

  “Nor did I,” Tiffany echoed. “It never has been till now. Do you want to go on with the portrait, or stay in bed and fuck some more?”

  It was late morning when they decided together to use the shower—the upshot of which was inevitable. After showering again—separately this time—they had toast and coffee prepared by Sigrid, whose greeting seemed to be a seal of approval. She made her feelings clear by hugging Tiffany, gazing at Carlo for a speculative moment, and then hugging him as well. “Good sleeping in same bed, very helpful for the health,” she said in her accented English, then giggled when they laughed happily at this assessment.

  “Things are going to be different, Sigrid.”

  “Different is good, Tiffy. No more shouts or fists. No more spray.”

  “I’ve been curious,” Carlo said. “Where did you get that lethal spray?”

  “Tiffy and me make it,” said Sigrid. “Spray is our invention.”

  “Tiffy,” murmured Carlo quietly. “Did she always call you that?”

  “From the start. It was easier than my full name. I’ve grown to like it.”

  “Has she got the copyright for certain private times? I think it’s cute.”

  “Am I considered cute?” she asked, smiling.

  “Very much so. Especially in the morning, after the night before.”

  “Use is granted, on condition there are more nights ahead.”

  “It’s a deal, Tiffy,” he grinned, buttering a slice of toast to feed her with it by stretching across the table. They were laughing like children caught in an escapade, as Sigrid returned to applaud this.

  “Talking of sprays,” Carlo asked, “I thought things like that were illegal.”

  “They are,” said Tiffany. “Tell him, Sigrid.”

  “Hair spray mixed up with pepper,” the German girl replied. “Bad for the eyes. Good for buggers like Nazis. Or for real shits like Mister Tommo.”

  “I’ve been teaching her some useful Aussie words,” said Tiffany with a grin. “The spray was used in Germany, so after he lost his cool one night and tried to force himself on Siggy, we instructed a friendly chemist on how to mix it. Purely for self-defence. Half the girls in town now claim to have a can of it tucked away for when the blokes get too boisterous.”

  “Turns eyes of bastards’ inside-out quick-bloody-smart.” Sigrid sang and Carlo almost choked, trying to stifle his laughter while eating toast.

  Working the rest of that day he felt energised. What had at first been his tentative outlines of her now became firm and alive on the canvas. Her face transformed as he stroked in the hair that fell to her shoulders and tenderly painted the lips he’d kissed last night. He knew how they felt but wanted to express it on canvas. Finally he gazed at the soft green eyes and was satisfied: the face was complete.

  He realised with a start it was nearly dark, close to seven o’clock. He’d been working in the gloom for an hour, hardly aware of it. When he switched on a lamp the face seemed to leap into life on the new easel. The smashed one had been taken away by the police as evidence. Carlo would not see it again until next month, when the police believed they would have sufficient evidence.

  He intended that the painting would portray Tiffany from the waist up, so it could easily be completed in another few days. But there was no need for haste. He had to stay here as a witness until the court sat. Nearly two months, seven weeks to spend with her, and then what? It was too much to hope he’d be allowed to remain here after that, unless fortune selected him once again. But he told himself to be sensible. Fortune had been charitable, but could never be that kind.

  EIGHTEEN

  There was a bulky letter waiting when Beatrice came home, causing her
a brief moment of alarm. Even letters with obscure postmarks addressed in unknown handwriting could cause disquiet of late. It had been another gloomy day in a worsening month. Rome had become a nightmare, with German panzers now starting to rule the streets, dominating traffic and pedestrians with no regard for the accidents they were causing. It was another disaster Mussolini had brought to the country with his ill-timed pact. Despite his claims of grandeur, Italy was facing chaos, being attacked in the South where Salerno was invaded by British and American troops, and in the north Hitler’s battalions rushing to occupy it, in a pretence of bringing both aid and friendly support. In reality this was an invasion because of a rumour that Marshall Badoglio wished to meet the Allies to talk about surrender. Beatrice knew this was not just a rumour. It came from Luigi’s contact at army headquarters with an appeal not to mention it to anyone, particularly her family, he stressed. While he knew Giovanni could keep a secret, Sofia would find it impossible.

  “I’m sorry, cara mio, to say this about your nearest and dearest,” he had apologised, but she told him he was right. Her mother, entrusted with a military secret, would go to her bridge club and it would be all over Rome by the first deal of the cards. What Beatrice feared constantly but tried not to reveal to Luigi was her growing concern for his safety. He was now working with the partisans as well as the group preventing attacks against Jews. After the attempt to betray them which he’d thwarted, they’d found new and safer meeting places. But this year, 1943, amid the growing turmoil she knew nowhere was really safe and no one could be trusted.

  She tried to stop thinking of the risks Luigi was taking and wondered as she often did, where in Australia her son might be and what could be happening to him there. It seemed bizarre and shockingly unfair that after being hijacked in a back street of Rome, Carlo had been forced to fight for a cause he did not believe in, captured and sent to a prison camp in southern Britain and now in a far land like Australia. She’d scanned her mother’s bookshop for information about the country, but it was pointless unless she knew where he was, whether it was the tropical north, the outback, or even one of the eastern states. And of course there was also Tasmania. Australia was such a large complex place with a diverse climate, many unusual kinds of flora and fauna and so far away that here in Rome it felt as remote as the moon.