In The Company Of Strangers Part 19

Ruby shrugs. 'Maybe who knows? But once again she got her own way. When I got the solicitor's letter and the will I also got a letter she had left for me. She said she was concerned about Declan being able to manage things. In her own roundabout way by leaving me the controlling share she compelled me to come here. She was still manipulating me while she was dying! She knew I'd come, she knew the only way I could come back would be because she had gone. She knew I'd find the journals, that I would be compelled to read them and to remember how things used to be. She knew she could reel me back in even if she wasn't here to see it.'

Dawn is just about to break when Ruby pulls on a tracksuit and slips out of the house. She has barely slept, an hour perhaps, two at the most, but she can't lie there any longer, better to get up, get some air. Each time she had drifted towards sleep the events of that night forty years ago had bulldozed their way back into her consciousness. When she'd returned to the house from the pub she could feel the strangeness of it, the silence, yet she had a sense that she was not alone. But there was no one in the kitchen, no one in the lounge, just the television flickering in the darkness with the sound turned down, no sign of Harry in his study. And then a light, a low light showing under the bedroom door, this bedroom door, and she'd opened it and there they were, in that great old family heirloom of a bed. It was as simple as that. They were so hard at it they didn't even see her, didn't even know she was there until she cleared her throat and said, with the heaviest sarcasm she could muster, 'I hope I'm not interrupting anything important.'

When she thinks back on it now something she has managed to avoid doing for a very long time it amazes her that she handled it so well, that she had stayed so cool and dignified, while her every cell was in turmoil. But there is, she thinks, a distinct advantage in being the one person of three who is vertical and fully clothed: it adds considerable dignity to the already high moral ground. Later, though, as she drove through the night, she had started to fall apart, and by the time Freda Benson opened the door to her she was a complete mess.

Ruby lets herself out through the back door and sets off along the track of her usual morning walk, giving wide berth to the field where the few remaining campers are still fast asleep in their tents. It's over, the festival the carnival is over and as she walks she hums the song under her breath. How odd, she thinks, here I am walking along, humming the Seekers just hours after I've blurted out all the stuff I was never going to tell anyone. And yet somehow it feels okay in fact it's very okay. The irony is that she has simply done under pressure of circ.u.mstance what she has so often encouraged other women to do: face what happened, talk about it, drag it out from under the carpet where it was swept years ago.

Something has changed, something big. She feels as though she has shed a burden and as she walks on through the misty damp of the morning to the highest point of the sloping land behind the house, Ruby imagines it the painful mess of the past rolling away from her like a great boulder down the hill, beyond the house and further on, out into the road and then into the distance, until she can no longer see it. No, it's not that easy, there is more to come, more memories, more stages to go through, but somehow the power of the past to hold her captive seems defused. She sees now that there is much more to it than simply telling her story. Since that letter flopped down onto her doormat in February she has been building towards this. Coming here so quickly, staying longer than she planned, insisting on working her way through Catherine's possessions, her journals, her photographs. Has this been some sort of symbolic retribution, a posthumous raid on Catherine's life? Who knows, and perhaps it doesn't even matter. She has begun to rise from the ashes and in doing so she can see those years of friends.h.i.+p without the shadow of deception and manipulation. 'You knew how it would be, didn't you, Cat,' she says aloud, 'just as you knew we should change our ages, just as you knew to keep the nightdresses, the journals?'

Ruby s.h.i.+vers as much with exhaustion as from the morning chill. Her energy is seeping away fast now. She wants warmth, comfort, a cup of tea and perhaps another couple of hours' sleep. And now, she wonders, what about Jackson? She makes her way back towards the house along the path that weaves between the cottages. A light comes on in the kitchen Declan probably, it's far too early for Todd.

'Ruby,' a voice calls softly. 'Ruby, it's me, Jackson. Up here.' He is standing on the balcony outside his cottage, and as she turns he runs down the steps towards her. 'Are you okay?' he asks, 'It's not even light yet.'

'I'm fine,' she says. 'I was so restless I had to get up and get some air.'

He nods. 'And now?'

'A cup of tea and then maybe some sleep.'

'Could you have the tea with me?' he asks. 'Would you?'

She follows him up the steps and into the warmth of the cottage, lit only by one small bedside lamp, and he goes on ahead through to the kitchen and switches on the kettle.

'I've been conducting a conversation with myself about the past,' she says. She looks at the chairs, which she's always thought so attractive but which now seem unappealingly low. The sort of chairs you might easily get into but struggle to get out of. 'I think those chairs look better than they are,' she says.

'Those?' Jackson says, indicating one. 'They're terrible chairs. I thought of complaining to the management. Sit on the bed. But why are we talking about the chairs?'

She shrugs. 'I don't know it just went through my head, that's all. I'm tired, probably not very coherent.'

'You were saying something about the past,' he says, sitting down beside her.

'My conversation with the past, yes. Long, and rather painful.'

Her hand is on the bed between them and he takes it in his. 'I'm so sorry, Ruby. Last night . . . I had no idea what I was blundering into. My mouth is so much bigger than my brain.'

'You couldn't have known,' she says. 'Besides, as Alice said, it's all so long ago that it should by now have lost its power.'

'I hurt you, embarra.s.sed you,' he says. 'Really hurt you. I'm so very sorry.'

'It's okay, really it is. In fact it's more than that, it's actually a good thing. It's like you broke open the lock on a door and a whole lot of things rolled out and away.'

'I see,' he says. 'Well, I see the shapes but not the detail. Do you want to talk about it?'

'Yes, but not now. Last night I unloaded it all onto Alice and now I'm exhausted by it. Later perhaps?'

He smiles. 'Yes, later. Sit back, put your feet up. I'll go make the tea.' And as she wriggles further onto the bed he bends down, takes off her shoes and pulls the rumpled duvet over her legs.

Ruby leans back against the stacked pillows and closes her eyes. There is so much she wants to say but she's too numb with exhaustion to begin. He brings the tea, puts it down on the table beside her, and settles alongside her on the bed. For a moment they sit in silence, sipping their tea, and Ruby's eyes begin to close.

Jackson takes the tea from her hand and puts it on the bedside table. 'There's something I have to tell you,' he says.

Ruby turns to look at him although the effort seems enormous. 'I told you, it's okay, we'll talk later.'

'No, this is different and I have to tell you now.'

'I'm listening with my eyes shut,' she says.

'The night I arrived here, something happened. I saw you and I felt as though I knew you not as though we'd met before, but as if I'd always known you, in my head, and . . .' he hesitates, 'and in my heart. As though I'd always known you were somewhere in the world and had been looking for you. And it's been driving me crazy because it feels so powerful, so intimate, and yet whenever I get the chance to talk to you alone I don't know what to say.'

Ruby opens her eyes and looks into his. 'You're saying it now,' she says, 'which is a huge relief because it means I don't have to say it first.'

'You too then?'

'Me too.'

He slides further down on the bed now and puts an arm around her shoulders, drawing her to him. 'Well praise the lord and pa.s.s the ammunition. So I'm not the deranged old fool I thought.'

'Well you probably are,' she says, 'but to another deranged old fool that's very attractive.'

ordon, back in Broome after his second field trip, is having his first cup of real coffee in ten days on the deck of a small cafe. As he drove the final few kilometres he'd been weighing up his priorities coffee first or, now that there's a signal, get his BlackBerry out of his backpack and check ten days' worth of messages? It was no contest, really: the coffee won hands down. It's good coffee, strong and blisteringly hot, just as he likes it. He's always surprised to find that he has survived several days on the instant variety terrible taste, though the caffeine hits the spot but as soon as he's within striking distance of a coffee machine and frothy milk he's like a parched man racing across the desert towards an oasis. Alongside him Bruce makes his second attack on the large bowl of water that the waitress has brought for him. Gordon finishes his coffee, orders another, and sits there contemplating his next pleasure: a long hot shower at the motel to wash away the fine red dust that seems to have become part of his skin. But first there is the phone.

As always it was pointless to take it with him, there is never a signal, but somehow he has to have it there. He unzips the backpack, gets out the phone and switches it on to find a couple of voice messages, three texts and a stack of emails. He flicks through them: some results from the lab, an invitation to a retirement party back at the mining company, an offer from a would-be Russian bride, other work related things, cheerful greetings from the kids, advice on how to enlarge his p.e.n.i.s and an email from Lesley. He reads everything else first, then draws in a deep breath and opens it.

It's friendly, no hostility, some confusion, a certain amount of caution. She wants to talk. This, thinks Gordon, is the big one, the big conversation about what's happened, what will happen, what should happen next. And it's serious. Lesley, to whom anything beyond the northern suburbs and temperatures in excess of thirty-two degrees, dry or humid, are anathema, is offering to fly up here to talk to him. On the other hand this is Broome, which is rather different. She'll be considering The Resort, perhaps, not a tent, not even the motel. Well it has to happen sometime, he thinks, and probably the sooner the better, but not here. Not on his territory. He loves this place, he loves this late life adventure he's having right now the potential of the work, the freedom, the long, silent, moonlit nights in the open, pearly dawn light, and science again, science instead of the business: pure magic. No, not up here. If his marriage is about to end it will not happen here. He will go home, or wherever she is now, Margaret River again. Okay, he'll go there: a strong position, that. He'll be doing the right thing, making the effort, and he'll also be free to walk away. That's it then, he thinks, he'll email and tell her he'll book a flight. It can't be this coming week but maybe the end of the next one.

'What d'you reckon then, mate,' he says, nudging Bruce with his foot. 'Fancy a trip to Margaret River?'

Bruce jumps up with an ecstatic growl and sinks his teeth into the toe of Gordon's boot, ready for his favourite game.

'No, no, no,' Gordon says, prising the dog's jaws apart and freeing his boot. 'No fighting, no tug-of-war, this is all about negotiation. You work out what you want and then you work out what you're prepared to settle for. You have to be prepared to give a little not that you'd know anything about that, would you, you canine terrorist.' Bruce does his odd, excited little bark and then a growl, ready for action. Gordon reaches down and scratches the top of his head. 'Thing is,' he says, looking Bruce straight in the eye, 'it would help if I actually knew for sure what I really want.'

As she lay alongside Jackson on his bed in the early morning, Ruby, drifting into sleep, had felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her. She would have to tell her story again, to Declan and of course to Jackson himself, but the fear that had haunted her for so long had been peeled back as she told it to Alice. Lying there, the comforting warmth of Jackson's body curled alongside hers, his words resonating in her head, she felt a delicious sensation of freedom, as though she had been made new and safe by all that had happened. Now, as she wakes just three hours later, Jackson is once again in the kitchen, this time pouring boiling water into the coffee plunger, and she stays still and silent, watching him, wis.h.i.+ng it were she who had woken first, woken facing him, so that she could have studied him closely as he slept.

But when she s.h.i.+fts on the bed, stretches slowly and wriggles into a sitting position, she can feel that something has changed awkwardness has replaced the intimacy of the wee small hours, and the awkwardness is in both of them. It's as though lying together, sleeping side by side, has moved them further along their path more quickly than is entirely comfortable. How easy it is when you're young, Ruby thinks: fall into bed, spend a night of wild s.e.x, and ask questions later. Not that there had been s.e.x, wild or otherwise, here, but there had been a sense of intimacy from which they now both seem to have taken a backward step.

Age, Ruby thinks, especially this much age, demands that one proceeds with caution. It requires more knowing before leaping to another level of intimacy, however small that leap might be.

'Did you sleep well?' she asks.

He nods. 'Well, but not long enough,' he says, smiling. 'And you?'

'The same.' She glances at her watch and immediately swings her legs off the bed. 'b.u.g.g.e.r,' she says. 'I'm supposed to meet Declan and Fleur in half an hour. Better get back to the house and have a shower.'

'Can't you stay a while?'

'Sorry, no. Let's have coffee together later, or lunch perhaps?'

He shakes his head. 'The band and I have that gig in Bun-bury today. We need to get sorted, load the van, and get up there to check out the venue and do a run through.'

'And you'll be back really late?'

''Fraid so. Tomorrow?'

Ruby nods, disappointed but also a little relieved. She needs time to pull herself together, think about what's happened, what it means to her. Right now she's overwhelmed by all this and by the sense of liberation from the past.

'Tomorrow, yes,' she says, 'when we've both got plenty of time,' and she pulls on her shoes, remembering how gently he had removed them, pushes some hair back from her face and stands up.

Jackson puts an arm around her shoulders and opens the cottage door. 'I thought we might take young Todd along with us today,' he says. 'Would that be okay with you?'

'Oh, he'll be thrilled. Of course it's okay.' She pauses in the doorway and they move simultaneously into a cautious, awkward hug.

Declan is sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by papers: pages filled with columns of figures, Excel spreadsheets, the accounts book for the shop and the lavender products, and the flow charts and other papers that he and Ruby have produced in preparing a business plan for the future of Benson's Reach. It amazes him that he's sitting here among all this stuff and he's not panicking. That's the Ruby effect, he thinks, she has demystified it for him, shown him how to control it rather than letting it get its anxiety inducing claws under his skin.

So he's not freaking out at the paperwork but he is feeling a bit anxious about Ruby, how she'll be after what happened last night. Why did they organise this meeting for this morning anyway? It was a ridiculous thing to do. Why hadn't they allowed for the fact that they'd all be exhausted and unable to concentrate on anything except a post-mortem of the festival? Maybe he should just knock on Ruby's door and suggest they leave it for another day. Declan pushes back his chair and is about to get up when Ruby appears in the doorway.

'Sorry,' she says, 'not enough sleep. I thought Fleur might beat me to it.'

He shakes his head. 'She rang about half an hour ago, she'll be a bit late. I told her to take her time.'

'Good.' Ruby grabs a mug, pours herself some coffee and flops into a chair. 'Do I smell croissants?'

'You do. I put them in the oven to warm.' He gets up, takes the croissants from the oven and transfers them to a serving basket and brings them to the table.

Ruby smiles at him. 'You know, Declan, you'll make some deserving woman a fine husband one day.'

'Oh I doubt that,' he says, blus.h.i.+ng. 'Any deserving woman would run a mile if she had any sense.'

Ruby dips her croissant into her coffee. 'You will have to crack this self-deprecating nonsense, that's what would send her running. I never thought I'd say this to a man but you can afford a bit more male ego. Just a little, though don't get carried away.'

He laughs and reaches for a croissant and their eyes meet.

'So . . .' he begins, not quite sure where he's going. 'So, last night . . .'

Ruby sighs. 'Yes, last night . . .'

'I'm sorry.'

'Don't be,' she says, leaning across the table towards him. 'It had to happen sometime. It's been the elephant in all my rooms for decades, so when I came back here I knew I'd have to face up to it one way or another. I guess Alice told you the story?'

He nods. 'I'd no idea, all those years . . . Harry, Catherine, they never said anything. Mind you, Harry had taken off before I got to the point of paying attention.'

'Of course. Catherine would never have told you anyway, but she knew that by leaving me a share of this place she would bring us together and that eventually you'd learn what had happened.'

'And you think she intended that?'

'Yes I do. It think it was her way of cleaning the slate.'

Declan leans back in his chair, half frowning. 'In what way?'

'Did you know they never married?'

'Catherine and Harry? But she was Mrs Benson.'

'She changed her name by deed poll. I suppose she thought it would look better. Harry and I were still married, you see. After it all happened I ran away. I couldn't bear the thought of divorce. It wasn't particularly easy in those days, it took ages and I just wanted to go, back to England, put it all behind me.'

Declan leans forward, resting his chin on his hands. 'But didn't they get married eventually?'

Ruby shakes her head. 'I was still married to Harry when he died. He'd taken off with a dancer by then and Catherine was still living here. He didn't leave a will so when he died Benson's Reach came to me, but I wanted nothing to do with it and I made it over to Freda Benson. By that time Maurice was dead and Freda was getting a bit frail. She moved down here and Catherine looked after her until she died.'

'I remember that,' Declan says. 'I remember coming here and Aunty Freda sitting out there on the deck with her book and her gin and tonic. She was a lovely woman.'

'She was. And by that time, of course, Catherine had turned the property into a business, planted the lavender and was starting to produce the lotions and so on.'

'So did she buy the place from Aunty Freda?'

'No! Freda left it to her in her will. Catherine told everyone that she inherited Benson's Reach and most people a.s.sumed she'd inherited it from Harry as a divorce settlement, which is what she intended them to think. But she actually inherited it from Freda. Once she owned it she could borrow against it to build the cottages, and the cafe and the shop.'

'So I suppose that means Freda forgave Catherine for the affair that drove you away?'

Ruby shrugs. 'I'm not completely convinced of that, at least not from the letters Freda sent me. I don't think she ever totally trusted her again, but she'd always been very fond of Catherine. Harry was dead. I was on the other side of the world. Freda had friends, but Catherine was the only person who would have felt like family to her. And I'm not a mother, but I suspect that a woman who has truly loved your son will have some sort of special place in your heart once he's gone and whatever else I think of what Catherine did I believe she did love Harry, perhaps even from the time we all first met. Jack was just more glamorous and exciting for a time.'

They sit in silence for a moment, and eventually Declan shakes his head. 'I had no idea,' he says. 'All the years I knew her, she never mentioned any of this.'

'Pride, perhaps, or conscience,' Ruby says. 'When she came to see me in London she told me that she'd never got over the shame. I mean, we both suffered from the shame that was beaten into us in the convent, but she also lived with the shame of what she'd done to me. That was why she came. She wanted our friends.h.i.+p back but most of all she wanted forgiveness.'

'And did you forgive her?' Declan asks.

Ruby shrugged. 'I told her I did, but I sort of had my fingers crossed when I said it because, as I told Alice last night, I still didn't trust her. And I think she knew that.'

'I see,' Declan says, wondering if he really does see, trying to sort things out in his head. 'So when she was dying she made that will to try and set the record straight?'

'I think so,' Ruby nods. 'Half to me the controlling interest but by such a tiny percentage, so trying to return something to me. The rest to you returning something to the family.'

Declan rocks slowly back and forth in his chair. 'All this makes it feel as though we're related,' he says.

'Yes, it does feel as though, once again, I'm part of the family, but-'

'So sorry I'm late,' Fleur says, appearing in the kitchen doorway. 'I hope I haven't held you up.'

'No . . . no,' Declan says, forced to break out of his train of thought. 'It's fine, come on in, help yourself to coffee.' These days he's more relaxed around Fleur, although he still finds her pretty full on, but as she pours the coffee and joins them at the table he thinks she's looking a bit odd nervous, perhaps, maybe a bit jittery.

'Croissant?' Ruby says, offering her the basket.

Fleur shakes her head. 'No thanks, just the coffee.'

Declan meets Ruby's eyes across the table and they share a look which, he thinks, connects them in a new way and is like a punctuation mark that seals what has pa.s.sed between them. It feels okay, in fact it feels good, and he sits straighter in his chair, takes a deep breath and looks around for the paperwork he needs.

'Figures and plans,' he says, shaking his head, 'horrible stuff.'