28

Nell

Reference: 3284/16BA

Williams & Williams

Queen Street, Melbourne 3000

16 September 2016

Dear Ms Madeline Murray,

Re: Closing your case

Thank you for allowing Williams & Williams to represent you in this matter. Your case and our representation of you are now concluded. As explained at our last meeting on 15 September 2016, we are closing your file and will take no further action on your behalf. We are returning all original documents and papers you gave us in connection with this case. We will also retain a copy of your file for a period of seven (7) years, after which the file may be destroyed at our discretion, provided there is no action on it, in accordance with rule 14 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules 2015 under the Legal Profession Uniform Law 2015. You are advised to keep all your information concerning this matter in a safe place in case you need it in the future.

If we may be of assistance in the future to you or to your friends or family members who may need legal help, we hope you will contact us.

Yours faithfully,

Helena Swansea,

on behalf of Benjamin Arnolds, Williams & Williams

Nell reviewed the letter, the same letter sent to each of their clients when things were complete. Of course, it was missing something, something along the lines of an apology or a supplication, but these were all empty platitudes, as DB had told her so many times. A selection of words bundled together that offered no real balm or absolution. Scanning it a final time, Nell printed the letter then sealed it in an envelope and placed it in the mail tray to be sent the following week. She collected her things then left the quiet office.

The tram was near empty as it rattled its way out of the city, too late for the post-work rush and too early for any homeward-bound Friday night revellers. Now and then a passenger or two boarded, but never more than alighted, making it feel as if Nell had survived some kind of apocalyptic event and existed now alone in this empty, barren world. She and the elderly woman in a salwar kameez who had fallen asleep and the young man with facial piercings who was cradling a basket full of dirty laundry. The tram pulled to a stop yet again, its doors opening to expel the young man and his sodden laundry. A woman stepped inside and it took Nell a moment to recognise her as Madeline. Gone was the makeup and jewellery of yesterday. Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and she was dressed casually in jeans and an old T-shirt. She looked around, noticing Nell, and offered a small wave. As she approached, Nell shifted her handbag, knocking it to the floor in the process. Its contents spilled everywhere, mints and hair ties and empty chocolate wrappers fluttering about. The bookmarks too, a feminist rain shower all over the sticky public transport floor. Nell had never given them out, completely forgetting they were in there. Stooping to help Nell shove things back into her bag, Madeline seized one. They settled back into the seats and Madeline reviewed the bookmark.

‘“Where are all the women?”’ she read aloud.

‘My mother,’ Nell offered by way of explanation.

‘She made all these bookmarks?’

Nell nodded.

Madeline squinted at the bookmark in her hand. ‘This one has a typo.’

‘Where?’ Nell pictured her mother’s embarrassment when she found out she had sent forth into the world error-ridden statements. ‘Oh, no. She’s spelt it like that on purpose. Gets rid of the word “men”, see?’

Madeline held the bookmark up again.

‘Ah, I see. Clever woman. What does she write about?’

‘She finds women who have been forgotten from history and writes them back in. All the places they’ve been left out. She’s been teaching classes, too. Women’s biography.’

Madeline nodded at this, her eyes on something out the window.

‘Sounds like the kind of class I need.’

They sat in silence as the university passed before them, the medical building, the music conservatorium, vet and agricultural sciences. And behind them the rooms where they’d both dozed off during tutorials or torts or statutory interpretation. The tram stopped to let in a few more passengers.

‘Did I make the right decision?’ Madeline asked, her voice a whisper.

Nell didn’t know how to respond.

‘I read the newspapers,’ Madeline continued. ‘I know all these changes are meant to be happening to the legal system. Maybe I should have held off longer. But the problem is, he reads the paper too.’

She sighed.

‘You know, for a long time, years now, I dreamt about how it would feel to leave. Yearned for it so desperately. But it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I live with my mother, I have no money and now I have this intervention order to my name.’

She kept looking at the university out the window, her head tilted away from Nell. From this angle Nell could make out the faint white zigzag of a scar along the underside of Madeline’s chin. She’d never noticed it before, though she’d stared at her face countless times.

‘Do you think I could go back there?’ she said, indicating the buildings with her head. ‘Seize myself by the shoulders and shake until I see some sense?’

Madeline raised her hands to her face and let out a small moan.

‘There’s so much still to come. Property, parenting orders, the rest of the boys’ lives . . . The rest of my life. And he won’t make any of it easy.’

She made a sound, a frustrated yelp, then ran her hands back through her hair.

‘But at least I’m free. Or whatever version of freedom this is meant to be.’

She pulled the cord to indicate she was getting off then rose from the seat. She turned to Nell, her mouth forming a sentence as Nell interrupted.

‘Please don’t thank me.’

Madeline let out a gruff laugh.

‘I wasn’t going to. I was going to ask if I could keep this?’

She waggled the bookmark between her fingers. The tram groaned to a halt and then Madeline was gone. Nell stared at the empty seat, the vacant space where Madeline no longer sat, and understood now what her mother had been searching for all these years. What Rani had been trying to say. All those stories no one told. All those Madelines who were forgotten, again and again, but whose stories were longing for telling because they were complex and uncomfortable and this was why they mattered. She looked at a bookmark in her hand. Where were all the women?

When Nell arrived home the house was bathed in darkness. She flicked the light switches but nothing worked, so she groped her way down the hallway. Seymour’s door was closed and she paused before it, pressing her ear to the wood, but inside was quiet. In her room, she shed her clothes then sat on the edge of her bed, staring out at the shadows. She looked, blindly, at where her hands should be, then held them to her face, pressing her fingers into the ridges and furrows, running them along the lines of her jaw. Would she recognise this face if it were placed before her, with only the memory of touch to assist her? She explored her face a moment, before realising the strangeness of this action, then let her hands drop to her lap. She expected herself to think of things – to feel things. Guilt, for instance, or perhaps sadness. But surprisingly she felt nothing, which was easier than she thought it would be, so she remained like that for some time until eventually she curled into sleep and dreamt of going back and starting things again.