by Liz Byrski
‘I read a book about a girl like that,’ Connie had said. ‘She liked girls the way we – well, most of us – like boys.’
‘Really? Can I read it?’ Flora had asked.
‘I can get it for you,’ Connie said. ‘I heard Mum talking about it to her friend Grace, so I pinched it from her shelf and read it under the bedclothes. I didn’t like it much, didn’t understand all of it, but maybe you will.’
‘What’s it called?’
Connie had shrugged. ‘Can’t remember, but it’s got a green and white cover, and I know just where it is on the shelf.’
A couple of days later she had pulled a brown paper bag out of her satchel and handed it over. ‘Maybe don’t show it to your mum,’ she’d said.
And Flora, who had no intention of doing anything of the sort, stuffed it into her own satchel and opened it later in her bedroom. It was called The Well of Loneliness, which was such a sad title that she wondered if she really did want to read it, but that night she smuggled it into bed with her and started reading. It seemed very long, and she found it quite dull. The girl called Stephen was not at all like her, and yet the sense of displacement and wrongness that Stephen felt was very real to Flora.
‘Did it help?’ Connie asked as she slipped the book in its brown bag back into her own satchel.
‘Sort of,’ Flora said. ‘It made me feel that I’m not the only one.’
‘It doesn’t matter, you know,’ Connie said. ‘Mum said there are a lot of girls who are like that. Not just ordinary people, famous people too. There’s nothing wrong with you.’
But although Connie’s mother’s words were reassuring, whatever it was that Flora felt never came up in polite conversation. The chances of finding anyone else like her seemed pretty remote. By the time she left school she had no more information than she’d had at fourteen, but she had some strange and scary feelings towards other girls and prayed long and hard for guidance. The convent seemed like a safe place to be, and she lived in a fever of anxiety until she was admitted.
It was harder than Flora had expected, the God of the nuns was so different from her God; this one seemed more like her parents: distant, critical and frequently punishing. And as she was wondering whether she would take the option to leave at the end of the preparatory year, the decision was made for her in the most unexpected way. She fell in love with Sister Mary Margaret, who was in her thirties, and, even more frightening, her love was reciprocated. Two months later Mother Superior counselled Sister Mary Margaret and put her onto a strict program of prayer, sacrifice and rehabilitation, and Flora was expelled.
It was a relief in many ways and she was able to avoid disclosing what had happened, simply telling her parents that she had been found unsuitable to take the veil. God, she believed, understood and forgave her. But by the late sixties he had been displaced by the Maharishi, who promised to rid the world of unhappiness and discontent and that, she was sure, had to be a good thing.
There have been other, less spiritual and more earthly turning points at which she has felt this same overwhelming sense of change. The death of a friend in India had brought her home to England and then, a few years later, Gerald urging her back to Hobart had given her direction. That was short lived; eighteen months later, bruised by the soured relationship with her brother, and banished from his home, she had come back to London determined on a new start in teaching. And decades later there was the time she had decided to stay here in Port d’Esprit with Suzanne.
As she stands here now, looking out from the window of the bedroom that has been hers for fifteen years, Flora is filled with a sense of despair at what now seems like a series of second rate decisions taken for the wrong reasons. What has she now but herself, her gut instincts and a vague and wavering version of the God that she found along with thousands of others on that March day in Wembley Stadium? Wisdom has evaded her, she has not achieved great spiritual depths, nor discovered lasting earthly love, despite many attempts. Now, as she teeters towards an unplanned old age, she might as well be stepping into a void.
Outside in the yard Pierre, the kitchen hand, is lugging a sack of potatoes off the back of the greengrocer’s truck to take to the kitchen. It’s all so familiar, so safe and pleasant on the one hand, so stultifying on the other. She sighs and turns away from the window, remembering the letter that came for her this morning and which she hasn’t yet opened. She checks the top of the chest of drawers, the dressing table, her bag and remembers finally that she put it in the pocket of her jacket. The envelope of thick cream vellum is stamped ‘Tonkin’s Books’ in the top left-hand corner, with an address in Bloomsbury. Puzzled, Flora opens it, takes out two sheets of matching notepaper covered in neat but bold handwriting and begins to read. Of course, Gerald’s old friend, a letter of condolence, how thoughtful. She reads on through the assorted memories, and sympathies, to the part that suggests that if she is ever in London perhaps they could catch up for a drink. ‘I don’t think so, Phillip,’ she murmurs, and shoves the folded letter into her pocket; she’ll show it to Connie when they are on the flight. But then she thinks again. It might be good to meet Phillip, might help both her and Connie to make sense of Gerald and his dramatic effect on both their lives.
‘So you are off now?’ Suzanne asks, appearing soft as a ghost in the doorway.
Flora folds the letter, puts it back in her pocket, and glances at her watch. ‘Yes, the taxi’ll be here any minute. It feels very strange … leaving like this …’
‘But you will come back,’ Suzanne says. ‘It is a little holiday only …’ her voice fades away.
‘I’ll be back in about three weeks but it’s the beginning of the end Suzanne,’ Flora says, taking her hands. ‘Things have to change, we both know that,’ and she is stunned to see that Suzanne seems to be holding back tears. To Flora’s knowledge Suzanne has not cried since the dark days following Jacques’s death. She is stoic, a woman who keeps her emotions on a tight rein, but she is visibly moved this morning.
Suzanne nods. ‘But it is hard just the same. I have relied on you so long, Flora, I don’t know how I will manage …’
‘You’ll manage. And you’ll have Xavier, it’s what you want.’
Suzanne shrugs. ‘Yes, perhaps, I think so, but what if I’m wrong? How can I be sure?’
Flora smiles. ‘You always want certainty, Suzanne, but there is none. It’s an illusion; we talk about it, cling to the idea of it, but we don’t get to have it.’
Suzanne sighs. ‘I know, I know. Well, you will be back soon and we will decide then. Perhaps you find a place in town, and we still work together … a little … sometimes?’
Flora nods. ‘Perhaps,’ she says. ‘But perhaps not – let’s wait and see.’ And as she says it she knows without a shred of doubt that this part of her life really is over. She no longer belongs here and as she picks up her bag and follows Suzanne down the stairs she feels as though she is about to step off the edge of a cliff without a safety harness.
*
Kerry wanders restlessly between the tables where small groups of children are drawing and colouring images inspired by a short film on Tasmanian wildlife. There are seagulls and mice, a couple of platypuses, some snakes, a few frogs, but most have chosen the wild-eyed Tasmanian devil; in one of the drawings it actually appears to be breathing fire. She pauses, looking now at the children, some totally absorbed in their work, others talking or whispering to each other, a couple chewing the ends of their pencils and gazing out of the window. There have been times in her teaching career when she had thought it might be more challenging and satisfying to teach, like Chris, in high school, but right now she’s thankful she’s here. Of the limited range of feelings that seem available to her, thankful is about the best.
And she is thankful for this classroom and its familiar, delightful, often annoying occupants; thankful for its structured processes, its timetable and the demands that used to irritate her but now force her to struggle each day to keep going, to focus, to believe
she will get through. She’s thankful for the school and, most of all, for her family, although she is incapable of telling them that. In fact most of the time now she is incapable of telling anyone anything much at all. Every day has become a struggle, every day she tries to reach beyond that invisible wall and every day it seems more impenetrable.
There’s a disturbance now at a table on the other side of the room, the tearing of paper, raised voices, a child bursts into tears.
‘Calm down,’ Kerry says, crossing to the troublesome table. ‘What’s going on here?’
‘Simon says my platypus looks like a cricket bat,’ wails the little girl whose name is Lucy Braddock. ‘And he says he’s going to smash it with a cricket ball.’
Kerry is thankful too, she realises now, for the years of experience that enable her to automatically operate in teacher mode; she calms Lucy, reprimands Simon, and urges everyone to get on with their work.
What she would really like is to lie down on the couch in her mother’s kitchen while Farah makes tea and cuts buttered toast into triangles for her. In fact what she would like most of all is for her mother to do that for her but even if Connie had been there Kerry knows that she couldn’t ask for that, because for the last few years she has been pushing her mother away, holding her at arm’s length so that she wouldn’t detect the repulsion she felt at her father’s physical condition, and the shame and the anger that it bred in her. How could he do this, how could he desert her? She had spent her life trying to win his approval and attention with very little success and then, as he diminished before her eyes, he also took her mother’s attention away from her. It was too much to bear and the pain had to be turned into something else.
Kerry sighs, remembering the silent kitchen, the soft weightless blanket, the smell of toast. That day she had thought she was falling apart, and that night, in Connie’s bed, she had dreamed of it happening, saw herself standing upright, a dark silhouette against a light background with a network of cracks swarming across the silhouette until it shattered, leaving shards of broken glass on the ground where she had stood.
‘So what happened?’ Chris had asked as he walked out to the car to meet her when she arrived home from Hobart.
‘Don’t know, really …’ an attempt at a casual shrug. ‘Just tired, I suppose.’
‘Poor darling,’ he’d said, ‘come on in and put your feet up and I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
Kerry longed to collapse into him, into his comfort, into his love, but the wall blocked her. The previous evening she had fallen asleep really early and Farah had called him and told him she needed to stay the night. It felt right but she knew he would have been worried about her.
‘Farah was lovely to me,’ she said. ‘She thinks I should get a check-up.’
‘So, you’ll do that, won’t you?’ he’d said, looking anxiously at her.
She’d nodded.
‘When?’
‘Oh well, when I have time.’
‘Make time, Kerry.’ He’d moved over to sit beside her then, put his arm around her shoulder, took her free hand in his. ‘Please, this week, do it this week.’
She hasn’t, of course, because the task seems monumental. How could she explain her symptoms? How could she explain the invisible wall, the disintegrating silhouette? How could anyone understand that?
‘Did you call the doctor?’ he’d asked a few days later.
And of course she lied – mumbled about blood tests, waiting for results. But that was a couple of weeks ago now, and she knows he’s suspicious. She’d lied too – by omission – not telling him about scaring the life out of Farah and waking up to three police officers staring down at her. She’d sworn Farah to secrecy the following morning as they’d gone for a walk with her two daughters.
And as she’d left they had stood facing each other awkwardly until Kerry had felt herself lurch forward and put her arms around Farah.
‘Come back if you need to,’ Farah had said, stroking her shoulder. ‘It’s nice and quiet here. Let me know you’re coming so I don’t call the police again.’
They’d both laughed then.
‘Take sick leave,’ Chris had also suggested. ‘Get the doctor to give you a certificate.’
And she couldn’t tell him that she didn’t dare to take sick leave because without some sort of structure, some framework for each day, the cracks would start to open up. She will have to do something soon though, or he’ll frogmarch her to the surgery. Tomorrow, perhaps, she’ll call and make an appointment … she could do it today in the lunch break, but no, tomorrow is good. That’s it then, she’ll do it tomorrow, definitely, first thing in the morning. Only when tomorrow comes it still seems too hard.
*
‘Have a look at this,’ Flora says, passing Connie an envelope once they are airborne. ‘It arrived this morning.’
Connie looks at her and then takes the envelope. She is caught up in the excitement of setting foot on English soil again. She yearns for a sense of homecoming, of belonging. She looks down at the envelope.
‘Tonkin’s Books?’
‘Just open it,’ Flora says.
‘Nice notepaper. I miss this, you know – letters, I mean – opening envelopes, the feeling of holding in my hand something that the other person has held in theirs.’ She holds the folded letter and looks out of the window to the choppy waters below. ‘This is so amazing, Flora, going back after all this time.’
‘Yes, it must be,’ Flora says, ‘anyway, just read the letter.’
Connie fumbles for her glasses, unfolds the pages, reads the letter and turns back to Flora. ‘How nice. Phillip Tonkin … I feel I should know him but …’
‘A summer afternoon, a punt on the river at Richmond,’ Flora says. ‘You and Gerald, Phillip Tonkin and me.’
Connie gasps and her hand flies to her mouth. ‘Of course, the one you almost emasculated. How extraordinary, you know I’d completely forgotten about him. He and Gerald used to send Christmas cards but that all stopped years ago. How nice of him to write.’ She hands back the letter. ‘Especially in view of your last encounter. Shall we go and see him? After all, we’re going to Bloomsbury where he has a bookshop, and we would probably have ended up there anyway without realising who owned it,’ she laughs. ‘You’re right, it’s an extraordinary coincidence, arriving just on the day we leave. Another day and we might have missed it. It sort of seems as though it was meant to be. Let’s go.’
Flora smiles. ‘That’s what I thought.’
‘Another chance to connect with our younger selves.’ She pauses, recalling a glimpse of Phillip reeling back in shock, then doubling over the side of the punt. She turns back to Flora, grinning. ‘Maybe Phillip wants to try his luck again.’
Flora lets out a snort of laughter. ‘I doubt it. He’s the same age as Gerald – more or less – and blokes his age are usually more interested in much younger women.’
‘I wonder if he ever found out,’ Connie says.
‘That he was trying to get off with a dyke? Unlikely. Gerald didn’t know at the time, and considering how he behaved when he found out, I doubt he’d have included the news in his Christmas cards.’
They are silent for a moment, holding up their cups to the flight attendant carrying the pot of tea.
‘That was such a terrible day,’ Connie says, sipping her tea.
‘When?’
‘The day he found out.’
Flora inhales deeply and nods. ‘It certainly was. I’ve been thinking about it quite a lot recently. I still get a sinking feeling in my stomach every time. Perhaps I should have told him earlier but I just assumed he’d realised but found it easier to pretend ignorance. Letting him find Denise in my bed probably wasn’t the most thoughtful thing I’ve ever done.’
‘You know, Flora, I really hated that your falling out with Gerald meant that you only knew our family through me. I would love you to come to Hobart, there’s heaps of room for both of us in the house.’
Flora hesitates, shooting her a discomfiting look that catches Connie off guard, making her feel on edge.
‘I have been thinking about that,’ Flora says. ‘I do want to meet the rest of the family. And what about Denise, I suppose she’s long gone now?’
‘No, she’s still there. She gave up her job and became a cheese maker, and then she got into a relationship with a bread maker who had a stall in the Salamanca markets, a lovely woman called Clare. They bought a big block of land with a small house on it, and then built premises for the cheese and bread businesses. They built it into something quite large, the tourists love it there. And the stall still operates at the markets every Saturday morning, regular as clockwork.’
‘What’s Clare like?’ Flora asks. ‘I hope Denise has been happy.’
‘Clare was lovely, but she died some years ago now. It was very sad. But Denise has kept the business going. Years ago they found a sperm donor and Clare had a baby, so there’s a son. I can’t remember his name now, but he’s delightful, and he and his girlfriend run the business with Denise. It all seems so long ago. I often run into Denise and she always asks about you. I don’t think Gerald ever really understood what we all lost back then. It’s time we’ll never have back. Death stirs up so much, doesn’t it? So much grief about so many things.’
Flora nods. ‘Yes, a lot of grieving, not just about his death but for all those lost years – decades of our lives which could have been so very different if only …’ Her voice trails away and Connie sees the enormous sadness in her face.
They sit in silence, hearing only the sound of the engines and muffled snippets of the conversations around them, and Connie closes her eyes and thinks of home. She thinks of the years of Gerald’s illness and what it has done to them, to her and the children and grandchildren, slicing into their lives, dividing rather than uniting them, straining their relationships to breaking point. It ought to have bound us together, she thinks, but now that he’s gone there’s so much damage to repair. And just as she knows that she has never forgiven him for what he did to Flora, there is something else she has not forgiven.