Chapter 23 A Link with the Past

Chapter 23

A Link With the Past

The following day we rode the ferry again, this time to Cremorne, where Lily (the girl with whom I traveled from Melbourne) and I boarded with Marj and Pop Roberts when we first went to live in Sydney in 1945. We stayed with them for about two months then got a room about three blocks away with a young married woman with two children. Her husband was in the army in New Guinea.

Marj Roberts was now living alone in a two-bedroom flat since her husband had passed away. Both her boys were married and had settled close by. I was delighted to catch up with her younger son Trevor and meet his two children. I had never met the Robert’s eldest son.

After we had caught up with some of the exciting episodes in our lives over the past fifteen years and consumed many cups of coffee and tea, Trevor, a thoughtful man, recognized that his Mum and I needed to go deeper with our conversation. He took all the children down to the shop for ice cream, then to the Mosman dock to watch the ferries arrive. He and I had often done that in 1945.

“Now, tell me Ruth! Please solve the mystery that’s been hanging over this neighbourhood ever since we heard you had been taken to hospital in 1945. We couldn’t find anyone to tell us what happened. Lily wouldn’t tell us a thing.” Mrs. Roberts was genuine in her questioning. “You know, Pop and I were very fond of you Ruth. Lily - well, we never felt we could trust her. She always seemed very insincere about Harry, her sailor boyfriend. I don’t think she ever loved him. The way she was running around with that soldier who was AWOL: only going out after dark to dodge the Military Police. What happened to those two Ruth? Wasn’t his name Bert?”

“Do you remember?” I replied, “Lily and I had never met until a week before we joined forces to travel together from Melbourne. She was boarding at a neighbour’s house across the street from me. She was too scared to travel alone so she asked if she could travel with me to Sydney.

“We border hopped from Melbourne to Sydney, because Bill could no longer get a furlough from the Islands to travel beyond Sydney, and I couldn’t get a permit to travel across the Victorian border because of troop movements during the war. As you know, Bill and I had planned to marry on his next leave so it was important for me to meet him in Sydney. I will always remember your kind offer to have the reception at your house.”

Rehashing those events of 1945 I started to relive the whole story of Lily’s pregnancy, her refusal to carry the child, her involvement with Bert, the father of the expected child, and his participation in the black market and other underworld rackets. Her abortion, arranged by Bert’s underworld friends in King’s Cross was not a pleasant subject to recall; nor was having my life threatened by thugs, who wouldn’t let me get a doctor for Lily. As I reflected on that incident, I could still hear their harsh voices threatening to kill me if I called a doctor.

“You take care of her, understand! No doctors! If she dies, you call this private number and we will take care of the body. You tell no one, or else, girlie…!” The bully sliced his thick knarled hand across his throat. They handed me the private phone number on the back of a torn horseracing form.

Mrs. Roberts was shaking and the color had drained from her face. When I finished telling her the story, I found it almost unbelievable myself. It was like a movie scenario and I was viewing it all from a distance. It was something I will never forget.

I told Mum Roberts how I had taken care of Lily, who was still haemorrhaging about two weeks after the abortion and I was too afraid to go to sleep - I was still so sure she was going to die. I continued to go to work to pay the rent. All I ever got from Lily was abuse and a foul mouth.

After Lily had gone back to work I collapsed and was taken to hospital by ambulance, suffering from amnesia. My parents came from Melbourne to take me home.

“Oh, Ruth! How did you ever cope without your memory? That must have been awful for you! If we had only known something about all this, we would have come to the hospital and offered our help. We just don’t know what goes on right under our very noses sometimes, do we?” She was twisting her handkerchief around in her hands. “Who would have thought…?”

“Quite frankly, Marj, it’s the best thing that could have happened to me. I have told several doctors about it in the States. They all said that if my sub-conscious hadn’t taken over my conscious mind and blacked out all the problems, I might have become suicidal. In other words, amnesia most likely saved my life.”

After Mum Roberts recovered her composure and could talk without being upset, she told me what had happened to Lily.

“Lily never married Bert, the fellow who got her pregnant; she married his brother instead. The marriage didn’t last long after she became pregnant again. The baby was born with an upside-down bowel, and the child had to have several operations. The last I heard, Lily was living alone with her child in Kings Cross.

“You remember, Ruth that her reason for coming to Sydney was to marry Harry, the sailor on the same ship with my son. He came to stay with us and told us that he had no intention of marrying Lily. Harry married a Sydney girl and is living in Queensland now.”

The children came bounding up the stairs, laughing at Trevor because he couldn’t keep up the pace. It was time to go. I promised to stay in touch after we were settled in Melbourne.