by Liz Byrski
Still propped on the pillows the woman lay stretched out fully naked on the bed, and as the photographer continued to snap away she opened her legs and drew up her knees. The photographer moved in closer.
Shocked both by the contents of the photographs and my own relentless voyeurism, I stacked the pictures together with shaking hands. As I tapped the top and sides of them as though organising a pack of cards, the top photograph fell face down to the floor revealing an inscription.
My beautiful and beloved Ellen. Such an outrageous ecstacy, such a yearning always. Stuart. Christmas Day 1961.
I don’t know how long I sat there staring at the words before I finally put the photographs back in the drawer and closed it. I was profoundly shaken. I had never seen anything like this before; I had initially assumed that the pictures were of a prostitute. The inscription proved they were something entirely different. The words changed the photographs from perversion to passion, from lewdness to love. I was overwhelmed by my own naivety, frightened by my ignorance of the deepest intimacies of sexual love and I felt entirely alone. Had you been in England I could have told you about the pictures, you would have explained, you would have made it right. But you were on the other side of the world and I did not have the confidence or the language to write about what I had seen, or the complex emotions it had triggered in me. But I also feared your reaction. You valued my innocence so highly and now perhaps you would think that I had lost it. What would you think of me when you knew that I had kept looking, mesmerised by one shot after the other; would I be defiled in your eyes? I sank my head onto the desk and sobbed.
I was overwhelmed, first by the pressure to go to the dance and then by the photographs. I wanted you to help me, to protect me, to take charge of the situation but you weren’t there. I felt abandoned, like a weak swimmer caught in a dangerously strong current. My naivety was such that when you left I had no idea that I might be faced with dilemmas like these. I loved you, I was going to marry you. It was as simple as that. The fact that there might be things I couldn’t tell you or things you might not understand had not occurred to me until now. I had not allowed for the influence or the pressure of other people or changing situations, or the dilemmas they might present to me.
‘I’m a really good dancer,’ Michael Westbury insisted. I’ve been doing classes—look.’ And clutching an imaginary partner he foxtrotted down the passage, executing a final turn with a flourish before boogying back. He managed to draw a laugh from me.
‘See—you’re laughing now and you looked as though you’d been crying before. Say you’ll come with me.’
I shook my head. ‘No thanks, really, thanks for asking me.’ I picked up the pile of reference books that I was about to return to the laboratory shelves but he dodged round the other side of me and lifted most of them from the top of the pile in my arms.
‘Well why not—I’m not ugly, in fact some girls think I’m nice looking, I’ve got a great car, you must’ve seen it in the car park, it’s that green MG, and I would put the top up so your hair won’t get blown about, girls hate that.’
I smiled and shook my head again.
‘Do I have BO or bad breath or something?’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’ve got a boyfriend, I don’t go out with anyone else.’
‘Yeah, but he’s in South America Jackie said, and he didn’t take you with him so—well, what’s the harm, maybe he’s going out with somebody else, you’re not engaged or anything.’
Annoyed, I began to grab back the books.
‘He’s in California actually, and I am engaged to him because I am going to marry him next year.’
‘You’re not wearing a ring or anything—if you’re engaged to him why didn’t he buy you a ring? How do you know he hasn’t got some American girl?’
‘I know!’ I said taking the last book.
‘I’ll buy you an orchid if you go with me.’
I reached the end of the passage and turned round to face him, pushing the swing door of the lab open behind me.
‘No Michael, no, no, no and finally no.’
I backed through the door, it swung closed and I stood for a second glaring at him through the reinforced glass window before I turned and walked away.
***
‘You’re a very silly girl,’ said Mrs Maxwell. ‘I’m disappointed in you Liz, I thought you had more sense. You missed a lovely evening.’
‘You young girls don’t really know anything about loyalty,’ sniffed Mrs Wilmot. ‘A number of people commented on your absence.’
‘It was such a lovely dance,’ said Sally. ‘You don’t know what you missed—Michael Westbury was so upset you wouldn’t go with him, he was in quite a state having to go on his own.’
‘Michael got drunk and was sick in a flowerpot,’ said Jackie. ‘He reckons it’s your fault. And would you believe that Derek from Sales is married, he came with his wife and after all the things he said to me and after trying to kiss me in the duplicating room.’
‘You really ruined my evening,’ said Michael Westbury. ‘I was so upset I had to go home early. I suppose you don’t feel like coming for a drink after work? No I thought not—I don’t seem to have much luck with women.’
‘Well Miss Beard,’ said Dr Murray when he got back from his trip. ‘I hear you shunned convention and committed the unforgivable sin of not going to the annual dinner dance.’
I was still so embarrassed at my invasion of his privacy that I couldn’t look him in the eye.
***
It was almost your birthday and I wanted my gift to be perfect. What could I send you that would show you what you meant to me? And then late one night I remembered the sonnet. In the middle of the night I got up, put on the light and pulled Elizabeth Barrett Browning down from the shelf. In Sonnets from the Portuguese! found it, number forty-three.
How do I love thee
Let me count the ways
The man in the bookshop shook his head.
‘Sorry love, I can find an anthology with that poem in it but not just that collection on its own.’ Laboriously he went through the lists, tapping his pipe on the counter and humming. ‘How soon do you need it?’
‘Now really, it’s for my fiance’s birthday, I want to post it to him in America.’
‘Pity,’ he said. ‘I’ll have some in a couple of months. A new gift edition of those sonnets—look here!’
He turned the catalogue around and pushed it towards me across the counter.
‘Available August,’ he said. ‘Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese, Folio Society gift edition, corded silk binding in gold presentation box. Sounds just right for your young man. But I suppose you can’t wait that long.’
‘Will you have them in the shop,’ I asked. ‘Can you keep one for me? I’ll get something else for his birthday and send him this later.’
He took my name and phone number and promised to call me when the book arrived.
***
Life seemed to have lost its purpose. I was counting the weeks and days. I didn’t want to go out, I didn’t want to stay in. I played your records and wrote letters to you in the evenings, and waited for the mail to arrive. Your letters were frequent and overflowed with assurances of love and promises for the future. Each morning I would wait for the postman to come before I left for work. When an airmail envelope landed on the mat I would tuck it inside my coat, get out my scooter and ride to work. A couple of miles from the office there was a small green near the village school and there, on a bench under a tree, I would open the letter and lose myself in your words, oblivious to the steady drone of the early morning commuter traffic.
I pictured you in San Francisco walking down a steeply sloping street as a cable car climbed upward, in the background the Golden Gate Bridge spanned a great expanse of sunlit water. I was a little way behind you and I stopped and called your name and you turned and smiled.
‘Come with me Sweetheart,’ you called as you had in Bri
ghton, and I ran down the street and took your hand and leaned against the wall and you kissed me as you kissed me under the pier, your arms trapping me safely. In my dreams the sun was always shining in California. In my dreams we were always alone, just you and me and the San Francisco landmarks hazy in the background. I would take out the little leather folder with the photograph from Brighton Beach and gaze at the pictures trying to feel closer to you. Then I would fold the letter, put away the photographs, start up the scooter again and go to work.
Your birthday came and I sat alone in my bedroom at the end of the day knowing that your day was just starting and wondering how you would celebrate. Next year I would make you a birthday cake. I would wake you with kisses and bring you breakfast in bed and creep back to bed beside you. I would remember this lonely day when we spent your thirty-second birthday so far apart.
‘What’s Karl doing for his birthday?’ my mother asked.
With my legs drawn up beneath me on the couch, and glancing through a copy of Woman’s Own, I was too gloomy to speak and simply shrugged.
‘Look,’ she said, dropping down into the armchair. ‘Time’s moving on, why don’t you go out a bit. You haven’t seen Jenny for ages or Trisha, you won’t even speak to them on the phone. Karl wouldn’t want you to mope about like this, he’d want you to get out and have a good time. Give those girls a ring and arrange to go to the pictures, or just meet them in the coffee bar.’
‘They’re only interested in going out to find boys,’ I said.
‘Well you could go with them, you don’t have to look for a boy but you could go dancing with the girls.’
I shook my head. ‘I’d rather stay in.’
‘Look love, your father and I are worried about you. You don’t go out any more. It’s no good, you should be out having a good time. This is no way to be spending your time at your age.’
‘Then why don’t you let me go to America and marry Karl? Then I’d be having a good time.’ And throwing the magazine aside I ran out of the lounge and up to the bathroom where I ran a hot bath and sat crying in it until the water turned cold and it was time to go to bed.
The next morning I apologised for my rudeness. I seemed to be apologising a lot these days. I couldn’t face the coffee bar which had become a meeting place for couples or people eyeing each other up for a possible date. But June Frasier, a girl at work, had just started to learn judo and invited me to go with her to the class. I was quite keen on the idea of self defence and it occupied one of the long lonely evenings every week. I thought you’d be pleased that I was doing something sensible and active, and I wrote to tell you about the first classes.
The weather grew warmer, cow parsley and daisies appeared in the fields and the grass grew soft and high. There were still eight months left to go and it seemed like eternity.
‘Why don’t you come with us tonight,’ Dad said. ‘We’re going to Carmen’s birthday party.’
I fought the instinct that told me to stay home and listen to my records and went upstairs to change my clothes.
The pub was full and at the piano where you had played ‘Wooden Heart’, a woman was pounding out songs from the first war. Dad elbowed his way to the bar and got some drinks. He was on his way back towards us, his hands full with the glasses, when Doreen materialised out of the crowd and took his face in her hands.
Ten, Len,’ she cried, ‘you’re so kissable’ and she pulled him towards her, placing a kiss on the top of his bald head. The drinks splashed and Doreen laughed and raised her wet hand to her mouth to lick away the spillage.
‘You know bald men are supposed to be frightfully sexy, Darling,’ she said, winking at a woman who had turned to see what was happening. ‘I always like the bald-headed men.’
‘You like all the men, Doreen,’ the woman said turning away.
‘That’s right, Darling, that’s right, I love ’em all,’ she said and wandered off to claim another victim.
‘She’s a menace,’ my father grumbled, pulling out his handkerchief.
‘She doesn’t mean any harm,’ my mother said. ‘She’s entertaining to have at a party and I didn’t notice you fighting her off.’
He wiped his head with his handkerchief. ‘Has it gone?’ he asked, looking at me.
I took the handkerchief from him, licked a corner and cleaned his head.
I watched Doreen as she made her way around the room, remembering our shared disgust at her behaviour, and then I turned away to find a seat near the piano.
I saw Doreen last night, I wrote in my letter to you the following day. She was at a party at the Red Lion and she was up to her old tricks, kissing all the men again.
July began with a burst of wet days. One Tuesday as I waited for the mail the rain seemed relentless. I put on my waterproof jacket and at seven thirty I saw the postman’s van stop outside and heard his feet thudding along the path. The bundle of mail flopped through the letter slot onto the mat. Between the white and manila envelopes I could see the familiar blue envelope with the darker blue and red stripes around the edge. I pulled it out quickly, tucked it into the inside pocket of my rain jacket, called goodbye to Mum and ran out to the scooter. The traffic was crawling that morning and I had almost made up my mind to go straight on to work and read your letter there, but as I got close to the school the rain stopped, so I swung off the road and headed for my usual seat.
You always began your letters with ‘Sweetheart’ or ‘My Dearest Darling Liz’, and I don’t remember now how this one began, but it wasn’t like that. There were no endearments, no promises, no words of love. You couldn’t understand, you said, why I thought it necessary to tell you about Doreen, Why was her behaviour so interesting and attractive to me? You could only conclude that I thought this behaviour acceptable—that this was how I must want to behave. You could never accept such a thing from me and so there was no alternative for you but to end our relationship.
The rain had started again and I read the letter a second, third and fourth time, searching for a word or a phrase that would show me you were not serious; something that would explain to me why, suddenly, you had decided I was totally different from what you knew me to be. Why did telling you about Doreen mean that I wanted to be like her? But there was no explanation. There was not one word of relief from the cold relentless anger in every line. I stared at the passing cars. Tears and rain poured down my face as I struggled with my incomprehension. How could you do this? How could you, thousands of miles away, make this totally mistaken assumption and act on it? Shock and confusion mingled, your letter had made you a stranger to me and alongside the agony of hurt, the loss that seemed to be draining the blood from my body, another wound opened. I had been charged, tried and found guilty of someone else’s crime. I was deeply offended.
***
‘I always knew this would happen,’ Mrs Maxwell said. ‘He was just too old for you dear, and divorced too you see, but you wouldn’t listen. Goodness me, however did you ride that scooter in this state, and you’re soaked to the skin. There, there, don’t be upset. There’s plenty more where he came from. Go and get dry and wash your face dear.’
I stared at my face in the mirror and saw a stranger, a wild, dark-eyed creature who looked like a lost animal.
‘Oh boy!’ said Jackie sticking her head around the door. ‘You look terrible. Mrs Maxwell sent me to see if you’re all right. She’s ringing your mum, they’re going to send you home in a taxi.’
She walked me back to Mrs Maxwell’s office. ‘What a bastard,’ she said as we got to the door. ‘Did he just dump you? I s’pose he’s got some girlfriend there, probably had her all the time-—’
‘Don’t!’ I cut in, bursting into tears again. ‘Please don’t!’
‘Well Mrs Beard, it’s happened as we all knew it would,’ Mrs Maxwell was saying into the phone as I walked in to her office. ‘Liz has had a letter from Karl—’
So, I thought as she went on talking to my mother, everyone always knew it woul
d happen—everyone except me. Why didn’t I know? What about you Karl? Had you always known?
I was piled into the back seat of a taxi, a rug from the first aid room wrapped around my shoulders, my teeth chattering with shock and cold. I didn’t know how I had lost you or why, but I knew you well enough to recognise the terrible finality of your letter. It was over.
‘Look,’ said my mother. ‘It’s all for the best, try to see it that way. We were always worried, he was too old for you, and that divorce—it wasn’t a good thing at all.’
She sat on the edge of my bed and handed me a cup of hot sweet tea. ‘He was very charming, but an older man like that—and America,’ her voice trailed away.
‘He said he loved me,’ I said, plucking at the sheets with shaking fingers. ‘We loved each other. I still love him.’
Look you’re still too young to know what love is,’ she said, looking out onto the rain soaked garden. ‘There’s plenty of time for you, there’ll be other people. Karl was a very sophisticated man, very ambitious. He could probably see how unsuitable all this was. That girl he lived with before, she was an architect, like him, perhaps he went back to her. He needed someone like that.’
So you needed someone older did you, someone more sophisticated. Had you gone back to her, the architect with the long blonde hair I had seen in your photographs, the woman who had left you? She had threatened to kill herself if you left her and then, a few months later she left you. You said that meeting me had set you free—was that a lie, or just a mistake?
‘Drink your tea and rest a bit. Look at it this way—thank goodness you didn’t go back to America with him. Whatever would have happened if he’d turned against you like this over there? Whatever would have happened to you all on your own?’
She closed the door behind her and went back down the stairs to the kitchen. I lay back on the pillows, no longer shaking, my body rigid with shock, my head seething with confusion. I couldn’t make sense of it. If you had gone back to her, or found someone else, why did you have to make it my fault? You had taken away your love and left me with nothing and somehow I was to blame.