Bad Behaviour

by Liz Byrski

  ‘And I was hoping I could use the computer quickly,’ he says, pouring boiling water into the plunger so they can have coffee. ‘But I didn’t like to close your inbox.’

  ‘I went out and forgot it,’ Zoë says. ‘Pour the coffee, and I’ll go and do it now.’

  As she sits at the desk, she looks again at the message she was going to delete. It’s headed ‘Hello’ and comes from someone called Tom Hammond. She scrolls down to the signature.

  ‘Coffee’s getting cold,’ Dan calls from the kitchen.

  Zoë reads the email and then stares at the screen.

  ‘Come on, Mum.’

  She prints out the email and makes her way back to the kitchen as though she is sleepwalking.

  ‘That’s yours,’ Dan says, pushing a mug towards her. ‘Shall we take it out onto the verandah? Are you okay? You’ve gone white.’

  She holds the sheet of paper out to him and he puts down his mug.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Read it,’ Zoë says.

  ‘Dear Zoë, I have tried so often to write this message, choosing words and sentences, erasing them and starting again. Now I’ve decided that there is probably no ideal way to say what I want to say, I just have to take the chance and hope that you will read this message in the spirit in which it is sent. Who the hell is this from?’ Dan asks, looking up.

  ‘Julia Linton, Richard’s sister.’

  ‘Shit!’ Dan says. ‘What the hell . . . are you okay, Mum?’

  ‘Read it,’ she says, ‘just read it.’

  ‘I have thought of you many times over the years, since that last awful time I saw you at the flat. That day stands in my memory like a judgment and while I have tried to make sense of it, to rationalise it, to make myself think that it was all right, I always come back to the fact that it wasn’t.

  ‘I can’t begin to speak for Richard, I can only tell you that I bitterly regret my part in what happened, the way I failed you as a friend, as my sister-in-law, as another woman. I’ve tried telling myself I was too young, selfish and inexperienced to cope with something so complex and distressing, but it’s only an excuse for something inexcusable. I know now that there were ways I could have stood by you as well as supporting Richard, things I could have done to make it easier.

  ‘Perhaps it will seem facile to you if I say now that I am sorry, but I hope you will be able to see beyond these actual words to the meaning they carry. I have recently lost my dearest friend to a terrible, lingering illness; death has a way of reminding us that some things should simply not be left undone. And so I am writing to tell you I am sorry – sorry for what we did, for your pain and fear, and sorry that I let my love for and responsibility to Richard take precedence over my love for and responsibility to you as my friend.

  ‘I would love to hear from you, to know about your life and to tell you about mine, but I will understand perfectly if you don’t want to reply.

  ‘I wish you love, happiness and joy in your beautiful son who is now a man, perhaps with children of his own. I hope that somehow, someday you may feel it in your heart to forgive me.

  Julia.’

  Dan drags his eyes away and looks up at Zoë, who is standing at the other side of the table as if she’s carved from stone.

  ‘I thought it was over,’ she says, ‘the shame of it, the hurt; but it isn’t, is it? It’s never, ever going to be over. One mistake, one false step, determines the course of your life. Here I am, fifty-two years old, and who I am today is the result of the night I slept with your father.’

  ‘You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to,’ Archie says. ‘Nothing’s different from the way it was before this message arrived. You can forget all about it.’ He reads the email again. It seems genuine and heartfelt. And he’s at a loss to understand why Zoë is so crushed by it. ‘Julia is asking for forgiveness and she knows that may not be possible,’ he says.

  Zoë is curled into a corner of the sofa. ‘It’s like a scab,’ she says, ‘it becomes sort of tough and sealed; you can pick at it a bit and it doesn’t hurt. But then it gets caught on something and rips off, and it’s like all the old pain is there again.’

  Archie sees the hurt and the shame in her face, and imagines again the struggle of a single mother with a black child, who is alone in the world. He sits down beside her and gently lifts her legs, cradling her feet in his lap.

  ‘It’s thirty years ago, Zo,’ he says. ‘More, in fact. They treated you badly, although many would have done even worse. Your son is a wonderful man, and he’s that way because of your courage and strength. In other circumstances, he might have turned out a very different person. You can’t regret that.’

  ‘I don’t regret it,’ she cuts in. ‘Of course I don’t regret anything about Dan. But while I gained him, I lost so much else.’

  ‘What did you lose? Richard? From all you’ve told me, I don’t think he was any great loss. Harry? Well, my darling, he was never yours to lose.’

  ‘My youth,’ she says softly. ‘My self-esteem. I lost all the ways I could imagine myself to be. I was twenty when Dan was born, a few months older than Rosie is now. I was alone with a new baby and terrified of what was going to happen to both of us. My mother told me not to come home, and Gloria and the others took me in but I didn’t fit in with them. Every day was a struggle. I lost my youth to shame and humiliation. I know I only have myself to blame but that doesn’t stop it hurting.’

  Archie has never heard her talk like this before. Years ago when they met and she told him this story, it had been in a matter-of-fact way.

  ‘I was stranded in a hospital where everyone knew that my husband had deserted me because I had a black baby,’ Zoë continues now. ‘People stared and sniggered, and came to look at me and Dan as though we were a side show. And then . . . and then Julia whisked me away in a flashy car and dumped me at the flat. I had no idea how to look after a baby; I could barely look after myself. And then they came back and tried to buy me off. I didn’t think there could be anything more humiliating than what had happened in the hospital and then I found that there was. Richard was desperate to get rid of me.’ She paused, breathless. ‘I don’t expect you to know how this feels. You just have to take my word for it.’

  Archie grips her feet in his hands. They feel small and cold, almost as though they are shrinking, just as she is shrinking into herself.

  ‘I do, my darling, I do,’ he says. ‘All I’m saying is that no one despises you or hates you now. No one thinks you deserve disapproval; not even Julia who’s been agonising about this for years – maybe even decades. What happened in the hospital was awful but it is a sign of those times. When people look at you and Dan now, they see a beautiful woman – wise, mature, strong – who’s raised a son of whom any parent would be proud. And if they do imagine your circumstances, they see only the courage it must have taken to get through them.’

  ‘But –’ she begins.

  ‘But!’ Archie says, holding up his hand to stop her. ‘There is always a but, isn’t there? Julia wants your forgiveness. You don’t have to give it. But maybe it would be a step towards forgiving yourself.’

  ‘So, how’s your mum taken it?’ Justine asks.

  ‘Badly. Total freak out,’ Dan says, as they sit eating fish and chips on the boardwalk by the harbour. ‘I can see that it’s upsetting for her, but it does seem like a bit of an overreaction. She can either ignore it, or write back and say fuck off, I never want to hear from you again, or she can accept that it’s well meant and respond that way.’

  ‘And do you think it’s well meant?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I do. It seems genuine.’

  ‘And what about you? You’re at the heart of it; how does that make you feel?’

  He pauses, shrugs and looks around him as if seeking the answer. ‘I don’t know. Strange, really, I suppose. Mum always said that Richard dumped her because of his pride. She says he couldn’t cope with me being so obviously not his son. Apparentl
y he was a bit of an activist at the time – you know, anti-racism, anti-the Vietnam War, all that late sixties stuff. But he didn’t know how to walk down the street with a white wife and a black baby.’

  ‘Mmmm. Well, I suppose that makes sense. Poor Zoë, it must have been so hard to cope with.’

  ‘It’s nothing to the hardship that your mum had to cope with,’ Dan says.

  ‘Knowing there are people who are worse off doesn’t make one’s own hurt any easier,’ she says. ‘But you still haven’t told me how you feel.’

  ‘Honestly?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Hurt, really, and resentful, I suppose. What Mum said when she read the email, that I’m the result of one mistake that decided who she turned out to be, she might as well have hit me across the face.’

  ‘But that’s not how she meant it, Dan. She adores you, and it’s obvious she’s tremendously proud of you. You’ve always known how hard it must have been for her.’

  ‘Yeah. But you didn’t hear her,’ Dan says. ‘It felt like it was my fault, as though she was a victim because of me.’ He gets up and pulls her to her feet.

  ‘But you don’t honestly think that’s how she feels, do you?’ Justine says, looking up at him.

  ‘I never did before,’ he says. ‘But now I don’t know. Come on, let’s walk up to the cappuccino strip, and have coffee and ice cream.’

  ‘Maybe we should postpone Sunday’s dinner,’ Justine suggests as they walk, arms around each other, across the park. ‘Or, at least, not tell them our news just yet. Give Zoë time to get over this.’

  ‘Absolutely not. It’s Easter, and it was New Year when I asked you to marry me. We should have told them then. We told Gwen. I don’t even remember now why you said we should wait. It’s not as though we’ve got anything to be ashamed of.’

  He’s right, there is nothing to be ashamed of, and secrecy is not a good start to their life together, but Justine is still uneasy. Dan, Archie, Rosie, Gaby, all seem blissfully unaware of this thing with Zoë. Is she consciously playing a mind game, or just struggling to cope with things she doesn’t like?

  ‘I was only thinking it might not be the right time for your mum.’

  Dan laughs. ‘I don’t think there will ever actually be a right time for Mum.’

  They spot an empty table outside the Dome café and sit silently for a moment, watching the motley collection of tourists and locals strolling past.

  He takes her hand. ‘And it’s time they met Gwen. Now we’ve got the flat ready, we can move in next weekend.’ He lifts their joined hands to his lips and kisses her fingers. ‘I’m going back to work, Jus; who knows what’ll be happening from one day to the next? Wherever I go, just to the barracks or training at Bindoon, or somewhere on active service, I want to know that I’m coming home to you, to our life together. We’ll tell them on Sunday. It’ll give Mum something other than herself to think about; the future instead of the past.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Fremantle – April 2000

  Dear Julia, Zoë begins.

  It’s hard to know where to start, but perhaps I’ll do so with the anger I felt when I got your message. I’ve lived my life in the shadows of what happened, the shame and rejection have shaped me, and in my worst moments of disappointment in myself I have blamed you and Richard. But of course I do know that I’m ultimately responsible for who I am and for what happened all those years ago. Yes, we were all young and confused. We were also proud and fearful. I think I still am.

  You want me to forgive you? For that I’d need a cool head and a warm heart, and I don’t have either at the moment. And yet I’m sitting here in the middle of the night, in a houseful of sleeping people writing to you. Why? Because I need to talk to someone who isn’t part of my family and because it doesn’t matter what I say. You’ve already thought the worst of me so I have nothing to lose, and perhaps this will help me to find out how I feel about the past as well as the present. So I’m making you my confidante, as I did once before, for no other reason this time than lack of choice and just writing this seems to help a little . . .

  Zoë stops typing and leans back in the chair, stretching her arms above her head and flexing her shoulders. She’s unused to writing long messages, and totally unused to writing about her feelings. Of course she’s not going to send this, but it helps to imagine Julia as she writes, rather as though she is talking to her. She wonders suddenly what it would be like to talk to Julia again. But who is Julia now? Why does she use an email address in the name of Tom Hammond? What’s happened to Simon? And who is this friend whose death caused her to write that unexpected email?

  No, she will never send this message, but somehow the feeling that she is speaking across the miles to the friend who supported her through the chaotic and painful weeks that followed the news of her pregnancy, seems to help. Briefly she can forget the Julia who walked away from the flat, who supported Richard in his desire to be rid of her, and remember instead the woman who had once briefly seemed like a sister.

  I’ve recently started going to an art class, she begins again, with no idea why she is taking this tack. I’ve never painted before but apparently I’m quite good at it. This might sound odd to you but creating something makes me feel powerful, which is something I’ve never felt before. What happened all those years ago battered me into a powerlessness from which I have never emerged . . .

  Whatever is she writing? Where is this all coming from?

  And ironically, at the same time as I grasp the power of creativity I am trapped in a situation in which I am as powerless as ever and as full of shame and confusion as I felt back then.

  The tea she has made turns cold in the mug as she types. She pushes it aside and turns back to the keyboard, rereads what she has written and then begins again.

  Let me explain a little more so you can begin to understand . . . The words pour from her heart through her fingers as though something old and difficult is starting to uncoil.

  Dan can’t sleep; he gets out of bed and wanders out onto the balcony, shivering slightly. The relentless heat of summer has given way to cooler nights and mornings, and it’s a relief as well as something of a shock to feel the cool night breeze on his warm skin, the stark cold of the timber slats under his feet. It’s only April but he can feel the change of season. He’d imagined there would be a joyful celebration when he and Justine broke their news. But in the end, he was so angry with his mother that he’d found it difficult to get through the evening.

  It is a stunningly clear night, the sky a mesmerising mass of stars, the dark shapes of the trees around the house moving only slightly in the breeze. Dan stands at the balcony rail. Something strange has happened, that he doesn’t fully understand and doesn’t really want to be bothered with. He’d left home at eighteen to join the army, much to his mother’s dismay, but mothers are always dismayed when their children leave home; Zoë perhaps more than most, because of how his life had begun. Starting off in Canberra, at the Defence College, he always went home on leave, and when he was posted elsewhere, he still returned. Later, when he was accepted into the SAS, he was based at the Swanbourne Barracks, close to Fremantle, so it made sense for him to live at home. Zoë’s dismay at his choice of career was tempered by having him there. He should, he thinks, have moved out then and got a place of his own, but living at home helped him when operations were particularly tough. He had drawn strength from knowing the people he loved were waiting for him.

  Now he wants to go home to Justine, and he’d assumed his family would understand, be happy for him, and they were – well, Archie was. He was over the moon, thumping him on the shoulder, hugging him and Justine, hugging Gwen, opening champagne. And his sisters were thrilled, teasing him, plying Justine with questions, asking Gwen about the Polar Bears. But his mother? She smiled and kissed them both, but it was tense and forced, and as the evening wore on, everything she did and said seemed to have a subtext that he didn’t understand. Later, he follo
wed her out to the kitchen to help with the coffee.

  ‘Everything okay, Mum?’ he’d asked, stacking some plates in the dishwasher.

  ‘Fine, thanks, Daniel,’ she’d said, which was weird because she never called him Daniel these days. ‘It’s just a lot to take in. I hadn’t realised it was quite so . . . well . . . serious.’

  He’d laughed then. ‘It’s serious, all right. Can’t get more serious than this. But you’re pleased, aren’t you? Happy for us?’

  ‘Of course I am. It’s just . . .’

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘It’s . . . she . . .’ Zoë had flushed and looked away.

  ‘She what?’

  ‘Oh . . . it’s nothing.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  There was a long pause. ‘I just wonder if this is really right for you.’

  Dan remembers staring at her and suddenly hating her with the same intensity that he had hated her when he was a child and she refused him ice cream, or grounded him for some misdemeanour. He wasn’t sure if she was upset about something and spoiling for a fight, or hurt. In that moment he had decided that he would not buy into it. He would not open himself up to her complicated feelings about the past or her attempts to hang on to him. This was something she had to sort out for herself.

  ‘This is absolutely right for me,’ he said firmly, holding her gaze. ‘Justine is absolutely right, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. So you’ll just have to trust my judgment until you can see it for yourself.’ And he’d picked up the tray with the coffee pot and cups, and walked back to where everyone was sitting at the table, leaving Zoë alone in the kitchen.

  Dan knows he doesn’t cope well with discord with people he loves. In the field, the barracks, in his social life, he is confident and competent. At closer quarters emotional upheaval disturbs him; Archie’s the same, he thinks, they both like peace at home. He often backs down to avoid conflict but this is different. ‘Stuff it,’ he says to himself, ‘this is her problem and she can sort it out for herself.’ It’s not just this evening that has upset him; he can’t shake off his resentment at being cast as the cause of her shame. It is in total contrast to everything she has ever told him about himself.