by Liz Byrski
That night was long and hot and Isabel spent most of it sitting on her bed, her knees drawn up under her chin, staring out across the moonlit hillside. How could it strike so suddenly? Was it love, or desire, or both? How could one accidental moment transform everything? How could it be that she was now supposed to pretend that it had never happened? It seemed that something like this should happen slowly, not in a sudden, sharp, disturbing moment. She and Doug had grown into love. As teenagers they had moved gently and tenderly around each other as if in a ritual dance. They were shy, tentative, nervous of taking risks, each feeling their way until it was clear to both of them that something had bloomed and was continuing to grow. But this was different.
It wasn’t that she had never been attracted to anyone else. There had been times in the last thirty-four years when the chemistry crackled into life, and always she had resisted. But she had never before been attracted to a woman, and while it was certainly sexual, it was also something more, a sense that she suddenly knew Antonia in another way, that in that moment, each had captured and taken hostage something of the other.
Antonia resisted any attempt to open up a dialogue. Was she afraid, offended, shocked? Love between women had never shocked Isabel, nor had it ever really interested her. She had friends – women who had been in relationships or marriages with men – who in later life fell in love with women, and others who had always been unquestionably lesbian. It was part of life’s diversity, not something that set people apart. But perhaps it was different for Antonia. Her Portuguese background might not be so tolerant.
When Isabel closed her eyes she saw Antonia, the tilt of her head, her slim brown hands lighting the candles, the sway of her hips as she walked down the street, the luminous sheen of her hair in the moonlight. Something precious and thrilling stood just beyond Isabel’s reach, and each time she tried to grasp it, it slipped away.
By the end of the following day she was emotionally exhausted. Each subtle attempt to communicate with Antonia at anything more than the level of polite acquaintance had been rebuffed. At midday the new guests arrived, a retired science teacher from Lisbon who had stayed with Antonia before, and a Swedish student. Their presence in the house made the situation less awkward but it also reduced the chances of communication.
On the Friday morning that Isabel departed, Antonia walked with her to the bus, her face a mask, composed to keep intimacy at bay, but in the square she took Isabel’s hands and they hugged each other. ‘We will meet again,’ Antonia said quietly, and Isabel couldn’t tell if it was a statement or a question.
‘I hope so,’ she said, swallowing the lump in her throat. ‘Before I leave Europe.’
Antonia’s eyes flickered. ‘Yes,’ she said decisively, and her face softened. ‘Definitely before then.’
Isabel picked up her bag and stepped onto the lowest step of the bus. She reached out her hand again, and Antonia took it. They stood there until the driver slammed the bus into first gear and Isabel turned to take her seat.
Tired and confused, Isabel made her way back to Cascais, where Sara’s company proved a mild antidote to her mood. On the first day there she began a letter to Antonia thanking her for her hospitality. She would, she said, return to Portugal for a final visit before returning to Australia, and she gave Sara’s address and telephone number. The letter went through many drafts over several days before she finally bought a stamp and mailed it. Something about those last moments at the bus stop had given her hope that Antonia might write or call. But as the days passed without any contact, she became convinced that what had happened between them had been more than Antonia could cope with – too powerful, too dangerous and challenging.
It was time to move on. She should be thankful that Antonia had saved her from the consequences of acting on her feelings. She was a woman – a very ordinary woman in her fifties, with a husband and children who loved her. The last thing she needed was to risk acting on a passionate impulse. Suddenly the enormity of her departure from home on such a contentious journey overwhelmed her, and she wondered if it had been some sort of madness that had driven her to turn her back on everything she knew and loved. She sank into guilt about leaving Doug alone, about not being around to help Debra with the children. Desperately needing to talk to someone, she called Robin. But Robin was caught up in the excitement of her move south and it seemed selfish to dampen that with her own problems.
She called Doug – her second call home since she had left Australia almost three months earlier. He was delighted to hear from her but also pressing to know when she would be back. A year, she reminded him. Well – nine months now. The children and grandchildren were well, they were getting her letters, even Debra was reading them and seemed to have let go of her anger. Isabel promised to call again in a few weeks and hung up feeling strangely empty. Life, it seemed, went on perfectly well without her, the people to whom she was indispensable obviously finding themselves perfectly able to manage in her absence. It was, of course, what she had wanted, but it seemed less gratifying in reality than it had in anticipation. And so she booked her train ticket to Madrid, and on a humid evening in early August, Sara went with her to the station.
‘You look so different from the day I first met you,’ she said with approval. ‘You see how much easier it all is with fewer possessions?’
Isabel nodded. ‘Absolutely. I’m sorry your spare room is still full of my stuff.’
‘It’s fine, I like it,’ Sara said. ‘It means you have to come back.’
‘In the spring,’ Isabel said, feeling once again the sadness of parting. She climbed into the carriage, closed the door and pushed down the window.
Sara stepped back onto the platform as the train jolted into movement. ‘Have a wonderful time.’
‘I will, and thanks, Sara, for everything, your hospitality … the transformation …’ But it was too noisy now for Sara to hear and so Isabel blew a kiss to the rapidly disappearing figure on the platform.
The sadness enveloped her as the train rattled through the darkened suburbs. She had a flash of panic and then regret that she was leaving Portugal too soon, that her own emotional state had prevented her from fully experiencing the place she had so often dreamed of from the other side of the world. She was angry with herself for being too self-obsessed to appreciate where she was. And after all, maybe it was her imagination. Perhaps Antonia was just an intelligent and beautiful woman who had been a perfect hostess, and Isabel, out of her comfort zone and pushing the boundaries of her newfound freedom from responsibilities, had simply lost touch with reality. But as dawn broke over the landscape of Spain, she wept for the promise of passion and intensity of which she had had such a tantalising glimpse, and its loss weighed heavily on her.
NINE
‘What do you think then? The purple or the green?’ Sally asked, standing nervously in front of the mirror, an outfit in each hand.
‘I really don’t think it matters, honey,’ Nancy replied. ‘They both look great, so it’s just a question of which you feel best in … most confident.’
‘Right.’ Sally nodded. ‘In that case it’s the purple, with the lime shirt,’ and she stepped into the skirt and pulled on the silk shirt that lay on the bed.
‘Sure you wouldn’t like me to drive you there?’
‘No thanks. It’s really good of you but I think I need the walk and the train ride. I need to be on my own, get my head together.’
Nancy nodded. ‘Sure. Well, you’ve got plenty of time. Take it easy. It’s just the two of them, just a friendly meeting. Nothing to worry about.’
Sally pulled on her jacket and picked up her bag. ‘It doesn’t feel like that, it feels terrifying, as though I’m going for some exam and if I fail I’ll have completely stuffed up the rest of my life.’
‘And don’t you think they’re feeling just the same?’ Nancy asked. ‘Lisa’s mother coming to check them out, after all these years. Will she approve of us? What will she think of the way we brou
ght up her baby? What does she want from us after all this time?’
Sally paused, her hand on the doorknob. ‘You think so?’
‘You betcha! I’d rather be in your shoes. Think about it. And good luck.’
Sally walked to the station light-headed and nauseated; she had been too nervous to eat. When the train drew in she took a seat by a window and watched the hazy outline of the cranes on the Oakland waterfront. It was two weeks since the day she picked up the telephone to dial the Mendelsons and froze at the sound of Oliver’s voice.
‘Estelle is away for a couple of days,’ he’d said. ‘Can I help or will I have her call you?’
She had taken a huge breath and closed her eyes.
‘May I say who called?’ he asked again, as though trying not to sound irritated by her failure to answer.
‘Sally Erskine,’ she blurted out.
‘Sally,’ he said slowly, obviously writing down the message for Estelle. ‘Irwin, did you say?’
‘Erskine,’ she repeated. ‘E-r-s-k-i-n-e.’
‘Right, Sally Erskine, and you’d like Estelle to call. Does she have your –’ He stopped in mid sentence. ‘Sally Erskine? You’re not … do you mean –’
‘Yes, Lisa’s …’ Mother? Should she say “mother”? Biological mother? It sounded ridiculous. Why hadn’t she thought about how to introduce herself? ‘Lisa’s, er –’
‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry,’ he cut in. ‘Of course you’re Lisa’s mother. Please forgive me, how stupid. Now … well, now I don’t know what to say. Are you calling from England?’
‘I’m in Berkeley,’ she said.
‘I see. And you …’
‘I wanted to make contact.’
‘Yes,’ he said obviously at a loss. ‘Yes, of course. It’s a long time. I don’t know what to say. I wish Estelle was here, she’s away …’
She felt for him. She had taken him by surprise and he was disconcerted, wary but not hostile. ‘I was hoping I might be able to meet you both,’ she said. ‘To talk, the three of us.’
‘Not see Lisa?’
‘That depends … Look, I don’t want to cause any problems but I wanted to make contact, to find out about my … about Lisa. I’d like to see her but … well, that’s really up to you. Maybe we could discuss it?’
She could hear his relief. Yes, he said, the three of them should meet and talk. As soon as Estelle got back they would phone and arrange a time and place to meet. Estelle’s call had come three days later. And so on this bright July day Sally found herself walking up to the house in Hyde Street in her purple suit and lime-green shirt. She opened the iron gate and walked between the citrus trees up the steps to the front door.
What strange tricks the imagination can play. She’d expected a tall, elegant woman with strong features and thick dark hair, dramatic clothes, expensive jewellery. In her imagination Estelle Mendelson was Anne Bancroft, rangy, imposing, former opera singer still playing the diva. In reality only the eyes were as she had imagined, large, dark and searching, but they were set in a round, almost cherubic face framed by white hair pinned into a loose pleat from which a few wavy strands were escaping. Estelle was short, curvy to plump, and wearing jeans and a blue and white check shirt with a navy sweater thrown across her shoulders. Her only jewellery was gold hoop earrings and a wedding ring. ‘Sally,’ she said, smiling. ‘It’s good to meet you. I can see the likeness.’
Oliver was not a shock, although minus the white tie and the piano, and dressed in chinos and an olive green sweatshirt, he looked smaller and even more like Woody Allen than he had in the concert hall. They were older than Sally, both probably in their early sixties, gentle, softly spoken, and obviously anxious, just as Nancy had said they would be. She had a brief flash of insight into how this meeting might seem to them, and sensed, for the first time, that she was in a position of some power. They were feeling as vulnerable as she was, perhaps more.
They led her to a huge lounge room with mellow oak panelling, soft pale carpet, large comfortable furniture in muted tones, shelves crammed with books, and a few well-chosen artworks. A grand piano stood in front of the glass doors to the terrace, where scarlet geraniums bloomed in huge pots, and pink and white clematis draped itself over the sturdy posts of a pergola.
‘Would you like a glass of wine, or perhaps some tea or coffee?’ Estelle asked, gesturing Sally towards a chair.
She accepted the offer of tea and perched awkwardly on the edge of an armchair covered in amber velvet. The Mendelsons were equally ill at ease and the three struggled to negotiate their way through the pleasantries: Sally’s appreciation of the house, Estelle’s enquiries about her work, Oliver’s more general questions about Australia. It was like unwrapping a parcel, each exchange slowly removing a layer of tissue until eventually the contents would be revealed. Which one of them would have the courage to remove the final layer? There was an awkward pause as they all sipped their tea, groping for the next line.
‘You want to know about Lisa,’ said Estelle finally, and as the last layer floated away Sally felt tears in her eyes. She had been prepared for hostility at worst, distance and mistrust at best. Having armed herself for some sort of struggle, the Mendelsons’ warmth and openness disarmed her. She fumbled for a handkerchief and, as Estelle pushed a box of tissues towards her, she looked up to see that she too was crying.
‘I don’t know why I’m doing this. Crying, I mean,’ Sally said, reaching for the tissues.
‘Me neither,’ said Estelle. ‘Except that I’m so nervous of meeting you, and I guess you feel just the same.’
Oliver cleared his throat, put his cup down on the glass-topped coffee table, got up and walked over to the window.
‘We didn’t know what to expect,’ Estelle said. ‘We don’t know what you want or why, and why now.’
Sally nodded, wiping her eyes, then rolling the tissues between her hands. ‘I’m sorry. I should have written. For years I didn’t want to know anything, couldn’t bear to, but that changed. The last few years I’ve been haunted by the need to know about Lisa, how she is, what sort of person she is.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s entirely selfish and I do realise how hard this must be for you.’
Oliver turned away from the window. ‘We always knew it was possible you might want to meet Lisa,’ he said. ‘But as time passed and it seemed less and less likely, we felt safer. You see, all those years ago, writing to you seemed the right thing to do, but later we realised we’d left ourselves wide open.’
He paced back and forth across the room. ‘You must know that what we did was illegal. Contacting you, I mean. I had a friend who was quite high in social services. I pulled some strings. We did it thinking we were doing the right thing for Lisa. Later we realised the risk we’d taken, not just legally, but in creating a situation that meant you could turn up at any time and take her away.’
Sally looked at him in amazement. ‘Take her away? How could I? You adopted Lisa. As far as the law is concerned, you’re her parents.’
Oliver and Estelle exchanged glances. ‘Of course,’ Oliver said. ‘But the law really means nothing as a child gets older. Lisa always knew she was adopted and she accepted us as her parents. But if you turned up we could have lost her emotionally. Do you see what I mean?’
Sally felt the full extent of their anxiety. ‘Yes. Of course. But Lisa’s an adult now, independent. She may not even want to see me. You haven’t told her yet?’
Oliver shook his head. ‘We wanted to meet with you first. You see, the situation is more complicated than you think.’
‘Look,’ said Sally, starting to feel more confident, ‘I know this may take a while. You need to tell Lisa and she needs time to think about it. Maybe she has her own family to consider, a husband, children?’ She looked first at Oliver and then at Estelle, but both avoided her eyes. ‘Lisa’s not married? So she has a career, a place of her own. Honestly – I don’t want to interfere in her life, I don’t want to create problems.’
S
ilence hung heavily and Sally’s confidence began to evaporate. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Oh, of course, she doesn’t live in California. How stupid of me – I just never thought of it, just assumed … where does she live?’
Oliver took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘It’s not that, Sally,’ he said, cleaning the glasses with a tissue before he put them back on to look straight at her. ‘Lisa lives in California, she lives here in San Francisco, in this house with us, but no, she doesn’t have a job and she’s not independent.’ He sat down beside Estelle and took her hand, drawing it through his arm so that they were facing her, holding on to each other. Sally looked at their clasped hands, Oliver’s slim and smooth, Estelle’s pale and heavily marked by scars.
‘Lisa is far from independent,’ he went on. ‘You see, there was an accident …’
The moment she woke she felt stifled, as though a blanket, one of those coarse, grey army blankets with a single blue stripe and blanket stitch along the edge, had been thrown over her face. Sally remembered those blankets, the itchy texture, the musty smell. She must have been about six when the fires threatened the town, and with a group of neighbours they had driven forty miles through dense smoke to the next town, where she and her family were huddled together on camp beds in the church hall. ‘Try to get some sleep, love,’ her mother had said, pulling the blanket up to Sally’s chin. ‘We’re all safe now.’
‘Not Ratso,’ she had whimpered, wanting the big felt and gingham mouse who had somehow been forgotten in the last-minute rush. ‘Not Ratso, he might get burned.’
‘But you’re safe, Sal, and Poppa and me and Tricia. We can always find another Ratso.’ But Sally knew there would never be another Ratso and she pulled the blanket over her head to hide herself from the harsh light in the hall.
This morning, she was smothered with the same scratchy weight of greyness, the same stale and musty sense of loss and confusion she had felt that night. It seemed entirely appropriate that when she got out of bed and opened the blinds, Berkeley was bathed in brilliant sunlight, while the city of San Francisco was invisible under its blanket of summer fog. She barely had the energy to dress, let alone face the long walk she had agreed to take with Steve. But he had become a friend, practical and supportive once he had wrung from her the cause of her malaise.