Vale, Aveline

So many famil­iar faces. So many names from the past, changed bodies, changed people. So many I had never met, still would­n’t. Such a breadth of influence.

There aren’t too many people who get Tim Cos­tello out­lining their bio­graphy at their funeral and per­form­ing the com­mit­tal, have con­dol­ences from Sen­ator Kate Lundy, and the ACT health min­is­ter and vari­ous other politi­cians, whose name will be entered into Hansard, and who also have punks and goths dan­cing in the aisle as the coffin is lowered into the fires. And yes, dan­cing. With tears in their eyes. Ave­line would have appre­ci­ated it.

The speeches were great – cov­er­ing her time in Sydney, Can­berra, Mel­bourne. I’d helped write one but stepped back in the end to smooth over dif­fi­cult rela­tion­ships, and I’m so glad I did. Halo’s intro­duc­tion and con­tri­bu­tions made it per­fect and her deliv­ery was exactly what the thing needed. Grant and Renée, who were very close to her, spoke last, touch­ingly, saying good­bye yet again in a week full of so many good­byes. I wished her mother and brother long life, part of a Jewish tra­di­tion I think Ave­line would have appreciated.

All day, I kept want­ing to tell Ave­line about it all and she wasn’t there to tell.

A few of us went back to my place before the wake, vodka mar­tinis and shots of chartreuse. Changed clothes. 

The wake was everything it was sup­posed to be. I wasn’t much in the mood for dan­cing when I got there, so I sat down­stairs and downed cock­tails, talk­ing with Jack and vari­ous people. Then once, head­ing upstairs for some reason, I heard Liz and crew play­ing gui­tars and singing on the land­ing. I joined them and we sang for ages, songs of protest, songs of farewell, songs of power and love and sad­ness. Liz got Kate and Morgan to sit down and listen to the song she’d writ­ten for them, and in it I heard all my love for Doug, who has left already and who I miss so badly: “It’s cold where you are… stand tall, stand strong, together” (I may be mis­quot­ing, but those are the lyrics I remem­ber). It’s been in my head for days now.

Upstairs, I finally felt like dan­cing. It being a Mis­tress’s wake, there were nat­ur­ally flog­gings going on in one corner. Top­less punk dykes dan­cing in the same place as eth­er­eal hip­pies. Yes, Ave­line, you did cross bor­ders and bar­ri­ers, didn’t you? Towards the end of the night, Jaffa col­lapsing in my arms and Carla coming to help me sup­port her, sobs and pain. So many people real­ising the fra­gil­ity of human­ity and the short­ness of time, me apo­lo­gising to Mark, Ruth approach­ing me, Nigel and I having a heart-to-heart at 2 in the morn­ing on the landing. 

We stumbled out into the night when the club closed and off to Chin­atown for noodle soup, me and Chaedy, Ben, Nigel and Kate. Home at 4 and I’m drunk­enly on the phone to Doug in the US. 

Where to now? asks the night. Where to next? whis­per the shades of decisions past. Sleep claims me. It is Lugh­nas­adh, the fest­ival of har­vest, the time of reap­ing, the funeral games for Tail­itu. Life goes on.