by Liz Byrski
‘And you . . . your husband?’ Geoff asks.
‘I was never married,’ she says.
‘Okay, well Adam’s father . . . ?’
She sighs. ‘I might leave that for another time. But if you’re asking if he’s around now, no he’s not. I’ve been on my own for decades.’
‘I see,’ Geoff says. ‘Well actually I don’t, because I can’t imagine how someone like you would be alone other than by choice. But yes, there’s lots of time ahead for us to talk about our lives over all these years.’
‘And what about your wife?’ Simone asks. ‘I thought she might come with you tonight.’
‘Eva died nine years ago,’ Geoff says, ‘skiing in the Snowy Mountains. She was a very confident and competent skier, but she had a nasty accident. She fell and broke her neck, suffered some brain damage. She died in hospital, a couple of weeks later.’
He tells it in a flat, matter-of-fact way that makes it all the more shocking, and Simone puts down her menu.
‘Geoff, I’m so sorry, what a terrible thing to happen.’
He nods, grasping her hand. ‘It’s been a very hard few years, and I’ll tell you more about that some other time too. It is so good to see you again. Doug sends his love; he and Steve have a restaurant in Melbourne.’
‘Steve?’
Geoff nods. ‘His partner, they’ve been together for thirty-two years. He was so delighted when I told him I was meeting you tonight.’
‘Doug is gay?’
‘Didn’t you know?’
She shakes her head. ‘Since when?’
‘Well – since always,’ Geoff laughs. ‘Did you honestly not know? Not even when we were in Paris?’
‘I had no idea.’
‘Well you were always a bit of an innocent, Simone. He came out to me on our seventeenth birthday but I’d already guessed. It was a while before he told Mum, though.’
They order their meals and talk on, working out how many years it is since they last met.
‘It was Paris,’ Simone says, ‘you came to visit me, and that was the last time I saw you. I remember you’d just finished your PhD. I think Doug had just finished his apprenticeship. When you left you were going to Spain and Portugal, I think, and maybe Greece. You sent postcards from several places – the last one came from Hong Kong – and after that I never heard from you again.’
He nods. ‘It’s such a long time. Can we really be this old?’
‘’Fraid so,’ Simone says. ‘But what happened? Where did you go? Because when I finished my degree and went home the following year you’d all gone. Claire had sold up and there were new people in the house. Mama and Papa said you’d moved away and hadn’t left an address.’
She pauses as the waiter arrives with their meals, then refills their glasses.
‘I couldn’t understand it. I kept asking where you’d gone, but every time I asked they shut me down. Mama was all tight-lipped. Papa got really angry. I was so upset that you hadn’t left an address or written to let me know. You had my address in Paris, you’d actually been there.’ She feels the emotion rising, hears it in her voice as she recalls how painful it had been at the time. ‘Why did you do that? Why did you both abandon me?’
Geoff puts down his glass. ‘I’m truly sorry. It was a very difficult time . . .’
‘So difficult that you couldn’t even leave a message or send a postcard? You’d managed to send me postcards when you were swanning around Europe, but once you were home – nothing. Was it really so hard that you couldn’t even send me a note?’
‘Well we did send a letter to your aunt’s address before we left, but clearly you didn’t get it. And frankly, yes, it was that hard,’ Geoff cuts in.
But Simone is angry now, the old hurt and disappointment spilling out as raw and painful as ever. She puts down her knife and fork, and lifts her hair. ‘See this?’ she says. ‘This scar, Papa did this. I kept on at him trying to find out where you were. I was sure he knew. You and Doug were like brothers to me. And then you just disappeared. I was so upset and frustrated that one evening I went out to the shed where he was working on the truck. I’d been crying, and I lit a cigarette and marched out there and started shouting at him. He yelled at me to shut up, and of course I wouldn’t and he was yelling back at me. And then he suddenly stood up and picked up a bottle from the work bench and threw it at me –’ She stops abruptly, needing to draw breath, her hand automatically moving up to her scar. ‘I turned away to dodge it and put up my hand with the cigarette to shield my face but the contents splashed out – it was methylated spirits. My face caught fire.’
Geoff gasps. ‘Oh my god, Simone, I’m so sorry . . .’
She shakes her head. ‘God knows why, he’d never thrown anything at me before. He said he’d thought it was a juice bottle. He certainly didn’t mean for this to happen. But it just confirmed for me that something really bad had happened with you guys, or Claire. I was burning up with anger all the time in hospital and as soon as they let me out I went home, packed a bag and left. It was two years before I went back there again and no one ever mentioned it. By that time I’d given up on ever finding out what had happened, or where you were.’
Geoff looks at her for some time, takes a sip of his wine. ‘So you don’t know,’ he says. ‘They never told you?’
‘No one ever told me anything. It was as though you’d all gone up in smoke, or been abducted by aliens. Mama died some years ago, she had Alzheimer’s. Papa stayed on there. He died the year before last and I still know nothing.’
Geoff reaches inside his jacket and brings out a mobile phone, scrolls down the screen.
‘What are you doing?’
He holds the phone out towards her. On the screen is an obviously recent photograph of him and his twin brother standing either side of a much younger woman, their arms around each other.
‘What’s this?’ Simone asks. ‘I mean, it’s a lovely picture of you and Doug, but who’s this woman?’
‘Doug and I have a half-sister. She was born in January, nineteen seventy-three. Her name is Paula.’
Simone studies the photograph. ‘A half-sister, really? But how . . . ?’
‘Simone, Paula is also your half-sister.’
Chapter Eleven
The third Sunday
Judy has been home for twenty-four hours. She’d expected to be discharged on Friday but it was Saturday morning when the doctor finally said she could go as long as she promised to rest.
‘And I mean real rest, Mrs Castle,’ he’d said. ‘I hope you understand how serious this is for someone of your age. You’re not in good health; frankly you show all the signs of extreme stress and I urge you to think seriously about how you can take better care of yourself in future.’
Adele was there at the time, sitting beside her, nodding in agreement, so Judy knew she was in for more of this once they got back to the house. A couple of days earlier Adele had suggested that she could have a look at some of the documents on the computer so they could discuss the situation when Judy was released. Judy, who had been enormously relieved by Adele’s original offer of help, was suddenly paralysed by the prospect of her coming face to face with the chaos. Long ago she had created files for all the various suppliers, GST documents, outgoings, tax assessments and payments, notes about her videos, and correspondence from all sorts of people. But most of those folders are empty because a few weeks after setting them up there was a particularly busy time when she also had a mild dose of flu, and she’d started keeping everything on the desktop and when it all got too crowded she would just drag and drop everything into an unnamed folder, to get it out of her way. In the past she’d managed to pull things together well enough to file a tax return, but the latest is now a couple of months or more overdue and she suspects she’s probably already incurred a fine.
‘So you see I ought to do some
thing about that before you even look at it,’ she’d said to Adele. ‘I think you’ll have a fit if you look at it now.’
Adele had leaned back in her chair, selected one of the chocolates she’d brought and considered the situation for a moment. ‘Mmm, I see,’ she said, and then stopped, obviously running her tongue over her teeth. ‘Oh, this is soft toffee, with some sort of alcohol in it – delicious. Simone chose these, she has such good taste. Anyway, it sounds to me as though this is something that has to be done before I can get a sense of how things really are. So, how would you feel if I go in there and start sorting it out? It would be a great way of helping me to get an overall picture, and it will mean that once you’re back in the house I’ll have some sense of what’s involved.’
Judy felt herself turn white. ‘It really is a mess.’
Adele shrugged. ‘As I told Simone recently, I’m quite good with mess – as long as it’s not of my own making. I won’t be judging you on the basis of your filing system or lack of it, Judy.’
Judy sat there in bed, staring at Adele as she tried to decide what to do.
‘Perhaps that seems intrusive,’ Adele went on. ‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant that way.’
‘No!’ Judy said. ‘No, Adele, it’s not that. I just . . . well it’s a big thing, sort of handing it over, but what you say makes sense.’
‘Okay, well if you change your mind . . .’
‘No, this is silly. I’m embarrassed, you see. You’ll think I’m very unprofessional, not businesslike at all.’
‘Well you must be doing something right,’ Adele had said. ‘There’s a shop in town that looks like an outpost of yours, because they’re using your shop design, your patterns, showing your videos and they have pictures of you plastered all over the walls.’
‘That’d be Linda at The Knittery, I suppose,’ Judy said. ‘You didn’t tell her I was here, did you? That woman can talk the rust off a tin kettle.’
‘I didn’t tell her,’ Adele said. ‘Judy, I suspect that the only thing wrong with your business is that you need a management system so that you have everything organised and easy to find. You can see at a glance what you’ve got, what’s on order, when things are due.’
‘I think I’ve got one – it’s on both computers but I haven’t activated it. It seemed too complicated.’
‘It might be as simple as me showing you how to use it. Are you making a profit, Judy? Once you’ve paid yourself and Melissa, and covered all the costs?’
‘Oh yes, quite a lot, I think.’
‘And what’s happening to that money?’
‘It’s in the bank.’
Adele nodded. ‘Not in any sort of investment account or anything like that? Didn’t your accountant suggest that?’
‘He said I should talk to a financial advisor but I haven’t done that. The thing is, Adele, talking about that sort of stuff paralyses me. I can’t understand half of it, can’t make decisions. It’s so intimidating, so it’s easier to keep things as they are. Suppose I put it all in the wrong account?’
Adele had laughed then. ‘Sounds like you’re already keeping it in the wrong account!’ she said. ‘I reckon this is less complicated than you think, and if we get going on it soon we can get things fixed up. And we can sort out your tax return too – even lodge it. I am actually a certified tax accountant, so we might get it stitched up before we go home.’
Parting with her password had, in the end, felt like something of a relief. It seemed to be a small step forward and as the next couple of days passed Judy had stopped thinking about it and relaxed, dozing, watching television and ploughing through Truth and Beauty. And even though Simone had brought her phone to the hospital the day after she was admitted, Judy held off on calling Melissa. It was difficult, but she managed to stop herself. ‘I think you might be right,’ she’d said to Simone, ‘it’s me who was feeling worried and cut off, and I’m feeling less like that now.’
So now it’s Sunday, book club day, and Judy lies on her bed in the green bedroom contemplating the impact of last Sunday’s discussion. No one had thought her reasons for choosing Sacred Country were naive or trivial. They hadn’t even laughed at the idea of a knitted town; in fact they’d really admired it, thought it was remarkable. She remembers now how Ted and Donna had looked at each other in amazement and then burst out laughing when she’d shown it to them on the iPad. It wasn’t that they were being unkind; they just couldn’t imagine what could have made her embark on something like that. Judy had been surprised because she was intimately aware of Ted’s deep attachment to the Wheatbelt and his little share in it. It had shaped him, and she’d known he would never leave. But it was Donna’s reaction that had surprised her more. Donna’s family, her wide group of relatives, were deeply connected to the land both physically and spiritually, going back thousands of years. But she didn’t seem to understand Judy’s lesser, but still strong feeling of connection to this small English town. But Ros, Simone and Adele had understood it instantly, respected it, and encouraged her to think again about going back.
A green vase filled with white chrysanthemums was standing on the dressing table when she got home yesterday, the room had been cleaned and tidied, her bed remade with fresh linen. To Judy, who has done everything for herself for more years than she can remember, it feels like the height of luxury, especially as she has been banned from cooking and housework for the next two weeks. She thinks of the two women in Truth and Beauty: friends united by their passion for writing, and their love for each other. It’s a bit one-sided of course, one of them is doing all the heavy lifting and the other is so desperately ill and needy, but it’s love that keeps their friendship alive, and that love seems to have all the dimensions of what people would call a relationship. But then love comes in so many shapes and sizes, how can you define it or make rules about it? And why, she wonders, is it missing from my own life?
As she lies here now, the sunlight from the garden pouring in through the windows, she sees and feels the complete change that has come over her this week. And she sees that the care and concern that her new friends have lavished on her here is love. The sort of love she had felt for and from Edna all those years ago. She’s read about it, seen movies about it, and at times her friendship with Donna has come close to it, but the Ted factor is inclined to get in the way. For years she has isolated herself while surrounded by people who would have been willing, keen even, to move beyond acquaintance to friendship. Now she knows she needs and wants something more, and the prospect of going back to her old life horrifies her. Awareness, she thinks, changes everything, but unfortunately it doesn’t come accompanied by a guidebook.
*
Simone sits on the end of her bed holding her copy of Truth and Beauty. Since her evening with Geoff the whole landscape of her life seems to have been rearranged. Geoff had told her that Carlo demanded that they never try to contact Simone, and never tell her about Paula. Their fear of shattering her relationship with her parents compelled them to agree to this. ‘We thought it was the safest and fairest solution for you, Simone,’ Geoff explained. ‘We believed that Carlo would settle down and eventually tell you the truth, or some of it, or if he didn’t, then Suzette would. They knew we had gone to Mum’s family in London. Obviously now that we’ve met again we wish we’d done it differently, but Doug and I and Mum did what we thought was best.’
Claire, pregnant at a time in her life when she’d thought she could no longer conceive, wanted to go back to her home in London. Doug and Geoff had sought advice from a friend’s father who was a solicitor and he had recommended selling the property. He thought a nearby citrus farmer who had once been a friend of Malcolm Marshall, their grandfather, would be interested in buying it. When the deal was complete the solicitor advised Carlo that the property had been sold and he no longer had access to it. He had no option but to remove anything of his that remained there within seven days
. From then on he must run his own operation without using the respected Marshall name. Both Geoff and Doug had scrapped their own plans and gone with Claire to London. Simone thought there was more he was not telling her but when she tried to draw him out about Claire’s pregnancy and her relationship with Carlo, or even about her own mother’s part in this whole thing, he was reluctant to tell her any more.
‘Doug wants to come and meet you,’ he’d said. ‘He’s trying to arrange things at the restaurant, and then he’ll come up here for a few days. Let’s sit down and talk it all through together then.’
It had seemed enough for the moment, she already had plenty to think about.
Putting down her book Simone once again scans the photographs that Geoff has sent her. Paula as a baby, as a toddler and starting school; there are pictures with Claire on a beach somewhere in England, and as a teenager with her much older brothers in the garden of the house that she and their mother shared with their grandmother. Simone remembers the day that she, Doug and Geoff adopted each other as siblings, pricking their fingers to share their blood as a bond. She’d been nine then, Geoff and Doug eleven, and she’d thought they would always be together. She wonders now whether her father had any idea of the loss he was inflicting on her when he insisted on their silence. And now, Simone wonders whether they can ever get that connection back again. And then there’s Paula; how will she react to this?
‘Tea’s made,’ Ros calls, tapping on the door. ‘Book club time.’
Simone takes a last look at her sister’s face, switches off her phone, and walks into the lounge clutching Truth and Beauty, wondering what she will say, and whether talking about any of it will help or simply make it all more difficult and confusing.
Chapter Twelve