Bad Behaviour

by Liz Byrski

  Julia struggled to breathe. ‘But what do you want?’

  ‘I love you. I want to marry you, but this is the right thing to do.’

  ‘You were going to leave without telling me?’

  ‘No,’ he protested. ‘No. Of course not. I was going to call you this evening. Ask you to meet me and tell you then – I wanted to explain properly, not over the phone.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this,’ she said. ‘I thought you loved me.’

  ‘I do; honestly, I do,’ Tom protested. ‘But, you must see . . .’

  ‘No,’ she said, standing up, swaying slightly, thinking she might vomit. ‘I don’t see. I believed in you and now . . .’ she hesitated, and then squeezed herself out from behind the table. ‘I never want to see you again.’

  Tom got to his feet. ‘You can’t mean that.’

  ‘Of course I mean it. You’re getting married, having a baby.’ A lump welled in her throat and she swallowed it.

  ‘I don’t have a choice,’ Tom protested.

  ‘You always have a choice. You told me that. People always have a choice, you said, between the heart and the head.’

  ‘But this is different.’

  ‘No it’s not. You had a choice and you’ve chosen her.’

  ‘Because I have to. You think it’s straightforward, but it isn’t. Please, Julia, don’t go like this; at least let me take you home.’

  She wanted to scream at him but the old men’s eyes were darting back and forth, watching with fascination as her life fell apart in front of them.

  ‘Where were you all weekend?’ she asked. ‘You weren’t at the flat.’

  ‘We couldn’t talk there,’ Tom said, ‘not with the others around. I took her to that hotel in Montmartre. It was a good thing I’d booked a room.’

  Julia wondered if she had ever really known him.

  ‘I hoped you’d understand,’ he said softly.

  ‘Oh, I do.’

  ‘But not in the way . . .’

  ‘Not in the way you’d like me to . . . a way that would make it easy for you, so you wouldn’t feel guilty. Well, hard luck Tom, it’s not like that. I hope you feel so guilty it tears you apart.’ And, pushing past him, she stumbled out into the street, where the lights had just come on and people were strolling home as though it were a normal evening, as though the world had not come to an end.

  On a mild evening at the end of August, two months after Tom had left her, Julia went to the cinema with Simon Branston. It wasn’t their first date; they had been seeing a lot of each other in recent weeks. It had surprised Julia when Simon had suddenly stopped ignoring her and asked her out; the other girls she’d seen him with were glamorous and sophisticated in ways she knew she could never match. What surprised her even more was that he kept asking her. Simon was good company; he knew how to have fun, which she sorely needed, and he had an old-fashioned sort of gallantry about him. Julia enjoyed the attention, which made her feel better about herself.

  Relationships, she decided, were like a balance sheet; you totted up the pros and cons to determine your own best interests. Simon had a few irritating habits. In the way of those accustomed to being the centre of attention, he talked a lot and took it for granted that those to whom he spoke agreed with him. He was, however, an otherwise charming companion, being good-looking, well-dressed and generous to a fault. It was easy to imagine taking him home to Bramble Cottage; the beams would be a problem, as they always were for anyone over five-foot-four, but her parents would adore him, especially when they learned that he was the heir to the Branston hotel chain. As they walked beside the Seine in the mild evening air, a boat decked with coloured lights drifted past. On the deck, people were dancing, laughing, drinking champagne. Julia imagined herself dancing on a yacht in some exotic location, with nothing to worry about except looking glamorous and keeping her guests entertained.

  ‘So, what do you think then, Jules?’ Simon asked. ‘Am I going to take you back to the Le Bons again or race you off to my den of sin?’

  Julia stopped and looked up at him. She was under no illusion about loving him; he didn’t inspire her or encourage her to learn about or care for anything outside their own world, but he represented everything she had been taught to respect, to value and to aspire to. So, with the new pragmatism that had also been something she learned from Tom, she totted up the columns. It had to happen sometime; maybe life would be simpler once this hurdle was out of the way. Passion, she had concluded, was misleading and dangerous. It seemed ridiculous now that not so long ago, despite her fear, it would have taken only a nudge from Tom for her throw herself into all that madness on the streets. And where would that have got her? Arrested, perhaps? Flung into the back of a police van? On the receiving end of one of those rubber batons? And for what? There was nothing she could do. In the end, you had to look out for yourself. You could understand other people’s passions, but you didn’t have to be vulnerable to them, any more than you had to be vulnerable to your own. That only led to hurt, betrayal and disappointment. In any case, her virginity was beginning to feel like an embarrassment.

  A few hours later she disposed of it; not in a picturesque and romantic hotel in Montmartre, but in the luxury of a suite in the Paris Branston, just off the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

  Sleeping with Simon really did seem right at the time.

  SEVEN

  Kilburn, London – late July 1968

  Since the day in January when she had first seen Harry, Zoë’s fear of him had slowly disappeared, and by the time she had mentioned him to Richard’s parents over the roast beef, she had stopped seeing him as different; he had become a friend. It hadn’t taken her long to discover that Harry was just like any of the other people who drifted in and out of the house, and, in fact, she liked him a lot. He was older than her and Jane – older even than Sandy – and considerably wiser than all of them. There was something wonderfully reassuring about having him around to deal with the temperamental hot water system, and to take a firm hand with travellers who were supposed to be passing through but outstayed their welcome. What’s more, his part-time job in a hotel kitchen meant that he often came home with bags of leftovers that were a cut above anything prepared in the Kilburn kitchen.

  ‘You girls only love me for my leftovers,’ he would joke, handing over the bag of goodies. ‘When is somebody going to love me for myself?’ But he already had Agnes, who loved him entirely for himself. She was a nurse he’d met at a dance at the Jamaican club, and Harry adored her.

  Early in June, Jane, who had already been in London for eighteen months, went back home to Australia, and Zoë and Harry became allies in the war that raged in the Kilburn house between those who lived there and the ever-changing mob who dossed down in the attic rooms for a few days. Sandy ruled the house, walking a thin line between adhering to her relatives’ conditions and making a little extra on the side to fund her obsession with expensive Italian shoes. And Zoë, who had never really felt at ease with the shiftless nature of a mixed household, felt increasingly insecure with Jane gone.

  ‘You won’t leave, will you, Harry?’ she asked. ‘You could get Agnes to come and live here. You two could have the big room now that Jane’s gone and I can move into your little one.’

  ‘Agnes has to stay in the nurses’ home,’ Harry said. ‘The matron watches them like a hawk. But now I’ve finished my thesis, I ought to be able to get a job with decent pay, and when I do, we’re gonna get married, get a place of our own.’

  ‘I’d hate it here without you,’ Zoë said. ‘You’re the only really sane person in this house. Everyone else is either crazy or stoned or both.’

  ‘Why don’t you move in with Richard?’ Harry asked. He was ironing the kitchen whites he wore to work, and Zoë hauled herself up to sit on the edge of the table.

  ‘My mother may be thousands of miles away but she’d have a fit if she thought I was sleeping with Richard, let alone living with him. I still haven’t even
told Mum about him.’

  ‘And your dad?’

  Zoë shrugged. ‘Who knows; gone with the wind. He was a sailor on a ship that docked in Fremantle and he disappeared before Mum even knew she was pregnant. She had no idea how to find him.’

  Harry gave a low whistle. ‘Hard times, eh? She raise you on her own?’

  ‘Yes. She worked – in a laundry for years, then in the woolsheds in Fremantle; she’s still there.’

  ‘Tough dame,’ Harry said, switching off the iron.

  Zoë nodded. ‘Tough and bitter. Her family refused to have anything to do with her when she got pregnant. Her sister, Dot, Jane’s mum, is still the only one who speaks to her. She had a hard time and she gave me a hard time, too; always watching me, stopping me doing things, going on about good behaviour and not getting into trouble. Frightened I’d turn out like her, I suppose.’

  ‘You two fight much?’

  ‘Mum doesn’t fight; she cuts you off, just like they did to her. She doesn’t speak, her mouth goes like a pussy’s bum. That lasts a few days and then it returns to normal, which is not much different, really.’

  Zoë’s temporary job in audience research had finished, but the BBC had kept her on, moving her to a permanent job in radio answering listeners’ letters on The Dales.

  ‘You’d love it, Mum,’ Zoë had told Eileen on the phone. ‘There are episodes every day, a bit like Blue Hills, but it’s about a doctor’s family. Jessie Matthews is in it, she’s Mrs Dale. Remember you took me to see a film with her in?’

  Zoë’s proximity to her favourite film star impressed Eileen but didn’t compensate for not having her daughter where she could keep an eye on her.

  ‘So you won’t be coming back just yet, then?’ she asked. ‘Dot says Jane’s going for a job at the airport. I thought you might like that too. Aren’t you lonely over there on your own?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Zoë said, watching her own reflection in the phone box mirror and fingering the heart-shaped enamel pendant Richard had given her. She had not taken it off since he had fastened it around her neck. ‘I love it here and I’m not the least bit lonely.’

  ‘Jane told Dot you’ve got a boyfriend and he’s much older than you.’

  ‘Well . . . yes, a bit,’ Zoë said, ambushed, wondering just what Jane had said.

  ‘Eight years, Dot says. It’s a lot at your age, Zoë. Are you sure he’s not . . .’

  ‘You’d like him, Mum,’ Zoë cut in. She pictured Eileen standing tight-lipped in the narrow hallway, twisting the telephone cable around her fingers, and imagining an ageing and unscrupulous Lothario. ‘Must go now, the money’s running out. I’ll ring next week,’ and she put the phone down quickly.

  The mere thought of her mother attempting to caution her over the telephone from the other side of the world made her cringe. She was nineteen, she was in love, and she was confident she knew more about love and sex than Eileen had ever known or could even begin to imagine. Her relationship with Richard had become her reason for being, and she thought nothing of breaking arrangements in order to be with him, staying home in case he called and planning what she might wear to please him. This, she was convinced, was how it should be, although she did feel that Richard himself often paid too much attention to his other interests. Still, she knew better than to say so.

  But the passing of time was having a different effect on Richard. The blissful haze of love and lust was lifting and the resulting clarity disturbed him. There was much that he loved about Zoë; her vulnerability made him want to protect her and that, in turn, gave him a sense of power. And he loved those wide-set brown eyes with their strange green flecks, the almost perfect cupid’s bow of her upper lip, her constant desire to please him and her enthusiasm for sex. But it was now clear that involving Zoë, or even getting her to take an interest in his overriding political passions was going to be much more difficult than he’d first thought. Some days he could convince himself that, given time, he could educate her; other days, he wasn’t so sure. Time and again, he found himself going back over the day in March that Zoë had chosen to go to Shepherd’s Bush market with Jane rather than to the anti-Vietnam rally with him.

  At the time he had shrugged off his disappointment and gone down to Trafalgar Square with Charlie, his flatmate. It was peaceful at the start, but when they moved off and eventually came face to face with hundreds of police surrounding the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, all hell broke loose. Stones were thrown, placards doubled as weapons, and mounted police rode into the crowd wielding truncheons. One of them caught Richard on the shoulder and he staggered and fell, hitting his head on the kerb. For several minutes he lay there stunned, blood trickling warm and sticky down the side of his face, until Charlie spotted him and dragged him to his feet.

  ‘I could have been arrested,’ he’d told Zoë later. ‘Look – three stitches in my head. I wish you’d been there.’

  ‘I’m glad I wasn’t,’ she’d said, pulling a face. ‘It’s only some war thousands of miles away, it’s nothing to do with us. You should’ve come with us; the market’s really cool.’ She stuck out her leg. ‘I bought these red tights, d’you like them?’

  In that moment a warning niggle of irritation and disappointment ran down Richard’s spine, but her smile and outstretched leg disarmed him. She leaned across and kissed his forehead close to the plaster.

  ‘Poor Richard,’ she said, nuzzling his ear.

  And, despite the pain in his head and shoulder, Richard’s lust was stirred, and he tilted his head back to kiss her.

  Now, four months later, Richard knew that as important as sex was, it was not enough. He yearned for something deeper, more complex and more intellectually rewarding, and he swung back and forth between frustration at what he thought was her superficiality and the feeling that she had depths he had not yet managed to plumb. Was it all down to her youth, he wondered from the lofty heights of eight years’ seniority, or was it the result of growing up with a controlling, narrow-minded mother in the most remote capital city in the world? Did he want this relationship to grow, or did he want to end it? But in July, a big break at work made him shelve his questions about Zoë and focus on his career.

  Race riots were sweeping across the United States as a result of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and the BBC’s legendary television journalist Martin Gilbert was planning a documentary on the future of the civil rights movement. Richard had read widely on the subject and his briefs and analyses were so sound and comprehensive that Martin Gilbert offered him a chance to join the crew.

  ‘You are so lucky to be going to America,’ Zoë said, sitting cross-legged on his bed.

  ‘I know,’ Richard said, rolling socks and tucking them into the corner of his suitcase. ‘It’s a chance in a million.’

  ‘I’ll miss you terribly. Promise you won’t fall in love with some groovy American girl and forget all about me?’

  ‘Of course I won’t,’ Richard said, folding his favourite shirt with obsessive attention to mask the guilt of having already considered this possibility. ‘And I know I won’t be missing any developments in the The Dales while I’m away,’ he said, putting the shirt in his suitcase. ‘You could go away for six months and still pick up the storyline. Mrs Dale would still be saying “I’m worried about Jim . . . ”’

  Zoë threw a rolled-up pair of socks at him.

  Richard’s jaw tightened and he kept packing.

  ‘Oh, don’t be so grumpy,’ Zoë said with a laugh. ‘I know what you do is terribly important.’ She grabbed the neck of his sweater and pulled him down onto the bed. ‘Come on, I want to make a big impression on you before you go.’

  And Richard, despite his own better judgment, slipped his hand up her skirt and tugged at the waistband of her knickers.

  EIGHT

  Kilburn, London – September 1968

  On the first Saturday of Richard’s absence, Zoë was, for the first time ever, entirely alone in the Kilburn hous
e. Jane was gone, Sandy was on a package holiday in Majorca and Harry had set off early to study in the university library. Even the attic rooms were strangely empty. From her bedroom window she watched as people hurried past; couples, families, they all seemed to have someone to be with, and somewhere to go. The time stretched miserably in front of her. She pictured Richard, Martin Gilbert and the camera crew sitting in aircraft seats, at pub tables or in hotel bedrooms, talking with that intense single-mindedness and camaraderie that she’d seen at the BBC; men having conversations on anything from work to politics, football to house prices. Zoë felt a jolt of resentment that right now Richard was probably talking to other men and not thinking about her, while he was always on her mind. He was the first man ever to take notice of her; she ached for his attention and approval, fed off the smallest signs of tenderness and thrived on his desire. Sometimes she had an uncomfortable feeling that she needed all this in ways that Sandy and Jane did not. They were so much more sure of themselves, with their take-it-or-leave-it attitude to men. Even so, it seemed that waiting around for men was something that most women did a lot of.

  ‘They only ever think about themselves,’ had been Eileen’s parting comment on men when Zoë left home. ‘You can’t trust them. Nothing but selfishness and trouble, you’re better off without them.’

  Zoë knew that her mother’s cynicism was simply bravado; a way of dealing with her hurt, shame and loneliness, and placing herself beyond the reach of pity. But what did Eileen really feel? Zoë wondered now. Had she loved the elusive sailor? Had she believed, did she still believe, that one day he would come back? What was it that had passed between them?

  Rummaging now in the cupboard for something to wear, she remembered one thing Eileen definitely did believe: that almost anything – heartache, illness, boredom or loneliness – could be solved by borrowing the latest Georgette Heyer or Catherine Cookson novel, even a Mills & Boon, from the library. This, thought Zoë, tugging at the zip of the green-and-white sundress, the only thing in the cupboard that was clean and didn’t need ironing, could also be a hint of her mother’s real longings. All those swashbuckling landowners, and serious-minded but ambitious men always just out of reach, turned out to be at the mercy of women they loved. They did not disappear out to sea under cover of darkness, never to be seen again.