by Liz Byrski
‘Charming, bumptious and full of himself?’
‘Well, yes, but in the nicest possible way.’
‘I know what you mean. He’s still much the same. He married twice, first to a very nice woman, one of his own kind, Jules says, and they had twin girls. Then more recently a very glamorous model. Look, let me walk with you.’
And they had strolled back through the churchyard and down Mermaid Street to the hotel.
‘I’ll give you a call in the morning,’ Richard said. ‘Let you know how Tom is and what Julia’s doing.’
‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘Thanks for the tea. It’s good to see you again.’
And they stood there, staring at each other, until Richard leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
‘You too,’ he said, and he turned and walked quickly away.
By the time Archie arrives at the Thai restaurant with Rob and the girls, Justine, Dan and Gwen are already at the table. He’d invited everyone for dinner as part of his promise to Zoë that he’d ensure things didn’t fall apart in her absence. In fact, things haven’t looked less like falling apart for some time: the house is immaculately clean, thanks largely to Rosie; the fridge and pantry are well stocked, thanks to himself and Gaby having done a joint shopping expedition; and this morning he’d called in to see Eileen at the retirement village and taken her out to lunch. As always when they were alone together, things had gone very smoothly until she’d started on Zoë.
‘So, have you heard from her ladyship?’
Archie was so infuriated that he wanted to punch her right on the nose.
‘If you mean Zoë, yes, I have,’ he’d replied coldly. ‘She’s fine, sent you her love. Everything seems to be going well.’
‘I can’t imagine why she had to go gallivanting off to England anyway,’ Eileen had said, examining her toasted sandwich. ‘A waste of time and money, if you ask me.’
‘Well, I didn’t ask you, Mum, and I disagree. As far as I’m concerned, Zoë’s more than entitled to a holiday, and if she wants to take it in England, that’s fine by me. It’ll do her good, cheer her up.’ He could’ve bitten his tongue for saying that and, sure enough, Eileen pounced on it.
‘I don’t know what she needs cheering up for. She has a lovely home and family, and you are a wonderful husband, Archie. Zoë’s very lucky.’
‘We both are,’ Archie said, reaching for his beer. Eileen’s canonisation of him, always to Zoë’s detriment, riled him again but he recognised that it had its advantages. He was the only one who could talk Eileen round when necessary, and he knew that without him, Zoë and her mother would no longer be on speaking terms.
He’s looking forward to this evening. He hasn’t see Dan or Justine for a couple of weeks, he loves Thai food, and Rob had turned up at the house with a case of the best semillon from the family’s estate. Zoë has been gone for a week and is obviously fine. The uncharacteristic nature of her behaviour is not lost on him but its impact is blurred by his relief at being without her for a while. He wouldn’t admit this to anyone, but her recent moods have exhausted and infuriated him. While he’s happy now, he’s tired of being in charge, and Dan seems to sense it, and opens the wine and chivvies everyone to sort out their orders so they can all share the dishes. Archie thinks, but only fleetingly, that maybe it will be nice when the time comes that he is the elderly relative who gets looked after, instead of being the one who does the organising, but, just as quickly, he knows he’ll hate it.
The food is delicious, and wine and laughter flow freely until the waiters remove what’s left of the main course. Then, as they pause to consider dessert possibilities, Gaby leans forward, her arms folded on the table.
‘Now that we’ve eaten,’ she says, ‘we need to talk about Mum.’
Archie chokes on his wine, Justine and Gwen freeze, and Rob decides he needs to go to the bathroom.
‘Shut up, Gab,’ Rosie says, flapping her serviette at her sister, ‘I told you not to.’
And Dan shrugs, giving Archie a wry smile.
‘Yes,’ says Gwen, coming to the rescue. ‘Do let’s; how is she, Archie? Having a good time, I hope? You must all miss her.’
Archie draws a grateful breath and delivers a quick update, after which there is another, longer silence.
‘Well,’ says Gaby. ‘That’s nice but it’s not what I meant. We have to talk about Mum being so weird about Dan and Justine.’
Archie groans and puts his head in his hands, and Justine, who is sitting next to him, puts her hand on his arm.
‘It’s okay, Arch,’ she says. ‘Gaby’s just trying to help. I mean, I do realise Zoë’s not too happy about us being engaged.’
Dan, who appears lost for words, puts his arm around her shoulders.
‘Well, she should be happy about it!’ Gaby says.
‘I told her not to, Dad, honestly,’ Rosie says, her face flushed. ‘I told her she shouldn’t say anything. You’re just making it worse, Gaby, shut up.’
‘Shut up yourself,’ Gaby says and turns to Archie. ‘Justine’s right, Dad. I’m trying to help. We need to talk about this before Mum gets back because if we don’t, it’ll just be like it was before she went and it’s horrible. I’ve done everything I can and you’ve all . . . well, you’ve done nothing about it, as far as I can see. We need a plan, we all need to sing from the same hymn sheet . . .’
‘Where the fuck . . . sing from the same . . .’ Dan says.
‘What? Oh, Mr Wheedon always says it. And we do need to sing from the same sheet, otherwise, instead of it being a really lovely wedding, it’s going to be awful, or there won’t be a wedding at all because everyone’s afraid to talk about it.’
Justine sucks in her breath.
A birthday cake is delivered to the next table and, fortunately, the diners there have very loud singing voices. Dan sees Rob emerging cautiously from the men’s toilet and shakes his head, and Rob raises a grateful hand and wanders off outside to sit on the verandah.
‘Christ,’ says Archie. ‘I hope Mr Wheedon doesn’t suggest a career in the diplomatic service.’
THIRTY-TWO
Rye – July 2000
The house is peaceful, a blessed relief after the constant clatter and action of the hospital. It was always its tranquillity in proximity to vibrant activity that Julia loved. From the kitchen window, the view of the sea suggests that at the end of the garden, the land drops sharply to the water. It’s an illusion, because behind the plumbago hedge that badly needs a trim, there is a footpath and a low wall, and beyond that, the slope of the land is tiered gently and the path follows it down across long reclaimed expanses of flat land to the water. It was this natural trompe d’oeil that had compelled Julia to buy the house when she and Hilary came home from Paris. At the back, you could be miles from anywhere, and from the front door, where she is standing now, the life of the town is comfortingly apparent. In fact, right now, against the backdrop of the huge catalpa tree, a bride and groom are posing for photographs while their guests stand by. The catalpa is Julia’s personal landmark; the one she uses to direct visitors to the house and the one she had used to guide Tom when he turned up at Greenham Common.
‘It’s easy to find,’ she’d told him, ‘and Hilary’ll be thrilled to see you. It’s in the highest part of the town, behind the church. Find the catalpa tree in the churchyard, it’s between that and the sea.’
He’d come down here the next day, and then back again to the peace camp the day after that, and then done so time and again in his relentless pursuit of her, his effort to resolve the past and capture the future. Months later, when she’d left the camp and he was still attempting to chip away at the rock of her resistance, she and Hilary had invited him to Rye for Christmas. On Christmas Eve, as the first flakes of snow were starting to fall, he had appeared in the kitchen. She was working there at the table because the kitchen was the warmest room in the house. She was reading the applications for the position of secretary for the language school, which she and
Hilary had moved into its own premises, down near the station, some weeks earlier.
‘Would you come with me for a moment, Julia?’ Tom had asked. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’
‘I’m busy now, Tom,’ she’d said. ‘Can’t it wait?’
‘Probably, but I’d rather it didn’t.’
She got up, with a theatrical sigh. ‘It better be worth it.’ And she’d let him take her hand and lead her across the churchyard and into the spectacular red-and-gold decorated interior of the church in which the scent of pine needles from the Christmas tree mingled with incense and the sulphur of recently extinguished candles.
‘Isn’t it glorious?’ he’d said softly, holding firmly onto her hand.
‘Yes, but I’ve seen it several times already,’ Julia said. ‘Hilary sprayed all those fir cones with gold paint in our shed, and sprayed most of the garden tools at the same time.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘But look at this.’ And he drew her with him along the aisle to a small memorial plaque in the tiling. Releasing her hand, he crouched beside it and pointed to the inscription. ‘See what it says – “on the ruins of yesterday we build the foundations of tomorrow”.’ He stood up and took her hands in his. ‘That’s what we can do; we have a second chance and some people would give their right arm for that. We’re older now, and wiser. Say you’ll marry me, Julia, like you did before – and this time I won’t let you down.’
‘I’ve been married, Tom,’ she said. ‘It didn’t work for me, I’m not good wife material.’
‘Maybe not for Simon, but you are for me.’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve been a caged bird, I can’t do it again. And I’m not the woman you proposed to in Paris.’
‘Do you think I’m blind?’ he’d said then, gripping her shoulders, and a couple wandering along one of the side aisles turned to look at them. Tom lowered his voice. ‘You’re the woman I loved then, and so much more. I don’t want a caged bird, I want you, Julia; an eagle to fly with.’
‘Don’t be so embarrassing, Tom,’ she’d whispered, flushing and glancing around over her shoulder, confused about how she really felt. ‘An eagle . . . flying!’
‘Fly with me, Jules,’ he’d said and then, softly, ‘Come fly with me. If you say yes, you won’t have to keep thinking up more reasons to turn me down and you can concentrate on your work again.’
And she’d paused and closed her eyes and, as they stood there in the silent church, she wondered why she was fighting it. Tom had more than proved himself this time around, not just through his persistence. He loved her for who she was; she could be married to him and still be herself. She laughed, softly at first, and then joyfully. ‘Okay,’ she said, loudly enough that the other couple, and a few more visitors who had wandered in from the cold, stopped and looked around. ‘Okay, Tom, yes, I will marry you.’
‘Yes!’ he had cried aloud, punching the air with his fist, and in the ensuing silence of their kiss there was a smattering of applause.
‘I have witnesses now,’ he’d said. ‘And I mean it; this time I won’t let you down.’
And, of course he hasn’t, not once; even now he hasn’t. He has refused to be beaten and is home here with her seven days after a major operation; padding experimentally around the house in his pyjamas, taking the stairs with caution, having red wine in moderation, and taking himself no more seriously than he ever has. And all that Julia wants now is to be alone with him. But, for the moment, they have Zoë’s presence to contend with, and, while she had anticipated it with enormous pleasure, the reality is more complicated. Perhaps it was all there in the emails and she had just failed to see it, but it’s certainly clear to her now that Zoë has not made the huge leaps of consciousness that she herself has made. She is, in so many ways, the Zoë of the sixties.
Even so, it is a delightful rediscovery of friendship, and she is enjoying learning about Zoë’s life. Her world is so very different from Julia’s own, and one so obviously determined by the presence of children. Julia has never regretted her decision not be a mother, and being with Zoë hasn’t changed that. Her marriage to Tom, her friendship with Hilary and others have been, she thinks, all she needed and more than she deserved. And Zoë, despite what seems to Julia to be a tangled web of responsibilities and demands that enmesh her, has obviously been extremely content with her own situation. For both of them it is their relationships with the people they love that are the spine, the muscle and soft tissue of their very different lives. But Julia is still concerned about Richard’s capacity to rock the boat.
‘Don’t push your luck,’ she had told him the day after Tom’s operation, when he drove Zoë to London and took them both to lunch at a restaurant near the hospital. Zoë had stopped to buy postcards and they were waiting for her outside the shop. ‘You still have to have a very difficult conversation, about Lily, and about what happened when you met all those years ago.’
‘Of course,’ he’d said. ‘I just have to find the right moment.’
‘Well, make sure you do,’ she’d said, watching Zoë inside the shop, fumbling in her purse and then peering at the unfamiliar coins in her hand. ‘The shame of that whole business has haunted her for years. Part of it is that she betrayed you, so letting her know that you weren’t entirely blameless yourself is the least you owe her.’
‘I know,’ Richard said. ‘I’ll tell her, really I will.’
Julia had decided to stay another night in London, and Richard had driven Zoë back to Rye and moved her luggage from the hotel to the house. When she arrived home the following day, she was surprised to find Richard still there, and he and Zoë in the garden eating bread and cheese and tucking into a bottle of claret.
Later that day he had left, and would be occupied for at least another week on some project for the BBC. And now that Tom is well enough to be left alone in the house, she and Zoë are going to Hastings, to Marks & Spencer, where Zoë still believes she will find the best underwear in the world. Julia hasn’t the heart to tell her that M&S is not quite the groundbreaker it used to be.
Julia can hear Zoë at the top of the stairs talking quietly with Tom through the open door of the bedroom, where he is sitting up in bed, reading the paper.
‘I like her very much,’ he’d said the previous day. ‘She’s not at all as I expected. It’s hard to imagine that she and Richard were ever an item.’
‘So, what did you expect?’ Julia had asked.
‘Oh, I don’t know; someone a bit more carefree, I think. There’s something quite burdened about her,’ he said. ‘It’s in her manner, and in her body too, in that droop of the shoulders when she thinks no one’s looking at her.’
‘You’re very observant,’ Julia said. ‘I think she is burdened, and, one thing’s for sure, Zoë isn’t, and wasn’t ever, carefree.’
‘Come on, Zoë,’ Julia calls now from the front door, ‘let’s get going. We’ll only be a couple of hours, Tomo.’
And Zoë runs down the stairs, and together they walk out and down the path to the car.
‘So, tell me about Richard’s second wife,’ Zoë says, as she waits, laden with knickers and bras, in the queue for the cash register.
‘Oh!’ says Julia, flushing with embarrassment. ‘Lily. She lives in Oakland now. They have a daughter, Carly.’
‘Yes, he told me that,’ says Zoë, handing the underwear over to the assistant. ‘But what about Lily?’
Julia feels as though her face is on fire. What Richard has told, or will tell, Zoë about Lily is really none of her business, but her knowledge feels like a neon sign flashing above her head.
‘Well, she’s a lovely woman, very smart; she’s a lecturer at the University of California. I like her a lot. She’s tough and funny, and doesn’t stand any of Richard’s bullshit. They’re quite good friends still.’
The saleswoman has totalled the underwear and, to Julia’s relief, Zoë is focused now on completing the credit card transaction.
‘Well, M
and S things still look pretty good to me,’ Zoë says as they make their way out into the street. They head for a nearby café and settle at a table.
‘So, what does she teach?’ Zoë asks, after their food arrives. ‘Sorry, I mean lecture; what does Lily lecture in?’
‘Oh, black history,’ Julia says.
‘Black history? But she’s not actually black herself?’
‘Yes, she is.’
Zoë looks amazed. ‘Richard didn’t tell me that.’
Julia, her mouth full of tuna and cucumber, feels she needn’t respond.
‘Don’t you think that’s odd?’ Zoë asks.
Julia swallows her food. ‘Not really; did you tell him Archie is white?’
‘Well, no, but it’d be sort of obvious, wouldn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily. Not after Harry.’
‘Okay, I see what you mean. Just the same, I . . .’ She hesitates and then says, ‘So, their daughter . . . she’s . . . I suppose she’s like Dan, then. And Justine, Dan’s fiancée, has a black mother and a white father.’ She measures some sugar into her teaspoon and lets it slide slowly through the froth and into the coffee. ‘I don’t know whether you know this but there were a lot of Aboriginal children who were taken away from their families by the government, because they were of mixed parentage. It was a terrible business and it went on for decades; they’re called the stolen generation. Justine is one of them.’
Julia leans forward attentively. ‘Yes, I’ve read about that. So, Justine is half Aboriginal?’
Zoë nods. ‘And that’s why . . .’ Julia pauses, not knowing how best to frame her question.
‘You were going to ask if that’s why I don’t want her to marry Dan?’
‘Well, is it?’
Zoë shrugs and shakes her head. ‘It’s part of it, I suppose, but only a part. I feel so muddled and upset, it’s hard for me to sort out the different parts of what I feel. It took me by surprise, you see; he came back from overseas and told us he’d met someone months earlier. He hadn’t said anything about her until then, but she’d known about us all that time. Then, when he brought her to the house, I found I knew her. She runs the nursery where I buy my plants. A couple of months before Dan brought her home, while he was still overseas, I’d been in there talking to her about a plant and she’d given me some plant food. She said it was a gift and at the time I thought, how nice. And then later, I thought, how sneaky. She must’ve known I was Dan’s mother and was just being patronising; knowing about me and me not knowing about her. I felt she’d had one up on me all the time.’