by Liz Byrski
‘Didn’t he write A Suitable Boy?’ Judy asks. ‘I loved that book. But it took me months to read it, it’s very long and detailed.’
‘That’s been compared to War and Peace,’ Ros says. ‘But this one is very different. Much less demanding, and it’s set in London. Anyone read it?’
They shake their heads.
‘Well this is a love story on several levels, but also a story about music and musicians. I was reading it for the first time in London, but James died before I finished it. For a long time I didn’t want to open it again. But some years later I did; I read it all the way through, and loved it, and have read it again twice since then, the last time straight after I got Adele’s invitation. It felt right to bring it with me because it’s very special to me for all sorts of reasons.’
‘It must bring back memories of that time,’ Simone says. ‘Will that be hard for you, Ros?’
Ros opens her mouth to speak, stops, thinks for a moment, tilts her head to one side. ‘I didn’t have that in mind when I chose it,’ she says, ‘but now I think that perhaps it will, and the way I went off the rails this morning makes me feel as though talking about it is something I really need to do.’
Chapter Nineteen
It’s Geoff who arrives at six to collect Simone.
‘Doug is making Thai chicken curry,’ he says as they pull away from the house. ‘It’s his speciality so I hope you like it, or can pretend to.’
‘I love it,’ she says.
‘I remember your mum’s minestrone. I’ve not tasted anything like it since those days.’
‘I’ll make it for you,’ Simone says, ‘from Mama’s recipe. It’s pretty good but never seems quite as good as hers.’
He drives slowly down the rough driveway and out onto the road. ‘Isn’t this the most extraordinary thing?’ he says. ‘You, me and Doug, about to have dinner together after all this time?’
She turns to look at him. ‘I’d almost given up,’ she says, ‘so yes, it feels extraordinary and wonderful.’
They talk about some of the people who had come to the citrus farm. Adults who lived nearby, their own friends from the local school, and later friends of Doug and Geoff whom they had met at boarding school and who came to stay there. There were casual workers too, local people and backpackers, and as they talk, Simone feels the past running live through her veins.
‘I’ve been so cut off from it all,’ she says as they draw up outside Geoff’s house. ‘The little wheels of memory are churning up all sorts of stuff now. It’s so easy to lose chunks and splinters of the past when you’ve no one to talk to about it.’
‘Good, we can loosen them up some more tonight then,’ Geoff says, ‘fill in some gaps. I have some excellent champagne and a couple of bottles of really good red to go with the curry. And I have a big box of old photographs.’
Simone groans. ‘I drank far too much on Sunday evening and I’m still suffering for it. But photographs, really? How wonderful! I have nothing, only some baby snaps and pictures of me as a toddler before we came to Australia. So I can’t wait to see those.’
‘Simone! Beautiful as ever,’ Doug says a few minutes later, hugging her and then holding her at arm’s length, his hands on her shoulders. ‘You must have lived a very pure life to have aged so little.’
‘You’d probably be surprised how pure,’ Simone says. ‘You’re looking pretty good yourself. In fact you both look terrific and I can’t imagine that either of you have lived a very pure life.’
‘Mine’s been pretty conventional really,’ Geoff says, opening the champagne. He fills the glasses. ‘To us,’ he says, ‘childhood friends back together again after all these years.’
‘To us!’ Simone and Doug chorus, and Simone feels the emotion rise in her throat. ‘So much to catch up on,’ she says, ‘this is where I get to find out all your secrets.’ She sees them look at each other and look away again. ‘You must have some secrets presumably?’
‘A few. And so, I imagine, have you,’ Geoff says.
‘Oh, there were always secrets at home,’ Simone says. ‘But I never found out what they were. I just know they must have been pretty substantial because there was always tension, as far back as I can remember, and more so as time went on.’
There is a charged sliver of silence between Doug and Geoff.
‘What?’ she asks, glancing between them. ‘Do you know something?’
‘Let’s drink our champagne and eat first,’ Doug says after a pause. ‘You’ve only been here a few minutes; it’s too soon to start raking over our family histories. You have to tell us about Adam, I have to tell you about Steve, and Geoff has to tell you about Eva and his kids. Before we get into the heavy stuff.’
‘Oh I see, you’re just stirring me,’ Simone says, laughing, ‘ganging up on me like the old days. Dropping in a word or two, pretending to know stuff to get me bouncing up and down in a frenzy begging you to tell me this incredible secret, which in the end actually turns out to be nothing at all!’
She sees them exchange another glance. ‘Something like that,’ Geoff says. ‘Suffice to say that we know a lot more now than we did back then. Anyway, cheers! Here’s to the past and most of all the future.’
They clink their glasses and Simone can see that they too are feeling the same surge of emotion as she is.
‘Do you remember when we pricked our thumbs and mixed our blood for lifelong friendship?’ Doug asks.
They both nod.
‘I do,’ Simone says. ‘I’ve thought of it often. And here we are together in our sixties.’
‘Almost our seventies, darling,’ Doug says. ‘Next year’s the big seven-oh for Doug and me.’
It’s later, after the meal has been cleared away, that Geoff tips the box of photographs onto the table, and they spread them out, picking them up at random, laughing at the images of themselves and each other. Simone sighs with pleasure at the fading black-and-white pictures of long forgotten moments captured on Claire’s old Brownie. She remembers Claire lining them up for a photograph, trying to capture them running and jumping, and horse riding on one occasion.
‘The horses! I’d forgotten that day,’ Simone says. ‘Where did we go to ride those horses?’ And they argue about when it was and where the horses were.
As they reach their teens the images are clearer: Doug winning a race, Geoff in a tree picking oranges, herself looking shy and self-conscious in a frilly dress blowing out candles on a birthday cake. Simone feels she is bursting with memories as they talk and laugh together. And she is reminded of the expectations she had then, the ambitions, the dreams she dreamed so long ago. Dreams in which all of them were always together.
She picks up a colour photo of a woman sitting on a rough stone wall, a little girl beside her. ‘Claire!’ she says. ‘And Paula?’
Doug nods. ‘Cornwall. Paula looks so much like you did the day you arrived at our place. Although she’s got more of Carlo in her than you have.’
Simone studies the pictures. ‘Does she? I can’t tell because I have no photographs from my childhood to compare her with; none at all. I know there were some, and I did ask several times over the years, but Papa always said they were difficult to get at, up in the roof, and he’d find them for my next visit. But he never did. I kept thinking that when my parents were both gone I would find a treasure trove of memories. Photographs, old toys, my exercise books and reports from school, maybe even albums with pictures of my grandparents I barely remember from Italy. But when Adam and Stacey and I went to sort out the house there was nothing. Not a shred of evidence that we had a past in that place at all. It was deliberate, of course. Sometime after Mama died Papa must have gone through and destroyed everything. Not just the family memorabilia but other things, books, pictures, ornaments. I noticed it about eighteen months before he died. I realised that each time I went back things were missing, and
I assumed he was packing them in boxes to save me the trouble when he’d gone. Ha! Well I was totally wrong about that.’
They are silent now, staring at the mass of photographs in front of them, and Simone knows that the sadness, which is the underside of her joy at meeting them again, has infected them too.
‘What was he doing, d’you think?’ Doug asks. ‘Cleaning the slate before he died?’
She shrugs. ‘Maybe. If so he made a pretty thorough job of it. It was devastating to go back there and feel as though my childhood had just been brushed out of history. It stirred up all sorts of stuff about the time I got home from Paris and you’d all gone, and no one would talk to me about it. You’ve had each other, and Claire; it must be so wonderful to keep refreshing memories, talking, looking at photographs. My parents never talked about the past. I’d ask them about something and every time I’d hit a wall. In the end I gave up even mentioning it. But it left me confused about things that had actually happened or what I might just have imagined.’
‘I . . . we . . . we’d no idea, Simone,’ Geoff says, taking her hand. ‘I can only imagine how hard that must be and how sad it must make you.’
She nods, picks up the photograph of Claire and Paula again. ‘Claire looks so happy here. Happier than I ever remember her. Were you on holiday?’
Doug nods. ‘It was a wonderful time, with Mum and our grandparents, and Paula, some years after we’d left Australia.’
‘And yet you both ended up coming back.’
‘I came back about twelve years later,’ Geoff says. ‘I’d met Eva in Europe and we got married, but all her family was here, and we wanted to have kids and to have them grow up in Australia.’
‘And I came back a lot later,’ Doug says. ‘Initially just for a holiday with Geoff and Eva, but I fell in love with my nephew and nieces, so I stayed on longer than I’d planned. Then I met Steve, in an underground gay bar in Sydney, and fell in love with him. And that was that.’
‘And Claire was okay with that . . . with losing you both to Australia?’
‘Well it wasn’t ideal, but she was very close to her parents, and her sister and her family who lived nearby. She had missed so much time with them when she married Dad. She was much happier there, and she had Paula, who, by the way, still lives with her.’
Simone looks again at the photograph. ‘I’m so glad things worked out for her,’ she says. ‘Did she never marry again?’
Doug shakes his head. ‘No. She had quite a long friendship with a lovely man who wanted to marry her. But she wouldn’t consider it. You know, Simone, she would be thrilled to see you again. She really loves you, but she always says, “Simone will not want to meet me.”’
‘But why, why wouldn’t I?’
‘Because of Carlo, of course.’
She shrugs. ‘So they had an affair, it’s not –’
‘No,’ Geoff says, ‘no, Simone, they did not have an affair.’ He glances up at Doug, and Simone sees Doug nod in response. ‘It was not an affair, it was not a relationship. It was rape and it was part of a long reign of terror and abuse by Carlo, in an effort to get her to do what he wanted and give him control of the Marshall property.’
*
Adele is making breakfast for everyone. During their evening at the pub they had decided to have a group breakfast today. Adele is wracking her brains to remember why, but she does remember that she’d drawn the short straw. She was first up this morning and was in the games room doing stretches when Judy and Ros rolled up, but there was no sign of Simone.
‘She came home really late,’ Ros had said. ‘She probably needs to sleep. I vote we carry on and do what we can without her.’
Since then Adele has heard Simone go out with Clooney, but she hasn’t seen her yet. Second hangover in three days? she wonders. That could be a lifetime record for Simone.
‘Come along,’ she calls up the stairs. ‘Breakfast’s ready and scrambled eggs wait for no woman.’
Simone comes into the kitchen looking exhausted and as though she has more serious things than breakfast on her mind.
‘Good walk?’ Adele asks.
‘Yep,’ Simone replies, picking up Clooney’s water bowl. She crosses to the sink, refills it and sets it back in place for him.
‘Would you like everything?’ Adele asks, indicating the eggs, bacon and tomatoes in the two frying pans.
‘Just eggs and toast please.’
Adele glances up at her, opens her mouth to ask about last night’s dinner, but something makes her decide against it. Maybe Simone’s evening with her friends hadn’t worked out well, perhaps it wasn’t all champagne, laughter and happy memories, and as she leans over to put a plate in front of her Adele can see that Simone’s eyes are red, and she looks not just exhausted, but totally wrecked.
‘Are you all right, Simone?’ she asks.
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ Simone says. ‘Breakfast looks delicious.’
Adele watches her take a deep breath, straighten her shoulders, and reach for some toast.
‘Wow,’ says Judy, strolling into the kitchen. ‘This looks and smells wonderful, Adele. Nice evening, Simone? No sign of Ros yet?’
‘Yes, I’m here,’ Ros says, hurrying in. ‘Can I help you, Adele?’
‘You could rescue the toast from the toaster and add it to the other toast on the table, please,’ Adele says.
‘Sure thing,’ Ros says, peering past her to the frying pans. ‘Yum. Delicious, can I have some of everything, please?’
Ros carries the four slices of toast to the table on a plate, tips them into the basket and pops the red-and-white checked cloth back in place.
‘Simone, how are you this morning?’ she asks, slipping into the seat opposite her. ‘Did you have a wonderful time? I heard you come home in the wee small hours – I’m surprised you didn’t turn into a pumpkin.’
‘Yes, it was quite late,’ Simone says, tight-lipped.
Adele senses that they are all poised now, waiting for Simone to tell them about her dinner with Geoff and Doug, but she just reaches for the coffee pot, pours some into the cups and pushes them towards the others. Then she leans back in her chair, staring down at the table. Adele looks at Ros and raises her eyebrows. Ros shrugs, pulls a face and starts tucking into her breakfast.
Judy helps herself to toast. ‘You’re very quiet, Simone,’ she says. ‘We’re all agog waiting to hear about your dinner, and maybe see some photographs. Did Geoff give you some? I think you mentioned that he said he was getting copies for you.’
Adele and Ros exchange glances again.
‘Simone?’ Ros says, leaning forward. ‘Judy’s asked you a question.’
Simone looks up, bewildered. ‘Oh sorry,’ she says, ‘I was miles away.’
‘Obviously,’ Judy says. ‘I was asking about photos, if you have any to show us.’ She hesitates. ‘Actually, you don’t look too well. Would you like me to make you a bloody mary? It’s very good for a hangover, the tomato juice soaks up the alcohol molecules. There’s some tomato juice in the fridge.’
Simone puts down her knife and fork. ‘No thanks, I don’t have a hangover,’ she says. ‘At least not one that can be sorted by a bloody mary.’
‘So what sort of hangover do you have?’ Ros begins gently.
Simone sighs, staring at her plate, pushing the food around with her fork in a desultory way. ‘I’m not sure I can describe it,’ she says. ‘A hangover from the past, I suppose. And the trouble with the past is that there is nothing you can do about it. My past has felt like a great trunk filled with secrets to which I’d never have the key. I was stuck with that and finally came to terms with it, did what we’re always being encouraged to do – moved on.’ She stops, still not looking up.
Adele glances at the others, but like her, they are frozen in awkward silence. ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ she asks ca
utiously. ‘The moving on, leaving things behind you and concentrating on the present and the future?’
Simone turns towards her. ‘It does sound good, doesn’t it?’ she says. ‘But as I’m sure you know, Adele, you can move on just as you and I have done, but the past is always there in the people we turn out to be. The past as ball and chain, sometimes the size of a marble or an egg, but at other times a cannonball that drags you down.’
She stops again, looking at Adele. ‘When I look at you, Adele, I see a woman who has dragged the cannonball all her life, and managed to succeed in spite of it. And then, on Sunday, I saw the cannonball explode, saw you kick your way through the debris and emerge, still as Adele of course, but a . . . well, a new edition, I suppose. Someone even stronger, and brave enough to grasp the change. The marble will always be there but you’ll be able to live with it.’ She looks away, reaches for her coffee and sips it.
Adele is silent, trying to take in what Simone said, because it feels right. The ball and chain of the past has always held her back. And it does feel different now. You can’t change the past, she thinks, but you can change how you view it and how you respond to it, and that means you can also choose to just let it go.
‘And you, Simone?’ Ros asks eventually. ‘I understand what you’re saying and I can see how Adele is a perfect example. But you? You were craving the past, you wanted to fill in the gaps and you reached out to do that. Last night you wanted to step back into it, to honour it. So do you want to tell us what happened?’
Simone nods. ‘I do, but it’s so hard to start. And while I was walking this morning, I realised that although we’re really different we all have the same problem.’
Ah! Adele thinks, I know what she’s doing. This is too hard for her so, being Simone, she can’t just blurt it out; she has to find a bigger context for it. She realises that Simone is trying in some way to theorise whatever it is that has traumatised her, to move it a little further away. But will it work? she wonders, because Simone looks so fragile, so broken.
Judy cocks her head. ‘What problem’s that?’ she asks.