Lizzie's Tale

by Graham Wilson

  Chapter 20 - Life’s New Purpose

  For Lizzie life in the desert rolled along in a way that had no boundaries. The sun came up and the sun went down, food was found and they all gathered round. They talked, learned, sang and laughed. Sometimes the old men and women talked and the children gathered. Sometimes they danced in the dark, feet swirling in the dust, tap sticks keeping a rhythmic beat. Sometimes, on hot lazy afternoons, they made things using the materials in the bush around them, a man carved a spear head from a hard stick, a woman made a basket from woven grass, another painted on a flattened sheet a picture of bark dots and patterns of the movements of the desert. Twice big storms came and they sheltered and sung rain songs, once the rain came and the big drops splashed through their shelters. The other time it was dust and wind that tore through their flimsy shelters leaving them broken with pieces scattered; soon after they rebuilt them.

  Twice they travelled to new places, once to a huge lake full of water. The men hunted ducks while the women collected roots, and all feasted in the shade of papery barked trees. Next time they went to a pool in a dry river bed to hunt the kangaroos which came to drink. Lizzie sat in the shade with other dark skinned women while the children played. One told of how further up river was a very bad place. Here, long ago, white men killed many of her people, bodies thrown in a big hole in the ground. Lizzie knew pain far greater than her own. She told them her story. The women nodded, they shared her pain too.

  It was nearly two months until Lizzie saw another white person. It was a man who had come to see this newly established community and find out what services they needed. He offered to build houses and a store, bring a drilling rig and drill a bore. The people nodded and seemed to agree, but no one really seemed to care. The man went away feeling as if he had done a good thing. He would return in a month and he promised to bring Lizzie a pen and paper so she could write some letters. He said he would also look for a few children’s books with simple words and pictures.

  A month later, paper delivered, Lizzie wrote four letters and a month later again the man returned and collected them. It was summer and hot and the rain had come. So most roads were cut, no houses were built or bores drilled.

  A further month later he brought three letters back, but one was missing. Lizzie quickly scratched out another letter and gave it to the man to take before he departed. A month later she had three more letters written to reply last month’s letters from Elena, Julie and her Mum. This time one more letter came back to her.

  The single letter read.

  Dear Lizzie,

  Of course I remember you and I am so glad you have made a new life for yourself.

  Regarding Rebecca, she left here a year after you did. She met a lovely man who adored both her and her baby boy. He lived in a nice house in Hawthorn. She married him a year later and now has three more children.

  I do not hear from her directly but meet occasional people who know her. I think she prefers to forget she lived here, and I understand.

  Whether she wants to hear from you I do not know, but her address is 223 Burswood St, Hawthorn.

  Of Robert I have heard nothing for several years. He only worked for us for a month after you left. I don’t think he ever quite forgave himself for what happened to you. Perhaps he was much more attached to you than he admitted, but after you went away it was like a light in his life went out. He got morose and drank too much, and while he was still kind to the girls I knew he needed to go somewhere else to find himself again or whatever he had lost.

  We remained friends and occasionally he would call and ring in the first year of two after he went. He always asked if I had heard from you.

  However it is a long time since I have heard from him and I think this means he now lives in another place, far away, and sadly I do not know where.

  However I have his mother’s address if this is of any assistance, not a street number but it is a small town and someone should be able to find her if you sent it to the post office with a cover note. She is Mrs Edwina Davies of Hill St, Warburton.

  Please give my best regards to your lovely daughter, Catherine. I am sure she has grown to be a delightful young lady.

  If you ever find your way to Melbourne again it would be lovely if you could come and visit.

  Kindest regards.

  Lavinia Lawson

  So Lizzie wrote a further letter straight away that the man took with him. It was short and to the point. She did not know how to write it any other way. It read.

  Dear Mrs Davies,

  I doubt that Robert has ever mentioned my name, however I knew him for a time in Melbourne in 1964 when we became good friends. When I had to leave unexpectedly he made me promise to write to him, and I regret to say I have neglected to do so until this time.

  I have kindly been given your address by Mrs Lavinia Lawson of St Kilda, for whom we both worked in that year. She has suggested that you may be able to assist me in contacting him.

  I would love to hear from him again. If you could send his address or pass this letter on to him I would be very appreciative.

  Yours sincerely

  Lizzie Renford

  She placed it inside a second envelope addressed to Warburton Post Office asking assistance to pass this letter on to Edwina Davies who lived in Hill St. A month later she got a brief note from Mrs Davies.

  Dear Lizzie,

  Robbie has mentioned your name to me several times and despite the years that have passed I know he will be delighted hear from you. I have forwarded your letter and I am sure he will be in touch with you shortly.

  I will leave him to tell you his news, you will find him changed but I hope this will not affect your friendship. He remembers you very fondly.

  Edwina

  A month went by and then another, while she continued to exchange letters with her mother, Elena and Julie. She heard nothing from Robbie. She thought of writing a longer letter to him and asking his mother to pass it on. But she knew that anything further was in his hands. Perhaps he had found someone else.

  One day, in that mid afternoon time when people are sitting around and telling stories, before starting activities in the evening cool, a distant noise was heard approaching, something like a car but with a different and higher note.

  One of the older men nodded. “Mightabe motabike.” No one knew anyone with a motorbike so they continued to talk and listen as the sound increased. Now a cloud of dust was visible approaching from the north, and then it was there, a motorbike stopped bare yards away.

  A man, wearing a helmet, with his body swaddled in leathers, climbed off. He walked towards them all. He had a visible limp; his right leg was twisted and moved in a funny way.

  Lizzie realised this man was coming towards her, she just knew, and she knew him too. His helmet came off. Her legs took their own control, she found herself running towards him and flinging herself into his arms. “Whoa” he said, “balance not too good.” He shuffled to support them both with his good leg.

  Lizzie did not care, she could feel tears streaming down her face and she did not care about that either. It was Robbie; he had come for her, he had travelled here to be with her. She buried her face in his chest, she managed to say, mostly in sobs “I am so glad you came, I have wanted and needed you for so long and I am just so, so glad you are here.”

  He gave her his old smile, “And I am more than glad to see you too, though you picked the furthest, most desolate and most Godforsaken place to bring me to.”

  As the weeks and months went by Lizzie could not believe how rapturously happy she was, they both were. They owned almost nothing. They lived here on the edge of the desert and they were a family and beyond this they needed nothing. Catherine loved her new Dad, he called her Cathy and she called him Dad, which she knew he loved. She told him with pride how she had told her Mummy to find him, she had said that he needed her Mummy but really she knew that, even more, her Mummy needed him.

&nbs
p; Robbie laughed and said “I think we both needed each other just as much, but thank you for your help.”

  Robbie was very handy; he had built them a house of bush timber and now was building a shelter for a school. He had also put up a tank so that they could pump water from the soak, and he had put in a wood fired water heater so they could all have a hot shower at least once a week. He also installed a Flying Doctor radio though as yet there was no airstrip nearby. Beyond that little changed in this place or in their lives.

  Robbie also fixed up her car which he seemed to have taken as his by right. After a month they drove into Halls Creek and went shopping, just simple stuff, new clothes for her and Cathy and some food and presents for other clan members.

  They also used the telephone. She first rang her Mum, then Elena and then Julie. After she had talked to each one she felt so emotional that she wanted to stop. But Robbie insisted she did not stop until she had talked to them all and Cathy had to say hello to each as well.

  Then Robbie rang his own Mum and talked to her, saying, “Mum, I am so happy and glad I came. Now I want you to say hello to Lizzie, the lady I have loved from the day I met her and soon am going to marry.”

  With that introduction Lizzie was lost for words, but then this kind voice came down the line saying, “I have known since he first told me about you that you were the one. Then, when I got your letter, I knew it would be you for sure. Now I am so glad he has found you again, having lost you for so long. I know you will both be happy together.”

  There wasn’t really much for Lizzie to say after that except that she was the lucky one. So she put Cathy on to say hello to her new Grandma, not that the marriage was formal yet but it felt the same, they were even making plans for another baby of their own, and Lizzie suspected one may come along very soon, there was no lack of trying.

  Over these past months she had written and told her dear friends Elena and Julie, along with her mother, the full story about her life. Now Robbie had also become part of the story. She was determined to hide nothing important. Each time she wrote a letter Cathy had taken to writing her own news or a drawing to go in her letters, things like:

  “Daddy building a windmill,

  Mummy eating a snake, yuk! yuk!! Yuk!!!”

  Lizzie felt surprise they were all even better friends and closer than when the year had started, but she had come to understand acceptance was part of the power of honesty.

  She also got a letter back from Rebecca. It was a kind, polite letter, saying she was glad to hear from her, that Lizzie was braver than Rebecca felt she could be in telling others about her past life. She would really prefer that part of her own life was forgotten. She did invite Lizzie to visit if she came to Melbourne. She said she would like to see how Catherine had grown up and would like Lizzie to see Andrew along with her two other children.

  But Lizzie knew that any visit presupposed that the part of both their lives, when they became friends, was a closed subject. Perhaps she would visit, Becky was still her friend despite all, but she felt it would not have the strength of her other friendships.

  Julie increasingly wrote her letters about the investigations she was pursuing, particularly into Newcastle Transport, Mr Martin Wallis and his friends, Mr Daniel Ashcroft and Mr William Brown. Julie had graduated with journalism and law degrees and she was now working for the Sydney Morning Herald.

  She said she was gathering evidence to use against these men for stories in the newspapers and hopefully in a criminal prosecution. She asked Lizzie to write all her memories and experiences of these people down and post them to her, sparing nothing. She then asked Lizzie for permission to turn this information into affidavits which in due course Lizzie would swear were true.

  While Lizzie had moved beyond vengeance she knew this was a necessary part of keeping her own promise and for the giving of justice to others. Robbie gave her total support, he said nothing she had done was any cause of shame, and he was happy to stand up and tell the world both that she was the best person he knew and that he loved her all the more for her courage.

  One day a message came asking her to be in Halls Creek the next day. She and Cathy sat alongside Robbie as he drove the ute and several of her aboriginal clan sat on the back. The message was vague about why they were needed.

  In the town the publican explained that an aeroplane was expected in the next hour. It was bringing a film crew including both a journalist and photographer from the Sydney Morning Herald and two lawyers from the NSW Public Prosecutors Office. He knew because they had booked rooms at his hotel for the tonight. They were to fly on to Broome tomorrow.

  He did not know what it was about. But they had specifically asked to see Lizzie Renford so he had sent the message out to her over the Flying Doctor radio.

  Robbie booked a room for them in the hotel as well, and a separate room next door for Cathy, which she loved.

  Then he borrowed the publican’s vehicle which had extra seats. They both drove to airport to collect any passengers that came. As they arrived a plane, a fast twin engine type, was on its final approach to land. A tall elegant lady with blond bleached hair stepped out first. Suddenly Lizzie realised this was Julie; she looked so grown up and sensationally elegant. Lizzie felt dowdy in her bush clothes. Then Julie spotted her, let out a scream of delight, and then they were dancing around like two school girls, giggling with excitement. Robbie and Julie also seemed to hit it off.

  Julie joked, “He is way too good looking for you. I want to keep him all for myself.”

  Robbie replied, “Ah but you haven’t seen her the way I have; this girl really knows how to keep a man happy. I travelled half way across the world to find her and now nothing will ever take me away.”

  Lizzie blushed, glad it was no worse.

  Julie pulled out a sheet of paper. In front of all, standing beside the plane, she said. “It gives me great pleasure to present this certificate to Elizabeth Renford, Dux of Balmain High in the Intermediate Examination of 1963; sorry it has taken so long to get delivered.”