Bad Behaviour

by Liz Byrski

  ‘But you aren’t, so . . .’

  ‘So come in,’ Gwen says, stepping back from the door. ‘Better bring your bike inside. Justine used to be able to leave hers on the verandah but you can’t be too sure these days.’

  ‘I’ll chain it up,’ Gaby says, pulling a chain from her backpack. ‘Don’t want to make tyre marks on your nice floor.’

  Gwen smiles, the sudden irritation of this unplanned arrival dissipating as fast as it came. ‘So,’ she says, leading the way through to the kitchen, ‘half term, is it?’

  ‘It’s a DOTT day,’ Gaby says. ‘Duties other than teaching,’ she adds, seeing the question on Gwen’s face. ‘The teachers have a day to do their stuff; you know, planning more torture for us.’

  ‘Ah! I see. You might as well make the most of it. Would you like some coffee, or tea maybe?’

  ‘A glass of water, please,’ Gaby says, looking around. ‘This is a lovely house. Have you always lived here?’

  ‘I lived here until I got married,’ Gwen says, getting the water jug from the fridge. ‘My father also owned a farm in the wheat belt, and, much to his disgust, I ran off with the farm manager, and married him.’

  ‘What, like, eloped?’

  ‘I suppose you could call it that.’

  ‘Really?’ Gaby says, looking at Gwen with new respect. ‘So, did you live happily ever after?’

  Gwen hands her the glass, laughing as she does so. ‘We lived happily for a few weeks,’ she says. ‘After that it was all downhill. When we split up, I sold the farm and moved back here with Justine to live with my mother and an old lady called Gladys, who used to cook for us there.’

  ‘Cool,’ Gaby says again. ‘A house full of women. Mum lived in a house full of women when Dan was born.’

  ‘Really?’

  She nods. ‘They had a consciousness raising group, they were sort of the first of the second wave feminists, I think. We’re doing the sixties in History.’

  ‘History?’ Gwen smiles. ‘It’s odd thinking of something you’ve lived through as history but, of course, it is. I didn’t realise Zoë was a part of the women’s movement then,’ she says, gesturing Gaby towards the back verandah.

  ‘Oh, she wasn’t. No way. She’s hopeless, doesn’t seem to have noticed how awesome it was.’ She shrugs and gulps the water. ‘Those women freaked her out but she had nowhere else to go.’

  ‘I see.’ There are more questions Gwen would like to ask but knows that this is probably not the right time. ‘So, what brings you over here this morning, Gaby?’

  ‘I came to see you. You said I could.’

  ‘Well, yes, I did. But . . .’

  ‘But there was something.’ Gaby flushes and sets her glass carefully on the ground beside her chair. ‘I want you to tell me about Justine.’

  ‘Justine?’

  ‘Yes. Where she comes from, how come she’s lived with you all this time.’

  Gwen hesitates. ‘Do you think perhaps you should ask Justine? She’s going to be your sister-in-law, after all.’

  ‘I know and it’s just . . . I wouldn’t want her to think I was asking because . . . well because it made any sort of difference.’

  ‘Ah! I see. So why are you asking, then?’

  Gaby sighs and scrunches her face up against a brilliant shaft of sunlight. ‘Because of Mum, because she’s funny about Justine and I need to know why. So I can, you know . . . make it all right.’

  Gaby is the image of her mother physically, but there is a straightforwardness and determination about her that she must get from her father. Zoë is far more tentative and complex.

  ‘Gaby, it’s very good of you to want to make things right, but this may be more complicated than you realise,’ Gwen says.

  ‘I don’t think so. Mum’s frightened of Justine because she’s different and she doesn’t understand who she is. It’s stupid, really, because, after all, Dan’s different too, isn’t he? It’s the way Mum was brought up, Gran’s . . . well . . . you must know how it was then, what people thought . . . Gran’s always been funny about Dan. Now Mum’s funny about Justine. Grandma’s a hopeless case, but Mum isn’t. She can’t be – I so will not let her be. So I need you to help me, you see?’

  Gwen nods slowly, impressed by Gaby’s ability to cut to the crux of what she’d suspected. ‘I do see,’ she says, ‘and, Gaby, I’ll do what I can but it may be that the best thing I can do is not interfere.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Gaby says with a satisfied smile. ‘You can leave the interfering to me. I’m good at that, my sister says so all the time. I just need to know what’s what so it’s sort of . . . well . . . educated interfering, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Educated interfering, I like that,’ Gwen says smiling. ‘I do indeed know what you mean. So, how long have you got? Would you like to stay for lunch?’

  Struggling with her third attempt to wade through Zoë’s long and rambling email, Julia stares at the screen and wonders what sort of can of worms she has opened. There are so many strands that don’t come together: the past, obviously; the present sense of fear; the anticipation of loss. Zoë mentions panic attacks, hopelessness and, again and again, the word ‘shame’ appears. And yet, she writes too about her family: a thoughtful, loving husband; two beautiful daughters; a comfortable home; and Daniel being engaged to a woman with whom everyone except his mother is enchanted. What is Zoë asking her? Or is she not asking anything but just doing the email equivalent of thinking aloud? She writes as though some terrible sadness is poisoning her.

  ‘Well, what did you expect?’ Tom had asked when he read it.

  ‘I don’t know, but certainly not this. I’m not a therapist. What do you think she wants me to do?’

  ‘Lord knows. She’s going through a bad time, I suppose, just wants you to say something meaningful and wise.’

  But meaningful and wise is not how Julia feels while trying to match the words to the voice and face of the Zoë she remembers. She sees her walking into the bar of the Branston, hand-in-hand with Richard, looking nervously around, impressed and intimidated by the surroundings, and desperate for acceptance.

  ‘I don’t think your parents liked me,’ Zoë had said, disappointment and the fear of what that might mean written across her face.

  ‘They wouldn’t,’ Julia remembers saying, ‘you don’t fit the bill at all.’ And she wonders if Zoë remembers that moment and realises that she herself is now in Anita’s shoes.

  And, in a blinding flash, Julia sees that Zoë had always felt she didn’t fit the bill; not the Linton bill – nor anyone else’s for that matter – and maybe this is what’s at the heart of this deeply sad and confusing message. She tries to remember what she once knew about Zoë’s childhood, and, as she does so, she can also recognise the terrible sense of unworthiness that now seems to have characterised so much of what Zoë did, particularly her desperate attempts to cling to Richard even when he was at his most unpleasant. She was grasping at something, or someone, to validate her, and once she was married, her confidence grew as she was released from the merciless need to strive for something more. But it had all changed with Daniel’s arrival. Julia sees now that what she had thought was Zoë’s pride the last time they met was simply a desperate sort of bravado, and that she and Richard had trampled Zoë’s self-esteem into the ground. They must have driven her into a space more emotionally arid even than that from which she had come.

  And so, Julia begins to write, as she believes Zoë must have done, instinctively, thinking not about words and sentences, but drawing on what she remembers so well from her life with Simon, about how it feels to be a woman who senses somehow that she is always in the wrong.

  Dear Zoë, she begins, How I wish we could sit down together and talk face-to-face as we did when we first met. In our different ways we thought we knew what mattered, but after all this time it seems obvious that we knew nothing, the past looks so very different now . . .

  And so, in the ensuing weeks a convers
ation begins, one taking place across the globe and becoming daily more important. Confidences unfold and there are reassuring similarities, poignant memories, disturbing differences not fully comprehended, moments of hurt and profound affection. No phone calls are made but recent photographs are exchanged and, one day in May, the telephone rings in Rye and Julia answers it.

  ‘It’s Zoë,’ says a shaky voice.

  Julia, taken totally by surprise, hesitates. ‘Zoë?’

  ‘Yes. I want to see you. I’ve just booked a flight to England for next month, and now I’m worried that you won’t be there or won’t want to see me.’

  ‘I’ll be here,’ Julia says, shivering with emotion at the sound of Zoë’s voice. ‘And of course I want to see you.’

  THIRTY

  Fremantle – May 2000

  After years of hesitation, indecisiveness and a preference for following Archie’s lead, Zoë has taken two decisions and acted on them very quickly. With no planning or agonising about what she ought to do, she has handed in her notice. For the last eight years in her job at the tourist office, she had clung to the safety, predictability and the small regular income. But she had also felt she should have some sort of structure to her week, should do something outside her home.

  She’s worked for three decades; part-time, mostly, and with time off when the children were born, but she always went back. And she went back, she knows, because of her mother. Eileen had worked full-time for most of her life – in the laundry, and then in the biscuit factory – and she never let Zoë forget it. Now she thinks it would have been nice to have had more time at home with the children, especially when they were small. These days, Zoë thinks she is sounding more and more like her mother, so resigning makes her feel she is striking a blow for change.

  ‘At last!’ Archie says, hugging her when she tells him what she’s done.

  ‘I just thought I’d have a break. I’ll find something else later.’

  ‘Only if you want to. We can manage without the money. It’ll give you more time to paint; you must keep that up.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not only the painting,’ Zoë says, hesitating. ‘I’ve been writing to Julia.’

  ‘Julia? But why? You were so upset and angry, I thought you’d decided to ignore her.’

  ‘I did,’ she says blushing, ‘and then I changed my mind.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘A few days later.’ And she holds back from telling him that it was on the night that Dan and Justine had announced their engagement.

  Archie whistles, puffing out his cheeks. ‘And?’

  ‘We’ve been emailing several times a week. I needed to unload some stuff and I unloaded it on her. ’

  ‘What stuff?’

  There is a silence and Zoë looks away. ‘Oh, you know, just stuff about the past.’

  ‘Big stuff, presumably.’

  She nods.

  Archie pauses, battling a sudden unease as this is so uncharacteristic of his wife. ‘Anything I should worry about?’

  She puts her arms around his waist. ‘Absolutely not,’ she says, leaning her head against his chest. ‘Emotional house cleaning, that’s all.’

  ‘Okay. If you’re sure. And the painting?’

  ‘I love it. There’s no way I’d stop now.’

  He looks down into her face. ‘Well, anything that works, I say. Did they beg you to stay on at work?’

  ‘Yes, but I resisted. And,’ she takes a deep breath, ‘I’ve booked a ticket to England.’

  There is silence and Archie’s jaw drops. ‘England, when?’

  Zoë’s chest is tight with tension. She doesn’t want to hurt him, but she’s determined to go and to go alone. ‘Next month, for four weeks.’

  Archie hesitates and Zoë holds her breath. ‘Are you . . . did you mean both of us?’ he asks cautiously.

  ‘No. Please don’t be hurt, Arch, but I need to go alone. I want to see Julia.’

  ‘Of course I’m not hurt,’ he says, looking mightily relieved. ‘I couldn’t have got away right now. And I think you probably do need to do this alone. But, Zo, I am concerned about you. You were so upset by the email and now you want to see Julia?’

  ‘I overreacted,’ Zoë says. ‘It opened it all up, but now I think that was probably a good thing. A chance for me to get things in perspective.’

  ‘And Richard, will you be seeing him?’

  She shrugs. ‘I shouldn’t think so. We’ve barely mentioned him except in relation to the past. It’s Julia I want to see; we had the beginnings of a friendship that seemed really special.’

  Buckling her seatbelt as the aircraft begins its descent, Zoë peers down through the thinning cloud to the Channel coastline and the incredible green of the English countryside. She is under no illusions about what she’s doing; she is running away, escaping briefly from things that she can’t face at home, mainly the preparations for a wedding that she doesn’t want to take place. The excitement generated largely by Rosie and Gaby, and into which everyone else has entered, oppresses her.

  Beneath her are small towns and dense patches of woodland, and then the density of a large town and the perimeter of Gatwick airport, and she swings suddenly between fear and exhilaration. What will Julia be like? Will they be able to re-create the email friendship face-to-face, or will it be a disaster? The wheels touch the runway, bounce slightly, touch again and the aircraft races at terrifying speed towards something she can’t see. Is this what she is doing, running blind at hundreds of times her normal speed? If so, she has now reached the point of no return.

  From the airport she takes the train through fields and between steep wooded banks, and along the outskirts of small towns that she doesn’t recognise. And later, from the back seat of a taxi, she sees Rye nestled on a hill: the ancient town dominated by grey stone buildings that survived the fourteenth-century French raids and the fire that razed the town to the ground; between them, the black-and-white wattle-and-daub and elegant Georgian brick of successive builders thread through the steep streets. And she remembers Richard bringing her here one day, explaining the history of the Cinque Ports, and taking her to see a strange clock in the church – or was it the town hall? – with odd little mechanical figures that jerked around in a high gallery striking the quarters of each hour. The driver weaves his way through the narrow streets, up the steep cobbled slope of Mermaid Street and draws up outside an elegant three-storey Georgian house, with a bed and breakfast sign just visible through the dense green creepers.

  Her room is on the second floor off a gallery overlooking the breakfast room, in which portraits of previous owners and their ancestors survey the tables laid with white linen and willow pattern crockery. She is in another world, one of which she had previously caught only a glimpse. She booked this hotel for just one night, to give herself time to get over the journey, but she realises now she also needs a more profound type of recovery. She is exhausted by the enormity of what she has done. Quietly, she makes herself a cup of tea and lies down on the bed. Tomorrow she will meet Julia again, stay in her house; now she just needs time to get used to the idea. And Richard, what will she do about Richard? She is torn between the need to erase any thought of him and an increasing desire to see him, to find out . . . to find out what?

  It’s four in the afternoon when Zoë wakes, her limbs heavy, her mouth dry, feeling now the horrible effects of her almost sleepless night on the plane. Forcing herself up, she has a shower and puts on clean clothes, deciding to explore the town and perhaps find somewhere she can have a real English tea.

  The cobbled street glistens in the sunlight that has followed the rain that fell while she slept, and she sets off in search of the café where, the receptionist has told her, she can get the best cream tea in town. The prospect of scones with jam and cream almost has her salivating; she hasn’t eaten since the in-flight breakfast. Turning the corner at the top of the hill, she finds herself at the entrance to the churchyard and realises that she must be very close to
Julia’s house.

  ‘It faces the churchyard,’ Julia had said, ‘and it’s hidden behind the catalpa tree.’ Zoë has no idea what a catalpa tree looks like, but it can only be this, with its long, low branches, leaves like saucers, and exotic bean pods. She walks on through the churchyard, through the dappled sunlight on the path, across the drenched and sparkling edge of the grass, between the gravestones that lean at rakish angles, speckled with moss, their legends unreadable with age, and realises she is standing almost directly in front of Julia’s front door. The house is a double-fronted cottage of white Sussex boarding, two storeys high with what might be a third attic floor with little windows jutting out of the sloping roof. It would be so natural just to knock at the door and say hello. Zoë’s heart beats furiously and she pauses to calm herself, taking in every detail. Is this unfair, she wonders? Maybe just leave it until tomorrow, as planned. But the temptation is too great. She steps up to the door, rings the bell, hears footsteps, and the door is flung open and she finds herself face to face with Richard.

  ‘I can’t believe you didn’t follow this up,’ Julia says, pacing back and forth across the hospital room. ‘You let it go so long.’

  Tom, propped up on pillows, looks pale and sheepish. ‘You were so upset at losing Hilary. I was too and I wanted us to have the holiday together, time to recover. It was only tests, and Raheem didn’t actually say . . .’

  ‘He said you should get the tests done as soon as possible. You didn’t even tell me when we got back from Portugal.’

  ‘No, I should have come straight out of Raheem’s surgery and organised it then, but when we got back from the holiday, I felt okay. And I just dreaded going through all this again, so I, well, I just kept putting it off.’

  ‘That is so stupid,’ Julia says. ‘You let it go so long, and now you have to be brought to London by ambulance and have an emergency operation. That is so irresponsible and so like a man . . .’