by Liz Byrski
And so, having fixed herself tea and toast in a kitchen bleak in its emptiness, Zoë made her escape from the uncharacteristic stillness. After buying a black T-shirt and an emerald green skirt in Dorothy Perkins, she asked the way to the library.
As the librarian made out a ticket for her, Zoë browsed the tatty mix of cards and clippings on the notice board. Under the section ‘Activities For Ladies’, there was a patchwork group, a knitting circle, a young wives club, a request for volunteers to join the cleaning roster at a nearby church, and a notice for another group that made no sense to her at all.
‘Excuse me,’ Zoë asked the librarian, who was pinning up a notice about stamp collecting. ‘Could you tell me what this is, please?’
The woman shoved a drawing pin into the board and peered at her over the top of her glasses. ‘Which one?’
‘Here,’ Zoë pointed to the card, ‘“Consciousness raising for women.” It says newcomers are welcome. It’s on today.’
The librarian’s lips moved silently as she read the handwritten information. ‘No idea, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘You could always go and find out. West Hampstead’s only ten minutes on the bus.’
Zoë read the card again. Consciousness raising; perhaps it was some kind of educational group, the stuff Richard was always on about. He often said she wasn’t conscious of important things that were happening. She wrote down the address, bought a sandwich and a cup of tea in a nearby café, and strolled down to the bus stop.
Zoë had expected a hall with rows of chairs and a dais, but the meeting place turned out to be a pleasant-looking house in a quiet street of Victorian terraces. She knocked lightly on the open door.
‘Come on in,’ called a voice with a broad American accent, ‘First door on the right.’
Zoë pushed open the door to what would once have been the front parlour. Women were sprawled across armchairs and an ancient leather settee, or sat cross-legged on the floor. They looked at her with interest.
‘Another newcomer! Come in, honey, make yourself at home.’ The woman who seemed to be in charge picked her way through the maze of legs, her long purple cotton dress billowing like a tent around her. A deeply fringed orange shawl was draped over her shoulders and several strands of chunky amber beads clacked against her large breasts. ‘I’m Gloria, the convenor, and your name is?’
‘Zoë,’ she supplied, blushing.
‘Welcome, Zoë. How did you hear about us?’
‘Oh . . . er . . . the library,’ Zoë stammered, ‘there was a card . . .’
‘Good girl, you must’ve known what you were looking for. This may well be the first consciousness raising group in London but there’s plenty going on back in Boston.’ She steered Zoë towards an old leather ottoman. ‘Make yourself comfortable. This is Claire, she’s here for the first time too.’
Claire, who looked almost as embarrassed as Zoë felt, gave her a nervous smile and moved further along the ottoman. She was a little older than Zoë and wore her pale hair plaited into a thick loose pigtail.
Gloria explained that at each meeting the topics for the following week were set so that everyone had time to think about them. ‘So don’t worry if you don’t want to join in this week,’ she said. ‘You’ll be jumping in real soon. Today we’re talking about menstruation, how we feel about it, the messages we are given about this normal female bodily function. Let’s start by sharing how we felt when we had our first period. Marilyn?’
A deep flush crept up Zoë’s neck. Was this some kind of joke? The morning she’d woken to find blood on her knickers, Eileen had explained that it was natural, and took her out to buy thick and bulky sanitary pads, and an ugly elastic belt with hooks. There were, she said, other things called tampons, but they were only suitable for married women. She also gave Zoë a booklet called My Monthly Visitor. The booklet had made it sound as though there was to be an exciting journey to womanhood in regular monthly episodes.
Having periods was bad enough but the prospect of having to talk about them made Zoë want to curl up and disappear. Once she had nearly fainted with embarrassment when, having queued in the pharmacy to buy pads, the girl who was serving disappeared to a back room and Zoë was left facing the pharmacist, a brusque man in his sixties. Mortified, she’d asked instead for a packet of throat pastilles, and hurried back through Fremantle to the other pharmacy, where, thankfully, she was served by a woman. It was only here in London that she had discovered the reason for Eileen’s ban on tampons.
Now, as the women talked, it was clear that they had all been brought up to think that menstruation was shameful, dirty, and must be kept hidden so as not to embarrass anyone, particularly men.
‘Men both fear and envy women’s ability to bleed without dying,’ Gloria said eventually, ‘and, as we all know only too well, that fear translates into hostility. We are made to feel unclean when we menstruate.’ And she went on to quote from the Bible.
Zoë was deeply shocked to discover that periods were mentioned in the Bible, and that Saint Thomas and Saint Augustine had both had something to say on the matter; they were, after all, men and saints, albeit dead ones. She wished she could crawl into the dark corner behind the ottoman and hide her face, or, better still, escape into the street. But leaving would involve a precarious navigation of outstretched legs, cushions, handbags, abandoned shoes and books.
‘Menstruation is a natural part of being a woman,’ said Marilyn, who had started the conversation by describing her dismay when she woke one morning at the age of twelve thinking the bloodstains in the bed meant she was dying. ‘We can’t allow ourselves to be shamed and intimidated by the fact that men simply can’t handle it.’ There was a murmur of approval around the room, and, just when Zoë was thinking that she might dissolve with embarrassment, Gloria announced that it was time to move on.
Moving on, unfortunately, did not present an opportunity to slip away. It simply meant moving on to the next topic.
‘Alice,’ Gloria said. ‘You wanted to discuss the power issues inherent in the concept of “the nice girl”. Take it away, honey.’
Alice wriggled forward in her chair, stood up and cleared her throat. She was a pale, dumpy young woman, possibly, Zoë thought, in her late twenties, with excessively large breasts, which, clearly unsupported by a bra, swayed as though they had a life of their own. Zoë was transfixed.
‘Er . . . well, yes, thank you, Gloria,’ Alice said in a breathless little-girl voice. ‘The concept of the nice girl is the subject of my work on the psychology of women.’ And, as she turned to include her audience, the bouncing breasts almost blinded the woman sitting beside her, who moved her chair slightly to avoid a repeat attack. ‘Niceness is, as we know, synonymous with femininity, which is in itself grounded in deference to the male.’
Embarrassment was, it seemed, to be succeeded by boredom, which, for Zoë, was a definite improvement. She sat straighter in her chair and tried to pay attention to Alice, the monotony of whose voice seemed to have extinguished the previous discussion’s fire.
‘Deference is often produced at profound cost to women, both at home and at work, and if it is withheld, the apparent niceness is diminished and interpreted by others as a loss of femininity . . .’
After almost ten minutes of this, Zoë, who was watching the minutes tick away on the rather elegant grandfather clock in the corner, was surprised to feel the gentle nudge of an elbow in her ribs. Beside her, Claire sighed deeply and rolled her eyes, and Zoë did her best to suppress a giggle.
‘Alice, dear,’ Marilyn cut through the diatribe with a pleasant smile, leaning forward in her chair, ‘this isn’t a tutorial, it’s a sharing of our experience as women. Could you be a little more . . . ’
‘Just what I was thinking,’ piped up a rather fierce-looking grey-haired woman perched on a chair near the table, ‘and you know what? This takes us back to our earlier discussion, and to the deference we show to men who are too squeamish to face the reality of women’s biology
. Our niceness in deferring to the male terror of menstrual blood means that we are trapped in the need for approval from . . .’
Zoë’s heart sank as the conversation fired up once more.
‘You see, biology is destiny,’ one woman called.
‘No, no, I blame the church,’ said another and, once again, Claire and Zoë exchanged a conspiratorial smile.
‘Now, before I put the kettle on, and we tuck into Sally’s chocolate chip cookies,’ Gloria said, when she had finally steered the discussion to a close, ‘perhaps one of our new members would like to suggest a topic for next week?’ She looked encouragingly at Claire and Zoë.
Zoë looked away immediately, but Claire, in a voice so soft that even Zoë, sitting alongside her, had to strain to hear said, ‘Well, actually I’d quite like to talk about housework, if that’s all right; you may have talked about this before.’
The women nodded. ‘Heaps of times, actually,’ one said, beaming at her, ‘but there’s always more to say on the subject.’
‘Indeed there is,’ Gloria agreed. ‘And Zoë? Would you like to add anything?’
Zoë’s mouth went dry. ‘I think I’d rather just listen at the moment, thanks.’
‘Housework it is, then,’ Gloria said, getting up. ‘The tyranny of domesticity, the way we’re judged by our houses, and why we spend so much time doing for men and children what they could do for themselves. Now, tea, everyone?’
The women moved and stretched, and Zoë picked her way across the room and followed Gloria to the door, horrified as she did so to see a pair of women on the sofa snuggling closer to each other like lovers, one sliding her hand along her partner’s thigh.
‘I’m afraid I’ll have to go,’ she said as they reached the hall.
‘You’re not stopping for tea then, honey?’
‘Thanks but I need to get home. It’s been very . . .’ Words failed her but Gloria seemed unperturbed.
‘Challenging? It is at first, we’ve all been through it. Anyway, it was real nice that you came. Come next week, bring a girlfriend.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Zoë lied, ‘I’ll see you soon then, and . . . er . . . thanks very much.’ And she let herself out the front door, and walked down the path into the street as fast as she could without breaking into a run.
It was almost five by the time she got home, and Harry was in the kitchen, pouring himself a mug of tea.
‘Hi, doll. What you bin up to?’ he asked, waving the pot at her. ‘Tea?’
‘Please,’ Zoë said, flopping into a chair. ‘I went shopping.’ As she said it, she realised she’d left the Dorothy Perkins bag in Gloria’s room and that there was no way she was going back to get it. ‘But then I lost it.’
Harry handed her a mug of tea and she gulped it down gratefully.
‘I wish Richard was here,’ she said, ‘I really miss him.’
Justine waited on a rickety chair in the corridor outside Mother Superior’s office, wondering what she’d done wrong. She’d been pushing pillowcases through the mangle when Sister Edwina had appeared at the laundry door.
‘You’re to go to Mother’s office,’ she’d said. ‘Hurry up now, run along and wait outside until she calls you in.’
Justine’s eyes were red and sore with steam from the copper. Her arms ached from lifting the waterlogged linen with the copper stick, and from turning the mangle.
‘But, sister, what . . .’
‘Don’t stand about here talking, child, go.’
And so she went; out of the laundry room, round the back path, in through the door and up the stairs, to arrive damp and breathless here in the corridor. She knew better than to knock at the office door; when Mother Superior was ready to see her, the door would be opened.
At the far end of the corridor, Sister Muriel lumbered out through the door of Justine’s dormitory, a cloth bag made of old curtains bundled under her arm. She was a small, hunched woman with an uneven gait, and the bundle made her look like one of the Seven Dwarfs. She stopped in front of Justine, and looked her up and down.
‘She hasn’t seen you yet, then?’
‘No, sister.’
‘Stand up when you talk to me, girl.’
Justine slid from the chair and stared down at the scuffed toes of her shoes. ‘Sorry, sister.’
‘“I’m sorry, Sister Muriel”.’
‘I’m sorry, Sister Muriel,’ she repeated and the nun tapped on the office door and was summoned from within. A few minutes later, she emerged and stopped to look at Justine again.
‘Well, I won’t see you again,’ Sister Muriel said, ‘so remember your manners and don’t forget your prayers. God bless you.’
Justine stared at her, confused; was Sister Muriel leaving? The nuns never seemed to go anywhere. The sister trundled off in the direction of the dormitories, and Justine sat down again. What would the punishment be this time? Maybe the cane? If she tried really hard, she could almost make herself not feel the cane. The worst thing was when Sister Edwina used the copper stick behind her knees; that really hurt. Once it was so bad that Justine had bitten her own hand and made it bleed. The big brass-framed clock with the white face and black hands ticked noisily in its dark wooden casing. Justine watched the long hand jerk its way through the minutes, thinking of the things that the nuns did every day that were worse than the actual punishments. Sister Mercia twisted ears so it felt as though they would drop off, and Sister Leticia pinched. She pinched so hard and so often that the girls’ legs and arms were covered in small livid purple bruises. Justine stared at the crucifix above Mother Superior’s door, and wondered if Jesus told the nuns to pinch or to cane the girls, or to make her stand by the copper where the boiling water bubbled up and splashed her arms and neck. Is that what he meant when he said ‘Suffer the children’?
The door opened. ‘Ah! Justine, come in,’ Mother Superior said.
Justine slid off the chair and walked in, eyes down, as she had been taught. A lady in a pale green dress and a small white hat was sitting near Mother’s desk. Justine had seen her before; it was the lady who had given her the lace handkerchief.
Mother Superior picked up the cloth bag that Sister Muriel had been carrying and pushed it into Justine’s hands.
‘Mrs Fitzgerald’s come to collect you; here, take your things.’
‘You’re coming home with me, Justine,’ Mrs Fitzgerald said, getting up. ‘We’re going in my car. Have you been in a car before?’
Justine nodded, remembering the last time.
‘Mrs Fitzgerald wants you to help her,’ Mother said.
She understood then that she must be going to help with the cleaning; it must be dusters and polishers in the bag and maybe a scrubbing brush. Justine’s heart slowed to a normal rate – cleaning was a lot better than having her knees caned. She risked a small smile in Mrs Fitzgerald’s direction.
The two women shook hands and Mother Superior put a hand on Justine’s head. ‘God bless you, my child,’ she said, ‘you mind you’re a good girl now.’
As Mother Superior opened the front door, Justine stopped abruptly. The car parked in the sunlight was similar to the one that brought her here years ago. Her stomach lurched.
‘You pop into the front seat, Justine,’ Mrs Fitzgerald said, putting a warm hand firmly on the small of her back.
Justine took a deep breath, opened the passenger door and climbed in, feeling the scorching heat of the leather through her thin cotton dress. The car smelled of polish just like the floors in the chapel. Mrs Fitzgerald settled herself in the driver’s seat and switched on the engine. From the front steps, Mother Superior lifted a hand in a brief wave then turned back to the building.
As the car swept down the drive, Justine glanced across the garden to the water tank. It felt good knowing her box was there. Tomorrow, she told herself, tomorrow I’ll get my box and go. And she leaned back in the seat and considered whether it was best to leave straight after lights out, or very early in the morning.
NINE
London – September 1968
‘But they’re not like your parents,’ Julia said as she and Simon queued to go through customs at Heathrow. ‘And they’re not expecting me back for another month, so turning up on the doorstep and announcing I’m engaged might not be the best way to do it.’
Simon checked the duty-free bags to make sure that their allowances of whisky and cigarettes were intact. ‘You mean, I won’t be able to turn on my fatal charm?’
‘Oh, you’ll be able to turn it on, but it might not work.’
‘It’s always worked in the past.’
‘How many times have you got engaged and turned up to surprise the parents?’
‘Well, never, obviously. But you know what I mean.’
‘Yes I do. But you don’t know my parents. They’ll love you, and they’ll be thrilled about your family – it’s just the surprise I’m not sure about.’
‘Parents are parents,’ Simon said, rolling his eyes. ‘And if you know your Jane Austen, you’ll know that parents of daughters love handsome, well-connected, wealthy fiancés – and I’m all three.’
‘And modest too.’
‘But I’m right, aren’t I? And I can actually do modesty very nicely when I need to, and I promise to do it with your parents. Don’t worry, sweetness, it’s going to be absolutely fine. Look how thrilled my parents were. They love you, just like I said they would.’
Julia watched as a customs officer asked the man in front of them to open his suitcase. Simon was probably right, she was worrying unnecessarily. And his parents had been lovely to her, but they were different, much more modern and sophisticated than her own parents. Lewis Branston was a Londoner, a self-made millionaire; his wife, Marina, was a New York heiress whose inheritance had been sunk into the hotel chain.