Sunday night in Darlinghurst proved to be quite different from the weekend and those nights and mornings leading up to it. There was a marked contrast in the street noise level and after a pre-bedtime glass of wine or perhaps two and a little TV watching with Candi I retired to my room after my self-prescribed 1 Advil PM. Candi lent me a book she purchased at Vinnie's earlier in the day, "7th Heaven" by James Patterson. I picked it up and found it to be a mindless light novel just at the limit of my concentration, about all I could handle. As I read a couple of the very short chapters and felt myself nodding off, I placed the book on the nightstand, appropriately rumpled up the duvet and pillows and endeavored to get some sleep. I had given the newly purchased mobile phone to Candi for the night as she had instructed Shawn to phone her, no matter the time, when Tanner awoke for his 7th birthday. Although she couldn't be there, she at least wanted to be able to sing "Happy Birthday" to him when his day began because he was surely missing her on this, his biggest day of the year. If Tanner rose at 8 a.m. in California that would be 2 a.m. Sydney time. She wouldn't mind, she told me, she was used to odd sleeping hours in any event due to her job as a police officer and the reality of shift work.
While I was aware of the occasional car door slamming on the street below my window and the off/on rain drops on the metal roof I achieved at least a few hours of dreamless sleep. Since I had given up my new phone for the night, I switched on my U.S. based android phone, just for the clock, so I could evaluate when it was an acceptable time to leave my bed. It must have been the 3rd or 4th time I checked the phone's display that I decided, since it was now past 3:30 a.m., I would give myself permission to head downstairs to begin my morning routine. It struck me that I must have achieved some level of sleep as I had no recollection of hearing Candi speaking with Shawn and Tanner in the middle of the night. I remembered that Geoff's obituary would be in the Sydney Morning Herald that day and made a mental note to make sure I picked up some copies of the paper when I went out for my sunrise stroll around the neighborhood. Since I knew that Mitzi was in Orange County and would be attending Tanner's birthday party at the Boomer's amusement park I had planned to catch up with her later in the day so she could fill me in on the details.
While sipping my coffee I tried to mentally catalog all the things we needed to handle this day. I had not had an opportunity to speak with Jo yet about her sense that Geoff "knew"; I wanted to have that conversation the next time I saw her. We were to be directed to a different priest that would conduct Geoff's service and would want to meet with him as soon as we could. Melissa and Jo had been working on the booklet for distribution at the service and the printing of that piece needed to be arranged. Robin and I were to meet with Geoff's hematologist that afternoon and I rehearsed the questions for which I wanted answers. There was a slide presentation that was to be shown at the wake following the service that Robin's neighbor, Stephen, was preparing and he still needed our input to finish that off. In stark contrast to our leisurely Sunday in the countryside at Luke's, Monday was setting up to be a quite busy day.
When I figured I could leave the townhouse so as to arrive at the nearby convenience store for their 6 a.m. opening I stepped out onto Taylor Street. Opposite the activity of the past few mornings the street was bustling with residents attired in work clothing making their way to their vehicles, buses or the train station waiting to deliver them to their places of employment. Most of the men were dressed in business suits, the women had the look of occupants of professional offices. It struck me that the throngs that inhabited Darlinghurst on weekend nights and early mornings was imported from other suburbs around Sydney. The locals all looked to be far too professional and serious to be involved in the shenanigans I could only imagine ocurred behind the neon lighted doorways of the business district.
I jaywalked across Flinders to the Coles Express store and grabbed 4 copies of the Sydney Morning Herald. I tucked them under my arm after I paid $6 for the privilege and declined the clerk's suggestion that I purchase gum or candy to go along with the papers. The paper is quite large and unwieldy compared to those we are used to in California so I decided to forgo looking for the announcement until I was back inside the unit. I dodged the now busy vehicle traffic mirroring my earlier steps and reentered the townhouse. I sat down at the dining room table with one copy of the voluminous Monday morning edition of the Sydney Morning Herald and began to search for the vital statistics announcements.
I spread the paper out over the dining room table. The Sydney Morning Herald is almost twice as wide as an American paper and on this day was all in one section. I believe its printed this way to make it easier to read on the train but I could have conjured that up in my mind. When holding the newspaper in its fully open position it nearly takes the extension of ones arms to their full limit. All the news that was fit to print on 11 October, 2010 fit into 22 pages of The Sydney Morning Herald. On the front page was a story about the decision to conduct a 4th Coronial Inquest into the death of Azaria Chamberlain. Azaria Chamberlain was a 9 1/2 week old baby that her parents say was taken by dingoes while camping in the Northern Territories in 1980. Here we are, 30 years later, and its still front page news. When I first started travelling to Australia about the same time she disappeared it was in the headlines then and this story was confirming that in the 30 years since she first went missing they haven't yet been able to figure it out. I started flipping through the pages and came across an article about the inordinate number of weddings that occurred in New South Wales the previous day, 10/10/10, and that many of the wedded couples were Chinese due to a cultural belief that repeating numbers bring good luck. Finally, I found the section of the newspaper that was to contain the notification. After the stories about the Aussie dollar being on par with the U.S. currency, the son of the North Korean dictator being seen in public, the publisher of Playboy magazine in Indonesia being imprisoned for publishing indiscretions, Facebook changing the way information is disseminated; After the Entertainment section touting current theatrical performances, concerts and films; After the Classified advertisements and a page devoted to educational issues; Immediately after a section that was an entire page requesting bids and proposals for various government contracts I found the section on page 19 entitled PERSONAL NOTICES with the sub-heading Death & Funerals. There, in alphabetical order, were the printed words no parent was ever meant to read.
No comments:
Post a Comment