by Liz Byrski
‘Your mother never told me who he was,’ he lied. ‘And anyway, it might be smart to wait a while until things calm down a bit. Leave it a week or two and I’ll see what I can do.’
Delay was the answer: delay and plenty of fatherly attention might drive the idea out of her head. But now she was still hassling him. She’d thought about it, she said; in fact, she’d thought of nothing else, and she was relying on him to get the name from Gayle, to whom she herself refused to speak.
It was one thing on top of another. He’d had the window reglazed but his foot was still painful and slowed him down and, worse still, he would have to have a conversation with Gayle, possibly even ask her to cooperate with him in preventing Angie from starting on this ridiculous quest to find her father. The solicitor’s letter that had arrived a couple of days after Gayle left had come as a shock, but he still hadn’t taken it seriously. It requested a response within seven days, but he threw it in the bin, and then on the ninth day a letter was hand delivered, requiring a signature as proof of receipt. Perhaps she was serious after all. Brian went to see his own lawyer and it came as a further shock to discover that if Gayle went ahead with this divorce, she would be entitled to half of everything.
‘But I earned it all,’ Brian protested. ‘I worked my arse off for years.’
‘Gayle also worked, Brian,’ Bob Tremlett, the lawyer, said in an infuriatingly calm voice. ‘For most of the years of your marriage, Gayle has worked part or full time. She also raised your children, ran the family home, and entertained your business guests.’
‘So what?’ Brian said. ‘She never earned much in that library job, and the other stuff doesn’t count.’
Tremlett sighed. ‘You seem to be a little out of touch with the law on these matters, Brian,’ he said. ‘Income is not the only contribution which is measured. Now, stop pacing around, sit down and we’ll go through this one step at a time.’
Brian listened with a mix of anger and frustration. ‘It’s outrageous,’ he said when Tremlett had finished outlining the sort of settlement that was likely to be awarded if they went to court. ‘Bloody outrageous. Look, I even raised her child – I should get some compensation for that. I read in the paper the other day that some bloke got compensation for maintenance he’d paid for kids that weren’t his. He got a DNA test.’
‘Look, Brian,’ Bob Tremlett said, ‘as I understand it, you took responsibility for Gayle’s daughter. It was your choice. Gayle didn’t lie about it and, according to what she’s told her lawyer and you’ve told me, you suggested that Angie should be registered as your child. In fact, you registered the birth yourself, and it was your suggestion that the matter should be kept confidential between the two of you. Are you now saying you want to disown Angie, because that’s what it’ll mean.’
Brian caught his breath. ‘No, no, of course not,’ he said, irritably tapping his fingers on the edge of the desk. ‘No. But I want you to go in as hard as you can. If you screw Gayle financially, she’s more likely to change her mind.’
‘You do realise, don’t you, that at present more than half of what you own is solely in Gayle’s name? Attempting to screw her, as you so elegantly put it, is not only extremely complicated, it’s also extremely unwise and most unlikely to work.’
TWENTY-FIVE
Sonya, wrapped in a towel, stood shivering in the queue for the showers in the women’s changing room. Around her teenagers chattered about Australian Idol, and harassed mothers shepherded wriggling toddlers over the duckboards and into the cubicles. Finally scoring a berth herself, she turned the taps on full and stood in the torrent of hot water, sighing with relief. Getting up early on a Sunday morning to go swimming had not been her idea.
‘But you’ll love it, Sonya,’ Oliver had insisted. ‘Honestly, you’ve no idea how it’ll set you up for the day. And I’ll buy you a thundering good breakfast afterwards. Come on, give it go. Live dangerously.’
‘Live dangerously?’ Sonya had said. ‘Are you sure you haven’t had a brain transplant? Or maybe it’s not the real Oliver I’m talking to, maybe you’re a replacement; a cunning lookalike planted by the government to infiltrate the university system.’
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘Oh, all right – just once, though.’
It had not been as bad as she’d expected, it had been much worse. After a week of gloriously warm days, Sunday had dawned dull and cold. It was at least ten years since Sonya had done any serious swimming, and the sheer length and depth of the pool looked horribly challenging. She’d hoped to escape to the small, covered pool but it was closed for repairs.
‘You wait – once you get in there you’ll love it. There’ll be no stopping you,’ Oliver had said, dumping his tracksuit on the benches by the poolside. And Sonya noticed that he was actually developing muscles. He gave her a wave, pulled on his goggles and, with a reasonably neat dive, was off, swimming competent laps in the medium lane.
Despite all her recent exercise on the dance floor, Sonya had difficulty staying afloat for a full lap. The slow lanes were full of children and teenagers weaving over and under the ropes and attempting to drown each other, and there was no way she was going to venture into the medium or fast lanes, where a lot of blokes in very tight Speedos and silly hats were ploughing along at a rate of knots scattering slower swimmers in their wake. Sonya made a valiant effort but soon abandoned the attempt and headed for the shower.
‘Swimming is not my thing,’ she said later as they made their way out through the revolving gate. ‘And no thank you, I don’t want to walk. I want you to drive us to the nearest breakfast place and park as close as possible. Meanwhile, I shall think up some horrible activity I can subject you to.’
‘So how’s it been having Gayle stay with you,’ Oliver asked once they were seated and waiting for the eggs and bacon to arrive. ‘It’s been quite a while now, hasn’t it?’
‘Six weeks. And it’s fine, we get on really well. I’d never share on a permanent basis, I like my own space too much, but it’s made sense while Gayle sorts herself out. You know she’s found somewhere now? She’s moving in next week; a lovely townhouse.’
‘She told me,’ Oliver said, ‘and apparently Brian’s given way on some of the furniture.’
‘That which he didn’t dump in the pool,’ Sonya said with a grin. ‘He really is an extraordinary bloke, you know. Did she tell you he thought she wasn’t entitled to anything and then he remembered a whole lot of it was in her name?’
Oliver nodded. ‘He does seem to be a bit of a dinosaur. And Gayle’s such a wonderful woman, isn’t she? I do so admire the way she’s done all this. And she’s looking so lovely these days, since the dancing and everything, don’t you think?’
Sonya looked at him curiously. ‘She is indeed,’ she said, wondering just exactly how wonderful Oliver thought Gayle was. ‘Very lovely.’
‘There’s something I want to tell you, Sonya,’ Oliver began as their breakfast arrived.
‘About Gayle?’ she asked, bracing herself for the possibility of confidences similar to those she had heard from Frank.
‘Not directly but about this whole situation, you know, Angie being so upset and hostile and the whole Brian thing.’
‘Ah, that,’ she said. ‘Excellent breakfast, by the way. Well, go on.’
Oliver lowered his voice and leaned a little closer. ‘Between you and me, at this stage at any rate, because it’s really pure supposition, but Andrew, my therapist – I think I told you he and I are doing some work together, he’s interested in my book and we were discussing the tapes, and –’
‘Oliver, I know all that, get on with it. Why are you being so conspiratorial?’
‘The thing is, Andrew and I were talking about the Nazi wives, and I said it had made me realise how women’s conditioning sets them up for some of these awful moral dilemmas, you know, love and duty, being intimidated, bullied, unable to speak out –’
‘So? What is this? Feminism 101?’
> ‘No, no, of course not. But, you know, it made me think about Gayle, because when I was pissed off with her after the wedding I couldn’t understand how she had gone along with all that stuff of Brian’s, you know . . .’
‘Yes, I know. And frankly, Oliver, you must have known that and your mother would be horrified that you didn’t make use of what she taught you. You could have been a bit more understanding. Man cannot live by theory alone, she’d probably have said. Eat your breakfast, it’s getting cold.’
‘Yes . . . the long and short of it is, Sonya, that Andrew started talking about how women inherit this sort of submissiveness, and he told me about a client of his, a young woman – no names, of course – whose mother has always been intimidated by her father, and now she, this young woman, finds herself in the same situation. She’s married, recently, mind you, a man just like her father . . . not exactly like him, but you know what I mean.’
‘Oliver, where are you going with this? We know this is a repeating pattern, we know women often marry their fathers – Gayle’s a good example – just like some men marry their mothers. What are you getting at?’
‘Well,’ he glanced nervously over his shoulder.
‘Stop behaving like Austin Powers.’
‘Shh, listen. Andrew said that this woman had only been married about a year and it was all extra complicated because now her parents were splitting up and there were other complications and. . .’
‘And?’
‘A week later, when I went for my appointment with Andrew, I was in the car park and I saw Angie coming out of his rooms, and she was looking pretty upset.’
‘You mean . . . ?’
‘Yes, I think she might be.’
‘Shit,’ said Sonya. ‘It does look a bit that way, doesn’t it? What do you think we should do?’
‘There’s nothing we can do,’ Oliver said, starting on his breakfast at last. ‘It just strikes me that this is the worst time ever for Angie to be refusing to talk to Gayle and, for that matter, to you.’
Frank was on leave. In a spur of the moment decision he’d applied to take some of the time owing to him and now he was packing a few clothes. A break down south might help – anything, to get him out of this miserable state. The accused in the drugs case had been committed for trial but that was a few months away, and he was low in energy and motivation, still battling the old demons. So often he had got himself through the dark times with those intense bursts of booze and sex, but the night he’d headed home from the pub with Gina he’d known things were different. He’d grasped at the chance to blot out his feelings, but by the time he’d made all the right noises about Gina’s new home and poured the first glass of champagne, he realised it wasn’t going to work this time.
‘Here’s to you,’ he’d said, raising his glass. ‘Great place, Gina. I hope you enjoy it.’
‘I will,’ she said. ‘No doubt about that. I’ve had it with crummy rented accommodation. I’ve moved on.’
‘You said it. And you know, babe, I think I have too. This is not going to work for me.’
She looked at him in surprise. ‘You’re not running scared, Frank?’
‘Not scared, exactly. More tired, I suppose.’
‘Tired of champagne and sex in the spa? You’ve gotta be kidding.’
He swallowed some champagne. ‘You know what I mean.’
Gina sighed. ‘Yes, I do know what you mean. It all gets a bit meaningless after a time, doesn’t it? The booze, the sex, just to kill off the loneliness for a few hours or days.’
He put his arms around her. ‘You deserve better, Gina,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the good place, now you need a good bloke to go with it.’
Gina hugged him in return. ‘Too right – but good blokes are an endangered species.’
He picked up his phone and wallet from the coffee table. ‘You’ll find one eventually,’ he said. ‘As soon as you can convince yourself you deserve it. Maybe living here will help with that.’
‘And what about you, Frank? Convinced yourself you deserve a good woman yet?’
‘That’s a bit more complicated,’ he said.
The question was, having exhausted one coping behaviour, what would he use from now on? Perhaps getting away would help.
He rolled two pairs of socks into a ball, tossed them into the bag, and then added some T-shirts and a thick sweater. The wind from the ocean could suddenly take you by surprise even in summer. His phone rang and he had to rummage under the mess of clothes on the bed to find it.
‘We need a man, Frank,’ Sonya said, ‘and we think you’re it.’
‘Only if you need a mere shell.’
‘Don’t be a wanker,’ she said. ‘Gayle’s moving on Saturday. She’s got proper movers, of course, but we need a man with power tools and we think you might be a power tool sort of bloke.’
‘Is that supposed to be a compliment?’
‘Naturally!’
‘Okay, I do have power tools and, better still, I know how to use them.’
‘Brilliant,’ Sonya said. ‘How about a fun-filled day putting up shelves, hanging pictures, fixing curtain rails and so on? Our friend Oliver is coming but I wouldn’t let him within a mile of a power tool. We’ll reward you with takeaway and a couple of bottles of good red. What do you say?’
‘I was planning to drive down to Yallingup on Saturday for a bit of a break –’
‘How selfish –’
‘Exactly, but I was about to say that as a man who rarely gets a chance to use his tools in the service of the fairer sex, I could go on Sunday instead.’
‘You’re a star, Frank. We’ll make it worth your while, honestly.’
‘Yeah, yeah! Promises, promises . . . the only thing is, Sonya, is Marissa . . . ?’
‘No, she’s not coming. She has a longstanding booking to dance at a wedding.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What time and where?’ And he took down the address, and wandered out to the shed to find his toolbox and drill.
Sonya wasn’t looking forward to this conversation. She was flying blind on the strength of Oliver’s gut feeling and who could tell how reliable that was?
‘Come in, Angie, have a seat,’ she said, indicating the armchairs either side of the coffee table. She hoped she had managed to hide her shock at Angie’s appearance. She had lost weight, certainly, but with it she seemed to have lost her vitality. ‘Thanks for coming in,’ Sonya began, trying to strike the right sort of balance between head of department and someone who was once also considered a friend. ‘I know you’re on leave but I thought it was important that we have a chat before I sign off on your application for a transfer.’
Angie nodded and fiddled with the strap of her handbag. ‘It’ll go through all right, won’t it?’ she asked. ‘You don’t envisage any problems?’
‘Oh, you know the process, it’s all pretty straightforward,’ Sonya said, ‘but I have to write a short report to accompany it and, of course, make a recommendation. My problem is that you made this application just days before I came back from leave, so I’m not clear about the reasons for the move and what you feel it has to offer you in terms of professional development.’
Angie flushed. She’d obviously not been expecting this and didn’t know where to start. ‘Well,’ she began, ‘I thought it’d be good, you know, to do some stuff on the home schooling issue.’ She paused, looked up at Sonya, then away again.
‘You realise it’s a step backwards in career terms, don’t you?’ Sonya said. ‘I’m interested to know why you made the decision. I couldn’t help wondering if you’d done this rather opportunistically.’
‘Opportunistically? What do you mean?’
‘I mean that there was an obvious vacancy in home schooling policy, and that if you had any problems in this section, then a move there might look like a solution. I was concerned that this might be a decision taken in the emotional heat of a particular moment rather than a carefully considered choice.’
The
re was an uncomfortable silence. Sonya lowered her voice. ‘Angie, I know things are very difficult for you at the moment, but a move like this may not be the best way to deal with personal problems.’
‘It would get me away from you,’ Angie shot back.
‘Yes it would,’ Sonya said, ‘but there are other, more constructive ways of achieving that if it’s what you want – ways that wouldn’t disadvantage you career-wise.’
‘You changed everything,’ Angie said accusingly, her face suddenly dissolving into tears. ‘I trusted you. I thought you were my friend. I asked you to my party, my wedding, and then everything changed. It’s all falling apart, Mum going off like that, and now she and Dad splitting up, and . . . and everything else, it’s all falling apart.’ She was sobbing now, and Sonya fetched a box of tissues from the desk.
‘I understand how you must feel, Angie,’ she said, ‘but I think you’re rewriting it all rather simplistically. Remember that day we went to look at the apartment? What you said to Gayle then was pretty tough. She took it to heart; it was hurtful for her to hear that, especially in front of Trish and me. It’s partly what led her to make this huge decision. No one put a spell on your mother. Various things happened that made her decide to take control of her life.’
‘So you’re saying it’s my fault?’
‘No, I’m saying it’s not anybody’s fault. It’s life, Angie. Shit happens and it happens to good people. Gayle’s made some changes that are really important to her and you’re caught in the fallout. She’s been there for you for years, hanging on, waiting until a time when she thought you could handle the truth, but obviously it was never going to be easy.’