But now Noël was safe with Dulcie, and Rudie knew everything, there was nothing to stop her fleeing. By the time Arnie called round here at eight tonight, to give her the orders for the evening, she would be on the train for Brisbane.
May humped the case down on to the floor and looked around the room. She had washed all Noël’s remaining clothes and nappies and hung them up to dry, she’d even cleaned the room thoroughly. One of the most shameful things about today had been Dulcie seeing her living in such squalor, May hoped that when she came back to look for her, at least that one image would be wiped out.
She glanced at herself in the mirror, wishing that Dulcie could have seen her like this too, instead of looking like a dirty slut. Her hair was washed now, hanging in soft silky waves to the shoulders of a smart black suit Rudie had bought her when she got her first job in Sydney. With stockings, high heels and just a touch of makeup she looked like an elegant secretary. Maybe her eyes had lost the sparkle they once had, and her body wasn’t quite so firm, but no one would take her for a prostitute.
Going over to the kitchen counter she leaned on it to write a letter.
Dear Dulcie, I’ve gone. It’s the only thing I can do. You do what you think is best for Noël, because he’d have no chance of a decent life with me. I was telling the truth when I said he was Rudie’s son, and please tell him I’m sorry that I wasn’t what he believed I was. I’ve got our mother’s bad blood, I can’t help it. I expect I’ll come to a sticky end too. I hope you get to be happy, you deserve to be. I said some cruel things today, and I won’t take them back because they were all true. But I said them because I love you and I hoped they would make you stop and think before you ruin your life for other people.
May XX
She looked at the letter for a few seconds, suddenly realizing it was the first time she’d ever managed to write exactly what she really thought to Dulcie. There was a whole lot more she wanted to say, especially as she knew this would be her very last letter to her. But if she wrote what was in her heart, Dulcie would move heaven and earth to find her, believing she was worth saving, and she didn’t want that.
Chewing on the pen for a few moments, she realized she had to formalize her sister’s position about Noël.
P. S., she wrote. I wish to make it known I want you, Dulcie Rawlings, nee Taylor, to be legal guardian to my son Noël Taylor. All decisions about his future must be made by you.
Dated 2 September 1961.
Signed May Taylor
May first propped up the note on the counter-top, but then, realizing Arnie had a key and might very well come in and take it, she added another postscript:
Noël’s clothes are clean and dry back in the flat, I’m enclosing a key for you to collect them. Kiss him for me.
Then she folded it up, slipped it into an envelope with her key and Noël’s birth certificate, and addressed it to Dulcie c/o the Sirius Hotel, The Rocks, Sydney, and put it in her pocket to post on the way to the station.
She paused at the doorway, looking back. She noted the threadbare curtains, the bed settee that never closed up properly, and her eyes welled up at the sight of Noël’s little matinee jackets, bootees and romper suits on the clothes-horse. Dulcie would never know she’d chosen those things with care and love. Or that on so many nights she’d come back here and taken him into bed with her, just to smell his baby smell, touch his smooth skin. He had been her downfall, yet maybe if things had been different he could have been her saviour. She felt ashamed now that his name had sprung from a drunken joke: There’s no ‘ell on earth like a new baby. She should have given him a proud name, James, Edward or even Rudolph. But it was too late for that now.
Dulcie was giving Noël his bottle at eight the following morning when she heard Nancy coming up the stairs. Tucking the baby under her arm, she opened the door to see the older woman bringing her a breakfast tray.
‘I thought I’d bring it up,’ Nancy said, looking anxious. ‘How was he during the night?’
‘Slept right through from the last feed.’ Dulcie smiled.
Nancy put the tray down on the table by the window. ‘Let me finish with the bottle and wind him,’ she said, holding out her arms for him. ‘You eat your breakfast and read the letter that’s just come for you.’
‘A letter?’ Dulcie exclaimed, handing over Noël and the bottle. ‘It can’t be from Ross, I only gave Bruce the address the first night I was here.’
As soon as she saw May’s writing she instinctively knew it was trouble. She ripped open the envelope and blanched as she saw the key and Noël’s birth certificate and read the note hurriedly.
‘Oh no!’ she exclaimed. ‘She’s gone.’
The room began to spin. All those small anxieties yesterday and Rudie’s doubts about May’s intentions whirled about her in a mad dance.
‘She’s gone?’ Nancy repeated. ‘Gone where?’
Silently Dulcie handed her the letter, but held the key in her hand staring at it. She couldn’t believe May would do this to her. Looking after Noël for a few days was one thing, but just to dump him on her and run off was something else altogether.
‘I played right into her hands, didn’t I?’ she said glumly as Nancy gasped and let the letter fall to the floor in shock.
Dulcie slumped down at the table and with trembling hands poured herself some tea. ‘What am I going to do, Nancy? I can’t just keep him. Did she really think by writing that stuff on the end of the letter she would make it right? Am I supposed to just take him back to Esperance and expect Ross to be delighted?’
Both women fell silent, overcome by the seriousness of the situation.
‘She must have been desperate,’ Nancy said at length. ‘You said yesterday she talked about taking him to the Sisters, well, maybe she was afraid to do that herself. I suppose we ought to be grateful she didn’t just abandon him somewhere. Also, if she’d run off without a word the police would have had to try and find her before they could allow anyone to make any decisions about him. At least she’s given you the authority to act on his behalf.’
‘But I don’t know what to do, and I can’t understand how she can be so callous!’ Dulcie exclaimed, beginning to cry.
‘She did leave him with the one person who could be trusted to care for him,’ Nancy said gently. ‘Don’t judge her too harshly, Dulcie. We don’t know what she’s been through since she left Rudie. My mother always used to say you have to walk a mile in someone’s else’s boots before you can judge them.’
But Dulcie continued to cry. She was stunned, frightened and overawed by the enormity of the responsibility her sister had thrust on her. Yet as Nancy’s words began to sink in, and as she looked at her sitting there calmly feeding Noël, she realized the woman was quite right. They didn’t know what May had been through in the past months – much of what she’d said yesterday could have been bravado. No one would live in such squalor out of choice, and when she thought back to that room she realized there had been no comforts there, no sign of any wealth.
‘What did you think of May when you first met her?’ she asked through her tears.
‘I liked her,’ Nancy said evenly. ‘Rudie asked all of us over to his house one Sunday, not long after they got back from WA. We spent the afternoon on the beach swimming with the kids, then went back for an early supper at Rudie’s place. I thought she was a bit secretive, she didn’t say anything about her past, but she was a good hostess, looking after us all, making us laugh a great deal. Of course she was very beautiful too, and I think most of us are drawn to attractive people.’
‘You didn’t suspect her of anything odd then?’
Nancy shook her head. ‘She seemed to be everything Rudie had said – ladylike, amusing, sweet-natured. If we did have a worry it was only because of the age difference between them. Later on, nearer to the time she disappeared, I had a few niggling anxieties: she appeared distant, kind of preoccupied and snappy with Rudie. But then everyone has their moments like that.’
>
In some way it made Dulcie feel a little better that Nancy had liked May, and she dried her eyes.
‘Tell me what Rudie was like when she went,’ she asked. He had made light of that so far, and Dulcie wanted to see the whole picture.
‘He was devastated. He didn’t eat, sleep or work, he lost a great deal of weight,’ Nancy said.
Noël began making a loud slurping noise as he reached the end of the milk in his bottle, and the sound made both women smile despite everything.
‘Well, he isn’t bothered by anything,’ Nancy said, hoisting him up on to her shoulder to wind him. ‘Now, try and eat your breakfast, Dulcie. It’s going to be a difficult day for you, and you can’t handle it on an empty tum. Would it help if I rang Rudie and told him what’s happened?’
‘Yes please,’ Dulcie said gratefully. ‘I wouldn’t know how to go about it.’
‘I think you’ll find he’ll be a tower of strength,’ Nancy said. ‘You’ve got to remember he enlisted your help in the first place purely because of Noël, not because he hoped to be reunited with May – he knew that was a dead duck. He said he was worried that she might not be taking good care of him, even before he wrote to you. He’s a very sensitive man, and an honourable one too. He’ll know the right thing to do now.’
Nancy came upstairs at ten to tell her Rudie had arrived and that he was in her sitting-room having a cup of coffee. She reported that he seemed remarkably calm, though he had admitted to being thrown into a state of panic when Nancy rang him earlier.
‘Put something smart on because he’s made an appointment for you both to talk to his lawyer,’ Nancy advised.
After Nancy had gone downstairs again, Dulcie put on the navy-blue suit she’d brought to travel home in after her wedding and fixed her hair up in a French pleat to make herself look older. As she put on some lipstick she appraised her appearance in the mirror. At home she rarely had time for anything more than brushing her hair and putting some cream on her face, and she certainly never paid much attention to her looks. She would have expected the strain of the last couple of days to show, but strangely she seemed to have grown prettier since she left home, her eyes looked bigger, her cheeks pinker, and there seemed to be a glow about her she’d never noticed before.
Rudie was wearing the same formal dark suit he had worn when he met her at the station, but as Nancy reported he looked calm and greeted Dulcie with warmth an concern, taking Noël from her arms to hold him. Nancy had already given him May’s letter to read and when Dulcie asked what he thought about it he just shrugged.
‘At least she’s admitted I’m the father and asked that you be his legal guardian, that’s something. Of course I’m not sure that an unwitnessed letter like this is legally binding, but it’s better than nothing.’
‘Aren’t you angry with her?’ Dulcie asked.
‘Yes and no. I think it’s like Nancy said, she must have been at breaking-point, and once she knew Noël was safe with you she just took off.’
‘But it isn’t fair to do this to me.’ Dulcie sighed. ‘I don’t know much about babies, and it’s not as if I’m even in a home of my own. How on earth did she expect me to manage?’
‘I’m sure she knew you’d find a way.’ Rudie half smiled, looking down at Noël in his arms. ‘You have that air of utter dependability. The question is, are you prepared to take care of him until we can come up with a more permanent solution?’
‘Of course I am.’
A look of relief swept across his face. ‘Thank heavens for that. I was afraid you’d blame me for getting you into this.’
‘How could I blame you? It was me who brought him home with me. Besides, he is a lovely baby, and my nephew, I want to take care of him.’
‘You won’t have to do it alone, I’ll help,’ he said.
His words soothed Dulcie’s anxiety. She had already decided in her own mind that the only way to prevent Noël ending up in a grim orphanage was to hang on to him for as long as possible. That way she could make sure the Welfare Department found the right foster-home for him. Clearly Rudie was of the same mind as her, and with his support and his knowledge of the legal system here in Sydney she knew that task would be a whole lot easier.
‘I feel better now,’ she said with a shy smile. ‘I suppose I just panicked.’
He beamed at her. ‘We’ll share everything. I’ll even learn to change nappies too. Now, let’s take this little tike to see Frank Wetherall.’
*
Mr Frank Wetherall, Rudie’s lawyer, was a funny little dried-up old stick of a man, less than five feet five, with a few strands of white hair spread across a large bald patch, a heavily lined face and a dark suit which looked too big. But his eyes were bright and piercing, and his voice was deep and resonant. He sat behind his desk with his hands clasped together as they told him the story, only stopping them now and then to clarify a point.
He studied the letter from May intently for several minutes without speaking. Then he looked up at them with an expression of deep sympathy and understanding.
‘I am very sorry you have been thrown into such an unenviable situation,’ He sighed. ‘Now, under normal circumstances, say in the sudden death of the mother, Mrs Rawlings would be granted automatic guardianship of her nephew, but as Miss Taylor is only nineteen, a minor still, and a ward of the Australian government, and she is still living, having abandoned her child, the situation is much more complicated. In law Noël has now become a ward of the government too, and while the Child Welfare Department may eventually pass judgement that you become his legal guardian, they do have powers to take him away from you into care, and they certainly wouldn’t allow you to take him out of New South Wales until they had reached a decision.’
‘But I couldn’t just take him home with me anyway,’ Dulcie said quickly, alarmed that he even thought that was her intention. ‘Not without first getting my husband’s agreement.’
The lawyer nodded in understanding. ‘Of course not, Mrs Rawlings. It is a delicate situation and one that needs careful thought and discussion with all parties involved. I would make the suggestion that you find a temporary home here while the authorities make their checks, for they are unlikely to see a hotel as suitable even as a temporary home for a baby.’
Dulcie’s heart sank, she had no money for that. She looked at Rudie helplessly.
‘Mrs Rawlings could stay with me,’ he said hastily. ‘That is if, of course, if she is agreeable. Then we could provide a united front as father and aunt together.’
‘Umm,’ Mr Wetherall murmured thoughtfully. ‘I’m not sure that they’ll approve of such an arrangement. These officials can be sticklers for propriety.’
Dulcie got up, hugging Noël tightly to her chest. ‘We’ll convince them it’s the best arrangement,’ she said firmly. ‘But before we go any further, I want to make something quite clear. I can cope with the Welfare taking him away from me to a foster-home if they think that’s in his best interests, but I will not stand for him being sent to any place run by the Sisters of Mercy, or the Christian Brothers.’
‘Why?’ Mr Wetherall asked, looking extremely shocked.
‘Because his mother would not have ended up the way she is now had she been spared the Sisters’ cruelty. My husband was equally badly treated by the Brothers. Just remember that is not an option.’
‘I hope Wetherall isn’t a Catholic,’ Rudie said as they got into a taxi to go back to the hotel. ‘They all idolize the Sisters of Mercy, and the Christian Brothers even more so.’
‘Do you approve of the Sisters of Mercy now you know what happened to May and me with them?’ Dulcie asked. She hadn’t said anything about May’s treatment at the hands of the Reverend Mother yesterday, but she had told him about the Sisters’ awful cruelty.
‘No, I don’t,’ he said.
‘Well, when I get around to telling you what the Christian Brothers did to Ross, you’ll see them in the same light as the Sisters,’ Dulcie said tightly.
&n
bsp; ‘Some of the best schools in Australia are run by the Christian Brothers,’ he said reproachfully. ‘Many of my friends have them to thank for a first-class education.’
‘I daresay that children who have parents looking out for them have nothing to fear from them,’ she said tartly. ‘It’s orphans that concern me, and if we can’t get guardianship of Noël, that’s just what he’ll be.’
Rudie suggested that they should go to his place for the rest of the day so Dulcie could decide if she’d like to stay there. After a brief talk with Nancy, they collected the pram, Noël’s things and a coat for Dulcie and set off for the ferry which left from the Circular Quay, just a short walk from the hotel.
Dulcie suddenly felt very ill at ease as she manoeuvred the pram through the crowds along the quay. It was her hasty actions which had started this, she was in a strange town, with a man she only barely knew, totally unprepared to look after a baby, and in a few days’ time she was going to be taken to task by Welfare workers. On top of that she had to make decisions about Noël which would affect his whole life. It was like one of those weird dreams where she was running as hard as she could but getting nowhere, and in this case she knew she wasn’t going to wake up suddenly and find it wasn’t real.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ Rudie said, clearly sensing part of what she was feeling. ‘It isn’t all on your shoulders, Dulcie, we’re in this together. You don’t have to stay at my place if you don’t like the idea. Let’s just pretend we’re borrowing Noël for now, and see how it goes today.’
Her smile was weak, but she felt grateful he seemed to understand how she felt, she supposed he was just as nervous too.
‘I have got a car,’ Rudie said as they waited in the queue for the boat. ‘But it’s far more pleasant to come into the city this way. Of course until you arrived I didn’t do the trip so often, I stayed at home and painted.’
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