by Liz Byrski
‘Yes,’ Bonnie said, suddenly brisk, standing up and straightening her skirt. ‘We’ve all had our dramas this year but we all have things to be thankful for. Must get on now.’ And she whisked out of Fran’s office and disappeared down the passage into her own.
‘Whoops!’ Fran said, looking at Sylvia in amazement. ‘What happened there? What did I say?’
Sylvia raised her eyebrows. ‘I think you pressed a few buttons without even knowing it,’ she said, and she got up to close the door. ‘There’s something I think I should tell you.’
Fran lay awake in the darkness listening for something, anything. She felt restless, nervous. It was just after two. She hated waking up at night, always had done, and it was worse now; grief, like every other emotion, was so much more extreme in the wee small hours. It had been a strange sort of day, the Boathouse had been very busy, and she and Lenore had been completing the final checks on the manuscript.
‘I’ve organised to meet the designer and the photographer the day after tomorrow,’ Lenore had said that afternoon. ‘They’ll start on it straight away, then we’ll be ready to go.’ She packed the manuscript pages into her briefcase and began to lay some of Sylvia’s designs into the large portfolio along with sketches for the book cover. ‘All ready now.’
‘It’s going to be weird without you,’ Sylvia said. ‘We’ve got used to having you around.’
Lenore laughed. ‘The original guest from hell – came for a fortnight and ended up staying five weeks. But it’s been so good being here, and I guess I’ll be back again fairly soon. And if you’re sure you’re happy about it, Sylvia, I’ll take these designs to a couple of people in Sydney.’
Bonnie had cooked a farewell dinner for Lenore, and by the time she and Fran got home it was after ten. A strange sort of tension seemed to have developed between them during this final day. Fran had drawn on Lenore’s strength and they had grown closer in the weeks since Lila’s death, and she was dreading her departure the next morning. Lenore pottered around gathering up her things while Fran made tea, which they drank in an uneasy silence, broken only by desultory fragments of awkward conversation. They had spent almost every evening for the last month together talking, laughing, watching old movies. There had been no late-night hunts for junk food, not even the desire for it, but now it seemed that something special had evaporated as Lenore’s leave-taking approached.
Fran sat up and stared out of the bedroom window across the dark rooftops of the houses to the tops of the tall trees in the nearby park. She listened to the silence, wondering if Lenore was awake or sleeping soundly, happy at the prospect that tomorrow night she would be home in her own bed. Breathing deeply, Fran waited for the spasm of loneliness to pass. Was she imagining it or had she been feeling something genuinely different since her trip to Sydney? Were these feelings authentic or was she simply lonely, reacting to a series of changes, capped by the pain of losing her mother? Fran had always been an emotionally cautious person, her father’s desertion had made her wary. She often wondered how she and Tony had ever got it together, and since then she had avoided involvement; she was good at friendship but intimacy was terrifying. And anyway, suppose she was wrong?
She got up and walked over to the window. She could follow her instinct and take this chance, or she could ignore it, discount it as a side-effect of grief, but maybe then she would lose the opportunity of finding something precious. Lenore’s door was open slightly and Fran paused outside it, her heart beating furiously.
‘Lenore,’ she whispered, her feet moving silently over the soft cream rug. Lenore was asleep, one arm flung above her head, the other on top of the covers, her breathing soft and steady as a child’s. Fran crept to the side of the bed and put her hand cautiously on Lenore’s arm.
‘Lenore,’ she whispered again, and Lenore’s eyes flew open. She hitched herself up on her elbow, blinking and rubbing her eyes.
‘Fran?’
‘Lenore, I …’
‘Fran? Are you okay?’
Fran hesitated. ‘I wondered … I felt … I don’t know how to say this …’
Lenore turned back the bedclothes and reached out for Fran’s hand, drawing her closer to the side of the bed, and Fran slipped in beside her.
‘Lenore, is this … well … is it okay? I …’
Lenore stroked her cheek. ‘Okay? Darling Fran, every night I’ve lain awake hoping this would happen. Now tonight when I finally gave up and fell asleep, here you are. So it’s very definitely okay with me. I just hope that you’ll think it’s okay in the morning.’
The Boatshed trading figures for the period to the end of March had outstripped Bonnie’s predictions. In addition to their paid advertising, Fran’s regular columns in two Melbourne newspapers, an in-flight magazine and a food and tourism e-zine were the sort of publicity that money could not buy. In the first days of April, Bonnie completed a project assessment and mailed a copy to Will. He had a financial and an emotional investment in the Boatshed and she was glad to be able to send him such positive figures and predictions.
She was also pleased to have grounds for re-establishing regular contact. In January she had called him twice in an attempt to explain the emotional state that had driven her earlier behaviour, but from those brief, though amiable, conversations, she had realised that while he sympathised with her grief and fear, their effect was not something he could really understand.
Bonnie knew he had been in Melbourne in January. She had caught sight of him in the city, getting out of a taxi on Southbank, and she had been about to duck through the traffic to catch up with him but stopped in her tracks. He needed space, they all did. Will ran up the steps of a building and, mildly disappointed but thankful she had held back, Bonnie watched him go. She’d wondered whether or not to tell Sylvia and eventually decided against it. Will would be back in touch again in his own time and she didn’t want to rake over those coals again. Besides, now that it was all over, she recognised her own voyeuristic interest in what had happened between Sylvia and Will.
‘I can’t imagine how she could have done it,’ Bonnie had said to Fran. ‘I wouldn’t have had the confidence.’
Fran laughed. ‘You certainly had it when you were younger, Bon.’
‘I know, I know – the banker,’ said Bonnie, having the grace to blush. ‘But not now. I suppose it’s the effect of being married so long I can’t imagine … but then, Sylvia had been married for that long too. It’s just so extraordinary. I mean, he’s so much younger and so youthful and handsome. It’s such a reversal of the usual younger woman, older man thing. I’d have been so conscious of my age … my body …’
‘Sylvia’s a very beautiful woman,’ Fran said.
‘Yes, but it’s not as though she looks particularly young for her age,’ Bonnie said. ‘You can’t say she’s unmarked by time.’
‘Remember the movie Calendar Girls?’ Fran asked. ‘Those women were our age and older and they looked wonderful because of who they were. It came from within. Mind you, here I am saying this and I’ve got more body image hang-ups than anyone. But it would be nice to think Will responded to Sylvia’s inner beauty, rather than the sort of instincts that motivated him in the past.’
‘You don’t like him much, do you?’ Bonnie asked.
Fran sighed. ‘Not a lot. I mean, I don’t actively dislike him, I just think he’s a bit … he’s such a boy. He’s obviously brilliant at what he does, and he’s very good looking, but he’s in his mid-forties and he doesn’t really seem grown up. But that’s me, my patience with the male of the species is limited and I’m probably not always fair.’
‘I still think it’s amazing,’ Bonnie said. ‘All those years of monogamy and a sex life that was virtually nonexistent, and yet she was able to be so …’
‘So what?’
‘Well, so adventurous, so confident, I suppose.’ She was hedging, unable to articulate what might sound judgmental, which was that Sylvia had behaved like a man, indulging in a casual affair with no h
ope of, or desire for, a future. It was this that Bonnie found so breathtaking – something that had seemed so easy in youth now bore a patina of daring self-indulgence that shocked and delighted her in equal proportions, and made her feel more conservative than ever.
Bonnie put the papers in an envelope and addressed it. She would catch up with Will before long; he was family, after all. She had decided to send a copy of the assessment to Jack Bannister, who, unlike Will, had been in constant contact. He was, he had told her tongue-in-cheek, having a midlife crisis which manifested itself in a desire to branch out into new areas. He was pressing her to agree to a partnership in another Boatshed or, as he called it, ‘another Fran Whittaker restaurant’.
‘Her name’s getting known,’ he told Bonnie, ‘she’s not just a Melbourne identity now. I think it would work, and if we’re going to do it it would be ideal to announce it when we launch the book.’ Fran’s book, Food, Love and Duty, was to be released in early October for the Christmas market.
‘It might work but not as a central city thing,’ Bonnie had argued. ‘I don’t think that would work at all.’
‘No way, that’s not what I had in mind,’ Jack said. ‘There’s a place in Manly by the water, a lovely old building. I’d like you to come up and see it, Bonnie. And we could probably get that column of Fran’s syndicated in some papers here too, that would help.’
Bonnie was undecided. Despite the success of the Boatshed she was nervous about branching out so soon and, remembering Fran’s original resistance, she feared expansion might also be met with reluctance. And then there was Sylvia. The gallery was a big part of the Boatshed’s success.
‘Surely we could get Sylvia or Caro up here for a few weeks to sniff out the stock for us and get it up and running,’ Jack had suggested, but Bonnie was not so sure. Caro was obviously fully committed with the gallery and Rebekah, and although Sylvia had abandoned the idea of a move to England, Bonnie recognised that if there was anything that would keep her involved in the Boatshed it was the chance to expand her own creative work. Packing her off to Sydney for several weeks to start another gallery might be a bad idea. Bonnie’s instincts told her that the right move would be to take on more staff at the gallery to free up time for Sylvia, to build on her design work and follow up some of Lenore’s contacts. If Jack wanted a gallery in Sydney he might just have to find the right person there himself.
She leaned back in her swivel chair, staring at the papers on her desk, mulling over the pros and cons of expansion. It wasn’t only the others; she was still struggling to cope with things one day at a time. She would wake early and get up immediately, make coffee, take it back to bed, and talk herself into the day and out of the morass of depression. Once she arrived at work she usually felt better, but nights and early mornings were a battle, and she still felt she was poised on an emotional knife-edge.
Bonnie had never taken drugs. The occasional aspirin for a headache, an antibiotic for an infection, but nothing mood altering, with the exception of alcohol, and that almost always in moderation. Even as a child of the sixties she had never smoked a joint, experimented with acid, or taken amphetamines. But during the Will crisis, she had paid a frantic visit to her doctor.
‘I’m going to give you a prescription for Valium, Bonnie,’ the doctor had said. ‘Just a little helper to get you through this difficult time. Come back in three weeks and we’ll see how you are then.’
When Bonnie returned three weeks later her own doctor was on holiday, and the locum, who looked as though she was no more than twelve years old, had prescribed antidepressants. Unfortunately, the twelve year old had failed to mention that it would take several weeks before Bonnie felt the effect of the antidepressants, so Bonnie, with a naïve faith in the authority of the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry, kept taking the tablets for a while and, then, feeling no improvement, stopped. What she did feel was that she was not quite herself but, she rationalised, that might be a good thing. Was this the right state of mind in which to launch into another business? To her own surprise she found herself discussing it with Hamish, of all people, having first sworn him to secrecy.
‘Weren’t you on an emotional knife-edge when you came up with the Boatshed project?’ Hamish asked. ‘If that energy kick-started you the first time it could well do so again.’ But then, Hamish didn’t know about the effort it cost her to keep going every day.
Bonnie stopped fiddling with her pen. Too much, she thought, too many decisions, too much pressure. She wandered down into the restaurant and sat at one of the tables by the window.
‘Cup of coffee, Bonnie?’ Tan asked, appearing immediately at her side.
‘Camomile tea, I think,’ she said. ‘And one of those new orange and almond thingos that Fran and Sean were trying out.’ Perhaps a few calming herbs, and some comforting sugar would help her with the decision-making.
‘I’ve made up my mind to go back to England,’ Sylvia said. ‘Only for a holiday, of course. I think Kim’s starting to forgive me. She’s got a job and a woman to look after Charlie and James. She sounds like a reverse edition of me, her daughter and grandchildren live in Perth.’
‘That sounds splendid,’ Veronica said. ‘When will you go?’
Sylvia put her cup down on Veronica’s coffee table. ‘Not for a while yet. It depends on the gallery, and what we decide about the fashion label idea, but September or October would suit me best.’ She looked around wondering if she was doing the right thing, wondering whether Veronica would like what she had in mind, or if she might even be offended by it.
‘The thing is,’ she began, ‘there’s a lot happening at the moment. The gallery’s very busy and we need to take on another part-time person.’
Veronica nodded. ‘I can see how well it’s going,’ she said. ‘The times I’ve been in to see you, or to have lunch there with my friend, it’s always busy.’
‘Well, we do need another part-timer, someone who’d also be prepared to do extra hours from time to time if Caro or I were away,’ she said. ‘I was wondering … I hope you don’t think this is a cheek, but would you be interested?’
‘Me?’ Veronica said, straightening up in surprise. ‘Work at the gallery?’
‘Oh look, I didn’t mean to offend you, I – ’
‘But, my dear, I’d love to. I’d simply love it,’ Veronica said, clasping her hands together. ‘But don’t you want someone younger?’
‘We want someone who loves the place and can do the job,’ Sylvia said. ‘Age isn’t important.’
Veronica pulled a tissue from her pocket and Sylvia saw tears in her eyes. ‘This has come at such a time … a time when I needed something,’ Veronica said. ‘I really can’t tolerate the new Canon and his wife. Talk about testing my Christian spirit. I’ve given up on them. I told him last week I wouldn’t be doing any more work for the church. God’s not my problem, you understand, just him. So, yes please, Sylvia, I’d love it. When can I start?’ They worked out the details over a second pot of coffee.
‘Bonnie will draw up the contract and mail it to you in the next couple of days,’ Sylvia said. ‘I’m so glad, Veronica, and I’m sorry about the new Canon. You’ve put so much into the church community.’
Veronica shrugged. ‘It’s not only me. A few of the other stalwarts have fallen by the wayside. He’s a strange combination of that happy-clappy Christian practice and an almost Victorian attitude to the way things are run. One feels … I feel … that my contribution is no longer valued.’ She paused. ‘Of course, I know from what you’ve told me that Colin had his shortcomings as a husband, but he was a very good pastor. Open minded, inclusive and very supportive. I miss that, and I miss you being there. Anyway, before you go, come out into the garden. I want to cut you some roses to take home.’
‘Have you seen Colin at all?’ Sylvia asked as they strolled between the rose bushes.
‘I have,’ Veronica said, clipping perfect Albertine buds and then moving on to an Iceberg. ‘He c
ame to see me a couple of weeks ago. He’d discovered he’d got a couple of my books and wanted to return them, or so he said. Actually, I think he wanted to talk, find out if I’d seen you.’
Sylvia swallowed hard. It was eight, almost nine, months since she had left him, and apart from a few polite telephone conversations about money, possessions and the divorce papers, he had simply dropped out of her life, and while his presence in her memory was unavoidable, it was not charged with any emotion. It was as though he had slipped into quicksand which had closed over him.
‘How is he?’ she asked.
‘Rather low,’ Veronica said, turning to her. ‘The church has found him an administrative job, but his friend has left him. I gather there was something of a confrontation; things hadn’t been going well since you split up and he left the church. She told him that she felt he was using her as a crutch. She said she was a social worker but didn’t want a partner who wanted to be part of her case work.’
Sylvia raised her eyebrows and reached out to take the roses. ‘Did she really?’ she said. ‘That was quick. It took me more than thirty years.’
‘Young women,’ Veronica said with a smile, ‘they know what they want these days, and they don’t hold back from telling it how it is. Not like our generation, Sylvia. We all wasted a lot of time and a lot of energy trying to make ourselves into what the men wanted, usually at high cost to ourselves. It’s different now.’
Sylvia realised she had driven home from Box Hill without being aware of the journey. She had been thinking about Colin, she was still thinking about him, thinking of his sadness, his loneliness, and how incapable he would be of managing life on his own. She had seen it so often, men, especially older men, who seemed so totally unprepared both emotionally and practically to cope with life after a relationship breakdown. For her the separation had opened the door to new opportunities. Her early anxiety about where she would live and work had soon evaporated. The tension with Kim had been painful, a battle of wills almost, in which Sylvia had had to stand her ground, refusing to buy into the emotional blackmail which, she suspected, Kim probably didn’t even realise she was exerting. But finally, her daughter had stepped back.