Dulcie held her breath, waiting for May’s reply. She was sure that if she could get her to agree to this she would soon come to her senses.
A tear ran down May’s cheek and she reached out and smoothed Noël’s head, her lips quivering. ‘Okay,’ she sighed. ‘But don’t expect it to make me feel any different.’
Dulcie slowly exhaled. She felt she’d won the first round. ‘I’ll have to go and ring the hotel and make sure they don’t mind,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you get washed and dressed while I’m gone?’
An hour later Noël was ready in his pram to go with Dulcie.
‘He likes to snuggle this cloth to get to sleep,’ May said, showing Dulcie a piece of terry towelling which she then put in the pram beside Noël. She had already packed a bag with some clothes, nappies, bottles and his milk powder. ‘If you give him his last feed about nine tonight, he should sleep through the night.’
Dulcie had rung Nancy and asked if it was all right to bring Noël to the hotel, and even though she’d sounded very surprised, she said he would be very welcome. But now the moment had come, Dulcie was a little nervous. ‘Do you give him any solid food yet?’ she asked, all at once aware she didn’t know much about looking after babies.
‘I haven’t tried it yet,’ May said. ‘But you can try if you want to.’
‘I’ll ask Nancy, she’s got two children so I expect she’ll know what’s best,’ Dulcie said. ‘But you do realize Rudie will come to see him? How do you feel about that?’
May was dressed now, in jeans and a sweater. She’d brushed her hair and she looked more like her old self. ‘I don’t know,’ she said thoughtfully as she looked down at Noël in his pram. She sighed deeply. ‘I can’t think straight at the moment. I’m still trying to get used to the idea of seeing you again.’
‘Is it so awful?’ Dulcie asked, moving nearer to her sister. ‘There was a time you always wanted me around.’
May turned, her eyes brimming with sudden tears. ‘No, it’s not awful, I just didn’t want you to see me like this.’
‘I couldn’t stop loving you just because you are in a mess,’ Dulcie said gently. She tentatively held out her arms.
May rushed to them, just the way she had as a little girl. ‘I’m sorry, Dulcie,’ she whispered against Dulcie’s neck. ‘I wish…’ She broke off suddenly.
‘You wish you could turn the clock back and start again?’ Dulcie suggested. ‘That’s impossible, but I’m here now, you’ll have time on your own to think things through, and I’ll help you however I can. But let me take Noël now, so I’m back at the hotel before he needs another feed. Ring me tomorrow morning, I’ve left the phone number and address by the kettle.’
May still clung to her, and it proved to Dulcie that she wasn’t as callous as she had made out earlier. She had watched May getting Noël dressed and the gentle way she handled him was evidence she did love him. ‘We’ll get through this together,’ Dulcie whispered, stroking May’s neck tenderly. ‘You aren’t on your own any more.’
May lifted her head and stroked Dulcie’s face, her full lips trembling with emotion. ‘I’m glad you came now,’ she said, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘I’m so sorry I said such wicked things about you. I always felt bad about it.’
As Dulcie pushed the pram down William Street her mind was in turmoil. She knew perfectly well she’d been much too hasty in offering to take Noël away, yet the alternatives, leaving him to be neglected, or going to a Welfare worker and expressing her fears about her nephew’s safety were unthinkable. May could well have bolted with him the moment her back was turned, and if the Child Welfare Department got there first they’d whisk him away immediately, and the chances were she’d find herself having no say in Noelës future.
Even her thoughts about May were jumbled and confused. She felt desperately sorry for her on one hand, yet also furious at her lack of regard for her baby, and upset that she intended to continue in her life of vice. Yet how could she really blame May for her lack of maternal feelings when she’d been set such bad examples by both her own mother and the Sisters?
Dulcie remembered only too well how she’d craved love and affection both at St Vincent’s and while she worked for the Masters. If someone had come along who appeared to care for her, she might very well have fallen into the same trap as May.
Yet May had softened when Dulcie returned from making the telephone call. She had held Noël lovingly, she’d even asked how Ross had reacted to his wife coming all the way to Sydney, and how long she was intending to stay.
But it was those last few tearful words before Dulcie left with Noël that really gave her hope that May wasn’t a lost cause. May was aware now of how far she’d fallen, she had shown some remorse. It was a start, and they had parted as friends.
Yet that couldn’t quite take the sting out of May’s cruel remarks about her. She didn’t really believe she was a martyr, that she lied to herself, or that she’d married Ross out of pity, yet a small voice inside her kept whispering that May might be right.
As she walked, she looked down at Noël sleeping and an almost unbearable pang of tenderness went through her. She’d wrapped him up like a cocoon in a blanket so all that was visible was his little face and a tuft of dark hair sticking up. It wasn’t fair that she had been denied a normal marriage, and a baby of her own, yet May, who cared for nothing and no one, should get this little treasure and then want to abandon him.
‘He
is
mine. I know he is,’ Rudie said gleefully, looking down at Noël kicking on a rug. ‘He looks just like the photos of me at the same age.’
They were in Nancy’s sitting-room, a small room leading off the kitchen at the back of the house. It had the same very English quality as the rest of the house, but shabbier, with Nancy’s two school-age children’s toys and books strewn everywhere.
Dulcie had taken off Noël’s nappy to let the air heal his sore bottom, and he was lying there gurgling delightedly at the freedom to kick his legs, and the attention he was getting from three strange adults.
‘I’m absolutely certain May was telling the truth about that,’ Dulcie said. ‘But blood tests can confirm it, can’t they?’
Nancy sat down on the floor by Noël to tickle him, and he returned her smile with a chuckle of glee. ‘I don’t have any doubt Rudie is his daddy,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘But I’m not sure that gives him any rights, not when he wasn’t registered as the father at birth.’
‘I think I should get some legal advice right away,’ Rudie said.
When Dulcie arrived back here over an hour ago, Rudie was already waiting for her, rushing down the steps to carry the pram up into the house. Nancy had brought them into this room so they could talk privately, and over a cup of tea Dulcie had told both of them why she felt compelled to take Noël away with her.
She broke down several times as she described the awful room May lived in, her callousness in her intention to put Noël into care, and the fact that she showed no shame at her sordid occupation. Yet she couldn’t reveal all that May had said about her, their parents and Reverend Mother, that was just too embarrassing to talk about to people she’d only known for such a short time.
Nancy agreed she would have done exactly what Dulcie had done. She also shared the view that May might come to her senses after a couple of days away from her baby, and possibly want to reform. But Rudie was more pessimistic, he took the view that May would take the opportunity to call on an adoption society, and he wanted legal advice to discover if he could have any say in the matter.
‘Hold on,’ Dulcie begged him. ‘I only told May I was going to look after him for a few days, we must give her a chance to think about what Noël means to her. You go speaking to a lawyer about this and the next thing we know there’ll be Welfare workers rushing round here to snatch him away.’
‘You’re over-reacting,’ he said, giving her a sharp look.
‘I’m not,’ she insisted. ‘I’m speaking from experience. That’s what happened to May and me, remember. You can’t trust those people, they say one thing and do something else.’
‘But what if May promises to look after him properly, just to get you off her back, and then reneges on it later?’ Rudie argued. ‘She could disappear with him, even abandon him in another state. How would we know? We are his next of kin for goodness’ sake, so we need help to put the screws on her so she becomes accountable for his welfare. I think we should stake a claim to him now, so we have a legal right to have some say in his future.’
‘You are both right, but calm down,’ Nancy said. ‘It must have been quite a shock for May having Dulcie turn up out of the blue this morning. I think if I’d been caught on the hop like that I might have said all kinds of things I didn’t really mean. She could be missing him already, feeling ashamed of the things she said to Dulcie. Give her a chance to prove herself, and meanwhile you two can get to know little Noël.’
She paused and looked at Rudie. ‘If you do something now that upsets May, she might just deny he’s your baby out of spite, then where will you be? Also, before you start demanding rights as his father, you’ve got to think whether you are really prepared for the long-term commitments which come with that.’
Rudie and Dulcie looked at one another, but neither spoke. Nancy laughed and picked Noël up off the floor to cuddle him. ‘You’ve got them wrapped around your little fingers already,’ she said to him, kissing his nose. ‘I think it’s time you showed them the downside of babies, a nice bit of screaming should do it.’
Dulcie giggled and Rudie smiled.
‘Okay,’ Rudie said, putting his hands in the air as a gesture of surrender. ‘No legal advice until we see how the wind is going to blow. But let me have a cuddle with him, you two have been monopolizing him.’
‘I’d better put a nappy back on him then before he pees all over you,’ Dulcie laughed. ‘That’s another downside of babies!’
Nancy got up, plonking Noël into Dulcie’s lap. ‘I’ve got some work to do,’ she said. ‘You stay in here as long as you want to, my kids won’t be back till about five. I’d better see if I can find some of my old nappies and clothes for him, there wasn’t much in that bag you brought with you, Dulcie. I’ll dig out the nappy bucket too and put it in the kitchen. Come on through when you want to make up his bottle.’
Dulcie dressed Noël again and passed him over to Rudie. As she watched him tickling and chatting to him she felt a lump come up in her throat. She couldn’t remember ever seeing another man playing with a baby, and it was very touching.
‘Things have all moved a bit too fast, haven’t they?’ she said after a little while. ‘I certainly didn’t expect to be baby-sitting quite so soon.’
‘Nor me,’ he said, his face suddenly very serious. ‘Now, are you going to tell me what May said about me?’
Dulcie studied him for a moment while she chose her words. He didn’t fit into a ‘type’ as most men she’d met did, and it made him confusing. He was neither a manual worker nor a businessman, nor of the professional classes, yet he had some of each of their characteristics.
She would have expected an artist to be more unkempt, perhaps eccentrically dressed, but he was wearing a tweed jacket and carefully pressed casual trousers. His hands were slender and beautifully shaped, yet his shoulders were wide and both his upper arms and thighs appeared muscular as if he’d done manual work. His face was intriguing too, such very smooth, pale skin, perfectly shaped dark eyebrows, a classic nose and slightly hooded eyes. She would have expected such refined looks to indicate a reserved man, yet he was quite the reverse. He wasn’t exactly handsome, but he was certainly attractive. Especially when he smiled. She also found his sensitivity very attractive. Maybe it was intelligence. The way he came straight to the point about things and seemed to understand people’s feelings and motives instinctively.
‘Was May so nasty about me that you can’t bear to tell me?’ he asked, when she didn’t answer his question immediately.
‘No, she wasn’t nasty,’ she lied. ‘But I think you’ve got to accept she just strung you along right from the beginning. She doesn’t seem to understand love in the way the rest of the world does.’
He grimaced. ‘Okay. I’ll try not to ask for her exact words. Obviously I wouldn’t like them.’
‘I didn’t press her for an explanation about you,’ she said. ‘I’d tell you if I’d learnt anything which would help you to understand better.’
Neither of them spoke for a little while. Rudie continued to play with Noël and Dulcie watched.
‘She did tell you something which has disturbed you though,’ Rudie said suddenly, breaking the silence. ‘I can tell. Come on, try and tell me, Dulcie, even if it’s embarrassing for you. You know what they say, a problem shared and all that.’
Dulcie thought for a moment. Even before she met him here in Sydney she felt she knew this man, and that feeling had grown stronger ever since. Yet he didn’t know the influences which had moulded and shaped her and her sister. As it looked as if their futures were going to be linked through Noël, perhaps it would be better to go right back to the beginning and tell him about their parents, that way he might understand them both better.
‘I can’t just tell you what was said today, not without explaining the past first,’ she said hesitantly. ‘You see, it’s all connected, both May and I are how we are because of it.’
Rudie tucked Noël into the crook of his arm. ‘Go on then, fire away,’ he said.
‘It all began back in London in 1947.’
As Dulcie was telling the story about their mother’s death and the aftermath, May was packing her suitcase, tears running down her cheeks.
She had never for one moment ever thought Dulcie would turn up in Sydney. She had often worried that Rudie or one of his friends would spot her, but she’d lessened the likelihood of that by keeping well away from places they frequented. But Dulcie had never posed any threat, she lived too far away.
When she opened the door and found Dulcie there she was so severely shocked that her senses left her completely.
She was angry with herself now for forgetting she’d left those letters behind at Rudie’s, for not anticipating he would go to such lengths to find her, and for allowing Dulcie to provoke confessions from her. But above all else, she felt completely broken because she could see herself now as she really was, through Dulcie’s eyes.