In the Company of Strangers

by Liz Byrski

  On the morning of their first meeting around the kitchen table Declan had put his hand up to take on the practical side of managing the property, starting with pricing the repairs and then organising subcontractors, getting the seasonal work done on the grounds, checking all the cottages and getting to grips with the cycle of the lavender crop to make sure Fleur, or rather her successor, will have a regular supply cut and ready for use.

  ‘And I guess I can sort out the day-to-day business of running Benson’s and of the festival,’ Ruby had told them. It made sense, she thinks now, switching off the computer and getting to her feet. She is a good manager, and it’s a crash course in getting to grips with Benson’s Reach – its strengths, its shortcomings and even the possibilities for the future. Reading through the files, analysing financial reports and making projections come easily to her. She had thought she’d be here for a month, two at the most, but last night she had called Jess and told her she’d be away for longer.

  ‘Probably three months, maybe a bit more,’ she’d said, and she’d explained about the festival. ‘I’m thinking that by the end of May we’ll have a lot of things sorted, and we’ll be in a better position for me to leave.’

  ‘And are you okay, Ruby? Really okay?’ Jessica had asked.

  ‘I’m good,’ she’d said. ‘It’s a challenge – you know how I enjoy that.’

  It was enough to reassure Jess, who had gone on then to give her a rundown on things at the Foundation. ‘You take care, and ring if you need anything,’ Jess had said before hanging up.

  Ruby knows that she’s operating on borrowed time. The past, in its various guises, is lurking around every corner waiting to leap out at her, and this present, intense activity has simply moved it back to a slightly safer distance. ‘Lord knows what’ll happen when the pressure’s off,’ she says aloud now, ‘but that’s not going to be for a while yet.’

  She’s in the office kitchen rinsing her teacup when the phone rings and she wipes her hands on the tea towel and crosses back to the desk to answer it. As she picks it up the quality of the sound tells her it’s an overseas call.

  Jackson Crow is, he tells her, ‘desolate’ at the news of Catherine’s passing. So desolate he had to call as soon as he read her message, to ask what happened and to express his sympathy to her and to young Mr Benson. ‘She was a great lady,’ he says when Ruby has told him about Catherine’s illness, and she softens a little because she can hear a crack of emotion in his voice. ‘She didn’t say nothin’ to me about being sick,’ he goes on, and it’s clear he is genuinely shocked. ‘I wish I’d known.’

  ‘She didn’t say anything to me either, Mr Crow,’ Ruby tells him, ‘and we’d known each other since childhood.’

  There is a brief silence, slightly longer than the usual delay on the line. ‘Of course, you must be her friend from London,’ he says then. ‘You met on the ship to Australia when you were just little girls.’

  ‘Nineteen-forty-seven, that’s right,’ Ruby says, ‘we’d known each other a very long time.’

  ‘Dame Ruby Medway, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘Catherine told me about how Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth made you a dame. I’m honoured to be talking to you, ma’am.’

  Ruby feels ridiculous. It’s all so over the top but Americans are like that, and she’s always embarrassed when people refer to her being what Jessica describes as ‘damed’. Accepting the honour had been a difficult decision for her and she has often questioned her own motives for doing so. She fumbles for a response but Jackson Crow cuts across her.

  ‘She admired you very much,’ he says. ‘I remember she said she was waiting to hear when you’d go back there for a visit.’

  ‘Well sadly I didn’t make it in time,’ Ruby says briskly.

  ‘That really is sad. Catherine told me how much she was looking forward to that. But I sure don’t mean to intrude. Just wanted to give you my sympathy, and learn a little more about Catherine’s passing.’

  There is an awkward silence and then they both speak at once.

  ‘No,’ Ruby says, ‘you go ahead. What were you going to say?’

  ‘Just that I thought maybe in your email you were a mite concerned about the festival, about the sort of people who might turn up? So I want you to know we never had any trouble the last time. The jazz and blues crowd down there they’re real nice people, older folks. They come along because they love their music. So I want to reassure you that we’re not expecting any trouble.’

  Ruby is not really reassured by this. She is under no illusions about the collective energy of a few hundred baby boomers seduced by the music into reliving their misspent youth.

  ‘I hope you’re right, Mr Crow,’ she says. ‘This is my first experience of a music festival for a very long time.’

  ‘Well I go back to the old days too, so we’re gonna have a whole lot to talk about, you and me,’ he says. ‘But really, ma’am, you don’t need to worry. We had more’n twelve hundred people last time and it was just fine.’

  Todd sits on the edge of the deck swinging his legs back and forth and occasionally knocking his plaster against the verandah post to see if the vibration hurts. It does a bit but not enough to stop him doing it.

  ‘Can’t you find something useful to do?’ Paula says sharply, coming up behind him with her cleaning trolley.

  ‘I’ve been helping Ruby and now I’m waiting for Alice.’

  ‘Looks to me like you’re bludging. You’re just a waste of space, if you ask me.’

  ‘I didn’t …’ Todd begins and then stops, remembering what Fleur had told him. ‘Don’t get into arguments with Paula, Toddy,’ she’d said. ‘Whatever she says just smile and walk away. You’ll never win, you’ll never make her see things your way, so don’t waste your energy. And don’t tell her anything because it’ll come back at you somehow. Didn’t Catherine warn you about that?’ She had, of course, told him exactly that, but now that Catherine’s gone Todd feels odd, not secure like he used to, as though anything could change from day to day.

  ‘And you’d better keep that bedroom tidy,’ Paula says over her shoulder as she walks away. ‘I won’t be cleaning up after you, don’t kid yourself about that!’

  Todd sighs and looks off in the other direction, ignoring her. Paula has the ability to puncture a good mood in an instant. Todd swings his legs again and checks his watch. Twenty minutes till he has to go and help Alice. He could go to the café now but he knows she’s talking to a bloke who’s going to supply vegetables for the café and he doesn’t want to get in the way. He sighs again. He likes Alice, and Ruby and Declan too, and it’s good staying in the house, having his own room with his own TV, and the food is mega good. Before she got sick Catherine often used to give him a meal in the evenings but her cooking was always a bit hit and miss. She’d remember something she’d meant to do and then just bugger off and do it while the food was cooking, so it was often burned. Better than his mum’s cooking though. But Alice is a brilliant cook and Ruby’s good too. He keeps thinking about this, about how lucky he is to be here, and how lucky he was not to break anything else or have brain damage or something like that from falling off the roof. But at the same time it all feels so strange, not as if he really belongs here like when Catherine was around. Most of all, though, he worries about what’ll happen when his ankle’s fixed. So one minute he’s cool and happy and enjoying himself and the next he’s confused and gets this sinking feeling in his stomach about what might happen. What he does know, though, is that he’d feel a whole lot better if Fleur wasn’t planning to leave. He checks his watch again – fifteen minutes. He could go up to the workroom and talk to Fleur now, corner her, see if she’s changed her mind about going. And awkwardly he scrambles to his feet and sets off with his crutches up the path to the workroom.

  ‘Ah! Just the man I need,’ Fleur shouts over the noise of the stripping machine that is separating the dried lavender heads from the stalks. And she gestures to him to take a seat on the stool at the workben
ch. Todd hitches himself up and as the machine rattles to a halt, Fleur picks up one of the big sieves, releases the lavender heads into it and puts it on the table in front of him. ‘If you’ve nothing else to do you can check through this lot for foreign bodies – you know what to look for. Why the long face?’

  Todd runs his hand through the lavender. ‘Paula!’ he says.

  ‘Remember what I told you?’

  ‘Yeah, I know. But she’s bugging me more than ever since Catherine …’ He tries to say ‘died’ but can’t manage it. ‘And now you’re going …’

  ‘You’ll be fine, mate,’ Fleur says, patting him on the shoulder. ‘You’re sitting pretty, I’d say. Nothing like a workplace injury to make sure you’re well looked after.’

  He shrugs and says nothing, looking down at the lavender in the sieve.

  ‘C’mon, Todd, you’ve got a face like a pig’s arse. Buck up.’

  ‘I wish you’d stay, Fleur,’ he says. ‘It’s not even like you’ve got another job or anything.’

  ‘No,’ Fleur says. ‘But it’s time for a change.’

  Todd kicks at his crutch leaning against the bench and it clatters to the floor. ‘What’ll you do?’

  ‘That’s my business. Don’t be so bloody nosy, you’re worse than Paula.’

  ‘But it isn’t the same anymore … you’re the only person who talks to me.’

  Fleur thumps the bench with her fist and he jumps in surprise.

  ‘Bullshit,’ she says, ‘that is complete bullshit, Todd. The three of them, they all talk to you, all the time. What about that conversation with Alice you told me about, with the books and everything? Of course they talk to you.’

  ‘But it’s not the same.’

  Fleur sighs, pulls out the other stool and sits facing him across the bench. ‘No,’ she says, more gently now, ‘I know what you mean. It’s like the soul’s gone out of the place. Catherine drove me up the wall a lot of the time but now she’s gone … well, that’s why I have to go, you see, Todd.’

  ‘If you stay you might like them better,’ Todd says, anxious to persuade her.

  ‘It’s not that, Todd. I don’t dislike them. Alice is a very nice woman, and Ruby seems okay, though I haven’t really got a handle on her yet. Declan’s a bit of a dead loss but he’s a decent bloke. But it’s a new era and I belong to the old one.’

  ‘That’s just what you’ve decided,’ Todd says. ‘It doesn’t have to be like that.’

  Fleur raises her eyebrows and smiles at him. ‘Okay, smart-arse, maybe you’re right, but that’s how it is.’

  ‘They want you to stay. I heard Declan ask you to run the gift shop too.’

  Fleur laughs. ‘Listening at keyholes, eh? I thought it was only Paula who did that.’

  Todd gives a reluctant grin. ‘Gotta look after myself now Catherine’s gone.’

  ‘And haven’t you thought that’s just what I might be doing, Todd – looking after myself? Anyway, remember Kermit the Frog?’

  ‘Kermit?’

  ‘Yeah,’ and she pulls her face into a huge distorting smile and wobbles her head. ‘If you’re ever in a jam here I am,’ she says in a Kermit voice, ‘and don’t you forget it, even when I’ve gone. Now get off outta here and go help Alice check the new stock in.’

  ‘Twelve hundred people the last time,’ Ruby tells Alice that evening when she tracks her down in the kitchen. ‘I don’t know what Declan had in mind but I was thinking it would be a few hundred. Wherever will they stay? Do you know where he is?’

  ‘He’s gone out,’ Alice says, rinsing salad at the sink. ‘Meeting a friend for dinner, he said. I got the distinct impression that he’d got a date.’

  ‘Good for him,’ Ruby says, taking a bottle of wine from the fridge. ‘I thought you were his date when I first got here.’

  Alice laughs. ‘Me and Declan? No, no we’re … we’re just friends,’ and she shakes her head as Ruby offers her a glass. ‘No thanks, I don’t drink.’

  Ruby nods. ‘I noticed. Never?’

  ‘Never. One day at a time.’ Alice turns from the sink to look her straight in the eye. ‘I’m an alcoholic. I haven’t had a drink for over five years. Before that I was dry for years, but then … there was a crisis and I had one and then another one and several more and ended up having to start all over again.’

  ‘I see.’ Ruby hesitates. ‘That can’t have been easy.’

  Alice shrugs. ‘As I said, it’s one day at a time.’

  Ruby takes a sip of her wine. ‘And Declan doesn’t drink either?’

  Alice holds her gaze again. ‘No.’

  ‘Catherine told me about Declan being in AA years ago,’ Ruby says. ‘Is that how you met?’

  Alice nods. ‘I was his sponsor. It means you take responsibility for—’

  ‘I know how it works,’ Ruby says. ‘And if it works well it must be a bond, a source of strength for both of you.’

  There is a longish silence in which Ruby fears that her curiosity has led her to overstep the mark. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says quickly. ‘It’s none of my business.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Alice says. ‘You’re right, it is a bond, and I think Declan and I are still sorting out how it works for us – whether it’s a good basis for friendship or something that will always complicate it.’

  Ruby pulls out a chair and sits at the table. ‘I suppose being here together is one way of finding out.’ Alice, she thinks, has more to tell than this, but she’s obviously not ready to tell it yet.

  ‘I got the books,’ Todd says, appearing in the kitchen doorway with a plastic carrier bag of books looped on to one of his crutches. ‘These are what Catherine said I should read next.’ He drops the bag of books onto the table and hobbles over to Alice to return the key. ‘I locked it again.’ He stands watching as she slips the beads around her neck. ‘Catherine always carried the key like that,’ he says. ‘And she always locked it, she never—’ he stops suddenly.

  ‘What is it, Todd?’ Ruby asks.

  He shakes his head and sits at the table, pushing the books towards her. ‘We were going to read this one next,’ he says.

  Ruby raises her eyebrows and takes the book from him. ‘Madame Bovary, really?’

  ‘She said it would teach me something about women.’

  ‘It might well do that,’ Ruby says in amusement, looking up at Alice and then back at Todd, who seems to have sunk low in his chair. ‘Is everything all right, Todd?’

  He is silent for a moment, running his hands over the covers of the books. ‘Her room,’ he says eventually, not looking up. ‘It’s just like she left it, everything, her cup, her clothes, the dead flowers, all that. It’s a mess.’

  Alice joins them at the table. ‘No one’s had a chance to sort it out yet, Todd.’

  ‘But you should,’ he says suddenly. ‘It’s important. Somebody might see it that shouldn’t – her clothes in a mess, the bed not made, all her things everywhere. She wouldn’t like that, she wouldn’t want just anyone to see it.’ A tear runs down his cheek and he flicks it away.

  Ruby feels his hurt and anger like an ache in her chest. ‘You’re right, Todd,’ she says. ‘We should—’

  ‘You’re all doing everything for this place,’ Todd cuts in, ‘the business, the café, the music festival, but that’s all you care about. It’s like you’ve all forgotten her already.’ He sinks his head down, burying his face on his folded arms.

  Ruby looks across at Alice and sees that she too is deeply moved.

  ‘We haven’t forgotten her, Todd, but we both … Declan and I … we haven’t really faced up to the fact that she’s gone.’

  ‘Well she has, and she isn’t coming back,’ Todd says. ‘She’s gone forever and it has to be you or Mr Benson that does it. Not Paula. She wouldn’t want that, not Paula.’

  Ruby reaches out and puts an arm around his shoulders. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘I know she wouldn’t. I promise you it won’t be Paula.’

  Todd shifts himself around in hi
s chair. ‘I miss her,’ he says.

  And Ruby feels his loss so much more profoundly than she feels her own.

  espite her recent blitz on the local shops, Lesley can’t make up her mind what to wear. Meeting a man other than Gordon for dinner is something she hasn’t done for years so how is she supposed to know what to wear or how to behave? Is this a date? Since that first spontaneous lunch with its unexpected sharing of secrets, she and Declan have met for coffee, shared another lunch at a winery south of the town where they’d sat on at the table on the deck by the lake until well into the afternoon. Now he’s suggested dinner and as everyone knows – don’t they? – dinner is different, so much more intimate than lunch, so does Declan think this is a date or what? As usual they are meeting in town, leaving her car in the pub car park and going in his. He is, she thinks, behaving as though they are having an affair. It’s clear he doesn’t want anyone at Benson’s Reach to know they are meeting, but why not? What’s it got to do with them anyway? It’s so difficult for women, she thinks, remembering back to the days of being single and wondering how she was supposed to behave, what was expected of her.

  She settles, finally, on a sleeveless black linen dress that she’d spotted in the window of a boutique in the main street.

  ‘Very nice that,’ Paula had said, appearing alongside her, apparently out of nowhere, while she was contemplating it. ‘Suitable for any occasion.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ Lesley had said. ‘I’m thinking of trying it on.’

  Paula is always good for a chat, although she doesn’t seem to think much of the new management at Benson’s Reach. She’s a strange woman, Lesley thinks, opinionated but not very well informed, although she’s a useful source of information about the place and the people. Shame about all that pink – the tshirts, the shoes, the hair scrunchies, even her trainers are pink. And she seems to have an obsessive interest in Kylie Minogue, her ‘role model’, she says. She even wears a gold chain around her neck with a Kylie name charm on it.