Chapter 22 - Back to the Old Balmain House
Just before Christmas of 1971 a TAA Boeing 737 landed in Sydney. From the door stepped three people, a tall sun darkened man who walked with a limp, a woman wearing a soft floral dress, with short dark hair cut in a bob, who appeared to be about six months pregnant and a dark haired girl who looked about seven or eight.
Behind them came three aboriginal people, well dressed but with an awkward sense of the self-consciousness in these foreign clothes. Inside waiting for them was a veritable crowd.
As Lizzie, Robbie and Catherine walked into the terminal, flashbulbs were popping. Julie and her photographer friend were there. Then there was Lizzie’s mum, older looking but still herself, and a teenage gangly kid, David, with quite a few of his father’s mannerisms.
Others in the crowd included some of the gang from Broome, Alec and Elena with a tribe of children, Alice, Ruby, and Tom from the restaurant, and a few from pearl boat crew.
Then there was Robbie’s Mum, Madam Lavinia, even Becky and her family had made an appearance. There was also a whole hotchpotch of people she knew from Balmain, neighbours, school friends, teachers, and some of her friends from the factory in Pyrmont.
They formed an honour guard of welcome. Julie had assiduously tracked them all down and arranged for this day, determined that Lizzie’s return after nearly eight years away would be a whole of community and friends welcome home for this amazing lady, who she felt proud to call her friend
Julie was also doing a feature story on Lizzie which was called “Sophie’s Story”. Lizzie did not want her name or Catherine’s name appearing directly, so they had decided that the by-line would give Sophie the credit. Lizzie was just referred to as “my friend”.
The story started with “This is story of my dearest friend, and of her own childhood friend, Sophie. Yesterday her family and friends gathered at Sydney airport to welcome my friend home after eight years of living in the furthest desert of Western Australia. Tomorrow she marries her true love Robbie. She first met him in Melbourne, but then he lost her when she ran away to protect her child from being taken. Lizzie was then only fifteen. It took more than five years of searching before Robbie found her at the furthest side of the country and it only happened with the help of her childhood friend Sophie, so this is Sophie’s Story too. It is also the story of my friend’s six year old daughter who led them to safety.”
It was mostly a story about her rescue in the desert and a love story about her finding her true love, Robbie, who she has returned to marry. Lizzie was concerned it was a bit soppy, but Julie insisted that her readers would love it. And it would introduce her friend for what she hoped would be a much more significant feature article, after the rape case came to trial and some real details could be released. It was Julie’ hope that the way her friend had triumphed through adversity would give courage to other victims to also come forward.
It did not go into the all the details of her earlier life, apart from the baby, but said she had gone to live in Broome after having her baby in Melbourne, to ensure that she was not forced to give her child up for adoption. There she had been driving in the desert and had got lost. She would have died of thirst, if not for a childhood friend, Sophie who had lived in the same room in her Balmain House half a century earlier. When they were desperately thirsty in the desert Sophie had come to her daughter in a dream and guided them to water. Then three days later people from the local aboriginal tribe had found her and her daughter and adopted her into the tribe. Then to make the whole story complete, the man who had met her and fallen in love with her in Melbourne, just after her baby was born had tracked her down and crossed the country on his motorbike to find her, smashed leg notwithstanding. So now they had returned to the family home to get married. They would first have a Christian ceremony in the church followed by an aboriginal ceremony, standing next to the harbour where desert sand and ocean water would mingle. Tonight her friend would stay in Sophie’s room once again.
The following day the story ran as planned. Reader interest was huge, but who was this amazing mystery woman?
After a first night welcome home dinner with all their extended families and friends, tonight Lizzie, Robbie and Cathy were staying with her mother and brother in the old Balmain House. Lizzie and Robbie were sharing her childhood room, along with their soon to be born child. Cathy had a bunk in the attic, at the other end from David. She wasn’t quite sure about sleeping in the same room as a boy but it was only for a night.
Lizzie and Robbie lay together, arms around each other and talked late into the night. They wondered if Sophie could hear them. They both felt so lucky and grateful to this child of fifty years past for their new lives together. Tomorrow they would be married.
It felt like a dream. In a way it was a dream, like that first dream. It was something they had both dreamed of over and over in years of nights alone, but it was real.
Lizzie's Tale Page 26
