Sixty Summers

by Amanda Hampson

  Later, Maggie had got to know Rose’s parents, who had the same refreshing lack of pretension. They were more interested in someone’s work ethic than who their family was or had been. After her own family’s spectacular fall from grace, Maggie had valued that.

  Fran, with her neat black cap of hair and eyeliner that flicked up, cats-eye style, in the corners of her watchful grey eyes, had an innocent kindness about her. It took a while to realise that beneath her calm veneer, she fretted. Fran was trusting, as evidenced by the men who had taken advantage of her over the years, both financially and emotionally. Someone only had to show her some kindness and she was enslaved to them.

  Although they were all so different, from the moment Maggie first met Rose and Fran, she felt she could be herself with them; whoever she turned out to be. She hadn’t come to London to find herself, but to escape. What she discovered there was purely accidental.

  Three months before she set off for London, Maggie could have looked ahead and seen exactly how her life would play out. Her father had encouraged her to go to university and join his accountancy practice. She and her boyfriend Mark were set to marry in a few years when he qualified. His father a well-respected solicitor, Mark was doing law and would join his father’s practice. Their family lives mirrored each other and their parents were already chummy, integrated as in-laws.

  Mark had been her first serious boyfriend and the only one she had gone all the way with. They would stay at each other’s homes and holiday with each other’s family, but never sleep in the same room. Sex was covert and took place whenever they found themselves alone in the house, or more often in the back seat of the car when Mark drove her home. It was often uncomfortable and undignified, and she cooperated mainly to stop him bugging her about it. What did they talk about, she wondered now. Did they have a single thing in common?

  When she started university, she encountered young people from different worlds. People who lived in share houses and squats, who smoked pot, drank beer and slept around. Maggie realised that she had been sliding into her mother’s life, without having ever lived her own, but to extract herself from the situation was unthinkable. She would disappoint everyone.

  Her idyllic family life in no way prepared her for what happened next. Halfway through her first year at university, she discovered that her diaphragm had let her down and she was pregnant. The timing could not have been worse. Her father’s accountancy practice was under investigation, suspected of promoting tax-evasion schemes to clients. Maggie had worked for him over the summer, shredding documents, never knowing what they were. Her parents had never argued, now they never stopped. Everything buried in their marriage rose to the surface. Everything was in jeopardy. Maggie couldn’t bring herself to tell her mother about the pregnancy.

  When Mark suggested they get married, Maggie readily agreed. It was the only solution but she felt that her life was over before it had begun. She soon had a call from Mark’s mother. ‘We need to do everything in the right order,’ she said. ‘Wedding bells for you two are a few years down the track. I’m going to give you a number. You must ring in the evening after six. Make an appointment.’

  The procedure took place in the doctor’s surgery without general anaesthetic. Afterwards, Maggie was sent home. The doctor said she was not to contact the surgery again. If things went wrong, she should go to Emergency, and admit nothing or she would be in trouble.

  Alone in her bed, towels tucked between her legs, she spent the night writhing in pain from the cramps. She had been instructed that when the foetus came away, it wouldn’t be recognisable but she should wrap it up in newspaper and put it out in the bin. She couldn’t do it. She wrapped it in a towel, crept out into the garden and buried the bundle under the hedge. She lay on the damp grass and sobbed uncontrollably. From relief or grief, she didn’t know.

  When she walked back into the kitchen, her mother was there. Maggie’s hands were covered in soil, blood had soaked through her sanitary pad and stained the legs of her pyjamas. In one searching glance, Celia put it all together. She took her daughter in her arms and they wept together. Celia cleaned her up, changed the bed and kept watch on her all that night, ready to take her to the hospital if necessary.

  In the morning, Celia went to see Mark’s mother and told her if they tried to contact her daughter again, she would have them charged. Maggie never saw Mark again. It was shocking how little she missed him. The only thing she did miss was his protective power. She felt safe with him. Right from early adolescence, there was something about her that turned men’s heads. She was a magnet for the sleazy comment and men telling her what she needed, openly staring at her breasts. She’d hated it before, and even more so after what she’d been through.

  Despite her father’s best efforts, the firm was placed in the hands of the receivers and the tax office moved to prosecute. The papers were full of it and, overnight, her father became a pariah and Maggie was out of a job. It was Celia who suggested Maggie take some time out and go overseas for a while.

  When she met Rose and Fran, she thought she could learn from them how to be young and carefree again. She realised later that Fran had never been carefree. She was one of those people who made you consider the idea of past lives. Rose made up for Fran’s seriousness, bursting with life and energy, a veritable gale of sunshine. Maggie had wanted a piece of that. And here they were, forty years later. They had changed beyond recognition. And not changed at all.

  Paris, when they arrived, was cool and windy. Maggie felt little enthusiasm for their time there. It wasn’t entirely her low mood – she had been back a few times since their first visit, and the city had lost its sheen for her over the years.

  Since neither she nor Rose had felt up to the task of driving in Europe these days, they lacked the flexibility of the earlier trip. Rose must surely realise that it was impossible to emulate it because the essential element was that they’d had no plan, just a spiral-bound map book of Europe and the traveller’s bible: Frommer’s Europe on $10 a Day.

  None of them had ever been to Europe and they had no idea what they would find when they crossed the Channel. They bought the VW Kombi from a Kiwi couple at the van mart outside Australia House. It had already lapped the continent a few times and was perfect for them, with one bench seat up the front and a mattress in the back. They bought a pup tent and a folding canvas camp bed for the third person, but when it was raining they had often slept squashed into the van, sardine-style. They did all their cooking on a single-burner gas cooker, mainly rice with vegetables and occasionally some meat. Their few clothes were stuffed in duffel bags under the seats. It was that chaotic trip that gave Maggie back her carefree youth. She got to start adulthood again. It was more fun than she had ever had, before or since. Recapturing that now seemed impossible.

  Not having their own transport for this venture limited the possibilities for spontaneity; they were basically stuck in each location until the itinerary moved them on. She needed to make the best of it. She had abdicated all responsibility to Rose, and now she just had to deal with it. Stop complaining in her head and stop trying to control the situation.

  That said, Maggie would not have selected the hotel that Rose had booked near the Notre Dame. These days there was no ‘out of season’ in Paris, especially in this location. The surrounding restaurants would all be expensive tourist fodder. Her room was shabby and so small that almost as soon as she put her suitcase down, she managed to fall over it and hurt her knee. Tall windows looked out onto an atrium courtyard populated by straggly plants searching for more light and sun, but without this dismal view, it would be like a cell.

  She lay down on the bed and stared at a faint water stain on the ceiling, the shape of Italy, and pondered the idea that Italy was probably the most common shape for a water stain. Perhaps because water pooled and overflowed, searching for a path to flow along. This, she realised, is what it feels like to think about nothing. She liked it.

  It was nice to b
e alone. The room was relatively quiet. On the other side of the world it was almost midnight and hopefully her family were asleep. The sudden buzzing of her phone indicated otherwise. She had fond memories of the days when global roaming charges were astronomical and no one dared call. These days it was business as usual. It was impossible to actually get away. If she turned her phone off, Kristo would go into panic mode and just start bothering Rose instead.

  ‘Kristo, you don’t need to call me every day,’ she said gently. ‘We can just message. Or not.’

  ‘Are you enjoying yourself, darling?’ he asked in honeyed tones. He never called her darling. All these endearments had been nice at first but were now starting to get on her nerves.

  ‘See, that’s the sort of question you can text, or even not ask because I don’t want to be asked every single day if I’m enjoying myself.’ Maggie heaved herself up to a sitting position against the bedhead. The pillows were the synthetic sort she hated. They had to be folded in half to have any substance. ‘Is that it? Dear.’

  ‘I’m worried you’ll meet a handsome Frenchman and never come home.’ Kristo was only half joking. Someone, probably his mother, had put that in his head.

  ‘Kris, I’m an overweight, bad-tempered matron and my hair is falling out. I’m not exactly the temptress you imagine me to be.’

  There was a shocked silence at the other end. ‘Your hair?’

  ‘It might be stress or just age, I don’t know. It’s coming out everywhere. I’ll probably be bald by the time I get home.’

  ‘Can you get to a doctor? I think you need to see a doctor. Do you want me to come over?’

  ‘How are you going to stop it? Hold it on my head?’ She regretted telling him. ‘It’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Everything else all right?’

  ‘There was a big bloody stuff-up with the payroll yesterday. The time sheets were wrong. Yannis sorted it out in the end. Nothing for you to worry about.’

  Maggie felt her blood pressure rise like mercury. The time sheets would not be wrong. Yannis’s work needed constant checking. He’d obviously stuffed it up and made himself out to be the hero. There was nothing she could do. Her head began to throb but her voice was surprisingly calm. ‘If you don’t want me to worry, maybe I don’t need to know.’

  ‘Anthea is back here again. That counselling doesn’t seem to be working. I knew it was a waste of money. That little …’

  Maggie took a deep breath. ‘Aaron needs to move out of the unit, not Anthea. We have a stake in that place. If he takes possession, we won’t be able to get him out. Just go around and speak to him, please. But don’t touch him. Did you hear that? Don’t even shake his hand in case you’re tempted to break it.’

  ‘Don’t touch him. Got it. Not even a man hug,’ he said jovially.

  ‘Okay, I’ll call you in a few days. Everything is fine. There’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘I’m lying here in bed. Naked as a baby. Alone. Can you talk to me for a while?’

  Maggie snorted. ‘No. Talk to yourself.’

  ‘Mag-gie,’ he said sulkily. ‘Just tell me what you’re wearing.’

  ‘Well, obviously that would be a French maid’s uniform …’

  ‘Yes?’ he said brightly.

  There was a tap on the door. ‘Sorry, Kris. You can take it from there. I have to go.’

  Maggie put the phone aside, wriggled off the bed and opened the door.

  ‘We’re going out for a walk,’ said Rose. ‘Stretch the legumes. Are you okay? You look done in. Maybe you should have a nap.’

  Maggie agreed she would meet them later. She turned off her phone and got into bed. When she woke, it was dusk. She had slept heavily but been disturbed by flashing nightmares of being pursued by barking dogs and speeding cars. It was like a trailer for an action movie that made no sense. She had no desire to see the full feature.

  Despite the pitiful tickle of the shower, she felt revived and in a better frame of mind. She put on some lipstick and mascara and brushed her hair gently.

  For a moment, the face reflected in the mirror was her mother’s, the same lines beginning to tug at the corners of her mouth. She felt a pang of missing Celia and wondered if a month with her mother in Queensland would have been more beneficial than this, potentially exhausting, trip.

  The only good thing to come out of that terrible night all those years ago was the strengthened bond with her mother. She never told Kristo, or anyone else, about that first pregnancy. Not even Rose or Fran. So when she miscarried her first official pregnancy, Celia was the only one who understood the torment she was feeling. Punished. Guilty. Celia had come and cared for Maggie in the house in Marrickville for a few days.

  In a quiet moment when they were alone together, Celia brought up the subject. ‘It seems as though we never discussed what happened properly.’

  ‘There was nothing to discuss, really,’ Maggie said. ‘It was done. I just had to get on with things.’

  ‘I know the termination wasn’t your idea, but I hope you don’t have regrets.’

  Maggie thought about that for a moment. ‘If I have any regret, it’s that I didn’t think for myself and make my own decision.’

  ‘I hope you’re not making any connection between this and the first one. Because the two incidents are quite unrelated. It’s just bad luck,’ said Celia.

  ‘It could be a mechanical failure. Something messed up in there. Or my body rejected the baby, out of … I don’t know … fear of going through that again.’

  ‘Well, you have to keep telling yourself that there is nothing to fear. And next time around, I think you’ll be in for a pleasant surprise.’

  As it turned out, her mother was right. Twins. It felt like a redemption. The arrival of the girls had a secret significance for Celia and Maggie and they never talked about that night again. Losing Kal was different. He was three weeks old, their loved and welcomed boy, but sadly not for this world. The heartbreak of losing him far outweighed her first and second losses. Even now she and Kristo couldn’t talk about it. The grief scarred them deeply in different ways. She would send Kristo a gift from Paris, and Celia too.

  When Maggie joined Rose and Fran downstairs, she suggested they walk away from the restaurant area near the Notre Dame, with its tourist menus and spruikers urging customers inside. Better to cross the Seine to Le Marais and find more authentic and better-priced restaurants.

  The evening air, crisp and fresh after the stuffy room, lifted her spirits. She reminded herself that they were in Paris. Everyone loves Paris. And while it would be impossible for the city to fulfil every golden promise, it did deliver on so many. It was an unexpected glimpse of the Eiffel Tower sparkling in the night or the rich buttery smell of a patisserie. A café noir, served in a small white cup in a café on the Champs-Élysées. Couples pausing in the street to share a lingering kiss, buskers playing haunting Edith Piaf songs on accordions, and Parisians displaying their effortless je ne sais quoi with nothing more than a cunningly knotted scarf. When Maggie tied a scarf like that, it looked as though she was nursing a sore throat or disguising a raddled neck.

  As they walked towards Le Marais, Rose talked about a previous visit when she fell down a flight of stairs and, shortly after, bashed her head on one of the heavy metal menu stands that restaurants often put outside on the pavement. Fran laughed dutifully, even though she had probably heard the story before. Maggie was struggling to concentrate. It was as if she constantly needed to push herself out of a fog that surrounded her. It was an effort to connect with anything.

  It was early and they found a restaurant that was relatively quiet. The decor was traditional French and it was hard to tell whether the mirrored signs and café furniture were authentic or a convincing reproduction. Their waiter was charming and flirtatious, which cheered them all up. They ordered a bottle of chablis. Fran ordered the steak tartare, Rose, the salade niçoise, a perennial favourite, and Maggie got the same. She felt as though they were trying to create a good tim
e, pretending to have fun in Paris, or perhaps that was just a reflection of her mood.

  ‘Maggie, I know you’re probably feeling buyer’s remorse right now …’ began Rose.

  ‘No, I’m not. If I’m feeling anything, you’ll be the first to know.’

  Fran’s eyes darted from Maggie to Rose. ‘We probably all need to give each other some space.’

  ‘Okay, let’s just drift along like flotsam and see where the tide takes us,’ said Rose. It was difficult to tell by her tone whether she was being sarcastic or it was a genuine suggestion.

  ‘Rose,’ said Fran sternly. ‘I don’t know why you keep coming back to that. Maggie must regret ever confiding in you.’

  ‘Sorry, Mag. Not intentional. Although, I don’t think you’re at risk here,’ continued Rose. ‘No one would throw themselves in the Seine. You’d probably land on a shopping trolley.’

  ‘Let’s drop the subject. Permanently,’ Fran said firmly.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Maggie reassured her. ‘I know Rose loves her oceanic metaphors. I don’t want to take that away from her.’

  ‘Do I?’ Rose looked surprised. ‘I had no idea my metaphorical repertoire was so limited.’

  ‘What have you got planned for us tomorrow, Rose?’ asked Fran.

  ‘I’m not a tour guide, you know. I booked the accommodation and train tickets but that’s where it ends. Now we just have to try and have fun.’

  All three fell silent and Maggie wondered if this wasn’t the greatest challenge of all. Fun was the prerogative of youth. Her expertise lay in organising things for others to enjoy, and then cleaning up afterwards.

  Fran had bought a guidebook and, without further dissension, they managed to make some plans, each electing activities for their couple of days in Paris. Maggie wanted to visit Montmartre, preferably early in the morning, to avoid the crowds. Fran was keen to spend at least a couple of hours in the Louvre and visit the legendary English bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, which was near the hotel. Rose suggested they walk from the Louvre through the Jardin des Tuileries to the Place de la Concorde. It was agreed that the second day could be more improvised, perhaps a relaxed lunch and wander around the shops of Le Marais.