In the Company of Strangers

by Liz Byrski

  ‘But why?’ Alice asks. ‘I can’t really get my head around it. Why do you even want to give away your share? And why not give it all to Declan?’

  It’s later, much later, almost ten o’clock. Alice, sitting on the balcony in the dark, had seen Ruby walk out onto the deck at the back of the house. She’d waved, and Ruby waved back.

  ‘Could we talk?’ Alice had called, and Ruby had nodded and made her way across the stretch of lawn and up the steep path to the cottage.

  ‘Look, Alice,’ Ruby says, ‘it’s less about me wanting to give it away than about what I want for this place. I want Declan to be able to stay here. He has a right to it and I believe he’s good for the place and it’s good for him, it’s the making of him. You can see that yourself, I know you can. But I’m not convinced that full ownership would be very good for him, nor that he would want it. It would be a daunting prospect for him. He needs to work with a partner but it has to be someone he gets on with, so who better than you? And you say I’m giving it away, but it doesn’t feel like that – after all, I never really had it except on paper. That happened once before, when Harry died and I inherited it. Back then I made it over to Freda Benson because it felt like the right thing to do. This feels like the right thing now, as though it was only ever on loan. This is not my place and I don’t really want the responsibility. I’m getting old and I don’t want to make an arrangement that will fall apart if I die within the next couple of years. I’d prefer to leave here knowing that you and Declan can keep it going, build it up, and that he feels secure. And frankly I think security is important to you too.’

  Alice stiffens with a sense of resentment. ‘Look, I don’t want to offend you, Ruby,’ she says. ‘I appreciate the enormous generosity of your offer, and the opportunity it gives me, but you’ve spent your life rescuing women. I’m sure you chose to do that because of what happened to you as a child, and I admire it enormously. But I don’t need you to rescue me.’

  Ruby smiles. ‘Well said. And I’m not. If I thought you needed rescuing then I wouldn’t be doing this. I think you’re perfectly capable of rebuilding your life anywhere you choose, Alice. You don’t need me or anyone else to rescue you. Nor do I want you to rescue Declan. I just think you’re an excellent partnership.’

  Alice sits for a while, silent, contemplating what Ruby has said. She can see it makes sense, but she is also trapped in the feeling that it is too much to be given this. She feels unworthy of such good fortune.

  ‘And by the way,’ Ruby says, ‘I don’t think you have to go on paying for what happened for the rest of your life. You served a sentence that most people think is excessive, you lost your granddaughter and in a way you lost your family too. You’ve paid the price. It’s time to stop limiting your expectations, Alice. Of course you can’t forget it and you don’t want to, but you need to cast off the feelings that make you think that you can only be viewed as someone who might need rescuing.’

  Alice watches as Ruby makes her way carefully back down the path to the house. She tries to imagine how it would feel to be the joint owner of this place with its beautiful old house, the cottages, the gorgeous sloping fields of lavender, the shop – all of it; to be able to make plans and decisions for its future, and to do so with Declan, whom she trusts more than anyone in the world. You’d be a fool to say no, she tells herself, anyone else would jump at it. She imagines moving into the house, reorganising some of the rooms, taking ownership simply by her presence there. She thinks of the room that they would keep for Todd so that he always has a place to come home to, of where Jodie might sleep if she were ever allowed to come and stay, or perhaps came sometime in the future when she is old enough to make her own decisions. She imagines Ruby coming here for a holiday and to see what they’ve done.

  But most of all she thinks of Catherine – about whom she’s heard so much but knows so little. A woman who had struggled on here for years after the errant Harry fell into the arms of someone younger. A woman whom many people might say got no more than she deserved. To Alice Catherine is both larger than life and almost transparent. It seems impossible to grasp who she really was, but it’s clear that she wanted Declan to stay here and felt that Ruby was the key to that. What Alice has to decide now is whether she wants this extraordinary gift with its burdens as well as its rewards.

  Quarter to eight on Friday morning and they are there in front of the television, Ruby, Declan and Todd, no sign of Alice yet.

  ‘She might’ve got mixed up with the time and forgot that eleven o’clock in Canberra is eight o’clock here,’ Todd says. ‘I could go and get her.’

  He is sitting on the floor leaning against the couch and Ruby reaches forward and puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘Alice won’t forget, Todd,’ she says, ‘she’ll be here in time. It’s not starting yet.’

  They watch as the camera pans across the Great Hall of Parliament House where hundreds of people are settling into their seats. They are almost four thousand kilometres away but Ruby feels she is a part of it, she feels the tension, and the anticipation, senses the agonising reliving of painful memories, sees it in the shots of clasped hands, in the anxious, desperate expressions. So many years, so much misery, cruelty and neglect, are contained in those faces. She hadn’t expected it to feel quite like this, the past rising up within her like a thunderbolt of outrage ready to break out and scorch everything and everyone within reach.

  Lesley pops her head around the door. ‘May I join you?’

  Ruby nods, unable to take her eyes off the screen.

  Declan shifts closer to her on the sofa to make room for Lesley and takes Ruby’s icy cold hand in his. She squeezes it and hangs on, watching and waiting.

  Todd gets up and crosses to the window. ‘She’s coming,’ he calls in relief. ‘Alice is coming down the hill now.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Alice says, breathless, and she slips across the room and into the seat on the other side of Ruby. ‘So sorry, I lost track of time, so much to think about.’

  Ruby glances at her and then at Declan. The weight of what he has hanging on Alice’s decision is written across his face, but Ruby can’t think of that now because all she can concentrate on is all those people with whom she shares so much. And they are just a fraction of the whole, the others sitting, like her, in front of screens around the country, maybe around the world, all of them linked by their painful history. Could some of them have been on the same ship as her and Catherine? Were any of those women at the same convent, sleeping perhaps in the same dormitory? She leans forward, studying the faces, the clasped hands, the tense profiles, searching for recognition, and she finds it in every face because each is inscribed with the grief, the loss, the shame and desolation that is in her own. She can feel the tension and the longing to hear at last what they have been aching to hear for decades: a thought, an acknowledgement, in just one word – sorry.

  And then it begins. The prime minister steps up to the microphone, his face strained with emotion.

  ‘We come together today to deal with an ugly chapter in our nation’s history,’ he begins. ‘And we come together today to offer our nation’s apology. To say to you, the Forgotten Australians, and those who were sent to our shores as children without your consent, that we are sorry.’

  He talks of physical suffering and emotional starvation, of childhoods lost, of the repetitive drudgery of menial work, of abuse, humiliation, violation and cruelty. ‘We look back with shame,’ he says, ‘at how those in power were allowed to abuse those who had none.’ And so it goes, each word, each sentence freighted with the horrors of their collective history, there in Parliament House and around the country, as those whose stories are being honoured wrestle with the hurt of a lifetime and the relief of acknowledgement.

  Ruby watches through the prime minister’s speech, and the leader of the opposition’s, she watches as they step down to shake hands, to listen and acknowledge the people, each of whom represent so many more. It is almost unbearable, but she watch
es on, the tears pouring down her face, Declan and Alice on either side of her, holding her hands, Todd on the floor with his warm back resting against her legs.

  ‘I am so lucky,’ she says eventually, her voice breaking with emotion. ‘I am just so lucky.’

  Eventually the coverage ends and one by one they get to their feet, silent, awkward, still reeling with the emotion of the occasion, unsure how to move from that into a normal day. Lesley slips quietly away back to the shop.

  ‘Who wants a cup of tea?’ Todd asks, and they smile and nod with relief and he shoots off to the kitchen and they hear the water running into the kettle and the sound of cups being taken from the cupboard.

  ‘Who wants a decision?’ Alice asks, and they turn to her.

  Ruby is close to holding her breath.

  ‘I’ve wrestled with this all night,’ Alice says. ‘I’ve put up every argument I can think of, and talked to both of you, and despite the murmur of voices that keep telling me I shouldn’t have this I’ve decided to celebrate my good fortune and accept your extraordinarily generous offer, Ruby. I feel honoured by your trust and I’ll do everything I can to make this work.’

  Ruby closes her eyes and sinks back onto the sofa. ‘At last,’ she says, ‘a day of endings and beginnings. At last.’

  They are laughing now, and crying, hugging and congratulating each other. Relief is palpable, emotional exhaustion and the anxiety of waiting replaced by the need for celebration.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Todd asks, appearing in the doorway with a tray of tea. ‘I thought everyone was upset.’

  ‘Todd,’ says Declan, taking the tray from him, ‘please meet my new business partner,’ and Alice steps forward and does a little curtsy.

  ‘Really?’ Todd says, looking from one to the other. ‘That’s awesome. It means you’ll both have to be here forever.’

  ou’re kidding,’ Amanda says, standing behind Ruby and talking to her reflection in the mirror. ‘All of it? You want me to cut all of it off?’

  ‘I do,’ Ruby says. ‘I don’t want to be bald, not a number two or anything like that, but I want it short, and sort of spiky, and as a young friend of mine says – mega cool.’

  ‘I’ve been doing your hair for more than twenty years and all that time I’ve been begging you to let me cut it and you’ve been insisting that you’ll never have it cut.’

  ‘So, times change, people change, I’ve changed.’

  ‘You said it was important. Symbolic.’

  ‘Well, what’s important and symbolic now is having it cut. So get going before I change my mind.’

  She watches as the locks of grey hair slip to her shoulders and then to the floor, and the strange process of transformation begins. Almost immediately she sees that she will look younger. It’s not an effect she had sought but it’s not unwelcome. And it is symbolic: as Amanda shapes the cut to frame her face and chips into the crown to give it height and movement, Ruby feels that more than just the hair is dropping away from her. The past lies bedraggled on the salon floor, ready to be swept away by the first apprentice with minutes to spare between shampoos.

  ‘You okay, Rube?’ Amanda asks.

  ‘I’m absolutely okay,’ she says. ‘It’s going to be very different. I think I’ll like it.’

  Amanda works some product into Ruby’s hair, fluffs it up and picks up the dryer.

  You’re not a bad looking old dame really, Ruby tells herself. Perhaps there is a touch of Dame Judi there. Shame you didn’t get her eyes and jawline, but all round not a bad look.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Amanda asks, holding the mirror up so Ruby can see the back of her head.

  ‘I like it,’ Ruby says. ‘A lot. And it feels good. You’ve transformed me. What do you think?’

  ‘I love it,’ Amanda says. ‘Should have done it years ago.’

  ‘I wasn’t ready years ago. This is my moment.’

  It’s bitterly cold outside and as she walks back along Upper Street, negotiating the icy patches on the pavement, Ruby realises she will now need to buy a hat for the cold weather, and dig out some scarves for her newly naked neck. It feels right to have done this now, although it’s still a shock each time she catches a glimpse of her reflection in a shop window.

  ‘So what’s next?’ Jessica had asked her yesterday evening when they got home from the airport. ‘Are you coming back to work?’

  ‘You seem to have managed rather well without me,’ Ruby had said. ‘Which is good, and while I obviously don’t want to give up, I’m thinking I might cut right back. I’m going to cruise for a while, wake up in the mornings and see how the mood takes me. Maybe I’ll get to read all those books I’ve started but never finished, perhaps do something new and different. And I really am going to start writing that history of the Foundation, but first I thought I might have a rest.’

  ‘Rest?’ Jessica had said, laughing. ‘That’s a word I’ve only ever heard you direct at other people.’

  ‘Well there you go,’ Ruby had said with a grin, ‘I’m full of surprises.’

  So what will I do, she wonders now, turning onto the path that runs alongside the park. I’m convincing everyone else that I’m reinventing myself, but how do I convince myself? It’s not so windy here off the main street, but the trees are stripped bare of leaves, their branches silhouetted like gnarled fingers against the leaden sky. By a bench at the side of the path a young man stands on one foot, the other resting on the edge of the seat. He is wearing an old army greatcoat, a Dr Who scarf wrapped around his neck, and gloves with the fingers cut off to the big knuckle, and he’s playing the fiddle. Irish tunes, she thinks, although she can’t remember the names, but the melodies float out in the chill air over the heads of the pedestrians up into the old branches. Ruby stops to listen and feels, in the stillness, as she had felt the morning after she had told her story to Alice. Then the great burden of the past had rolled away down the hill; now, the final vestiges have been swept away with the strands of her hair. The fiddle player begins another tune and Ruby digs in her pockets for coins, drops them into the open fiddle case at his feet and walks on, head down into the wind towards home.

  It’s only when she’s almost there that she looks up and sees him, standing on the top step, hands in his pockets, a backpack looped over one shoulder, watching her, waiting. Ruby stops, narrowing her eyes to make sure she isn’t imagining things. But no, it’s him all right. She walks on to the bottom of the steps.

  ‘Jackson?’

  ‘Ruby,’ he says. ‘Todd said you’d be back by now. Great hair.’

  She narrows her eyes again, this time with scepticism. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I think you can guess why.’

  ‘I don’t have the time or the inclination for guessing games.’ She hears herself as haughty and dismissive, and is glad of it. ‘What is it that you want?’

  He looks around as though searching for someone to rescue him then draws a deep breath. ‘You, Ruby,’ he says, ‘you and me. I want us.’

  She looks at him, saying nothing, struggling not to let him see the inner turmoil. ‘You said something like that once before,’ she says, ‘and then you backed off faster than lightning.’

  Jackson nods, looking down at his feet in obvious embarrassment, then up at her again. ‘I ran away,’ he says. ‘I’m an old man, seventy-two years old, but I got scared. I didn’t know how to do it all again … relationships, companionship … love. Most of all love, but I found I couldn’t stop … thinking … hoping …’ His voice trails away.

  Ruby gives him another long look and walks up the steps to join him at the top. She shakes her head, reaches into her pocket and takes out a crumpled piece of paper, unfolds it and looks at it intently. ‘Your name does not appear on my bucket list.’

  He hesitates and she sees the expression in his eyes change, and one corner of his mouth twitches into the start of a smile.

  ‘Well maybe I could audition for a place?’

  ‘Catherine did
this once,’ Ruby says. ‘Ambushed me on my own doorstep. It wasn’t a good move,’ she sighs, ‘but this …’

  ‘This?’

  ‘… is different.’ She turns away to unlock the door, pushes it open and walks in, turning back to hold the door for him. ‘Not much luggage, I see. I’m not sure that a backpack indicates any level of commitment, but then I suppose that’s appropriate for an itinerant musician. Come on in. The audition starts now. I think you’ll find it won’t hurt a bit.’

  am grateful to Peter Sirr, Executive Director of Outcare Western Australia, his explanation of the prison system was invaluable. My thanks too to Richard Utting for advice on sentencing.

  Thanks too to Bev Ainsworth of Cape Lavender in Margaret River for taking time to tell me her story of starting her lavender farm. Benson’s Reach is not Cape Lavender but Bev’s experience and knowledge was most valuable. You can find out about Bev and Cape Lavender at www.capelavender.com.au.

  I am grateful to the women of the Zonta Club of Bunbury for their hospitality and for introducing me to the Birthing Kit Project. Zonta is a proud supporter of the Australian Birthing Foundation and its members raise funds and work as volunteers to assemble the kits. The impact of these simple, inexpensive kits on the lives of women in developing countries is remarkable, and you can find out more about it at http://www.birthingkitfoundation.org.au/.