by Dawn French
Since Iva is away, Rosie has agreed to deliver the stack of mail that has grown considerably over the passing few weeks to Glenn’s address. She intends to push it through the door and leave. Thomas hands Rosie his letter to add to it. It’s already autumn, and he doesn’t want Winter to arrive without Glenn knowing what’s in his heart.
Ice and Water
It’s mid-afternoon, and Rosie stands by the entrance to Glenn’s building. There is the mailbox. In her hand is the bundle of mail from the apartment. On the very top is Thomas’s letter. It would be simple to drop them off and go, but she is rooted to the spot. She left here once before, and regretted it. Something in her knows she is inevitably going to ring the buzzer, so come on, Rosie, do it. She stalls, looks longingly back up the street to where everything is easier than here. She imagines being in a cab and back at the apartment, tucked up nice and cosy in her room, eating a Krispy Kreme doughnut and watching reruns of Judge Judy, just being Rosie. Instead, she’s the other part of her, she’s the Rosie who is pregnant by someone in this woman’s family, and whose last experience of Glenn was awful for both of them.
Has she the courage to ring the bell?
Has she?
Come on, Rosie.
Remember how you promised yourself you’d live?
YES.
Rosie reaches for the buzzer marked ‘G. Wilder-B’, Fourth Floor.
She presses it. She wants to run, like a naughty kid up to mischief. But her feet are set in moral concrete and she remains, her heart beating, her breath shallow. ‘Please don’t be in,’ she thinks. That would give her a legitimate reason to scuttle away, if she could know she tried. Please. Please.
‘Yes?’ comes Glenn’s brittle voice, further thinned by the intercom. Rosie leans into the microphone on the wall panel,
‘It’s Rosie.’
Silence.
‘May I come up?’ says Rosie.
Silence.
The door release buzzer sounds. Rosie pushes the huge metal door open and goes in and up the four flights, puffing all the way as she carries the extra weight. When she gets to Glenn’s front door, she finds it open already, so steps inside and closes the door behind her. Rosie is surprised by the modern loft and how stark it is. It’s hard to place Glenn in this environment. Yet, here she is.
She is standing in the middle of the large room with the shutters closed and only one standard lamp illuminating the space, along with the odd rogue shaft of light that bursts through the ill-fitting shutters. Unlike her very first meeting with Glenn, Rosie resists the urge to break the tension with a wisecrack, but she is certainly thinking vampire-related thoughts she has to suppress. Glenn’s pale appearance doesn’t help.
As Rosie’s eyes adjust to the light she sees Glenn properly, and is shocked by how much weight her old adversary has lost in these few months. Already a thin woman, Glenn has dwindled to a whisper of a person, on the verge of emaciation. Her face is a skeleton version of the one Rosie knows, and her smart clothes hang loosely from her shoulders and scraggy neck. Glenn’s eyes are latched on to Rosie’s and they are haunted. Rosie has not seen this look on Glenn’s face ever before. Perhaps because of how drawn her sunken features are, her eyes bulge and seem to plead. The two women take each other in.
The blossoming, fecund, shiny-haired, younger Rosie, full of new life, cheerful in her ever-tightening bright green coat and red brogues. The very epitome of abundant kindness and mischief. The perpetrator.
The shrunken, withering, expensively highlighted steel-grey-haired much-older Glenn, eaten away by stubbornness and her own acerbic innards. Head to toe cashmere and pearls. The very epitome of suppressed fury and pitiful tragedy. The victim.
Glenn speaks first, ‘Don’t think for a breath that I forgive you. I don’t. You are an assassin,’ she says in hushed tones.
‘Please, Glenn, stop right there. I am not available for your bullying any more, so don’t even bother. Seriously.’
‘You are living in my home, with my men. I am … here.’
‘Yes. So it would seem. And this is your choice. Everyone wants you back up there.’
‘Everyone? What do you know of “everyone”? Who are you?’
‘I am no-one of any consequence.’
‘Do let me spare you the burden of your martyrdom, dear. Believe me, you are all consequence. Look at you,’ she indicates Rosie’s sizeable tum.
Rosie feels hugely defensive, and decides, on behalf of precisely what’s contained there, that it might be best to retreat from the angry viper as soon as possible, and to regard this as a valiant try that failed. ‘Here is your post. And there’s a letter from Thomas …’ She hands the pile to Glenn.
‘Mr Wilder-Bingham’ says Glenn, but Rosie has no time for this nonsense …
‘Thomas,’ she repeats emphatically, and backs carefully towards the door, mindful of the last time she and Glenn ‘had words’ and how physical it all became.
‘That name is not for your lips …’ spits Glenn.
‘OK, OK. Let’s just leave it there …’ Rosie turns to go.
Then, she hears a flumph behind her. For the tiniest moment she considers not looking back, but of course she does.
Glenn has collapsed on the floor.
‘Oh my god!’ Rosie exclaims, and rushes toward her.
‘Get away from me! Go on! Get out!’ Glenn shouts at her, flicking her spindly arm.
The letters are scattered all around her on the floor, and Glenn has fallen straight down like a factory chimney, folding inwards on herself, into a neat pile of beige designer clothing containing a crumpled sliver of a woman. The wicked witch of the East Side.
Glenn looks up at Rosie, her woeful face full of shame and humiliation. ‘Leave me!’ she cries.
‘Shut up, Glenn, put your arm around my neck, come on,’ says Rosie as she gathers the tiny weak body into her arms. Rosie doesn’t even stop to consider that she shouldn’t really be lifting like this in her condition. It doesn’t matter in the least, because there’s nothing to Glenn. It’s as if Rosie is carrying a pile of sticks, she is so light. Only now does Rosie realize just how seriously shriveled Glenn is. She’s hardly there.
Rosie places the handful of bones that are Glenn Wilder-Bingham on the uncomfortable sofa, and props her up with the hideous red cushions. ‘Are you hurt?’ says Rosie, already feeling very carefully along the length of all her limbs to see if there are any breaks. It’s intimate, but Rosie doesn’t care, she needs to check.
‘Stop it,’ Glenn says weakly, but Rosie knows that what she’s really saying is ‘Don’t stop it.’ Rosie pushes on and gently presses and touches every part of Glenn’s body, growing increasingly worried at how little there is of it. She opens the top of her blouse, and she removes Glenn’s shoes, then when she’s sure there are no breaks or cuts, she drapes a throw over her, and feels her forehead for a temperature. Nothing is out of the ordinary there. Rosie goes into the kitchen, reaches onto a shelf for a glass tumbler, and opens the fridge. To find there, exactly what she is looking for. A large bottle of good water … And only that.
There is nothing else in the fridge.
Rosie opens all the cupboards and doors to see where Glenn’s food is. There is none. Rosie pours a glass of water and brings it back to the spectre on the couch, who sips it with her eyes closed. She can’t bear to look at Rosie, and she can’t bear to be looked at.
‘What’s going on, Glenn?’ says Rosie.
Glenn doesn’t answer and keeps her eyes tightly shut. Rosie persists, ‘Please talk to me.’
Still nothing. Glenn pretends Rosie is simply not there, she utterly ignores her.
‘I’m not leaving this spot until you talk to me and I can be sure you are OK. Do you hear me?’ says Rosie.
With that, they sit in silence, Glenn feet up on the couch, Rosie opposite in the awful modern armchair.
They sit.
They sit.
While minutes and hours tick by, while the autumn ligh
t outside begins to fade, while the radiators tick. Glenn occasionally sips her water, until it’s gone, but otherwise they just sit.
Eventually, the light has gone completely and the room turns cold. It’s been about three hours. Rosie is astounded by Glenn’s tenacity, and stubbornness. She is a peeved child living in the body of a seventy-eight-year-old, getting colder by the minute. Rosie realizes that Glenn is prepared to die of hypothermia to prove a point.
Rosie is not, so she breaks the big heavy silence, ‘Where is the switch for the heating?’
‘In the service room,’ Glenn croaks, her voice dry after so long dumb.
Rosie gets up and searches around for the service room. When she finds it, she turns the heating on, and hears the boiler roar into life. She takes a deep breath and heads back to resume the sulk-off. This could be a long night.
Rosie sits back down in the same chair, and settles.
Suddenly, Glenn speaks, ‘This is the most company I’ve had in weeks,’ she says.
Rosie goes to speak, but Glenn quietens her. ‘Shhh. Listen. I didn’t mind at first. I liked it. No effort required. It was what I always look for, just me, no clatter, no people. And I waited. Of course he sent texts. Daily to begin with. How are you? I am here. That sort of thing. Polite. Then it was weekly. Now not so much …’
‘He doesn’t want to push it …’ Rosie starts to say, but Glenn hushes her again,
‘Just … hark …!’
Rosie sits back, admonished and startled by how old fashioned Glenn is. It’s a reminder of a bygone era.
‘I am still waiting. Waiting to hear anything that makes it possible to go back. I am waiting for an apology. I fear I may wait forever. Meanwhile, I will endure these endless goddam hours, and I will remember how this came to be. How it was that I married him because everyone said how good we were together, and because for the first time there was a good kind man who seemed to care. He saw something in me. I thought he was faking it. Because there was nothing to see. Not pretty enough. Not clever enough. Not remarkable in any way. Merely suitable. Even as early on as our honeymoon I realized that he is not the fake, I am. He is someone. Big and handsome. Loves life. Squeezes out every last drop. Loves it. Knows how to love. He is the one. I am only attached to him. No other purpose. Oh yes, I made a son, but nothing else. My parents had a marriage like that, got bored and in the end, they just about tolerated each other. I expected the same. Get bored with him, tolerate him.
But I couldn’t, because I wanted Thomas, wanted him always. I love him, but I have nothing to offer and that nothing gets less and less as the years eat me up. I knew he tired of me ages ago. Because even I tired of me. I have realized these last few months sitting here in this god-awful loft that I am a disappointment with no purpose whatsoever, a pathetic creature who believes that being loyal is the right reason to be alive. Loyal and ornery. That’s me. Sounds like an excellent firm of solicitors. Loyalty means nothing now. I was at least part of someone else. I’m not anymore. So, I’m not really even here. I am disappearing. Which, frankly, would make it much simpler for everyone. Fact. There.’
Rosie looks at Glenn in the half light and realizes that this is no idle threat. Glenn has clearly made a decision to starve herself. To death. Her unworthiness is in charge, instructing her to destroy herself. Whatever the face was that Glenn is used to gluing on to her real one has crumbled off, plaster-like, entirely, and this is at last the real Glenn, the unpalatable Glenn that Glenn herself cannot abide. So much so, that she would rather not exist.
For Rosie, this is a precious opportunity and one she doesn’t want to get wrong. She wants to reach inside Glenn and touch the right places, but it may be too late.
‘Did you know,’ starts Rosie, praying that she will say something that might resonate, ‘that it is possible, in life, to change your mind? I only say this because I know it to be true. You can decide, for instance, to come in out of the rain. You can decide to call pain, fear instead. To call broken, unmended. To call anger, force. You can be different if you really want to, believe me, you can release yourself from these bloody awful terrors. In fact I am amazed that someone as powerful as you has allowed yourself to be so directed by them. What’s going on there? Why are you not noticing what properly matters? What matters, Miss Glenn, is the innocent, is those three boys. Is Teddy. Is Red. Is Three. The ones who look up to you, who accept you. Who, yep let’s bloody just say it, who love you. And I know that they really do. They look so much for your approval, your support. Who the hell are you to withhold it? If you just … disappear, they will all wonder if they weren’t good enough for you to stay. You couldn’t do that to them, could you? Let them feel like no-one cares? You surely couldn’t inflict on them the same shitty stuff you feel about yourself? Could you? And Glenn, what about if you turned it all around, and you did some of the apologizing? What about that?!’
Glenn turns to look at her. Rosie fears she has gone too far. After all, it’s probably Rosie who should be apologizing for all the upset she’s caused, but she decides to finish what she has to say,
‘Just for once, Glenn, please say yes instead of no. There.’
In this moment, at the mention of her grandchildren, something happens inside the older woman. It’s as if Rosie is the water poured onto the ice that is Glenn. There is an initial shock, but the thawing is immediate. Rosie senses it, and carries on, ‘Y’know, Glenn, it’s weird but we have a lot in common, you and I, and I never thought I would ever say that. We are both a bit unknowable, both sort of untold stories. Both quite hidden. Just because I’m loud doesn’t mean I’m sure about anything. I’m not. At least I wasn’t. I’ve run away from stuff. And I’ve hurt people along the way. I know that. But right now, because of this,’ she points at her belly, ‘I am finally sure of something. I’ve got my purpose. Thank you, God. Or whoever … actually …’ Rosie realizes something, ‘Thank you, Glenn.’
Rosie reaches out her hand to the frail old woman, who looks at it, but doesn’t reciprocate.
She scrutinizies Rosie intensely. ‘I reach for him in the night,’ Glenn says.
Rose picks up Thomas’s letter from the floor, and hands it to her.
‘You read it to me’ says Glenn.
‘Sure?’ says Rosie.
‘Sure.’
Rosie turns on the overhead light, carefully opens the envelope, and removes the single sheet. Then hesitates.
‘Read it’ says Glenn, firmly. So Rosie does,
‘Wife.
This is husband.
Foolish, ashamed husband.
I am so sorry for hurting you.
I love you.
I don’t know how to be without you.
Please please come home.
We need to fix it.’
Glenn listens, and she takes the letter from Rosie and holds it close. Then, silently, Glenn weeps some of the melted ice as hot tears. She covers her wet eyes with her right hand, and she reaches out to Rosie with her left.
‘Help me. Don’t let him see me like this. Feed me,’ says Glenn quietly, through soft sobs.
Rosie gently takes the offered hand.
‘I will’ says Rosie.
The Date
In a shadowy corner of the appointed swanky downtown hotel Thomas Wilder-Bingham sits, nursing a whisky and fidgeting in his seat. It’s five past seven. She is late. That’s OK, it’s her prerogative. In fact, he should expect it. However much he reassures himself, he is still looking at his watch every thirty seconds to check. He can’t remember the last time he was this anxious. He checks his flies. Yep. He checks his shirt isn’t gaping over his expanding belly. Yep. He straightens his best maroon tie. He checks he isn’t sweating by swiping the napkin that’s under his drink, across his forehead. He tries to settle. He can’t. He checks his breath into his cupped hand. He hasn’t done that since he was a teenager. He’s all jitter. Now it’s nine minutes past. Where is she? Perhaps this was a bad idea. Maybe she has bottled out?
&n
bsp; Just as he starts to seriously doubt the wisdom of this whole enterprise, she appears by the bar and heads straight toward him, twinkling and smiling all the way. He wishes he could halt time and freeze this moment or at least see it in slow motion, so that it could last longer.
In the gorgeous flesh, Nicole Kidman is so much more than he imagined, and what he imagined was pretty stunning. Tall, elegant, alabaster skin, pale red hair, dark red lips, an unequivocal beauty.
‘Thomas?’ she asks as she approaches him. He can’t believe his name is on her luscious lips.
‘Indeedy,’ he replies, and immediately cringes at how fake and over jocular that sounds. What an idiot.
‘Lovely to meet you. Sorry I’m late, it’s all a bit hectic …’ He immediately warms to how friendly and real and Australian she is.
‘No. Seriously. No. I don’t mind waiting … all night if needs be …’ Shut up, Thomas! How has he managed to sound both needy and reprimanding all at once? Get a grip, man, and be normal, like her. Breathe and be normal, come on!
‘And sorry about this ridiculous dress’ – indicating the strapless bejewelled sky-blue chiffon floor-length number she’s wearing. Typically male, Thomas hasn’t even noticed, so beguiled by her is he – ‘but I’m just off to the premiere of this film I did last year. That’s why I’m in New York. Home again tomorrow …’
‘Right, yes, home, to … Australia?’
‘No, I live in Nashville.’
‘Tennesee, yee ha!’ Thomas can’t believe quite how much of a cretin he’s become in the last three minutes. He really must shut the eff up. He decides quickly that the only way to redeem himself is to tell it like it is. So he begins, ‘OK Miss Kidman, may I call you Nicole?’ She nods. ‘Nicole,’ he continues, ‘first of all, I want to say thank you for agreeing to meet me, I know that George asked you as a favour …’
‘I love George, and he spoke so highly of you,’ she says.