(MAUDE HUMS)
- ♪ Hush-a-bye ♪ - _
♪ Don't you cry ♪
♪ Go to sleep, my little babies ♪
♪ When you wake ♪
♪ You will find ♪
♪ All the pretty little horses ♪
♪ The bees and the butterflies ♪
♪ Mm, mm, mm ♪
♪ Mm, mm, mm-mm-mm-mm. ♪
(HUMMING FADES)
Shh!
The first guests will be here in 10 minutes. What are you doing?
I'm hungry.
Well, there is a helluva lot of party pies and sausage rolls out there.
You go and dig in.
_
- Cleo! - What'd she say?
Is it time?
Where's the... funeral... dead body... bereavement assistant lady gone?
Yeah, Bianca, she said she'd be back soon.
I don't think we could've done these last few days without her.
(CHUCKLES) I don't think we could have done anything
without that death doula.
Do you think Mum knew
a natural home funeral would be so much fucking work?
How's the eulogy going?
Yeah, you want run anything past us first?
Me?
- You don't want to say something? - Doesn't the oldest do it?
Oh, you're the performer.
Hey, I can't prepare a speech in eight minutes.
Are you seriously not saying anything?
Does it have to be me?
- I'll do it. - Great.
Yeah, that's... good. That makes sense.
What do I say?
All you have to do is just...
... think of some nice things about Mum.
(SNIFFS) OK.
Nice things.
Ah, like how she'd always let me have that special cereal on Sundays.
Or, like, whenever she was on the phone to you, Emma,
and you'd be talking about work, and she'd say,
"Stop it. You're making me so proud I'm gonna start lactating again."
You remember that?
But we can't make this speech about us.
This speech has to be about her.
It doesn't even look like our mother.
We've spent three days with this body
and I hardly see her there anymore.
Her hair.
Ah...
... some of her hair came off.
OK. Oh.
- Emma, it's in my hand. - I'm gonna vomit.
It's OK, give that to me. Just sit down.
You, um, you keep thinking about those nice things.
Just keep thinking about that eulogy. I'll fix this.
Ah...
Yeah, the nice things. Um...
There was that time that she broke my teacup set
and then every day after that she would leave this peace offering
of a new cup out the front of the...
I can't say that.
She liked...
What did Mum even like?
I still can't get used to it.
The smell.
The smell of decomposing body
isn't that bad when it's someone you love.
It's been three days already.
Surely she should have been embalmed or something?
No, embalming is environmentally unsound.
Mum was very specific in her will.
"And after five days, the maximum you can keep me at home
without embalming or proper refrigeration,
you will cover me with a shroud of your choosing...
Kitty will know the one that I like.
... and bury my body under the gum in the backyard."
(LAUGHS) Sorry.
I still have no idea which shroud she means.
Why are we even doing this?
Why are we trying this hard to follow her instructions?
I mean...
... do you think she knew it was illegal to be buried in the backyard?
Why did she even request that?!
If she gets buried in the backyard...
She's not getting buried under the fucking gumtree, Eli.
IF she gets buried in the backyard,
doesn't that mean Geoff technically owns the burial plot too?
The man relinquished all his rights when he murdered our mother.
- But if he gets off... - He's in prison, he gets nothing!
But if he got charged with accidental death...
The coroner was very clear, Kitty.
- But if he did get out... - He's not getting out!
Everything that was Maude's is solely ours now.
And we're not burying her in the backyard,
we can't do everything she wants.
Wanted.
But if she wanted to get buried in the backyard,
doesn't that mean she DIDN'T want to sell the house?
So if WE sell the house...
... is that...
... bad?
(SIGHS) Maybe she just didn't get around to updating her will.
Maybe she... didn't want any of this anymore.
Well, it does say, um...
"During this time,
family and friends should come round to our beautiful house
for an afternoon, to be able to view my body
and for a wonderful celebration to say a final farewell."
There's liquid dripping from the bed.
- (DRIPPING) - "Our beautiful house."
That sounds like she wanted to keep it.
- Eulogy. - Liquid!
What?
There's a great big puddle.
Is it the icepacks? Tell me it's just melted icepacks.
- Oh, she's leaking. - Oh, fuck!
- Oh, my God, that smell. - How is that even possible?!
Surely the coroner had to deal with that stuff?
The coroner doesn't prepare anything, Eli,
the coroner just released Maude to us, and me and Kitty,
and Bianca, the death doula, did all the body preparation.
- As per Mum's wishes. - No thank you to you, Eli!
Well, she's not going to care now, is she? Can we just wait?!
(DRIPPING)
Bianca will be back in a minute.
Well, clearly not, because she should've been here already.
Now, people are arriving
so maybe we can we just figure this out ourselves.
- Tampons. - Are you serious?
No, no, Bianca said you could use tampons for something like this.
- One of you, get out your tampons. - Well, I don't have any.
What do you mean you don't have any tampons?
I thought I was only gonna be in Adelaide for a couple of days.
Kitty, do you have any?
I don't know.
I moved out, remember?
Kitty, think. Would Mum have any in here?
I have no idea.
Um...
Surely our mother would've gone through menopause by now.
Surely.
God, I don't even know if our mother went through menopause or not.
This is gonna be the worst speech.
Whatever you say, Kitty, will be perfect,
just get something down on paper maybe.
Found some.
Super tampons. Perfect.
- How old do you think they are? - Does it matter?
It doesn't matter. Kitty, eulogy.
I don't know what to say about her.
There's a present here. For me.
Despite Eli and I having birthdays two days apart
she never made us share the same birthday party.
(GROANS)
Fuck! No, that's great, just keep going.
No, we can't make this about us!
This one's got an auto-tuner on it.
(CHUCKLES)
Maybe... Why don't you just think of a funny story?
What, like when Mum started leaking?
Eli, pass me another tampon.
Kitty, a tampon!
I remember when Mum tried to teach me how to put in a tampon
for the first time and... I was really nervous...
- CLEO: Mum? - No!
Just letting you know, folks have started rocking up.
Yeah, just some last-minute touches.
Cleo just wants to have a moment before everyone else comes in.
- Mm-hm. - You're messing up her hair.
I know, Toby.
- Emma, let me help. - No, stop, no. No, no fixing from you.
As you can see, we're just... We're not quite ready
so maybe if you two could come back in a second.
- I just want a moment! - Yeah...
... I get it, but we just need some time with our mum first, darling.
- I just wanted to give this to her. - Don't take another step!
No more yelling!
I'm sorry for the yelling but stay over there!
- (ELI SINGS) - What the hell?!
- Please just go! - What's wrong?
- I haven't had a moment! - I understand.
Can somebody please take her out of here?
♪ The bees and the butterflies ♪
♪ Fluttering round your eyes ♪
♪ Go to sleep, little baby ♪
♪ When you wake, you will find ♪
♪ All the pretty little horses ♪
♪ How black and bay, dappled and grey ♪
♪ Go to sleep, little baby ♪
♪ When you wake, you will find ♪
♪ All the pretty little horses ♪
♪ Go to sleep, little baby. ♪
♪ De bees and dem butterflies ♪
♪ Peckin' out its eyes ♪
♪ Oh, my poor little baby. ♪
It wasn't that version.
Oh, it was a slave song.
It's a mother singing about her own child not being cared for
while she sings for the owner's baby.
That doesn't make sense.
Why would Mum sing that?
(KNOCK AT DOOR)
You guys ready?
There are lots of people out here.
You OK?
(MAN HUMS LULLABY IN THE DISTANCE)
CLEO: Whoa. I don't know how that got there.
GHOSTLY VOICES: Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!
Ah, hi, everyone.
Um... thank you so much for coming today to celebrate Maude.
Um...
... I don't quite know how to start this but, um...
... ah...
... um... we didn't want to make this speech just about us.
And I didn't want to make it about him and what he did...
And, um...
... but all I can think of is that Maude loves us. (SOBS)
Loved us.
- (CHANTING STARTS AGAIN) - I'm sorry. I never cry.
Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!
(CHANTING STOPS)
Sorry.
Um...
... one time I came back... early...
... and I didn't tell Mum.
I wanted to surprise her.
I had prepared a big speech about how well I was doing in Sydney,
how great my life was since I last saw her,
how proud she'd be of me.
Ah, so I came around the back to just where you are standing now
and I spotted her.
She was just right... she was right there...
... and she was smoking a joint.
And she seemed so... happy
and content, just...
... smoking by herself.
I didn't know she smoked. (LAUGHS)
Did you know?
(CHUCKLES) Did any of you know?
Yeah.
(LAUGHS)
None of us knew.
Why didn't she want us to know?
So I walked back around to the front of the house
and knocked on the door.
"Surprise."
And she WAS surprised.
And she was really proud of me
and everything I'd been doing.
This isn't fair.
Because I always told Maude
that I would only come back to Adelaide for Christmases and funerals
and now I haven't broken that pledge.
Maybe I should've a long time ago.
Maybe we all could have had a joint together.
Maybe we still can.
Maybe I'll stick around.
But can I make one final suggestion?
Can we go look for Maude's stash?
♪ I won't be a winner ♪
♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ And you won't be a winner ♪
♪ You can just tell, you can just tell, you can just tell ♪
♪ That I'll never make it ♪
♪ You can just tell, you can just tell ♪
♪ That I'll never make it ♪
♪ You can just tell, you can just tell ♪
♪ That we'll never make it. ♪
- Synced and corrected by chamallow - - www.addic7ed.com -