by Liz Byrski
‘Not really, just five days,’ Polly says.
‘Hmm. Well it felt longer.’ She takes a punt: ‘Alistair okay?’
‘He was when I last spoke to him a couple of weeks ago,’ Polly says.
This doesn’t help; it simply eliminates the possibility of Polly having been in Bali.
‘What are you looking for?’ Polly asks. ‘Can I can help?’
‘A black and gold box . . .’ Stella says, then hesitates. ‘No, no, not that, I got that down recently. It’s a red photograph album I’m looking for, it belonged to Nancy.’
‘What about the spare room?’ Polly says. ‘Shall I have a look in there?’
‘Good idea.’ Stella shivers, the evenings are getting cold now, and she goes to a lower drawer where she spots the faded, kingfisher blue shawl that Annie crocheted for her more years ago than she can remember. Holding the soft wool to her face Stella breathes in the familiar scent. Somehow, irrespective of how long it lies in the drawer or how frequently she washes it, the scent seems unchanged. It is the scent of the past, not a tired, musty smell, but the scent of memories, as though somehow her dearest friend had worked their memories into the shawl by magic. Stella holds it up to her face and, as always, the past enfolds her, a past that only she can recall because everyone who was a part of it is now gone. She breathes in again, holding the memories.
‘It’s not here,’ Polly calls from the spare bedroom.
And Stella hears the cupboard door close, opens her eyes and spots the corner of the photo box jutting out from under the bed. ‘It’s here,’ she calls. ‘I’ve found it,’ and she pulls out the box and carries it through to the sitting room.
‘Weren’t we looking for an album?’ Polly asks.
‘An album? Yes, a red one, did you find it?’
Polly shakes her head. ‘No sign of it, but I remember that box. Didn’t one of your numerous old lovers send you something lovely in it?’
Stella laughs. ‘There weren’t that many lovers! But yes, a rather dashing man called Harry turned up outside the theatre in Melbourne in a chauffeur driven car, whisked me off to his suite at The Windsor and gave me this box. In it was a silk nightdress and kimono, swathed in masses of tissue paper. It all seemed very glamorous. Those were the days!’
Polly smiles. ‘What photo did you want to find?’
Stella’s mind has gone blank. ‘Er . . . well I . . .’
‘Maybe one of Annie? You mentioned her earlier.’
‘Ah yes, well there might be one in the box.’ And she lifts a handful of photographs from the box with a strange feeling that she has seen them quite recently but can’t remember when. ‘When I first met Annie I felt that she knew who I was, who I really was. That doesn’t happen often, does it? Mostly people see what they’re looking for, what they want to see, but Annie knew who I was from the very first day. It was like when we met, d’you remember?’
Polly nods. ‘I do, you were standing in that converted hangar we used for the second series of Blood Ties, up the end where they’d set up the canteen. I could smell sausage rolls and I saw you there, a cup of tea in one hand and a sausage roll in the other.’
‘That’s it, and you said, “If that’s the last sausage roll, Miss Lamont, I will have to kill you off in the next episode” . . .’
‘And you choked laughing and spat bits of pastry all over the place.’
‘And we both laughed our heads off and somehow I knew you knew who I really was, I knew we could be great friends.’ Stella sighs with pleasure at the memory.
‘I think we should keep that anecdote to ourselves when someone writes your biography,’ Polly says. ‘We should find something a little more dignified and appropriate to your status on the silver screen.’
‘Rubbish,’ Stella says. ‘I like it. We laughed and in that moment we knew each other. It hasn’t happened to me for a long time, not you either probably.’
‘Well it did actually happen recently, with Leo.’
‘Who?’
‘Leo, I’ve just been to see him in Hong Kong, remember?’
Stella closes her eyes then shakes her head, embarrassed, and confused.
‘I met him in Edinburgh,’ Polly says.
‘I thought you said Hong Kong . . .’
‘Yes but . . .’ Polly pauses, ‘oh look, it doesn’t matter. But what you said about being recognised for who you are – you’re right, it’s really important.’
Stella nods. ‘It’s a first eye contact thing. You can always tell. It happened to me once with a man. I felt immediately that he saw me for myself.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘Well did he . . . see who you were?’
‘Sadly he saw the part of me that was vulnerable to successful older men. It was a disaster. I don’t think it works with men.’
‘Oh I think it does, at least I hope it does.’
‘Well don’t rely on it.’
They both sit in silence now and it is Polly who finally breaks it.
‘Stella,’ she says, ‘do you think it would be a good idea to make an appointment to see Derek?’
Stella looks up. ‘Derek the doctor? Whatever for, are you sick?’
Polly shakes her head. ‘No, no, I meant for you.’
‘Why? There’s nothing wrong with me.’
‘Well just before I went away we were a bit concerned about your memory . . . you were having trouble with your lines . . .’
‘Was I? Well I learned them while you were away and you said you’d help. Now you’re back you can start drilling me. I’m a bit forgetful but if I can still remember the day we met, and when Annie and I met, which is even longer ago, there can’t be much wrong with my memory.’
*
By the Friday morning of her first week on the course Joyce is feeling the strain. She is unbearably tired; it’s only her determination not to be defeated by it, and her recognition that every one of the other seventeen people on the course is equally tired, that is keeping her going. Before the first session this morning, she had joined some of her fellow students in the queue for coffee in the café next door, and they had exchanged greetings with weary nods, shuffling along in silence as the line moved forward.
‘We look like prisoners going back to our cells,’ Jacqui had whispered, appearing beside her. ‘Still three weeks more of our sentence to serve.’
‘Bring on the weekend,’ Joyce had said.
‘Yeah, but we’ll have homework. You can’t believe that they’ll let us have two days without homework. I might need quite a lot of red wine to get me through that.’
‘I hit the gin last night,’ Joyce admitted. ‘I had two large G and Ts and fell asleep almost instantly without finishing my homework.’
The prospect of homework hadn’t crossed Joyce’s mind when she signed up. She’d anticipated hard, intensive work but the first real indication of what was in store had come at the end of the first day. Ewan Heathcote had come into the classroom just as the teacher wound up the class.
‘Starting tomorrow,’ he’d said, ‘you’ll learn a particular aspect of teaching each morning and be required to teach it to a class on the afternoon of the following day.’
‘Teach real fee-paying students?’ someone had asked.
‘Real students, but not fee-paying ones,’ Ewan explained. ‘We provide free classes to non-English speakers who can’t afford private fees. We let our own students teach those, supervised by a qualified teacher of course. It’s great practice for you guys, but it does mean that you learn something in the morning, go home and prepare a lesson and some teaching materials, then come back the following day, ready to go. You’ll learn something new again in the morning then teach the previous day’s learning that afternoon. So almost immediately you’re putting into practice what you’ve learned and reinforcing it.
You have the chance to find out what works and what doesn’t.’
‘So is that teaching assessed for our final marks?’ someone else asked.
Ewan nodded. ‘It is indeed. In fact everything that you do here is assessed and contributes to your final results. Most people find that after the first few days they start to enjoy it, but I warn you, we call it intensive and it is. You must do the homework – if you don’t it all starts to fall apart. So if you’re struggling come and talk to me before you fall off your perch.’
It was then that Joyce had decided that there was no way she was going to fall off her perch. She was certainly the oldest person there, although there is a man who could be in his mid-fifties, and Jacqui who, as she now knows, is forty-five. The rest seem to be in their twenties. The younger they are, Joyce has noticed, the more confident they are of being able to handle the pace. And as they’d chatted over lunch the first day a couple of them had asked her if she thought she’d be able to keep up. Irritated by their arrogance she’d been tempted to tell them to piss off and annoy someone else. But she simply smiled and said, ‘Well we’ll see, won’t we? I’ll be taking it one day at a time.’
‘Let’s get up to the classroom and grab those good seats by the window again,’ Jacqui whispers now as they leave the queue with their coffees.
‘So you’ve made it,’ Ewan says once they are all in their seats. ‘The last day of your first week; well done for sticking with it so far. I need to tell you that a couple of people have already withdrawn, so if anyone else here is feeling wobbly and wants to come and have a chat with me about it at lunch time . . .?’ He looks expectantly around the classroom but there are no signs of movement. ‘Good, well done, hang in there. If you can get past the tiredness barrier and make it through to the middle of next week it means you’ll probably make it through to the end of the course.’
*
‘Ben told you what it was like,’ Mac says when Joyce calls him later that afternoon. ‘He told you about the pressure.’
‘I know,’ Joyce says. ‘I was warned, and it is really hard, the work is relentless, but I’m loving it. I’m just going to have something to eat and then I’ll start on my homework.’
‘Can’t you have an evening off?’ Mac asks. They haven’t spoken since the end of her first day, and he’s feeling cut off. Dennis has now been here for a week and despite Mac’s fondness for him he could do with a break. He is longing to get back to the silence and the freedom of setting his own pace and planning his days to suit himself. And he’s almost finished Joyce’s chair and can’t wait to give it to her.
He can hear the combination of exhaustion and elation in her voice, and remembers that feeling that came after long intense stretches in the lab, working all hours, attempting to solve some infuriating problem; there’d be a breakthrough, the elation and then the slow creep of exhaustion. It’s a good few years since he felt that and he realises, quite suddenly, that he’s unlikely to ever know that feeling again.
‘I’m encouraging Dennis to stay on here for a while,’ he says now, in an effort to change the subject. ‘He’s really knocked up and needs a rest. He offered to go to a hotel but I think it’s best if he stays here.’ As he says this he realises that he’s hoping for a specific reaction from Joyce, approval of this thoughtfulness, brownie points for being a good bloke. ‘But he can stay on here while I’m away, I’m going to come home next weekend.’
‘Oh, I’d rather you didn’t,’ she says wearily.
Mac catches his breath.
‘I would love to see you,’ Joyce says, ‘but I’d prefer to wait until the course is over.’
‘But that’s another three weeks.’
‘Yes, but I’m going to be planning lessons every evening and weekend, and it’s going to be the same right through. I need to be able to focus on this. I’ve banned Ben and Nessa and it’d be best if you stay away too, until it’s finished.’
Mac takes a deep breath. ‘You must be careful not to overdo it,’ he says, trying to sound unfazed by the fact that she doesn’t want to see him.
‘I’m not overdoing it but I am trying to stay focused. I knew it would be tough. You said that yourself.’
‘Well yes, but for Ben . . . well he had a lot hanging on it. You don’t need to take it all so seriously. It’s not as though it’s essential. You’re doing this for fun; you don’t have to pass the course, or even finish, if you find it’s too much you can always drop out.’
There is a deadly silence at the other end of the line.
‘Joyce,’ he says, ‘Joyce, are you still there? I said it doesn’t really matter, does it? Have a break. I’ll drive up next Friday, we’ll go out for a nice dinner somewhere . . .’ The quality of her silence has changed and his own voice fades away.
‘I’m not doing this for fun, Mac,’ she says. ‘I’m serious. I’m also exhausted and likely to be this way for another three weeks. This isn’t some flash in the pan thing. It’s serious, I’m serious, and I don’t need any distractions. I can’t do this and cope with anyone else around me. And I won’t be dropping out. Please don’t come home until the course is over.’
There’s a click on the line and Mac’s heart misses a beat. She has hung up on him. For the first time in forty-odd years she has hung up on him. He stares at the phone in disbelief.
Chapter Fourteen
Mid-June
Leo, back in London, is restless and irritable. A bit of jet-lag perhaps, but it’s more than that; things are just not moving along the way he assumed they would. The Relationship Thing is proving slippery. He thinks of it in capital letters as he does any major work in progress – The Book, The Channel Four Documentary, The Lecture Tour, The Symposium and now The Relationship Thing. Sitting here at his desk in the study of his Paddington apartment he should be concentrating on either The Book or The Lecture, but instead he is gazing out of the window to the street where the rain has stopped at last, leaving the pavements glistening as the sunlight slips through the branches of the trees.
Leo loves the spring when a young man’s thoughts turn to . . . well . . . turn to all the things they’ve been thinking of all winter, most of them involving sex. But of course it’s summer now and he is no longer a young man. And the practical difficulties of having a relationship with someone on the other side of the world have crystallised somewhat. Leo has always lived his life in a compartmentalised way and distance certainly makes that easier. It eliminates the risk of things – arrangements, people, commitments – leaking into each other; the boundaries are clear and well defined, and comfortably geographic. And he likes the idea of meeting in different places; it fits with his idea of the cosmopolitan lifestyle – having a home elsewhere in which he is involved but where he has no real responsibilities. It is the perfect solution to having someone in his life but not having to be with her all the time.
Things usually fall neatly into place for Leo; his professional life has developed very satisfactorily. One trip, one symposium, one residency, one op ed piece all slip neatly into another and come together on the huge wall planner in his study. He is the master of the laptop and many USBs, of the efficiently packed suitcase, the wardrobe of very expensive designer suits and shirts defines him and equips him for all climates and occasions. But as he stares up at his wall planner this morning he sees that things are thinning out, especially in the last quarter of the year.
Before leaving Hong Kong he and Polly had failed to come up with a plan to meet again. She is obviously efficient in many ways, and very good at what she does, but she works alone most of the time, her deadlines are for drafts or manuscripts and only occasionally involve travel. The fact that she had turned up in Hong Kong without her diary had shocked him.
‘But isn’t there one on your mobile phone?’ he’d asked.
‘I don’t use it,’ she’d said. ‘I prefer to have a desk diary – appointments and deadlines do
n’t seem real to me unless they’re in that.’
‘What’s the point of a mobile then?’
She’d laughed outright then. ‘The point of it,’ she’d said, ‘is that it is a phone I can take anywhere. I use it for communication, and sometimes for listening to music or podcasts, not as a diary. But as a person who doesn’t use a mobile at all you’re hardly in a position to complain! Get a phone and then we’ll argue about diaries.’
She would, she had promised, look at her commitments and her work in progress as soon as she got home. ‘We can compare diaries on Skype,’ she’d said. ‘Does that help? I do have to go back to France. I have another return airfare in my grant that I need to use before next April. Would you like to meet there? Then we could go back to your place together.’
‘Okay,’ he’d said, ‘I’d like that, but first I’d like to spend time with you in Australia.’
‘Sounds lovely,’ she’d said. ‘We’ll talk when I get home, make a plan.’
But she’s been back home for more than a week now and she hasn’t yet done it. Leo wants it nailed down, slotted into his wall planner. He is accustomed to women who make him a priority, who respond quickly to his needs; prompt attention, albeit not always compliance, has always reassured him of his relevance. Polly, he thinks resentfully, seems to have a lot of unnecessary responsibilities to her friends in Australia.
He gets up and paces the room for a while then drops down onto the sofa and lies there, gazing up at the ceiling, trying to pin down what it is that he actually wants: comfort, reassurance for the future now that age seems to be pressing down on him. He wants someone who will admire and, if necessary, care for him, who will put him first. Prince Charles seems to have got things sorted but does he really know what being in love is now, with Camilla there, always by his side? Or is he, too, still reticent, slightly puzzled, looking for solutions?