Rudie got the women another drink, he didn’t want them rushing off now. ‘So what do you clever ladies reckon about my brother-in-law?’ he asked, leaning over the table towards them conspiratorially. ‘You must get like shrinks after a year or two at your game. Would he be going home to his wife after, and being the big stud?’
‘I doubt it,’ Dolly said. ‘If that was the case and he was cured he’d have a different girl every time he came here.’
‘It’s like I said, he can do it with me because he thinks I’m lower than him,’ Mary said bluntly. ‘Want my opinion?’
Rudie nodded.
‘He’d been buggered as a kid.’
Rudie’s mouth dropped open. ‘What makes you think that?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve met a couple more like him in the past. Same types, brag about how strong they are, how they can do this and that. The sort that get drunk and pick fights. They don’t think much of themselves really, so they have to hide that with all the tough stuff. But you get glimpses of the frightened little boy underneath. This one, John he calls himself, but I don’t suppose it’s his real name, has come close to admitting it. He said he got crook after going back to his old school. He said stuff happened there that ruined his life.’
‘It could have just been the beatings and the semi-starvation,’ Rudie said.
Mary waved her hand impatiently. ‘We all got that, every bloody kid who got stuck in an orphanage, whether it was the Fairbridge Schools, the Sisters, the Brothers, or a bloody mission like they stuck me in. We can get over that. But rape, that’s something you can’t forget, can’t get over. It stays with you, it taints everything.’
‘I’m sure it does,’ Rudie said, wondering if she knew Dolly had told him that’s what happened to her too.
‘You think I like sex?’ Mary said, her dark eyes flashing. ‘I hate it. But sometimes, when I meet a man like this John, and I know how scared and sickened he is by it too, I don’t mind it so much, it makes me feel a bit better to see him getting over that hurdle.’
Rudie saw then why he’d decided she was kind – she was. And his heart ached for her and all the other boys and girls who had had their lives tarnished by people who were supposed to care for them.
He’d heard enough, it was time to go. He stood up and pulled out his wallet, handing Mary a ten-pound note, far more than he’d intended to give her.
‘I don’t want that,’ she said. ‘I talked to you like a friend.’
‘This comes from a friend,’ he said quietly. ‘You both buy yourselves something pretty from me. You’ve been a great help.’
‘What are you going to do with what we told you?’ Dolly asked.
‘I really don’t know,’ Rudie sighed. ‘My wife, her sister and her husband, all three of them, had been so badly scarred by their childhoods. My wife is dead, and the other two have no chance of finding real happiness if they stay together. You tell me, do I save one and let the other flounder in rage and bitterness? Or should I walk away and do nothing for either of them?’
The two women looked at one another.
‘Save his wife,’ Mary said, her dark eyes glistening with tears. ‘He won’t stop coming up here now. He can’t, it’s like a drug to him.’
‘But do I tell his wife he comes here?’ he said. ‘That will hurt her so badly.’
Mary stood up and moved closer to Rudie. She was very short, barely reaching the middle of his chest. ‘He’s a decent bloke at heart,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen that side of him too. Talk to him alone, tell him what you know, and ask him to let her go free.’
‘He won’t do that!’
‘He might,’ she said, looking up at Rudie, her eyes full of compassion. ‘He’s trapped too, remember, she’s a daily reminder of his failure. You never know what people will do for love.’
Rudie glanced around the pub. It was only half full, a grubby, sour-smelling place, and almost everyone in it – the whores, the miners from the gold field, stockmen from out of town – all looked like losers. Dolly and Mary belonged here, they were part of it, yet in all his life he’d never met anyone quite as astute and big-hearted as Mary. He bent down and kissed her cheek. ‘Thank you, Mary, it was a privilege to meet you.’
He turned to say goodbye to Dolly, expecting to find her laughing at him, but instead she was looking at her friend with pride.
Rudie left the Old Australia at five in the morning, leaving a goodbye note and payment for his room for Sadie on her desk. He had tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep for the images which kept thrusting themselves at him. He had no plan made, he almost wished he’d minded his own business and hadn’t found Mary. However, he looked at the problems ahead of him and he could only see them multiplying.
Any anger he’d felt at Ross had gone. He knew Mary was right about what had happened to him, for once he’d thought it all through, it all added up. Dulcie’s lack of explanation to anyone about what had happened at Bindoon, Ross’s breakdown, and her steely determination to pretend everything was fine. If he were Ross he might also have turned to a prostitute to comfort himself. He couldn’t help feeling glad it was Mary he found, for she like her biblical namesake was ‘blessed among women’.
The sun was coming up, flickering through the leaves of the gum trees, the dirt road ahead turning to gold. In all his years in Australia he’d believed it was a magical place where even those with the smallest of talent or ability could make a good life for themselves. His own life bore out this belief, for it had certainly been a charmed one. A successful artist, a lovely home, money and good friends. He would look out from Watson’s Bay and marvel at Sydney Harbour and the bridge in all its majesty, and never once until he met Dulcie did he ever consider that his adopted country had any flaws.
But he was very aware of those flaws now – the government’s policy towards its orphans and its native people, the Aborigines. He could remember meeting an old friend at the docks in Sydney who had escorted a group of boys to Australia under the Big Brother scheme. It never occurred to him to ask where those boys were bound for, or would anyone be watching over them.
He had heard many times about the Aboriginal children who were taken from their parents, and in his ignorance he had imagined they were being rescued from a terrible life and given a wonderful one.
Now he’d met Mary, and though she’d said so little about that Mission she’d been taken to, he knew it was appalling. He guessed those English schoolboys he’d seen on the docks were probably pressed into virtual slave labour on sheep and cattle stations. Thousands of Marys, Dulcies, Mays and Rosses. All casualties of a society which just let things happen, assuming someone else was taking responsibility.
There was a pain inside him, an anger he thought must be akin to that which Ross felt. He knew he couldn’t just sit and paint pretty pictures any more. He had been given a son, and with that came a measure of responsibility for everyone’s children. Noël had come very close to ending up in one of those orphanages and he had to keep that in his mind, and when he returned to Sydney he had to do something.
He didn’t know quite what now. Maybe just rattle doors, insist on visiting institutions and reporting those who failed their charges. Or speak up publicly and make others listen.
He saw kangaroos up ahead going across the road and slowed right down, coming to a complete halt. One stopped in the middle of the road and looked back. At the side of the road was a tiny one; the mother made an impatient gesture to it, and it bounded towards her, jumping head-first into her pouch.
Rudie laughed aloud as he saw the joey struggling to turn himself round the right way inside, for he was almost too big to get in there now. The mother looked down at him, as if satisfied he was in there safely, then bounded off the road.
However comic the scene had been, coming so soon after he’d been thinking he must do something to protect children, it seemed to be a sign that he was to vow he would carry it out.
‘Okay, God,’ he said, in the same way he
’d often made deals with his Maker during his time in the airforce during the war. ‘I promise I’ll do my best to carry it out. But you’ve got to help me out now with Ross.’
Chapter Twenty-seven
‘So how was Albany?’ Dulcie asked as she made Rudie a cup of tea. ‘Did you make any sketches?’
It was nine in the morning. Rudie had gone home after returning from Kalgoorlie, made himself some breakfast and read the paper, then come on out to the farm to pick up Noël. Dulcie had been surprised that he’d arrived so early.
‘I didn’t go there after all,’ Rudie said, afraid she’d start quizzing him about it. He picked Noël up and sat him on his knee. ‘I drove out into the bush and looked around.’
‘One place is much like another out there,’ she smiled. ‘You must have been bored stiff.’
‘You might have seen it all before but I haven’t,’ he said. ‘I looked at the wild flowers, the shape of the trees, I wasn’t bored at all. Anyway, how has Noël been? Did he sleep all right last night?’
‘Like a log. Ross let me have him in bed with me, he slept in the bunkhouse with John and Bob. I didn’t sleep much though, I kept waking up and looking at Noël. He’s too beautiful for words.’
Rudie smiled. Her face had a sort of shine to it this morning, like an inner light had been switched on. He could only hope that one day it would stay on permanently.
‘I’d better get out of your hair,’ he said. ‘You must have a lot of chores to do. It’s going to be a warm day today. I’ll take Noël down to the beach.’
‘You don’t have to go,’ she said.
Rudie picked up that she really meant perhaps he’d better – besides, he felt so troubled he knew he’d be better off alone. ‘Oh yes, I must,’ he said, putting Noël down on the floor and getting up. ‘Thank you for having him, I know what hard work it is running around after him all day.’
‘I loved having him,’ she said, bending down to kiss Noël. ‘Will I see you before Sunday?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Rudie felt flustered. His plane left on Tuesday morning, and sometime between now and then he had to tackle Ross. On the one hand he wanted to do it as quickly as possible as it was eating away at him. But he knew too that once he had done it, whatever the outcome, he really couldn’t come here again, and Dulcie was going to find that very puzzling and hurtful.
‘I’ll leave it to you to ring me,’ she said as she packed Noël’s clothes into a bag. ‘I’ll be in town doing the shopping tomorrow afternoon, so I could pop round then.’
Rudie picked Noël up, took the bag from her and dropped a kiss on her cheek. ‘Thanks for everything,’ he said as he made for the door. He hesitated at the door, glancing back at her, wanting to say something more, but unable to find the words.
‘What is it?’ she asked, sensing he had something on his mind.
‘Nothing,’ he shrugged. ‘Only that you look beautiful this morning.’
Dulcie watched Rudie cross the yard to his car and put Noël on the back seat. While his compliment had made her glow inside, she was puzzled because he’d been so odd. In the past he’d have told her every last thing about his trip out into the bush, any people he’d met, what he’d seen. He didn’t seem very eager for them to do something with Noël together either. Was he afraid that she was getting too attached to Noël? Was it that he felt uneasy here because of Ross, or was he just plain bored being in such a quiet place?
She went into Bruce’s room to make his bed, suddenly feeling deflated. She had been looking forward to Rudie’s visit for weeks now, if she was entirely truthful with herself she’d spent the entire year waiting for it. What if he never wanted to come again?
All at once she saw the years stretching out ahead of her, empty and bleak. She had her painting, but how long would that sustain her for? There was the cooking, cleaning, laundry and gardening to keep her busy, but that did nothing to feed her soul and spirit. Was she destined to end up with nothing more to look forward to than the monthly meetings of the Country Women’s Association, hearing her friends there speak of their children and grandchildren, when she didn’t even know what it was like to make love, let alone hold her own child in her arms?
At eight that evening Rudie was in the Pier Hotel having a drink with Sergeant Sean Collins. When Rudie got back from the farm that morning Sean had pushed a note through the letter-box suggesting this and saying that Molly his wife would be happy to baby-sit.
Molly and Sean were just as Dulcie had described them, jolly, kind-hearted people with a keen interest in others. Noël was asleep by the time they came, but Molly went upstairs to look at him, enthused on how handsome he was, and insisted she’d be fine if he woke up, in fact she hoped he would. By the time Sean and Rudie left the house she was sitting knitting as comfortably as if she were in her own home, and Rudie had no qualms about leaving her to it.
Once in the pub, Sean, being a policeman, was very keen to hear about May’s drowning, and they were still talking about it when Ross came into the bar.
Rudie’s heart sank – he hadn’t expected to run into him tonight – but Ross just nodded at him and Sean and went right down to the far end of the bar to join a group of men.
‘What do you make of him?’ Sean asked, nodding towards Ross.
‘I haven’t had enough time with him to judge,’ Rudie said cautiously.
‘I can’t warm to the bloke,’ Sean said, his round face breaking into a disapproving frown. ‘Oh, I know he can do anything, that he’s Bruce’s right-hand man, but I can’t be doing with all his bragging and showing off.’
‘I was on the rough end of that on Wednesday night when I stayed out at the farm for supper,’ Rudie said lightly. ‘But I suppose I was fair game being a Pom and a city man.’
‘Funny bloke,’ Sean said with a grimace. ‘You’d think having a boss like Bruce and marrying the best-looking girl for miles around would be enough, but he’s still got a bloody great chip on his shoulder.’
‘Well, he had a tough childhood by all accounts,’ Rudie said, wishing he could think of a way of changing the subject.
‘There’s not many round here that didn’t,’ Sean said. ‘Bob, the bloke with the sticking-out lug-holes up at Bruce’s, he went through hell with his old man, yet you couldn’t meet a nicer, straighter bloke.’ He waved his hand towards the end of the bar to the group Ross was with. ‘Most of them were born before and during the Depression, they knew near starvation, worked alongside their folks practically from birth. You won’t hear any of them whin-ging though.’
‘I don’t think Ross whinges,’ Rudie said in his defence.
‘Maybe not, in so many words, but he’s too bloody quick to take the piss out of anyone weaker than himself, and to start a fight over nothing. He got into a blue one night in here just because someone joked that he went off his rocker for a bit. Strewth, the bloke that said it was just being sympathetic, the same thing happened to him when his kid died of kidney failure.’
Luckily a friend of Sean’s came and joined them at that point and the conversation moved from police work to sailing. Rudie was a keen sailor himself so he forgot about Ross, downed a few schooners of ale, and before he knew it, it was after ten.
‘We’d better get back to Molly,’ Rudie said. ‘We did say we’d only be a couple of hours.’
While Sean finished up his beer, Rudie went out the back to the toilet. The bar was packed now – it looked as if every man for fifty miles around had come here to drink – and on his way back through the bar someone grabbed his arm.
Rudie turned to see it was Ross but knew immediately the man wasn’t about to offer him a drink or exchange pleasantries. His lips were curling back and his eyes were narrowed. ‘I want to talk to you,’ he snarled.
‘I’m on my way home now,’ Rudie said, trying to act as if he hadn’t noticed the man was fighting mad. ‘I’d be glad to talk to you any time, but not right now, Molly Collins is baby-sitting and she’s expecting me back.’
Maybe the reminder that Rudie had been drinking with a policeman was enough to deter Ross for he let go of his arm. The entire group of men Ross had been with all evening had moved into a semi-circle around them during this exchange. There was no menace in their faces, only curiosity.
‘When then?’ Ross said.
Rudie shrugged. ‘Tomorrow if you like. Or Sunday, I’ll be up at your place then.’
‘You bloody won’t,’ Ross said, the snarl in his voice back again. ‘I’ll sort you out before then.’
It was probably Sean Collins coming over that made him back off. ‘Ready to go?’ he called out through the crowd. Rudie hastily beat a retreat.
Once he and Sean were outside the pub, the policeman looked hard at him. ‘What was going on there?’
‘Nothing much,’ Rudie said, though he was a little shaken. ‘Ross was a bit stroppy, that’s all.’
‘Why?’
‘Blowed if I know,’ Rudie shrugged. ‘He was drunk.’
*
Sean and Molly stayed for a while for a chat, and finally left just after eleven o’clock. Rudie made himself a cup of tea and was sitting on the couch reading, when someone knocked on the door.
He thought maybe Sean had left something behind and come back for it, so he opened the door immediately. To his shock it was Ross and before Rudie could say a word he barged past him into the living-room.
‘Now look here, Ross,’ Rudie said warningly. ‘I’m happy to talk to you any time, but you’re drunk, it’s late, and there’s a small child upstairs.’
‘I’m not drunk,’ Ross said indignantly, even though he was swaying on his feet. ‘All I’ve come to say is that you’d better bloody well keep away from my wife.’
‘I came here for a holiday so Dulcie could see Noël,’ Rudie said, trying to keep calm. ‘The only time I’ve seen your wife alone was when she drove me here from the airport.’
‘You were up at the farm this morning with her,’ Ross said.