Behind the depression of this afternoon comes the anger that has to bubble out. It bubbles out slowly as she begins to feel the unfairness of a society – of men – who demand monogamy. Why in God’s name, is it so damned important at the end of the day? She was – has been – genuinely fond of Bill; yes, in her own way she loved him. She could have seen life going on much as it was, indefinitely. What she does with the ‘Mr Anybodys’ of the world is different. It simply does not impinge, as far as she is concerned, on her feelings for Bill and the time she spends with him.
She knows that it is over as far as she and Bill are concerned. He was so cold and unreachable in his office, so impervious to her presence. It was a different Bill who told her to leave from the one whom she knew till that moment. It was impossible for her to reach out to him. She guesses that that will not change now. What there was is gone. It is over. Bill did not hate her. He was indifferent and that, she knows is the opposite of love. Ironically, this is not what she wants.
In these minutes, her anger for Bill comes to the fore. It is anger for a man who does not have the vision to see beyond the conventional world of conventional relationships. They could have had such a good, free life if he had given her the opportunity to be in an open relationship with him. Her feelings swing round. If it can be over for him, she can make it over for her.
And he must have spied on her – that was unforgivable. How else could he have known Alberto’s surname? At the end of the day, Bill engaged Shand. Maybe it was a double standard on her part, but she told Bill that she was faithful to him. He should have believed her.
She faces the loss of Bill painfully enough, sitting there as a band of rain comes in from the sea and lashes the windscreen. It is even harder to face the solitude that goes with this loss. There will be no late night or early morning telephone calls, no regular sleepovers, or lunches, no appointments in the diary to give a structure to the future. There will be nothing to resist and push against in someone else’s attentions. There is no one who genuinely cares. It is one thing to resist someone - quite another to have no one to resist.
She is alone - utterly alone. And she is disgraced in the public eye. This is to be her future. She knows it. Sitting in her car, she cries, the tears those of pure despair. As her tears turn to sobs, her child takes over and Susan wants to see her dead parents. She cries out, and utters only one word – “Dad”.
The rain moves away inland and the sea begins to calm as the tide drops. Sometime later, Susan sits more quietly as if in her own calm after her own storm. Susan Blakely has finally looked at herself and knows just who she is and who she will continue to be. Recognition has preceded resolution. She comes out of the afternoon, not broken, not saddened but quieter and stronger. In her own way, she has survived. She has adjusted. She has accepted who she is. She turns her loss of aspirations for her life to acceptance – cold, cold acceptance. Her smattering of school day French comes back to her - ‘je suis ce que je suis’.
To outward appearances, her life will not look that different. She will not be seeing Bill, of course, but it has been only two years after all, since that friendship started. She will continue with the TV series until the end of the contract. In the meantime, she has some thinking to do about what she wants career-wise after that. She will use the winter to decide on her options. Alberto will ring. She will see him. Why not? If this is to be her life, the life of a single, career driven woman, she will take it as it comes and on her own terms. She will enjoy her freedom and use it exactly as she chooses.
She is not happy but then, she is not unhappy either. As she adjusts her make-up and turns the ignition to drive back to the city, she thinks, “I just am what I am; that’s all”.
As she draws away from the quiet seaside road and heads to the city by-pass, she decides that she does not want to spend the evening alone. She is feeling OK and does not want to dwell any further on her thoughts of the afternoon.
She pulls the car over, lifts her mobile and rings Linda. Can she come round in an hour or so and spend some of the evening there? Linda is eager to see her, Susan can tell that, and very serious. No, Susan declines, she will not have supper with the family. She will see Linda soon.
She chooses a roadside pub, a multiple with a reasonable reputation for British food and sits over a glass of wine and the menu to give time for her face to lose its slight puffiness. It will also give the Pilar family time to eat. She does not expect it to be exactly a jolly occasion between Linda and Ken and the later she leaves it, the more chance there will be that Ken will be downstairs with the children and that she can talk alone by Linda’s bedside.
She heads over to the bar and orders the fish of the day with boiled potatoes and salad. While she waits for her meal, she scans the headlines of the City Tribune. There has been a multiple car pile up with one fatality in the early morning fog; a campaign is being mounted to stop the runway extension at the airport and parents associations at several schools are amalgamating to lobby for the education authority to insist that homosexual teachers should declare their orientation at any interviews for employment - the city, she thinks to herself, is heading for a bitter campaign of polarised opinions on that one.
It is nearly eight when she drives up to the Pilars’ front door. Tina answers the double fronted door and shows Susan in to the hall. Linda is in bed and Susan is to go on up. There is no sign of Ken. She sees the children through the open lounge door and spends a few minutes in idle banter with them before climbing the broad stairs and making for Linda’s bedroom. She calls out ‘Hi’ as she taps on the open door and Linda greets her likewise.
Linda looks well, she thinks, as she hugs her and puts the supermarket flowers she has bought on the bed. Linda wants to know how Susan is coping after the adverse publicity and Susan reassures her that she is OK - better than she thought she might feel, thanks in part to her boss. She does not want to be drawn further just yet and says they can talk more another time. Susan wants to hear how Linda is doing.
“And where’s Ken?” she asks.
“Downstairs in the study, Susan. Close the door, will you? There’s a war going on here and I need some advice.”
Susan does so and sits on a chair by the bed as Linda tells her that she is about to be ‘outed’ by the papers. Linda put the phone down on the journalist, Sarah King, and has spent most of the time since worrying about what to do. She eventually decided to ring Sarah King just before the children came home from school. Susan’s thoughts go straight back to the article she has just read in the City Tribune, She knows, but does not say, that Linda has cause to fear both papers, the local city paper and the national tabloid.
The journalist tried to pump Linda again about Jane and there was a fair amount of vying for information in the call. Linda eventually gleaned that the paper intends to lead tomorrow with a political piece on the University, stating that homosexuality among students and lecturers alike is causing concern to the University’s governing body, to students’ parents, if not to students, and to the University’s spiritual leaders including the chaplain. Linda and Jane, Linda assumes, will be named. Sarah King did not say whether they would be exposed but it does not take a genius to work out that this is about to happen. Linda sounds bitter, and defeated.
A copy of the City Tribune is on the bed. Linda points at it and asks Susan if she has seen it. Susan knows that Linda is referring to the article on homosexuality and that the fact that media are now likely to run a major piece of journalism on the subject. She nods gravely to indicate that she has seen the article and that the situation is not good for her friend. Susan knows that this is going to be a different sort of expose than the one she has just experienced. This is going to be a story that will run and run and in which personalities, with her friend possibly at the centre of the outcry, will be trapped as the thing gathers its momentum.
“Does Jane know about it?”
“I haven’t been in touch. Do you think I should ring her?” L
inda asks, her eyes somehow pleading.
Susan nods.
“You do that and if I hear Ken coming upstairs, I’ll go out and divert him. OK?”
Linda lifts the phone and rings the number. It is the answer phone. She does not leave a message.
“There are some things you don’t leave on tape.”
Susan agrees.
“Do the kids know any of this, Linda?”
Linda gives her a grimace.
“That’s why Ken and I are not speaking. I decided today that it’s now inevitable that I’m going to be exposed. The children need to be forewarned. Ken won’t hear of it. At the moment, he’s sulking in the study. I haven’t told him everything but anyone with any sense can see that the children have to be told. He’s adamant. We had as big a row as I can ever remember - well, as big a row as you can have quietly with two children in the house.”
Susan smiles slightly.
“So, what does Ken think should happen, then?” This seems the obvious next question to Susan.
“It’s half term next week and he thinks all he has to do is take the children out of school tomorrow and over to Spain for a couple of weeks. It’s crazy - even if he protected them for a couple of weeks, they are still going to find out.”
“And if they are going to find out, better that it comes from you than from the papers. God knows what spin they’ll put on it.” Susan is talking as much to herself as to Linda.
“Quite.”
As Linda says this, the door opens and Ken is there. Susan dismisses a thought that he has been listening at the door. He looks nothing if not confrontational but steadies himself to hold on to some degree of cold politeness towards Susan.
“Ken. Hello.” Susan goes over to him and kisses his cheek, keen to defuse the moment. She does not relish this scenario of being caught between husband and wife but decides, nonetheless, on forthrightness.
“Linda has been telling me about the press. This could be tough all round.”
“You would know, Susan, wouldn’t you, after this morning? Perhaps none of this,” he waves a hand at the plaster on Linda’s legs as he speaks, “Perhaps none of this would have happened if you had been slightly more conventional in your morals, Susan.”
Ken sits down on the sofa opposite the bed. Susan has the grace to look slightly embarrassed at the mention of the article but manages to remain assertive - she is not going to be put off stroke.
“Yes, I would know, Ken, and thankfully I’ve only got myself to consider. It’s different for Linda. She has Angela and Kenny.” She turns to look at Linda to seek her approval to continue and then goes on as Linda nods. “Linda believes that it would be better if the children heard about this from her or from both of you.”
Ken shows an obdurate side to himself that Susan has not seen before.
“There will be no one telling my children anything except myself. And I will decide when they are told anything. And what they will be told.” He looks at Linda, threatening, almost. He continues, as if to ease the force of what he has just said.
“Angela is too young to understand any of this. But this is anathema, Susan. How do you imagine Kenny will take this?”
Susan feels her anger well inside her but contains it. She looks at Linda who is looking defeated and helpless in the bed, before confronting Ken.
“They will both take it much as you present it to them. Ken, listen to me. There is nothing wrong with two women loving each other. It’s as simple as that. And that, Ken, is what the children need to hear. You may not like it, Ken, because it’s your wife. But that’s a different matter. No one wants his or her partner to care for someone else. Fair enough. But children can be helped to understand that adults can love more than one person. It’s not as if the children are losing either of you, Ken. Linda and you are staying together, aren’t you? The children need to hear that from both of you.”
“Your morals hardly put you in a position to comment, Susan, if I may say so.” Ken rises from the sofa and turns towards the door, as he says this.
Susan retaliates, unable to suppress her own anger.
“This is no time to be getting back at Linda through the children. And that is precisely what you are doing, Ken.”
There is silence, the air filled with Ken’s wrath. He turns and marches out, slamming the door behind him.
“I have made things worse, Linda.”
“No. Just brought them out into the open. That’s how bad things are.” Linda shuts her eyes wearily. Susan comes over to the bedside.
“Linda, you have to tell the children yourself. You don’t have a choice. And Ken can’t bully you into silence. Nor can you let him take them away from you. Not just now. You are their mother, for God’s sake. You have to tell them and quickly, before the papers do.”
Susan watches Linda rally and strengthen, once again. She knows now her friend will talk to the children.
“Call them, Susan, would you?”
Susan goes in to the hall and down the stairs. She enters the lounge where Ken and Tina are sitting with the children. Ken is pretending to be reading a medical journal.
“Your Mum wants to see you, Angela and Kenny.”
The children know from Susan’s voice that there is no question of saying they will go up after the TV programme finished. They look at their father who puts the magazine down and clearly realizes what is about to happen. He takes a few moments to think. He is not going to stop the children going upstairs. But they are not going alone.
He gets up with a glare at Susan.
“I’ll come with you, Chaps. Let’s go and see what your mother wants. Tina, can you show Susan out when she is ready to go.” He does not look at Susan again before leaving the room. Tina watches the whole thing, silently aware that something serious is happening. She looks at Susan when the others had gone out of the room.
“You’d better ask Linda,” is all Susan says. She gives Tina a grave smile and heads out to her car. It occurs to her that she might just have done some good for her friend and her children. It is a good feeling.
CHAPTER 27
Ken lands the papers on the bed without a word. There is nothing about Linda and Jane in it. A quiet descends on the house as Ken takes the high moral ground that the children have been needlessly involved and upset. Meanwhile the whole family let the events of the previous evening sink in in their own individual ways.
Linda sits in bed now, cuddling an apparently oblivious Angela – oblivious except for the fact that she seems to have regressed by several years overnight. Neither Ken nor Kenny has much to say this morning and Tina tells Linda later in the morning that father and son have gone off to the river to fish. If Tina is au fait with the situation, she says nothing but Linda strongly suspects that she is aware, at very least, that the family is in deep crisis.
As Angela sits beside her on the bed and absorbs herself in the morning TV programmes for schools, Linda lets her mind drift to Jane and to the likely consequences for her junior colleague if the press carries out their stated intention to publish. She knows that Jane is young, and culturally and professionally mobile. Her credentials will guarantee her employment elsewhere if she chooses to run from any scandal that the press creates for them both. Despite her ability to survive, the implications for Jane of a press exposé could still be serious. She could have a difficult time in the workplace just through the attitudes of some people towards homosexuality. And she would suffer at the hands of her peers because she involved herself with her boss. Linda does not know what overt or covert pressure the University as Jane’s employer might put her under. If that happened, there would be little or nothing that Linda could do to protect her.
Then there is Harry, Jane’s brother. Linda suspects that Harry will be supportive. But what a dreadful thing for a brother to have to do – support a younger sister who is being dragged through the gutter press. She wonders too, what brother and sister will do about Jane’s nearly estranged parents. Can such an ex
posé be kept from them, across a continent in Colorado? And are Jane’s parents not due to make a trip to the city to see Jane later in the autumn? Linda remembers Jane sitting on a beach in Llanes, wondering about the wisdom of introducing Linda when they visit. That seems to be small beer now.
Despite the strong temptation to do so and despite her feelings in the hospital, Linda has not contacted Jane. Something tells her not too, even though she did make an unsuccessful call when Susan was with her. She desperately wants to speak to Jane and to warn her but something holds her back. It is not just the fear of Ken’s reaction if he finds that the two women were in touch. It is something to do with the fear that their relationship, so perfect till the press got a hold of it, might now look sullied and dangerous in Jane’s eyes. She wonders if there is any realistic possibility after press involvement that Jane will wait for her. It was a big enough thing to ask before all this hung over them. But Jane now has her career, the rest of her life, and her family to consider. Or at least, she will soon enough. In all these circumstances, she can hardly be expected to just suspend her life until Linda is free.
The very best that Linda can hope for - and here, this morning, it seems a pretty forlorn hope - is that Jane will somehow manage to stay in her job and complete her research. That would give Linda some continuing contact with her. It does not occur to her to want to sever the tie. That is not an emotional option for Linda. No, She can only hope that Jane’s commitments that she talked about - finishing the Hebrides research, writing it up and then writing a book for American children who know about ancient times only through cartoons - will hold her to the University and close to Linda for the next academic year. Perhaps by then they will have managed to weather whatever storm is coming.
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