A Woman of Courage

by J. H. Fletcher

  ‘Where is Koo – whatever you said the name was, sir?’

  The captain practised his best scowl, in case this girl was taking the mickey, a phrase he remembered from his army days. But no, it seemed she really wanted to know.

  ‘It is near Traralgon.’

  Hilary was no wiser but thought it might be best to ask no more. I’ll find out soon enough, she thought.

  ‘They’ll be picking you up at twelve hundred hours. Be sure you’re ready.’

  Twelve hundred hours… His time in the army had been the high point of the captain’s life and he made sure you never forgot it but now she was leaving Hilary found it no longer irritated her like it had. If he wanted to live the rest of his life in combat boots let him get on with it. Saying tooraloo to Agnes was harder but she knew you had to move on. Life wouldn’t wait if you wasted time looking over your shoulder.

  It was quarter after twelve when a Land Rover arrived to pick her up. The bloke at the wheel said his name was Sid Brackett.

  ‘Is that everything you got?’ Looking at the carrier bag that held all her worldly possessions. ‘You believe in travelling light.’

  ‘Only because I’m broke.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’

  ‘Except I aim to change it.’

  ‘Not at Pattinsons’ you won’t.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Where you’re going.’

  Story of my life, Hilary thought. Always heading off somewhere and not knowing where. Something else I’ll have to change.

  2004

  CHANGE OF COURSE

  1

  On the morning after her dinner with her daughters at the Seven Stars Hilary woke at five. It must have been almost midnight by the time she turned out the light but she’d always managed with less sleep than most and her body and mind were well rested, both of them urging her to get moving.

  For a moment she ignored them, lying on her back with eyes turned to the open window of her bedroom. It was still dark and she could just make out the fading stars but knew that over the Heads the eastern sky would be showing the first hint of dawn. Always she liked to do this, preparing herself for whatever challenges the day might bring; this was the time when thought came most readily.

  Today Sara was coming to breakfast. The weather was set to be fine and warm so last night Hilary had left a note for Mrs Walsh to lay the table on the terrace. It was a suitable setting for a discussion that one way or another would affect the family, the company’s shareholders and its thousands of employees scattered around the globe.

  She would have liked to include Jennifer in the conversation but Jennifer had never had any interest in the business. Hilary had already decided to keep her out of the loop for the time being; what she was planning to discuss with her over lunch would give her plenty to think about without that.

  She thought about how she should bring up the subject with Sara. Sara was not touchy; like everyone on earth she needed to be handled but handling people was a trick Hilary had learnt when she was a rookie selling real estate forty years back and it had stood her in good stead ever since.

  She got out of bed, put on a swimsuit and wrap, grabbed a towel and went out into the morning. The house with all its treasures – among them a Chagall original, a Brancusi statue, an ivory study of the sage Zhang Guo Lao presented to her five years earlier by the Chinese minister of culture – stood silently about her. Barefoot, she crossed the lawn and walked to the end of the jetty, its dew-wet planks cool beneath her feet. The outline of the Heads was dark against the advancing dawn with bright Venus hanging like a jewel in the eastern sky. She dropped her wrap, stretched her arms above her head and dived into the cool dark water.

  In the summer it was a pleasure, in the winter something of an ordeal, but whenever she was home Hilary made a point of having an early-morning swim. There was something exhilarating and fulfilling about swimming at night in Sydney Harbour with the city’s lights reflecting on the broken surface of the water in coins of gold, silver and red. There was a mooring buoy a hundred metres offshore; she had swum out to it so often that she did not need to work out its direction but swam deliberately, not trying to beat the clock but exulting in the pull of her strong arms, the water parting obediently before her. She touched the buoy, a metal bell with a flashing light on top, and trod water for a moment to test her strength – fine – her heart – at peace – and her breathing – calm and controlled – before heading back to the shore.

  I shall miss this, she thought. But the future would be an affirmation of what she wanted most in life and, as with everything, there was a price to pay. No matter, she thought. I shall carry this memory in my heart, together with all the other memories making up the tapestry that has been my life.

  She ran lightly up the steps to the jetty, rubbed her head and body with her towel and headed indoors.

  An hour later, tarted up – as she told herself – like a ten grand show pony, she sat on the terrace, drinking strong coffee and looking at the view. It was a million-dollar view with the sun now well clear of the horizon and ploughing the sparkling waters of the harbour in furrows of golden light.

  She drank more coffee and thought again how she would approach the subject. Ultimately it was a selling job. So what was new? Everything had always been a selling job: selling land, selling herself. Always the huckster. She looked at her watch. Seven-twenty. She and Sara would talk seriously, two women who were colleagues and who happened to be related by blood. That was how Hilary intended to handle things. They would talk and they would see.

  2

  They had finished breakfast. It hadn’t taken long; neither of them was a big eater. Boiled eggs, whole wheat bread, freshly squeezed orange juice, a bowl of fruit, fresh coffee.

  Sara pushed back her chair and looked at her mother through the dark glasses that guarded her eyes from the sun. And from anyone trying to read her thoughts, Hilary thought.

  ‘What’s all this about, Mother?’

  Hilary recognised Sara’s interviewing technique. Come in boots and all; put the other person on the defensive. But Hilary was not trapped so easily; she had often found that the oblique approach paid off best. ‘I like to sit here at this time of day. Looking at the view and thinking things through. Cool and calm deliberation… You know what I mean?’

  ‘You didn’t ask me here to talk about Gilbert and Sullivan,’ Sara said.

  Hilary smiled and launched a counter-attack of her own. ‘How are you hitting it off with Millie Dawlish?’

  ‘OK. I suppose. Why?’

  I suppose. Hilary loved that, Sara honest enough to admit doubt.

  ‘Not much calm deliberation with that one,’ she said.

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Good at her job, though.’

  No answer.

  ‘You agree?’ Hilary said.

  ‘You approved her appointment. You knew her reputation so I guess you got what you were looking for.’

  A plane was climbing into the clear air above the harbour, outward bound from Kingsford Smith. Hilary watched it, hearing the diminishing rumble of its engines, then looked at Sara again. ‘You don’t approve?’

  ‘She will certainly push up the ratings.’

  ‘But you don’t approve?’

  ‘Like I said. If you want top ratings she’s very good.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Do you want a top current affairs programme or top ratings?’

  ‘You don’t think we can have both?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What would you do about it?’

  Sara shook her head. ‘Not my decision.’

  ‘If it were?’

  Another shake. Sara, too, was not easily trapped.

  ‘I’ve given Millie a free hand,’ Hilary said.

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘And if she takes the programme down market?’

  ‘That would be your call, wouldn’t it?’

  Hilary kept a straight face but unde
rneath she was smiling. Sara had avoided expressing her opinion on either Millie Dawlish or the programme but it was obvious that what she really wanted was a quality product and already knew that with Millie she wasn’t going to get it. She was right.

  ‘Millie’s brief is to get us top ratings. That means repositioning the programme in the marketplace.’

  ‘You mean heading down market.’

  Now Hilary was remorseless. ‘We have no choice. But I also know you’ll never be happy unless you’re involved with a top-quality product.’

  Sara took off her dark glasses and leant across the table, staring at her mother with naked eyes. ‘What are you saying to me?’

  Now Hilary was running on instinct, as she had so successfully in the past. ‘I am saying I can offer you a way out.’

  ‘I think you are trying to manipulate me, towkay neo,’ Sara said.

  Hilary laughed. ‘Not manipulate; suggesting a course of action that I hope will offer you more opportunity and more challenge than you have now.’

  ‘You mean manipulate me.’

  Hilary laughed a second time and rang the silver bell beside her plate. ‘I’ll ask Mrs Walsh to get us fresh coffee and I’ll tell you about it.’

  3

  ‘When I asked you to have breakfast with me this morning I’d thought we’d be discussing your future role in the corporation. But now something else has come up. We’re having problems in Hong Kong,’ Hilary said. ‘We inherited a situation when we took over Channel 12 and it may have gone sour on us. I would like you to help sort it out.’

  ‘Oh?’ Warily, giving nothing away.

  ‘Our enquiry agent in Hong Kong is talking fraud. I think he may be right.’ Hilary watched Sara’s investigative instincts kick in.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Sara said.

  Hilary did. When she had finished Sara sat staring out at the harbour for a spell. Then she looked across the table at her mother and her eyes were sharp. ‘They said they could fix up an independent television channel in China? A station owned by foreigners? Given the nature of the Chinese government, how was that ever going to work? No wonder your agent has questions. But what do you want me to do?’

  ‘I want you to go over there with Martha and look into the situation.’

  ‘How can I? The programme –’

  ‘Forget the programme.’

  ‘But what about my interview with Emil?’

  ‘Do it when you come back from Hong Kong. It’ll be your swansong.’

  ‘Are you asking me or telling me?’

  ‘You’re a premium person. You’ll never be happy with a less than premium product. The programme’s future the way it is, I believe it’s time for you to move on.’

  ‘So you want me to go to Hong Kong with Martha. Why?’

  Now was the moment. Hilary drew a deep breath. ‘Because I am sixty-three years old. Because I plan to retire very soon and want you to take over from me. Not yet; you’re not ready. But in a couple of years.’

  The impact of Hilary’s words set Sara back in her chair. ‘Retire? You? Never!’

  ‘You better believe it.’

  ‘It’ll kill the share price!’

  ‘Not if we handle it right. Vivienne has been involved at the top of the operation for ten years. She is more than capable of taking over.’

  ‘But you’re still Brand Corporation.’

  ‘So we get the PR boys to build Vivienne up.’

  ‘Will the market buy it?’

  ‘The big players know the score. I might have a chat with one or two of the institutions but I don’t foresee any serious trouble.’

  ‘But where do I fit in?’

  ‘Vivienne is fifty-eight. If you accept you would understudy her for two years. It’ll mean hard work: harder than anything you’ve done in your life. But I have every confidence you’re up to it.’

  ‘I wish I did,’ Sara said.

  ‘I’d be worried if you didn’t have doubts but I am certain you have the ability to handle it. And by the time Vivienne retires you’ll be ready to step into her shoes. You are more charismatic than Vivienne so you can use that time to build up your public image.’

  ‘But what are you planning to do?’

  ‘Something new. Which will also be challenging in its way.’

  Sara stared. ‘What are we talking about here?’

  Hilary’s head shake rejected that. ‘We’re not talking about me. I want to know if you’re willing to go to Hong Kong or not.’

  Sara combed her fingers through her hair. ‘I’m finding this a bit hard to take in.’

  ‘I’m sure you are,’ said Hilary in what she hoped was a sympathetic voice. ‘But I need to know, you see.’

  ‘Know when?’

  ‘Pretty well straight away. Hong Kong can’t wait.’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘Yes. You can stay where you are, doing what you do now, with Millie Dawlish calling the shots. Or you can move on to the big stage.’

  ‘And take my luck?’

  ‘I don’t think, properly handled, that luck will come into it.’

  Sara drank coffee and looked at her mother across the table. ‘If I agree to go to Hong Kong I’ll be locked in, shan’t I?’

  ‘You will still be free to walk away.’

  ‘But you don’t believe I will?’

  ‘That is my hope.’

  ‘Does Vivienne know?’

  ‘Nobody knows. Only you.’

  ‘Was that why you wanted us to have dinner with you last night?’

  ‘No. This doesn’t concern Jennifer. She’s never been interested in the business.’

  ‘Then why did you drag her up from Melbourne?’

  ‘You are my children. I always like to see you.’

  ‘You’re up to something,’ Sara said.

  Hilary smiled. ‘Nothing to do with the business.’

  ‘If there’d just been the two of us we could have discussed it over dinner.’

  ‘It’s not something to talk about in a restaurant.’

  ‘No one could have heard us.’

  ‘A directional microphone would pick up every hiccup.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Only that I am reasonably well known. There are always people trying to eavesdrop and I’ve learnt to take precautions. You’ll have to do the same, in time.’

  ‘I’ll need to think about it,’ Sara said after a moment.

  ‘Take as long as you like.’ Hilary smiled as she threw Sara the challenge. ‘As long as you let me have your answer no later than tomorrow.’

  After Sara had left Hilary sat on, staring at the shifting waters of the harbour. Well, I have told her. Now all I can do is wait but one way or the other I am determined. I want Sara to accept the challenge – that is my dearest wish – but if she does not I shall find someone else. After Dr Chang’s warning, a change of course is what I shall have. I have no intention of dying in harness. From my earliest days in this country I have always known when it was time to move on.

  1956–58

  FARM GIRL

  1

  Hilary had been at Pattinsons’ getting on for a year but this was her first stock sale. The transporter ground slowly down the long hill and turned into a stockyard swarming with men and livestock. Trucks lined up at the ramps were discharging sheep into the pens. Blue-shirted stock agents hurried this way and that. The air was thick with dust and loud with the bleating of sheep and bellowing of cattle.

  Hilary turned to Tim. ‘Quite a mob. Is it always like this?’

  She had long got used to the set up back at the farm, even if the stockyard was new. Had got used, too, to Mrs Pattinson treating her like dirt. Tim had told her his mother had been a Whelan, which apparently counted for something in Koornalla, and treated everyone like dirt, including his father and himself.

  ‘All except Brett,’ Tim said.

  Brett was Tim’s older brother and the apple of his mother’s eye. Brett was away at colleg
e but would be home for Christmas, which was now three weeks away. Tim, tall and rangy, with black hair and a willing smile, was a year older than Hilary and was her friend. Her only friend, unless you counted the dogs.

  Before she’d arrived Sid Brackett had warned her to look out for the dogs. ‘They’re a nasty lot,’ he’d told her on the long journey from Bacchus Marsh. ‘Give ’em half a chance, they’ll take a chew out of you, no worries.’

  Sure enough, when they arrived the dogs had crowded around, snarling and showing their teeth, but Hilary had always got on well with dogs and in two minutes had them eating not out of her leg but her hand.

  ‘Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it meself,’ said Sid Brackett.

  Jasmine Pattinson had resented Hilary from the first, smelling in the new arrival an unhealthy willingness to stand up for herself. To Mrs Pattinson the ease with which Hilary had won over the dogs was a sign of trouble to come. She was all in favour of having cheap labour to help her around the place but wanted it to be timid and obedient, scared of the dogs and of life. It hadn’t taken long for her to find out that in Hilary Brand she’d got something different.

  ‘Too independent by half,’ she warned her husband. ‘You’ll see, we’ll have problems with this one.’

  Edward Pattinson, who favoured a quiet life and had seen nothing wrong with the new girl, did what he had learnt to do over the years. He said nothing.

  It wasn’t just the dogs; from the beginning Hilary had shown an interest in the operation of the farm. Whenever she managed to get away from the house – not easy, with all the washing up and laundry and ironing and cleaning and Jasmine’s eyes burning holes in her back every inch of the way – she got Tim to explain the bits and pieces of equipment and how they worked.

  ‘What are those things?’

  ‘Drench guns.’

  ‘Tell me about them.’

  ‘They’re better than the ones we had before. Their valves were always blocking but these are OK.’

  ‘What do you use them for?’

  ‘To pour drench down the animal’s throat. See? They’ve got a dial to help you select the dose you need.’

  He explained how to dose a calf, holding it between your thighs and forcing its mouth open to insert the nozzle of the drench gun. ‘Make sure you don’t stick your fingers too far back or its molars might get you.’