In some way it made Dulcie feel a little better that Nancy had liked May, and she dried her eyes.
‘Tell me what Rudie was like when she went,’ she asked. He had made light of that so far, and Dulcie wanted to see the whole picture.
‘He was devastated. He didn’t eat, sleep or work, he lost a great deal of weight,’ Nancy said.
Noël began making a loud slurping noise as he reached the end of the milk in his bottle, and the sound made both women smile despite everything.
‘Well,
he
isn’t bothered by anything,’ Nancy said, hoisting him up on to her shoulder to wind him. ‘Now, try and eat your breakfast, Dulcie. It’s going to be a difficult day for you, and you can’t handle it on an empty tum. Would it help if I rang Rudie and told him what’s happened?’
‘Yes please,’ Dulcie said gratefully. ‘I wouldn’t know how to go about it.’
‘I think you’ll find he’ll be a tower of strength,’ Nancy said. ‘You’ve got to remember he enlisted your help in the first place purely because of Noël, not because he hoped to be reunited with May – he knew that was a dead duck. He said he was worried that she might not be taking good care of him, even before he wrote to you. He’s a very sensitive man, and an honourable one too. He’ll know the right thing to do now.’
Nancy came upstairs at ten to tell her Rudie had arrived and that he was in her sitting-room having a cup of coffee. She reported that he seemed remarkably calm, though he had admitted to being thrown into a state of panic when Nancy rang him earlier.
‘Put something smart on because he’s made an appointment for you both to talk to his lawyer,’ Nancy advised.
After Nancy had gone downstairs again, Dulcie put on the navy-blue suit she’d brought to travel home in after her wedding and fixed her hair up in a French pleat to make herself look older. As she put on some lipstick she appraised her appearance in the mirror. At home she rarely had time for anything more than brushing her hair and putting some cream on her face, and she certainly never paid much attention to her looks. She would have expected the strain of the last couple of days to show, but strangely she seemed to have grown prettier since she left home, her eyes looked bigger, her cheeks pinker, and there seemed to be a glow about her she’d never noticed before.
Rudie was wearing the same formal dark suit he had worn when he met her at the station, but as Nancy reported he looked calm and greeted Dulcie with warmth an concern, taking Noël from her arms to hold him. Nancy had already given him May’s letter to read and when Dulcie asked what he thought about it he just shrugged.
‘At least she’s admitted I’m the father and asked that you be his legal guardian, that’s something. Of course I’m not sure that an unwitnessed letter like this is legally binding, but it’s better than nothing.’
‘Aren’t you angry with her?’ Dulcie asked.
‘Yes and no. I think it’s like Nancy said, she must have been at breaking-point, and once she knew Noël was safe with you she just took off.’
‘But it isn’t fair to do this to me.’ Dulcie sighed. ‘I don’t know much about babies, and it’s not as if I’m even in a home of my own. How on earth did she expect me to manage?’
‘I’m sure she knew you’d find a way.’ Rudie half smiled, looking down at Noël in his arms. ‘You have that air of utter dependability. The question is, are you prepared to take care of him until we can come up with a more permanent solution?’
‘Of course I am.’
A look of relief swept across his face. ‘Thank heavens for that. I was afraid you’d blame me for getting you into this.’
‘How could I blame you? It was me who brought him home with me. Besides, he is a lovely baby, and my nephew, I want to take care of him.’
‘You won’t have to do it alone, I’ll help,’ he said.
His words soothed Dulcie’s anxiety. She had already decided in her own mind that the only way to prevent Noël ending up in a grim orphanage was to hang on to him for as long as possible. That way she could make sure the Welfare Department found the right foster-home for him. Clearly Rudie was of the same mind as her, and with his support and his knowledge of the legal system here in Sydney she knew that task would be a whole lot easier.
‘I feel better now,’ she said with a shy smile. ‘I suppose I just panicked.’
He beamed at her. ‘We’ll share everything. I’ll even learn to change nappies too. Now, let’s take this little tike to see Frank Wetherall.’
Mr Frank Wetherall, Rudie’s lawyer, was a funny little dried-up old stick of a man, less than five feet five, with a few strands of white hair spread across a large bald patch, a heavily lined face and a dark suit which looked too big. But his eyes were bright and piercing, and his voice was deep and resonant. He sat behind his desk with his hands clasped together as they told him the story, only stopping them now and then to clarify a point.
He studied the letter from May intently for several minutes without speaking. Then he looked up at them with an expression of deep sympathy and understanding.
‘I am very sorry you have been thrown into such an unenviable situation,’ He sighed. ‘Now, under normal circumstances, say in the sudden death of the mother, Mrs Rawlings would be granted automatic guardianship of her nephew, but as Miss Taylor is only nineteen, a minor still, and a ward of the Australian government, and she is still living, having abandoned her child, the situation is much more complicated. In law Noël has now become a ward of the government too, and while the Child Welfare Department may eventually pass judgement that you become his legal guardian, they do have powers to take him away from you into care, and they certainly wouldn’t allow you to take him out of New South Wales until they had reached a decision.’
‘But I couldn’t just take him home with me anyway,’ Dulcie said quickly, alarmed that he even thought that was her intention. ‘Not without first getting my husband’s agreement.’
The lawyer nodded in understanding. ‘Of course not, Mrs Rawlings. It is a delicate situation and one that needs careful thought and discussion with all parties involved. I would make the suggestion that you find a temporary home here while the authorities make their checks, for they are unlikely to see a hotel as suitable even as a temporary home for a baby.’
Dulcie’s heart sank, she had no money for that. She looked at Rudie helplessly.
‘Mrs Rawlings could stay with me,’ he said hastily. ‘That is if, of course, if she is agreeable. Then we could provide a united front as father and aunt together.’
‘Umm,’ Mr Wetherall murmured thoughtfully. ‘I’m not sure that they’ll approve of such an arrangement. These officials can be sticklers for propriety.’
Dulcie got up, hugging Noël tightly to her chest. ‘We’ll convince them it’s the best arrangement,’ she said firmly. ‘But before we go any further, I want to make something quite clear. I can cope with the Welfare taking him away from me to a foster-home if they think that’s in his best interests, but I will not stand for him being sent to any place run by the Sisters of Mercy, or the Christian Brothers.’
‘Why?’ Mr Wetherall asked, looking extremely shocked.
‘Because his mother would not have ended up the way she is now had she been spared the Sisters’ cruelty. My husband was equally badly treated by the Brothers. Just remember that is not an option.’
‘I hope Wetherall isn’t a Catholic,’ Rudie said as they got into a taxi to go back to the hotel. ‘They all idolize the Sisters of Mercy, and the Christian Brothers even more so.’
‘Do you approve of the Sisters of Mercy now you know what happened to May and me with them?’ Dulcie asked. She hadn’t said anything about May’s treatment at the hands of the Reverend Mother yesterday, but she had told him about the Sisters’ awful cruelty.
‘No, I don’t,’ he said.
‘Well, when I get around to telling you what the Christian Brothers did to Ross, you’ll see them in the same light as the Sisters,’ Dulcie said tightly.
‘Some of the best schools in Australia are run by the Christian Brothers,’ he said reproachfully. ‘Many of my friends have them to thank for a first-class education.’
‘I daresay that children who have parents looking out for them have nothing to fear from them,’ she said tartly. ‘It’s orphans that concern me, and if we can’t get guardianship of Noël, that’s just what he’ll be.’
Rudie suggested that they should go to his place for the rest of the day so Dulcie could decide if she’d like to stay there. After a brief talk with Nancy, they collected the pram, Noël’s things and a coat for Dulcie and set off for the ferry which left from the Circular Quay, just a short walk from the hotel.
Dulcie suddenly felt very ill at ease as she manoeuvred the pram through the crowds along the quay. It was her hasty actions which had started this, she was in a strange town, with a man she only barely knew, totally unprepared to look after a baby, and in a few days’ time she was going to be taken to task by Welfare workers. On top of that she had to make decisions about Noël which would affect his whole life. It was like one of those weird dreams where she was running as hard as she could but getting nowhere, and in this case she knew she wasn’t going to wake up suddenly and find it wasn’t real.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ Rudie said, clearly sensing part of what she was feeling. ‘It isn’t all on your shoulders, Dulcie, we’re in this together. You don’t have to stay at my place if you don’t like the idea. Let’s just pretend we’re borrowing Noël for now, and see how it goes today.’
Her smile was weak, but she felt grateful he seemed to understand how she felt, she supposed he was just as nervous too.
‘I have got a car,’ Rudie said as they waited in the queue for the boat. ‘But it’s far more pleasant to come into the city this way. Of course until you arrived I didn’t do the trip so often, I stayed at home and painted.’
‘You mustn’t let me and Noël interfere with your work,’ Dulcie said quickly. ‘I don’t need escorting everywhere or being fussed over.’
He patted her shoulder affectionately. ‘It’s a pleasure having someone to look after. I work far too much most of the time.’
Dulcie hadn’t been on a boat since her arrival in Australia, and though when the ferry arrived it was like a toy boat compared with that huge ship, her spirits lifted as soon as it got underway and chugged off down the harbour.
Leaving Noël in his pram in the warmth of the cabin, she went up to the bows so she could see everything. The wind was so strong it soon whipped strands of her hair out of the neat French pleat, and Rudie came up beside her to point out the places of interest on either side of the bay.
‘You should see it in summer,’ he said, the strong wind making his eyes water. ‘Hundreds of sail-boats scudding along, flash blokes showing off in motor-boats, water-skiers, divers, all sorts. Sometimes I tell myself I should go back to England and find new subjects to paint, but each time summer comes round and I see that azure sea, those billowing sails, I fall in love with it all over again.’
‘So you mainly paint this?’ she asked, suddenly realizing she hadn’t even asked him about his painting.
He nodded. ‘Oh, I do the odd trips to other places, the Blue Mountains, the outback, like the time I ended up at your wedding party in Kalgoorlie, but it’s the sea and boats I love, and that’s what sells for me too. I grew up in Cornwall, you see, so the sea, fishing boats and all that stuff are in my blood. Even when I got sent away to school I always painted that in art classes.’
‘Did you earn a living as an artist right from when you first came here?’ she asked, glad to be talking about something other than Noël for a while.
He laughed. ‘I tried, but it was a no-hoper then. Fourteen years ago, the war had only just ended and Australians weren’t interested in art. I worked on building sites, waited on tables, and kept telling myself I’d push off to some country where they did care. But then in 1953 I got a job in the Sheraton Hotel as a cocktail waiter and I got chatting to a couple of blokes one evening – they were English too, a right pair of pansies. They were opening a restaurant in The Cross, and they asked me where they could go to buy some pictures to give the place a bit of colour. I thought on my feet and said I’d be round the next day to show them some, didn’t tell ‘em I’d painted them. The upshot was that they loved them, hung them in their restaurant, put prices on them and took a small percentage whenever they sold one.’
‘And you gave up being a cocktail waiter?’
‘Not straight away,’ he smiled. ‘I had another couple of years at the Sheraton, but Clive and Tony became very influential amongst the arty set in The Cross, and they carried me along with them. If we can get a baby-sitter one night, I’ll take you for a meal at their place. They are lovely people.’
‘Look, we’re nearly there,’ he said suddenly, pointing ahead to a small cluster of houses on the right of Sydney Bay. Just beyond it the harbour opened up into the open sea and Dulcie could see huge waves crashing against the rocks either side of the opening.
Dulcie fell silent as they got to Rudie’s house. She had chattered most of the short walk from the ferry, admiring the little harbour, the small sandy beach, the dear little houses and the peace of the place. But she hadn’t expected his house to be the way it was.
It was wooden clapboard, painted pale blue with white shutters, the prettiest house she’d ever seen. It had no front garden, apart from a low hedge, and the street wasn’t paved. It looked like a dolls’ house to her, or the kind children drew, two windows up, two below and the door in the middle.
Perhaps it was just because Rudie was an artist that she’d expected it to be a bit dilapidated, and she paused in surprise, still holding the pram. The paint was pristine, even the hedge was neatly trimmed. Three panels on the front door were painted white like the window-frames, but the surrounds were picked out in the same blue as the house.
‘What do you think?’ he asked, grinning boyishly. ‘A suitable place to be inspected by Town Hall officials?’
‘If the inside is as lovely as the outside, they’ll be wanting to rent rooms here themselves,’ she laughed.
Noël woke up as Rudie lifted the pram in through the door. His eyes opened wide as if he was astonished, and Dulcie thought he had good reason to be. It was one very large room, the front door opening into it. All the walls except the one with the fireplace were white, the other vivid yellow. The floor was timber, varnished a pale honey, with brilliantly coloured rugs, and there was little furniture, just a couple of low couches by the fire and a table and chairs painted turquoise blue.