by Liz Byrski
‘How would I know?’ Heather had responded, thinking it a stupid question. ‘I wasn’t there. I mean I was, but not with any sort of intellectual consciousness.’
‘But what did your mother tell you about your birth?’ the woman asked patiently.
‘Oh, I see what you mean. Well, apparently I was in the breech position and I had to be turned and the cord was round my neck. I think Mum said they used forceps.’
‘There you are then,’ the therapist said with a triumphant smile. ‘You were born in struggle, and you continue to repeat that. You create struggle for yourself, you choose the hardest way of doing things.’
‘No I don’t,’ Heather had protested. ‘I’d kill to find easy ways to do things.’
‘But you don’t allow yourself to find them. Struggle is part of who you are, the way you see yourself in the world. You need to let go of the birth experience, and then you can stop struggling.’
Heather paid the bill, left and never went back.
‘That sounds like very good advice,’ Ellis had said when she told him. ‘We could do some meditation around that, if you like.’ And she had shouted at him then. Shouted! She, who had never in her life shouted at anyone, had shouted at him to shut up and stop counselling her, shut up and start being her friend, her lover, anything, but stop acting like some guru. She’d surprised herself with the intensity of her anger and the abandon with which she’d let rip.
‘Maybe it’s because I love you so much,’ she’d said later. ‘Perhaps the intensity one feels for a person is reflected at all levels in the relationship. So I love you more than anyone and in consequence get madder at you than I do with anyone else.’
On the other hand, Ellis could be exceptionally infuriating, and her anger had flared again the next day when, searching for her keys on the coffee table, she’d moved some of the papers he’d been working on for his book and saw that he had noted down the thing the therapist had said about birth experience.
‘It’s good stuff,’ he’d protested, ‘I can use it.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be creating your own good stuff,’ she’d said, ‘not nicking other people’s?’
They hadn’t spoken for a couple of hours after that. Heather had never experienced such extremes of emotion. Where was it all coming from? She had always been such an equable person. Now here she was shouting at Ellis one minute, and aching with love and lust the next, high as a kite or deep in gloom, losing it with Adam, revealing so much to Jill and then, at Barbara’s party, bursting into tears at the sight of Daisy and Emily doing an improvised fairy dance. What was the matter with her? Was it the bullet that had unleashed this great well of emotions, or was it something to do with being in love? Whatever the cause, it simply made life more complicated, and didn’t help alongside the terminal boredom she was feeling in relation to her job. For the first time ever she wished she could write a letter of resignation, give two weeks’ notice and leave.
‘You could do that,’ Ellis had said at the weekend. ‘It wouldn’t be the wise or responsible thing to do, but you could do it. So maybe you need to find the wise and responsible way and think about doing that.’
‘There is no wise and responsible way. Not for another year, not until after the next election.’
‘That’s rubbish, Heather. No one’s indispensable and this is bleeding-heart crap.’
‘I’m being realistic,’ she’d protested. ‘The party needs me, the electoral boundaries have been changed to our disadvantage and because I’ve been here for so long, I’m the candidate with the best chance of holding the seat. Besides, there’s the constituents – look how wonderful they were when I was shot. I owe it to them.’
‘You don’t owe them anything, and they wouldn’t hesitate to vote against you if it suited them.’
‘You are so hard, Ellis,’ she’d said, throwing herself on the sofa in frustration.
‘I’m not hard, I’m realistic. A man would not be poncing around like this. A man would do the best thing for himself in the circumstances.’
‘Some men.’
‘Most men.’
‘Well, I’m not a man, something for which I’ve always been thankful.’
‘Fuck it, Heather, you are so argumentative. You never used to be like this.’
She’d got up then and put her arms around his neck. ‘No, I used to agree with you and do as you told me all the time. And look where that got me.’
‘That was a cheap shot,’ he said, but he kissed her all the same and minutes later they were both half naked on the primrose damask in full view of the ground-floor windows.
‘If you resigned,’ Ellis said later, zipping up his fly, ‘we’d have more time together. You haven’t even been up to my place yet. I want you to come to Byron Bay, stay with me, see my house. But you always seem to have things on at weekends.’
And so she’d promised him she would cancel everything for the weekend after next and fly up from Sydney for a long weekend between sitting weeks. It was so tempting to dump everything, everything she’d built up here in the electorate, and retire, relax, take a long holiday, read more, exercise more and, most of all, have more time with Ellis here in Newcastle and in Byron Bay.
‘And you haven’t even had time to read the business plan properly,’ he’d said. ‘It would be nice if you could take a bit more interest in it.’
He was right, she hadn’t read it yet. She kept putting it off, and not just because of the pressure of work. There was something about the whole idea of it that made her uneasy. It sounded a little too New Agey for comfort. She wished that Ellis could just go and get on with it without her ever having to know any more about it but that, of course, would be totally unfair.
There was a tap on the office door and Diane opened it. ‘I thought I might go to lunch,’ Diane said, ‘if that’s okay with you.’
‘Sure,’ Heather said. Diane was proving to be a real asset, and with Shaun away taking a much needed break, she was managing the office better than Patsy ever had. ‘Sure, but look, why don’t we just shut the office for an hour and go together?’
Diane’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Shut the office?’
‘Why not? We’re entitled to a lunch break, aren’t we?’
‘Shaun would have a fit.’
‘He’s not here,’ Heather said, ‘and if we don’t tell him, he’ll never know. Besides, I’m actually the boss, and if I say we can go, we can go.’
‘So how’s the house sale going?’ Heather asked once they’d found an empty table. ‘Any joy yet?’
‘We’ve had an offer at the asking price,’ Diane said. ‘The agent rang this morning. He’s bringing the paperwork over this evening so Gerry and I can sign off on it.’
‘That’s so quick,’ Heather said. ‘But maybe you should see if you can push the price up a bit.’
‘I want out,’ Diane said, pouring herself some water. ‘And Gerry wants his share of the money freed up.’
‘How long have you been there?’
‘Seventeen years. And since I got back from the Gold Coast, I’ve been so fixated on getting out I haven’t even begun to think about where I’ll go.’
‘What does Charlene think?’
‘Charlene is too busy with her new life to be particularly interested. I guess I’ll put everything into storage and rent somewhere while I look around.’ Diane watched Heather cutting her focaccia into four equal parts and rearranging them on the plate. If she’d been having lunch with any other woman, she’d be asking her how her new love life was going, but Heather? What the hell. ‘So what about you, Heather, how are things going with you and Ellis?’
Heather smiled. ‘Good, I think. But it’s hard work being in a relationship, isn’t it? I’ve lived alone for so many years and you get used to doing your own thing without having to take anyone else into account.’
‘But he’s up in Byron Bay most of the time, isn’t he?’ Diane asked. ‘It’s not like he’s living with you.’
‘No, he’s not. But it’s about having someone else in your head all the time even when they’re not around, having responsibilities to them, living up to their expectations. Sometimes I think I’m missing that gene, that I’m a person who’s supposed to be alone. But then I think, well, I’m so lucky, not many people get a second chance.’ She paused. ‘Ellis is an unusual person but then, you’ve met him, Diane. What did you think? Did you like him?’
Diane almost choked on a rocket leaf. Heather was asking her what she thought, talking to her like a friend. ‘Sorry,’ she said, patting her lips with the paper napkin, ‘went down the wrong way.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Fine, thanks.’ She drank some water.
‘So, did you like him?’
Diane thought Heather sounded like Charlene when she brought home her first boyfriend – proud, triumphant almost, but also terribly vulnerable. ‘Of course I liked him,’ she lied. ‘He’s a very charming man.’ Charming was the best she could manage and at least it was sort of true, because there was no doubt in her mind that Ellis went out of his way to be charming, particularly to women, but he had failed to charm her.
‘Marks out of ten for Ellis?’ Shaun had said on the drive home. ‘I give him five.’
‘On what basis?’ Diane had asked.
‘Well, I don’t think I’m really keen on him personally, but I’m being generous because he makes Heather happy and she really deserves that. Come on, your turn.’
‘Oh, a grudging two and a half, I suppose,’ Diane said. ‘One for good looks, one for being obviously very intelligent, and a half . . . actually, no, scrub the half, I’ll stick at two.’
‘So you didn’t like him at all?’
‘I thought he was a totally pretentious wanker,’ Diane said, ‘and I wouldn’t trust him with my toenail clippings.’
Shaun spluttered with laughter. ‘Gee, I’m glad I didn’t turn out to be your son-in-law. I’m sure I’d have been subjected to much more brutal assessment.’
‘You were,’ she said, ‘and you outrank Ellis by miles in every possible category.’
Heather was pushing her food around the plate, and Diane felt a sudden burst of empathy. The cool, professional mask had slipped, and in a fraction of a second a different woman had been exposed.
‘I’m so glad you liked him,’ Heather said, smiling now. ‘You see, my brother can’t stand him, Barbara didn’t say much at all, and my sister-in-law said she really hadn’t had much of a chance to form an opinion. I so much wanted them all to love him, but I suppose they’re cautious because they don’t want me to get hurt again. So, you see, it’s good to have an honest opinion from someone who’s totally objective.’
‘I –’ Diane began.
‘No, really,’ Heather cut in, ‘we’re about the same age, you and I, and you’ve been through a lot recently and I think that makes people more perceptive. So I really trust your opinion.’
THIRTEEN
Wendy, Ellis’s first wife, was an argumentative woman – at least, in his opinion. Other people described her as forthright with a strong bullshit detector, but Ellis preferred argumentative. When they first met, Wendy had been twenty, sweet and rather mousy. Ellis was seven years older than her, it was the sixties, and a few years after they were married things started to change. First of all, Wendy had her hair cut and restyled into a blunt, straight Mary Quant bob that finished halfway down her ears, and dumped her floral print dresses and bought a pair of dungarees and several short shift dresses patterned with large bold blocks of contrasting primary colours. She also threw out her stockings and lacy suspender belts and started wearing flesh-coloured tights and talking about women’s rights, chauvinism and patriarchal attitudes. Ellis told her he was all for women having equal rights, but Wendy was not convinced.
‘I totally support women,’ he told her frequently. ‘I think women do amazing things. You more than anyone, Wendy, should know that in my mind women are on a pedestal.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ Wendy replied. ‘When you’re on a pedestal there’s only one way, and that’s down. Equality actually means thinking of people as equal, not on different levels. You just haven’t got a clue what I’m on about, have you? You just don’t get it.’
What Ellis didn’t know was that Betty Friedan had spoken to Wendy and spoken clearly. In The Feminine Mystique, a book she’d mistaken for one on fashion and cosmetics, she had recognised her own life to date, analysed and interpreted in ways that left her gasping for breath. Wendy never told Ellis about this, instead she joined one of the early consciousness-raising groups and her consciousness shot through the roof. Ellis never really understood what had hit him.
When the marriage was over he wished he’d been the one to end it, and that he had done so a few years earlier so that he and Heather could have been together. But he had run away from Heather when the going got tough, and stayed with Wendy because it seemed easier and because of the twins, then just eighteen months old, adorable and fairly easily confined to a playpen. How was he to know that by the time they were five years old he would have discovered that children were most definitely not his thing?
Ellis was in his late forties when he married Julia. She was the daughter of a former chief justice and wouldn’t have been seen dead in dungarees. She had high-level connections, a Masters degree in art history, and was part owner of an elegant gallery where most people felt compelled to speak in hushed tones, though Julia and her partner would talk in loud, confident voices with accents more English than the English, and whinny with noisy laughter like thoroughbred racehorses. Ellis enjoyed Julia. She lacked the warmth, girlishness and romantic sensibility that he sought, but she was a splendid companion who opened all the right doors, and she was fun. So he was both amazed and insulted when she fled the marital home with an odd-job man who had done bits of construction work at the house and the gallery.
‘How common,’ Ellis said to himself when he read Julia’s farewell note. ‘How very trashy. I thought better of you, Julia, I really did.’ And mentioning in the note that she was sure that, as a true romantic himself, Ellis would understand her need to follow her passion, was particularly hurtful. But he had recovered and had gone on to other, transient, relationships, confident that in time he would find the right person. Now, despite the initial hiccups, he knew he was on the right track and that this could be his last chance.
‘I’ve so much to show you,’ he’d said when Heather finally cancelled some appointments and committed to a long weekend in Byron Bay. ‘I can’t believe you’ve never been to the Bay.’
Her visit would, he believed, be a significant step forward in their relationship. At last she would be on his territory; it was his opportunity to establish his ascendance in the relationship. In Sydney and Newcastle he was a guest, Heather called the shots, and his tolerance of that situation had worn very thin. And he’d made a big effort for her: he’d suffered through the birthday party, which was a nightmare swarming with children, but felt he’d behaved impeccably, even with the surly brother and the grumpy old sod who’d once given him grief as a prosecution witness. As he sorted through the papers on his desk, he even caught himself mumbling about a few days in Byron Bay being a chance to bring Heather to heel. The term shocked him with its inappropriateness but the sentiment was spot on.
He set himself to planning the weekend carefully to establish his role in their relationship and Heather’s impression of him in this environment. He also wanted to talk with her about Head to Heart. He was finding the writing of the book extraordinarily difficult. Writing had come easily to him in the past; he had drawn on his rhetorical skills and knowledge of the law to create persuasive openings, memorable closing statements and finely tuned opinions. But right now he was struggling.
‘I need to get you to look at this,’ he’d said to Luke on the phone. ‘Go through it with me.’
‘Absolutely snowed under at present, Ellis,’ Luke had said. ‘Carry on. I’m sure it’ll be
splendid.’
Clearly, although Luke would drive the marketing and promotion, the content was down to him. The prospect of another mind being brought to bear on the material was very encouraging, and it would be a chance to show Heather that they could work together. Ellis looked forward to the coming weekend with enthusiasm, confident that by the time he drove her to the airport on the Monday evening, he would have demonstrated to her that they would make an excellent partnership, personal and professional.
*
Since the day he met Rosa Hartman at the conference, Shaun’s old ambitions had returned to haunt him. He had planned to spend a couple of years in Heather’s electorate office while he did his Masters part time, and then maybe move to federal politics or possibly the office of a state minister. But by the time he’d finished his Masters, he’d grown comfortable. The job gave him satisfaction, a measure of authority and the gratification of knowing he was really good at what he did. But now he wondered if his father was right when he said he should get out more. It wasn’t only about meeting women, it was about broadening his horizons, moving further up the career ladder. That was why, during his few days off, he had arranged to meet Rosa Hartman. His life, he reflected, seemed to operate in the orbit of older women, and now he was orbiting another. He wondered if a therapist would suggest that it was compensation for his virtually non-existent relationship with his mother, but he didn’t really care. Rosa was a political animal, she knew Heather and now him, and she was familiar with the party and the political landscape. Who better to nut out the issues?
‘Sure thing,’ she’d said when he called to make a time to see her while he was in Sydney. ‘But let’s have dinner. I live just off Oxford Street. Come to my place and we’ll walk to this great little Italian restaurant around the corner.’
The restaurant was small with low lighting and red-checked tablecloths. ‘I love this joint,’ Rosa said. ‘It reminds me of a place I used to go to in London, Earls Court, back in the sixties. Look –’ she pointed to a raffia-encased Chianti bottle holding a candle – ‘candles in bottles. We used to think that was the personification of cool.’