INTRODUCTION & DISCLAIMER - Now the dysfunctional Hawkins family road trip has come to a shattering end, what will happen to them now they are back to reality and famous not only in Australia but overseas too. Will they get back to normal, well as normal as can be for such a dysfunctional family? Or does is there one final twist in this very strange tale?
Read the 8th & final chapter of this story series to find out. Take note of the strong adult themes and content that might not be to every readers' taste. All characters and events depicted are fictional, with similarity to real persons living or dead coincidental and unintentional. Please enjoy and rate and comment.
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The day of Alistair Hawkins' funeral -- a Friday - dawned bright and sunny across Sydney, but in the Hawkins house Faye felt as gloomy as the darkest night on the coldest and wettest day in winter. Had Alistair died from natural causes such as a stroke or heart attack then it would have been hard enough, but to actually see Alistair simply vanish into a furnace of flames with no source, every part of him consumed apart from his lower right leg and foot with his clothes sporting not even singe marks was just overwhelming for the widow.
Adding to the despair was the relentless intense media coverage the Hawkins family had been subjected to following the bizarre road trip that culminated in the death of the father, who exploded in a rare case of spontaneous human combustion in front of many witnesses in Hyde Park. It seemed that every media outlet in Australia was providing round the clock coverage of the events, and it was big news in other countries too. Still, Faye tried to put on a brave face and donned a black dress, hat, stockings and shoes to farewell her husband and the father of their three children. Bracing herself, the petite red-haired widow knocked on the door to the granny flat where eldest son Brendan hid.
"Brendan, it's your father's funeral today," Faye pleaded. "Please get dressed and come with us to the chapel." No answer. Faye continued. "Brendan please, come out and come with us, the car is on its way." Still nothing. "Brendan, it is very important to me and the rest of the family that you be there today to farewell your father. Cornelius and Erica will be there, you need to be too."
Her pleas were met with the same stony silence. It was the same when they had arrived home -- Brendan found hiding in the roof space drinking his own urine after hiding up there for over a day from the police forensic teams who had secured the property as a crime scene - and Faye had tried to talk to Brendan in person about his father's mysterious and tragic death in Hyde Park. Brendan had refused to come out to see his mother and it was left to Erica to write a note to her older brother advising him that their father was deceased. Brendan had not reacted to the note, either personally or by writing something down on a piece of paper and sliding it under the door.
"He won't come out," Faye lamented to Erica as she and Gavin stood behind her.
Erica, wearing a black dress, stockings and shoes, gave her mother a reassuring hug. "It's okay, Mum. He probably was never going to come out, even for Dad's funeral."
"It was worth a try," sniffed Faye, her eyes watering, Gavin pulling some tissues from the top pocket of his suit pocket and handing them to his girlfriend's mother, who used them to wipe her tears away. "Thanks Gavin."
Minus Brendan, the Hawkins family waited for the car to arrive to take them to the funeral home, where they would then follow the hearse to the cemetery in the Ryde area. There was Faye of course, along with Erica and Gavin, and Cornelius and Danielle. Like Faye and Erica Danielle wore a black dress. Gavin wore a smart dark suit with a black tie and Cornelius a dark suit and tie too, although somehow he managed to make it look scruffy.
One bright light over the past ten days -- Alistair's funeral delayed due to the involvement of the NSW Coroner's Office as it was an unusual and suspicious death -- had been the funeral directors, who had done a marvelous job and a picture of professionalism working with an unusual family in a very high profile and very unusual death.
The large black funeral company limousine pulled into the street and drew up alongside Number 9, the family climbing into it to go to the funeral home where Alistair's body lay in state pending the funeral. Well that was supposed to be the case, but with Alistair a victim of spontaneous human combustion most of the job had already been done and all that remained of him -- his right leg below the knee -- had been cremated since then. As it was Alistair's ashes were already in an urn, which in turn was in a small wooden coffin usually used to farewell babies and small children who died prematurely.
Approaching the funeral home, a second limousine pulled in for the Hawkins funeral and Faye cringed as she saw the wheelchair on a special hoist on the roof of this car. She knew whose wheelchair this was and she cringed even more at the sight and sound of the woman who occupied it -- Mrs. Edna Hawkins -- Alistair's mother.
Faye hadn't wanted her mother-in-law at the funeral, she was so far gone it would be doubtful that she would be able to understand what was going on, and depending on her state of mind she would either go straight to sleep with drool running down her face, or far worse be disruptive. However, Alistair's two awful sisters Joan and Patricia who were here with their husbands and Alistair's brother David younger than his late sibling by a year, and just as misanthropic as Alistair had insisted their mother be there. Next to David stood his wife Wilma, who as usual looked like she had been sucking unripe lemons and limes.
The moment Faye stepped out of the limousine it was clear that the Hawkins family matriarch was in one of her disruptive moods. "Get your hands off me!" the old woman spat at a young man from the undertakers who was trying to assist her out of the funeral car and into her wheelchair. "I thought you were a homosexual, but obviously I was wrong. If you're going to be a sex pervert young man, at least do it with girls your own age not a woman in my time of life."
When the bad-tempered old woman was finally out of the car, she said, "I want to see Alistair. At funerals you always get to see the body. It was the same with my husband. Why can't I see Alistair and why can't we have an open casket like his father had?"
David Hawkins sighed. "Mum, we've been through this already. Dad had a heart attack, Alistair died in a fire, you can't have open coffins for burns victims, it's too upsetting."
Edna Hawkins snorted in derision. "How did Alistair die in a fire? Serves him right if he was playing with matches again. Silly man."
Granny Hawkins thankfully seemed to fall asleep in her wheelchair and it was up to her remaining son to push her into the funeral home. All was pretty much standard except of course for the family being unable to see the body, and Erica and Faye signed some necessary paperwork as an undertaker carried Alistair's coffin out of the funeral home to go into the hearse, the young man admonished by the Hawkins family matriarch a wreath of flowers.
