CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Auckland, New Zealand
Audrey Templeton leaned down to the sock puppet on her left hand, pretended to listen closely to something it was saying and then turned and smiled broadly at the two hundred wriggling children sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her. She’d been in the shopping centre since four p.m., three hours and five performances ago now, and was nearly fainting with hunger and exhaustion. She still managed to summon up the bright cheery voice the children expected as she continued her conversation with the puppet.
‘That’s right, Bobbie! We’ve got time for just one more song, haven’t we? Will you sing this one with me, children? It’s Bobbie’s favourite, my favourite, and I bet you all know the words too! Ready?’
Behind her, a large screen flickered through a range of colours and the words If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands appeared, with a bouncing ball guiding the squirming children through the song.
‘Another day, another dollar, another two thousand hysterical six-year-olds,’ her production manager, James, said ten minutes later, as he escorted her into what her contract dictated should be ‘a comfortable dressing-room area’. In this case it was a storage room with a tiny mirror, lit by what was also clearly a borrowed bedside lamp.
She really did wish James wouldn’t be so cynical all the time. ‘They seemed to enjoy it, that’s the main thing.’
‘Audrey, kids have no taste. They’d enjoy it if you rolled Bobbie into a ball and kicked him around for two hours.’
She pretended to cover Bobbie’s nonexistent ears with her hand. ‘Don’t listen to the nasty man, Bobbie. Those children love you. Their parents love you. Greg and I love you.’
‘I love you too, Bobbie,’ James said with a sigh. ‘Blame it on my hangover. I dreamed of Hollywood once, you know. The West End. Even Bollywood. And where am I? Trapped in overheated shopping centres week after week after week.’
Audrey decided she’d had enough of James for one day. She checked her watch. Just past seven p.m. ‘Have you seen Greg? He thought he’d be here by now.’
James shook his head. ‘Your phone rang a couple of times during the show, though. Maybe he’s caught in traffic. In that fifteen-minute rush hour we get here if we’re lucky.’
Audrey ignored that as well and fished for her phone. There were two missed calls. She frowned as she saw the name of the caller. Not her husband, Greg, but her sister Charlotte. Charlotte never rang just for a chat. Audrey’s immediate thought was a bad one. Her parents. Something had happened to one of her parents. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to James, moving outside the door again. A sudden squeal from the remaining children brought her hurriedly back.
‘You might find it’s quieter out that other door,’ James said. ‘Here, give me Bobbie.’
She held out her arm obediently as James peeled off the now sweaty puppet.
‘Air him a little before you pack him away, would you? It was like a sauna out there today,’ she said, before going out through the back door and pressing the redial button. As she waited for it to connect, she tried to calculate the time in Chicago. If Charlotte was in Chicago, of course. She might already be in London, if the news was truly bad.
The call went straight to voicemail. ‘This is Charlotte Templeton, CEO of Templeton Nanny Services, the award-winning nanny training and placement agency and number-one provider of childcare and governess education in the Midwest. For a full service tailored to the needs of your family, or to receive details of our award-winning training courses, just call our toll-free line. Alternatively, leave me a message and I’ll return your call as soon as humanly possible.’
Humanly possible? Audrey thought. As apart from what? She sighed as she waited for the extended commercial to come to an end. Finally, the beep sounded. ‘Charlotte, it’s me, Audrey. Is everything all right? I’m off stage now. Call when you can, okay?’
Once the thought of something having happened to Henry or Eleanor was there, though, she couldn’t wait until she heard back. She did a quick calculation of the time difference. Early morning in England. She rang Gracie’s mobile number. Also a voicemail. A normal one at least: ‘This is Gracie. Please leave a message.’
‘Gracie, it’s Audrey. Is everything all right with everyone? I missed two calls from Charlotte. Can you ring me back?’
She scrolled down to Spencer’s number, pressed the call button, then cancelled it. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to Spencer. She rarely was.
She jumped then as the phone rang. Not Charlotte or Gracie, but her husband. She smiled. ‘Hi, darling.’
‘How did you go? They screamed themselves hoarse looking for encores? I’m about ten minutes away. I’ve picked up dinner. And don’t tell me you have to pack up first. That’s what we pay lazy James to do. And I’ll ring him and tell him that myself. See you soon, darling.’
‘You too, sweetheart.’ She was still smiling as she started taking off her make-up. Her dearest, darling Greg. What would she do without him?
She’d been asking herself the same question for years. What would her life have been like if her mother hadn’t taken her to Greg’s consulting room that day? Would she be in some kind of institution by now? Locked behind walls of silence? ‘Out of darkness comes light,’ one of her favourite quotes said and it was so true in her case. What were those terrible silent years she’d endured if not a kind of darkness of the soul – and she had endured them, she hadn’t been making it all up, no matter what Charlotte said.
It was like thinking of another person, not herself, looking back to that time of her life. She could still recall the terrible night of the stage fright, the humiliation, the terror, that awful blankness, like nothing she had ever experienced before or again. What choice had she had, but to retreat into herself, to try to block out the world in whatever way possible?
‘Selective mutism’ it was called, she now knew that much. There had been nothing selective about it in her case, though.
Even now, so many years later, she could summon up the feeling of safety and yes, even peace that choosing to be silent had given her. It had taken so much pressure off. Everyone’s expectations had suddenly been lowered. And all right, if she was to admit it only to herself, she’d quite enjoyed all the attention it brought her too. Attention without any response needed on her part. She never meant to worry her family, her mother especially. Of course she hadn’t. If she’d truly been able to speak normally, she would have, and saved her mother all those years of concern and research into treatments. But the mind was a puzzling thing, as Audrey herself had been told many times by different specialists and doctors.
And it could have been so much worse, couldn’t it? She might have turned to drink or drugs like Hope. She might have started self-harming. Developed an eating disorder. In the scheme of things, her subconscious decision to simply stop talking, to block out the world through silence, was in many ways the kindest thing she could have done to her family. Even Gracie had told her once how much she loved the notes Audrey used to write, hadn’t she? And her father had often told her how peaceful it was to have her around. She had been in pain, yet she had managed to keep the pain to herself, unselfishly. Not that Charlotte had given her any credit. Or Spencer. They’d both been so impatient with her, even after she’d made the decision, and yes, the incredible effort, to communicate with her family at home. ‘If you can talk to us, then why can’t you talk to everyone else?’ It wasn’t as simple as that. They just didn’t understand. Nobody did.
Until Greg came into her life. She could still remember her first appointment with him, at an alternative therapy centre in Shepherd’s Bush. She was twenty-two. Greg was on the floor, surrounded by pieces of Lego, when she entered his room. She was surprised at how young he was, late twenties or early thirties, his round face making him look even more youthful. All the other specialists she had seen had been in their fifties and sixties, in suits and ties, not in T-shirts and jeans like this man. He smil
ed at her first, then at her mother and then very nicely, in his soft New Zealand accent, told her mother that he and Audrey would get on just fine together if she wanted to wait outside.
‘I’ve read your file, Audrey,’ Greg said, still on his hands and knees on the floor. ‘You haven’t spoken to anyone except your family for over six years now, is that right?’ He didn’t wait for her to nod or to suddenly start speaking, like some of the other specialists had done. ‘I’m sure you’ve got your reasons and maybe one day you’ll tell me about them, but for now, can you help me fix this mess up? I had a little boy in here and I had the bright idea to build a castle while we had a chat, except it didn’t go so well. More of a ruined castle than an actual castle. Unless that was what he had in mind in the first place.’
She got down on to the floor with him, and he chatted away to her, asking her questions requiring only a nod or a shake of her head, until they had tidied up all the bricks. He paused then, and that’s when she’d waited for the usual questions: ‘So, tell me, Audrey, what is it? What happened? Why won’t you speak? Shall I get you some paper and you can write it down for me?’
Instead, he upended the tub of bricks again, smiled at her and said, ‘You and I are much more mature. Shall we try and build a proper castle together instead?’
Forty minutes later, her appointment was over and the castle only half built. She looked at it, looked at him, said nothing, but he seemed to read her mind. ‘It’s a shame not to finish it, isn’t it? Will you come back tomorrow? Around eleven?’
They finished the castle the next day. The following week, she had another two appointments with him. They painted landscapes together. The following week, it was puppetry. Another week, pottery. ‘I never actually did any medical training,’ he said, in the gentle constant chatter that formed the soundtrack of the hour they spent together. ‘I actually wanted to be an art teacher, then I got interested in people’s minds as well as their eyes and hands. And I realised that everything in this world comes down to creativity in some ways, doesn’t it? Bridges wouldn’t be built if someone didn’t first imagine them. Or roads. Or skyscrapers. Books, plays, films, poems. Even wars and coups and crimes, none of it would happen if people hadn’t first imagined life a different way. That’s what you can do too, you know. Imagine a different life for yourself.’
At their session in the twelfth week, she spoke. He asked her how she was. She said, ‘Fine, thank you.’ He didn’t react, didn’t send up a flare. He simply nodded, said he was glad to hear that and then they started on that week’s art project – a colourful collage of paper and paint. Her mother was so happy when Greg told her. The following week she spoke three sentences as they prepared a spring window box together, pushing tulip and snowdrop bulbs into the brown soil.
The following week, in addition to her regular weekday appointments, Greg suggested a Saturday outing as well. Only if her mother approved, he said. Her mother did. Over the next three months they went somewhere together every Saturday: to Hyde Park one week, Covent Garden another, to Oxford for a day trip, a cruise on the Thames, to the Tate Gallery. They rode on the Tube, took taxis, walked and caught buses and trains. It was Audrey who thanked drivers, asked for tickets or directions and suggested where they went next.
Four months after she’d spoken to him for the first time, he told her that he was sorry but he needed to hand her therapy over to another of his colleagues.
‘But why?’ she’d answered in the soft voice she was still learning to use. ‘Don’t you like me any more?’
‘That’s the problem, Audrey. I more than like you. Actually, I think I’m in love with you. So ethically I can’t treat you any more.’
Charlotte was Outraged of Chicago as soon as she heard. ‘He should be struck off the medical register,’ she’d said to their mother. ‘He’s obviously taken advantage of her. Sue him. Or I will if you won’t.’ She was only mildly appeased when she learnt Greg actually wasn’t on any medical register. ‘What? Alternative clinics can just spring up like mushrooms in Britain these days? What’s happening over there?’
So many good things, one after the other. Their engagement. Their move to Manchester when Greg was offered a position in a clinic there. Their wedding day, their own special day, the two of them together, their only witnesses two people from the registry office, both of whom had no difficulty hearing her clear, happy tones repeating the vows. It was the closest they could get to eloping. There’d been no question of a church wedding. Greg was not only far from home and family, but had been brought up without any religion. As for herself, she didn’t want the drama of trying to get her parents into a church together. It was her big day. She didn’t want it hijacked in any way.
After the expected rumblings about denying the family a big day out, Charlotte gave her blessing, though Audrey was forced to endure her questionable humour at first. ‘Married? How on earth did you say “I do” when you needed to?’ Now Audrey was speaking again, Charlotte found it endlessly hilarious to make jokes about her silent days.
Gracie was nothing but welcoming and friendly to Greg, of course. Audrey couldn’t remember if Spencer had been friendly to Greg or not. He hadn’t been around a lot then, or if he was, he was usually too out of it to say much.
Once Eleanor had got over the fact that it was ethically all right for Audrey to not just have fallen in love with her therapist, but also to have married him, she seemed only happy for her. As for her father … ‘Shouldn’t I meet him before we get married?’ Greg had asked once. ‘Not to get his permission, but to at least introduce myself?’
That had been easier said than done. None of them was ever sure where their father actually was. ‘He’s travelling for work’, was the catch-all phrase they used. In the UK, in America, Asia, wherever the work was. Their mother never referred to him, though as far as Audrey knew, he was still sending her regular cheques. She’d opened one of his letters by accident and had been taken aback by the amount. She’d dared to mention it to her mother, daring also to wonder why she was still living in an ordinary part of London if Henry was sending this kind of money as maintenance. Her mother’s angry reaction had startled her.
‘I’m supporting myself, Audrey. The money your father is sending has nothing to do with maintenance. And believe me, those cheques are just a drop in the ocean.’
Greg had asked her once if her parents would get divorced and she’d been a bit embarrassed to admit she didn’t know. She also couldn’t really remember if she’d been that upset when they announced they were formally separating. She’d had so much going on herself at the time, after all, so many different sorts of treatment. All of it leading up to meeting Greg. Her darling Greg.
Their adventures hadn’t stopped with their surprise wedding. They’d been married for just a few months when she noticed Greg getting so homesick, talking wistfully about the scenery and freedom of his childhood, about how he was getting more bothered by the crowds everywhere, long travelling times, the constant grey skies. He also made New Zealand sound so beautiful, so unspoilt. So very, very alluring …
She brought it up one morning as they were having breakfast. While he was working, she was volunteering in the art therapy room of a local hospital. It was his suggestion that she not go back to study or try full-time work yet. There was plenty of time for that down the track, he’d told her.
She saw the immediate positive reaction in his eyes, and also noticed how quickly he tried to hide it. ‘But what about your family?’ he asked her. ‘How could you leave them?’
Easily, she realised. She was much happier with Greg than she’d ever been with her family. She thought it best to put it a little differently, however. ‘I’ll be happy wherever you are, and if you’d be happier in New Zealand, I would be too.’
Their flights to Auckland were just a few months off when Gracie, Spencer and Tom had the accident in Italy. It had been so sad. Poor Tom. Poor Gracie too, of course. Audrey could only imagine how guilty she must feel.
At Greg’s urging, Audrey offered to delay the trip to New Zealand, but her mother thankfully insisted she and Greg shouldn’t change their plans. Spencer was already on the mend, Gracie would only recover in her own time and in her own way, her mother told her. There was nothing anyone could do but let time do its work. ‘Go, Audrey. It’s time you lived your own life.’
And so she had. The following month would mark their eighth year here in Auckland. Eight happy years. They had a beautiful house in Ponsonby, all light and glass and close to so many excellent restaurants and art galleries, and an even more beautiful weekend house on Waiheke Island, with its wonderful scenery and boutique vineyards, just a short ferry ride away. They’d talked about having a baby but decided the parenting life really wasn’t for them. They had so much to do with children in their work life, after all. Their wonderful, successful work life. She still sometimes needed to pinch herself about how that had all turned out so wonderfully for her as well. All due to Greg too, of course.
He’d seen the ad in the paper about auditions for a local theatre group six weeks after they arrived. ‘Just try it. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to go again.’ The group were casting for their annual children’s pantomime, that year a mixture of actors and puppets. The catch was the actors had to supply their own puppets and write their own material.
‘What do I know about puppets?’ she wailed that night at home.
‘You just keep it simple and colourful,’ Greg said. ‘Like this, watch.’ There and then, he pulled out a long orange football sock from his chest of drawers, dragged it over his hand and started a funny, playful conversation with it.
‘A sock puppet?’ Audrey said. ‘Are you mad?’
At Home with the Templetons Page 35