Lost Without You

by Rachael Johns

  The thought of them splitting up was unbearable, but she was a realist. Her father probably had much more right to be angry and feel betrayed than she did.

  ‘We’re good.’ Rebecca smiled. ‘If anything I think this will make us stronger. Once I’m well again, we’re going to use the money we would have spent on your wedding for a big overseas holiday. We might even go to Vegas and renew our vows.’

  Paige laughed as relief and happiness filled her heart. ‘I think that’s a wonderful idea. There’s only a few months now until you’ll be able to have the transplant. I’m so sorry about saying Sol wouldn’t do it—I didn’t mean it, of course he will. He’d do it even if we broke up and even if I didn’t want him to.’

  A serious look crossed Rebecca’s face. ‘That’s sweet of you both, but I’ve decided I’m going to wait it out on the list for a deceased donor.’

  ‘What? No! Why would you do that?’

  ‘I just don’t feel right about doing it any other way,’ she said and then held up her hand. ‘And you can forget about trying to convince me otherwise, so don’t waste your breath. Dialysis isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It gives me a few hours a few times a week to sit back and read or do whatever I feel like doing completely guilt-free. And, I’ve made some good friends there.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Paige couldn’t help raising her eyebrows as her mother told her about some of her unlikely comrades. ‘A priest?’

  ‘He’s the least priest-like priest you’ll ever meet. You’d love him.’

  Before Paige could respond to that, the door opened behind them and her dad came in to find them still standing in the hallway.

  ‘Paige!’ He almost dropped the bag of takeaway food in his hand, but despite her mother’s less-than-fabulous health, she reached out and rescued it.

  ‘Daddy.’ Paige threw herself into her father’s arms. ‘I missed you.’

  ‘I missed you too, sweetheart.’ He pulled back a little and looked to her mum. ‘We both did.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘And Mum and I have just had a good chat. I’m sorry I didn’t let you be there for my big day, but with everything else going on, it just seemed right for it just to be the two of us. In hindsight, I’m a bit sad. It was a beautiful day, but it would have been even more meaningful if the two of you were there.’

  ‘Aw, darling. We’d have loved that too, but plenty of people have an intimate wedding overseas and then follow it back home with a celebration. Why don’t we do that?’ He chuckled. ‘It would give Lisette the chance to show off her backyard makeover after all.’

  She’d never known her father knew so much about weddings, but it was a fabulous suggestion. Her wedding to Sol had been the best day of her life and this would give her the chance to relive it all over again. Not to mention use some of Josie’s fabulous ideas for a reception. ‘Dad, you are a genius.’

  ‘Ah, I don’t know about that,’ he said, but his smile gave away his pride.

  Paige smiled back, but her excitement by the prospect of all that laid ahead dimmed a little when she remembered the reason she’d returned home today specifically. It felt wrong to be feeling so happy and relieved when her sister was about to face one of the saddest days of her life.

  Josie

  Josie had never experienced non-drinking related travel sickness in her life, but as Nik drove to Waverley Cemetery and she listened to her dad and Brenda chatter in the back seat, she felt each and every turn and tiny bump in the road. The moment he stopped, she leapt from the car.

  ‘Can you guys take care of Brenda?’ she managed to ask as her dad climbed out from behind her. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

  And then she sprinted into the cemetery and followed the signs to the public conveniences near the entrance. She’d barely even eaten anything for breakfast but as she dry-retched into the toilet bowl, she regretted that decision. You always felt better after a good vomit; then again, maybe even that wouldn’t be able to make her feel better today.

  ‘Are you okay?’ came a voice from just outside the door.

  ‘Clara?’

  ‘Yes, I noticed you dash in here.’

  She almost cried at the sound of the other woman’s voice. ‘Stomach upset,’ she explained and then flushed the toilet.

  When she emerged, Clara told her to splash her face with water, then gave her a tissue and a hug.

  ‘Lucky I chose waterproof mascara today,’ Josie tried to joke, but she couldn’t bring herself to laugh.

  ‘Come on.’ Clara took her hand. ‘Let’s go out and face the music. I want to introduce you to my sisters and I can’t wait to meet your father.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Josie whispered, and then let the older woman lead her out.

  A small crowd had gathered around Brenda, Nik and her dad and it was plain as day that the middle-aged women were Clara’s sisters. They were all of similar height, build and colouring. She wondered if people would ever look at her and Paige and see the similarity, although Paige had paler skin and lighter-coloured hair.

  The nausea lingered, but she tried to ignore it as introductions and small talk were made. She wished they could get the show on the road and get it over and done with, but Waverley was a busy place and they had to wait their turn. Next in line was a massive funeral if the crowd gathering behind a hearse and two big black cars was anything to go by. At the noise and sheer mass of people, she guessed the deceased was Italian.

  She glanced around at the tiny-in-comparison crowd that had formed for Robbie. If it weren’t for Clara’s sisters, their husbands and children, the attendees could be counted on one hand. And they were more here to support Clara than they were for Robbie; just like Nik and her dad were here for her. Once again Josie fought tears at the hopeless loneliness of her biological father’s life and death.

  A tap on her back jolted her from her thoughts and she turned to see Paige, Sol, Rebecca and a man she guessed to be Paige’s dad standing behind them. She was happy to see Paige and Solomon but didn’t know how she felt about the other two.

  ‘Hi,’ was all Paige said before giving her a hug. ‘How you doing?’

  ‘Pretty crap,’ she admitted. ‘Thanks for coming.’

  ‘Of course,’ Paige said as Sol came in for a hug.

  ‘Hello,’ Rebecca said. They also hugged but Josie had felt less awkward hugging Clara’s sisters and brothers-in-law and she’d only just met them that day. ‘I wasn’t sure if I should come but—’

  ‘It’s fine.’ Josie cut her off and withdrew from the embrace. She didn’t want to get into any kind of conversation with her biological mother right now. This day was about Robbie, not Rebecca.

  Paige introduced Josie to her dad and they exchanged a polite handshake, before Rebecca retreated to talk to Brenda. Josie thought she had some nerve showing up, never mind actually talking to Rob’s mother, but she wasn’t about to make a scene and Clara and her dad were looking after her anyway.

  As the other funeral party began to slowly walk behind the black cars, Nik exclaimed, ‘Holy smokes. Is that Stevie Galloway?’

  Clara gasped as Josie, along with everyone else in Rob’s funeral party, turned to see a tall man in dark sunglasses swaggering towards them with two other blokes she didn’t recognise on either side of him.

  The trio singled Clara out and pulled her into their arms. ‘Long time, no see,’ said the man pushing his sunglasses up onto his head.

  Josie was too stunned to be impressed by the fact Nik had recognised the once lead guitarist for One Track Mind, who had gone on to start another band, which had done quite well, and was now a well-respected judge on The Voice. She took a closer look at the other two and decided they must be Brad, who used to play drums, and Jonno, the keyboard. If she remembered correctly, Brad was an accountant or something now and Jonno was a piano tuner—either way, Stevie was the only member of the band still in the public spotlight.

  If the arrival of
Rob’s band-mates wasn’t overwhelming enough, a number of other well-known Aussie musicians began to appear. By the time the funeral directors announced it was time to start walking, Robbie had quite a respectable crowd and Josie wasn’t simply nauseous but shaking at the thought of talking to these people after the service.

  Still, trying to put her nerves aside, she stood on one side of Brenda with Clara on the other, everyone else following behind as they walked a short distance to the graveside where the service would take place. Robbie’s hearse came to a stop and Nik, along with Clara’s brothers-in-law and oldest nephew, carried the coffin to its resting place.

  Josie hadn’t thought there’d be many people at the service, but there wasn’t a small number of mourners gathered on the grass between the graves overlooking the water. Her heart swelled with pride that all these people had come out of the crevices to pay respect to her biological father. If only he’d known how much he was loved and respected after all. If only he’d held on a little longer.

  Once the coffin was lowered, the pallbearers stepped back, stooped their heads in respect and retreated. As the celebrant from the funeral home welcomed everyone, Nik came to stand next to Josie and took her hand. Her other one was clutched tightly around Brenda’s. The celebrant said a few short words, thanking everyone for coming and then Clara stepped forward to deliver the eulogy. She spoke clearly and with poise but didn’t gloss over the ugly parts of Rob’s life.

  ‘Robert Jones was born in the rural town of Cobar to doting parents, Malcolm and Brenda Jones. Sadly when he was only two years old, Rob’s father died in a tragic mining accident and Brenda became a single mother. Rob attended Cobar Public School and from an early age showed a gift for music. Although music lessons were expensive and Brenda was struggling to make ends meet during much of Rob’s childhood, she sacrificed many other things so he could learn the piano, the guitar and later the saxophone.

  ‘He was good at any instrument he picked up, but his true passion lay in singing and songwriting. Rob had an amazing voice—at his insistence teachers at Cobar High School started a choir and in his second last year at school Rob formed his first band. It was in this group that he met his first love, she was their female vocalist and the two of them hit it off almost instantly. According to his mother, they were inseparable. Both had their sights set on a music career and were undoubtedly far more talented than the others in their high school band.

  ‘What most of you probably do not know is that she and Rob had a child. Although legally forced adoption was a thing of the past, that’s in essence what happened with their baby. His girlfriend was sent away to have their little girl and she was adopted into a loving family in Western Australia, but the guilt of his involvement in this and the grief over losing his child was something Rob never recovered from. At first he channelled all this emotion into his music. He moved to Sydney and formed a new band with like-minded individuals—some of whom are here today.’

  Here Clara paused and sought out Stevie, Brad and Jonno in the crowd. She spoke about their successes playing in pubs and clubs, and shared a few anecdotes of how the group were like brothers to each other. ‘It was Rob’s song, “Lost Without You, Baby”, that got One Track Mind a record deal. Although he never let on publicly, that song was about the loss of his baby and was written from somewhere deep in his soul.

  ‘I met Rob just as the band’s success was kicking off. He had appendicitis and I was one of his nurses.’ Clara spoke wistfully about their first few blissful years together. ‘Rob was a complex and very driven man, however not long after we were married, I fell pregnant. Sadly we suffered a number of miscarriages and had a daughter who wasn’t born breathing. These losses reignited the battle with depression Rob had been suffering since the adoption of his first child. He turned to alcohol to try and deal with this guilt and grief but this only made the black dog worse and he had to keep drinking more and more to numb the pain.

  ‘His band-mates, his friends, his mother and myself all did our best over the years to help Rob conquer his demons, but sadly there was nothing any of us could do and Rob lost this battle two weeks ago. The one thing Rob always wanted was to find that baby he lost to adoption and what makes his passing ever more wretched is that, unbeknownst to him, he did meet the child he’d never been able to forget.

  ‘Rob and his daughter Josephine met outside a pub in Coogee and although they had no clue what they were to each other, they talked and connected on some level. Josie opened her heart to Rob and he suggested she get some counselling, which led her to me. A few weeks after this poignant meeting, Josie came to me and it was only a matter of a few more weeks before we discovered our connection, but tragically by this time, Rob was already missing.’

  At this point Clara sniffed—it was the first sign of emotion she’d shown since she’d started to speak. ‘Rob and his daughter not only bear a physical resemblance but Josie shares his love of music. Through her Rob’s passion will live on and I know he would have been super proud of the wonderful woman she is.’

  With one final nod at the coffin, Clara took her position beside Josie and Brenda again. They hugged briefly but tightly as the celebrant took over once again, asking if anyone wanted to say a few words. Josie didn’t know what she would say, but felt she should say something and also she wanted to.

  With shaking legs, she took a few steps forward and then turned to face the crowd.

  ‘I never knew my biological father personally—or at least I didn’t realise until it was too late that I did—but I’ve known him from a distance for a long time. Those who know me know I sometimes joke about being born a decade or two late because, while I don’t mind modern music, my favourite bands and singers are all from the eighties. I found One Track Mind’s first LP in an op shop when I was a teenager and I fell in love with their sound. Now that I know “Lost Without You, Baby” was about me, I …’

  But Josie couldn’t go on. Tears she so far hadn’t shed suddenly burst from her eyeballs and she found her throat so swamped with emotion she couldn’t speak. Finally, she too turned to the coffin, silently told Rob she’d never forget him and then retreated.

  Nik pulled her close to his side and she stayed there, her head resting against his chest, as others came forward to say their bit. Rob’s band-mates made everyone laugh as they shared anecdotes from their times on the road and finished with an apology that they too had never managed to help him.

  ‘We’ll always wonder if there was something else we could have done,’ finished Stevie Galloway.

  At the end of the service the celebrant thanked everyone for coming and invited them all to a celebration of Rob’s life at Clara’s house. Then, as the coffin was lowered further into the ground, Stevie Galloway started to sing ‘Lost Without You, Baby’ and slowly the rest of the attendees joined him.

  Josie had never heard of anything like this ever happening at a funeral but it felt strangely right. It was the perfect send-off for her father and she hoped somehow he could hear them from the afterlife.

  Afterwards while she stood with Brenda and Clara as everyone offered their condolences, she found she was no longer flummoxed about being in the presence of some of her music idols. They were just normal people and told her it was their honour to be there. Stevie Galloway even said she should get in contact with him if she ever wanted to pursue a music career of her own. At thirty-five Josie felt like it was a little late to be starting down such a path and, while she’d loved her time working in musicals and singing in the eighties cover band, since leaving London she’d been happy to keep her singing and acting as a hobby. Besides, she liked her current job, felt she made a difference to the kids, and wanted to focus on her and Nik’s family now.

  Lost in these thoughts, she was actually surprised when Rebecca appeared before her. Josie hadn’t noticed her during the service and had almost forgotten she was there at all. She waited for her anger towards this woman to flare but suddenly all she felt was pity. As she took i
n her biological mother’s bloodshot eyes, she thought about how weird and hard this must be for her as well. And for the first time she noticed a resemblance between the two of them.

  They were both ugly criers.

  ‘It was a beautiful service,’ Rebecca said, her voice not much more than a whisper. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  And Josie knew this wasn’t the same sorry for her loss that the other attendees had uttered, but an apology that went back years and much deeper.

  ‘Thank you.’ She nodded but Rebecca didn’t make a move to go.

  Instead, she dug into her handbag and pulled out a package wrapped in brown paper. She pressed this parcel into Josie’s hands and her voice shook as she said, ‘They’re mix-tapes that Robbie gave me when we were together and some letters he wrote to me. I’m not sure if you’ll be able to find anything to play the tapes on, but the songs are listed on the side and the letters might give you some insight into who he was, our feelings for each other and how much we would have loved you. They’re yours. If you want them.’

  A lump grew in Josie’s throat. She held the precious parcel close and then said, ‘Are you not coming to the wake?’

  Rebecca bit her lip, then, ‘I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome.’

  ‘Come,’ Clara, who was standing beside Josie, said. ‘We should all be together this afternoon.’

  And Josie agreed.

  Hours later, Josie sat in Clara’s lounge room with her grandmother drinking tea. The last of the guests were gone. Clara’s sisters and Rebecca had made sure the kitchen was spotless and all signs of the eating that had gone on vanished before they’d left, Stevie Galloway had been collected by his driver a couple of hours ago and Nik had just taken her dad back to their place.

  ‘Well, that wasn’t bad as far as wakes go,’ Brenda announced as she lifted her china teacup to her mouth. ‘It was lovely to see some of Rob’s old friends.’

  Josie wondered if Brenda was thinking of her son’s music mates or Rebecca or both, but all she said was, ‘Yes. I’m glad I got to meet everyone and learn more about Rob.’