In the Company of Strangers

by Liz Byrski

  Todd hears what Declan says, but he can’t respond, not just yet.

  ‘Todd,’ Declan calls again. ‘Todd, are you there?’ And he sticks his head around the door to the passage. ‘Jesus, mate, are you all right? You look terrible.’

  And as Declan strides across the passage towards him Todd slides slowly down the wall until he is sitting, knees bent, on the tiled floor.

  ‘What’s wrong, mate? What’s happened?’ Declan sits down beside him.

  Todd shakes his head. ‘Nothing,’ he says eventually, ‘just, my mum rang …’ he pauses, ‘for my birthday. She’s such a loser, she never gets it right.’ And he pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes to stop himself from crying.

  Lesley hadn’t counted on the dog; in fact she’d forgotten he even existed. She much prefers cats but has never wanted to own one: hair everywhere, snagged threads on the upholstery, furry bodies sneaking onto the beds are not her thing. So when, as soon as she opens the door, Bruce gives a short bark and looks up at her, head tilted to one side, it comes as such a shock she barely notices how Gordon looks.

  ‘Oh!’ she says, stepping back from the open door. ‘I didn’t realise … well, I wasn’t expecting …’

  ‘He’s very well behaved,’ Gordon says. ‘And I hadn’t anyone to leave him with.’

  Bruce wags his tail and Lesley has the uncanny feeling that he is smiling at her. ‘Well then,’ she says, ‘you’d better come in – both of you.’ And he darts past her and begins a tour of the house, sniffing cupboard doors, inspecting chair legs. ‘He won’t … ?’

  ‘No,’ Gordon says, ‘he has impeccable manners. Whoever trained him did an excellent job,’ and he steps inside and puts his bag down on the floor.

  Now, as they stand facing each other, Lesley sees that Gordon is as confused as she is about what comes next. Should they kiss each other? Hug? It would be ridiculous to shake hands. Best perhaps to avoid the hazards of physical contact, and so she falls back into her characteristically brisk manner with visitors, urging him further in and closing the door.

  ‘You must be tired … the flight and then the drive,’ she says. ‘Cup of tea? Glass of wine, or would you prefer a beer?’

  ‘Tea, please,’ he says, following her through to the kitchen, looking around approvingly. ‘This is a nice little place. How did you find it?’

  ‘Someone told me about it,’ she says, filling the kettle. ‘The owners very rarely use it.’

  ‘All right if I have a look around?’

  ‘Of course,’ she says, and he wanders through the living room, across to the glass door that opens onto the little courtyard, and then down the passage to the bathroom and the two bedrooms.

  Lesley pours the tea and puts the mugs onto a tray alongside slices of carrot cake, wondering, as she carries it to the coffee table, how they will move on from this awkwardness, which of them will be able to take the first step towards normality.

  ‘You must find it very small,’ Gordon says, coming back and sitting in one of the two armchairs. ‘I mean, it’s a lovely place but …’

  ‘I like it,’ she says, ‘it feels cosy, and it’s easy to look after, not much housework.’

  He nods and takes the tea from her. ‘Thanks. Is that carrot cake? Excellent, my favourite.’

  It’s only then that she really looks at him – his hands first, as he reaches for the cake. They are dramatically changed, roughened and scratched, his nails neat but ingrained with red earth, so different from the smooth, manicured hands that emerged from the cuffs of his shirts as he set off each day for the city. His face is different too, quite weathered, and his hair is longer and lightened by the northern sun. It suits him, as do the jeans and the dark blue shirt, neither of which she has seen before.

  Bruce has finished reconnoitring and stands between them, looking from one to the other as though deciding which side to choose. Then he moves swiftly to Gordon and flops down by his feet.

  ‘Does he need anything?’ Lesley asks. ‘Water, perhaps?’

  Gordon looks at Bruce. ‘He probably does.’

  She moves to get up but Gordon puts up his hand to stop her. ‘It’s okay, I’ll do it. I brought his bowl, it’s with my bag.’ He gets to his feet and crosses to his bag which is still standing just inside the front door, Bruce’s red plastic bowl on top of it. He fills the bowl from the kitchen tap, sets it on the tiled floor and Bruce, who has followed his movements attentively, jumps up and starts lapping noisily.

  ‘He is rather sweet,’ Lesley says, watching from the lounge.

  ‘He attached himself to me when I was on a bike ride by the river. Picked me up, really. I couldn’t trace the owner and I was going to take him to the pound, but somehow I just couldn’t part with him. He looks a bit of a scruff but he’s big on personality.’

  She nods and there’s that silence again. She takes the plunge. ‘I’m glad you came.’

  ‘Me too,’ he says. ‘I missed you, and this feels very strange.’

  ‘Doesn’t it! It’ll get better …’

  ‘I hope so!’

  ‘It just takes time, I suppose.’

  In fact it takes about an hour, an awkward hour. They talk about the children and the grandchildren, and specifically about Simon and Lucy, whose lease is up, requiring them to move out of their current house. They talk about Lesley’s mother, and about the message they’ve both had from Karen, who is keeping an eye on the house and is concerned about a section of fence that has been damaged.

  ‘So tell me what you’re doing,’ she says eventually.

  And he kicks off his shoes, swings one leg over the arm of the chair and begins to explain about his relationship with the Land Council and a group of Indigenous people who are preparing to take on a mining company.

  ‘Which company?’ she asks.

  He grins and she laughs. ‘No – not really?’

  ‘Really,’ he says. ‘They’re not happy. I pointed out that the fact I worked for them for so long didn’t mean they owned me for life. But they’re not amused.’

  They both laugh then, a lot, and Gordon gets to his feet and comes to sit beside her on the sofa. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he says, taking her hand. ‘I really have, but I can’t go back to how it was.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Me neither. I can’t … I mean … I don’t want to do all those things we talked about. I want a different sort of life.’

  ‘I know,’ he says, ‘so do I. So now that we know that, maybe we can start to talk about what we do want, and whether any of it fits together.’

  Lesley nods. ‘The great negotiator,’ she says, smiling.

  That’s me,’ he says, ‘but negotiation works best if both parties want it to succeed.’

  ‘Well then,’ she says, taking a deep breath, ‘we’re probably going to be okay.’

  Paula’s death has affected Declan in ways he could never have imagined. One morning he wakes at dawn. Troubled by dreams he can’t recall and too restless to sleep any longer, he gets out of bed, pulls on a tracksuit and drives to the beach. It’s cold but as he walks onto the sand the first shafts of sunlight appear and the waves crash on the beach, exploding in clouds of sparkling white foam. Declan pauses for a moment, watching, listening to the roar of the ocean, allowing himself to taste the salt wind and marvel at the beauty of the waking landscape. Then, hands in his pockets, deep in thought, he walks on, along the firm ridge of damp sand, contemplating his sense of no longer being alone.

  For most of his teenage and adult life he has been a loner. The fractured nature of his family relationships was not conducive to closeness, and as he moved from his late teens into his twenties it was Catherine who became the fixed point in his life. But as time went on he had distanced himself from her. The effort of hiding the extent of his drinking and drug use was just too hard to handle. At thirty he had fallen in love with Shona, whom he met on holiday in Byron Bay. She was a veterinary assistant, rather serious, deeply into natural remedies and healthy living, and in
the novelty and passion of their first few months together they had married, only to part three years later. It took much longer for Declan to realise that he had thought she would rescue him from himself. Shona had believed him when he’d promised to give up the drink and drugs, but he had spectacularly defaulted on that promise. By this time his visits to Catherine had become occasional, replaced largely by awkward phone calls, postcards and, later, emails. It wasn’t that he had stopped caring about her but she had become the face of his moral and social conscience and that wasn’t something he wanted to confront any more than necessary. His addictions had isolated him, too, from friends who found his behaviour tedious and frequently embarrassing. By the time he had quit the drugs and finally the grog they had all drifted away. Only Alice, by then his AA sponsor, had always been there when he needed someone to talk to, but then she too was gone, into custody for five long years, and he was on his own.

  In many ways he had grown comfortable with his aloneness, although he regretted his failure to attract women, and particularly to establish a meaningful long-term relationship, but eventually, being alone became safe and comfortable. No tense silences, no making concessions, no negotiations over where to go for dinner or for holidays, no arguments about money or the lack of it, no sulking, no emotional tugs-of-war, no being accountable to someone who knew him uncomfortably well. But Catherine’s death and his resulting guilt and suppressed grief had torn at the seams of Declan’s isolationism and they have been fraying ever since.

  When he saw the conflicting emotions that flickered across Todd’s face when he broke the news about Paula, Declan wanted to absorb all that confusion, the hurt and the anger, and he despaired at his own uselessness in the face of such emotional turmoil. Todd might have played it cool with Ruby and later with others, but with Declan he had been unable to hide his emotions. And when he had found Todd sitting on the floor of the passage, Declan knew that his own emotional immunity was gone for good.

  ‘Okay, mate,’ he’d said eventually, ‘d’you want to talk about it – about your mum, I mean?’

  Todd shook his head, and as they sat there in silence Declan remembered what this was like – being a boy, being scared and lonely, longing for comfort but struggling not to reach out, not to cry, not to make any move to touch or be touched. He could feel the struggle going on, and knew that all he could do was wait until Todd was ready and able to talk.

  ‘I hate her,’ Todd said finally. ‘She doesn’t care what happens to me as long as she doesn’t have to do anything about it.’

  It was a long and very difficult conversation that followed, Declan trying to prise out more and Todd saying very little.

  Ruby turned up at one point, hovered in the doorway and slipped quietly away; the phone rang again and rang out; Alice came into the kitchen and at the sound of their voices popped her head around the door, raised her eyebrows at Declan and when he shook his head disappeared back to the café. Todd picked up a sheaf of paper that he had dropped onto the floor beside him.

  ‘I was looking at these,’ he said. He was quieter now, exhausted probably, Declan thought. ‘Just before she rang I was looking at these and thinking how cool if I could do one of these courses, be a sound engineer.’ He dropped the papers again. ‘But I can’t because I can’t do it all on my own. Paula was always horrible to me, but I suppose I thought that if I was ever in real trouble she’d help me. I knew I had a family. Now Catherine’s gone and Paula’s gone, and Mum … I haven’t got anyone. I can’t do anything.’

  ‘Hey,’ Declan said, ‘you’ve got a bigger family now, don’t you know that yet? What you’re feeling now is awful, but you’re not on your own. Look, you, me, Alice and Ruby, we’re not related but in the last few months we’ve become like a family. There are people here who really care about you, Todd.’

  ‘But that’ll all be gone soon,’ Todd said. ‘Ruby’s going home, you don’t have to look after me any more, I’ll have to go back to the caravan. And, anyway, you might just sell it all and go away.’

  Declan leaned forward and grabbed Todd by the shoulders, turning him to face him. ‘I thought we were mates,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, but …’

  ‘No buts. You and me, man, we’re a team. We stick together. We stay here, or we go, whichever way it works out we do it together and that’s how it’ll be for as long as you want. And when you’re ready to move on, wherever you go I’ll still be looking out for you. And I’ll want to know that when I’m a much older and an even more boring old fart than I am now, you’ll be there looking out for me. This isn’t the end of things, Todd, it’s just the beginning, and it has rewards and responsibilities for both of us. I don’t have a son, and I don’t know how to be a father, but years ago, before I stuffed up my life, I knew how to be a friend. Now you can help me learn that again. We stick together, we learn from each other, look out for each other. Got it?’

  When Declan thinks back now the enormity of that commitment frightens the life out of him, but he doesn’t regret it. He pauses and takes a deep breath to calm himself. He could see what it had meant to Todd, and one day, he thinks, Todd will come to understand how important this is for him too, this chance to reclaim a part of himself which has for so long been lost. If he wants his life to change he has to open himself to responsibilities that are greater than just restoring and running a business. He was thrown together with a group of strangers who have crept into his heart in different ways. Now he must work at keeping them there.

  Declan walks on up to the end of the sand and back again, taking a last look behind him at the beach, which is now bathed in sharp early sunlight. It’s the third week in June, long past the time that Alice’s daughter and her family were due home.

  ‘I’m giving them time to settle back in,’ she’d said ten days ago when he’d offered to make the call.

  But Declan knows there’s more to it than that. While she does nothing there is still hope; she has too much invested in this to risk the first step.

  Back home he parks the car and walks swiftly up the hill to her cottage. Alice is sitting on the balcony, a blanket around her shoulders, with a mug of tea.

  ‘Can I come up?’ he calls.

  ‘Of course you can,’ she says. ‘Do you want tea?’

  He runs up the steps. ‘No thanks, I’m going back to the house to make a big pot of coffee. I’ll need it because this is the day we’re going to make the call.’

  She puts down her cup. ‘Well, I don’t know …’

  ‘Yes, Alice,’ he says, ‘you do know. It’s time, really it is.’

  She sighs and looks up at him and he can see the fear in her eyes. ‘It is,’ she says, nodding. ‘Yes it is.’

  Gordon hates having to send Bruce down into the hold but there is no alternative. If he’s going to travel back and forth more regularly he really will have to find someone up there who’ll look after the poor little devil, it’s not fair to him. Bruce looks up at him through the grid of the travel crate – a picture of misery.

  ‘Not long, mate,’ Gordon lies, scratching the dog’s head through the bars. ‘Home before you know it.’ And he hands Bruce over to the man at the desk and strides off to the passenger terminal without looking back.

  A little over an hour later, as he loosens his seatbelt and reclines his seat, he closes his eyes and concentrates his mind on Lesley in her little rented house, furnished in a way that she would never choose for herself. But maybe she would choose that now, he thinks, the simple, almost Scandinavian décor seems to suit her. Something, many things in fact, have changed, changed so much that he’s still trying to work out just what of the old Lesley remains. But he’s not trying too hard because this Lesley seems to have emerged from the last few months more open minded, less controlling, and with rather different ideas from the one who stormed out of the house earlier in the year. She is, in fact, more like the woman he married.

  ‘But I’m not that person,’ she said when he’d told her that. ‘I’m olde
r and hopefully a bit smarter. When we met I was a blank slate, I had no ideas of my own other than that I wanted to be married and have a family. You, and then the kids, shaped me. I became the person who could be the wife and mother and who could cope with your absences, and the times when you were present but disengaged …’

  He’d opened his mouth to protest then, but she’d stopped him.

  ‘That isn’t a criticism, Gordon, it’s a fact of life. You were frequently away, and often when you were there in body your mind was elsewhere. You were focused on solving some work or scientific problem, preparing for difficult meetings, or deals that had to be made. I know you had to do it, and that you were doing it for us, but just the same for a lot of the time you weren’t present, and I had to fill the gaps for myself and the kids. Now I have to learn to be different. I need to stop pretending the gaps aren’t there, and learn to fill them with something that’s important and satisfying.’

  She was right, and although at the time he’d felt he hadn’t any choice he can admit now that for some of the time, at least, it had been easier to be swept along by the pressures of corporate life than to focus more on the messy, volatile and less predictable demands of domestic life. Lesley wanted security and comfort, the comfort and the choices that came with a good income. She was needy rather than greedy and the neediness was for approval. She couldn’t cope with being in the wrong.

  Gordon has, over time, come to understand what he had not understood in the early days of their marriage – that Lesley has an old fashioned sort of class awareness. She came from hard-up, hardworking parents, but in marrying him she felt she had moved up in the social scale and is always anxious about slipping backwards. Her constant attention to how she – how all of them – appeared to others frequently determined the way she sculpted their family life. Gordon thinks that this weekend he saw a woman less concerned with external appearances than in discovering who she had really become.

  ‘I don’t want to go back,’ she’d said, ‘not to the house, not to the way we were. I feel as though when the kids started to leave home I panicked. I tried to fill up the spaces but I didn’t have a plan or a passion, I didn’t think about what I really wanted. I convinced myself I was doing fine – keeping busy like I always had …’