by Liz Byrski
Sylvia pulled out a chair for her. ‘I think so too. The light in here is wonderful, and it has a very nice peaceful feel. It’s far enough away from the restaurant and kitchen to be very quiet.’
‘Is this all the fabric you brought with you when you left Colin?’
‘Yes. It’s good to be able to unpack it. I’ve been buying odd lengths and trimming for years, just stuff that I liked, ends of rolls, things I saw in sales. Now I can spread them out, have a good look at what I’ve got and use them to make up some of my designs.’
Irene smiled, turning away from the sheaf of designs spread out on the drawing board. ‘These are beautiful, Sylvia,’ she said, ‘and this studio should help to build on them. What do Bonnie and Fran think?’
‘They haven’t seen it yet,’ Sylvia said. ‘They’ve both been so busy, I don’t think they’ve even noticed me coming and going up here. Besides I’d really like to get everything sorted out before they see it.’ She felt like a child with a new playroom.
‘And tell me,’ Irene said, getting up and walking over to the window, ‘what’s happening with you and Will?’
Sylvia’s heart missed a beat and she felt a deep flush spread up from her neck. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, her voice sounding high and unnatural. But Irene said nothing, just raised her eyebrows and continued looking at her. Sylvia sighed. ‘How did you know? We thought we’d been so careful.’
Irene laughed. ‘Well, you probably have, but it was Will. The night he arrived he was like a cat on hot coals until you turned up, and then he spent the evening looking as though he’d won the lottery. Hamish noticed it too. It was the same the next evening when we all went out. We couldn’t understand why you seemed to want to keep it secret.’
‘It was Will’s idea,’ Sylvia said, relieved to be able to talk about it. ‘He felt we shouldn’t tell Bonnie yet. When I got back from Hong Kong she was already upset about you and Hamish, and he thought it would make her feel more lonely. But the longer it goes on the worse I feel about keeping the secret. I’ve made him promise that we’ll tell her when he comes back for the Boatshed opening. You know, Irene, I actually think he’s afraid she’ll disapprove as well as be hurt…’ She paused. ‘Do you disapprove? After all, he’s a lot younger than me.’
‘Of course I don’t disapprove,’ Irene said. ‘I’m happy for you, but I do wish you’d told Bonnie. It doesn’t matter if she disapproves, but I mind that she could get hurt because she feels deceived.’
‘That’s just what I said, but Will’s adamant and I’ve promised I won’t tell her without him here.’
‘Are you in love with him, Sylvia?’ Irene asked.
Sylvia hitched herself up to sit on the end of the table. She had asked herself this question so often. ‘No,’ she said, decisively. ‘I’m very fond of him and being with him has been wonderful, incredibly liberating for me. But no, I’m not in love with him.’
‘And he is in love with you?’
Sylvia nodded. ‘So he says, and he thinks he can make me be in love with him if he digs in. He’s a man who’s used to getting his own way through sheer force of will and he can’t quite understand why that isn’t working this time.’
The Queenscliff weekend had been a disastrous step and Sylvia regretted that she had ever agreed to it. She had hoped she could make Will understand and accept the nature of her feelings and her reservations, but she had returned exhausted, knowing that despite her honesty he had gone home to Perth convincing himself that the time together had sealed their relationship.
‘I believe you do love me,’ he’d said when she explained the complexity of her feelings. ‘It’s just that it’s difficult for you, still being married to Colin, but once the divorce is dealt with you’ll feel differently.’ As he picked up his briefcase on cue for the call for business-class passengers to board the flight, she made her case one more time, reminding him of his own history of brief and affectionate relationships with women with whom he had not been in love.
‘But this is not the same,’ he said.
‘But I’m telling you that’s just how this is for me,’ she insisted.
‘This is the real thing,’ he said. ‘I know it. This weekend was magic and I know it can be like this for us always. You feel that too, I know you do, you just have to believe in it. Your new life – this is it.’
She had watched him go with a mix of affection and frustration, and since then it was the latter that had haunted her. As she went back over their conversations his refusal to hear what she was saying, and his ability to counter everything with his own rationalisations, now seemed more extreme than they had at the time.
Irene leaned back against the window, shaking her head. ‘I think there may be something else at work here,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know Will all that well, but he’s very like his brother. Jeff was a great strategist, it was part of his success. Will has it too. His love for you may be making him deaf to what you’re telling him, but he may feel that if Bonnie does disapprove, then that will influence you.’
‘I see,’ Sylvia said, thoughtfully. ‘And do you think she will disapprove?’
‘Who knows! It never occurred to me that she would react as she did to my relationship with Hamish. But it made me realise that in the past Bonnie’s sense of security has come from an idea of ownership and it may well be that she’s transferred that to you, Sylvia, and possibly even to Will. Your daughter’s on the other side of the world and Will is very much alone, his parents and his brother are dead. Bonnie has become involved with both your lives – who knows what’s going on in her head and how she’ll react when she finds out about this?’
Sylvia rested her forehead against the cool glass of the window, gazing out over the ruffled grey sea. Since Irene had left she had replayed the conversation over and over again in her mind. She shuffled together the papers on the drawing board, and stood silent in the dusky light before wandering downstairs and through the empty building.
‘I’ve done it again,’ she had said to Irene. ‘All those years of volunteering for martyrdom, and I’ve done it again.’
‘What do you mean?’ Irene asked.
‘Right from the start I let Colin dictate what we should do. I gave way to his needs and his opinions and ended up resenting it. Now I’ve done just the same thing with Will. I thought I’d moved on, broken the hold of the past, but I’ve just done the same thing all over again.’
‘Possibly,’ Irene said.
‘Definitely,’ Sylvia insisted. ‘Different person, different sort of relationship, but when it comes down to me, to who I am in the relationship, I haven’t changed at all.’
‘You’re talking about the habit of a lifetime, Sylvia,’ Irene said. ‘You can’t expect to change overnight, so don’t be too hard on yourself.’
‘But it’s a shock, you see. I thought I was different – it felt so different, so liberating, to be with someone like Will. He’s a person who takes what he wants where it suits him, he does what he wants and I thought I was learning to be that way.’
Irene smiled. ‘Don’t get me wrong, dear, I’m very fond of Will, but he’s not much of a role model.’
‘No, no, but there’s a single-mindedness about him; he puts himself at the centre of things. I wanted to stop being on the fringe, an appendage in someone else’s life, and be at the heart of my own.’ She stopped and got up, wandering over to the window. ‘Do you know, Irene, in a way I almost felt superior to Bonnie because I was moving forward and she was still hanging on to the idea of Jeff’s presence, trapped in the past. But all the time I’ve been just as stuck as she is.’
‘This stuff is so hard, isn’t it?’ Irene said. ‘But it seems to me that it is in fact the combination of your strength and your generous nature that lands you in these situations. Certain very needy people unconsciously detect it and are drawn to you like heat-seeking missiles. You sound as though you feel you’re a pushover but I thi
nk it’s a great deal more complicated than that …’
A surprisingly brisk wind was blowing from the sea as Sylvia locked the Boatshed doors. On impulse she turned away from the road home and walked up to the church. A few low lights were burning and Sylvia slipped gratefully into a pew. The organist was practising parts of a familiar Haydn mass and she sat back, closing her eyes and abandoning herself to the peace of the church and the beauty of the music. The regular spiritual practice that had been so closely tied to her life with Colin had, at first, seemed to sit uneasily with her changed circumstances. It was strange to be among people who no longer practised their faith, or no longer held it, but she was grateful that her friends had not adopted fashionable cynicism.
‘It seems like a sign of sophistication these days,’ she’d said to Fran one night, ‘that even people who respect Aboriginal spirituality and Islam have so little respect for Christianity. It’s okay to believe these days, as long as it’s not in a Christian god.’
‘I know,’ Fran had said, turning to her quickly. ‘It’s really weird, such a contradiction. I gave it away years ago, but I’ve often wondered how people arrive at that position. It’s an odd take on political correctness.’
Some long lost sense of peace seemed to be returning as Sylvia sat in the church. Her faith had kept her sane through the barren years of her marriage, now perhaps it was time to reclaim it as her courage for the future. In so many ways she could say she had lived a good life, but her willingness to do what others wanted and act against her own better judgment was the fault line that always undermined her integrity. Despite her changed circumstances she again felt at the mercy of wills stronger than her own; but were they really stronger? Perhaps they were just more needy, more demanding, preying perhaps, as Irene had suggested, on her own greater strength and goodwill? The challenge, she knew, was to dispense with compliance and compromise and establish her authenticity.
An hour later, Sylvia let herself in to the cottage, switched on the lights and drew the curtains against the darkness of the garden. It was time to stop the equivocation. She must call Kim and let her know that she could not go to England. Then, as soon as Will returned she would end the relationship, and together they would tell Bonnie. Perhaps telling her it was over might in some way assuage the hurt of their former deception.
‘It’s very nice of you to pick me up and take me there, Caro,’ Lila called from the bedroom. ‘It’s a bit far for the scooter and I don’t want to lose my hat on the way.’
‘It’s fine, Gran,’ Caro said. ‘I wanted to bring Rebekah over to see you, anyway.’
Lila came back into the living room wearing her best purple dress. ‘Just one more little cuddle before we go,’ she said, reaching out to take the baby, holding her up to her shoulder, swaying and patting her gently. ‘Are you managing all right, dear? Getting some sleep?’
Caro nodded. ‘Yes, she’s pretty good, really, although getting up twice at night is a bit wearing.’ She thought Lila’s face looked strange, a little lopsided. ‘Are you okay, Gran?’
‘Fit as a fiddle,’ Lila said, looking down at Rebekah. ‘She’s such a little beauty, aren’t you, darling? Just like you were, Caro, and just like your mum.’ She handed her back. ‘Better go and put my hat on or I’ll be late.’
‘What is this thing you’re going to, anyhow?’ Caro asked, tucking the baby back into her capsule.
‘Afternoon tea,’ Lila called from the bedroom. ‘It’s the red hat club, I’m sure I told you, the ladies who wear purple with red hats. I spoke to the organiser on the phone and she said I should just come along today. What do you think of my hat, dear?’
Caro looked up from fastening the strap on the capsule and blinked in surprise at the wide-brimmed hat that seemed to overwhelm Lila’s small frame.
‘It’s beautiful, Gran,’ she said. ‘It’s very large and such a lot of chiffon.’
‘Yes, you see you can tie the chiffon under your chin so it’s like a bonnet if it’s windy,’ Lila said, demonstrating. ‘Or just ruche it up around the crown for a more formal effect. I think that’s what I’ll do today, and then pin on this lovely silk rose.’ She took the hat off, swirled the chiffon around the crown and pinned the silk flower carefully to hold it in place against the shiny red straw beneath. ‘I had to look around a bit to get something suitable,’ she said.
‘I’m sure you did,’ said Caro, still uncertain about the hat. She had never seen Lila wear one before, although there was a photograph of her in a small pillbox with a veil at Fran and Tony’s wedding. ‘It’s a real Melbourne Cup sort of hat – you could win a prize with that. Has Mum seen it yet?’
Lila shook her head. ‘Not yet. She said she’d come over when she gets back the day after tomorrow.’
‘She’ll be impressed,’ Caro said, thinking that Fran would be impressed in a rather different way from how Lila imagined.
‘I think I’ll wear it to the Boatshed opening,’ Lila said, adjusting the hat in front of the mirror. ‘I want Irene to see it. I tried to get her to come with me this afternoon but she says it’s not really her sort of thing.’
‘Know who else you’ll see at the Boatshed opening?’ Caro said with a grin, picking up Rebekah in her capsule.
‘Hamish?’
‘No … well, yes, of course he’ll be there, but I meant Jodie.’
‘Jodie?’
‘Yes. Come on, Gran, you know, Jodie, who takes your blood. She’s coming with David? He finally sorted himself out and talked to her. They’ve been going out together again.’
Lila straightened her shoulders and looked at her hat in the mirror. ‘Can’t say I can recall her. But it’s good if he’s happy. Is she a nice girl?’
Caro’s throat went dry and her face felt uncomfortably hot. ‘Yes … she’s lovely …’ She faltered, trying to carry on as normal. ‘I’m really pleased for him. He needed something good to happen. He seems to have lost all his confidence since he got sick.’
‘Sick?’ Lila said, swinging around to face her. ‘What’s the matter with him?’
Caro felt as though she was in a play for which she had been given the wrong script. She bent down again to tuck one of Rebekah’s hands under the cotton blanket.
‘You know, Gran,’ she said, not looking up in her embarrassment. ‘The Hepatitis C – that’s why he came back to Australia.’
Lila stared at her in amazement. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘No one told me David was sick.’
Caro’s heart started to beat faster and her legs felt weak. There was something profoundly unnerving about this sudden and shocking loss of memory. ‘Yes, we did, Gran,’ she said, trying to sound calm. ‘When he first came home. And that’s why he stopped seeing Jodie. Remember – you went to the library to find out all about it, and then you went to his place in Collingwood – ’
‘Oh, rubbish, Caro,’ Lila interrupted. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. David lives in Richmond with your mother. Well, I’m sorry he’s not well, probably this virus that’s going around. There’s a lot of it about but if his girlfriend is a doctor, she’ll look after him. You know, Caro, there were hardly any lady doctors when I was younger – shame, really. Come along now, dear, let’s get going, I don’t want to be late.’ And she set off down the front steps to Caro’s car, leaving her granddaughter to lock the door behind them.
‘And after that it’s all a bit of a muddle, really,’ Caro told Fran on the phone early that evening. ‘I drove her to the hotel and dropped her off, and she seemed okay. I went back at five to pick her up and she’d had a lovely time. But she seemed surprised to see me, as though she wasn’t expecting me. It was spooky, Mum. Different from before, and she was quite aggressive about it too, not like her at all.’
Fran felt as though a lump of lead had landed in her stomach. ‘And you’re sure she was okay when you dropped her at home?’
‘Yes, fine. I checked the Webster pack, and she’d taken her pills this morning, and I got her to
take the evening ones before I left.’
‘Good,’ Fran said. ‘Good. And she really seemed okay?’
‘Absolutely,’ Caro said. ‘She was just the same as ever, but I reminded her again about David and she just told me I was being silly. It’s like that whole little block of information has disappeared. Before, you’d remind her of something and she’d remember and correct herself, she knew she’d forgotten or got it wrong, but this was different.’
‘Okay, I’ll go over there as soon as I get back.’
‘And, you know, she doesn’t look too good, more vague somehow, and her face, well … it seemed a bit lopsided. I didn’t notice that at first and then I couldn’t really see properly under that great big hat and I didn’t want to make an issue of it.’
Fran felt physically sick. ‘Should we call the doctor, do you think?’
‘I don’t think she’d be too happy about it,’ Caro said. ‘She might know her face is different but I don’t think she’s really aware that anything else has changed, so she wouldn’t understand why. Leave it for tonight and I’ll pop over tomorrow. Just to make sure she’s okay.’
Fran switched off her mobile cold with fear. She had been bracing herself for just this moment, the defining moment when benign memory loss morphed into something more sinister, but it was still shattering. She sat for a moment, the phone clasped in her hand, her insides churning with anxiety. Maybe it was just a one-off thing and tomorrow Lila would be back to normal, but in her heart she knew that this was no glitch. It foreshadowed decline, the progress and shape of which were totally unpredictable.
‘Ready when you are, Fran,’ Lenore called up the stairs. ‘We should really get going. Okay for the guest speaker to be fashionably late, but not very late.’
‘Just give me a couple of minutes,’ Fran said. ‘Something I forgot to ask Caro,’ and she hit redial.
‘Me again,’ she said. ‘I got so caught up with Mum’s memory stuff I forgot to ask – this Jodie who takes her blood, how long has she been going out with David?’