The Last Double Sunrise

by Peter Yeldham

  But the war’s not quite over yet, thought Carlo, with the Japanese so determined to defend their homeland and the deadly threat of a Kamikaze attack like the one on the Royal Star. The recollection was still a painful memory, the fun and camaraderie he’d shared in those weeks would never be forgotten. But he did not tell Sarah about that. Julia had been the only one to whom he’d been able to unburden his heart.

  The trade officials and Carlo were brought ashore by launch to have breakfast at The Closenberg. They were impressed by the hospitality and offered either the choice of a room to rest in, a swim in the hotel’s large pool, or a walk to explore the former trading port of Galle, with its Dutch-colonial buildings, museums and mosques. The officials and Qantas crew chose the pool and then the offer of rooms; Carlo acting on Sarah’s advice opted to see some of the city. He found Galle a bustling and remarkable place, with rambling scenic lanes, interesting little shops and cafés. He visited the temple and the fort, learned the Portuguese colonised here before the Dutch ruled, then the British overcame the Dutch, adding it to their empire about the time when they were sending convicts to New South Wales.

  They left there towards late afternoon in another flying boat, a BOAC Boeing clipper with a British crew, and there was a brief stop the next day in Bombay harbour. Sarah sat beside him for that landing as she was now a passenger, pointing out the Gateway of India arch on the harbour front, and the cave temple dedicated to the Hindu Gods. Carlo no longer worried about take-offs and landings, as they made slow progress next day to Karachi.

  From there the three passengers and Sarah travelled in one of BOAC’s Lockheed Constellations to Muscat and Bahrain. The fifth night was spent in Beirut after a long day’s flight across Iraq and Syria. They had a stroll around the city that night, ending at the casino on the edge of the Beirut harbour where Carlo tried his luck at roulette and lost a hundred piastres which amounted to five pounds. A morning engine check and refuelling gave them time for a brief daylight tour. Carlo liked the way the harbour merged with the city, vaguely reminding him of Sydney. Since his brief stay there for clothes and travel documents, Sydney had been frequently in his mind. He’d seen the harbour after taking off from Kingsford Smith airport, and knew the superb waterway and its surrounds had been a popular subject for early Australian painters. He had never forgotten his first sight and the ambitions it had stirred from the forecastle deck of the Royal Star.

  The length of the journey after stops and overnight stays had been almost nine thousand miles when they finally landed at Brindisi. In the last few hours crossing Corfu and approaching his first sight of the Italian east coast, Carlo started to write a letter to Julia. He spent a long time over it, then sealed it in a stamped envelope he’d brought with him. Julia would receive it in less than a fortnight, as Sarah had promised to post it on her return to Australia.

  It seemed strangely unfamiliar being back in Italy. After landing he had to go through immigration and present his folio of documents from the Australian government. This prompted questions to him in English, until he answered them in Italian. Following that there was a long phone call to check his identity at the Villa Medici. Meanwhile he could see his mother waiting patiently with a man beside her in civilian clothes. Carlo had last seen him in uniform, and it was five years since they’d met, but he knew the man holding hands with her was Luigi.

  “Welcome back,” said the immigration officer at last, and Carlo went through the arrival gate to embrace his mother and reunite with Luigi. She was emotionally happy, trying not to shed tears. He made Luigi laugh and Beatrice cry and laugh at the same time when he told them how he’d inherited this habit of hers, watering the wine on Victory in Europe Day.

  It was a slow drive back to Rome, through some areas badly damaged by the war, and others untouched but completely new to him. This part of south-east Italy was nothing like his recollection of Lombardy. On the journey he told them about the flight, and how he’d never imagined it happening two weeks ago. By late afternoon he’d settled into the spare bedroom of the apartment in the Via Appia Nuova.

  “Nice place, Mum,” he said, and asked if she could get used to being called that.

  “Call me whatever you like, darling. It’s just so wonderful to have you back home. We’ll have a family gathering as soon as you recover from the long trip. They’re all descending on us tomorrow. Gina’s dying to see you, but I thought you’d be too tired today. I’m a bit exhausted myself, although Luigi did all the driving.” She hesitated a moment. “I do hope you’ll get on with him, Carlo.”

  “How could I help it, seeing you look so happy? I always liked him and remember how he tried to help me.”

  She smiled. “And now tell me what’s been happening in your life? I think it was your last letter where you said you’d just stayed the weekend with Janet and met her daughter.”

  “Was that the last letter? I wrote a really important one on that subject since then. Looks like it hasn’t reached you yet.”

  “There were always gaps. It’ll probably turn up next week or next month. But who needs letters, when we have you in person at long last?”

  “This was a special letter. I was busy in the studio, trying to act like a teacher and doing a lot of my own paintings. But this was news I particularly wanted to tell you.”

  “What news?”

  “I’m in love.”

  “With an Australian girl?” she asked, after what seemed a brief delay in the reply.

  “With Julia Sherman.”

  “Janet’s daughter?” The tenor of her voice was not quite the response he’d expected or hoped for. “Tell me about her, darling.”

  “Well, she’s beautiful. Age, soon to be twenty-four, at present in what’s called the WAAAF, that’s the Aussie women’s air force, and in about another month due to be discharged. I painted a miniature of her and sent it to you last month, never dreaming I’d be here. It’ll probably arrive next Christmas, but I’ve got a photo of her in my suitcase.” He paused, her lack of shared pleasure evident, and worrying him. “I’m happy, Mum, I’ve never been so happy. I hope you’ll like her.”

  “I’m sure I will.”

  He hesitated, but had to say it. “You don’t sound quite sure.”

  “Of course I am. It’s just…”

  “Just what?”

  “It’s five years since I’ve seen you and the first news you bring me is you’re in love with a girl from so far away. I’m certain I will like her—that’s when and if I’m able to meet her.”

  He realised he’d broken his news too soon. Far too soon; it had been stupid, his one real scrap of personal news. He’d been too eager, hardly able to wait before announcing it, and he dreaded her next question. Where would they live?

  But it didn’t come. She tried to smile away any inner concern, putting her hands on his cheeks the way she’d done in childhood, and said she’d love to see the photo of Julia when he unpacked. In the meantime she’d make them some coffee. Tonight Luigi had suggested they have a celebratory dinner at their favourite restaurant to mark his arrival home. That was when the phone rang. It was Francois Fouquet from the Villa to say welcome and to suggest a meeting tomorrow morning at ten.

  Francois was a few years older, with more grey hair and wrinkles to prove it, but he sat in the same office behind the same desk. Nothing else inside the Villa Medici appeared to have changed. Locked up as it had been for five years, there must have been an extensive cleaning job for it to look so surprisingly pristine. The famous paintings were all back in their same places, and the sculptures downstairs looked as if they’d never been moved. In view of their size and the cost of removal, this was more than likely.

  The meeting may have been meant as a welcome for Carlo but all they heard for some time after their arrival were grievances aired by their host.

  “We were bundled out of here just before Mussolini declared war, given a mere twenty-four hours to leave the country or face arrest,” Francois Fouquet said, clearl
y affronted at the five year exile from his congenial job and its salary.

  “I always maintained it was absurd and dangerous, having French art stored in a country run by a fascist. He had no trace of artistic creativity, that man. Even Hitler, for God’s sake, claimed to be a painter.”

  And a bloody awful one, thought Carlo, hoping they would not be treated to Fouquet’s five years of suffering in his homeland. But one thing he’d said resonated rather strongly with Carlo.

  “Excuse me, Monsieur. You had twenty-four hours to leave Italy?”

  “That’s all we were given. Barely enough time to pack and get out.”

  “Twenty-four hours, but not enough time to advise us?”

  “For goodness sake, I had to organise this place and leave. What on earth would it have achieved, advising you?”

  Carlo was stung by the dismissive tone. “What would it have achieved?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “For a start, it might have saved my mother a great deal of pain. And me a certain amount of distress.”

  “What pain or distress?” He looked to Beatrice for support. “There seems to be an emphasis on the personal pronouns here, Beatrice. This was meant to be an invitation to talk about the scholarship.”

  “I’ll tell you what distress,” Carlo spoke before she could. “Battling my way through Rome to find the doors locked. No place to sleep that night. You would’ve saved my mother the worry and trouble of searching for me all over the city, and prevented me from being hijacked by Blackshirts the next day. Five years of our lives might’ve been very different, if you’d bothered taking five minutes to warn us.”

  “I knew nothing of this. We had to pack up and flee, kicked out, treated like an enemy, like some sort of indigent nonentity,” he retorted, but Beatrice had heard enough of his complaints.

  “At least you were safe from harm, Francois. My son spent five years in some horrid prisons, after finding the doors shut in his face and his scholarship denied him.”

  “Of course, my dear Beatrice. And that’s why we’re gathered here, to make amends.” He turned his gaze to Carlo. “So let’s stop all this cheap blame, and discuss that. I gather from the Australians that you’ve been running some kind of makeshift studio in the camp where you were imprisoned?”

  His tone seemed deliberately disdainful, as if intended to annoy Carlo.

  “I ran a studio, yes,” he replied. “But I’d hardly call it makeshift.”

  “Really? What else could it be?” Fouquet asked, as if anything outside his orbit was not worth discussion.

  “I had carte blanche to do most things I wanted.”

  “Not such a horrid prison then,” he said, with a sharp glance at Beatrice.

  “Not this one. I was able to design stage sets, hold classes and sell my own paintings. Your expression ‘makeshift studio’ doesn’t do it justice. I’d like to make it clear Australia was very good to me, but I had three years of hell in other places before that. Which could’ve been avoided, if you hadn’t been so busy packing to hurry home.”

  Francois made a steeple of his hands, resting his chin on it while he meticulously studied Carlo, and then turned to Beatrice. “I’m not going to listen to any more of his nonsense. This is not quite the young tyro you brought here in 1940, Bea.”

  “Would you expect him to be?”

  “Perhaps not. But it poses a question. Does he really qualify as a new young trainee artist? After all, there are the strict Villa guidelines for that particular scholarship. Today I see a different student to the former neophyte.”

  “I see someone attempting to escape liabilities,” Beatrice said coldly. “He’s here because of an agreement reached between the Minister of Arts in Australia, and your Committee.”

  “That Committee’s decision will be guided by me. Perhaps your son should start our meeting again, by making an apology.”

  Carlo had been watching this with careful interest. Now he stood up and said: “I think we need a lawyer, Mamma. We can obviously sue.”

  Fouquet rose, determined not to be intimidated. “Now you listen to me, young man. Five years ago I generously allowed you a very ordinary…no, I’ll amend that…a very poor still life…”

  “Just shut up, Monsieur!”

  “What?”

  “I’m not your young man, nor your tyro or your bloody neophyte. As for the still life, I was scared stupid of you five years ago, and made a mess of that drawing. I used to think it was seeing Silvana in the nude, but it was the way you looked down your nose at me. Well, I’m not scared of you now and nor am I going to stand by, being talked about as though I’m not even here. I’m taking my mother home and we’ll discuss whether I’ve come halfway across the world for nothing. Then we’ll phone your Committee to let them know how we feel.”

  “But you can’t do this…” he tried to insist.

  “Mum, we’re out of here. This man had twenty-four hours notice, but he never bothered to warn us. Did you know that?” She shook her head. “Nor did I, until now. He either forgot or didn’t care. Now he’s trying to intimidate us, as if this never happened.”

  He held out his hand to her. Beatrice took it and rose. She looked at Francois Fouquet who, years ago at a New Year’s Eve party, had been in pursuit of her virginity.

  “We’ll do what my son says,” she told him calmly. “We’ll talk it over and let the Administration know our position.”

  “You simply cannot do this.” He became strident. “Beatrice, I warn you. He’ll never sell a painting in this country if the pair of you don’t sit down again and listen to me…”

  He had to shout the last words, because by then they had left his office.

  “Tell me the truth, Carlo. Did you go there meaning to do that?” They were at the apartment an hour later.

  “Not really. But I always felt I’d been let down. I could never forget the guards and locked doors. If not for Silvana I’d have had to sleep in the street.”

  “I know. She told me.”

  “She couldn’t understand why the staff had vanished either, without a warning to her. In the end I gave up thinking about it. Until I was on the flight. There was lots of time to think then. I felt it reasonable to find out why we were never told. Particularly you. It didn’t cross my mind to blame Fouquet, but I did remember you were a friend of his from way back. He was your tutor.”

  “A bit more than that,” Beatrice interjected, and Carlo smiled at this.

  “Alright, your boyfriend. Correct?”

  “For a short time.”

  “So I thought it surprising he hadn’t warned you. But there he was today, complaining about being given only twenty-four hours to leave the country. A few minutes out of that to call us would’ve been fair enough.”

  “It would’ve been more than fair,” she said. “You’d won the scholarship. You were the only student to be enrolled that day. He didn’t give us a thought. Just ran off. But I do hope you weren’t serious about lawyers.”

  Carlo smiled. “I said that just to scare him. I’m not going to complain or whinge, because something wonderful happened, as I told you yesterday. And before you say anything else, I want you to meet Julia and her mother Janet as well, because she wants to meet you.”

  “Hold on, wait a minute, darling. One thing at a time. You’ve been offered the scholarship. What happens about that?”

  “This has nothing to do with Francois Fouquet. But I don’t think I want to accept the offer even if he hadn’t threatened us.”

  “Had you made up your mind before we went there?”

  “No, not really. This is something I want you to understand, because I know how much you did for me, putting up with Dad and getting me a chance at the Villa. You know how excited I was five years ago. But today, I felt as if it was a step backwards.” He put his arms around her. “I don’t want a scholarship anymore. I’m not being conceited by saying I can survive. But I can. People like my paintings, they buy them. I don’t need t
o go back and start again at the Villa Medici. I truly wasn’t sure—until I walked in there this morning to be spoken to as if I was a child.” He smiled. “At least Granddad will be pleased. He never liked Francois.”

  “Never mind Granddad. What will your Arts Minister say about all this?”

  “Jason Chapman is a smart politician. He believes in fall-back positions. We discussed what might happen if I didn’t want the scholarship. He’ll tell the newspapers he gave me this chance, but I chose to stay in Australia to paint.”

  He waited for her to speak, but when she didn’t he added, “Jason will come out smelling like roses and it won’t do me any harm.”

  Beatrice shook her head on hearing this. “That’s not really what it’s about though, is it? You’re in love and want to go back there to live with Julia.”

  “No, Mum. That’s only a part of it. I had a choice—come home in two weeks, thanks to Chapman, or take my place in a queue and wait two years.”

  “Two years!”

  “That’s how long it would have been. I came home to see you and tell you I want you to visit Australia—to meet Janet and Jamie, meet my crazy friend Gianni and the ninety-two-year-old wonder woman who is Julia’s Great-aunt. They all want to meet you, and I’ve promised not to return without you, and with Luigi as well if that’s your wish and his.”

  “You’re quite mad,” Beatrice said, but she was smiling now, and tears were not far away. “You forget the little things, darling, like jobs and fares.”

  “Do you love your job so much you can’t leave it?”

  “No, but…”

  “Does Luigi?”

  “He’s fed up with the army, and wondering what to do.”

  “So there you are. Set sail for the South Seas!”

  “The fares, Carlo. The cost.”

  “Good point, Mum. Per courtesy of Jason Chapman I have a free return via BOAC and the Catalina flying boat.”

  “Not me! I am definitely not going on anything called a flying boat,” Beatrice said so firmly that it made Carlo laugh and hug her.

  “I don’t blame you. I thought an ordinary boat for you, Mamma. One that sails sedately on the sea. Twin cabin with Luigi.”