Chapter 41: Friends with Benefits

Farewell to Dennis

July 1989

“It’s Fiona’s father, he’s ... he’s taken a serious turn for the worse,” Lisa said.”Fiona’s down there now, I drove her to the airport this morning.”

“Damn, does this sound like it might be it for him?” I asked her.

“I think so. Apparently, Friday afternoon, his pain got a lot worse; they had been keeping him comfortable and relatively pain free for a while, but it was much worse yesterday, the palliative care nurse came around, and gave him some morphine, which seemed to help with the pain. At least he seemed to be sleeping peacefully, but in the middle of the night, his heart monitor went off, his heart beat was very slow. He slipped into a coma, breathing very shallowly, not responding to any stimulus. Early this morning a call came from Colleen to Fiona, saying that she should see about getting down there as soon as she could.”

“I guess this was going to happen sooner or later,” I said.”What should we do? Should we be down there for Fiona?”

“I think we should, she said she would call once there was any news. Cathy called back earlier this afternoon, she apologised for not being there when I called, but you had already left for your talk at Parliament House. She said if we were coming down, we could stay at her place. But you’re probably tired after the drive back, go and have a shower, I’ll put your clothes in the wash.”

I headed downstairs to our bedroom, unpacked my bag, putting the clothes that needed washing in a pile, the got undressed and took a shower. I had only just got in when Lisa joined me.

“Care for some company?” she asked.

I made room for her in the shower, and we washed each other; we cut the shower short, dried each other then went to our bed, we had several days of not being together to make up for. After making love, we lay together, Lisa resting her head on my chest.

“So, how do you think Cathy is handling things?” she asked me.”I can’t imagine what she must be going through.”

“She seems pretty upset by it all,” I said.”She’s doing a reasonable job of holding herself together, but I just felt that something wasn’t quite right with her. The sex we had – and somehow, I got the feeling that she was doing it because she needed the physical closeness and contact, but there wasn’t that emotional connection and sharing that there had been in the past. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something has changed with her, and I don’t think it’s just being upset about Martin leaving, or the possibility of losing her kids. There’s more to it, I think.”

“Well, if we go down there for Dennis’s funeral, which I’m sure is imminent, and stay with Cathy, I’ll see for myself,” Lisa said.”Maybe it’s just from everything she’s going through at the moment.”

We cleaned up with another quick shower, and while Lisa started the laundry, I headed upstairs to see what was available for dinner. Chris and Mary Beth had prepared some beef stroganoff, so I set the table, and found a suitable bottle of wine to accompany the meal. The meal was very good, the wine – a Penfolds cabernet sauvignon – went well with the beef, and there was some great crusty Italian bread. Just as we had finished eating, the phone rang, and Lisa answered it. It was Fiona, and from what I could hear of Lisa’s side of the conversation, Dennis had passed away earlier in the afternoon. She told me to pick up one of the other phones, I went downstairs to the study, Lisa joined that extension into the call, and I told Fiona that I was so sorry for what had happened with her father.

“At least he’s out of pain now,” she said,”and no longer suffering. But thank you for your words and thoughts.”

“Would you like us to come down and be with you?” Lisa asked.”I guess it’s too early to know when the funeral will be.”

“That’s something we’ll be planning tomorrow,” she said.”But if you two can get down here, maybe tomorrow, I would really appreciate it. Now, I have to get back to my mother, the priest has been here talking with her.”

“Okay, tell your mother that she has our sympathies, and thoughts,” I said.”Once we’ve made plans to head down there, we’ll call and let you know.”

We hung up, I went back upstairs, and we discussed plans for heading down to Canberra.

“I’ll call Cathy in a few minutes,” I said.”We can go down tomorrow morning, if that’s going to be okay with her.”

“Can you let us know what the arrangements for the funeral will be,” Mary Beth said.”Chris and I will go down for that, and I’m sure the others in the group will want to attend as well.”

“Traci and I will go down too, any chance of us getting a ride with you two?” he asked Mary Beth.

I went to call Cathy, to see if Lisa and I would be able to come down and stay at her place for a few days, which was fine with her. I said I didn’t know at the moment how long we would be there, since the funeral arrangements hadn’t been made, but she told me that Lisa and I were welcome to stay as long as we needed to. After my call, Lisa called her boss, apologised for the short notice, but asked if she could take the coming week off to attend a funeral of the father of a close friend. Of course, she wasn’t able to tell her supervisor at work that Fiona was her lover; that probably wouldn’t have gone down all that well.

I called Fiona back and told her that Lisa and I would be in Canberra by lunchtime tomorrow and would be at her mother’s place early afternoon. I asked her if there was anything here of hers at home that we could bring down for her – more clothes, underwear, anything like that, but she said she was right for the time being.

We packed our bags, without knowing when Dennis’s funeral might be, we weren’t sure just how many days we would need to pack for, but I said to Lisa I doubt they will have the funeral before Friday, at the earliest. I put my dark suit in a suit bag, it would need dry cleaning before I wore it, but that could be done once we were in Canberra. I also put the notes for the secure HTTP transmission protocol design that I was working on in conjunction with Tim, I thought that I might have some time while we were there to flesh out some of my design ideas. We had an early night, I was tired from my drive back to Sydney, and the next few days were probably going to be rather stressful.

We got away early in the morning, we were on the road before 6:00, stopped at Goulburn for morning tea, and we were at Cathy’s place before lunchtime. We unloaded out bags, and drove across to Fiona’s mother’s place in Campbell; Cathy came with us, she wanted to give her condolences to Jim. There was a bunch of people at the Shaw’s place; Fiona’s aunt and uncle, Nola and Frank (the pub owner, and Deidre’s parents), plus Colleen’s other sisters, Mary and Claire.

“Will Morris! It’s good to see you,” Frank boomed, shoving out a hand.”Not that it’s under the best of circumstances, but I was hoping I would see you. How have things been? Fee tells me it’s now Professor Morris, congratulations. I’m sorry things didn’t work out between you and Fee ... oh, I’m sorry, I guess this lovely lady must be your wife! Frank Mahon, I’m Fiona’s uncle.”

“Great to see you again, Frank,” I said, shaking his hand.”I would like you to meet my wife, Lisa; Lisa, this is Frank Mahon.”

Frank wrapped his arms around her, kissing her on the cheek.

“Well, I guess if you had to have a woman other than my niece, it looks like you’ve done very well for yourself, Will,” he said.”Can I get you a drink of anything, Lisa? And you, Will?”

We both said that a soft drink would be fine, and I went in search of Fiona and her mother; they were in the kitchen, and when Fiona saw me, she wrapped her arms around me, and started crying.

“Will! Thanks so much for coming down, I assume Lisa is here somewhere?” she said, sniffling.”It’s been so ... so hard to cope!”

I gave her a reassuring hug, stroking the back of her hair, and when Lisa came into the room, I disentangled myself from Fiona, and went over to Colleen, leaving Lisa to Fiona.

“Colleen, I was so sad when I heard the news about Dennis,” I said, holding her hand.”That was a pretty shitty deal he got from the government, doing what he thought was his duty, serving the country, only to get cancer from it. How are you holding up? Sorry, that’s a silly question, I know it has to be so hard for you.”

“Well, it’s one of those situations where I guess all along I knew what the end result would be; the oncologist didn’t sugar coat things, he told Dennis and me right from the start that the chances of a recovery were pretty slim. But despite knowing that, Dennis would never give up. The hardest part, at the end, was seeing him in pain, I could hear him saying, it was like he was praying ‘please, let me go’. It broke my heart to see him suffering, and I couldn’t do a single thing about it. That’s why I got the hospice people in from the hospital, Will, those nurses are pure angels, how they can do their job, knowing the people they are looking after will never recover, but day after day, they came here, bathed him, made him feel comfortable, gave him pain killers, talked with him, did everything I could have wished for, and more. But in the end, his body couldn’t handle any more, and ... Well, it was truly a release for him. I comfort myself knowing that he’s not in pain any more, his suffering is over. I guess, in the long run, that’s all we can ask.”

What she said made sense, not that I was much of an expert on cancer, but at least I knew once it spreads into some of the critical organs, then it’s pretty much good night. I just hoped that Dennis didn’t suffer too much pain; from what Colleen said the palliative care nurses made sure he was comfortable.

“You are right, Colleen, all we can do for our loved ones is to make sure they don’t suffer unnecessarily. And I’m sure he’s not suffering, he’s no longer in pain, which is the best we could hope for. If you need anything, if there’s anything I can do for you, please, don’t hesitate to ask. If, once all of this is over, you’ve got the estate and all of the administration done, and you feel like a break from Canberra, you are more than welcome to stay as long as you would like at my place in Sydney. A change of scenery might be just the break you need.”

“Thanks very much Will, I might take you up on that; I could spend time with Fiona, see things in Sydney that I haven’t seen before. Maybe get a special guided tour of the new museum Fiona is working for. I’ll let you know what I decide.”

Other friends and relatives were wanting to talk with Colleen, so I left her to them, and went to find Lisa and Fiona. It was far too soon to know what the plans were for Dennis’s funeral except it would be at the big Roman Catholic Cathedral, St Christopher’s, in Manuka. Fiona was talking about a burial at the cemetery in Gungahlin, to the north of Canberra, apparently they had a special section for veterans. The wake was being planned for Eastlake Football Club, where Dennis was a life member, but a date hadn’t been set; no doubt once the funeral director started work those details would be sorted out.

One visitor who surprised me was Kim Beasley, the Federal Defence Minister, he arrived mid-afternoon. I answered the door, and he recognised me.

“Will Morris! You keep turning up at so many unexpected places,” he said.

“Kim, comrade, great to see you,” I said.”I’m good friends with Dennis’s daughter, Fiona, she’s in the band with me. Come on in, I think Colleen’s in the kitchen, let me take you through.”

“Thanks, Will, I worked closely with Air-Commodore Shaw,” he said.”He was a great guy, a straight-shooter, I could always rely on him getting directly to the point, telling me the facts, not what he felt I would want to hear.”

I led him through into the kitchen, where he greeted Colleen, telling her how sad he was at Dennis’s passing, and how he will leave a huge gap, not just in the Defence Department’s administration, but in the world generally.

“I was privileged to have worked with him,” Kim said.”He typified the professionalism of public service and dedication to his country. His passing will leave a difficult vacancy to replace, his skills and talents were second to none. My sincere condolences on his death.”

I wondered what it was that Dennis actually did at the Air Force; Air Commodore was a pretty senior rank, only a few steps down from Chief of the Defence Force, the most senior military office in the country. The command position shifts between a senior navy, army or air force officer, and the current CDF was General Peter Gration, and there was a civilian Secretary of the Department of Defence, to jointly administer the civilian side of the system.

We stayed for a while, mainly talking with Fiona, until we felt it was time for us to go back to Cathy’s place. We didn’t want to overstay our welcome at Colleen’s place, not with her family there, and more people scheduled to arrive. We told Fiona that we would call back in the next day, and made sure she had Cathy’s home phone number if she needed us for anything.

The next few days we helped Colleen with all of the arrangements for Dennis’s funeral, which would take place on Friday morning. As I suspected, the service would be a full-blown Roman Catholic ceremony, with the parish priest visiting the house sometime on Thursday, followed by a Requiem Mass at St Christopher’s Cathedral. There would be the procession to the cemetery, where the graveside ceremony would take place. Then it would be back to Griffith, and the Eastlakes Football Club for the wake.

I was impressed with the funeral director; I initially thought he was some smarmy, obsequious weasley sort of guy, but he proved to be a great help to Colleen. He listened to what she wanted, how she felt Dennis would want his funeral conducted, and undertook to make things happen. He arranged for the priest to visit and plan how the requiem mass would be run, including what hymns would be sung, and made arrangements with the football club for suitable catering at the wake. All Lisa and I had to do was provide some sort of moral support to Fiona, Jim and Colleen, to help them cope.

I also had time to work on fleshing out some of the ideas I had for putting a ‘secure’ encrypted layer on top of the HTTP protocol to ensure confidentiality of personal information being set between the web browser and server. I felt that the overall concept was still missing something, maybe I needed to put the work to one side, let my mind concentrate on other things for a while. Of course, staying at Cathy’s place gave Lisa and me a good opportunity to speak with her, and try to discern what the underlying issues in her life were. Sure, there were the problems with Martin, him moving back to Melbourne, the divorce and all that, but we both felt there was something deeper concerning her. We couldn’t determine what the issues were, except that Cathy was happy – in fact, she suggested it – to sleep at night in bed with both Lisa and me. Not that I had any objection to that, and I was pretty sure Lisa enjoyed being in bed with her, too. Maybe Cathy was starting to embrace – or re-embrace – her bisexual side? I wasn’t sure, but I felt she had been starved for physical affection for so long, that she jumped at any chance to have some close physical contact with another person. She seemed to enjoy Lisa’s presence in her bed as much – if not more – than being in bed with me; I found it pretty arousing to be in bed with the two of them, and if Cathy wanted to give Lisa some affection, who was I to complain? Lisa certainly enjoyed being in bed with Cathy, and it always turned me on to watch her with another woman.

By the time Friday came, I had got my suit back from the dry cleaners, and had gone to a hairdressers that Cathy had recommended and had my hair cut and neatly styled. Lisa told me that I wanted to look my best for the service. Friday morning was cold, there was a layer of frosty ice over everything, and I was scraping the ice from the car windows.

“We don’t get this cold crap in Sydney,” I groused.”I knew there was a reason why I didn’t live here in Canberra!”

“Oh, stop being such a wuss, Will,” Cathy said.”Mark my words, it will be a lovely clear, sunny day by min morning, besides, a bit of frost is good to make you feel alive, get the blood circulating.”

“Humph! I would have preferred staying in bed with you and Lisa, getting my blood circulating in other, more enjoyable ways!”

“Come on, you shouldn’t be thinking of things like that, not when we are about to go to church and attend a requiem mass. Pure thoughts, Will!”

The car was ready for us to travel to the Cathedral, I went inside, got dressed, Lisa and Cathy were already dressed in their dark dresses. It was only a few minutes’ drive from Cathy’s place to the main Catholic Cathedral at Manuka, we arrived there with plenty of time to spare. We went over to where Colleen, Fiona and Jim were standing, Colleen’s other family members were with them, including Frank and Nola, and Deidre and John. We paid our condolences to them, and Fiona asked Lisa and me to sit with her on the pew at the front.

I told Mum that you two are really like family to me,” she said.”I think she sort of understood what I was implying, I didn’t want to spell things out, not with the other family members around, but they all know that you are close to me.”

Mary Beth, Chris, Stewie and Traci had arrived, and I introduced them to Colleen, Jim and the other members of the Mahon family. Mary Beth said that the rest of the band members – Paul, Phil, their wives and kids, along with Allison, Mandy and Andrew, Rachel and Bruce were not all that far behind them. Just as she said that the others arrived, and came over to greet Fiona. Soon it was time to move into the Church, Frank and Jim escorted Colleen, Lisa and I followed behind either side of Fiona; she reached over to hold our hands as we walked down the aisle.

The service was rather long, I had never attended a Catholic requiem mass before, but in addition to the prayers for the deceased, there was a full communion service as well. When it was time to receive communion, I went to the front with Lisa and Fiona, I was sure Dennis wouldn’t have objected to me partaking of the bread and wine. At the conclusion of the service, the coffin was taken to the waiting hearse, Patrick, Frank, Jim, John, and Colleen’s two brothers-in-law were the pall bearers. We followed behind, Colleen was just in front of us, and Lisa and I escorted Fiona outside.

It wasn’t all that far to the cemetery, at least not by what I would have thought, being accustomed to distances in Sydney. But it was probably a long distance, Canberra-wise, Gungahlin being at the northern outskirts of the city. Once there, we stood around the graveside, the coffin was placed on a support structure over the grave, the priest said a few more prayers, a few words were spoken by someone in an air force uniform – I assumed he was Chief of the Air Staff, or someone senior there – and a military escort played the ‘Last Post’, and there was a volley of gunshots from the colour guard. The coffin was lowered into the grave, Colleen had a few rose petals that she threw in on top of the coffin, Jim and Fiona did the same, and then a few handfuls of dirt were placed in, symbolising the actual burial.

I put my arm around Fiona’s shoulders, comforting her, Lisa did the same. She was visibly upset, tears were streaming down her cheeks. I couldn’t blame her, if I was in the same situation, I would be just as upset. Then it was back in the cortege to the wake, the football club had put on a reasonable spread of finger food, I spent some time talking with Deidre and John, asking them how things were going on their farm, Dee told me their news that she was pregnant, and the baby was due later in the year, in mid-November. I congratulated them both.

“I wasn’t sure whether I should tell you,” she said,”Fiona mentioned about your ... issues in that regard, and I didn’t want to make it appear that I was rubbing it in or anything, being insensitive.”

“You needed worry about that,” I said.”Just because I’ve been dealt a rough hand by nature doesn’t mean that I’m jealous of anyone else who can have kids. That’s great for you, I’m sure Frank and Nola are really happy.”

“When we told him, he said to me ‘now I know my baby daughter is having sex!’” John said.”I told him what did he expect us to do? But you’re right, they are both over the moon at the thought of becoming grandparents.”

We stopped talking, as the first of the eulogies was about to start, Frank said a few words about his deceased brother-in-law, how he had met his sister, and, in his words, ‘had stolen her away to Canberra’, but he really couldn’t be upset, as he was a great, loving husband to her, and a perfect father for his nephew and niece. After a few more words, and a couple of funny stories, he handed the microphone over to Kim Beasley.

“Colleen, Jim, Fiona; the rest of Dennis’s family, and friends, it is a sad occasion today, we are marking the passing of a great man, a dedicated public servant, and someone who I believe I was privileged to have worked closely with for the last two years,” he said.”One of the problems of being a politician, particularly a cabinet minister, is the people that you deal with professionally will often say things that they think you want to hear, you never know just how truthful and reliable the ‘advice’ they give you is. Many people temper their advice, modify their words so they think you will find them acceptable, they are reluctant to go against what they perceive to be the government’s position or my views on a subject matter.

“Dennis was not one of those people, he made it clear from the start that he wasn’t in this position, and he didn’t rise through the ranks to Air Commodore by being a yes-man. IF he thought something was a crock, he would say exactly that; with a few additional descriptive adjectives thrown in for good measure. I learned very quickly that I could take him at his word, nothing was sugar coated, and nothing was sanitised for my benefit. If he felt the government’s policy was wrong, he let me know in no uncertain terms, but he would have facts and figures to back what he was saying up. I never knew what his personal political views were, but they certainly weren’t important, he told me that his duty was to serve the country, and to provide impartial advice to whomever the Minister for Defence was.”

He continued in that vein for another few minutes, telling us how much he respected Dennis’s professionalism, and how he relied on the information and advice he gave him. I thought Kim gave a different perspective to Dennis from what I had known; I really didn’t know what he did in the Air Force, obviously from what Kim had said Dennis was involved in providing policy advice to the Government and to him as the responsible Minister.

That pretty much finished the speeches, Frank thanked Kim for his kind words, thanked all of us for being here today, and invited all of us to have some of the food provided. Lisa and I each got a plate, some of the little open-faced sandwiches, a sample of the cheeses, and a few little cocktail frankfurts.

“You have to have the ‘little boys’,” Lisa said, using the slang term for the cocktail frankfurts.”These sandwiches are really tasty, aren’t they?”

Kim Beasley came over to stand with us, and I made a comment about his remarks on Dennis, asking him what Dennis’s role was.

“He was one of the policy advisors from the Defence Force to my office,” he said.”Specifically, he would present analysis on various potential military threats to the country and our international interests. He provided a valuable counter-argument to the more aggressive advice we were getting through our allies, particularly from the US. Such a shame the cancer got him.”

“Well, that’s something that you should get the government to do, to tell the lawyers to stop being so bloody obstructionist, and that is to push through the compensation for all of those involved in the British / Australian nuclear testing,” I said.”Or are they hoping everyone involved will die from their illnesses, and the problem will go away?”

“I wish we could, Will, but it’s not that simple,” he replied.”The poms are refusing point blank to admit to any liability, saying all of the people involved were informed of the risks and were strictly volunteers. Which we know isn’t true, but they refuse to budge.”

“I guess we need to take a tougher line with them,” I said.”And while you’re at it, how about compensation for the families of the sailors killed in the HMAS Voyager disaster, and those affected by Agent Orange in Vietnam?”

“Voyager, we are working on that, Agent Orange, we are up against the Americans, if we give compensation to our troops, then they will believe it sets a precedent, and they will be obliged to do the same. They have tens of thousands more potential victims than we do.”

“Well, it seems to me that if we are going to ask Australians to volunteer to serve in our armed forces, to protect the country, and potentially put themselves in harm’s way for the country, it’s only fair that when they need our help, the country returns the favour and does everything it can to help them,” I said.

“You’re preaching to the choir with that, Mate,” he said.

As he moved off to speak with some other people, he told me he would try to get the compensation processes moving a bit faster, but wasn’t able to promise anything. That was probably as good as I could expect, I realized there were legal procedures the government would have to go through first. Lisa and I spent the next hour or so talking with many of the other people at the wake; Colleen’s sisters, Jim and people from his work, Fiona and two of the women she worked with at the museum who had come down for the funeral. By about 2:30, most of the people had left, and we decided to head back to Cathy’s place. We bade our farewells to Colleen, Fiona and the rest of the family, found Cathy, and drove back to her place.

We spent an enjoyable night with her, first we had a nice dinner at a French restaurant at the back of the shops in Manuka, and then it was back to her place where the three of us made love until almost midnight. I fell asleep, exhausted, but I was pretty sure Lisa and Cathy continued for a while longer. We slept in rather late, not getting up until ten o’clock for a combined shower. Over breakfast, we thanked Cathy for letting us stay at her place, and I told her that staying here was far more enjoyable than at a hotel.

“It was a pleasure having the two of you here,” she said.”It’s very lonely for me, each day when I get home from work, until I return the next morning, there’s no one to talk to, no interaction, no human contact. It wasn’t just the sex – which was fantastic, by the way, you are so lucky to share your bed with Lisa every night, Will – not just the sex, but having someone here to talk with, be around. You two are welcome to stay here any time you want to.”

“Thank you, Cathy,” Lisa said.”I really enjoyed the chance to stay with you, and get to know you better. Usually, it’s just Will that gets to see you on his visits to Canberra, but this time, despite the sad circumstances, I was able to come down too. I promise we’ll be back more frequently.”

“I expect I’ll be down more often, working with John Hilvert on his report on how the internet is likely to impact the country, and the sort of infrastructure and other changes that the Government should be looking at to prepare for it,” I said.”If Lisa can get the time off, she can come down with me, assuming that would be okay with you.”

“After last night, I would be most pissed off if you didn’t want to stay again, Lisa,” Cathy said, laughing.”And you, of course, Will. But I guess you’ll want to be on the road soon?”

“Yeah, I hate to eat and run...”

“Or fuck and run!” Cathy interrupted.

“Yeah, that too ... But we probably should make tracks, try to get to Sydney before it’s too late in the afternoon.”

We helped clear things up in the kitchen, then packed our bags, and put them in the car. Cathy came out to see us off, and after some long and tender farewell kisses – and a few tears from her and Lisa – we were on our way. Once we were clear of Canberra, I asked Lisa what she thought might be troubling Cathy.

“Apart from the obvious, losing her kids and her marriage breaking up?” she replied.”How long has she been bi? I don’t recall you mentioning that about her.”

“I never would have considered Cathy bisexual,” I said.”Sure as a teenager, she, Janelle and Lori fooled around a bit, but pretty much since she was sixteen, she’s been almost exclusive hetero. There was me, then a fling with a friend of a cousin in Brisbane, back to me, then Martin. I don’t think there was any dalliances with the two girls she shared a place with before she was married.”

“Well ... I can tell you she’s very, very, passionate? Is that the right word? But last night in particular, she was very, very intense. I felt that I wasn’t the first woman she had made love to, she was very skilled with her fingers and tongue. I wonder if because of what happened between her and Martin, she’s decided to explore other parts of her sexuality.”