In the Company of Strangers

by Liz Byrski

  ‘Gentlemen! What can I get you?’ Alice says with a big grin as they reach the counter.

  ‘This is amazing,’ Declan says, looking around. ‘I can hardly believe that just a few weeks ago this place was closed and silent as the grave. Todd and I are off on a walk around the boundaries, marking out our territory. Want to join us?’

  Alice laughs, indicating the packed tables and the frantic activity in the kitchen. ‘You’re kidding! There’s no way I can leave now.’

  He nods. ‘Thought you might say that. So, any chance of us getting two man-size burgers to take with us?’

  ‘Huge ones,’ Todd says, grinning at Alice.

  ‘Double with cheese?’ she asks, tugging at the peak of his cap.

  They stand together, watching as she gathers the buns, takes the burgers from the grill, adds the cheese, tomato, pickles and salad and wraps them in thick paper serviettes.

  ‘Your order, gentlemen,’ she says as she hands them their food. ‘Enjoy your meal.’

  Declan gives her a twenty dollar note and she takes it from him, rings up the charge and drops the change into his open hand, but before she can move away he grasps her wrist and draws her towards him across the counter.

  ‘Alice,’ he says, his voice low but still audible, ‘thank you. I feel like you’ve saved my life.’

  She leans forward further now, putting her other hand on top of his, and stretches across the counter to kiss him on the cheek. ‘It’s mutual,’ she says. ‘It really is, just like it’s always been.’ And then she turns away, back to the kitchen where one of the casual staff is panicking about an overcooked quiche.

  Todd bites into his burger and feels the delicious meaty juice trickle down his chin. He’s had the best ever day and it looks like tomorrow will be better still. The musicians are treating him like one of them, but a special one who belongs to this place and knows how to find what they need. Some of them have come in their own small coaches or mini buses and are planning to sleep in them. And later this evening Jackson Crow himself, along with The Crowbars, will be here and Declan has given Todd specific instructions about looking after them. He can hardly believe how his life has changed in the last few months. He’s even stopped feeling guilty about not wanting his mum to come back and while he still wishes that Fleur would stay, he knows now that he’ll be okay if she does go because he’s got a place of his own here now, at least for the time being.

  It’s still and warm as they perch for a moment on the low wall to concentrate on eating. Beyond them people sit on rugs, or in collapsible chairs, talking and occasionally singing, and the light from the oil lamps seems to grow stronger as the final vestiges of daylight fade away. Sitting on a big Esky a man with long straggly hair and a bandana tied around his head is strumming a guitar and singing something vaguely familiar.

  ‘Look at that,’ Declan says, nudging him, ‘a Willie Nelson look-alike. He’s even singing “On the Road Again”. In your dreams, brother.’

  Todd has never heard of Willie Nelson, but he laughs because he likes this, likes being here with Declan. He’s never felt close to a man before. His dad had done the disappearing trick before he was even born, and he’d grown up with his mother in the caravan, very much alone. He had grandparents whom they’d visited a few times in Perth, but Pop was mostly drunk and Nan was always shouting at him, or at Todd and his mum. So it hadn’t bothered him when they’d stopped going there. Todd thinks about his mum quite a lot. He likes getting the cards because it means she’s okay, but he doesn’t really miss her because she’s so hard to be around.

  They toss their rubbish in a nearby bin and stroll around the field, stopping from time to time to chat to the campers, listening to the music from various tents. Sometimes, like now, Todd pretends Declan is his dad, that they have some sort of shared history that links them not just now but into the future, a future in which they will always be there for each other. Declan treats him like an equal but Todd senses that he’s also looking out for him, and that’s a really good feeling. It’s as good, no – it’s better – than being with Catherine, although he feels a bit guilty thinking that, as though he’s being disloyal. But that’s how it is. He tries hard not to think that he’s living a charmed life which could soon come to an end: Benson’s Reach sold, and the people who now seem like a family to him dispersed, Ruby back to London, Alice and Fleur to who knows where. And Declan, where will he go? And, Todd wonders, is it remotely possible that wherever it is there might also be a place for him?

  ‘Looks good, doesn’t it?’ Declan says, smiling with satisfaction as they reach the newly erected stage. Close up it seems huge, high and wide with a flight of steps at the side and an imposing canopy. ‘Let’s go up there and take a look around.’

  As they mount the steps Todd imagines himself running up here and out onto the stage into the glaring white cone of light from a super trouper. He hears the roar of applause and the adoring fans chanting his name as he grasps the mike and launches into his first song.

  ‘It must be awesome being up here,’ he says as Declan joins him in the centre of the empty stage. And they stand together in the darkness, looking down the slope where, for the next few days, there will be a solid mass of people. ‘Imagine it, all those faces, all those people waiting to hear you, clapping and yelling your name. Awesome.’

  ‘Right on,’ Declan says. ‘We should’ve been rock stars, Todd. Fame and fortune, women screaming and throwing their knickers at us.’

  ‘Gross,’ Todd says. ‘I’d have a stretch limo standing by, with pizza and a huge flat-screen TV.’

  ‘You still may,’ Declan says, ‘who knows what’s ahead for you, Todd? Sometimes I think you could do anything you set your mind to.’

  Todd is not sure if this is a compliment or whether Declan is just being nice. ‘Mrs Craddock’s back,’ he says. ‘She was in the café just now. Did you see her?’

  ‘Our café?’ Declan says, turning to him in surprise. ‘No I didn’t see her, but she sent me a text saying she was coming back today.’ He sighs. ‘I stuffed up there well and truly, Todd, and I’m going to have to meet up with her and sort it out. Word of advice …’ He stops suddenly and Todd looks up at him. ‘No,’ Declan shakes his head, ‘you don’t need advice from me. I’m a total loser when it comes to women.’

  ‘Well then, you could tell me what not to do,’ Todd says, trying to sound encouraging. ‘You must’ve worked that out by now.’

  ‘Not sure if I have, mate, not sure at all. But I will tell you one thing – short-term gratification has its rewards but in the end it’s just that, short term, essentially unsatisfying, and usually comes with messy complications.’

  Todd is not sure he knows what gratification is, but he does grasp Declan’s overall meaning. ‘When Alice came I thought you and she were … like … a couple,’ he says.

  ‘Me and Alice?’ Declan pauses, looking down across the wide open space to the soft lights of the oil lamps and the shadowy shapes of the campers and their tents. ‘Me and Alice,’ he says again. ‘No, man, she’s way out of my league. Besides, she’s got a few other things on her mind right now.’

  ‘What, about the prison and that?’ Todd asks.

  Declan swings round towards him so fast he almost trips over. ‘Prison?’ he says, grabbing Todd by the shoulder. ‘What d’you know about that?’

  Todd twists away from his grip. ‘Get off,’ he says, rubbing his shoulder. ‘Nothing, I just know she was in prison, that’s all.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘No one told me, I heard Paula talking to Mrs Craddock on the phone, she was telling her about Alice then. I overheard it, that’s all.’

  ‘Have you told anyone else?’

  ‘’Course not, not my business, is it? I only said something then because of what you said, about her having other things on her mind. Sorry.’

  Declan relaxes his grip. ‘No, no, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I should’ve known you wouldn’t … but look, Todd, Alic
e isn’t a criminal, you know. She was driving, she had too much to drink and there was an accident, and someone … well someone died. It could have happened to anyone. There were many times in the past when it could have happened to me.’

  ‘But Alice doesn’t drink.’

  ‘Not anymore, but she used to. We both did. That’s how we met, at Alcoholics Anonymous. Have you heard of that?’

  Todd nods. ‘Mum went there once. I think she went because Paula was always nagging her to, but she came back pretty quick and never went again.’

  ‘Paula told her to go?’

  Todd nods. ‘Yeah, she went on and on about it.’

  ‘So Paula knows your mum?’

  Todd laughs. ‘Knows her? Yeah, ’course she does, they’re sisters.’

  ‘You never told me that.’

  Todd shrugs. ‘I thought you knew. Catherine knew. Paula told her when I first came to work here. She told her she shouldn’t let me come because I’d only be trouble.’

  ‘That’s interesting,’ Declan says quietly, ‘very interesting. She told me that too. So what’s Paula got against you?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Todd says, bored now with the conversation. ‘She’s always been like that. Mum just said they had a big fight a long time ago and never made it up. So Paula hates Mum and I s’pose that’s why she hates me too.’

  Lesley has been trying to find Declan in the crowded field. It really is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack because the place is swarming with people who all seem to be in a party mood, although the festival doesn’t start until tomorrow. Lesley has never been to a music festival. In her youth Perth had not had much to offer in terms of the counter-culture and in any case her parents would have been horrified by the mere idea. Music festivals were for hippies, hotbeds of illicit sex and drugs, something from which daughters should be protected. Indeed, Bert and Dolly had very little interest in music at all and their record collection could be counted on the fingers of two hands: some Vera Lynn, the soundtracks of The Student Prince, The King and I and some Mario Lanza LPs are all Lesley can remember. By the time her own children were heading for the Big Day Out she knew there was no stopping them but that didn’t prevent Lesley from worrying about their being captured by the forces of darkness. Now, as she picks her way through the growing maze of campers cooking meals by the light of oil lamps, dancing to the music from a guitar or the blue notes of an amateur saxophonist, or kissing in the shadows, she wonders what she may have missed. This world has passed her by. While others were hanging out at festivals enjoying all the things her parents had feared, she was a girl guide leader making scones, teaching Sunday school and, later, proudly collecting items for her bottom drawer. Has Gordon ever been to a music festival, she wonders, and would he enjoy this? When they married he had a large record collection, most of it jazz, and she remembers an argument about where they would fit in the little flat that was to be their first home. Where are those records now, she wonders, packed up in the garage, given to a jumble sale?

  Lesley sits down on a low wall looking around her, screwing up her eyes to peer into the semi-darkness. It’s hopeless – she’s never going to find Declan among all these people. She should have grabbed the opportunity when she saw him earlier in the café, but he had the boy with him, Todd, the one Paula was always complaining about. The obvious thing is to ring his mobile but he has consistently ignored her calls. Besides, a call won’t solve anything. She wants to see him, to have a conversation like they had in the first few days, face to face, honest, companionable.

  She takes out her phone to check whether by any remote chance he has responded to the text she sent this morning telling him she was driving down today, but the record of calls shows three and a text, all of them from Paula. Paula had called much earlier just as Lesley was collecting the keys to the house she had rented.

  ‘You wanna get together later?’ Paula had asked. ‘We could drive out to Benson’s – see what’s going on. Maybe get something to eat in the snotty café.’

  Lesley had prevaricated. ‘Not sure yet,’ she’d said. ‘I’ll call you back later. I might just have a quiet night in. I had a near-miss on the road on the way down and it seems to have knocked the stuffing out of me.’

  ‘Those bastards in four-wheel-drives,’ Paula had said. ‘Think they own the road. If I had my way I’d have them banned. You’ll probably feel better if you have a bit of a lie-down. Ring me later.’

  Lesley had agreed but had hung up with no intention of calling back. Going out on the town with Paula was never going to happen. She had been helpful over Declan’s phone number and with other bits of information but they have nothing in common and it’s not as though they’re friends, or ever likely to be. Except for a couple of times when she’d been in a strangely dark mood Paula was far too full on for Lesley’s liking. Besides, what she’d said was true, the near-miss on the road had been a horrible shock and its impact is far more complicated than Lesley had made it sound.

  She’d been travelling fast on a wide straight road lined with tall trees and dense bush. A couple of patchy showers had left the road itself and the surrounding trees glistening as the sunlight flickered through the branches. It was the first rain for months and she wondered if it had rained at Benson’s Reach. What would they do if it rained on the festival, rained really hard? She drove on singing along to a compilation album of sixties hits which she only ever plays when she’s alone in the car because Gordon and her children think it’s tacky. She was doing a splendid accompaniment to Gary Puckett and the Union Gap with ‘Young Girl’ when she realised that a song she had always thought of as being about love was actually about a man’s desire for sex with an underage girl. In fact, the more she thought about it, a lot of the songs on the album were like that. Suddenly the innocence of romantic first love was obviously something quite different. And as Gary gave way to Billy Fury and her favourite, ‘Halfway to Paradise’, she heard for the first time that Billy was not singing about unrequited love but frustrated lust. Abruptly she stopped singing and flicked the button to go back to the start of the track and make sure, but as she did so she missed the moment that the dog darted out of the bush and into the road and she had hit it before she knew it was there. Braking sharply she skidded into a wide semicircle across the wet surface of the road into the opposite lane and ended up in the red gravel of the hard shoulder, facing back in the direction from which she had come. A four-wheel-drive whose trajectory she had crossed with terrifying proximity roared on past, the driver furiously blasting his horn while a passenger gave her two fingers from the nearside window.

  ‘Well thanks for stopping, guys,’ Lesley yelled as she switched off the engine. The dog was dead, the seriously flattened sort of dead, she could see that from where she was sitting. Should she remove it from the road? But as she considered what to do a panel van flattened it further and was soon followed by half a dozen other cars. She sat there wondering: there might be something in the boot she could use to move it, although by that time a few more vehicles had passed over the poor thing and it looked more as though it would take a scrubbing brush and a bucket of soapy water to get it off the road. Lesley stopped thinking about the dog and began to think about herself.

  Billy had wound up now and Mark Wynter had launched into ‘Go Away Little Girl’. Lesley switched off the CD player, leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, thinking back to her youth, to the other songs on the album, ‘Sweet Sixteen’, ‘Little Sister’. Alone in the car she blushes at her own naivety, and it reminds her that it wasn’t only the music that was not all it seemed. She remembered the occasions before she met Gordon when she herself had confused desire with love. Dolly’s attempts at sex education had been of the ‘save it for the one you love’ variety. For Lesley and probably for many other girls, this instruction translated to doing it and then convincing yourself that you’d done it because you were in love, which would somehow make it all right. Lesley had not done it much – she was
too frightened of getting pregnant – but whenever she had ‘gone all the way’ there had been a brief period of romantic self-delusion to justify what she had done, and to enjoy the feeling of being sexually attractive, desirable. It usually didn’t take long before the boy concerned either dumped her, or the scales would fall from her own eyes and she would dump him.

  Sitting there, facing in the wrong direction, her heart only just slowing to normal rate after her near-miss, Lesley saw that she had done it again. She had conned herself at almost sixty just as she had at sixteen, only this time there is much more at stake, and very much more to be embarrassed about. She had embarked on an adventure which, like the shopping, had been a distraction from the fact that her marriage, in fact her whole life, seemed to be falling apart. And then the combination of guilt and that same old longing to be loved and wanted had come to her rescue. Only of course it was no sort of rescue at all, it was a potential disaster. And now her skin crawled with shame as she remembered how she had behaved, not simply that night, but more importantly since then.

  For some time Lesley had sat there in the car by the side of the road thinking over everything that had happened. What if this had been Karen? Well, she would have told her daughter that she was being ridiculous, would have sent her away to sort out whatever it was that had happened with Nick and told her to grow up. Not that Lesley thought it was immature to fall in love, just foolish to pretend that a one night stand with a comparative stranger was the answer to the complex problems of mid-life and a marriage in crisis. In that moment she considered heading back home. She was, after all, facing in the right direction. Perhaps the incident with the poor dead dog was a message from the universe. Maybe even her fall on the way home last time was part of it, a message that she was not supposed to be on this road at all.