In The Company Of Strangers Part 13

'Only if your name is Paula,' Ruby says, opening the door wider, 'in which case it would be best not to come back at all.'

'That bad, eh?'

Ruby nods. 'Come on in. Are you okay? You look as white as a sheet.'

Alice steps inside and closes the door behind her. 'You look a bit pale yourself. I'm sorry to disturb you, but I had to talk to someone.'

'You came at the right time,' Ruby says. 'I was just about to start wallowing in grief and maybe some self-flagellation. What's happened?'

'It's this,' Alice says, holding out a sealed envelope. 'It came in today's mail I can't bring myself to open it alone. It's a letter from my daughter.'

In the last few weeks she seems to have got into a habit of doing everything very quickly, probably because of the pressure of getting the cafe up and running, but now as she walks back to the cafe from the house Alice slows her pace, and then stops. She can't go back in there yet, she just has to read the letter again and this time she needs to be alone. It's a glorious day and Benson's is busy with visitors. She hesitates. She could go up to the cottage, or find somewhere quiet outside, and looking around she remembers the bench in a shady curve of the path that leads from the office to Fleur's workroom. No visitors there. Once there she is about to settle on the bench but opts instead for the huge camphor laurel on the other side of the path and flops down on the ground, leaning back against its broad trunk, well out of sight. The last thing she needs right now is someone coming over to talk to her.

Reaching into the pocket of her jeans she pulls out the envelope that, until it was posted yesterday, was in Jacinta's hands. It seems like a physical connection. Did Jacinta post it herself or perhaps ask Jodie to post it for her? Alice strokes the envelope, trying to feel her daughter, feel that intimate connection. Then she takes out the letter and unfolds it again.

'How rude,' Ruby had said when she had done as Alice asked and read it with her. 'Rude and unkind; honestly, Alice, not even a polite greeting. I know she's your daughter but I really want to shake her. Of course it's terrible for her but you're her mother, and it's terrible for you too. Doesn't she have an ounce of generosity?'

'She used to,' Alice had said, staring at the letter, unable to take her eyes off it. 'Perhaps I killed that when I killed Ella.'

Ruby was right, it isn't much of a letter, no salutation, no real sign-off, certainly no affection. 'Like a note to the milkman,' Ruby had said. And Alice can see that it is, but it is also more than that. It's a communication and that surely is better than no communication at all. And there is something else quite remarkable about it although Ruby, practically incandescent with anger at Jacinta's two curt sentences typed in the centre of the page, had failed to see its possibilities: 'I have your things. We're going away today until the end of the month so tell your friend to get in touch after that to arrange a time to collect them.'

'But look,' Alice had said, her hand shaking as she took the letter from Ruby. 'Look at this.'

'What?'

'The phone number,' Alice said, 'she's put her phone number. Remember they'd moved and I didn't have the new address, and I had such a job finding where they'd gone? It felt as though they'd deliberately hidden themselves so I couldn't find them. But I did find the address and now Jacinta's included the phone number. Don't you think that's good? Don't you think it means something?'

Ruby hesitated. 'I think it means she's being practical,' she said. 'Don't try to read something else into it, Alice, I don't think you can handle having your heart broken a second time.'

Ruby had pulled Alice towards her then, hugging her, hanging on tightly as though trying to compensate for the chill of Jacinta's message, and Alice had absorbed every second and every nuance of that hug. In prison she had lived, night and day, shoulder to shoulder with other women, but affectionate physical contact, while not forbidden, was looked upon with suspicion. When she had arrived at the bus stop in Margaret River, Declan, apparently rendered speechless by her arrival, had hugged her as though both their lives depended on it. But Ruby's hug was different; it was empathy and affection and Alice had longed to collapse into it.

Now, in peaceful seclusion under the tree, she believes more than ever that the telephone number is significant. It is, she thinks, a sign of trust. Jacinta has provided the number for, as Ruby rightly says, practical reasons, but in doing so she has trusted Alice not to use it for any other purpose. That has to be a good sign trust and perhaps a test? And if she pa.s.ses . . . what then? Ruby's scepticism hasn't dulled the sense of possibility that Alice had felt when she saw that number at the top of the page. Perhaps Declan will see in it what she sees, but she wants more time to think before she shows it to him, this evening perhaps, or later in the week.

The end of the month, Jacinta said it's not really very long and Alice rests her head against the tree trunk, closes her eyes and for the first time in years of not allowing herself to believe in the possibility of reconciliation she pictures herself and Jacinta facing each other. She imagines the smallest of cautious smiles playing around her daughter's lips as she reaches out her hand.

It's the sound of a voice and footsteps that drags Alice back to reality and she folds the letter, tucks it into her pocket and is about to get to her feet when she recognises the voice as Paula's, and she's talking on the phone. Alice decides to stay put and let her pa.s.s.

'b.l.o.o.d.y Todd,' Paula says. 'Nothing's too good for him, living in the house and that, but what about me?' And then there's a scuffling sound as she drops down onto the seat on the other side of the path.

Alice is not given to eavesdropping but she's stuck now, and while Paula is silent listening to the person on the other end of the line, Alice can also hear her attempting to light a cigarette. Well hopefully she won't be there long. Alice sits tight and Paula, never one to modulate her tone, continues her conversation.

'Yes, but I've told them I want to take over the lavender products. I could do that job standing on my head, I said, and Ruby said they might combine it with the job in the shop . . .'

Alice freezes. It's the first she's heard of the possibility that Paula might take over from Fleur and her immediate reaction is dismay. Paula must be making this up. Ruby hasn't finished the new job descriptions yet, so either Paula has got the wrong idea from somewhere, or it's pure fantasy. Just the same, it's disturbing that Paula might believe that this is what's going to happen.

'Well I don't know . . .' Paula is saying now, 'she just said they're restructuring things. They'll let me know. I told them it makes sense. I mean, I know this place as well as anyone, better than either of them, and they're always saying what a good job I do.'

There's a pause, presumably while the person she's talking to asks a question. 'Yes, that's right,' Paula replies, and Alice can hear her inhaling on her cigarette, 'a few days after Catherine died Glenda resigned, and then Fleur said she was leaving too. There's just that Kim in the shop now. She's about as much use as t.i.ts on a bull. It needs a mature person, a proper manager. Madam Ruby and her handmaiden Alice are keeping an eye on it in the meantime. Keeping their b.l.o.o.d.y hawks' eyes on everything, if you ask me. Anyway, Lesley, did you find somewhere to stay?'

Alice holds her breath. So is that Lesley Craddock she's talking to? Paula had seemed to be getting quite thick with her before she left. There is a scuffling and it sounds like Paula is getting to her feet.

'Okay,' she says, 'well let me know. Better get on now, bit behind today . . .' and her voice fades as she starts to walk away.

Alice slips out from behind the tree and watches as Paula walks back down the track towards the house, the phone still clapped to her ear. Distracted now by what she's heard, she takes a deep breath and begins to make her way back to the cafe.

'There you are!' Fleur says as soon as Alice walks in the door. She is standing at the counter with a menu in her hand. 'I popped over for some lunch, hoped we might eat together?'

Alice hesitates. She ought to get back into the kitchen, but Fleur so rarely comes to the cafe and Alice would like to know her better. Fleur is, she thinks, a person she could confide in. She's younger, more like Jacinta's age, and Alice likes her forthright manner and her sense of humour. She glances around the kitchen to see if the staff can manage without her a bit longer.

'Sure,' she says, 'that'd be lovely. Give me your order and grab a table, and I'll be with you in a minute.'

It's more like five minutes before she gets to the table and flops into her chair.

'Sorry there's always something.'

'No worries,' Fleur says. 'I thought you might not be free at all, it's just that we've all been so busy since . . . well, for the last few weeks. I just thought it'd be nice to get to know each other a bit better.'

'Absolutely,' Alice says. 'It's a shame you're going, though. Ruby and Declan will really miss you . . . we'll all miss you. What are you going to do?'

Fleur shrugs. 'Who knows? When Catherine died I felt it couldn't be the same for me. It seemed like time for a change.' They sit in silence as Leonie puts their meals on the table.

Alice bites into her sandwich and chews on it for a moment. 'Mmm,' she says, 'I can see that you'd feel like that. But you never know, it might be better. I don't mean that to be critical of Catherine, she obviously did a fantastic job. But with other people here it might be different, possibly even better.'

Fleur looks down into her soup and stirs it slowly. 'That's more or less what Todd says.' She laughs, looking up. 'He's trying to talk me into staying, mostly for his own sake, I think. He reckons I'm his safety net, probably because I've told Paula to wind her neck in a few times when she's been having a go at him.'

'Well you could think about it a bit longer,' Alice says, 'stay on a bit and see how you feel unless Declan and Ruby have found someone else.'

Fleur shrugs. 'Not that I know of. They've asked me to stay and I said no, but since then I've been wondering whether it was the right decision.'

Alice opens her mouth to say something and then hesitates. Gossiping is dangerous, particularly in a small community like this one, but she's still concerned about Paula. 'Between you and me,' she says, 'Paula's got her eye on the job.'

'Paula!' Fleur almost chokes on her soup and holds the paper napkin up to her mouth. 'Don't make me laugh. That'd be like Mother Teresa hosting What Not to Wear instant ratings disaster. You're not serious, are you? I mean, did Ruby or Declan tell you that?'

Alice shakes her head. 'No way, and please don't mention it to them. I heard it . . . look, to be honest I accidently overhead Paula on the phone, but then that's Paula. Probably just wishful thinking.'

'Well I b.l.o.o.d.y well hope so,' Fleur says. 'I've put a lot of work into the lavender business and there's no way I'm going to hand it over to just anybody and particularly not to Paula. Catherine would turn in her grave. She was fond of Paula, she made a lot of allowances for her because she thought she was a bit of a lost soul, but she was very clear about her limitations.'

'She must have had the patience of a saint then.'

'She did with Paula, more than with most others.'

'So did she start the business with her husband?' Alice asks.

Fleur shakes her head. 'They were living here, and he'd been talking for years about turning it into a winery, but then he took off out of the country somewhere with some other woman. I think Catherine must have got Benson's as a divorce settlement, or maybe inherited it because he died a few years later. Anyway, it all came to her the house, the land, everything.'

Alice smiles, raising her eyebrows. 'Lucky Catherine!'

'Indeed. From what she told me it seems that Catherine could either have sold and got out or turned it into a business. Everyone else was planting vines so she thought she'd do something different.'

'That must have been a bit of a risk at the time,' Alice says.

'Yes, but she was like that. She'd make up her mind she wanted something and then go for it and she'd read how in the Middle East lavender was used for healing and calming. People were really getting interested in natural products then, so she thought it was worth a try.'

'But did she know anything about it? I mean, how did she start it all on her own?'

'Apparently there was a woman who lived in an old bus on the outskirts of the town,' Fleur says. 'Local people went to her for herbal ointments and so on. She called herself Ca.s.sandra and no one knew much about her but she seemed to know what she was doing. So Catherine went to see her and it turned out that Ca.s.sandra not only knew a whole lot about lavender, but years earlier she'd worked for Elizabeth Arden in New York and was a fount of information on skin products and their const.i.tuents.' Fleur takes a final spoonful of soup, pushes the plate away and leans her elbows on the table. 'What Catherine learned from Ca.s.sandra enabled her to make the first Benson's lavender products. She started out buying in the lavender, and it worked out well, so she had the fields planted and before long she had her own crop. Over the years she tweaked the formulas that Ca.s.sandra had given her, experimented with different components, and developed new products, but that's how it all began. She was selling the lavender products through shops in the town and in Bunbury and Busselton, and then she was sending them up to Perth. But the tourist trade down here was growing and I think she may have inherited some money, enough to enable her to take a risk, so she borrowed more money and built the cottages, and then the cafe and shop.'

'So when did you come along?'

'Six almost seven years ago. She couldn't manage it all on her own and the lavender side of things was really important to her so she wanted someone that wouldn't just make the products but would take over running the whole thing.'

They sit for a moment, silent amid the noise and bustle of the cafe.

'She was pretty amazing really,' Fleur says eventually. 'She put her heart and soul into this place to the exclusion of everything else. And she looked after Ca.s.sandra, who hadn't got two pennies to rub together. Had her living here at the end, looked after her for about a year before she died. Catherine didn't make friends easily but she was a good person to work for and with. I was very fond of her.'

'But she seems to have been very much alone at the end,' Alice says. 'I mean, locking herself away in that room . . .'

'It was her choice,' Fleur says. 'I think she couldn't bear people to see her as less than she had been. She just withdrew and became quite p.r.i.c.kly and difficult. It was heart-breaking, really' Fleur is silent again now and Alice can see that she is struggling with her emotions.

'You must miss her . . .'

'I do. She was a b.l.o.o.d.y good woman, and she worked her guts out here. The lavender business was Catherine's starting point and it meant a lot to her. That's why it needs to be run by someone who cares about it and believes in it, someone who cares about the history and wants to preserve it. That's why I hope this is just Paula's fantasy, because I don't believe that Paula could or would do that.'

Lesley is listening, once again, to the silence, but it's a different sort of silence this time, as though the house, on which she has lavished care and attention for more than twenty years, has turned against her and is emanating its disapproval. Gordon's absence, for which she had at first been thankful, has now become a burden. There is a sense of finality about this silence, as though something is coming to an end but is taking a very long time about it. A few days after her return home she had started to compose an email to Gordon. It had taken ages, days, to get the tone right, conciliatory but not submissive, apologising for her sharpness and extended absence but at the same time not apologetic (did that even make sense?). Time apart, she had added, was probably the best thing for both of them right now. She had ended it by wishing him a good trip and asked him to let her know how it was going. So far he hasn't replied, although this is just as likely to be due to his location as anything else. She imagines him up there, somewhere in the north west, probably sleeping rough and loving it, doing the sort of work in the same sort of conditions he had enjoyed so much when he was younger, and for which he had since, so often, longed.

She feels a sliver of envy that he has so much pa.s.sion and purpose. It was something she had loved about him when they were younger and, she realises now, something she had forgotten in the strange dislocated months that followed his retirement. Her pa.s.sion had always been the family, the whole edifice with herself at its heart, and for so long it had been all that she wanted. But now it seems as though everyone has moved on, stretching out the ties of love, of blood and duty to the furthest possible distance, connected still but in absence rather than presence.

This morning she had taken her grandsons to the little park by the river for a picnic. Lucy is home now and much better after the wretched drama of the burst appendix, but she tires easily and the boys can be exhausting. Lesley had piled them into the car and unpacked them again at the park where they had raced around discovering a few brown ducks on the riverside beach, several snails, and a ladybird. When the wonders of the park began to pall the three of them had walked together barefoot along the beach where the shallow water lapped towards a spidery line of foam littered with tiny stones and fragments of sh.e.l.ls.

The exuberance and boundless energy of the children nourished something in her, but more precious was the feeling that they loved her and approved of her. She might have stuffed up as a wife and mother but as a grandparent she seemed to be doing fine. It was a relief to feel she was getting something right. She had thrived for so long on the knowledge that she was essential to and loved by Gordon and the children. For decades she had taken the decisions about what they would eat each day, what they wore, where they would or wouldn't be allowed to go, and what Gordon needed or didn't need to know. Slowly, as if by stealth, all that power, because that's what it was, had slipped away as first Karen, then Simon and finally Sandi left home. Lesley thought she had managed the 'empty nest' thing rather well. She had even felt somewhat superior to acquaintances who were struggling to come to terms with the fact that their centrality was diminishing, their opinions, advice and presence not always required. But perhaps she hadn't managed it at all. What if the yoga, the tennis, the little helping out job in the boutique and everything else was all just cover for the underlying fear of her own irrelevance?

Watching her grandsons splashing through the shallows, greeting pa.s.sing dogs and a.s.sessing other small people who might possibly be worthy of their interest reminds her of walking here with her own children when they were small. She was busy then, someone always wanting something food, clean clothes, a lift, help with homework, a friend to stay. It was endless but purposeful. It was leading somewhere to the time when they would be self-sufficient adults, when they would have homes and children of their own and she and Gordon would stand back, taking pride in what they had created, enjoying each other's company. She had thought that Gordon himself was the problem but the events of the last few weeks have made her question just how much of what has happened between them is due to her.

She had left the house this morning with the distinct feeling that she was falling apart, and that she was the least suitable person to be looking after two small children. But the twins, with their sunny enthusiasm for the small things, and their delight in the very simple picnic, had gone some way to rea.s.sembling her. After the picnic she had taken them to Target to buy new t-shirts and hoodies and when, just after four o'clock, she had finally delivered them back to Lucy, they were pleasantly tired and ready to flop down in front of the television.

'You're a lifesaver, Lesley,' Lucy had said as she filled the kettle. 'I slept for four hours and feel like a new woman.'

'Good,' Lesley said, slipping into a chair at the kitchen table, 'but you still need to take it easy.'

'I know. I'm so grateful you're here to help out. I don't know how I'd have managed without you. You're not going back to Margaret River again just yet, are you?'

'Not until you're really back on your feet,' Lesley said, hoping she didn't sound as fed up about it as she felt.

Lucy put a cup of tea down in front of Lesley and joined her at the table. 'Are you okay? You haven't seemed yourself for ages.'

For a brief moment Lesley had thought she might burst into tears there and then, simply because Lucy was asking her about herself. Her approval rating with her own children is at an all-time low. Karen has not called once since their tense exchange on the day Lesley got back, and while Simon is fine with her and is grateful for her help with the children, she senses that he has taken a backward step, not knowing where to position himself in this awkward gap between his parents. As for Sandi, she's far too busy with her new life in Canberra to do more than send an occasional text or email, sometimes accompanied by a picture of herself pulling a weird face for the camera.

'It's just a very difficult time,' Lesley had said. 'Gordon and me, you know . . .'

'You'll work it out,' Lucy had said, resting her hand lightly on Lesley's arm. 'We're all thinking of you you and Gordon. You'll sort it out, I know you will.'

Lesley is touched by Lucy's affection, and her hostility towards Gordon has dissipated, but this evening, sitting alone on the verandah, she has no idea how this might be sorted out. Everything is different since Declan walked into her life. She's made a fool of herself, no wonder he stopped answering her calls. She would have scared off the most confident and ardent of men, let alone such a cautious one. But he has given her a glimpse of something different an adventure at a time in her life when she had thought adventures were over. She's always been conscious of her appearance and with Declan she had felt younger, attractive, s.e.xy, and as though age didn't really matter at all. She wants that sense of herself, wants it so much that she can't really focus on anything else and she can no longer sit still. Getting up from her chair she gathers the empty wine bottle and her gla.s.s. Not long now and she'll be back there and they can see each other again, talk about it. She stares at her silent phone lying on the table. Could she try calling him again? 'No,' she murmurs, 'no, I won't call until I can tell him I'm on my way,' and sighing she puts the phone in her pocket and goes back into the house.

eclan is totally into the mood of the festival. All the anxiety and the pressure of the last few weeks have floated away in a cloud of antic.i.p.ation and excitement. He knows he ought still to be anxious, to be scurrying around checking his notes, doing all sorts of stuff, but all he can think of right now is how brilliant it all is. For a short while, at least, this feels like his place, his thing, his festival and as though he is recapturing a part of his youth the good part, while he was at university and before he started on the long and painful downward slope into drink and drugs. It starts tomorrow and all day people have been arriving, cars, campervans and people movers have formed a continuous slow stream of traffic along the track that's been railed off for them. The fields are scattered with small tents, and caravans and the campers are pumping up their oil stoves and spreading their sleeping bags. Not far from where he's standing near the cafe an elderly couple wearing Jackson Crow t-shirts are draping a set of fairy lights around the entrance to their tent and connecting them to their car battery. Further up a young woman strums a guitar, while others unfold camping chairs and tables, and pull stubbies from ice-packed Eskys.

Declan has happy if somewhat hazy memories of music festivals in Australia and Europe from the year he spent travelling with a couple of uni mates when they'd graduated. He knows a good atmosphere when he sees one and while this festival may be small it feels really special.

'Hey, man!' Todd says, appearing beside him. He's wearing a baseball cap that one of the musicians had given him earlier in the day, and proudly fingering the festival lanyard with his official pa.s.s that says he's the runner for the musicians. His eyes are bright with excitement.

'Hey man, yourself,' Declan says, grinning back. 'How's it going?'

'It is totally mega cool. I got to help with testing the sound equipment, and I unloaded a set of drums, and I've been doing all sorts of stuff for the guys.'

'Good man,' Declan says. 'How's the ankle holding out?'

Todd picks up his foot and flexes his ankle. 'It's okay, bit achy. Good job I got rid of the crutches before all this started.'

Declan nods. 'It is, but don't go mad. We don't want you ending up in plaster again. I was just going to get something to eat and then take a walk around. Want to join me?'

Todd nods. 'I'm starving. Are we going back to the house?'

'I thought we'd get something in the cafe. Burgers maybe?'

The cafe is packed. Alice's decision to take on some extra casual staff and stay open in the evenings for the weekend is paying off. It's almost seven-thirty and they're flat out. Todd and Declan join the queue and as they wait Declan watches the action in the kitchen, Alice, he thinks, has done an amazing job, beyond what even he had hoped. In fact, if he's honest, he hadn't had any idea of what he'd hoped for when he asked her to come here. He'd just known that with Alice here, he'd feel better, more confident, that he might actually be capable of behaving like an adult with a business to run rather than a hopeless case floundering about in chaos.

'Gentlemen! What can I get you?' Alice says with a big grin as they reach the counter.

'This is amazing,' Declan says, looking around. 'I can hardly believe that just a few weeks ago this place was closed and silent as the grave. Todd and I are off on a walk around the boundaries, marking out our territory. Want to join us?'

Alice laughs, indicating the packed tables and the frantic activity in the kitchen. 'You're kidding! There's no way I can leave now.'

He nods. 'Thought you might say that. So, any chance of us getting two man-size burgers to take with us?'

'Huge ones,' Todd says, grinning at Alice.

'Double with cheese?' she asks, tugging at the peak of his cap.

They stand together, watching as she gathers the buns, takes the burgers from the grill, adds the cheese, tomato, pickles and salad and wraps them in thick paper serviettes.

'Your order, gentlemen,' she says as she hands them their food. 'Enjoy your meal.'

Declan gives her a twenty dollar note and she takes it from him, rings up the charge and drops the change into his open hand, but before she can move away he grasps her wrist and draws her towards him across the counter.

'Alice,' he says, his voice low but still audible, 'thank you. I feel like you've saved my life.'

She leans forward further now, putting her other hand on top of his, and stretches across the counter to kiss him on the cheek. 'It's mutual,' she says. 'It really is, just like it's always been.' And then she turns away, back to the kitchen where one of the casual staff is panicking about an overcooked quiche.

Todd bites into his burger and feels the delicious meaty juice trickle down his chin. He's had the best ever day and it looks like tomorrow will be better still. The musicians are treating him like one of them, but a special one who belongs to this place and knows how to find what they need. Some of them have come in their own small coaches or mini buses and are planning to sleep in them. And later this evening Jackson Crow himself, along with The Crowbars, will be here and Declan has given Todd specific instructions about looking after them. He can hardly believe how his life has changed in the last few months. He's even stopped feeling guilty about not wanting his mum to come back and while he still wishes that Fleur would stay, he knows now that he'll be okay if she does go because he's got a place of his own here now, at least for the time being.