by Liz Byrski
Bonnie wondered how she would look to anyone, specifically a man, seeing her body for the first time. It was all academic anyway because she couldn’t imagine ever being naked, ever making love, with anyone else ever. At the same time, she couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life without a man. A little shiver ran through her as she thought about never having sex again. She certainly didn’t want it now, but the idea that the door was closed forever was quite scary.
She wondered if Fran had a lover. Maybe lots of sex was what accounted for her wonderful complexion, or was that just the English genes? Yes, Bonnie thought, Fran almost certainly had a lover – maybe it was the olive grower. She imagined a stocky, olive-skinned Italian, with dark hair greying at the temples, successful, earthy but sophisticated, passionate and adoring, who would send Fran flowers, take her for wonderful meals, appreciate her abundance, talk to her of love and romance. And she imagined Fran and the olive grower romping around the bedroom, laughing together at their pleasure in their own ageing but still sensuous bodies.
And what about Sylvia and Colin? It was difficult to imagine as it was so long since she’d seen him but Colin, as Sylvia spoke of him, seemed a distant, shadowy figure. Probably not a lot of romping around, perhaps a rather quiet, dignified sex life, frequent but gentle, affectionate, with the comfort of people who have grown to know each other’s likes and dislikes over the years.
She sighed and wrapped the dressing gown around her, remembering making love with Jeff, the last time just the night before he died. Strange – cruel, really – how you never knew that you were making love for the last time. She swallowed the start of a sob. While she was thankful not to be troubled by sexual urges now, what if they did return? How would she cope with it? How would she cope without being unfaithful to Jeff’s memory? If that time ever came, she thought, she would probably feel able to ask Fran’s advice. Seventeen years as a single woman probably provided lots of useful experience, mature assertive strategies for every situation.
At the other end of the house she heard the water running in Irene’s bathroom and suddenly Bonnie wondered if her mother had been celibate since she was widowed at the age of sixty-two. Even considering the alternative was so shocking that Bonnie blushed deeply and turned out the light. Surely not! Could she have? That was something she certainly didn’t want to think about. She climbed into bed in the dark and closed her eyes tightly.
David lay on the bed in his old bedroom staring at the nail in the ceiling that his father had put there years earlier, to hold a model plane. His father. He’d have to go and see him soon. David’s stomach lurched at the thought. So far he’d escaped with a phone call because Tony and Lee were both so busy. Even so, he couldn’t put it off much longer. But not this weekend anyway; he really wanted to go to that picnic. The thought of his mother and her friends and their mothers was strangely comforting. On Monday, perhaps, he’d face his father, late in the day when Tony got home from work, which would mean he could keep it short.
Everyone thought Tony was easygoing but David always found his father hard work. He had such high expectations that didn’t relate to anything David wanted for himself. There’d be an interrogation for sure. Why hadn’t he completed the contract in Qatar? Another wasted opportunity. What was he going to do now? Tony would almost certainly deliver the old lecture on how, in his day, people got a job and stuck with it, didn’t chop and change all over the place. David had tried many times to explain that he’d taken up teaching English as a second language simply so that he could chop and change, move around, live in different countries, different cities, experience different cultures. David wondered if Tony would ever let go of the academic aspirations he’d had for him since the day he was born.
He sighed and got up from the bed wondering if his pliers were still in the top drawer of the desk. There they were, just where he’d left them. He stood on the bed, reached up, pulled the irritating nail from the ceiling and tossed it in the bin, thinking about his mother. She’d been disappointed that he hadn’t been able to tuck into her food with his old enthusiasm, and he hadn’t yet summoned the courage to explain. He’d have to tell her, and tell her soon, tell both his parents. Fran would be okay – upset, of course – but she’d understand. There wouldn’t be any third degree with her but Tony was not going to be easy.
He wondered briefly if he’d tell Fran first and then maybe she’d help him tell his father, but no, he was thirty-two, for heaven’s sake; he had to deal with this himself. The first thing was to tell her, get that out of the way. Perhaps he’d wait until after the picnic. But the more he thought about it the more it seemed that he was compounding the crime of not having come clean as soon as he got back. Okay, he’d tell her before the picnic. Then tell his father, and then reorganise the Japan interview. He was pretty sure he’d get the job; he’d already had two extensive phone interviews. They didn’t want him to start until July, so he had time for all the other stuff he’d come home to do.
The car door slammed outside David’s bedroom window, and he heard Fran’s key in the front door. She was back from the olive pressing – well, this time was as good as any other. He took a deep breath and wandered down to the kitchen as Fran came in, carrying four large cans of olive oil.
‘Hi, darl, look at all this oil he gave me. Such a nice man, and it’s beautiful quality.’
David looked at the cans of oil, imagined a lot of very glossy olives floating in a glistening pool of oil, and struggled to force down the nausea.
‘Good stuff,’ he said. ‘Tea?’
‘Please,’ Fran said, putting the cans away in the cupboard. ‘I called in to see Bonnie and Irene too, about the picnic. And Bonnie’s going to help me sort out the tax thing. She’s an accountant, or at least she was, but I’m hoping it’s like riding a bike, you know – you never forget how to do it. There’s some of that lasagna left we could have tonight if that’s – ’
‘Mum,’ David cut in, jiggling the tea bag in the mug and not looking up, ‘look, about food, I’m not having a very good relationship with it at the moment, as you’ve probably noticed.’
Fran nodded vigorously as she transferred her notebook and file of slides from the benchtop to the dining table. ‘Yes, I had noticed. Change of climate, probably.’
‘No, actually it’s more than that,’ David said, and his heart began thumping so loudly that he was surprised she didn’t ask where the noise was coming from.
‘It’s fine,’ she said, only half paying attention, sorting through the transparencies of the olives. ‘You’re old enough to make up your own mind what you want to eat – ’
‘Mum, can you stop that a minute and listen, please?’
Fran looked up at him and took off her glasses. ‘What?’
David leaned against the sink, mug in hand, and looked down at his feet. ‘It’s not the food, it’s me. I’m … well … I’m sick.’
‘Sick? Some gastro thing?’
‘No, sort of seriously sick…’ He paused. ‘I’ve got Hepatitis C, Mum. It makes me nauseous a lot of the time. I know you were so pleased when I told you I don’t drink anymore – it’s because I had to stop … this just fucks up your liver and …’ The words that had been pouring out evaporated suddenly. The shock on her face was so clear that he didn’t know what to say.
David put his cup on the draining board and when he looked up again there were tears in her eyes, and she looked like she had at the airport the first time he’d gone overseas to work. Suddenly all the fear and panic he’d bottled up threatened to overwhelm him. She walked around the bench, into the kitchen, and put her arms around him. They clung together without speaking, and for the first time since he’d got the diagnosis in the hospital in Qatar, David was able to cry.
SIX
Sylvia lay flat on her back on Fran’s tartan rug staring up at the pale, cloudless sky, and holding out her glass to David, who promptly topped it up with champagne. It was, she thought, warmer than the other Mother’s
Day picnic, when her fingers had turned blue and wrinkled from staying so long in the icy water. She sat up, crossing her legs and looking around her; surprisingly little had changed about the place. She hadn’t been to this beach, to any beach, for years; she’d forgotten how good it felt to be watching the water, to smell the salt breeze and the seaweed. A seagull dived and swooped towards the picnic baskets and she watched David shoo it away. How lucky Fran was to have at least one of her children here, and how sweet David was, so much at ease with this group of women.
On Friday a parcel had arrived from England with a card and a long letter, and in silver tissue paper was a beautiful nightdress: very pale pink satin trimmed with silver grey lace. Sylvia had taken it from the tissue paper and stood in front of the mirror in her jeans and jumper, holding the nightdress against her. It was perfect, Kim had got it absolutely right, but she knew she couldn’t wear it, couldn’t get into bed beside Colin wearing this beautiful nightdress, feeling as she did. She had rewrapped it in the tissue and tucked it away in the cupboard, wondering if or when, and under what circumstances, she might feel able to put it on.
‘Your husband couldn’t come then, dear?’ Lila asked, perched above her on a canvas chair. ‘Fran said he had to work. Was it a serious operation? It must be very difficult for doctors having to rush off at all hours. I have a very nice young doctor, his name is Ahmed. I don’t suppose your husband would know him?’
‘No, Mrs Whittaker,’ Sylvia said, turning to her with a smile. ‘No, my husband’s not a doctor, he’s a clergyman, a Canon.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake, don’t call me Mrs Whittaker. It’s Lila, you know that. A Canon, really – that’s nice, although I can’t imagine why Fran told me he was a doctor.’ Lila took a sip of her champagne and waved across to Fran, who was sitting on the other rug with Bonnie. ‘Fran, Fran! Sylvia’s husband is a Canon, he’s a vicar, not a doctor at all; you got it all wrong.’
Fran rolled her eyes, smiling conspiratorially at Sylvia. ‘Sorry, Mum, silly old me.’
Sylvia rested her elbows on her knees and thought about Colin, about the affectionate, considerate way he had bent to listen when the woman spoke to him outside the cinema, and then steered her across the street. She was still numb with shock, not just that he was deceiving her but that he was doing it so blatantly. That afternoon she had caught the bus home and walked back to the house feeling not hurt, not angry, just numb and confused.
When Colin arrived home around six-thirty, self-assured, smiling, looking just as he always did after meetings or lectures or services, she had watched closely for signs of guilt or insecurity. Not the obvious lipstick-on-the-collar signs, but the more subtle ones: elation, nervousness, overcompensation. There were none. He looked totally relaxed and she wondered if this was because it was the first time and he thought he’d got away with it, or because he’d been doing it for so long that he knew he could get away with it.
‘Fascinating,’ he said with a smile when she asked him about the lecture. ‘Absolutely fascinating, lots to think about. It’s part of a series – I’m going again next week.’
‘Really, that’s nice,’ she said, curious to see if he would detect the insincerity in her tone. ‘And the meeting?’
‘Oh, fine,’ he said, thumbing through the mail. ‘Boring, you know what these things are like.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t. Tell me.’
He looked up instantly then. A sliver of insecurity flickered across his face and was rapidly replaced by a reassuring smile. ‘Just the usual community stuff – how to stretch the social welfare dollars.’
‘Oh that,’ she said, and he’d nodded and wandered off into the study, from where she heard the sound of his paperknife slicing through envelopes.
Because it was impossible for her to define how she felt, Sylvia had thought at length about what she wanted to do, and had decided that first she needed to know more. No action was the best solution until she knew just what she was dealing with, and the first step in that direction was to find out if the lecture series was real and, if not, to see what happened on the day of the next ‘lecture’. Meanwhile, she wondered how many past lectures, meetings, and pastoral visits might have served as cover for similar encounters. There were so many committees and fundraising projects, meetings and talks, that she had never queried, and why would she? And of course there were also the retreats, retreats that lasted a weekend, sometimes a whole week, during which there was no contact, no phone calls because it was time spent in thoughtful, prayerful solitude, communicating with oneself, and with God – or perhaps not.
And so, just the day before yesterday, having phoned the university and learned that there was no lecture series, Sylvia had set out, rather earlier than the previous week, to see if the two o’clock screening was a regular date. She had felt perfectly ridiculous in her hat and sunglasses, and was overwhelmed with anger at Colin for making her behave like a cliché. She hovered for a while near the front of the bookshop, picking up and putting down books and then, concerned that the staff might think her a potential shoplifter, found a seat in the nearby coffee shop, masked, she hoped, by a veranda post.
The audience from the two o’clock screening straggled out and dispersed and there was no sign of them, but as Sylvia was about to pay for the three cups of coffee that had left her hyper and twitchy, she saw them. They were walking along on the other side of Lygon Street, Colin, on this occasion, wearing a blue shirt that he usually kept in the car for those pastoral visits with people he thought might be a little intimidated by ‘the uniform’. Sylvia stared hard at the woman. She was probably in her thirties, attractive but no great beauty, with an athletic build and short blonde hair cut in layers. She was wearing a navy blue sweater and faded jeans; they were holding hands again, but this time as they paused at the lights waiting to cross the road, Colin did the most extraordinary thing. He let go of her hand and put his arm around her shoulders. He was the taller by at least six inches and he drew her closer to his side and kissed the top of her head, and with that intimate gesture he thrust a knife into Sylvia’s heart, slicing through the numbness. A gasp burst from her throat and she put a hand on the table to steady herself. The woman looked up at him and smiled and, as the lights changed, they strolled across the street, arms around each other, and turned into a side street.
Sylvia’s original intention had been to follow them if she saw them but now, reeling with shock and hurt, she left the café and wandered blindly back towards the bus stop, dredging the recesses of her memory for a time, any time, when Colin had ever demonstrated such spontaneous affection towards her. She found she had to rewind more than thirty years to recall one. He had always been acutely embarrassed by the slightest gesture of affection in public, and now here he was strolling down the street with his arm around an unknown young woman, seemingly entirely at ease with something that, even as a young man, he had always shunned. And most extraordinary of all was the fact that he was doing this openly. He knew so many people that the odds of being recognised were high. Even if he wasn’t worried that she would find out, he would surely realise that this could get back to the Dean or the Bishop. Sylvia couldn’t avoid feeling that it was somehow deliberate, as though he was challenging all of them – her, the church hierarchy, the community, everyone. Maybe even God?
Numbness had been replaced by hurt and anger, furious anger, and resentment, but Colin’s clandestine affair had also relieved her of the burden of guilt she had felt at her own disaffection. It released her from the responsibilities that had imprisoned her for years, leaving her free to act for herself, and although she didn’t yet know what she was going to do, she was absolutely sure that she was going to do something very soon. Sylvia uncrossed her legs and stretched them out in front of her, listening to Irene and David praising Lila’s ham sandwiches and, further off, to Fran and Bonnie puzzling over the long forgotten names of the others who had been at the first picnic.
‘To mothers, grandmothers
and daughters!’ David said, holding up his glass of mineral water in a toast.
‘And sons,’ Irene smiled, raising hers towards him.
And fleetingly Sylvia remembered Simon, who had been at the first picnic and whom Irene had lost. ‘And sons!’ she added, raising her glass, and the others chorused the full toast, and broke into joyful, sentimental laughter.
Fran stood up, flexing her legs to get rid of the pins and needles, transferred herself to the chair that Lila had just vacated, and watched as her mother and her son wandered towards the water’s edge. Lila was hanging on to David’s arm, telling him some long and involved story about the dances she used to go to as a young girl. They moved slowly, David guiding her across the uneven sand, his head bent to hear what she was saying, and Fran thought Lila looked smaller, as though she had shrunk. Was she actually smaller or was it simply the effect of seeing David’s youth and height alongside her? Lila was wearing a pair of purple cotton trousers, a lavender blouse, and leather pumps in a different shade of purple.
One Christmas a few years earlier, Fran had bought her mother a framed print of a poem called ‘Warning’. Lila had unwrapped the print and studied the poem for a few moments in silence and then began to read it aloud.
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple,
With a red hat that doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter …