Bad Behaviour

by Liz Byrski

  ‘I’ll have to start calling you Mr Sheen,’ Zoë said. ‘Do you think all this domesticity will last once the baby’s born?’

  ‘Lord knows!’ Richard laughed. ‘But I think I’d probably opt for vacuuming over dirty nappies any day.’ As well as feeling it was essential, he found some satisfaction in taking control at home; it made him feel competent and helped to assuage his guilt.

  Arriving home one evening the following week, though, he was frustrated to find Zoë making her way slowly back up the three flights of stairs to the flat with a basketful of washing she had collected from the line in the tiny yard.

  ‘I said I’d do that when I got home,’ he said sharply, taking the basket from her and following her up the stairs. ‘You shouldn’t be carrying it. Mrs Driscoll downstairs said she’d always get the washing in, if you ask her. I do wish you’d listen to what the doctor said. It’s not long now, after all.’

  ‘I have to move about a bit,’ Zoë protested. ‘I’m so sick of waiting.’

  He steered her towards the sofa and, as he did so, dropped the file he was carrying and his notes scattered across the floor.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, sinking down against the cushions, ‘I’ll help you.’ He put his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘I’ll get them. If you must do something, just sit there and fold the washing.’

  ‘What is it, anyway?’ Zoë asked, picking up a shirt and shaking out the creases.

  Richard dropped the papers into her lap. ‘Stuff for the program on women’s lib. I’m trying to find a women’s consciousness raising group. Word is they’re going to be very big, very soon; there are quite a few in the States but I can’t find any here.’

  ‘There’s one in West Hampstead,’ Zoë said. ‘I went there once.’

  Richard looked at her in amazement. ‘You went to a CR group?’

  She nodded. ‘While you were in California. It was an accident, really; it turned out not to be what I expected.’

  ‘I bet it did,’ he said, sitting down on the end of the sofa and lifting her feet onto his lap. ‘You never told me about it.’

  ‘You weren’t very friendly at the time.’

  ‘Fair enough. But I’m very friendly now. Tell me about it.’

  Leaning back against the cushions, Zoë described Gloria in her flowing purple dress and amber beads, the two women fondling each other on the settee and the discussions about having periods. ‘Mind you, after six months of antenatal visits I don’t know why I was so squeamish about all that,’ she said.

  ‘I suppose you don’t remember where it was?’ Richard asked.

  She frowned and shook her head. ‘I can’t remember the name of the street, but it was a Greek name, I think.’ She paused. ‘I got off the bus in West End Lane. I might remember, if you get the A to Z.’

  One Sunday afternoon while Simon was sorting out a German pop group that had trashed an entire suite, Julia decided to call in at the Parkers’ tea party. She no longer qualified as a young person alone in the city, but she didn’t think Hilary would turn her away and she actually felt very much alone. She had been in Paris for just three months but was already bored with her new life; albeit, bored in luxury. She missed Zoë’s company and the friendship that had bloomed during her last months in England; phone calls didn’t really compensate for not being able to do things together. And Simon’s aversion to Julia being anything other than his wife frustrated her. She felt trapped and resentful, and had noticed herself sighing again.

  From the hall she could hear the familiar clamour of English voices, and she popped her head around the door. It all looked remarkably familiar; a roomful of young people, flirting, eating, drinking tea, wreaths of smoke rising from cigarettes. It was so familiar that it made her instantly aware how dramatically she herself had changed.

  ‘How lovely,’ Hilary said, taking her arm and drawing her into the kitchen. ‘You look wonderful, Julia. We were so sorry we couldn’t come to the wedding, but you know how it is . . . Anyway, we’re thrilled for you both. So, Simon’s running the hotel and what are you doing?’

  In that moment it occurred to Julia that, although Hilary didn’t have a job she was always busy: planning the catering for a church function one moment; visiting new parishioners, comforting the lonely, rushing off to meetings or organising volunteers, the next. It was so different from Julia’s own mother’s life. She had no idea what Anita did with her time – very little, it seemed – and what she did know was that she didn’t want her life to be like that. Julia needed something of her own to do and if Simon was going to be difficult about her having a job, she would find something equally absorbing.

  ‘I’m not doing anything at the moment,’ she said, ‘but I’d like to. I suppose you don’t know of anything?’

  ‘Maybe I do,’ Hilary said, handing her a knife to butter bread for more sandwiches. ‘Tom, of course, was always very interested in the protests, we wondered if you . . . ’

  Julia started buttering. ‘Yes, well, that was Tom. Simon has no sympathy with all that, nor with the anti-war protests.’

  ‘That’s all very well, Julia, but if it’s important to you . . .’

  ‘It was part of being with Tom, that’s all,’ she said quickly. ‘Do you ever hear from him?’

  ‘From time to time,’ Hilary said, without looking up. ‘They lost the baby, I’m afraid. Did you know that? Stillborn. Between you and me, I don’t think Tom is very happy. I’ll just take this plate through into the lounge; keep buttering, please, Julia, they have voracious appetites this afternoon.’

  Julia buttered on, determined not to let Hilary see her reaction to the news; determined, in fact, not to allow herself to feel her own reactions. So, Tom was sad, but he was still married, and so too was she. Examining what it might all mean was far too risky. She forced her attention to the present. Hilary was obviously much younger than Eric, at least twenty years, perhaps more. Julia wondered what had drawn her to the kindly but rather remote vicar, and, as she stacked the buttered slices, she wondered what they were like in bed together.

  ‘There’s something that might interest you,’ Hilary said, coming back into the kitchen with a pile of empty plates. ‘It’s a group I belong to. I think I’m the oldest one there. A couple of them are even younger than you.’

  Julia rinsed her hands under the tap and dried them on a tea towel. ‘I don’t know if my French is good enough for a group.’

  ‘Oh, that’s not a problem. There are other women there who don’t have a lot of French, a couple of Englishwomen and some Americans, and we all manage to communicate with each other. We’re working on the status of women – the group is called Jeunes Femmes. You could come along sometime. You might find it interesting.’

  FIFTEEN

  Bayswater, London – May 1969

  Zoë felt as though she had been pregnant for years. Getting out of the bath with ease, painting her toenails, and running up and down the stairs were distant memories. Her body, which was constantly practising for the birth by tightening up and relaxing, had become a burden over which she seemed to have very little control. But she was happier than she had ever been. It was a peaceful kind of happiness grounded in her now solid belief in Richard’s love for and commitment to her. The first weeks of their marriage had not been easy, and even at the start of the New Year she had still been worried that he resented her and didn’t want their baby. But by the time the first signs of spring had started to break through, she had been convinced that he had, as Julia had predicted, put the past behind him. In recent weeks, his concern for her, his efforts to help at home and the increasing tenderness with which he treated her had laid her fears to rest. And there was no doubt in her mind that his impatience for the baby to come matched her own. She was grateful, and not a day went by that she didn’t think of how things might have been. But, despite her eagerness for her pregnancy to be over, she was increasingly nervous about the prospect of the actual birth.

  Zoë knew nothing ab
out babies and had never even held one; her sequestered life with Eileen hadn’t included friends or neighbours who had them. The women at the antenatal classes she attended passed on tips from their mothers or sisters, but the prospect of giving birth seemed like stepping off a cliff with one’s eyes shut. But she did have Richard; a different, more considerate, loving Richard, just the way she had always wanted him to be.

  From time to time, she missed the dazzling light, endless horizons, searing summer heat and soft insistent winter rains of home. She missed Jane, who was now working at Perth airport and had recently got engaged to a Qantas pilot. They wrote to each other often, and Jane had promised that as soon as she and Tony were married later that year, she would come to London. But, more than anything, Zoë missed Julia, who had stood by her and given her strength in those miserable and fearful weeks before and after the wedding. Julia and Simon had left London for Paris at the end of January, around the same time as Zoë had left the BBC.

  ‘We’ll talk,’ Julia had promised, ‘every day; well, at least every other day. I’ll call you. It’ll only be a tiny blip on the Branston phone bill, and I’ll get a flight over as soon as my niece is born. It’s so exciting, Zoë; you do realise I’m going to spoil her rotten.’

  ‘It’s a boy,’ Zoë had said with a laugh.

  ‘Rubbish. She’s a girl, I feel it in my bones. I hope you’re not going to call her Eileen or, worse still, Anita.’

  ‘Danielle,’ Zoë said, ‘or, if I’m right and it’s a boy, Daniel.’

  Their telephone conversations were like life support for Zoë. Confiding both the fears and satisfactions of pregnancy, and her growing confidence in Richard, was, Zoë realised, a way of working out her own feelings, building her confidence in her ability to cope with the prospect of motherhood and the reality of marriage. It had helped her to manage her mother and Richard’s parents, all of whom were like sharp bits of grit in Zoë’s shoe.

  Writing to tell Eileen that she was married, and why, had been incredibly hard, as had surviving the wait to hear how her mother had taken the news. Eileen had written five pages about the sacrifices she had made to give Zoë everything she herself had lacked. She was, she said, let down and shamed by Zoë’s behaviour. But on the last page, the tone changed. Richard sounded like a good man, she said; she hoped that when the baby was born, they would come to Australia so that she could meet her grandchild.

  ‘We will go,’ Richard had promised when he read the letter. ‘Or maybe she could come here.’

  ‘Never,’ Zoë said, shaking her head. ‘My mother will never get on a plane or a ship. If she’s ever going to meet you and the baby, we’ll have to go to Australia.’

  In the letters that followed, Eileen had avoided actual recriminations but her disapproval was evident and Zoë continued to be haunted by guilt. Being the focus of her mother’s constant attention had been hard enough but the burden of having failed her so miserably was harder still, and she was thankful for the thousands of miles that separated them.

  Richard’s parents had been equally horrified when he had called to tell them he and Zoë were married, but they had sent a generous cheque. And, on the day of Julia and Simon’s wedding, totally unprepared for Zoë’s pregnancy, they had managed to grit their teeth long enough to play the role of prospective grand parents. She wondered sometimes how much distress it had caused them and was grudgingly grateful that, thanks to their tight-lipped commitment to Richard, the flat was theirs for as long as they wanted. In these final months, compelled to rest, she had spent many contented hours on the window seat, reading and looking out over the rooftops of London, and, as the afternoons drew to a close, listening for the sound of Richard’s footsteps on the stairs, his key in the door.

  On a mild evening late in May, Richard came home, armed as usual with a bulging briefcase but this time also with a Dorothy Perkins carrier bag.

  ‘This,’ he said, holding it out to her, ‘is yours.’

  Zoë peeped into the bag and drew out an emerald green miniskirt and a black T-shirt. ‘Good heavens, I’d forgotten all about these.’

  Richard dropped into a chair and put his feet on the coffee table. ‘Maybe, but the dames in the CR group haven’t forgotten you.’

  ‘So you went there?’

  ‘I did indeed. And you were right, the house is in Delphi Street. I met the amazing Gloria and ate an indecent amount of her pineapple upside-down cake.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And they were keen as mustard to let us film them and do an interview with Gloria. And they were keener still to hear about you.’

  ‘They? Who else did you meet?’

  ‘A rather nice older woman called Marilyn, and Claire, fair hair in a big plait. Said she went there for the first time the same day as you. She lives there now.’

  ‘Lives there?’

  ‘Yep. Left her husband just after Christmas; her raised consciousness made her realise she didn’t want be treated like a domestic servant. Several women live there. It’s a pretty big house, three floors.’

  ‘Wow,’ Zoë said. ‘I thought Claire felt as out of place as I did.’

  ‘Obviously not. I told tales on you, I’m afraid. Told them why you went and how surprised, and then how embarrassed, you were.’

  ‘Oh, you didn’t!’

  ‘They’d already worked it out, Zoë. They laughed, sent you their love and they’re coming to see you.’

  ‘They’re not! You didn’t give them the address, did you?’

  ‘Yes. Claire’s really sweet and Gloria’s a hoot. Women’s experience is universal,’ he said, quoting Gloria and mimicking her accent. ‘We all speak the same language.’

  ‘Those women are the last thing I need,’ Zoë said. ‘Hopefully they’ll forget about me.’

  Richard took off his jacket and loosened his tie. ‘I’ll remind them when we go back to film,’ he said, teasing her. ‘I’ll mention that you’d like some company.’

  ‘No! They’re not . . . they’re so . . . I mean . . . I just don’t think we have anything in common.’ She leaned forward and went to push herself up, catching her breath at the sudden warm gush of liquid between her legs. ‘Oh my god, my waters have broken!’ she cried, sitting down again in shock.

  Richard darted to the hall and was back in an instant with towels warm from the airing cupboard. ‘What do we do now?’ he asked anxiously, packing them under and around her. ‘It’s a couple of weeks early. Shall I ring the hospital?’

  ‘I suppose so. I don’t know. Yes, ring them, ask them what to do.’

  From her damp position on the sofa, Zoë heard him dial the number. It seemed to take forever; the definitive whirr of the dial and then the slacker sound of it rotating back into place. She was awestruck by the enormity of what was about to happen, by the feeling that her life would never be the same again.

  ‘They said to go now,’ Richard said, standing in the doorway. He had gone a deathly white.

  ‘Well, we’d better go then. I’ve got that bag packed in the bedroom, like they told us. I’ll just put on a dry dress and then . . . then . . .’

  ‘We’ll go.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He helped her to her feet, pulling her towards him. ‘I love you, Zoë,’ he said, kissing her. ‘And I’m terrified.’

  ‘Me too. I mean, I love you too, and I’m terrified too. Are you still sure you want to be there?’

  Richard nodded. ‘Absolutely! Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’ And he steered her towards the bedroom.

  ‘What, now?’ Julia exclaimed. ‘You mean, she’s actually in labour right now?’

  ‘Right now. We’ve been here hours but it’s just going on and on. She got the first contractions in the car. It’s awful, Jules; she’s in so much pain.’

  Julia swapped the phone to her other ear and sat down on the sofa, ‘Calm down. How long do they think it’ll be?’

  ‘Could be ages. They said first babies often take about twenty hours. I can’t tell you how
horrible it is, I can’t bear seeing her like this.’

  ‘But it’s wonderful, so exciting,’ Julia said. ‘She is okay, isn’t she? You should be in there with her now, Richard, supporting her. Get back in there and sit with her. Hold her hand or rub her back, or whatever they tell you to do.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be in charge of the gas and air thing.’

  ‘Well, go and do that. It’s meant to make it easier, isn’t it?’

  ‘Takes the edge off the pain. I feel such a shit, Jules, she’s so brave and I’m, I’m such a hopeless . . .’

  ‘A hopeless shit,’ she finished for him. ‘And now you’re being a wet, hopeless shit, so stop it.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’ll do if anything happens to her.’

  ‘Now you’re being really wet,’ she said, thinking she sounded like the games mistress at her old school, jollying on the girls who hated playing hockey when the ground was hard with ice. ‘Nothing’s going to happen to her, she’s only having a baby. Women do it all the time. She’ll be fine. Now, you go on back in there and give her my love. And ring me again when anything happens.’

  ‘Trouble?’ Simon asked, coming out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel.

  ‘Zoë’s in labour and Richard’s panicking.’

  Simon gave a little whistle through his teeth. ‘I bet he is. You know Mike, my cousin? He had a terrible time when Tina was in labour. They almost had to anaesthetise him.’

  ‘Oh, really!’ Julia said. ‘How pathetic. Women are the ones who have to waddle around like whales for months, go through agony having it, and you men want us to feel sorry for you?’

  ‘Darling heart,’ Simon said, clutching his hands to his chest in mock horror. ‘You can’t blame a chap for worrying about his wife at a time like this. It’s only because we love you so much. We all know we’d be lost without you girls.’ He put his arms around her, his hands on her buttocks. ‘I’d be worried if it were you, I don’t want anything to hurt you.’