by Liz Byrski
‘And you’d look ten years younger,’ Amanda had said when she’d gone in for a trim before she left. ‘You won’t recognise yourself.’
‘Hmm. Well that might be a good thing,’ Ruby had replied, but she still hadn’t let Amanda cut it short. She had started growing her hair the day that she and Catherine left the convent. Years of having it hacked off first in the orphanage in London and then by the nuns had made her determined to wear her hair long for the rest of her life.
Somewhere in the very distant past she remembers her father: he is lifting her onto his knee; the coarse fabric of his uniform itches against her bare legs but she won’t complain because his arm is warm around her waist. He is stroking her hair, winding it around his fingers. ‘Just like a princess,’ he says tenderly, ‘my little princess.’ It’s all she can remember. After that he was gone, but the war remained. There were nights in the underground, wrapped in rough grey blankets, the stifling air thick with the smells of soot and human bodies. There were streets choked with cement dust, the ruins of bombed buildings, and the sound of sirens. Women queuing for food or hurrying home trundling wheelbarrows heavy with precious coal. And then there was the night when they set out for home after visiting her mother’s friend in Lewisham, and they didn’t make it to a shelter.
‘Come on, Ruby,’ her mother had cried, grabbing her hand as they heard the whine of the doodlebug, and they ran, following others who were heading for the safety of the station. ‘Can you run a bit faster, darling?’ But then her mother had tripped and fallen, and by the time she had struggled back to her feet it was too late. There was just the eerie silence then as they waited, terrified, to see where it would fall.
Later, much later, two men in tin hats pulled her from the rubble. The smoke and dust burned her eyes, and not far away an already half-demolished building collapsed bit by bit as though in slow motion and people fled in all directions. Even now she can remember calling over and over again for her mother as she was lifted into an ambulance. The princess had been transformed into a terrified orphan: homeless, fatherless, motherless, entirely alone, or so they said. The princess hair was matted, black and sticky with blood, ash and dust. That night, as she sat propped up on hard pillows in a hospital bed, a nurse had gently cut it away with surgical scissors. She was four then and it would be twelve more years before she regained control of her hair and could let it grow again.
‘I can’t let go of it,’ she’d explained some years ago in the salon, lowering her voice so that Amanda had to lean closer to hear her over the roar of hair dryers. ‘It’s about my independence, who I am. A bit like Samson, his strength came from his hair, and when Delilah came along and lopped it off he lost the plot. Can’t risk it, I’m afraid.’
She takes a final critical look at herself in the mirror now, and fiddles again with the messy bits of hair. It’s the trap of living alone, or one of them, she thinks, this constant self-scrutiny. It was worse in the past, of course, when she was young, when looking beautiful and desirable seemed so important, when it seemed to be all that mattered, when it could mean acceptance or rejection. But even at this age, when no one gives a damn how she looks, when lowered standards could be affectionately regarded as endearing eccentricity, it’s still there, this other critical self following her always, feeding back anxiety about how others will see and judge her, and it’s always negative. ‘Get over it, Ruby,’ she tells herself, ‘who’s looking at you anyway? Who the hell cares what an old woman looks like?’ and she strolls out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom.
‘I hope this is all right,’ Alice had said earlier, leading her in here and setting her suitcase down near the foot of the bed. ‘Declan asked me to get a room ready for you. Mrs Benson had moved into the lounge, so I assumed he meant what used to be the main bedroom.’
Alice couldn’t have known, of course, nor Declan. Ruby knows she would have done the same thing herself. It was considerate, thoughtful, and the large white porcelain jug filled with lavender and white roses was the obvious sign of a woman’s touch. Alice seemed nervous and anxious to please and a request for a different room would have come as a slap in the face.
‘It’s fine, Alice,’ she had said. ‘Lovely, in fact, and the flowers are beautiful.’
A look of relief had spread across Alice’s face. They have never met before but there is something very familiar about Alice; it’s a way of being that Ruby has come to recognise during years of working with women whose sense of themselves has been crushed by circumstance. It’s the aftermath of trauma: abuse, incarceration, mental illness, displacement, profound loss. Which, she wonders, is Alice’s story? What sort of horror is she emerging from?
‘Well I’ll get on then,’ Alice had said. ‘You’ll probably be glad of a rest after your drive, and … well, everything else. That poor boy, I do hope he’s going to be all right. I’m glad Declan went with him to the hospital. It didn’t seem right for him to go alone.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Ruby agreed. ‘Catherine mentioned him in her emails. She was very fond of him.’
‘Right. Well if you’re sure there’s nothing else, I’ll get on. Shall I make dinner for about seven? Declan’s bound to be back by then.’
‘Perfect. Is there anything I can do?’
Alice’s hasty response that she was best left to her own devices in the kitchen was obviously not mere politeness, and Ruby, still a little jetlagged and somewhat bruised by the reality of being back in Australia, in Perth, and now here in this house, had kicked off her shoes, lain down on the bed and willed herself to lock the memories back into the past where they belonged. It was nearly half past six when she woke, just enough time to unpack a few things and take a shower.
The sun is lower now, washing the skyline pink and gold, softening the outline of the distant tree-clad hills beyond the boundaries of Benson’s Reach. Ruby rests her arms on the windowsill. How often had she stood here watching the sun set, the kangaroos hopping cautiously out at first light and again at dusk. It was grassland in those days and there were trees closer to the house; beautiful then, it’s even more beautiful now that the purple haze of the lavender beds spreads into the distance. Catherine had changed the place for the better and built a fine business here. Ruby wonders how she managed it alone for all those years after Harry was gone. As young women they had learned the hotel business together, working for Harry’s parents in their Perth hotel. Catherine had put that experience to good use but it can’t have been easy. Ruby sighs and turns away from the window, wishing she were in any room but this.
There’s a tap at the door and Ruby straightens her shoulders and gets ready to face the real world again.
‘Sorry,’ Declan says, ‘sorry about all the drama, sorry that you didn’t get a proper welcome. Have you got everything you need?’
‘There’s nothing to apologise for,’ Ruby says, ‘and yes, thanks, I have everything I need.’
‘Good, that’s good,’ he says, nodding. ‘Alice says dinner’s ready when you are.’
‘Let’s do it,’ she says, stepping out and closing the door behind her, sensing that he too seems to need some sort of reassurance from her. ‘How’s young Todd?’
‘He’s going to be okay,’ Declan says, ‘but he presents us with something of a problem. I’ll tell you about that over dinner. Alice needs to hear it too.’
Paula is usually long gone by this time of day. Her hours are eight till four but stuff’s been going down today and she needs to keep tabs on it. It was different when Catherine was here. Paula knew everything that was going on then – not because Catherine told her but because she was careless. She left paperwork lying around, left doors open when she was on the phone or talking to someone in the office. At first Paula had felt a bit guilty about what some people might think was snooping or eavesdropping, but as time went on she was able to rid herself of that feeling because she recognised that what she was actually doing was keeping an eye on things. Catherine’s laxity left both her pr
ivacy and her possessions vulnerable; they always had seasonal staff passing through and often they were not the sort of people you could trust. Out drinking every night, hungover and smelling like a parrot’s armpit the next morning, they could take off with anything and you’d never see them again. Not that it had ever actually happened, of course, but Paula puts that down to her own vigilance. Besides, Catherine had become forgetful so an occasional nose through the paperwork on the desk enabled Paula to remind her about things. She made sure she did it in a subtle but confident way so that Catherine just assumed she must have told Paula things herself and was grateful for the reminder. Paula was pretty sure this made her indispensable.
It’s different now, of course. Things had started going downhill when Catherine, who’d been sick for some time, had taken it into her head to turn the lounge into a sort of makeshift bedsit. The only other places she went to were the kitchen, the bathroom and the office. Of course, Paula understood the logic, and she’d assumed that, apart from Catherine, she alone would have access to the room. At the very least she’d be going in and out to clean it. To Paula’s dismay the call to clean the room never came, though others were allowed in. Whatever that bloody Todd had done to be in there with her, Paula had no idea. Sucking up to Catherine, he was, a leech, just like his mother, always working his way in where he wasn’t wanted, taking what wasn’t rightfully his. The only other person who was occasionally allowed in was Fleur but she wasn’t the type to keep a person informed about what might be going on – in fact as far as Paula was concerned Fleur was a snooty cow and not to be trusted.
‘You do a fantastic job, Paula,’ Catherine had told her more times than she could remember, ‘worthy of Her Majesty the Queen, no less.’
Paula didn’t have much time for HM the Queen, but she did have a soft spot for Prince William; if she was good enough for Her Maj then why wasn’t she allowed to clean the room? Anyway, she needed to get in there now, and on her own. It was in Catherine’s best interests, after all: who knows what other people would think if they discovered what she’d been up to in there? And by now the place must be a pigsty. But the bloody door is still locked. This morning, as she passed the window, she’d caught sight of that Alice in there, just standing in the doorway. Then she’d come out again and locked the door and later Paula had seen her still wearing those stupid beads with the key around her neck, just like Catherine used to. As though she owns the place!
‘You should get another key cut,’ Paula had told Catherine a few times when she first moved her things in there. ‘Give me the one you’ve got and I’ll get it cut on my way home and bring it back in the morning.’
But Catherine had said it wasn’t necessary.
‘Suppose you were locked in at night and got worse, we couldn’t get in to help you.’
‘I don’t lock myself in at night, Paula,’ Catherine had said in that withering tone she sometimes used. ‘I simply like it locked when I’m not in there myself.’
It wasn’t true of course, Paula knew that. Catherine often locked herself in there alone, both day and night, and Paula knew why, but she also knew how to hold her tongue … well, sometimes she did, and this was one of them.
But today it’s been all action. With Alice snooping in the room and then out in the garden cutting roses while Paula was washing the kitchen floor, it was pretty clear that Catherine’s friend was due to arrive. Paula had spun out her work for as long as she could and then found a few other things to do. And then that nice woman in number six had arrived and she’d actually remembered Paula from the last time she was here.
‘What a shame about Mrs Benson,’ Mrs Craddock had said. ‘I really liked her and she had this place running beautifully. But it’s good to see you’re still here, Pauline.’
‘It’s Paula, Mrs Craddock,’ Paula had corrected her. ‘Yes, it’s very sad, and Declan didn’t turn up to help in the last few months so some things have been let slip. He used to be a big drinker, you see, not a very reliable person.’
‘But I guess they’ll get it back on track before too long,’ Mrs Craddock had said. ‘He’ll be grateful he’s still got you though, your knowledge of the place must be invaluable. And do call me Lesley, by the way.’
Paula had managed to crack a smile of acknowledgement at all this although there was no indication that Declan found her knowledge invaluable. In fact ever since he’d arrived she felt totally excluded. It seemed that as far as he was concerned she was just another member of the staff rather than a trusted insider who had been there longer than anyone, even Madam Fleur, who had been up and down to the office today on some sort of urgent business. And then Catherine’s friend had turned up and Todd managed to draw attention to himself by falling off the roof. So Paula has stuck around waiting to see what happens.
Now everything seems to have gone quiet. Even standing as she is, having a quick smoke around the corner from the kitchen, she can’t quite hear what’s going on. Paula crushes her cigarette end with the toe of her shoe, picks up the butt and stuffs it in her pocket. Well, she thinks, things are probably going to perk up a bit from now on. Ruby Medway seems pleasant enough and if she’s anything like Catherine she at least will see Paula’s potential and value her long service at Benson’s. Meanwhile she’ll have to find a way to get into that room and Ruby might be the answer. She, presumably, will have the task of sorting out Catherine’s things and she’ll need a hand. ‘And I,’ Paula murmurs, walking to her car, ‘am the obvious person to help with that.’
She had slept for a solid three hours but as Ruby helps herself to pasta and salad she realises it has done little to restore her energy – rather, it has relaxed the tension in her muscles and allowed the physical and emotional exhaustion to make itself felt. A good thing she had turned down Declan’s offer of wine or she would have been incoherent before she even started to tuck in to the food. They’re all on water, she notices; perhaps they too feel the need to stay cool and alert. There is something immediately likeable about Declan and it is partly, she thinks, the vestiges of that plump little boy with his reddish blond hair, freckles and intensely blue eyes. He’s still a little overweight, and not particularly fit; an anxious man, Ruby suspects, who finds it a struggle to play the role of host and proprietor that has, so recently, been thrust upon him. But she thinks she will both like him and trust him, just as Alice seems to do.
When Declan had introduced Alice that afternoon he’d described her as a good friend whom he’d employed to help them in the collective effort of sorting things out at Benson’s Reach. Ruby had assumed that they were lovers, but now it’s clear that, although they’re friends, they don’t know each other very well, and they certainly lack the physical ease conferred by intimacy, or even of people who have spent a lot of time together. There is warmth between them, and respect, affection certainly, but also the tension which speaks of a lack of familiarity. They are feeling their way with each other just as they are with her, and she with them. Like three animals trapped in the same enclosure, Ruby thinks, edging cautiously towards each other, but a change of pace and we will all recoil.
‘So,’ Declan says as he starts on his pasta, ‘is it too soon to talk about what we have to do, Ruby, or would you like to leave it until tomorrow?’
‘Not at all,’ Ruby says. ‘I want to know what you think. At the moment I don’t have a clue, but first I’d like to hear about Todd.’
Declan puts down his fork. ‘Yes – Todd. Well, the poor kid has broken his ankle in two places but is otherwise okay apart, of course, from the possibility of concussion. The hospital will be keeping an eye on him for the next few days. I feel bad about it because I should have talked to him sooner. Catherine apparently took him under her wing about three years ago. He was living with his mother in a caravan—’
‘I knew that,’ Ruby cuts in, ‘she mentioned him in an email. The mother was drinking and smoking dope.’
‘That’s right, and Catherine got Todd organised to come up here
a few times a week, to do odd jobs, maintenance, pruning, cleaning up, anything that needed doing, really, and she paid him cash.’ He pauses, clearing his throat. ‘It was quite touching, he was telling me about it while they were strapping up his ankle, and then he suddenly stopped and went quiet. I don’t think he’d talked to anyone about it since she died. He seemed to be trying hard not to cry.’
‘Cat thought a lot of him,’ Ruby says. ‘The last I remember her saying was that she hoped he’d stay on at school at the end of last year.’
Declan nods and swallows another mouthful of pasta. ‘Mmm, he told me that, but he said he needed to earn a living, and he wanted to keep coming here, so he got a part time casual job at the supermarket in town, which he won’t be able to go back to for a while at least. But he apparently only took that because it meant he could also keep working here for Catherine.’
‘But you said there was a problem for us?’
‘Yes, his mother,’ Declan says. ‘Apparently she took off to Bali with a man some months ago and all he’s heard from her since is the occasional postcard, so he’s living on his own in the caravan, going everywhere on foot or on his bike, and when they release him from hospital there’s no one to look after him. And I thought that if the hospital knew he was on his own they might get social services involved and send him off somewhere. So …’ he hesitates, flushing, looking down at his plate, ‘I said he could come back here. And I know I should’ve asked you first, Ruby, but—’
‘Of course,’ Ruby cuts in, ‘of course he should come here. It’s what Catherine would have wanted, what she would expect. Besides, he was injured working for us on our property so we have a responsibility to him.’
Declan looks up, relieved. ‘Great,’ he says, nodding furiously, ‘that’s excellent, I’m glad we agree about that. Alice?’