The pressure of the silence on her ears was painful, but lacking a record player or even a radio, her options were limited. She couldn’t bear the thought of the television and all those yakkety voices.
In her restlessness, Kitty threw open the kitchen window to listen for traffic on Lygon Street. A few crows in the cemetery over the road cawed melancholy notes over the bass hum of the cars.
Music had been forbidden all her life, but she heard it everywhere.
Grandma and Grandpa had forbidden outings where she might even hear music; they’d discouraged friendships that might take her from their orbit, so her unintentional school status as a lonely weirdo had been guaranteed. They’d found her work experience and later a job at the business where Grandpa was an accountant and Grandma arranged garlands and wreaths, the best in the business. The ones for her funeral, and for Grandpa’s, had been done by someone else and were disappointing by being perfectly adequate.
In a sudden fit, Kitty gathered all the flowers in her arms and dumped them in the bathtub. She stormed to her room next and threw the cloth cover off her little work table, revealing crudely painted white and black keys. This she dragged to the centre of the living room, placed her fingers on the painted keys and banged away at it.
She heard the notes in her head, memorised from the times she’d snuck into the music room at school. The living room heard only a dull thud. She stopped abruptly.
Kitty glowered at a photograph: her smiling grandparents, and her squashed between them, smiling too. Her skin was paler than their olive tones, thanks to her Scottish mother’s heritage, but her hazel eyes were the same as Grandma’s, the same as her father’s eyes, Grandpa always said, when he spoke of her father at all.
‘I know you loved me, but I’m tired of living in a cage,’ she told that photograph. ‘This week I’m buying a radio; and that proper keyboard I want that I knew you’d never let me have.’
Agitated and filled with the need to move, Kitty swooped to the telephone and called her boss.
‘Schumacher Funerals. How may I help?’
‘Marcus. Hi, it’s Kitty.’
‘Oh, Kitty. How are you doing? Do you need anything, dear?’
‘No. I just. It’s too quiet at home.’
‘It must seem very strange.’
Not as strange as it should be, Kitty Carrasco wanted to tell him. This house is always oppressively quiet. Losing Grandma and Grandpa a month apart had only emphasised the solitude of it.
‘It is odd,’ she said.
‘Let me just say again how very sorry Trudy and I am,’ Marcus said with his usual compassionate warmth. ‘We valued your grandparents’ contributions here enormously, and of course they introduced you to us.’
‘Thanks Marcus. Speaking of that. I was wondering if I could come back to work today after all.’
She counted the beats before Marcus replied. He never replied to anything in a hurry.
‘I’m concerned that you need more time, Kitty.’
‘I don’t.’
Another few beats and then, ‘Why don’t you pop in for the afternoon, if you like. You don’t need to stay if it’s too much.’
‘The Driscolls are coming today, aren’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know you’re really busy. You have two funerals this afternoon. I can help.’
‘This is not the time for you to worry about us.’
‘I know. But honestly. I’d rather be working and doing some good, Marcus.’
‘Your presence would be very welcome, Kitty, but truly, if you find it too much, please don’t feel you need to stay.’
‘I’ll get changed and be right there.’
Two trams later, Kitty was in Richmond and breathing much more easily.
‘Good morning, Kitty,’ Marcus Schumacher said as Kitty arrived. Marcus, in his fifties, had a kind face. He was buttoned-down, respectable, and exuded an air of peace and respectful acceptance. Clients liked him because he made them feel safe. Kitty liked him because he was never condescending.
‘Good morning, Marcus. Thanks for letting me come in.’
‘You’re welcome, but I mean it. Leave again if you need to.’
‘Thanks. Do you want me to sit with you when the Driscolls come in?’
‘I’ve just left Maddie’s parents and her brother to gather themselves in the sitting room. Bring in some tea and I’ll introduce you.’
In the kitchenette, Kitty brewed a pot of fresh tea. Along with the fine tea set, she prepared a dish of lemon slices along with the honey and sugar. She added an array of thin, light biscuits. People’s grief settled in their stomachs sometimes and they couldn’t eat, and others ate blindly through the process. Some were like her, ambivalent in their mourning. Plenty of others didn’t mourn at all, and didn’t even bother to pretend.
Kitty carried the tray into the faintly formal yet cosy sitting room. The couch in it was comfortable but not squishy. It held people up when sometimes people couldn’t hold themselves up.
Marcus introduced her to the Driscolls in his wonderfully comforting baritone. ‘This is Catalina Carrasco. She’ll be looking after Maddie’s make-up and clothing for you.’
Maddie’s family, like most clients, were surprised at her youth. Kitty didn’t let it bother her. She simply went about, calmly and kindly, greeting them by name, pouring tea, sitting in the slightly less comfortable seat opposite them.
‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ she said, genuinely sympathetic. ‘Maddie seems to have been a lovely young woman.’
Mrs Driscoll nodded, tears welling up already. ‘Yes, she was. My Maddie, she was…’ And she couldn’t go on. Mr Driscoll patted his wife’s hand, and it was left to Jayden Driscoll, Maddie’s older brother, to speak for the family.
‘We’ve brought some of her clothes. And I made up a disk of her favourite music. Like Mr Schumacher asked.’ Jayden clumsily shoved an overnight bag towards her. ‘Oh. And. These.’ A folder full of photos, mostly printed out from the internet. They showed a bright teenager with a mischievous smile, as though she was planning a prank to pull on the photographer.
‘Thank you,’ Kitty said. ‘Anything I don’t use, I can give back to you, if you like, or we can manage it here. There’s no need to decide right away.’
Jayden nodded miserably.
Kitty placed her fingers gently over one particularly lovely photograph of Maddie in a vibrant summer dress, vivid blue flowers splashed over a pale yellow background. Mrs Driscoll caught the movement.
‘We’ve put. That one. In the bag. She loved that. That dress. She was. She.’
‘It suited her. Would you like me to make her up like she is in this one?’
Mrs Driscoll nodded mutely.
‘She looks very happy here,’ Kitty said, not expecting anything but leaving space for whatever might happen.
‘She was,’ Mr Driscoll replied. ‘That was her eighteenth birthday. She’d just been accepted to Monash. That’s her best friend, Nicole, there.’ He gestured. ‘And that’s her boyfriend, Mathias. He’s a good boy.’ He blinked rapidly. ‘He made her laugh. So much. With those. What do they call them? The game with the birds and the pigs.’
Jayden’s laugh was sudden