Bad Behaviour

by Liz Byrski

  ‘You keep yourself to yourself, it’s nobody else’s business what we do,’ Eileen had insisted. ‘And don’t go bringing those girls home after school.’ Visiting friends’ houses was largely forbidden too. ‘You don’t know what goes on behind closed doors, and you don’t need to,’ was the usual response when Zoë was invited to tea, or just to play. Even birthday parties were suspect and if she did manage to get Eileen to agree to her attending one, her mother would turn up to collect her long before the festivities were over; sometimes even before the cake had been cut.

  Friendship was, and remains, too risky; there is only Jane and once, a long time ago, there was Julia. Even when she lived in the house in Delphi Street, she kept her distance. She circled around looking for ways in but never actually taking them. She had risked herself with intimacy, love and friendship and wouldn’t risk losing everything again.

  Zoë sips her coffee and nibbles on a little almond biscuit. Being a wife and mother may be considered unadventurous by some, but it has been entirely satisfying. Now, though, everything is changing. Dan disappearing frequently to dangerous unknown places; the girls growing up and planning to leave.

  Finishing her coffee, Zoë walks out of the courtyard and into the cool, white-painted corridors of the main building. She is not inspired by the artwork on the walls, which lack the colour and action that she suddenly needs. She turns to leave and walks briskly across the highly polished timber floors into the passage. She has never been inside this part of the building before but vaguely remembers Eileen saying that it used to be the women’s asylum. She walks on up a creaky staircase, past the State Literature Office. Then, ahead of her she sees a huge room, flooded with light from the high windows, in which a dozen or more people seated at easels are painting. At the far end of the room, a man, palette in hand, seems to be about to wind up the session.

  ‘So, that’s it,’ he says. ‘I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and if you want to go on, just call in at the office downstairs and they’ll give you the info on the advanced classes.’

  The painters shift in their seats and fiddle with their brushes. Zoë stares over their shoulders at the different variations of the same landscape. It’s extraordinary, she thinks; some of them look really good, others look weird, but each is distinctly different. Is it because of the different levels of skill, or do they just see it in different ways?

  People are rinsing out water jars, re-capping tubes of paint, drying their hands on rags or on their jeans. Zoë spots a familiar face; a woman who sometimes works in the healthfood shop in town is drying her brushes on a piece of old T-shirt. Glancing up, she sees Zoë standing in the doorway and smiles. Zoë walks over to her.

  ‘Hi,’ she says awkwardly. ‘I was just watching. Your painting’s beautiful.’

  The woman pulls a face. ‘Hardly,’ she says. ‘I’m a complete beginner but I’m better than I was twelve weeks ago, before this course.’

  ‘Twelve weeks. Is that all?’ Zoë asks in surprise. ‘It looks really professional.’

  ‘Whatever that means . . .’ the woman says with a laugh. ‘This is the beginners’ class but Theo’s a very good teacher. Do you paint?’

  ‘Oh no. I don’t even know if I could.’

  ‘Nor did I until I tried. But it’s enormous fun.’ The woman straightens up from putting her pad and brushes away. ‘And it’s wonderfully restful. It feels quite self-indulgent because you get so wrapped up in what you’re doing you forget about all the other crap going on outside. You get so involved that for a little while the painting is all that matters.’

  ‘Really?’ Zoë stares at her.

  ‘Really. Well, that’s how it is for me. You should try it sometime, I bet you’d love it. Excuse me, I’d better go and wash my palette now.’ And, smiling, she crosses to the sink.

  Zoë waits until only the teacher remains, writing something in a notebook. She hovers again near the doorway, hoping he’ll notice her.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ he says, eventually glancing up and seeing her. ‘Are you waiting for me?’

  She steps into the room. ‘Well, yes, if you have a minute.’

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I was just wondering about this class, the beginners’ one. Whether I could join . . .’

  ‘Today was week twelve; the last, I’m afraid,’ he says. ‘Are you sure you’re a beginner, because maybe you could do the intermediate?’

  ‘Oh no, I’m a beginner definitely. I haven’t even held a paint-brush since primary school, and that’s a very, very long time ago.’

  ‘I don’t believe it’s that long,’ he says grinning and, to her amazement, Zoë realises he’s half flirting with her. She blushes.

  ‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘there’s a new beginners’ class starting next month. If you’re interested, you could check at the office downstairs. I think there are still a few places.’

  ‘And . . . is that . . . will you be . . .’

  ‘Oh yes. I’ll be teaching it. Theo,’ he says, stretching out his hand. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Zoë.’

  ‘Okay, Zoë. I look forward to seeing you.’ And he turns back to his notebook.

  Zoë walks out of the studio and downstairs, where she enrols for the course and pays. She leaves wondering why on earth she’s done it and if she will actually be brave enough to turn up on the last Wednesday of the month.

  TWENTY-SIX

  San Francisco – March 2000

  Richard walks briskly through San Francisco airport and out into the late afternoon sunshine to the line of waiting cabs. He is high on the chance to strut his stuff tomorrow at an international conference on the future of journalism. Martin Gilbert had top billing but, two days ago, he broke a leg, two ribs and a collarbone in a skiing accident. Tomorrow, Richard will deliver a speech on the challenges facing television current affairs, to an audience of the elite in the media industry. It is an opportunity to ensure that next time he will be the conference organisers’ first choice.

  ‘So you’re well and truly plastered?’ he had joked to Martin.

  ‘I am, and I want your promise that you won’t be plastered at the conference. Belinda will email you my speech.’

  ‘I have one of my own,’ Richard said, defensive now. It was only half a lie, as he’d been working on an article on the subject, which could quickly be adapted for the presentation.

  ‘Okay, up to you. But stay off the booze the night before.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Martin, do you think I’m an idiot or something?’

  ‘If I did, I wouldn’t be asking you to step in for me. But I know what you’re like when you’re on the piss.’

  ‘It’s my business what and when I drink,’ Richard said. He was sick of people hammering him about his drinking.

  ‘Wind your neck in, Rich,’ Martin said. ‘I need to know I can rely on you.’

  Now, two days later, in the back seat of a San Francisco taxi, Richard glances impatiently at his watch. He’s put a lot of effort into his address, and he’s edgy and hasn’t been sleeping. On the spur of the moment after his conversation with Martin, he’d made another call to organise tonight’s dinner.

  The hotel suite is almost embarrassingly luxurious – more towels than he could use in a week, bathrobes, gold-wrapped chocolates, flowers, fruit and champagne. It’s a long time since he’s travelled like this and it’s a comforting reminder of future possibilities if he gets it right tomorrow.

  Richard pours himself a whisky from the mini-bar, unpacks his change of clothes, checks his laptop which has his Power Point presentation on it and then heads for the shower. Ten minutes later, he’s dressed and wondering whether he has time for another drink before they arrive. Best not, he decides as the phone rings, and he unwraps a peppermint to mask the scent of the last one.

  He is more than ever grateful for the room and all that it says about who he now is. He opens the door as they step out of the lift.

  ‘Daddy!’ Carly cries, stepping out ahead o
f her mother to throw her arms around his neck. ‘You look so cool without that hillbilly beard.’ And she kisses him several times.

  ‘And you look stupendous, my darling,’ Richard says, holding her at arm’s length and looking her up and down.

  ‘Stupendous,’ Carly repeats, trying to mimic his English accent. ‘My favourite word.’

  Lily is followed by someone else; a stunningly good-looking man in jeans, white shirt and tailored black jacket, who looks like a youthful Sidney Poitier.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Rich,’ Lily says, kissing him on both cheeks and not pulling away from his hug. ‘Carly’s right; you look cool.’

  ‘And you look as beautiful as ever, Lil.’ He puts an arm around her shoulder. ‘And who’s this?’

  ‘Jason Lockyer, sir, I’m a friend of . . . well, I’m . . .’

  ‘We’re engaged,’ Carly cuts in. ‘We told Mom last weekend. I know you two are going to love each other. Jason’s a journalist.’

  ‘I thought I’d warned you about journalists?’ Richard says, shaking Jason’s hand with both of his, and using humour to mask the resentment that assails him.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir. I very much admire your work, and I’m looking forward to your keynote speech tomorrow.’

  Richard smiles. ‘So, you’ll be at the conference. But if you’re planning to marry my daughter, maybe I should interrogate you now?’

  ‘Carly’s mom already did quite a bit of that,’ Jason says, smiling.

  ‘Yes, she would,’ Richard says looking at Lily. ‘And it would be far more intimidating than anything I could put you through.’ There is more kissing and hugging, and he struggles to muster the generosity of spirit that will enable him to overcome the fact that his daughter, whom he has already failed numerous times, has taken this step without telling him. There is a moment of awkwardness now that the greetings are over, and Richard wonders how he will manage the evening. He wants some time alone with Lily.

  ‘Well,’ he says, breaking the sudden tension, ‘come on in and raid the mini-bar and then we’ll head off out to the restaurant. I’ll call and let them know there are four of us instead of three.’

  They are suitably impressed by the size and opulence of the suite and wander around inspecting the facilities as he pours the drinks.

  ‘You could’ve warned me, Lil,’ Richard says softly a little later as they stand together by the window looking out across the Bay to the Golden Gate Bridge outlined against the blushing sunset.

  ‘I wanted to,’ she says. ‘But they sprung it on me and when Carly heard you’d be here today, she wanted to surprise you. She made me promise not to tell.’

  Richard nods, slightly mollified. ‘He seems nice. How long has she been seeing him?’

  ‘About three months, but they’ve known each other for ages. He’s lovely; you’re gonna like him, Rich. Try to be happy for her.’

  ‘I am,’ Richard says, turning to her. ‘Really I am; if you approve, he must be a saint. It’s just the shock.’

  Lily surprises him by putting her hand reassuringly on his arm. She doesn’t touch him much these days. ‘They’ll be fine,’ she says, ‘there’s nothing to worry about. Just don’t let your ego get in the way.’

  She has him pinned again; there is no one who knows him better. Even Julia is not as brutally honest with him as Lily is and that suddenly seems more important than ever.

  ‘Let’s go to dinner,’ he says, gripping her hand. ‘I promise to behave nicely.’

  ‘Really?’ she says. ‘That’ll be a first.’ But she’s smiling when she says it.

  Dinner calms him. Jason proves to be intelligent, articulate and clearly devoted to Carly. He is a reporter with the Oakland Tribune, he tells Richard, and his parents adore Carly.

  ‘I guess I should be asking your permission, Mr Linton,’ Jason says.

  Richard shrugs. ‘I’m sure you asked Lily, she’s the boss around here.’

  ‘My folks would really like to meet you, if you have time.’

  ‘I’m flying back tomorrow evening,’ Richard says. ‘But maybe I should come down for a weekend soon, so we can all get to know each other.’

  Carly engaged, Lily alone. This is the best chance he’ll ever get. They have survived separations and reunions before, and this last separation has lasted more than a decade, but the chemistry is there, he’s sure of it.

  They are talking about a wedding – September, perhaps, or October. As he listens he watches Lily, remembering the day he first saw her cooking breakfast in the Black Panthers’ kitchen. It was years later, after he had run away to Vietnam and then been posted to Washington, that he’d decided to look for her. When he was in California, following Ronald Reagan on the presidential campaign trail, he walked into the Panthers’ office in West Oakland, thinking he might find someone there who would know where she was. To his amazement she was there: a slight black woman with a wild halo of hair, her hands on her hips as she berated a guy built like a commercial refrigerator for dumping the leaflets he was supposed to be distributing. When she turned to look at him, Richard knew that he should have made the trip a long time ago. They were together for twelve years.

  ‘Well, we’re gonna leave you guys to it,’ Carly says now. ‘So, Daddy, you promise you’ll come back in two weeks’ time for the whole weekend?’

  ‘Stupendous promise,’ he says, pulling her to her feet and hugging her. ‘I’m very happy for you, sweetheart. And you be nice to this guy; he seems okay.’

  ‘He’s more than okay,’ she says. ‘He’s the one!’

  And Richard walks them both to the door of the restaurant and turns back to the table, where Lily is putting on her glasses to read the conference program. He has been thinking about this for months, and knows he has a lot to answer for: the drinking, the outbursts of verbal abuse, the mood swings. He had loved her passionately and treated her abominably, been a lousy husband and a useless father. The day she ended it she’d warned him that if he didn’t clean up his act, he would lose his job as well. But he was still convinced he could stop drinking whenever he chose to.

  ‘So, when will you choose to stop?’ she’d asked. ‘You’ve been saying that for years. Join AA, or go get some counselling.’

  ‘I don’t need counselling and AA’s for alcoholics,’ he’d argued. ‘I’m not a fucking alcoholic.’

  ‘Really?’ she’d said.

  Richard takes a deep breath now and makes his way back to the table.

  ‘Impressive!’ she says, smiling up at him and taking off her glasses. ‘Big stuff, Rich.’

  He nods, gratified by her approval. ‘You could come along, if you’re free. I’m on at ten o’clock.’

  She pauses. ‘Okay, I’d like that. I don’t have a lot on in the morning, just a meeting that I could move back.’

  In the late seventies, she had done a degree in black history at Berkeley and, when he had walked back into her life, was just finishing a PhD. Now lecturing in the course she had previously studied, she is working on a history of the civil rights movement.

  ‘I’ll let the registration desk know to expect you,’ Richard says, ‘and we could have lunch before I leave?’

  ‘We haven’t finished dinner yet!’

  ‘Let’s order dessert,’ he says, signalling a waiter. ‘There must be something on the menu that will satisfy your chocolate addiction.’

  His heart seems to have moved up into his throat. Should he say something now or wait until later? He has no idea where to begin. When they had reunited in 1980, despite the years since their first affair, she had taken him on trust. This time she is older, wiser, tougher, and she knows the best and the worst of him.

  ‘I’ll have the raspberry sorbet,’ Lily tells the waiter.

  Richard looks up quickly. ‘Not the chocolate mousse?’

  ‘I’m not completely predictable.’

  He grins. ‘Okay, then, I’ll have the chocolate mousse.’ He closes the menu and takes a deep breath, leani
ng towards her across the table. ‘Lil, now that we’ve got the place to ourselves . . . there’s something I want to ask you . . .’ He panics and hesitates too long.

  Lily waits, then says, ‘I’ve got something to ask you too.’

  Relieved to have time to get himself together, Richard indicates she should go ahead.

  ‘Carly isn’t the only one with good news,’ she begins.

  And, in that instant, Richard knows he’s too late. He sees that while he has been blundering into and out of meaningless liaisons, someone of substance has walked into Lily’s life. Each time they’ve met, he’s told her about the women in his life, and she has listened, laughed, commiserated, and told him nothing. They’ve talked politics and world events, friends and acquaintances. They’ve talked of Carly, and often about his and Lily’s work but never about her personal life. Richard sees that he has simply assumed that she would always be there for him and, that in the end, they will grow old together.

  ‘So you see,’ she says, ‘after all this time, twelve years we’ve been separated now, I’d like a divorce.’

  ‘But you never said you’d met someone,’ he protests.

  ‘It wasn’t your business, Richard. I have my own life; so do you.’

  ‘But we’re friends, just the same, and I thought . . .’

  ‘You thought,’ she interrupts, ‘that when you were ready to try again, I’d be waiting? That’s not how it works.’

  And then, of course, instead of just being gracious, agreeing to the divorce and wishing her happiness, he has to make it worse. Drinking, pleading, threatening, until, in the end, Lily gets up from the table.

  ‘I told you back then that it was over. You’re a good man, Richard, but when you’re drunk, you’re stupid, arrogant and a bully. How many people have walked away from you because of the drinking? Too many to count, but you always have some excuse. Now, go to bed, get some sleep. You have a job to do tomorrow.’