End and Beginning

The coffin, with a simple sheath of her favourite golden yellow roses, finally made me realise I would never see her again. I sat there, not hearing the service, remembering my mother as I had come to know her during her visits to Paris each summer. She loved Paris and adored her two small grandchildren, and they were ecstatic about their only Australian grandparent. We would all miss her terribly.

I was at La Scala in Milan when Colette, my wife, reached me with the news that Mum was gravely ill. I still had one performance to give and no understudy. It was me they were paying to hear. It would be two days before I could even think of flying to Sydney to see her. An hour after that final performance, Peter, my brother, phoned to tell me there had been a sudden relapse.

I had desperately wanted to see her before she died and asked myself whether it was worth going all the way to Sydney just for the funeral? I decided Mum would have wanted her famous son to be there, and if I could arrange a direct flight from Rome to Sydney the next day, I should be able to make it. Qantas had a suitable flight; the timing would be tight but I should get there in time for the service at the Crematorium. Afterwards, if I flew directly to New York for my next engagement, I could spend three days in the home-town I hadn't seen for ten years. I rang Colette who, bless her, urged me to go even though it meant not seeing her and the children for six more long weeks.

The flight from Rome was half an hour late arriving in Sydney but luck was with me and I cleared Immigration quickly. The Customs Inspector accepted my "Nothing to declare," and waved me through into the terminal where I was immediately spotted by Reg, my agent's Sydney representative. He had a car and several photographers waiting. I put on the smile I keep for such occasions and flashed it at the photographers who flashed back. I often feel I could do without the trappings of celebrity, but sometimes they come in handy. While I am not one of The Three Tenors, my agent keeps assuring me I am up there in the top ten. The size of the fees he can obtain for me from opera companies in Europe and the States gives me confidence he is right.

In the Mercedes on the way to the city, I asked if I would have time to go to the hotel for a quick shower and a change of clothes. "She'll be right, Mate. Got at least half an hour up your sleeve," the driver assured me.

Thrusting my American Express card at the Hyatt receptionist, I grabbed the key to the suite and headed for the shower, leaving Reg to cope with the paperwork and the baggage. The shower, and the coffee he made while he was waiting, worked wonders. As we crossed the bridge on the way to the Crematorium, the harbour around the Opera House, the scene of my early success, sparkled in the summer sunlight. I had been away too long.

I arrived at the small chapel with five minutes to spare. Most of the mourners were already seated. Some I recognised as I went to join Peter in the front pew, but I didn't know the elderly man with the mane of silver hair who nodded to me from the other end of the pew. Sitting there, it looked as though he consider himself family. Had Mum been holding out on me?

After that final, dreadful moment when the coffin disappeared, and the curtains closed, we straggled out into the sunlight and I had a chance to clasp Peter in a wordless hug. The silver-haired gentleman from the front pew still hovered. Peter beckoned him over.

"John, I know this is going to be as much of a shock for you as it was for me. Let me introduce George, our father."

I tried to stammer some sort of a greeting but the words wouldn't come. I hadn't thought of my father since I was a kid. Finally, Peter came to my rescue by suggesting, "You two go over there and get acquainted. I'll catch up with you later."

I was still lost for words but George started straight in. "You were only about a year old when your mother and I split up. When we decided to get married, everybody told us we were too young to know what we were doing, but we wouldn't listen. They were right, though. We just didn't have enough in common. When we finally worked that out for ourselves, we thought of staying together for the sake of you and Peter, but it didn't appeal to either of us."

"Yes," I finally managed to say, "That's more or less what Mum told me years ago."

"Then," he continued, "I got a job in Perth, met a girl, married her and stayed. Over the years, your mother stopped answering my occasional letters, and I lost touch. Beryl and I never had any children, and when she died recently, I started to wonder about the family I left behind in Sydney. I couldn't find out anything from Perth, and your mother was in hospital by the time I got over here. I tracked Peter down and here I am."

He seemed a nice old bloke, so I said, "Look, too much has happened today for me to take it all in. Come and have lunch with me to-morrow. Then, I want to go for a ferry ride and enjoy Sydney from the harbour. Come with me?"

"You're on." he replied and then added hesitantly, "Son."

Immersed in the spa in my suite for a long soak before falling into bed, I phoned Colette and told her, "The kids may have lost their loving Gran, but I think I have just found a Grandpa who would try very hard to take her place."