by Liz Byrski
As far as his bosses were concerned, he was solid, with a ruthless competitive streak, occasional surprising bursts of creativity and, despite a lack of finesse, the ability to sweet-talk his way through difficult deals. For a long time, Brian had enjoyed a dream run. He had been in the right places at the right times and his determination and hard work had been generously rewarded. His home life was comparatively peaceful despite the cooling distance that had developed between Gayle and him over the years. His daughter rattled his cage from time to time, but kids were like that, and his own relatives were all comfortably far away in other states. As for his son, well, as far as Brian was concerned he had no son, and on the rare occasions that he felt the nudge of regret it was always alongside a strong sense of his own unquestionable rightness of judgement.
But into each life some rain must fall and Brian, in a taxi on his way from the hotel to the Sydney office, was hoping the cloudburst was about to dry out.
‘You’ve known me a long time, Collette,’ he’d said the previous night, his confidence restored by a remarkably virile performance. ‘Is this the menopause or what? What do you reckon’s going on with her?’
Collette was sitting on the edge of the bed pulling on her stockings, stretching out one slim leg and then the other, drawing on the sheer black nylons with the lacy tops that somehow seemed to stay up on their own without needing suspenders.
‘So she was going to the classes, you said?’ she asked. ‘And then she just went off on the tour? Ignored what you said?’ Brian nodded. ‘How long has she been gone?’
‘Three weeks, and she’s still refusing to come home.’
‘Hmm . . .’ Collette pondered. ‘And you’re still calling and leaving messages every day? Not nasty, threatening messages, I hope?’
Brian coloured slightly. ‘Maybe a bit, but only at first. Not now. I just keep telling her she’s got responsibilities and she’s got no right to go off like that.’
Collette shook her head, tut-tutting loudly as she stepped into her skirt. ‘Bad tactics, Brian, very bad tactics.’
‘But I’m right,’ Brian protested. ‘She should be there.’
‘You’re sounding a little unreconstructed.’
‘Huh?’
‘Boorish. And you have to stop calling her every day. Time for a new strategy. Step number one, stop calling.’
‘Stop?’
‘Exactly. You stop calling. If you must do something send a nice, friendly text message, saying you hope the tour is going well and you miss her.’
‘Miss her?’
‘You do, don’t you?’
‘Well, yeah, but . . .’
‘No buts. You back right off. Ideally you do nothing, but if you can’t handle that then you change your tune. Give her some space. Chances are she’ll be back in a few days if you stop bullying her.’
‘Yeah? She’s supposed to be home for a couple of days before they go off up north.’
‘There you are then. Back off, send a nice message and be there when she gets home. I bet she’s been missing your daughter since she got married. Get some nice flowers, chocolates maybe, take her out for dinner. I bet she’ll stay right where she is and it’ll all be forgotten.’
‘I won’t be there,’ Brian said, watching his foot twitching nervously. ‘Taking a couple of clients on a golfing break to the Vines Resort.’
‘Cancel it, postpone it,’ Collette said. ‘Be there. Surprise her, make a fuss of her.’ She walked across to the full-length mirror. ‘I know you’re a bit of a stud, Brian, but you have an awful lot to learn about women.’
For some time after Collette had left, Brian lay there contemplating her advice. Perhaps she was right, maybe he did need to try another tack. The problem with getting advice from someone else was that you could never really describe the subtleties to them. What he hadn’t been able to explain to Collette was the strange nature of his and Gayle’s relationship; the crises they’d weathered, the deal they’d made and the uncomfortable feeling that since Angie’s wedding there had been a radical shift in the balance of power.
In his youth, Brian had been a bit too free and easy with his fists and there had been some episodes, particularly with women, that he preferred to forget. When he’d first met Gayle he’d vowed to change his ways and he’d succeeded for a while. But a few years later, lack of money and the demands of a young baby had driven out his good intentions. And then there was the big crisis and Gayle, pregnant and threatening to leave. Bad times, but Brian knew he’d done the right thing, settled it the right way – they’d lasted all this time. Even so, Collette might have a point; he needed to do it differently.
This morning, before calling his cab, he’d faxed the clients, postponed the three-day golf break and cancelled the booking at the Vines. As the taxi swung into Market Street and joined the line of traffic waiting at the lights, he felt remarkably pleased with himself. Problem number one was taken care of. Gayle was missing Angie and he probably should’ve spent more time with her. He’d surprise her, take her out somewhere nice, and she’d relent and cancel the rest of the trip. Outside the office, Brian signed the cab voucher and strode up the steps watching his own reflection in the smoked glass of the double doors. It had been remarkably calm since the regulation board decision. Clearly his concerns there had been unfounded – things were looking up. He straightened his shoulders and walked in through the doors, flashing his pass at the security officer in the foyer, and took the lift to the thirteenth floor.
Behind the curved blond wood reception desk, Sandy, the stick insect receptionist who wore skirts so small they could have been sleeves, was sorting through a pile of mail. She raised her eyebrows as Brian stepped out of the lift.
‘Big Mal wants to see you,’ she said, pulling a face, ‘soon as you come in, in the boardroom. And –’ she lowered her voice confidentially – ‘the Chicago mafia have arrived, including our beloved former leader.’
Brian’s stomach took a dive. ‘Shit,’ he murmured. ‘Just when I thought we were in the clear.’ He dumped his briefcase in the office he always used in Sydney, and stood by the window taking deep breaths to calm himself. Then, buttoning his jacket and with beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead, he headed down the passage towards the boardroom.
TWELVE
Sonya, dozing in the window seat half an hour into the flight from Perth to Broome, still wished she could have had a couple of days in her own home before taking off again. The conference thing sounded good but, just the same, after more than four weeks away it would have been nice to sleep in her own bed, check her mail, and maybe even book a massage. Most of all it would have given her time to think about what had happened with her family and what it all meant. After Marissa’s suggestion that Tessa had been in the audience, Sonya had begun to wonder whether she too had seen her sister; and every time they danced in Albany and then in Bunbury, she had the eerie feeling that Tessa was there in her peripheral vision, always vanishing from sight.
Sonya was a very practical person who liked to be clear about boundaries. She tried to keep her life simple, to speak out about things that bothered her and equally to let people know it when she liked what they did. Her straightforwardness with Oliver had been characteristic of a manner that some people found confronting. She had risen to the mid-levels of the Senior Executive Service, and might have gone higher had she been more willing to compromise and play departmental politics. But Sonya preferred the truth – except, of course, when it came to her family.
She had grown up in the stifling social climate of the fifties, dominated by her parents’ attempts to claw their way up the financial and social ladders. Lew’s life revolved around his job with the bank, and the cricket: playing it, listening to it or watching it. And Vera was in a constant state of domestic production – lamingtons, jams, pickles or lemon butter, and crocheted squares to be joined into rugs for the people of Hungary recently invaded by the Soviet Union.
‘Aren’t you being a bit un
kind?’ Gayle had commented when Sonya described her upbringing. ‘Lots of people’s parents were like that. It’s just that we baby boomers have such different lives and such high expectations, those times inevitably look pretty bland.’
Sonya only half agreed. ‘I suppose so,’ she admitted, ‘but I still think mine were obsessive. We always had to pretend that everything was perfect, as though if it got out that one of us was sick or we’d had an argument, a black mark would be recorded against our name in some great public register, and if it happened often enough we would become social outcasts.’
‘But it was like that,’ Marissa said. ‘At least, it certainly was in England – just like that. My parents were the same and so were their friends. I was like it myself, and that was how I ended up marrying Roger and why I was never forgiven for running away.’ And she told them how she’d left that day and never looked back.
And Gayle, listening wide-eyed to the story, had leaned back with a sigh. ‘Fancy just taking off like that. You’ve been so adventurous,’ she said. ‘I got married young and just relived my mother’s life. I had more money, of course, more freedom and a job I liked, but I never learned another way to live or had the confidence to believe I could cope on my own.’
Sonya shifted her position and half opened her eyes to look out at the raft of white cloud beneath the aircraft wings, wondering about families, and how it seemed impossible to escape their emotional tentacles. She couldn’t imagine how she would ever be able to go back to her parents’ home – her pride wouldn’t let her – and yet love and blood would never allow her to be free.
Gayle was only feigning sleep as she backtracked over her conversation with Angie, who had come to the airport with a gift she wanted Gayle to take to Josh.
‘Dad’ll have a fit at you not coming home,’ she’d said, glancing nervously around the airport café as if Brian might materialise beside them at any moment.
‘It won’t make any difference to him,’ Gayle said, watching a Virgin flight taxiing to the gate. ‘He’s taking clients to the Vines for a golf weekend. Our paths wouldn’t have crossed anyway.’
‘You can’t imagine how difficult it is,’ Angie said. ‘Couldn’t you skip the rest of the tour and come back now? You’re upsetting everyone. Your mobile’s switched off most of the time and that means Dad keeps calling me.’
‘Angie, I’m upsetting Brian, and he’s upsetting everyone else. Let’s be clear about that. The phone’s off because I need some time and space for myself but I always return your calls. This is the first time in more than thirty years that I’ve gone off and done something on my own. I think I deserve this without all the pressure from you and your father.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Angie said, ‘but if you could just come back for a bit and sort things out –’
‘And have you tell me again that I never hold out for anything I want?’
‘I know, I know, I shouldn’t have said all that. I’m sorry – really – but everything’s such a mess.’
Gayle stirred her coffee and looked across to where Marissa, Sonya and Frank were sitting at a nearby table. She wanted to be with them. Much as she loved Angie, right now she was an intrusion, a reminder of the complex web of relationships and expectations from which Gayle felt so alienated, a reminder of what she would have to face when she went home. ‘Don’t be so selfish, Angie,’ she said. ‘So, you have to cope with your father for once. Be firm with him, like you told me to be.’
‘You’ve changed,’ Angie said.
‘Isn’t that what you wanted?’
‘Yes, but not like this.’
‘Like what, then? In a way that doesn’t inconvenience you or upset Brian?’ It was years since Gayle had felt anything but pleasure in her daughter’s company, and this new irritation disturbed her. ‘That’s not how it works, Angie. Any sort of change affects the people closest to you. I’m sorry this is hard for you. It’s not particularly easy for me either but I need to do it.’ She took Angie’s hand in hers. ‘I’ve kept my eyes closed and my mouth shut for years and I can’t do it anymore. This is important to me, and the things you said made a difference. You said it all in front of other people, and that meant I couldn’t brush it aside or pretend it wasn’t said, I have to confront it, work out what to do.’
Angie scrubbed at her tears with a tissue. ‘Everything seems to be falling apart,’ she said. ‘That’s so scary, and Tony doesn’t like it either. You know how uptight and conservative his family is. His mum and dad don’t approve of you belly dancing, or being away like this.’
Gayle withdrew her hand. ‘And you want me to come home to keep your husband and your in-laws happy?’ She stood and picked up her bag. ‘That’s our flight boarding now,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back at the end of the tour, and I hope I’ll feel clearer about things by then.’ She put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. ‘Angie, come on, darling. You know how much I love you. You have to do what I haven’t done all these years. Take a stand with Tony, and with your father. And I need you to give me some space. Dry your eyes, go back to work and get on with your own life, while I sort out what’s happening with mine.’
Marissa got up from her seat, stretched her legs, rotated her shoulders and sat down again. She hated flying and rarely did it: the enclosed space, the sterile air, just being in a plane distressed her. She was restless too, unusually so. Maybe the coffee had done it. Frank had fetched her one at the airport, perhaps he had forgotten to order decaf. She’d spotted him waiting for them by the car hire desk as they’d made their way in from the car park, on time just as arranged, with the boxes of videos stacked on a trolley. Her immediate reaction was delight and she wanted to hug him but, embarrassed, she held back and it was Sonya who had broken the awkwardness.
‘Hey, Frank,’ she said, punching him gently on the upper arm. ‘Gayle and I reckon you look like Normie Rowe.’
‘But taller,’ he said, smiling. ‘Exactly two inches taller, in fact. You’re not the first to notice it.’ Turning away from Sonya, he reached to take Marissa’s hand. ‘Hello, Marissa. You look terrific’ He turned back to Sonya. ‘Nice guy, Normie Rowe. Haven’t seen him for years.’
‘What? You mean you know him?’
Frank nodded. ‘Years ago. We were in Vietnam together, often mistaken for brothers. Joined up on the same day and we were in the same battalion.’ He turned back to Marissa then, putting his arm casually around her shoulders, guiding the trolley with the other hand as they walked together to the check-in desk. ‘If you’re very nice to me, one day I’ll play you my Normie Rowie collection.’
Unwrapping one of the packets of airline biscuits, more from the need to do something than the desire to eat, Marissa thought about the night she’d met them all. It seemed a bit surreal now, the police cars in the street, her fear about her plants, the crowd of women in Gayle’s great big showcase house. And now these three people had become so important in her life. Across the aisle in the seat by the other window sat Gayle, eyes closed, head resting on a small pillow, the sun from the aircraft window slanting across her face. She looked so different from the woman who had opened the front door the night of Angie’s hens’ party.
Marissa realised how easily she too could have been living a life like Gayle’s had it not been for that extraordinary encounter in Sainsbury’s all those years ago. One minute he was a big, rawboned stranger with long reddish brown hair and several days’ stubble, and the next he was something more: a gift, perhaps, an adventure waiting to start.
‘Sorry,’ he’d said, picking up the two tins of baked beans she’d been holding when he bumped into her. ‘Not looking where I was going.’
The space between them was alive with chemistry. Marissa’s heartbeat quickened and her mouth went dry.
‘G’day,’ he said, ‘I’m Blue.’
‘Blue?’
‘Blue, it’s my name.’
‘What sort of name is that?’
‘An Aussie one,’ he said with a grin. ‘Can I bu
y you a beer?’
‘Well,’ she wavered, ‘I was just . . .’
‘It’s a very warm day,’ he persisted, ‘and if you’re not in a hurry . . .’
She was twenty-three and part of her longed to escape the tedium of her predictable suburban life. Her head buzzed at the prospect of risk, of adventure just within reach. She put the cans back on the shelf, abandoned the basket of shopping, and walked with him to the pub on the corner. On a wooden bench in the garden the warmth of his leg pressed against hers. He kicked off his sandals and stroked his bare foot against her ankle.
‘Where do you live?’ she asked, and he told her about the west coast of Australia and how the waters of the Indian Ocean crashed against the rocks and unrolled onto white sandy beaches; about the rocky red outcrops of the Pilbara, the gorges and waterfalls of the Kimberley, the moist green forests of the southwest.
‘And it’s hot,’ he said. ‘Too bloody hot in summer.’ He had told her about swimming, surfing, and picnics at the beach.
It was simplicity and the smell of freedom that seduced her. It seemed to be a part of him and she wanted it for herself. The pleasant street of identical houses, the cupboards filled with wedding gifts – linen, crockery and glasses, some of them barely used – the predictable pattern of her days seemed suffocating. At the campsite on the edge of the town they lay in his tent on a sleeping bag, their bodies slick with sweat, the midges biting, the sound of his mates drinking noisily nearby. He was a selfish lover, fast and rough, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t there for the sex but for what it meant: that she could never go back. In a couple of days’ time he and his friends would hitchhike to the south coast to catch the ferry to France. From there they would head south to Spain, then Tunisia, Morocco and on to Turkey.