In the Company of Strangers

by Liz Byrski

  here is a plate of sandwiches, tiny triangles of white bread with the crusts removed, lined up in three neat rows, four in each row and each with a little paper flag: egg and mayonnaise, cheese and tomato, ham and lettuce. Declan tries to multiply three by four but it seems awfully difficult, the numbers keep slipping away. He hopes it’s just the anaesthetic from which he is still quite dopey.

  ‘Now, you should eat something,’ says the nurse who has just taken his pulse, ‘and there’s a nice cup of tea as well. You’ll feel a lot better when you’ve got something inside you.’

  Declan hauls himself up in the bed and she props him up with more pillows and smooths the sheet. He thinks he would like to stay here for about four weeks, being fussed over and having someone cut the crusts off his bread. How long is it since he had sandwiches like these? Decades. They remind him of birthday parties when he was a child: tiny sandwiches, tinned mandarins trapped and glistening in orange jelly, cupcakes scattered with hundreds and thousands, homemade lamingtons and birthday cake – round and white with jam in the middle, or later, when he was a little older, a possum shaped mound covered in chocolate butter icing roughed up with a fork to look like fur, Smarties for eyes and a line of candles in a ridge down the middle of its back.

  His tongue feels sludgy and swollen; he flexes it, and tries speaking. ‘Was everything okay?’ he asks the nurse.

  She pats his arm. ‘You’re fine, Mr Benson. Mr Tran will be along in about half an hour to tell you all about it.’

  He knows that this is the procedure – that the nurse can’t tell him anything, and there’s not likely to be a problem, but still it makes him anxious. It was only a small prostate problem but he’d like to know if they fixed it, and he’d like to know now because he is, he thinks, too young to have a prostate problem. He nods and leans back and the nurse takes one of each of the sandwiches, puts them on a smaller plate and hands it to him with a paper serviette.

  ‘See what you can do with these,’ she says. ‘I’ll be back shortly.’

  Cheese and tomato is delicious, he thinks. Why would anyone ever eat anything other than cheese and tomato? It’s the best flavour in the world. But then the first thing you eat after an anaesthetic always tastes wonderful, probably because of the dead feeling in your mouth, plus the relief of recovering from being rendered unconscious. His mother had made sandwiches like these, and organised a birthday party every year until he was twelve, but by his thirteenth birthday she had been dead for seven months and his father, who hadn’t a clue about birthdays, had taken him to Benson’s Reach for the weekend. Catherine was there with his Uncle Harry and she had made a square cake with green icing marked out with white lines like a football pitch and scattered with tiny plastic footballers. It was totally amazing and he’d felt horribly disloyal to his mum when he’d told Catherine that it was the best birthday cake he’d ever had. Recently Ruby had reminded him that he had also spent his eighth birthday at Benson’s Reach, she was there then, and for some reason Catherine wasn’t, but it was when he’d made up his mind to be a pilot and he had been practising. He thinks he remembers it but that might be just because he wants to please Ruby.

  Declan likes Ruby – his concern about how they would get on in this strange alliance which Catherine has set up had dissipated within a few days of her arrival. She is, he thinks, very straightforward and fair, and she says exactly what she thinks. Similar in some ways to Catherine, but Catherine could be manipulative and, as an adult, her intensity wore him down. She needed attention of a sort he could not give. Sometimes he felt she kept him on the edge of a sort of emotional black hole into which he could be sucked at any moment. He liked her, loved her, was frequently very grateful to and appreciative of her, but he struggled to escape from her need to know everything about him, and to control him. He knew it had been hard for her when Harry left, and died soon after that. She was still in her thirties then and he thinks back now, trying to remember whether there had been anyone else of significance in her life since then. Not another partner, certainly, and her aloneness strikes him now in a way it has never done before. Catherine seemed always to know everyone but be close to no one. How little he really knew about her. He feels shamed now by his own lack of curiosity, of even considerate enquiry. So caught up in personal disasters of his own making, he had never paused to look at her life, to wonder what she might need or want from him.

  Declan shakes his head, sighing, and studies the remaining sandwiches. Ruby is, he thinks, less complicated than Catherine and not dependent on anyone else to affirm her. He knows little of their friendship except for their childhood as migrants, the hellish treatment they endured in the convent, and that when they left they were both sent as domestic helps to the Perth Bensons, who owned the hotel. Those were Harry’s parents, of course, while Declan’s father Robert, Harry’s cousin, was from the less well-heeled side of the family. What could it have been like, he wonders now, for those two girls leaving the convent and moving into the hotel? His Aunt Freda was lovely but she would have been tough with the staff, and then there were the guests. Had they escaped the tyranny of the nuns for the tyranny of demanding and inconsiderate hotel guests?

  He’s not thought about this before, but sitting here now, peacefully filling himself with delicious little sandwiches and tea, it does all seem rather intriguing and strange. Ruby had told him the other day that she had left Australia in 1969 and had gone back to England, to try to find her family. She, like so many of the child migrants, had been told that her parents were dead, but she had never allowed herself to believe it. And if she and Catherine were such great friends, why hadn’t they been in touch again for more than twenty-five years?

  ‘So why didn’t you and Catherine see each other for so long?’ he’d heard Paula ask recently.

  Ruby, unsurprisingly, had turned to her, given her a very long look and said. ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business, Paula.’

  But what she did tell him and Alice one evening was that early in ’69, back in England, she had shared a flat in Earls Court and later that year she’d gone with her flatmates to see Bob Dylan at the Isle of Wight festival. The following year they’d gone there again and to Glastonbury, where she’d met the man she later married. It’s hard for Declan to imagine this plump, grey-haired, serious looking woman sleeping under canvas, smoking dope and going crazy for Dylan, Marc Bolan and Leonard Cohen. The thought of it actually made him want to chuckle.

  ‘Jackson Crow would’ve been there that year, I’ll bet,’ Declan had said when she’d told them that. ‘He probably played there. You two might have more in common that you imagine, Ruby.’

  He wants to know more, but Ruby will talk about the past only when it suits her, and if he’s ever to find out what happened between the two women it will be because she wants to tell him. For the time being, however, Declan is very happy with the way things are going at Benson’s Reach. Alice, by her mere presence, makes him feel safe in a way he hasn’t felt with anyone since his mother died. It wouldn’t matter to him if Alice sat up there in her cottage on the hill and didn’t do any work, just being there would be enough. As it was she had been determined to set up a proper business arrangement between them and that was probably a good thing for both of them. Alice, he thinks, is tough as steel and tender as a small child. Declan knows he would not have got sober without her.

  When she had been in crisis he had done what he could. In court on that last day he had been incandescent with rage when the sentence was handed down. Couldn’t the judge see what sort of person she was? Couldn’t she see that the consequences were already a more devastating punishment than prison could ever be? Alice had been hard to talk to in prison – guarded, always on the edge, but obviously pleased to see him. The letters they’d eventually exchanged were better, and he felt they’d grown to know each other through those letters in a way they might never have done through occasional conversations on visiting days.

  Declan eats his third small s
andwich and sips his tea – delicious – so simple. Who needs anything more complicated than crustless sandwiches and tea and the sense of childhood they invoke? Is there a part of him that has never grown up? Catherine used to say men never really grew up, and he’d resented it because it was said, he’d felt, with bitterness. Surely there was a child in both men and women that never really gave way to adulthood and that, he thinks, is not necessarily a bad thing. When he reflects now on the boyish comfort he draws from the presence of Alice and Ruby, the pleasure of their company, he knows that he has found something precious and unexpected. And Todd, what a bloody excellent kid he is despite his hellish background. There is a marvellous sort of chemistry when the four of them, although each very private, each to some extent holding back, are together. It’s almost like having a family, Declan imagines, although family is not something he’s ever known much of. He feels he would be quite happy for things to go on as they are forever – except, of course, for the spanner that he himself has thrown into the works.

  He shifts restlessly in the bed and puts his plate down on the tray as he thinks about Lesley Craddock. Why did he do it? It would be nice to be able to say that the drink was to blame; in the past it had frequently been both excuse and reason. But he couldn’t blame it on that this time, he hadn’t succumbed to her attempts to get him to drink, but of course she hadn’t held back. She’d had a skinful by the time they’d left the restaurant, which was all the more reason why he shouldn’t have responded when she kissed him. He should have steered her back to the car, dropped her at her cottage and made a swift exit. But no, he was a cliché – the man who couldn’t say no when sex was a possibility. But there he was creeping out next morning with her car keys and his own, waiting for one of the maintenance guys to arrive to drive him into town, pick up her car and drive it back for her and so avoid having to make that journey with her later in the day. The car was back and parked outside her cottage by eight in the morning, and Declan had studiously managed to avoid her ever since. He had, however, felt her. He’d felt her reaching out for him, her clinginess, he thinks now, like Catherine’s – greedy as quicksand. He should have spotted it that day when she bowled up to his table at the pub, should have backed off, not agreed to coffee nor organised a second lunch, and as for dinner – well how stupid was that? But he hadn’t realised she’d get so full on. If he let her get close again he would be up to his neck in an instant.

  It wasn’t all her fault, of course, he’d always been attracted to slightly domineering women – but attraction was different from compatibility. What a stroke of luck the hospital called at just the right time. All being well they will discharge him the day after tomorrow and he’s promised himself a day, perhaps two, in Perth before driving back. As he drives south Lesley will already be home, hopefully making up with her husband and kissing her grandchildren. And the disastrous, although certainly not unpleasant, incident will be history.

  Alice has tried many times to write this letter, but almost six months ago she gave up. Why torture yourself with it, she had asked herself, when they don’t want to hear from you, they will never forgive you and you shouldn’t expect it? All you’re doing is setting yourself up for disappointment. They never answered the earlier letters, why would this one be different? But since she’s been at Benson’s Reach some of her self-esteem has returned. Guilt and shame, for so long inextricably linked, are starting to separate out. She can see herself and what happened rather more clearly, even a little more dispassionately, than she has in the past. While she still feels the overbearing burden of guilt she can now claim her own grief and loss, as well as the rightness of having served her sentence. And so she has decided to try again, just one more time.

  My Dear Jacinta, she begins, and then stops immediately. Should she drop the ‘my’? Is this just a red rag? Will the ‘my’ only further alienate a daughter who hates her and cannot forgive her? But ‘Dear Jacinta’ sounds almost impersonal for a daughter whom she loves as she has loved her since the day she first held her in her arms. Be yourself, Alice murmurs, what have you got to lose? This will not run aground on the strength of a blasted pronoun – it’s already aground. What you have to do now is haul it off the rocks.

  My Dear Jacinta

  It is more than a year since I last wrote to you, and perhaps you have been glad of my silence since then. Believe me I do understand how you must feel. I know you can’t forgive me, and that you and I will never be able to recapture what we had before that terrible night …

  She stops again. It’s a glorious still evening and she is sitting at the table on her balcony writing by the light of two candle lamps. It’s April now, and soon the weather will start to change; the mornings will grow cooler, the evenings are already closing in. On Wednesday she will open the café for the first time and test her newly acquired cookery skills as well as her ability to manage the staff and mix with customers. Perhaps it’s this that has given her the courage to try again. She doesn’t expect to be forgiven or accepted but she needs to reclaim the few things from the past that matter to her.

  Alice leans back for a moment, taking in the stillness. Down at the main house the lights are low; Declan is in Perth and Ruby has driven Todd to a friend’s house where he will stay overnight. He’s been getting out a bit recently, since Johno and Bundy, two of his old school mates, turned up to volunteer to help at the festival. It’s good for him, Alice thinks, he needs to be spending more time with people his own age. Most of the guests are probably eating out in town. The lights are on in cottage six but there is no sign of the occupant on the balcony outside. Out on the road she sees the lights of a car, which slows and turns into the drive. Ruby probably. Ruby – she must, she absolutely must, find the right time to come clean about the Google search. Alice reads through what she has written and thinks it trite. It is so unnatural, so careful, so reasonable, and so unlike how she feels.

  Ruby pulls up outside the house, turns off the lights, locks the car door and instead of going inside she walks around it to the back and up the path towards Alice’s cottage.

  ‘Is it okay to come up, Alice?’ she calls from the bottom of the steps. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you but I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Of course,’ Alice says. ‘I was about to make a cup of tea. Will you have some?’ There is a copy of the local paper on the table and Alice pulls it across to cover her writing pad.

  ‘Thanks, that would be lovely,’ Ruby says as she joins her on the balcony and follows her into the cottage. ‘These cottages are rather cosy, aren’t they? I hope you don’t feel excluded up here, though. You’re welcome to stay in the house, you know.’

  Alice switches on the kettle and turns to her with a smile. ‘Thanks but I really love having this space to myself, after … well, for the last few years … um … green tea or English Breakfast?’

  ‘Oh green, please,’ Ruby says, and when the tea is made they take the pot and two cups and saucers out onto the balcony.

  ‘Look, there’s something I really want to discuss with you,’ Ruby says as she settles into her chair.

  The knot of anxiety in Alice’s stomach rises through her chest to her throat where it seems to choke her.

  ‘I’d quite like to say something first,’ she cuts in, and continues without waiting for a response. ‘I feel very bad about this, Ruby, but I need to come clean and tell you that I used the office computer to Google you.’ Saying it is a relief that brings its own new terror. The doors are open now, and Ruby will, Alice is sure, admit to also having Googled her and will want to talk about what she discovered. It had to happen sometime but despite the fact that she’s been thinking of little else for days, speaking it out loud seems sudden and shocking.

  Ruby’s eyebrows shoot up and a smile crosses her face. ‘Oh dear, my cover is blown. One of the joys of being here has been being able to be myself with no one else’s expectations or assumptions attached.’

  Alice smiles. ‘Well that doesn’t have to change,
but of course what I learned is pretty impressive and there is so much I want to ask you.’ She is dizzy, shaking with anxiety, her head spinning with questions. Has Ruby come to tell her she must leave? Is she concerned that guests might recognise her and it will be bad for business? Does she think her unworthy of trust? She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

  ‘Alice? Are you all right?’ Ruby asks. ‘You’ve gone awfully pale.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she lies. ‘I know you Googled me too. I know you found my record with the Prisoners Review Board. I should have told you …’

  Ruby’s forehead creases into a frown and she leans across the table. ‘Hang on, Alice,’ she says. ‘I haven’t done anything of the sort. I know nothing about you except what you and Declan have told me, which is really very little.’

  The silence seems endless and Alice is blinded by confusion. ‘Well someone Googled me because I saw it in the search history,’ she says.

  ‘Well, not me. Declan perhaps?’

  Alice shakes her head. ‘Declan has known everything from the start,’ she says. ‘He was in court the day I was sentenced. He wouldn’t need to look for anything on the internet.’

  ‘Well then I don’t know,’ Ruby says, ‘but it certainly wasn’t me.’

  Alice stares at her in confusion. ‘But who …’

  ‘Alice, I’ve said, I don’t know,’ Ruby says, firmly now. ‘But I can see you’re very upset about it – do you want to tell me why?’

  The air seems heavy with threat and the light of the lamps, which only minutes ago were barely sufficient for her to see her own writing, now seem to glare in her face. She can duck and hide but what’s the point? ‘Yes,’ she says, taking a deep breath, ‘I do have something I need to tell you.’

  So now there is no going back, only forward to the truth and wherever that might take her. ‘I arrived here a few days before you, Ruby, and ten days before that I was released from prison where I’d served a five year sentence for dangerous driving causing death.’ The words seem to fall out and circle her, tightening in an iron grip around her chest as she waits for the look on Ruby’s face to change. But Ruby’s expression remains impassive.