by Judy Nunn
‘The day after Boxing Day.’
‘So soon?’
It was Christmas Eve, late afternoon, and Paolo had come to say goodbye. He and Ira were sitting, huddled beside the oil heater, in the parlour of the boarding house where Ira Rubenstein rented his cheap room.
Both young men had successfully passed their final examinations in May and were now qualified mining engineers. Ira, however, having returned to New York to spend the summer vacation with his parents, was now back at Harvard to complete his masters degree.
Upon graduation Paolo had agreed, with a reluctance he concealed, not wishing to appear ungrateful, to work for six months at the offices of Dunleavy and Company, Mining Consultants.
‘We’ll call it an apprenticeship, shall we?’ Paul Dunleavy had joked. ‘An apprenticeship that starts you at the top—not many graduates get a chance at that, eh?’ And Paolo had to admit that he would be a fool to refuse such an opportunity.
To Paul Dunleavy the offer had meant only one thing. Dunleavy and Son, Mining Consultants. After six months in a position of power and with such a proposal put to him, the boy could hardly yearn for the tin sheds of the Golden Mile and a life in the field with the simple miners of Kalgoorlie. At Christmas, when the six-month ‘apprenticeship’ had whetted the boy’s appetite, Paul would announce his plans.
Ira had decided to stay in Boston for Christmas. It was too disruptive to go home, he’d maintained, and too expensive.
‘It’s paid off,’ he said.
Paolo looked a query.
‘Staying in Boston. I’ve lined up a part-time job at the library, starting early in the New Year. I’ll be able to study and save money at the same time.’
‘You’re going to be a success, Ira, there’s no doubt about that,’ Paolo said, toasting his friend with his coffee mug.
‘Bon voyage and bon chance,’ Ira replied, raising his own mug. ‘I shall miss you.’
‘And I you.’
They clinked mugs, sipped their coffee and Ira shook his head, as usual. ‘Needs a little assistance,’ he said, pulling the familiar hip flask from his pocket.
Paolo smiled and accepted the generous tot of rum which Ira poured into his mug. ‘I can’t stay long,’ he apologised. ‘I promised I’d spend Christmas Eve with the Dunleavys.’
Paul Dunleavy had been a little critical when Paolo had announced he was going out to see his university friends—the only lie was the plural, Paolo had reasoned. ‘Christmas Eve is not a time for gallivanting about, Paolo, it is a time to be shared with those closest to you,’ he had said. ‘I shall expect you home for a family dinner.’
Paolo had felt annoyed. If the festive season was a time to be shared with those closest to him, then he should be at home in Kal. That’s what he’d wanted to say. But he didn’t. He never mentioned his family or Kal these days, sensing that it irritated Dunleavy, who had become rather overpossessive. For a long time now, to avoid friction, Paolo had even taken to collecting his mail directly from the maid before she left it on the hall table. That way it was not evident how regularly he was in contact with those at home.
Having agreed to spend Christmas in Boston, Paolo had secretly booked his passage to Australia on the 29th of December. He would depart for New York on the 27th and, grateful as he was to Paul Dunleavy, no amount of emotional blackmail would make him change his mind. Paolo was going home to Caterina and Giovanni and his sisters.
During his years in America, Paolo Gianni’s commitment to his studies had helped him avoid undue homesickness but, now that he had completed his degree, Boston had lost its hold over him. Beautiful as the city was, he found himself longing to escape its formality. He yearned for the untidiness of the Australian outback, the scruffiness of the red landscape and the careless drawl of the people. Ice and snow had lost their fascination, Paolo wanted the ferocity of the Kalgoorlie sun.
‘You’re really serious about joining the army?’ Ira asked as he topped up their coffees and added more rum. ‘You’re going to war?’
‘Yes.’ Paolo had recently received a letter from Rick, who told him the troops were pulling out of Gallipoli.
‘… We are leaving so many men on these shores, Paolo,’ Rick had written, ‘men who have fought for their country with such fervour and men I am proud to have owned as friends …’
Now, more than ever, Paolo was determined to join the army.
‘You think I’m a fool don’t you?’
‘Of course I do, a war could kill you.’ Ira shrugged. ‘Why court trouble?’
Paolo laughed. ‘That’s a very Jewish outlook,’ he said.
‘So? It’s how we survive.’
They drank two more mugs of rum-laced coffee before Paolo insisted it was time he left. ‘You must come to Kal one day, Ira.’
‘Perhaps I will,’ Ira agreed. ‘An engineering degree makes the world a much smaller place. Who knows when or where we may meet again.’ And, when they’d embraced, he added, ‘You take care with your war, Paolo.’
Paul Dunleavy was a little irritated when Paolo returned half an hour later than he’d promised, with rum on his breath too. Then Paul chastised himself. He was only annoyed because he was excited. Tonight was the night he would make his announcement. He had deliberately chosen Christmas Eve, which had always been a very special night in his family. But he must be patient. He had everything planned so perfectly, he must not rush it.
‘I REMEMBER CHRISTMAS Eves just like this when I was a child,’ Paul said. He was comfortably nestled in his favourite armchair, the one which had been his father’s, his legs stretched out towards the open fire, his tumbler of Scotch on the coffee table beside him. ‘My parents and I would sit around the fire, just like this.’
Meg exchanged a smile with Paolo. She adored her father but as they both knew, he always waxed lyrical about the family on Christmas Eve.
‘My mother would play the pianola,’ Paul continued, ‘and my father would sing. A fine, bold voice, do you remember, Elizabeth?’
Elizabeth, in her customary seat at the bay windows, looked up from her petit point and nodded. ‘Yes, a bold voice.’ Bold, certainly, she thought. Quenton Dunleavy had bawled his favourite hymns with such fervour, and never once baulked when he hit a wrong note, that Elizabeth’s mother-in-law would wince as she valiantly accompanied him on the pianola.
‘You will play some Christmas carols for us after dinner, won’t you, my dear?’ Paul asked. He was proud of his wife’s musical virtuosity, it was a sign of good breeding. A number of years ago he had purchased for her a grand piano which stood in pride of place in the drawing room.
‘Of course I will.’
‘Excellent.’ He rose to pour himself another Scotch. ‘And we shall all sing along. Would you like another, Paolo?’ he asked, offering the whisky decanter.
‘No thank you, sir.’
‘Best not to mix, eh, son? I’m sorry I have no rum.’ His smile was good-natured and there was no censure in his tone. Paolo smiled back. The one whisky he’d had was mingling unpleasantly with the rum and he was feeling a little queasy.
Elizabeth declined another dry sherry but Meg held out her glass and Paul topped it to the brim. He was feeling very mellow after his third Scotch. But Christmas Eve was a time to be mellow, and this Christmas Eve more so than any other.
As he sat and talked of his father and his grandfather, Paul felt an immense pride in the tradition of the Dunleavy family. ‘I remember my father sitting in this very armchair—of course we weren’t in this house then,’ he added, ‘we were in the old family home at Beacon Hill—and I can remember him telling me of his own childhood.’
Again Meg smiled at Paolo. Her father was waxing even more lyrical than usual. But then this was his fourth whisky, he usually only had two.
‘Every Christmas Eve my grandfather would take my father skating on Jamaica Pond and on the way home they would follow the carol singers—at a discreet distance of course—and they would sing together. As father and so
n, you understand,’ he corrected hastily, ‘not with the group.’ He shook his head with affectionate admiration. ‘Such a bond,’ he sighed. ‘Such a bond between father and son.’
Loath as he was to admit it, there had never been quite such a bond between Paul and his father, and Paul had never really been able to understand why. He’d always felt he’d been a bit of a disappointment to Quenton.
Now he looked at Paolo. The men of whom he was speaking were none other than Paolo’s own grandfather and great-grandfather—did the boy comprehend that? Probably not; he and Paolo had not once spoken of Paolo’s inclusion in the family since he had been in Boston. Well, all that was about to change. From this night onwards, Paolo Gianni would have a family to proud of and he, Paul Dunleavy, would have a son with whom he could forge a bond, just like the bond between his father and grandfather.
‘I remember my father telling me once that he and his father—’
‘They’re here, Daddy.’ Meg jumped up and Paul scowled at the interruption. ‘They’re here. Listen.’
Outside, through the falling snow, they could hear the strains of ‘Good King Wenceslas’ approaching.
‘Ah.’ Paul rose, annoyance forgotten, and collected his scarf and overcoat from the hall stand. The singing of Christmas carols was very much a part of the traditional festivities. As much a part as tomorrow’s early morning church service, the distribution of presents around the tree, and the formal Christmas dinner. Tradition, that’s what it was all about. And Paul stood with his family on the front porch, applauding the carol singers gathered on the snowy pavement of Commonwealth Avenue.
‘Can we follow them, Daddy?’ Meg asked five minutes later when Paul had distributed a silver coin to each of the singers and the group had crossed the street. She knew Paolo didn’t want to go back inside, not just yet anyway. ‘Only for a little while, please?’
Paul looked a question at Elizabeth.
‘Cook will wish to serve dinner in half an hour,’ Elizabeth warned.
‘Fifteen minutes. We’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Come along, Paolo.’ Meg pulled the hood of her jacket over her head, grabbed his hand and they crossed the street through the lightly falling snow.
From the opposite pavement, as they watched the front door close, Meg exhaled a comic sigh of relief. ‘Daddy’s worse than ever this Christmas Eve. God only knows why—the whisky I suppose.’
‘It’s not doing me any good either, the whisky.’ Paolo tilted his head back so that the snow fell upon his face.
‘But you only had one.’
‘And three large measures of rum a few hours ago.’ In his slightly bilious state, Paolo had found the Dunleavy lounge room claustrophobic. The sting of the night air was doing him good.
‘Serves you right then.’
He didn’t answer but stood, eyes closed, head back, enjoying the snow’s caress upon his face and the voices of the carol singers as they moved on down the street.
‘You’ll miss this, won’t you?’ Meg asked after a moment or two. He had told her that he had booked his passage to Australia. ‘But I don’t want you to say anything yet, Meg,’ he’d warned her. ‘I want to tell your father myself, in my own time.’
Meg had mixed feelings about his imminent departure. It would be good to have her father to herself again, but she would miss Paolo. He was the only man with whom she shared a genuine friendship. More importantly, he was the only man to whom she felt she could surrender her virginity, a sacrifice which, at the age of twenty-two, was becoming an obsession.
‘Men are to marry virgins and women are to marry “men of the world”,’ her emancipated girlfriends complained, all in agreement that it hardly constituted equality. ‘Every woman should have a lover before she marries,’ they said loudly and outrageously. The only trouble was, thought Meg, who would that lover be? Stephen Sanderson, who with her parents’ encouragement had courted her for over a year, had bored her utterly and although many of the boys she met at college attracted her, their overt masculinity and experience frightened her, and she didn’t dare allow them more than a chaste kiss, although she would die before she would admit that to her girlfriends.
Paolo was the only one. Paolo from the other side of the world who, even after his years in Boston, was still different, still intriguing. She’d been wondering, for months now, if she dared make an overture towards him.
Meg looked at Paolo, his upturned face thoroughly wet from the snow, unmelted flakes still sitting on his lips and lashes. He looked so eminently seducible, she thought. But how did one go about seduction? She wouldn’t know where to begin. Why didn’t he make the first move? Damn it to hell, Meg cursed, was she really destined to lose her virginity in the proper manner? The husband, the wedding night, the bridal bed? What was the point of being a modern woman?
‘I said you’ll miss all this, won’t you?’ she repeated. Paolo obviously hadn’t heard her, he was in a world of his own.
‘What was that?’ He opened his eyes, blinking away the snowflakes.
‘You’ll miss it. Boston and the cold and the snow.’
He glanced briefly at her before gazing down Commonwealth Avenue at the carol singers, now several houses along the street. ‘I’m not sure whether I’ll miss it,’ he said, ‘but I’ll certainly remember it. For as long as I live.’
She wasn’t quite sure what to make of his tone, it was so serious. But then she often didn’t know what to make of Paolo.
‘Let’s go inside,’ she said, ‘before you catch your death of cold.’
After an excellent dinner, the four of them gathered for Christmas carols in the drawing room, Elizabeth settling herself carefully at the piano stool and playing the opening chords of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’. But, several carols later, it was evident that Paul Dunleavy’s heart was not truly in it. He kept glancing towards the grandfather clock at the far end of the room.
‘I feel like a little male companionship,’ he said at the end of ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’. ‘Let’s go to my study, Paolo, we’ll have a cigar.’ He could curb his impatience no longer.
Paolo was nonplussed. ‘I don’t smoke, sir.’
‘I know, I know. High time you learned.’ One of the grandest moments in Paul’s life had been the first time Quenton had offered him a cigar. ‘Have Edith bring some coffee and cognac up to my study, would you, dear?’
What on earth was going on? Meg wondered. Her father, normally an abstemious man, had had too much to drink and was obviously excited about something. And cigars? Her father didn’t even like cigars, he only smoked them when he was celebrating a business coup or wanted to impress somebody.
Elizabeth rose from the piano stool. ‘Play something for me, dear,’ she said. ‘One of the nocturnes, you play them so prettily.’
‘Of course.’ Her mother was uneasy, Meg could sense it. She sat, arranged her skirts about her, and painstakingly played a Chopin nocturne. Meg’s musical abilities were average and she did not enjoy performing for her mother who was an excellent pianist with a fine natural ear. But even as she watched her fingers and concentrated on each note, her mind was filled with questions.
Finally, she excused herself. ‘I need to go to the bathroom, Mother, I shan’t be long.’ Her mother nodded distractedly. She hadn’t really been listening to the music at all, Meg thought as she slipped quietly from the room.
Meg was right. Elizabeth felt distinctly ill at ease. It had started with her husband’s announcement as they were dressing to go downstairs for pre-dinner drinks.
‘This is going to be a momentous Christmas Eve, Elizabeth.’
‘Oh yes, dear, in what way?’ She hadn’t taken much notice at first. Christmas Eves were always momentous for Paul.
‘I have plans. Plans which will affect the future of this family.’ He’d refused to tell her more, but had promised, mysteriously, that all would be revealed by the end of the evening. Still, she hadn’t worried too much; Paul enjoyed creating dramatic suspense. He was prob
ably going to announce a business merger or a property investment.
But, as the evening unfolded, he had drunk far more than he usually did and his manner had been so distracted that Elizabeth had started to feel a little uneasy. And when, after dinner, he’d demanded that Paolo join him in the study, her unease had turned to alarm as she recalled his mysterious announcement in the bedroom. Something was going on, Elizabeth realised, and she didn’t like the feel of it at all.
PAOLO WAITED UNTIL the maid had left the room. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand,’ he said as Edith pulled the study door closed behind her.
Out on the landing, before she could turn the doorknob, a hand appeared on top of Edith’s. She glanced up, startled, to see Meg, a finger to her lips.
Edith smiled conspiratorially, she and Meg had been partners in crime on a number of occasions. If Miss Dunleavy wished to eavesdrop on her father, then it was nobody’s business but her own, Edith thought. She nodded obligingly and trotted back downstairs to the kitchen.
Meg held the door an inch or so ajar and peered through the gap. Her father was seated behind his desk and Paolo, with his back to her, was seated in the armchair opposite. ‘Adoption, boy,’ Meg heard her father say a little impatiently. ‘Legal adoption—what could be more simple?’ Again there was a pause. Paolo seemed to be as confused as she was, Meg thought.
This was certainly not the response Paul Dunleavy had expected. Paolo remained staring at him, as if the words he was hearing were incomprehensible. Then he realised. The magnitude of his offer was overwhelming; of course, that was it. ‘Yes, Paolo,’ he said expansively. ‘You are to be my son and heir. Everything I have will be yours. My name, my home, my property.’
Meg gripped the doorknob, her knuckles white. ‘You will give this family sons,’ she heard her father say. ‘Sons to continue the Dunleavy bloodline …’
Paul sucked heavily on his cigar. The rich taste of tobacco, the heavy claret he’d drunk during dinner, the headiness of his words, all mingled fittingly. ‘… One of the finest bloodlines in the history of this country.’ He pushed his chair back loudly and picked up his brandy balloon. He felt drunk with pride, this was the most momentous night of his life. ‘I tell you, Paolo,’ he started to circle the desk, ‘I tell you …’