by Liz Byrski
‘I don’t know what I can do to apologise.’
‘I’m sure I’ll think of some way to turn the situation to my advantage.’ He smiled and reached out for her hand again.
‘Well, what do you think?’ said Nancy, putting a sliced baguette, a cheese platter and some pastrami and German salami on the table.
‘I think I should open a bottle of wine,’ Chuck said, getting up and going to the kitchen. ‘Or would you guys prefer a beer?’ They opted for beer and he returned to the big oval dining table with four frosty bottles, an opener and glasses. ‘Want something to put your foot on, Steve?’
‘I wouldn’t mind that stool, Chuck, please,’ he said, and Chuck pulled the stool over to him.
‘So, she socked it to you, did she, pal?’
‘She sure did, Chuck. That’s one tough Aussie over there.’ Steve grinned, lifting his leg onto the stool. ‘Don’t mess with her or she’ll send you flying off the balcony.’ Sally groaned in embarrassment.
‘Hey, Sally.’ Chuck smiled, pouring her a beer. ‘Don’t be shy. We’re impressed, aren’t we, Nance?’
‘We sure are, Sally. I’m speechless with admiration!’
Sally looked around at them, smiling at her, sitting there ready for this round-table conference to help her decide what to do next.
‘What are the options for Sally?’ Chuck asked, inspecting his beer.
‘Running away seems like a good one,’ Sally volunteered.
‘No way,’ Steve cut in. ‘You’ve come this far. Look, you’re positively almost normal. Don’t give up on it. You gotta try the Mendelsons one more time.’
‘And if they tell me, as they have every right to, to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge?’
‘So, there’s nothing lost,’ Steve went on. ‘At least you gave it a shot.’
‘Steve’s right, Sally,’ said Nancy. ‘I know it’s going to be hard for you to make contact after what happened, but I think you have to try.’
‘Hear hear!’ said Chuck, putting a thick chunk of cheese onto a piece of bread. ‘You can’t walk away now. Besides, you haven’t had Thanksgiving in America yet.’
Nancy leaned over to Sally and took her hand. ‘Honey, y’know I’m perfectly willing to call the Mendelsons, or go talk to them for you if you like. If you think a third party would help.’
Near to tears Sally stared around the table, profoundly moved by the support of these three people whom she had known only a few months. She longed to accept Nancy’s offer, let her do the hard part of making the initial contact, sounding out the Mendelsons, putting her case, but she knew that if there was going to be any move at all, it had to come from her. ‘Nancy, that’s so good of you, but I think I have to do it myself.’
‘I agree,’ said Steve. ‘It’ll be hard, but you’re right, I think the move has to come from you.’
‘So what then?’ said Nancy. ‘Sally can’t just turn up at the door. Should she call, or write? What?’
‘Write,’ said Steve. ‘Write to Estelle. Tell her everything, about the past and about how you were feeling. From what you told me about the Mendelsons, I think they’ll understand.’
‘I think so too,’ Nancy nodded.
Chuck shrugged and opened another beer. ‘Sounds good to me.’
It was after ten when she drove Steve home in his own car. It was the deal they had made the day she had gone to his flat the previous week. She would drive his car and take him to and from university, and do his errands for him, until his leg was out of plaster. The challenge for Sally was to drive the big old Jaguar on the right side of the road. She negotiated the busy intersection and turned into his street.
‘You’ll do fine’, Steve said. ‘I kinda like this, having a glamorous lady chauffeur. It’ll do a lot for my image with the younger guys in the class!’
‘Only so long as you don’t admit that the chauffeur broke your leg.’ She smiled.
‘Mmm. That wouldn’t be so good. Have to save that story for the dinner-party set.’
She stopped the car in the drive, as close to Steve’s porch as she could get, and started to open the car door, but he grabbed her wrist to stop her. In the dark of the car he was silhouetted against the porch light. ‘You will do it, won’t you? You won’t give up?’
She nodded. ‘I’ll do it. I dread the thought of writing that letter and, worse still, facing them again. But you’re right, I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t. And the other thing is that if I ran away to Australia now, I think I’d have to keep the secret and I can’t cope with that anymore. At least if I give it my best shot, whichever way it goes, I think I’ll be able to come clean to my friends.’
She got out of the car and walked around to Steve’s side to hand him his crutches. ‘You’ve been a wonderful friend, Steve.’
‘Yuk! Past tense?’
‘Just a figure of speech.’
‘I hope so. Definitely present, hopefully future! You’d be surprised how long I can spin this leg out if I have to.’
It was a difficult letter to write and it felt as though each sentence drained her energy as she told the story of her pregnancy, Lisa’s birth and the decision to stay on in London. She wrote too about her eventual return to Australia, and her dismay on receiving Estelle’s letter. She described not only the events themselves but also the impact they had had on her, the way she had felt. For three days the letter lay unfinished while she tried to summon the strength to explain to Estelle and Oliver Mendelson how those feelings from the past had crept up on her and turned to anger at them, how her shame and grief had interfered with her sense of reality. Once complete it lay waiting to be mailed, stalled this time by her realisation that once it was gone the final die would be cast. She had reached some level of peace, and while she wanted to see Lisa and also to put right the wrong, she wasn’t sure how she would handle either rejection or forgiveness. Finally, on a mild October morning on her way back from doing Steve’s shopping, she slipped it into the mailbox with a sigh, knowing that she had done the best she could. There was nothing to do now but wait.
‘Any news yet?’ Steve asked ten days later when she picked him up.
‘No. I keep telling myself they’d want time to think about it. I mean, it’s not going to be something they’re going to throw themselves into straight away, is it?’
‘I suppose not. Well, I have great news. Stacey, my daughter, is coming back from London. She’s gonna be home for Thanksgiving.’ Sally took Steve’s crutches as he settled himself into the front seat. ‘It’s two years since I last saw her. I want you to meet her, Sally. I hope you two will get along.’
Sally felt a twinge of something that felt rather like jealousy as she walked around to the driver’s door. ‘That’s great, Steve. When does she arrive?’
‘Two weeks time and, Sally, this is where I have to grovel. Would you drive me to the airport to meet her?’
She didn’t know why she wanted to refuse, and in any case she couldn’t. If it weren’t for her own stupidity, Steve would be driving himself to the airport.
‘Of course,’ she said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into her voice. ‘Where’s she going to stay?’
‘With me initially, probably for a couple of weeks till she finds somewhere to rent.’
‘So she’s staying in California?’
‘Yep. Got a job with the Chronicle.’
‘I thought she was enjoying London,’ said Sally, thinking that she sounded what Isabel used to call ‘snarty’ – critical and tight-lipped – and not really knowing why.
‘So did I, but I think something fell through with some guy there. She may be running away from that.’
Sally turned into the car park and slipped into a vacant space. ‘Well, you’ll have a live-in housekeeper for a while.’
Steve laughed. ‘Hardly. Stacey isn’t really a housekeeping sort of person. But it’ll be so great to see her again.’
Sally sat through the lecture thinking how strange it was that you could
be feeling fairly peaceful and then something could happen to change your mood and you couldn’t really put your finger on what it was. After the lecture they made their way over to the cafe, Steve, now quite agile on his crutches, keeping pace with the crowd as they crossed the street. He swung down into a seat while Sally joined the queue to collect their cappuccinos. ‘Thanks,’ he said as she put the coffee in front of him. ‘Won’t be long now before I can get the coffee and you can hold the table.’
‘I thought you were going to spin it out as long as you could so you could get waited on hand and foot.’
‘That’s all very well but it’s so darned inconvenient, and it slows everything down so much. Sort of takes the spontaneity out of life. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Sally, I really appreciate everything you’re doing, the shopping, the chauffeuring, keeping me company. But I guess I’m getting restless and it must be a real drag for you.’
She shrugged, looking down into her coffee. ‘I’ve been enjoying it, really, even the cooking. I don’t mind driving you, it’s just that I still find the traffic a bit intimidating. But we had some good evenings watching old movies, didn’t we?’
‘But we can still do all those things when I’m out of plaster, of course … well, that is, if you want to. I can cook you a meal sometimes, and we could go see a movie in the cinema!’ He reached across the table and took her hand. ‘You’re a terrific woman, Sally. I don’t think I told you how much I admire you and, well … care for you.’
She flushed. ‘That’s just because you think I’m tough and masterful.’
‘Yeah, that too,’ he grinned. ‘You gotta admit that’s pretty sexy.’
‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘Finish your coffee and then let’s get your jacket from the drycleaner’s.’ She watched him drain his cup, thinking how much she liked his square face that could change in an instant from a genial smile to intense concentration. As he put down the cup and looked across at her, she felt a lump in her throat and had to make an effort to pull herself together. She had lived the last few months at such a level of emotional intensity that she was on the verge of tears most of the time now. She’d have to get a grip on herself.
‘Okay,’ said Steve, ‘let’s go.’ He hauled himself onto the crutches and they made their way back to the car.
‘Before the weekend,’ he said as she dropped him and his jacket at the apartment.
‘Huh?’
‘Before the weekend you’ll hear from the Mendelsons. I feel it in my bones – the unbroken ones!’
‘You’ll be reading my palm next.’
‘You better believe it. Gotta do something to keep myself occupied. But no, I feel it strongly. Wanna bet?’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Five bucks.’
‘Hey, big spender! You’re on, five bucks it is. If you don’t get something by Saturday I‘ll be very surprised.’
As it was she didn’t have to wait until Saturday. When she got home it was waiting for her. Tucked in behind the phone bill and a letter from her mother was a long cream envelope with the Hyde Street address on the back.
‘You won, Steve,’ she murmured to herself. ‘Five bucks it is.’
THIRTEEN
The harsh bite in the wind from the sea began to ease, the mornings dawned pink and gold, the evenings lingered pearl and lilac, the days were clear and gentle. Robin wandered the beach collecting tiny polished pink and white shells and pieces of barnacle-encrusted driftwood. The first spring holidaymakers began to arrive, and at dawn and dusk a few hopeful people stood on the firm sand casting their lines into the water. She thought she could stay like this forever, but she knew she must consider the future.
The house she had struggled to buy, lovingly decorated and filled with carefully chosen furnishings and artwork, no longer felt like a place to which she wanted to return. And the work that had been her driving force seemed like quicksand ready to drag her into its depths if she ventured too close. She knew she was finished with the law. But the gap it would leave remained a challenge.
‘I thought I might take a little trip down the coast for a few days,’ she said. Dorothy, stacking packets of biscuits onto a shelf, stopped work and looked up, pushing a strand of neatly permed grey hair back off her forehead. ‘Augusta, Denmark, Albany – you know, the general southwest corner.’
‘Nice,’ said Dorothy. ‘Best time for it. Before the uni term finishes, and you’ll be able to take your pick of places to stay.’
Robin put a packet of brown rice and some soy milk into her trolley. ‘D’you think Ted would keep an eye on the place and feed Maurice? I thought I’d take a week, ten days at the most.’
‘Of course he will, no worries. You must be getting a bit bored up there by now.’
‘Not bored. Just a bit concerned about the future, what I’m going to do and when. I know I don’t want to go back to the rat-race but I’m not sure what I want to do instead.’
‘I read your book – well, some of it.’
‘The Leslie Kenton one? You did?’
‘Aye. Very interesting.’
‘You really thought so?’
‘I did. Twenty years too late for me, of course, but it made a lot of sense. And I always like to read a book that has someone else’s underlinings in it. I read those passages more carefully with the person in mind. Takes a bit of courage to do what you’re doing.’
‘It didn’t feel like that. Once my friend Isabel started talking about it I really couldn’t ignore it. Now I’ve got away, I seem to have smashed the mould. I have no idea what I want, only that I don’t want to go back to my house, the law and all the rest of it.’
‘Want me to the read the cards for you?’
‘The cards?’
‘Tarot.’
Robin laughed. ‘You do tarot readings, Dorothy?’
Dorothy, looking mildly offended, stacked the empty biscuit box onto a pile of cartons on a nearby trolley. ‘I certainly do and I’m quite well respected for it. I’ve got people who come to me on a regular basis.’
‘Oh look, I’m sorry.’ Robin blushed. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that I thought …’
‘You thought tarot readers sat in a tent at the fair wearing gipsy skirts and a shawl fringed with gold coins.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Well, now you know. Some tarot readers are elderly shopkeepers wearing tracksuit pants and a jumper from Target. Ever had a reading done?’
‘Never.’
‘Why don’t you go through to the kitchen and put the kettle on. I’ll get Ted to take over for half an hour and I’ll do one for you now.’
‘Really?’
‘Why not?’
‘How much do you charge?’
‘Your first reading is a gift from me, Robin. A challenge to your scepticism. If you come back for more, it’s twenty dollars for half an hour.’
The late afternoon sun cast a shaft of light through the window of Dorothy’s crowded but spotless kitchen. Bundles of herbs hung on a fine rope above the range, drying in its warmth. Robin filled the old-fashioned kettle and put it on the hotplate. It reminded her of her mother’s old kitchen in Battersea, a kitchen whose owner clearly refused to fully join the march of domestic progress. The shelves of the dresser were packed with jars of Dorothy’s homemade jam and on the checked cloth that covered the kitchen table stood a small basket of eggs that Ted had collected from his chickens that morning. Dorothy came briskly through from the shop just as the kettle began to sing. Her glasses swung on a chain around her neck tangling with a purple cord that held a special thick-grip pen for arthritic hands.
‘How do you do all this – the preserves, the herbs, read tarot and run the shop?’ Robin asked. ‘With … well, with your arthritis and …’
‘And at my age, you were going to say! I don’t know. I just jog along, and Ted does his share and more. I’m best when I keep moving. If I sit around I seize up. Here’s the tea. You make it and I’ll get the card.’
Robin poured the boiling water into the teapot, took three mugs down from the dresser and then poured the tea and took one to Ted in the shop. Meanwhile, Dorothy fetched a small folding table, opened it and covered it with a deep purple velvet cloth trimmed with gold braid. ‘This is as near as we get to the gipsy.’ She smiled and Robin had the grace to blush.
‘You have a seat there.’ And motioning Robin to sit down, she set a well-worn pack of tarot cards on the table and, on top of them, a large chunk of unpolished rose quartz. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Because I’ve been running around I just have to sit quiet for a minute or two, centre myself. You should too. Just close your eyes and think about yourself.’ And she rested her right hand on top of the rose quartz and closed her eyes.
Robin sat back, letting her eyes close, trying to stem her embarrassment. Grace would really have a laugh at this, but Isabel would be fascinated, Sally too. She felt a pang of longing for their company, their laughter, the chance to talk. What were they doing right now? What was Grace up to on this sudden and uncharacteristic holiday? She forced her thoughts back to herself.
‘Right,’ said Dorothy softly, opening her eyes. ‘Now we can start.’ She picked up the cards and handed them to Robin. ‘Shuffle them, please, and while you do so, try to keep thinking what you want to find out.’
Robin was useless at shuffling the cards. They slipped and then clumped together, and as she fumbled with them she tried to gather her thoughts. Her scepticism and self-consciousness made it difficult to focus. She tapped the cards together and placed them back on the table in front of Dorothy, who deftly spread them face down on the velvet in a wide semicircle.
‘Now, Robin, I need you to focus and suspend your disbelief for a while. I can read for three aspects of your life. What will you choose?’
Robin paused, embarrassed but intrigued. Dorothy seemed different, the brisk, busy shopkeeper had transformed into someone larger, more authoritative, the holder of mysterious knowledge and power. ‘I’d like to know something about the present, what I‘m doing now, like, what this retreat means for my life, where it’s supposed to lead me,’ she said. ‘Then I‘d like to know about a relationship. And, I suppose, last of all about work. I‘ve moved out of something and don’t know what to do next.’