In the Company of Strangers

by Liz Byrski

  ‘Can you book me a car, please?’ Ruby had asked in her email. ‘I’ll drive straight down from the airport.’

  ‘Do you think something’s wrong?’ Declan had asked when he showed Alice the email. ‘She said she wouldn’t be back until February.’

  ‘What could be wrong?’ Alice had asked. ‘She’s probably just decided to sort things out sooner. Or maybe she wants to escape another English winter. In any case, what difference would another few months make? The year was only Catherine’s idea.’

  But Declan is obviously worried by this sudden change of plan. For her own part Alice is longing to see Ruby again. She realises now how firmly but discreetly Ruby had taken charge when she first arrived, and then how carefully and respectfully she had slowly released control to Declan, and then to herself. By the time Ruby left, although they missed her company, they were managing the place between them. This, Alice suspects, was always Ruby’s plan – a way of supporting Declan and encouraging her to think beyond the café and broaden her understanding of the business. It worked, and now she wants to show Ruby the changes they’ve made: the different reservations system, the reorganisation of the shop with its new range of merchandise, and the decision to abandon the berries and replace them with more lavender to meet the anticipated demand of the online business. It’s good, she thinks, that Ruby will see it all at the start of the season rather than the end.

  The doors open and the first passengers begin to emerge. Lone men in crumpled business suits hurry purposefully out, scanning the small cluster of drivers holding up name cards. Young couples, old couples, exhausted parents with fractious children, are greeted with whoops of delight by families and friends and block the exits with their trolleys piled high with luggage. And then, behind a huge man with an equally huge suitcase, there is Ruby. Looking older, Alice thinks, and tired.

  Ruby hesitates, seeking the easiest route through the crowd.

  ‘Ruby!’ Alice calls, waving. ‘Ruby! This way, over here.’

  Ruby looks into the crowd, her face lights up and she does a swift manoeuvre with her trolley and slips through a gap to reach her. ‘You shouldn’t have come all this way,’ she says as Alice hugs her, ‘but I’m awfully glad you did. What a lovely surprise.’

  And Alice can see that there are tears in Ruby’s eyes. They edge out through the crowd to the exit where Declan is waiting.

  ‘You too,’ Ruby cries, ‘how lovely of you both to come. I feel so spoiled being met.’

  In minutes they are heading out of the airport to Fremantle for lunch before the long drive south.

  ‘I’ve something to show you,’ Alice says when they have found a table and ordered their meal. She reaches into her bag and takes out a postcard with a picture of dolphins and hands it to Ruby.

  ‘Hmm, what’s this then?’ Ruby asks, smiling as though she’s already guessed.

  ‘Turn it over,’ Alice says, ‘read it.’

  Ruby turns the card over. ‘From Jodie?’ And she reads the carefully written message, looks up, smiling, and grasps Alice’s hand. ‘Alice, how wonderful, you must be over the moon.’

  Alice nods. ‘I could hardly believe it. She was on a school camp in Exmouth. Isn’t it amazing? The photograph and then this – it makes me feel so … well, so hopeful.’

  ‘She’s been a different woman since it arrived,’ Declan says. ‘I think it’s a really good sign, don’t you, Ruby? Another step forward. I know it’s only a small one but it’s important.’

  ‘Absolutely. It’ll take a while, Alice, but I think you have plenty of grounds now for optimism.’

  The waiter brings cutlery and glasses to the table and they settle back in their seats, but Alice can feel the tension and she knows this is not going to be an easy ride. Declan is bursting with questions, and she too is anxious to know what the future holds for both of them and for Benson’s. But Ruby is a person who cares about process: whatever her decision means for all of them she won’t want to discuss it at a restaurant table, nor in a moving car. It will happen later, at the big table in Benson’s kitchen where the other decisions about the business have been made. The tension weaves its way through the conversation, causing abrupt silences and nervous laughs, and it lessens only when they are on the road and Ruby tilts her seat and closes her eyes. She is asleep in minutes and Alice leans forward from the back seat to put her hand on Declan’s shoulder.

  ‘It’s going to be okay,’ she says. ‘I’m sure it is. It won’t be long now.’

  And he smiles at her in the driving mirror and nods, and keeps on driving as though his life depends upon it.

  t’s clear that Ruby notices it the minute she walks into the shop. She stops, looks around, waves hello to Lesley, who is handing a credit card back to a customer, hesitates and then goes straight to the big display by the window. Lesley puts the customer’s purchases into a Benson’s carrier bag and comes out from behind the counter.

  ‘Hello, Ruby,’ she says, ‘great to see you back again.’

  Ruby looks up, smiling. ‘Hello, Lesley. These are just beautiful,’ and she picks up a small, lavender-scented elephant made of purple corduroy. ‘This display is terrific and you’ve completely transformed the shop.’

  ‘Well, Fleur and me together,’ Lesley says, delighted at Ruby’s evident appreciation. ‘And we are pretty happy with it. And the toys and pillows and the lavender bags are selling really well. We think they’ll do even better as we get closer to Christmas. They make lovely little gifts.’

  Ruby keeps hold of the elephant and picks up a floral cotton hippo. ‘They’re gorgeous – do you think you’re charging enough?’

  ‘We talk endlessly about that,’ Lesley says with a laugh. ‘We might raise the prices a bit, but we’re very caught up on the idea that every ten dollars means five birthing kits and if people like them and they’re appropriately priced, they’ll come back for more.’

  Another customer arrives and she leaves Ruby to browse, thinking that she looks worn out and a bit fragile, unlike her usual robust, energetic self. There is a series of customers now, but Ruby continues to move around the shop looking closely at the new range of silver jewellery, the locally made beads and scarves, the novelty bottle openers, the hand woven baskets and boxes, chopping boards, bowls and mugs. And she stops even longer to check the lavender products with their new, more elegant containers and labels.

  ‘I really like the way you’ve developed that separate range for men,’ Ruby says when Lesley is free again. ‘I know they’re not all new products, but they got lost among the others and differentiating the packaging makes a big difference.’

  Lesley nods. ‘Yes, and Fleur’s working on baby products now, nappy cream, powder – we could have another complete range. The online business is shaping up well too. I can talk you through it later if you like. Fleur’s actually away for a week, having a break in Bali.’

  ‘Good, I’m sure she can do with it. I’m very glad that we were able to encourage her to stay on. And what about you, Lesley? You’ve been through a bit of a rough time.’

  ‘I have but it’s a lot better now. Gordon and I are working things out. I think we’re going to be fine. Things have changed for me, Ruby, and I’ve changed. It’s not just working here, I’ve got involved with the women’s group in Bunbury – it was through someone there that Paula first heard about the birthing kits. It’s Zonta – you know all about them. I’m really enjoying it. This probably sounds really silly but I honestly think that coming here has helped me to grow up. A bit late – I should have grown up decades ago.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound silly at all,’ Ruby says, putting the things she’s holding down on the counter. ‘I’m much older than you and right now I’m battling with a serious bit of growing up myself. Perhaps it never stops. One can only hope it’s a continuing state of improvement, but sometimes it just feels like a mammoth pain in the butt.’

  ‘I got you a present,’ Todd says, and as he hands over the carefully wrapped parcel he i
s suddenly crippled with embarrassment. ‘It’s only small, and you’ve probably got it already, but … it looked sort of special.’

  Ruby takes the package from him and begins to unwrap it. Thankfully she doesn’t say anything like ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have’, or ‘You didn’t need to buy me a present’, which is the sort of crap adults do all the time. Everybody likes getting presents, even old people. In fact, Todd thinks, they must like it more because they probably get fewer presents as they get older.

  Ruby discards the wrapping and turns the book over to read the title. ‘Oh, Todd, it’s beautiful,’ she says, and he can see from the way her face is all lit up that she’s really pleased. It’s a copy of Madam Bovary, bound in navy blue leather with gold lettering, and gold edges on the pages that are thin as tissue and light as silk. He’d never seen pages like that before.

  ‘It’s not new,’ he says, blushing. ‘I got it in the secondhand bookshop. I liked the cover, and the gold bits. I thought you’d like that too.’

  ‘I love it,’ Ruby says, and she hugs him. ‘I shall treasure it.’

  ‘Have you got it already?’

  ‘I did have,’ she says, ‘but I lent it to someone and never got it back. And this one is so much nicer. Did you read Catherine’s copy?’

  He nods. ‘Yep.’

  ‘And did you learn something about women, like she said?’

  ‘I think so,’ Todd says cautiously, ‘and I learned something about writers.’

  ‘Really?’

  He turns around and takes Catherine’s copy down from the shelf. ‘I actually learned it in the introduction – it’s by Anita somebody.’

  ‘Brookner.’

  ‘Yes, Brookner, that’s right. You see here,’ he says, pointing to the first page of the introduction, ‘she says that Flaubert said, “Madame Bovary – c’est moi!”, which means “Madame Bovary – that’s me!” and she sort of explains about how writers identify with characters, like get inside them and tell stories through them. I never thought about that before. And you know, the subtitle is “Life in a Country Town”. And Alice said to me that it could be like Margaret River, and once you know that you can just go and sit outside one of the cafés in town and you can see all the characters going past. So we did it one day, me and Alice, we sat on that seat near Target and watched, and we said that could be Emma, and that man looks like Charles or Rodolphe. And it made me think all those people could be in stories too, they have stories. Like you, Ruby, you have a story that Flaubert could have written … you and Catherine and Declan’s Uncle Harry …’ He stops abruptly, shocked by what he’s just said. ‘Sorry,’ he says, blushing, ‘sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean …’ He wishes he could just sink into the ground and disappear.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Ruby says. ‘Catherine and I – we had a long story and it ended really badly and for a very long time I couldn’t forgive her. For years and years she was the most important person in my life but I was so hurt by what happened here that I chose to bury the good and remember the bad. And you’re right, it is a story that Flaubert could have written. Thank you so much for my book.’

  Todd nods, relieved that he got the present right, and that perhaps what he’d said wasn’t too bad after all. ‘You’re not coming back again after this, are you?’ he says abruptly.

  Ruby looks taken aback. ‘Who told you that?’

  He shrugs. ‘No one, I worked it out. You came back now for the prime minister’s apology, to be here while it happens. It’s like an ending.’

  He sees Ruby swallow and she seems to be struggling for words. ‘You got it in one,’ she says eventually. ‘How did you get to be so smart?’

  He grins and shrugs. ‘Must be mixing with all you olds all the time,’ he says, and suddenly he feels as though he’s crumbling, and he stumbles over to her and she opens her arms and grabs him. ‘I love you, Ruby,’ he says, ‘I wish you’d stay.’

  ‘I know, Todd,’ she says, hanging on to him tightly. ‘And I love you too, but we’ll see each other again. Not for a while yet, but I’ll come back here as a visitor. And you’ll come to London, I know you will. I’ll show you my big untidy house, and introduce you to my friends, and I’ll take you to see all the places you need to see in London. In fact we can make a plan before I leave. You should come next June, when the English raspberries are in season. You’ve never really tasted raspberries until you’ve picked from the canes at the start of an English summer.’

  Todd nods, rubbing his eyes on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. ‘Cool,’ he says, ‘that’d be cool. But it won’t be the same.’

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘no it won’t, but it might be even better. All your life, Todd, people will come and go, and it will be wonderful and it will be awful, and when you get to be ancient like me, all those people and their stories, good and not so good, will be part of who you are. We’ll all be talking to you from the past, making up a big jigsaw of your life. I want to be a part of your jigsaw, so we will see each other again, many times, I think, and we’ll make many more pieces of the jigsaw.’

  It’s early evening when they finally sit down together at the kitchen table. Declan doesn’t know how he’s got through the day because, despite her reassurances and the fact that he knows that Ruby believes he’s put his heart and soul into Benson’s, he has continued to feel as though he’s on probation. Perhaps it’s the legacy of his past work failures and disastrous lifestyle choices together with his chequered relationship with Catherine, but in many ways he feels he doesn’t have a right to the place and that to lose it now would be the sort of punishment he deserves. If Ruby wants to sell it’s most unlikely he could borrow enough to buy her out, and he dreads the prospect of a new partner – one who would have Ruby’s controlling share.

  ‘Somehow this feels rather formal,’ Ruby says. ‘That’s not what I intended, but I do think this is pretty important to all three of us so perhaps it’s as it should be.’

  ‘Shouldn’t it be just you and Declan?’ Alice says. ‘It’s between the two of you, you’re the partners.’

  Declan opens his mouth to say something but his throat is so dry with nerves that he just starts coughing. What he wants to do is beg her to stay, to be here with him through whatever it is Ruby has to say, but now he can’t stop coughing. Alice gets up to fetch a glass of water and puts it on the table in front of him.

  ‘Okay?’ Ruby asks, looking at him with concern. ‘Are you okay? If not we can do this later, or tomorrow …’

  ‘No,’ Declan gasps, and gulps at the water. ‘No, no, let’s do it now, and, please, Alice—’

  ‘Alice, you need to stay,’ Ruby cuts in. ‘We both need you to stay.’

  And Declan nods furiously as he always does when nervous, and he swallows more water.

  ‘Good, well I’ll keep it simple,’ Ruby says. ‘I have a plan that I want to put to you. I’d sort of come to this position before I left but I felt we should all take a bit more time before making the final decisions. I’m absolutely clear about my preferred solution for dealing with my share of Benson’s.’

  Declan coughs again, and Alice refills his glass.

  ‘So the first thing is, Declan, that I am going to transfer enough of my share to you to bring your share up to fifty per cent.’

  Declan is shocked. Obviously this is good – or is it? It probably means that Ruby has decided to sell, but then at least he’ll own half instead of less than half. He tries to say something but the cough gets him again.

  Ruby smiles at him. ‘I know this is torture for you, Declan, but hang in there, the rest is quick and easy. That leaves me with fifty per cent and so I have a choice of either holding on to that and keeping it as an investment, or looking for a buyer whom you, Declan, would obviously need to approve, and feel you could work with.’

  Declan nods in dismay. Keep it, Ruby, keep it, please, echoes a silent scream inside his head – please, please keep it.

  ‘But there is another alternative and it’s
the one I prefer. You see, I feel I’ve done what I came here to do. I’ve kept faith with Catherine, I’ve helped to get the place up and running again, I’ve helped to put the business plan together so there’s a strong sense of the future. And I’ve also come face to face with the past and laid a few ghosts. All of that is good, but now I feel it’s time for me to butt out and hand over to someone whose future is here rather than on the other side of the world and whose commitment to Benson’s can’t be questioned. So, Alice, I would like to transfer my fifty per cent to you, if you’ll accept it.’

  Declan lets out something between a gasp and a whoop of joy and doesn’t cough at all. He feels as though his body has been set alight as sweat runs down his neck, ‘Yes!’ he shouts. ‘Yes, Ruby,’ and he grabs her hand and as he does so he realises that she too is flushed with emotion, but she’s looking anxiously at Alice, who has gone a ghostly white.

  ‘Alice?’ he says. ‘Alice, this is wonderful, isn’t it. Isn’t it wonderful?’

  ‘Give her time, Declan,’ Ruby says, grasping his hand now with both of hers. ‘She needs time to think.’

  ‘But of course she—’ Declan begins.

  ‘Declan, stop!’ Ruby orders him and she turns back to Alice. ‘Alice, I really hope you’ll accept this. You deserve it, you’ve made a huge contribution here, and you’re really committed to the place. You’ve also got a fine head for business and an amazing work ethic. I think you’re the best business partner Declan could possibly have. But there may be reasons why you don’t want to accept, so I promise you that if you say no, I will not sell. I’ll bring Declan’s share up to seventy-five per cent and retain the rest. And of course you don’t need to make a decision now – you may need time to think about it. And no pressuring her, Declan!’

  Declan drinks more water and looks back and forth between the two women. Much of the tension has evaporated now he knows he can stay here, carry on with what he’s doing, learn to do it really well. Just the same, he wants it settled. He wants Alice here. Without Ruby his responsibilities will be greater and Alice – well, it seems unlikely but Alice might just decide to leave and what then? His insides churn uneasily at the mere thought of it. He knows it’s wrong, unfair, to try to persuade her but it’s agony to hold back. He wants her to see it as he does, as the perfect solution. They are already a team and this way they will be even better, and she – well, she’ll be here, always, stay here with him, and he wants that just as much or more even than he wants to keep running Benson’s.