by Kaye Dobbie
You’re lying! She is mine. You loved me. You wouldn’t have done that. Faith, how could you do that?
Conveniently forgetting that he had wanted nothing to do with her or the baby. Ray seemed to have forgotten a lot of his past, and she supposed that various substances had taken their toll. The overworked nurse who visited daily told her that he had some mental issues that weren’t helping him to come to terms with his situation. That probably explained the threats.
‘Maybe if you can help us persuade him to go into the hospice,’ she’d said. ‘It’s the best place for him. He needs looking after.’
Faith did what she could, talking to him about the past and what was best for his future, and eventually he had agreed. She’d even gone with him, and sat in his room and held his hand. He’d been calmer then, and it was a nice place, with a view from his window of a bright tropical garden.
‘I regret a lot in my life,’ he’d said, when she’d explained to him she had to go home, that there were people there who needed her. ‘But I don’t regret you.’
Now Faith cleared her throat. ‘There’s one more thing I wanted to explain. You probably think we should have told you, and maybe we should, but it was just the way things turned out. At first we didn’t want to, we were a family, and Hope was busy with her acting. We thought it could wait. And then when Hope became famous … that threw up bigger problems. It wasn’t just our secret, but one that the media would love to get their hands on. With her away so much, we just let it go. It was only when she said she was doing that program that we started to get really worried. If Ray hadn’t rung I probably would have told you before Hope arrived.’
‘But would you?’ Sam said. ‘I know the reasons why you waited, but … you should have told me a long time ago.’
Faith nodded, afraid she might start crying again. ‘I’m sorry, Sam. I really am.’
After a moment Sam sighed. ‘Okay.’ Faith thought she was going to say more on the subject, but then she realised she was letting her off the hook. For now, at least.
‘I’ve met someone,’ Sam went on. ‘He’s a musician, too. He was quite well known in the eighties. Now he makes more money out of his hobby, welding metal sculptures. He’s a nice man, kind, but I’m not sure you’d call him charming, and after what I’ve heard, that could be a plus.’
Faith recognised the look on her face. Oh God … But she swallowed down her doubts and concerns, telling herself that grabbing Sam and holding her tight and refusing to let her go was probably not the wisest thing to do just now.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Lincoln Nash.’
Faith stared at her. ‘You mean the guy who owns our cottage? Well that’s convenient! Mum will be over the moon if you marry him, you do know that? The cottage will come back into the family again. She’ll be round every five minutes.’
Sam laughed, her face pink. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she scoffed. ‘We’re taking things slow.’
‘Good, I’m glad to hear it.’
‘I can second that. She is trying to take things slow, but Lincoln is very keen. He’s even sucking up to your mother.’
Faith spun around. Joe! She meant to say it aloud but her throat had closed up, and as she flung herself into his arms she was trying hard not to burst into tears.
It didn’t work. She hadn’t cried when she was away. Now there were the tears streaming down her cheeks.
He was making little murmuring sounds, holding her tight, and she didn’t notice Sam leaving them to their privacy.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, kissing his face, burrowing into the warmth of him. ‘I thought I could stop him talking to the press, and then when I saw him … how sick he was. Joe, I had to stay. I wanted to come home, I missed you so much, but I had to stay and finish it.’
‘You should have told me,’ he said, and although his voice was quiet she heard in it the days and days of anguish. ‘I know you thought it was your problem, Faith, but it wasn’t. It was ours, and if I’ve ever made you feel differently then I’m sorry.’
‘Joe—’
‘All the same, you had no right to go off without at least talking to me.’
She ran a shaky finger over his cheek because he was crying too. ‘I suppose if I told you he didn’t have a phone and I had to go into town, you wouldn’t forgive me?’
He wasn’t listening. ‘Faith, I … I knew this guy had a pull on you, and you’d loved him once. He’d been part of your life at a time in your past when everything seemed to be lit up in technicolour. Didn’t it occur to you that I might be feeling a bit insecure?’
Insecure? Could Joe have really believed, even for a second, that she still loved Ray? ‘I went because I wanted to protect you and Sam. Hope, too. Because I messed up all those years ago and I wanted to make it right once and for all. It was never about him. Never.’
Staring into his so familiar face, she wondered if he believed her, and the thought that her crazy dash to Ray’s side might have ruined all she held dear in her life made her feel dizzy and breathless. And then Joe said, ‘I’m very glad to hear that,’ and it seemed more important to kiss than talk.
It was a while later that Faith asked him, ‘Do you remember what happened when I came home from the Angel? You came to see me and I wouldn’t let you in. You kept coming, and I kept saying no, and then finally …’
‘Was it the tenth time?’ Joe asked, a gleam in his eyes.
‘Could have been.’ She refused to be sidetracked. ‘When I finally gave in, we sat under the old willow tree, and everything just came spilling out of me. I couldn’t stop, even though I was sure it was going to put you off. I was positive that after what I’d done, I was beyond forgiveness, and beyond loving. I thought I’d tell you and then you’d walk away, and it was exactly what I deserved.’
‘I put my arms around you.’
‘You held me so tight and told me it didn’t matter and you loved me and always would. And after the first shock I started to cry, and then … I felt better.’
‘Looked awful though. Red eyes, snot, drool—’
She pushed him, laughing. ‘I’m being serious, Joe. Without you I doubt I’d be the woman I am now. You’re my hero and my husband and everything in between.’
He leaned forward and kissed her lips, a tribute to her words. ‘Are we back to normal now?’ he asked her.
‘Back to normal,’ she agreed.
This was love, true love, and Faith knew that when you’d felt the real thing, you never again mistook it for the cheaper version.
LILY AND FAITH AND HOPE
Some days later, Golden Gully
Hope noticed that Lily had the old porcelain teapot out on the table in her sitting room—it was one of the mementos she’d brought with her from the cottage to her new unit. Pompom was sprawled on the floor, ears twitching from the sounds of Dulcie’s television next door. He’d been missing Mitch, and Lily said it was probably time for a visit.
‘I’m not sure how Lincoln’s cat will deal him though,’ her mother went on thoughtfully. ‘Bad enough with Mitch. Sam said she had to separate them the other night. Not a fight, exactly, just a lot of noise.’
‘Sam is used to a lot of noise,’ Hope murmured, reaching for a shortbread. She paused, glanced at her mother, and then took a bite. Her face relaxed into a smile. ‘Delicious,’ she said.
‘Mum said you wanted to talk about something.’ Faith took one, too. ‘I’m due at the shop. Will it take long?’
‘It might.’ Hope brushed the crumbs off her fingers to give herself time to consider her story. She’d had thirty years to think about them, true, but she hadn’t tried to put those graphic memories into words since she was sixteen.
Lily gave her elder daughter a stern look. ‘You need to hear this, Faith. The desserts can wait.’
Faith hesitated and then, resigned, settled into her corner of the sofa.
‘I didn’t want to talk about this the other day,’ Hope went on. ‘There was alread
y so much to tell Samantha and it wouldn’t have been fair. It will all come out,’ she said with a glance at her mother, ‘when the time is right. But you need to know first. Especially after what Kitty said to me.’
‘You’ve seen Kitty?’ Faith’s voice was sharp.
‘Yes. And what she said helped me to make sense of what happened. You see, I’d always believed it was random, or maybe even my own fault, but now I don’t think that was the case. What happened to me was just the final link in a chain that connected us all. Bert Dalzell, you and me.’
Faith interrupted again. ‘And you knew about this?’ she asked Lily with a frown.
‘Yes. It’s something I needed to keep to myself,’ her mother said. ‘You’ll understand in a bit.’
‘Mum is one of the reasons I want to talk,’ Hope explained. ‘Time to take this particular skeleton out of the cupboard.’
‘Dalzell!’ The name caused Faith to give a shudder. ‘That name. Sam was asking me if that was who I was going to see in Queensland. She’d read about him running away up there. I didn’t tell her this, but if Dalzell was heading in one direction I’d be pretty certain to run in the opposite one.’
‘He knew you, didn’t he?’ Hope said. ‘Down in Melbourne, I mean, not up here.’
‘He was at the Angel a lot. He was sniffing around Kitty, but she was terrified of him, and with good reason.’
‘Kitty told me that he tried to strangle her once, during sex. She said he’d killed another girl the same way. She was always scared he was going to kill her, too. Or you.’
Faith was staring at her, green eyes enormous. ‘I think you’d better tell me this secret.’
It took Hope a moment to find her words, those words she hadn’t spoken for thirty years. ‘After you came home, when you and Joe got together, the cottage was empty most of the time. Mum had a part-time job—she’s told me that she was enjoying getting out and about, seeing new faces. It wasn’t,’ she added, raising her voice as her mother began to speak, ‘anyone’s fault. I’m not blaming anyone. It was just something that happened.
‘It was January nineteen seventy, and school holidays. Pete had got his National Service call-up, and he had a month before he had to report to Pucka for training. He used to come around and we’d go down to the creek, talk, and …’ Her voice drifted off and she glanced at Lily.
‘I think we can skip that bit,’ said Faith. ‘Tell me about Bert Dalzell.’
Hope nodded. ‘That afternoon was a hot one—whenever I think of that summer it always seemed to be hot. We’d been sitting under the willow, drinking Fanta, and we decided to walk into town. Pete had to work and I was going to hang around until he’d finished. We were together as much as we possibly could, and it still wasn’t enough.’
The sun was hot on her back and Pete’s hand sweaty in hers. They’d made love, and it was getting better every time. At first she hadn’t been that keen, but he’d said it would get better, and it had. He’d found some magazine that talked about a woman’s fertile time of the month and they’d worked out it would be all right without a rubber. He said he’d have to buy some contraceptives next time he was in Melbourne to see his uncle, because he couldn’t buy them in Golden Gully. If he did then everyone would know.
That was the trouble with living in a small town, everyone knew everything.
When she looked up there was a car coming towards them, a stream of dust in its wake, and they moved aside to let it pass. But it slowed down and stopped. The body was black and there were chrome headlamp covers and a chrome bumper bar. She should have recognised it, but she was still floating from having Pete’s arms around her, her body moving with his, and it was only when he wound down his window that she realised who the driver was.
Bert Dalzell. Golden Gully’s claim to fame.
At the time, it hadn’t occurred to her to wonder what he was doing driving up her road, towards her cottage, and later she’d tried not to think of it at all. When he offered them a lift they were quick to agree, climbing into the cushy interior, smiling at each other, as he turned the car around and headed back towards Golden Gully.
‘He kept looking at me in the rear-view mirror. His eyes were on me the whole time.’
She admitted to herself that it had felt good. That attention. She’d lit up because of it, flirting with Pete, tossing her hair. She was the star and he was her audience. Later she’d blamed herself for that, too, wondering if what happened next was her fault, if he had believed she was asking for it.
He didn’t drop them in town as he’d said he would. He drove right through, and when Pete started asking questions, he said he had to go to his house and would they like to see it.
‘I didn’t know that he was up here hiding out. I was in a world of my own that summer. I suppose I believed his wife and kids would be there. And then, when they weren’t, I thought: “Goodie, it’ll be more fun without them.” I wasn’t frightened or anything, just … excited. Pete was with me, you see, and I thought nothing bad could happen.’
Faith said nothing. Hope noticed she was sitting with her shoulders rigid, and hands clasped tightly together, almost as if she guessed what was coming. The silence stretched on until Lily made an encouraging noise in her throat, and poured more tea.
‘He brought out a bottle of whisky, said it was very old and very special. I wasn’t going to drink any, but Pete did. He drank quite a lot, and he wasn’t used to it. He said he needed to pee, and Dalzell sent him inside the house.
‘Did I say we were sitting outside in the garden? There was an area of lawn, and a table and chairs set up near the big rosebush. I was wearing one of his wife’s shady hats. It was so quiet out there, so peaceful. I was telling myself that when I was a rich and famous actress, I’d have somewhere just like that garden. Then Dalzell poured me another glass of whisky. He was talking about the sort of things he did in Melbourne, in parliament, but it wasn’t boring, not at all. He was making me laugh. He had an amazing voice, so easy to listen to. Smooth …’
‘Oily,’ Faith retorted.
‘I suppose so, but he was interesting. I didn’t find him sleazy. I think, if I had, I would never have stayed there drinking with him. Or maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe I was just too stupid to know what I was doing.’
Faith waited a beat and then said, ‘What happened next?’
‘He started to come on to me. Touching my hand at first, holding it in his. And then he was smoothing his fingers up and down my arm. I laughed because I still wasn’t taking him seriously, and I suppose I was a bit drunk too.’
‘A lot drunk,’ Lily corrected.
‘Probably somewhere between the two. Pete still hadn’t come back and I was looking around for him. I started to stand up, saying I needed to find him, but I slipped … lost my footing … At the same moment, Dalzell grabbed me and pulled me down onto the grass. It was nice and soft, and my head was spinning, and I realised he was on top of me.’
She had decided she wouldn’t go into detail. There might come a time when she had to—the police would want to know. The images flickered through her brain now, like a worn-out 1920s silent movie. His hands on her breasts, and then down the front of her shorts. The noises he was making, pulling at his own clothes, the pain as he tried to enter her. Once, twice, trying and failing. His frustration turned to anger as his body refused to perform as he wanted it to. She was aware of what was happening and yet removed from it, so maybe she should thank the whisky for that. The smell of the roses was very strong, overpowering. When his hands closed around her throat she sobered up pretty quickly though. All of a sudden, he was squeezing tighter and tighter, and she could feel how excited he was getting.
‘I couldn’t breathe,’ she said, her voice as matter-of-fact as she could make it. ‘I thought I was going to black out. I wouldn’t be able to struggle at all then and I could tell he was going to rape me. Choking me was making him hard. Then he let me go and I could breathe again. When I looked up Pete was standing
over us, and he was holding a cricket bat.’
Faith whispered, ‘Jesus.’
‘Faith,’ her mother reproved her, but her heart wasn’t in it. ‘You’re taking the Lord’s name in vain.’
‘I think the Lord was very much on Pete’s side that day.’ Hope gave a shaky laugh. ‘God was wreaking his vengeance on Dalzell.’
‘What happened?’ Faith said quickly, before their mother could intervene.
‘Pete pushed Dalzell off me and got me up. He straightened up my clothes and he was swearing, he was so angry. Not with me, with Dalzell. I was hysterical, coughing and taking big gulps of air. Pete said he’d gone upstairs and lain down on a bed because he felt sick, and then he’d heard me screaming. He got up and went to the window, and he could see what was happening. As he ran out the door, he picked up the first thing that came to hand—the bat.’
‘I’m sorry to ask, Hope. But did Dalzell say anything? I mean … while he was …’
‘I wasn’t paying much attention, but later, when I thought about it, I remembered him calling me his “lovely girl”. And then, before Pete hit him, he was calling me a “treacherous bitch”.’
Faith chewed on her lip but didn’t make any comment. Lily reached out to gently touch Hope’s hand, urging her to finish.
‘This is the worst part,’ Hope said, clearing her throat.
‘I can’t believe it could get much worse,’ Faith murmured. ‘My sister was attacked and nearly raped and I didn’t even know. She didn’t even think to tell me.’
‘I couldn’t tell you. Do you want to hear this or not?’ Hope said, her calm surface beginning to shatter.
‘We’re listening,’ Lily assured her. ‘Faith, please, this wasn’t to do with whether or not we trusted you. This was about keeping you out of it, and safe.’
Faith looked contrite. ‘Sorry.’
Hope tried to smile and failed. ‘Pete was saying that we needed to get out of there, and that we didn’t want to be around when Dalzell woke up. He said we’d take the car, leave it somewhere. I said I wanted to go to the police, but Pete said no one would believe us. And then in the middle of it all, he did wake up.