by Liz Byrski
As she nears the house, Julia sees that the front door is open and Zoë is standing where she herself often stands. She is looking out across the churchyard, her arms folded, leaning against the door jamb.
‘I’m storing it all in my memory banks,’ Zoë says as Julia arrives alongside her. ‘I love it here. This has been so important to me, Julia. I’m remembering everything you once began to teach me about friendship, about it being safe to trust it.’
‘It’s a pity I couldn’t live up to it when the going got tough,’ Julia says wryly, threading her arm through Zoë’s. ‘But we have a second chance. I’ve stuffed up enough things in my life, Zoë, and this is precious to me too. We’ve done the past to death; time to start on the future, don’t you think?’
Zoë nods, squeezing Julia’s arm against her side. ‘It really is. I’m going to miss you so much but going home . . . well, it doesn’t seem like an ending, more like we’ve picked up where we left off.’
Julia nods. ‘Thank god for email,’ she says.
‘And cheap phone calls.’
‘And most of all . . .’ Julia says, struggling with the feeling that her throat is full of tears, ‘most of all, thank god for a second chance.’
Justine, against her better judgment, has agreed to help Rosie and Gaby prepare a celebratory meal for Zoë’s return. She is torn between pleasure at their request, and anxiety about how Zoë might view her involvement.
‘I’ll leave the nursery early and go and help, and I’ll come home when Archie goes to fetch her,’ she had told Dan before he left that morning. ‘But you should go. Have dinner together with them, like you all used to do; just say I had something else on. Maybe having a family dinner will help things along a bit.’
‘I don’t know,’ he’d said. ‘Might be best if I stay away. And, anyway, I don’t feel like doing it; especially without you there, it doesn’t seem right. And you shouldn’t have to help, not after the way she’s treated you.’
‘I’m helping for Gaby and Rosie,’ she says, ‘and because I want to. It’s fun doing stuff with them, they treat me like a big sister. And it would be nicer for them if you go too. Go there straight from work, Dan. Don’t sulk. Do as we agreed – go ahead with what we want to do, then it’s up to Zoë what she does. Just do the right thing, darling.’
Dan puts his arms around her. ‘I spend my days planning to outwit fanatical terrorists, and somehow it seems easier than dealing with my mother. But you’re probably right. I’ll see you later, if I survive it.’
The menu the girls have planned is elaborate, and with Gaby at school and Rosie in a lecture until four, it’s up to Justine to do most of the shopping. Archie has offered but the girls don’t trust him to get everything on the list. So Justine goes to the supermarket and stops outside the school to pick up Gaby on her way to the house. Cooking with them is fun but unnerving; they want each stage of the process to be admired, and they play loud music and sing a lot. Justine is quiet, efficient and orderly in the kitchen – almost clinical, Gwen says – and she is agitated by the burgeoning chaos of pots and pans piling up, flour and icing sugar creeping mysteriously across the work surface, and nothing being done in what she thinks is the right order. Eventually she gives up trying to control what’s happening, issues some instructions, turns up the music, and while Rosie and Gaby put the final touches to the cake, makes an attempt to clear up after them.
The remainder of the flight stretches ahead like an eternity. Zoë, squashed into her window seat by the beefy arms and overlapping rolls of fat of the man in the seat beside her, longs to stretch her legs in the aisle, but negotiating a passage over his sleeping bulk earlier had been a monumental task and she can’t face it again. Sunlight reflecting back from the bed of white cloud beneath them blinds her with its brilliance, and she pulls the shade halfway down and closes her eyes. In England, time slipped like sand between her fingers; now it feels as though she has been away for ages. She had felt as though she were discovering a different self. The fluctuating hormones, the fear of loss, and the sense of inadequacy that had overwhelmed her had all seemed to recede. Now they cast their shadows once again.
‘I guess it’s a difficult time of life for all of us,’ Richard had said as he drove her back to Rye. ‘We go on for years believing that one day we’ll be grown up and know the answers, but the years roll on and suddenly we’re past the halfway point – probably well past it – and all we know is how little we know. Wisdom and maturity just seem like illusions.’
‘It all seems so hard,’ she’d said. ‘Especially with one’s children. It must be the same with your daughter.’
Richard shrugged. ‘Yes, but it was a bit different. You see . . .’ He paused and Zoë sensed a sudden charge in the atmosphere.
‘Go on.’
He hesitated again. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘you see, it’s more complicated . . .’ He paused. It’s different. When Lily and I split up, I moved away and immersed myself in work, so I relinquished my rights to that sort of fatherhood.’
She looked hard at him, waiting for something else. ‘I suppose so,’ she said eventually. ‘And I realise you might be right about what you said that maybe I don’t know what’s best for Dan. But what if I am right? What if it’s all a terrible mistake?’
He gave a small mirthless laugh.
‘Then it’s his mistake, Zoë – their mistake and they’ll have to work it out. Is it that you don’t trust Dan’s judgment or would it be more honest to say you simply want to be able to make his decisions for him? This is a failure of imagination on your part. You think Justine is going to steal something from you. It’s unlikely, I think, but, even so, setting up barricades is hardly the most imaginative way to deal with it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, Daniel’s a man and he’ll do what he wants to do. You can resist, you can poison the water but the smart and compassionate thing to do is to change yourself instead of trying to change him.’ He took his eyes off the road briefly to look at her. ‘Years ago, I put a lot of effort into wondering how I could change you, when what I should have been doing was thinking about changing myself. Remember what you said about your art class – that it showed you there were all sorts of ways of seeing the same thing? Try to see this in a different way; take a risk, opt for generosity and trust.’
The inflight PA system crackles to life now and the pilot announces that they are commencing their descent. Zoë returns her seat to the upright position and it is only as she adjusts her watch to local time that she realises she has messed up by giving Archie an arrival time that is two hours later than their actual arrival. She thinks she will phone him when they land, and then decides it might be fun to take a cab and surprise him.
As Zoë pulls her suitcase along the drive and lets herself in through the side gate, she can hear music coming from the kitchen. She leaves her case, walks briskly up the steps of the verandah and peeps in through the kitchen window.
Archie sits on a stool playing mock drums on the benchtop. On the other side, Rosie and Gaby are singing along and dancing to the music. At the sink is Justine.
Zoë gives a little gasp, steps back from the window and puts her hand against the lattice to steady herself. The star jasmine has had a growth spurt in her absence and is making tracks up the brickwork. She stares at the plant, her stomach churning, her mind a panicky mass of jealousy, fear and resentment at seeing Justine in her kitchen with her family. Leaning back, she flattens herself against the wall, with her eyes closed.
Do it differently, Richard had said; imagination, generosity, trust. As she stands there pressed against the wall, a sweat breaking out all over her, it seems too much to ask. He’s right, though, it will be her loss if she can’t make that leap.
As she waits and watches, nervously willing herself to uncurl, she notices that even though Justine is smiling, she looks exhausted.
As Zoë moves away from the window and into the doorway Archie is on his feet, bopping, while
Rosie and Gaby are all hip thrusts and pumping arms, totally into the music and unaware of her. And then Justine turns away from the sink, sees her and stops, the words of the song dying on her lips.
At the sight of Justine’s face, Archie looks around. Rosie and Gaby, their backs to her, are gyrating, singing louder than ever as Zoë looks from Justine to Archie and back again to Justine, who looks as though she wishes she could disappear into the ground.
And then Rosie spots her. ‘Mum!’ she yells, and runs to Zoë, followed immediately by Gaby. Their voices are a babble lost in the music as she hugs them and then kisses Archie.
Justine rinses her hands under the tap, takes off her apron and steps out from behind the bench top.
‘I’ll get out of your way, Zoë,’ she says. ‘I hope you had a good holiday.’
But Zoë shakes her head and reaches out to take her hands. ‘Don’t go, Justine,’ she says. ‘This is meant to be a family celebration.’
2001
THIRTY-NINE
Rye – 3 July 2001
Dear Zoë
Almost a year since you left here and today the postman knocked for a signature for an overseas package. I could hardly wait to rip off the cardboard and bubble wrap but Tom, the great hoarder and recycler, insisted that it all had to be removed intact. Well, the contents were so worth waiting for. We are thrilled with your wonderful painting. Thank you so very much.
I didn’t realise it was your own work at first, I just thought how amazing that you had found someone who could capture the house like that through the branches of the catalpa tree. Then Tom said, ‘Don’t be daft, she did it herself, Zoë painted this for us.’ It’s brilliant, Zoë, we had no idea you could paint like this.
We are so grateful. Tom says he’s writing a real letter, to say his own thank you. He immediately took down the two etchings on the wall by the fireplace and hung your painting there.
I hope you are going to keep on with the art classes, you obviously have enormous talent. And what an amazing year it’s been since you got home; Dan and Justine’s wedding, Rosie going off to Vietnam, and you and Archie becoming grandparents. I was feeling that my life was standing still by comparison but now, after a few false starts, we have signed off on the sale of the language school. It’s been rather protracted and very sad. I kept putting it off, the school was so much a part of my friendship with Hilary that getting rid of it felt like betrayal, although she would have thought that ridiculous. When the deed was done I had a couple of very bad weeks of grieving, not for the school itself but for Hilary and what it had meant to both of us when it started. Fragments of bereavement lurk for a long time and show up when you least expect them. Anyway I seem to be through that now and I know it was the right decision.
We’re still thinking about a holiday place in Portugal, and the money from the school will help, especially now that we are both unemployed!
The people who bought the school have introduced classes in Portuguese and so I’ve enrolled! It’s an odd feeling to sit in the classrooms there after all this time.
Has Richard told you about Bea? Well, in case he hasn’t I’m going to.
The pleasant but inappropriate Amanda has taken herself off to Milan and Richard has a lovely new companion. He knew Bea back in his university days and they met up at some sort of reunion at Easter. She’s a theologian. Yes, I can see you reeling in shock that a theologian should be involved with someone as godless as my brother, but, as she herself pointed out, a scholar of theology is a student of the nature of the divine, and doesn’t necessarily have to be a believer. She’s very nice, great sense of humour. Richard is drinking less, is more tolerant and less grumpy. I think we have Bea to thank for that, they obviously have robust conversations in which he doesn’t always get his own way, which is very good for him.
I hope everything is going well with you and Archie.
Much love
Julia xx
PS. Can’t wait to show Richard the painting. He loves that tree and wants his ashes scattered under it. If/when the time comes I shall have to do it under cover of night as apparently you can’t just scatter your loved ones at will, even in a graveyard.
4 July
Dear Julia
Great news about the school, it did seem to be wearing you down and I know Tom will be relieved! I can understand how it would have revived your grief about Hilary, but you must have some wonderful memories of your time together setting it up.
I’m so glad you like the painting; I worked from a photograph I took on the last day I was there.
I laughed about Richard and his ashes. Remember when he used to say he wanted to be buried in the basement of Broadcasting House? But that was in the days when we were young enough to think we’d live forever.
Harry seems to grow daily; he’s the image of Dan as a baby and we all adore him so he’s at risk of becoming horribly spoiled. Justine is wonderful with him; she thought she had missed out so he came as a bit of a surprise, the best ever surprise for all of us really. Justine is back at the nursery three days a week and Gwen and I are sharing the childcare. The more time I spend with Gwen the more I like her, we are becoming great friends.
Richard hasn’t mentioned Bea to me yet, but it’s at least a couple of months since I heard from him. I do hope it works out for him this time.
I’m still loving the art classes and I’m trying to stretch myself a bit. Theo, who taught the three courses I’ve done so far, is running a group for people who want to go further. It’s very informal and great fun, there are five of us, and talking about what we’re doing and working together is really motivating. I wish I’d started years ago! So what with that and helping with Harry I haven’t done anything about finding a job, but I guess that’ll be the next thing.
Love to you both
Zoë xxx
2 August
Dear Zoë
Apologies for being the world’s worst correspondent. My cutting down on work with the BBC has somehow resulted in me working harder and longer but for less money. But the production company is going really well and I’m doing things I really want to do and thoroughly enjoying it.
I’m writing because I was down in Rye last week and saw your wonderful painting. I had no idea you were such an accomplished artist. I had a friend with me at the time (I know Julia’s told you about Bea), and she’s something of a connoisseur, in fact she has a fine collection of watercolours, mainly of English churches. She was tremendously impressed.
As Julia’s probably told you, Tom is a new man now, so very much better than when you saw him, and we battle on with our project for 2008, the book and the documentary. It gives us both enormous satisfaction.
Take care and keep painting!
Affectionately
Richard
29 August
Dear Richard
Thanks for your message, I’m glad you like the painting. The best thing about the art classes is first that I love painting, equally important is that it’s changing the way I feel about myself. At last there is something I’m good at other than looking after a family. I feel so lucky to have discovered this at a time in my life when I needed it most.
I’m attaching the most recent photograph of Harry taken last week, he is so like Dan. As you can imagine my mother has been struggling – a black grandson was bad enough for her so you can guess her reaction to having a black granddaughter-in-law and great-grandson. She is ruthlessly insensitive and I frequently want to smack her! But, hey, a year ago the whole family wanted to smack me for not wanting to let Justine in so I should try to be more tolerant. I’ll always be grateful for what you said.
I’m so pleased to hear about Bea and will be pumping Julia for more details as I don’t suppose I’ll get them from you!
Look after yourself,
Zoë x
7 September
Dear Gloria
Thanks so much for letting me know about Marilyn. How very sad, I’m sure Claire must be besid
e herself, they were obviously devoted to each other. I’ll never forget Marilyn teaching me how to sterilise Dan’s bottles, and how she met me at the gate the day I got back from Glasgow. I’ve posted a letter to Claire today.
And I want to ask you a favour. I told you a bit about my younger daughter, Gaby. She finishes school in November and is absolutely determined not to go to university, at least at present. She wants to travel, most of all she wants to go to London, and although she’s pretty sensible Archie and I are naturally nervous of letting her loose on the world. How history repeats itself! She’s talking about getting a job as a nanny in London. I think it’ll be harder than she imagines, but we’ve convinced her that it will be better to get there and then go to an agency rather than fix it up online. At least then she’ll be able to meet the family before committing herself to them.
So, I’m wondering if you would be willing to keep an eye on her when she first arrives, and if perhaps she could stay with you until she finds somewhere to live, or a family to work for? We would, of course, pay for her accommodation and she’ll have more than enough to contribute and to keep herself until she finds something. She’s interested in all the things that you were doing in the sixties and beyond.
I know this is a cheek; you gave me a home when I most needed it and now I’m asking you to take in my daughter, but it really will only be for a very short time. I hope you don’t mind me asking, please don’t hesitate to say if you’d rather not.