by Liz Byrski
Sylvia settled back on the couch staring at her daughter in amazement. ‘I’ve never even thought of it. Of course, it would be lovely to be close to you and Brendan and the children but – ’
‘Exactly,’ Kim cut in. ‘You could rent somewhere nearby and we’d see you often. In fact, what I had in mind was … Mum, I’d really like to get a job and it would be brilliant if you could look after the kids, you know, meet them from school, be here for them in the holidays, all that stuff. You’d love it, and so would they, and it would be the perfect for solution for Bren and me. Please say you’ll do it, or at least think about it.’
Sylvia stared at her empty glass, unable to think straight. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know. I’d have to have a job, so how could I do that and look after the children? And it’s a big thing, moving to a new country, my whole life …’
‘But your life is sort of gone now, isn’t it?’ Kim said eagerly. ‘I mean, it’s all a mess. This would be lovely for you, a new start.’
Sylvia was totally confused. On the one hand, the prospect of spending time with Kim and the children, watching them grow, being an active part of their lives, was hugely attractive; on the other, there was a distinct uneasiness that she couldn’t really pin down. ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ she said cautiously. ‘Of course, it’s lovely of you to suggest it, but I will have to think about it.’
‘Yes,’ Kim said, clapping her hands. ‘Do, and I’m sure the more you think about it you’ll see it’s the perfect solution. Have another glass of wine to help you think.’ And she refilled her mother’s glass as Sylvia sat there shaken, anxious, and totally incapable of thinking rationally about anything at all.
Late the following Saturday, Sylvia had the house to herself. Kim, Brendan and the children had gone to a friend’s for a barbecue, but she had cried off on the grounds of tiredness. She wanted time to herself. She wasn’t used to the full-on presence of the children nor, in fact, to being with an adult who talked quite as much, and as intensely, as Kim. Surrounded by people and noise from dawn to dusk she tired quickly and couldn’t think straight, and she was feeling oppressed by Kim’s constant, hopeful anticipation of a decision every time she opened her mouth.
For a while she rested, enjoying the silence, and then she remembered the small church she’d noticed on the way to the local shops. Fetching a jumper from her room she set off up the hill. The church stood on a corner and from the lych-gate there was a view across the rooftops and some small areas of wooded park-land to where the setting sun and the distant lights of the city washed the darkening sky with a pink-gold glow. She could hear the far-off sound of a train, and the muffled cries of children playing outside in the mild evening air. Could she live in this place? England in summer had surprised her with its beauty, but the memory of dark, bleak winters remained and it was more, much more than that.
Drawing her jumper around her shoulders, Sylvia stepped into the dim interior of the church, lit only by the fading light through the stained-glass windows. Everything she knew was at home – friends, acquaintances, a whole way of life. And despite the dramatic change in her circumstances, it was still a way of life that she knew. Starting again in Melbourne seemed hard enough – how would she manage in a strange country? What sort of life would she have here? Meeting the children from school, being here for them in holiday times, part of her longed for that sort of involvement. But how could she earn a living and do that, and what about the rest of her life? What about those times when she wasn’t needed, the times that would increase in frequency and duration as the children got older?
The previous day they had walked to the park to let Charlie and James play on the swings. Turning out of the street where Kim and Brendan lived into a less affluent one of older, three-storey houses built in the thirties, Kim had touched her arm. ‘Look, Mum,’ she said. ‘A lot of these big old houses have been made into flats and they’re really nice. Art deco, some of them.’
As Sylvia paused to look, an elderly woman opened the front door of one and bent to pick up a bottle of milk from the step. She straightened up and as she looked ahead to where they were standing, Sylvia could see that she was sixty perhaps, certainly no more. But there was something old and lost about her, something very different from the way Sylvia saw herself.
‘That woman’s not much older than me,’ she whispered, catching a glimpse of a possible future, and feeling uneasy about it. ‘She looks so … old.’
‘They make really nice flats,’ Kim said. ‘High ceilings with cornices, and bay windows. They’d be big enough for you to have the children to stay overnight.’
‘It would be very different,’ Sylvia said, watching the woman turn back into the house. ‘A very different sort of life.’
Kim took her arm. ‘I know, Mum, but that’s what you want, isn’t it? Something different. Wouldn’t you love seeing Charlie and James almost every day?’
Would she? The whole idea had disturbed her in a quite profound way that she couldn’t yet put into words.
Sylvia stared at the altar and above it the magnificent jewel colours of the leadlight depicting the Light of the World. ‘What do you think?’ she asked, staring into the eyes of the Christ figure. ‘You got me into it all in the first place. I know I’ve neglected you, but surely you have some answers for me.’
The glass eyes stared down unmoving, and Sylvia sat on in the church until the evening chill sent a shiver through her and it was almost too dark to see. Then she got up and walked back down the hill to the house.
‘You didn’t need to wait up for us,’ Kim whispered as they came into the hall. James was draped, fast asleep, across Brendan’s shoulder. Charlotte, drowsy and irritable, trailed behind her mother.
‘I wasn’t waiting up,’ Sylvia said. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking.’
Charlotte reached her arms up to Sylvia and she picked her up.
‘Grandma, take me to bed,’ Charlotte said, and Sylvia staggered slightly with the weight of her.
‘You’re too big for me to carry upstairs, darling,’ Sylvia said. ‘I’ll come with you but you have to walk.’ Charlotte began to cry, rubbing her fists into her eyes, and Brendan, who had already deposited James fully clothed on his bed, came down again and took her from Sylvia.
‘Come on, sourpuss,’ he said, and carted her off upstairs.
‘So,’ Kim asked eagerly, ‘you had some time to think. Have you made up your mind yet?’
‘Don’t keep hassling me, Kim,’ Sylvia said, suddenly annoyed at the pressure. ‘It’s wearing me out. What you’re asking – it’s a big thing, a huge decision for me. I can’t make up my mind in a few days with you breathing down my neck like this.’
Kim turned to go into the kitchen. ‘I thought you’d like the idea,’ she said. ‘Jump at it, actually. We’re your family, and now Dad’s gone off with someone else, and your life is such a mess … besides, we need you. I can’t go back to work unless I have someone to take care of the children.’
‘Hang on,’ Sylvia said, following her daughter into the kitchen. ‘Don’t keep saying that. My life isn’t a mess. I’ve been living your father’s life ever since we were married and now I’ve got the freedom to live my own.’ And as she said it she knew what had been troubling her. ‘If I come here I’ll have the pleasure of being with you and the children, seeing them grow up, all that, but I’ll be living your life, building my days around your needs, just as I did with Dad. It’s lovely that you want me here, Kim, I’m grateful for that, but for the first time since I got married I can now choose what I want to do and where I want to live.’
‘I know all that,’ Kim said. ‘That’s what I mean – you can pick England and us. And you go on and on about living in the church houses but they were always okay. You had it pretty cushy, really, you didn’t have to go out to work.’
Sylvia was angry now. ‘It didn’t always feel that way. I gave up my career to marry Dad, so I could work and keep him till he got his
PhD. By the time you came along I had a really interesting job, and naturally I gave that up. I was glad to be able to be at home with you when you were little, but your father’s life in the church made huge demands on my time and energy. And for the last fifteen years at least, I would have much preferred to go back to work. I no longer have to live Colin’s life, and I’m not sure that hooking myself into yours is the best choice I could make for myself right now.’
Kim’s face clouded and her bottom lip trembled as she turned to face her mother.
‘I can’t believe how selfish you’re being,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d want to help. You keep saying how much you’ve missed seeing your grandchildren; now you’ve got the chance to see them every day and you don’t want to. That’s typical of your generation, isn’t it? The stupid, selfish baby boomers, all the time me, me, me, what do I want, what’s best for me. Never mind about what’s best for anyone else. Well, don’t let me interfere with your nice new life, I’m only your daughter, after all.’ And, pushing past her mother, she strode out of the kitchen and up the stairs and Sylvia heard the bedroom door slam shut.
NINETEEN
‘I thought I might find you here,’ Jodie said, and David’s head shot up from the front page of the paper. She was standing beside him holding a takeaway coffee. ‘Mind if I join you?’
‘Please do,’ he said, tossing aside the paper and moving the other chair so she could sit down. He’d gone to the coffee shop almost every morning of the three weeks since he’d met her, hoping she’d turn up. Just that morning he’d decided that this would be his last attempt. Obviously she wished she hadn’t told him where she went for coffee and was going somewhere else to avoid running into him.
‘I’ve been away,’ she said with a smile, lifting the plastic lid off her coffee and borrowing his spoon to scoop the foam. ‘Got sent to do emergency cover at the clinic in Gisborne. My sister lives there so I stayed with her – better than driving backwards and forwards every day.’
David laughed. ‘I thought you were avoiding me,’ he said.
‘Well – that too,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Won’t do my reputation much good to be seen with a nudist.’
‘I’ve given it up,’ he said. ‘Cross my heart.’ Her eyes flashed with light as she laughed and he looked into them just that little bit too long and suddenly they were marooned in silence.
‘So,’ he said, embarrassed now at his own awkwardness, ‘you’re back.’
Jodie nodded. ‘Yes. How’s Caro?’
He gave a grim smile. ‘Full-scale family drama. She had a car accident – she and the baby are okay but she was in hospital for a few days, during which time she and Mum had a bit of a blue and now they’re barely speaking to each other.’
Jodie pulled a face. ‘Whose fault?’
‘Fifty-fifty, I think. No, that’s wrong – probably eighty-twenty. Caro can be such a pain, especially where Mum’s concerned.’
‘And your gran?’
‘Making something called a Tiffany lampshade; purple, of course.’ He was dying inside. He’d always found it easy, talking to girls, asking them out. But since the shock of his diagnosis, embarrassment about his illness seemed to have extinguished the spark of flirtation. What right did he have to get involved with anyone? He was a hopeless liability with nothing to offer. He stared down into his empty cup feeling like a clumsy teenager, totally lost for words. In a few minutes she would be gone, and if he didn’t stop behaving like a complete wanker she wouldn’t bother with him again. Somehow, though, the words wouldn’t come.
Jodie downed the remains of her coffee and stood up. ‘Gotta get on,’ she said, picking up her bag. ‘I’m a bit late already. Do you want to get something to eat tonight? That Thai place round the corner is nice.’
David’s breath was trapped in his chest. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’d like that. Shall I … shall I pick you up?’
She pulled a pen from her bag and scribbled an address on the top margin of his paper.
‘Why don’t you wander round about half-past six and we can walk down there,’ she said with a smile. ‘See you later, then.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Sure, see you later.’ And he picked up the paper and stuffed it inside his coat as he watched her cross the street to her car. ‘Half-past six,’ he said softly to himself. ‘Half-past six, I’ll be there, you bet your life I’ll be there.’
And he was, just as he was the next time, when she suggested a pizza, and the time she asked him to go the cinema, and so on … until the day he went to answer the doorbell and discovered his grandmother standing on the doorstep.
*
Lila didn’t know what was wrong with them all – Fran and Caro not speaking, Fran deciding to move, and now David, whom she’d set up with the nice little bloodsucker, was about to let her slip through his fingers. Jodie, or was it Judy? Anyway, she’d told Lila that they’d already been on several dates, but only because she’d asked him.
‘He seems keen enough when we’re out together, Mrs Whittaker,’ she said as she plunged the needle into Lila’s arm, ‘but he never asks me out. I always have to do it. I really like David, we have a good time together, we go for a meal, or to the movies, and once we went up to the Victoria Markets, but he’ll never come back to my place and he won’t ask me back to his. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.’
‘It’s nothing about you, my love,’ Lila told her, pressing the tiny pad of cotton wool onto the puncture mark the needle had left. ‘It’s him being silly. You leave David to me.’
‘Oh! Well, no, I don’t want you to say anything to him,’ Jodie said, flushing at the prospect. ‘I’m just confiding in you.’
Lila knew everyone thought she was losing it, and she knew she was forgetful about names and dates, but when it came to all the important things she was still as sharp as a tack. She had always prided herself on speaking her mind, but recently she’d found herself holding back a bit, didn’t want to seem an interfering old bat. Now here they were, falling apart. It was time, she thought, to sort them out. In some families the older woman was the matriarch, the children and grandchildren took notice, deferred to her, but in this family nobody gave a stuff what she thought. A lifetime of experience was going to waste.
A year or so ago Lila had had a fall, cracked her elbow and broken her ankle, and they had taken a while to heal. The shock had knocked her sideways and she’d lost a bit of confidence, come to rely on Fran or Caro, and more recently David, if she wanted to go out. The retirement village had a free bus service to the shops and she managed that all right, but she just hadn’t got back into the swing of going anywhere else without someone to take her. But now she’d been asked out for coffee. It was a sign, she thought, a sign that she should step back into life again, and the family would be the first step.
Lila straightened her shoulders and looked at herself in the mirror. A couple of weeks earlier she’d bought a very nice pale mauve coat in the recycling shop. It went very well with the purple scarf Fran had been wearing last time she was there. Fran had let Lila try it on and she’d forgotten to give it back. Still, Fran wouldn’t mind her wearing it – after all, purple was her colour. She thought she looked rather nice, certainly suitably dressed to go out for coffee with Irene and Hamish.
After her holiday Irene had called in as promised to admire Lila’s purple décor, and to show her the photographs of Greece, and she’d brought her new gentleman friend. Now, this morning, they had called to say they were going to be right near her, on the way to visit a friend in Fitzroy, and they wondered if she’d like to go out for a coffee. Lila had thought Hamish was a very nice man and she was surprised to hear that Bonnie was being so silly about it. She’d always seemed such a sensible girl. In fact, what Lila remembered very clearly from the days when their daughters were at school together was that despite their money both mother and daughter were straightforward, friendly people, with no pretensions. That, she’d always told Fran, was a sign of good breeding,
something that no amount of money could buy.
‘So has Bonnie got over it yet?’ Lila asked Irene as they sat in the café while Hamish queued at the counter to order the coffee.
Irene shook her head. ‘No, she’s very disapproving still,’ she said, ‘but I’m determined not to give in.’
‘Good, you’ve got to stand your ground,’ Lila said. ‘Does she want you to give him up or what?’
‘I don’t think she knows what she wants really, she just knows it makes her uncomfortable.’
Hamish returned to the table carrying a plate with three tiny Portuguese custard tarts.
‘To tempt you ladies,’ he said, putting down the plate. ‘Coffee’s on its way. What are you plotting?’
‘Just talking about Bonnie,’ Irene said. ‘Her disapproval.’
‘Aha!’ Hamish said with a smile. ‘Strange creatures, one’s children. As teenagers they’re repelled by the realisation that their parents have a sex life, and that never really changes.’ He reached over and took Irene’s hand. ‘It’s all right if I take Irene out, wine and dine her, Lila, even go on holiday and fall in love with her, as long as I don’t share her bed.’
Lila laughed loudly, and picked up one of the little tarts. She was enjoying herself enormously. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘our children! Because they were teenagers in the sixties they think they invented sex. I blame Woodend.’
‘Woodend?’ Irene queried.
‘I think you mean Woodstock,’ Hamish ventured.
‘Yes, that’s it, Woodstock, all that singing about sex, and doing it in public. Why not just get on with it quietly and enjoy it, I say. No need to share it with the rest of the world. Now tell me, Hamish, what do you think about all this Viagra business?’
Hamish, startled, glanced at Irene, who was grinning widely. ‘Well, Lila,’ he said, ‘I really couldn’t say. Never felt the need for it myself.’
‘Isn’t that good, then,’ Lila said, thoroughly satisfied with his answer. ‘Now, I wonder if you’d mind dropping me off in Collingwood when we leave here. I want to pop in and see David.’