by Liz Byrski
‘Everything’s ready for you,’ she said as she pulled in to the drive of Sally’s townhouse. ‘The cleaners went in the day after the tenants moved out, and I’ve put a few bits and pieces in the fridge and the pantry, so you’ll be okay until you feel like going shopping.’
‘Still the same old Grace?’ Sally said, raising her eyebrows.
Grace shook her head. ‘No way. The old Grace would’ve made up the beds, baked a cake, put a casserole in the freezer and Steve through an interrogation by now.’ She laughed.
‘I love the new one just as much as I loved the old one,’ Sally said, hugging her. ‘Thanks for everything.’
‘Yeah, Grace,’ Steve cut in. ‘Specially for picking us up, it was real nice of you. But I was looking forward to the interrogation – I had some lies all ready.’
Grace backed out again into the street and started to head home, but at the next set of lights she changed her mind and turned left towards the hospital. She had called in early that morning to see Robin. Now it was almost five-thirty, and she thought Dr Chin might have broken the news to her that afternoon, in which case Robin would need someone to talk to. The city commuters were just hitting the freeway and the traffic had slowed to a crawl. Grace tuned the radio to Classic FM and the breathtaking purity of a Haydn trumpet concerto filled the car.
The road, the traffic, the surroundings were all so familiar but something was missing. She puzzled for a moment and then realised that it was that old hard feeling in her gut that had always felt so safe. That tightly controlled knot of tension, once so reassuring, had been gone for ages and a whole lot of other stuff with it, but while she had hung on to what she had learned in England once home again in Perth, familiarity constantly triggered her old habits. For four days she had sat at her father’s bedside, holding his hand, talking to him as he slipped in and out of consciousness, wondering how much he understood in those waking moments. It had given her time for reflection, time to recognise how mechanical she had been, always taking control, looking after everyone, even those who didn’t want or need it. She had felt trapped by the needs of other people, but it was her own need to be needed that had really imprisoned her. She wondered how she would be when she was with Tim, Angela and Emily again.
She decided to keep a journal, to write in it every day and record the triggers. She remembered a nurse on a psych ward talking to a patient who was about to be discharged after a long battle with drugs. ‘Don’t get too cold, too hungry or too tired,’ the woman had said, looking intently into the young man’s face. ‘That’s when it’ll get you, the old habits, the reactions, the cravings, and that’s when you’re most vulnerable. Look after yourself.’
Grace’s addictions were work, control and constant activity, and the gratification was the same as a drink or a hit. She had to learn to let go and to be alone with herself. Once she had dealt with her father’s funeral and made arrangements to finalise her job, the time and space that had seemed so attractive when she was in England suddenly opened up the black hole again. She stood at the edge looking down into the darkness and saw that it was the same darkness she had faced when she made the decision to go to England. That decision had saved her. Now she must learn to save herself by staying put.
She mapped out a long-term plan. Her father’s death had eased her financial situation. The legacy wasn’t large but it was sufficient to take the edge off the financial anxiety, and strangely enough she no longer had any urge to shop – it seemed that she had all she needed and more. Later in the year she would visit Orinda in New Orleans and then go on to England to firm up plans with Vivienne. In the meantime she would have to think about a job. And then there was the short-term plan: structure her days to let herself stop doing and just be. She had made good progress, surprised herself by her ability to change pace, to pause, to let go of things, but Robin’s illness had rocked her and she was struggling to hold her ground.
Grace had been delighted at the prospect of Robin staying with her over Easter and she had been only slightly concerned about the biopsy. It would turn out to be a cyst, she was sure, and Robin seemed relaxed about it. She looked thinner than ever. She was pale and often seemed breathless, but the weekend had been a delight and, once again, their friendship had deepened. Robin’s diagnosis changed everything. She had initially refused surgery and bolted back to the cottage, then later she called Grace, who drove down and brought her back to Perth for the operation. Not so long ago Grace had longed for Robin to need her help. Now Robin did need it and Grace was scared. The irony was not lost on her. Getting through the mastectomy was manageable, but now she knew the worst about Robin’s condition she was very concerned about the future. Sally clearly didn’t understand the implications. When Robin was discharged she would need long-term care. Sally was deeply involved with Steve and would soon be back at work. Isabel was still in Europe and Jim McEwan out of the picture. Who else was there? Grace wondered how much she could do without letting it take over her life. Right now she was a lifeline for Robin, but for her Robin was the ultimate test.
She parked in the hospital car park, and wandered slowly up to the third floor and along the corridor to Robin’s room. The door was closed and she tapped gently before pushing it open. The bed was turned back and empty, and sitting in a low armchair in the corner by the window was a small grey-haired man in a dog collar, his head resting on the chair back. He was fast asleep. Grace stood in the doorway wondering what to do. She had grown up with dog collars, priests did not bother her, but Robin was an atheist with little patience for the church. She thought she should wake the priest and get rid of him before Robin was brought back from wherever she was. Grace let the door swing closed behind her and cleared her throat. The man stirred, opened his eyes, paused to decide where he was and, seeing her, jumped to his feet, straightening his jacket and smoothing down his thinning hair. ‘I’m so sorry. I must have fallen asleep.’ He nodded towards the bed. ‘I understand she’ll be back any minute.’
Grace walked past him over to the other chair. ‘Of course,’ she said in the old authoritative Grace voice. ‘Sorry to have to disturb you but you’d better not wait. She won’t want to see you.’
‘I’m sorry?’ he said.
‘She’s not really interested, you know. Not a Christian. Probably best to get on and visit someone else.’ Grace picked up a vase, tipped out the water, refilled it from the tap and put the flowers back.
‘Oh, I think she’ll be happy for me to wait,’ he observed.
‘I doubt it,’ Grace said sharply, slipping past him to straighten the sheets on the bed.
‘Once a nurse, always a nurse,’ he said, sitting back in the low chair. ‘You do those hospital corners like lightning.’
Grace straightened up and crossed her arms. ‘Look, I don’t want to be rude, Robin’s not my patient but she is my friend and I don’t want her bothered.’
He stood up again with a smile. ‘You must be Grace,’ he said. ‘Robin told me a lot about you. Father Patrick Shanahan – not just a priest but also a friend. I’m delighted to meet you.’
Robin lay by the window in the darkened room watching the lights in the city’s tall buildings. It was the first time in her life she had been in hospital and she was still shocked to find herself there. The painkillers made her drowsy and when she moved her head, her eyes seemed to take a while to follow. Her arms were leaden and her legs seemed to float. The pain relief was effective but it was the fear that was the worst thing to cope with. She was never ill, she did all the right things, ate sensibly, ran daily, slept well, gave up smoking years ago, drank very little alcohol. It didn’t make sense that she could not just be sick, but dangerously ill. That afternoon Dr Chin had told her that the cancer was in her lungs, and that he was also arranging for her to see a cardiologist. How could this have happened to her? She was furious with her body for letting her down, frustrated by a condition she couldn’t change, terrified of what was to come.
She’d spent half
an hour talking with Dr Chin and now she could barely recall any of it. It was the feeling rather than the facts that had stayed with her, the feeling of everything being taken away, of being ripped off by some superhuman force against which there was no defence. She thought she could cope with losing a breast. It was quantifiable – the cancer was in her breast, the breast would be removed, the cancer gone, a new breast would be constructed and then she would be back to normal again. Life could go on as planned. But now …
She sighed and shifted her position against the pillows. ‘It’s like everything is up for grabs now,’ she had told Father Pat that evening. ‘My whole life has been put on hold and I don’t know how long for – in fact, this may be my life from now on.’
‘Take it slowly, Robin,’ he’d said, sitting on the edge of the bed and holding her hand. ‘You’re going to feel a bit stronger as you recover from the operation. That’s the time to start thinking about what you want to do.’
She had called him the previous evening, not wanting to hound Grace again but needing the sort of conversation in which the essentials were clearly stated and what was unsaid was clearly understood. He was in Geraldton and they had talked at length on the phone. The last thing she had expected was that he would immediately make the five-hour drive to Perth. As the nurse helped her into her room he was sitting in the low chair chatting with Grace.
‘So you two have met, then?’ she asked once the nurse had helped her back into bed and closed the door.
Grace nodded. ‘We have. I tried to throw him out. Did my ward sister act!’
‘And I was terrified, of course.’ Father Pat grinned. ‘But I managed to tough it out.’
Robin had waited until Grace left to tell him the crushing news that it was not all over as she had thought. She hadn’t wanted to burden Grace with it just yet, for while Grace had been rock solid in her support, Robin could see her struggling to handle the crisis in a very different way.
‘Grace is being fantastic,’ she told Father Pat, ‘but I don’t want to dump all this on her – she’s likely to feel that she’s responsible for looking after me.’
‘Well, you have to find a middle course, Robin,’ he said. ‘She’ll want to help because she’s your friend, she loves you. And you also have to ask for what you need.’
‘I am going to ask her to see Dr Chin with me again. I can’t cope with all the medical stuff. I need someone who understands it and who I can talk it through with afterwards. As for the rest of it, I just don’t know. There’s the cottage and the shop – all sorts of decisions I have to make.’
‘A few more days,’ he said. ‘Give yourself a chance to recover from the operation.’
He got off the bed and walked to the window. ‘Would you like me to let Jim know?’ he asked.
Robin hesitated. She had been toying with the idea but had finally decided against it. ‘It seems unfair to run to him when I’m in trouble,’ she said. ‘I’m the one who ended it and when we met in January we parted friends, but I felt I couldn’t be too close to him, it was too hard.’
‘And now?’ he asked, turning to face her.
‘Well, now I do feel I want to see him but I don’t know how to ask.’
‘Then let me talk to him,’ Father Pat said. ‘Leave it with me.’
It was half past eleven and she closed her eyes, longing for sleep. She had rejected the sleeping tablets because they left her so groggy. Alec Seaborn had called in to see her during the morning but she was still too confused to be able to decide what she wanted to do about the shop. He had called the Tranters, who had volunteered to stay on as long as necessary.
‘I’m sorry to mention this, Robin,’ he’d said. ‘It’s an awful thing to say at a time like this, but I’m concerned that you don’t have a will.’ He was right, of course, and how ridiculous it seemed now. A lawyer without a will – she must sort it out in the next few days. ‘Just let me know what you want and I’ll fix it,’ Alec had said.
But what did she want? Where should it all go if anything happened to her? The cottage, the shop, her investments, the artworks and books she’d collected over the years. She sighed and pulled the pillows up behind her so she could see the night-time landscape in greater comfort. It had given her a strange flicker of pleasure to discover Grace and Father Pat chatting in her room, a feeling that she was part of something, her friends being together for her sake. Apart from the Gang of Four she had been a loner. Her family were all in England. Her mother was still alive and well placed, and her brothers and sisters were doing nicely. She had been away from her family for so long that they didn’t really feel like family. It was her friends who had sustained her over the years and whose company she cherished now.
She thought of Grace, battling the habits of a lifetime, planning her visit to New Orleans and working on plans for Vietnam. She, like Robin, managed her life largely alone, even more so since the departure of Tim, Angela and Emily. Friends were replacement family. Sally wasn’t alone anymore. She had Steve, who seemed to have passed Grace’s initial inspection with honours. Would Sally stay here or go back to America with him? So much change – Grace’s, Sally’s, her own – seemed suddenly overwhelming. And then there was Isabel, from whom there had been only the occasional postcard since her Christmas letter. The letter was an enigma, obviously hiding so much more than it revealed. Something significant was happening for Isabel that she was not yet ready to share with them. She wished Isabel was here now. There was something calm and unchanging about her presence, something reassuring. Grace had said she was due back quite soon, and Robin fell asleep hoping that it would be very soon, wishing that she could open her eyes in the morning and see Isabel standing at the foot of her bed.
TWENTY-FOUR
Sally hung on to Steve’s arm as they walked down the hospital corridor. The smell of hospitals reminded her of Lisa’s birth – it meant pain and loss, and it always drained her energy. ‘I can’t believe how sick she looks, Steve. She’s so thin.’
He put his hand over hers. ‘She sure doesn’t look good, but you said she was always pretty skinny.’
‘But not like this. I suppose, yes, she was always thin, but she was fit, healthy. Now …’ Her voice trailed away
Steve had driven her to the hospital so she could spend some time alone with Robin, returning an hour later to collect her. Sally hoped she had managed to conceal the shock she felt on first seeing Robin. They had clung to each other in tears, until Robin reached for the box of tissues and patted a spot on the bed for Sally to sit.
‘I’ve missed you,’ Robin said. ‘I was just stunned by the story in your letter. I had no idea.’
‘Of course not. How could you?’
‘I feel I let you down, we let you down. If I had been a better friend then you might have felt able to talk about it.’
Sally shook her head. ‘No, no, it wasn’t that. I was well into secrecy before I met any of you guys. It was cast in stone and you were – are the most wonderful friends. Honestly, it was about me, not about any of you.’
Robin reached out and took both her hands. ‘And Lisa? How have you left it? Will you see her and the Mendelsons again?’
‘That’s the irony of it, really.’ Sally sighed. ‘I did all that and then I just found I felt so empty. It was as though there was nothing more there for me. I never did really connect with Lisa. Now that I’ve left I can see that Steve and Nancy were right in what they said. It was never really going to be possible to build a relationship with her. I feel enormous sadness and some frustration about it and, yes, I do want to see her again. I want to see Estelle and Oliver. They’re such lovely people, I feel closer to them than to Lisa. But what about you, Robin? I’m so sorry to see you here.’
Robin smiled and shrugged. ‘I certainly never thought something like this would happen to me. Remember how we all used to think that Grace would get some terrible illness or have a stroke? Well, now she’s calm and fit, meditating and writing a journal, and here I am flat
on my back and not at all sure about what the future holds.’
‘And what about Jim?’
Robin laughed. ‘Weird, isn’t it? You and your secret, and me and mine! It’s over, Sally. I mean, I do still love him, I guess that’s not going to change, but I can’t cope with the relationship anymore. I understand what happened for him, I believe he always meant what he said. He thought the day would come when he could leave Monica, but when it came to it he couldn’t do it. So I have to move on and, frankly, I think I was doing that rather well until this happened. Anyway, when do I get to meet this man of yours? He must be pretty good if even Grace approves.’
Sally laughed. ‘You can’t take any notice of Grace these days, all the old benchmarks have gone. She’s getting positively flaky. But isn’t it great to see her like this? I can hardly believe it.’
‘Too right. But I’m worried that this problem of mine is pushing some buttons for her.’
‘Grace’ll be okay,’ Sally said. ‘I know what you mean, but she’ll handle it. She wants to do her best for you but look after herself as well. I think she’ll get it right.’
‘And Steve?’
‘Ah, Steve. What can I say? Of course I think he’s wonderful and I’m feeling like I’ve never felt before. The men I’ve been involved with have seemed very strong, but they’ve actually been quite dependent. It’s so different with Steve. He takes responsibility for what he does, he can admit when he stuffs up and he puts so much into the relationship. He keeps surprising me because I expect him to behave like the others and he doesn’t.’
‘So what will you do? Will he stay here?’
‘Just until August. He has some work to finish back in California.’
‘And you?’
‘I don’t know, Robin. We’re trying to work it out. The one thing we’re both sure about is that we want to be together, but we have to decide where and how. I loved California but I’d prefer to stay here, so Steve needs to work out how he’d feel about that and we have to sort out where we are with the immigration laws. We’re feeling our way at the moment.’