by Liz Byrski
Richard nods. ‘I realise that.’
‘Am I like her?’
He leans back looking at her. ‘Yes, physically very much like her, except, of course, you’re quite a bit taller. You’re also more confident, and more . . . aware, I suppose is the word. More in touch with what’s going on in the world than Zoë was.’
‘She thinks she was a disappointment to you because she wasn’t interested in all the stuff that was happening in the world back then.’
‘Mmmm. Well, that’s true in a way. I was very caught up in it and she was so detached. It was as though she couldn’t see how the revolutions that were going on around the world were relevant to her, to us generally. I found that frustrating.’
Gaby nods. ‘I know what you mean.’ She leans forward as though she’s about to disclose a secret. ‘In a way, she’s still like that.’
‘Yes,’ Richard says. ‘I realised that when she was here.’
‘Want to know what I think?’ Gaby asks and he nods. ‘I think Gran sort of closed her in a lot when she was growing up. And when she met you, she probably didn’t know how to be around someone like you. Then she had Dan and she just had to concentrate on being a single mother with a black child. It would have been really hard to think about anything else, especially when she went back to Perth and they had to live with Gran.’
‘That sounds about right,’ Richard says. ‘I probably made it harder for her. I kept trying to change her, to make her into what I thought I wanted.’
‘Did you love her?’
Richard catches his breath, taken aback by the question. ‘Yes,’ he says, looking into his tea. ‘I did. When I met her, I thought she was the most amazing and beautiful girl I’d ever seen. I thought I’d found my soulmate.’
‘But you didn’t love her in the end.’
He swallows hard, still unable to look at Gaby. ‘There was a short period when I hated her with a passion. But then I realised quite quickly that I could only hate her that much, that she could only hurt me that much, because I still loved her.’ He hesitates again and looks up. ‘Sadly, by then it was too late.’
‘Do you think Mum wishes it had been different?’
‘Gaby!’ he protests, ‘what is this? I feel like I’m being interrogated by MI5.’
‘Sorry, I just wondered. It’s odd, not knowing much about you but that Mum had this whole other life with you, all your plans. If it hadn’t all, like, crashed, I wouldn’t have been born. When Mum came back last year, she was happier. I suppose I’m just trying to understand.’
He nods. ‘Okay. Yes, I see. Well, no, I don’t think she wished that things were different. We talked about it, there was a lot of nostalgia, I suppose. You ask yourself all those questions about what if things had been different. But Zoë loves your dad very much, and she loves you all passionately, her family is her life. She certainly speculated on how it might have been but I don’t think that ever, for one moment, she wished it were different. We may not have seen each other for decades but I think that when she was here she took a hard look and thought she was well out of it.’
‘What about you, then? Did you wish it was different?’
There is a long silence as Richard struggles with whether to tell the truth or an easy lie.
‘Yes,’ he says eventually. ‘I did, I have done for years – decades, really. When I saw Zoë last year, I wished more than ever that I . . . that we . . . that it was different. But I didn’t tell her that and nor should you. I haven’t told anyone.’
‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘Thanks for telling me. I kept wondering, you see, because coming here sorted things out for Mum, I think. I needed to know.’
Richard nods. ‘Of course, but cone of silence, okay?’
‘Okay.’
He takes a deep breath and sips his tea; it feels good to have told the truth and he begins to relax. He likes Gaby enormously, even if she has made him a bit hot under the collar.
‘Richard?’
He looks up questioningly.
‘There’s one more thing I need to ask.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Last year, when Mum was here, did you sleep together?’
‘What the –’
She holds up her hand to stop him. ‘It’s important, because Dad thinks so; at least, I think that’s what it is. He was trying to get her on the phone for ages when Gran was in hospital, and he got very upset, and Julia couldn’t find you either.’
‘He told you this?’
‘No, of course not. I mean, he told us he was worried about her. But even after she’d called him, he was odd, like . . . scared. And he was weird and grumpy for ages. He still is in a way – not grumpy, but different, like he’s waiting for her to tell him something but he’s afraid to ask. I worry about him because once Rosie went away and with Dan gone, there was just the three of us in the house, like three points of a triangle, and things felt odd and it’s never been like that before. That’s why I need to know.’
FORTY-TWO
Afghanistan – Christmas Day 2001
The minute he opens his eyes, Dan is fully awake; sleeping in war zones has accustomed him to instant alertness but it’s still a shock to wake inside a tent. They have been trained to sleep in the open with just a plastic sheet for shelter, being outside is safer, because it’s easier to see what’s happening and to react quickly; but as they push further north from Kandahar, it’s just too bloody cold to be outside. The cold-weather gear they’ve been issued is good quality but it’s not enough to cope with minus twelve degrees Celsius. Dan lies stiff and alert, desperate to shift his position but unwilling to risk losing the precious few degrees of warmth that have cocooned him. Eventually he gives in and shifts slightly to look at his watch. The luminous green figures show it’s four-thirty; eight in the morning in Perth, where it is almost certainly warm and still, the sky a clear and perfect blue, and along the beach near home, the scent of the Norfolk pines will be mingling with the tang of the sea, glassy in the sunlight.
What are they all doing now, he wonders. Justine will be busy with Harry, washing or feeding him, cuddling him close to her neck, kissing the sweet scented dome of his head. Dan aches with the longing to encircle them both in his arms, to bury his face in Justine’s hair, to feel her skin against his; to recapture the intense reassurance that comes from physical closeness.
‘Love doesn’t need proximity,’ she had said the day he left. ‘It’s always there, always burning bright.’ He’d known she meant it, and that she was making a brave effort to let him know that whatever he might have to face, anxiety about her love for him need not be a part of it.
Is Gwen with her now, and what about his parents, his sisters? Gaby should be in London but Rosie will be home. He wishes they were all together, Gaby too. Imagining them all in the same place, opening presents, eating too much, laughing, thinking and talking about him, generates a heat that’s almost enough to warm him, but not quite. Moving has allowed the warmth to leak away and he now feels as though he is lying in a bath of iced water, the chill seeping through his flesh to his bones. He drags himself up, moving silently out of the tent into the devastating bite of the wind. The vast inky sky is scattered with constellations in unfamiliar positions; there is a fading moon, and the sinister silence of snow that can muffle warning sounds, and a loneliness more acute than he has ever known.
Being a parent, he realises, gives you a totally different perspective. Love makes you stronger at the same time that it makes you more vulnerable, but fatherhood is something else again. It’s the intensity of it, the awesome responsibility; the fear of not being able to protect this precious creature who is so dependent on you for everything.
‘I keep thinking of how it must have been for you,’ he had said to Zoë, a few weeks after Harry was born. ‘I never realised before how scary it would have been; no home, no money, told not to come back here, and you were so young.’
The tension had eased between them since her acceptance of
Justine.
‘It did seem like an enormous responsibility,’ she’d said. ‘I felt so alone, and very frightened that I’d let you down.’
‘You never have,’ he said.
‘Oh, yes I have, but perhaps mostly in little ways you haven’t known about. And more recently, in a big way. And I really regret that. I’m so very proud of you, Dan . . .’ Zoë’s voice broke and she paused, ‘I know I said things . . .’
‘It’s okay, Mum. You were upset and I overreacted. It’s over,’ he’d said, stroking Harry’s head and then putting his hand on her shoulder. ‘One hiccup in thirty-three years is a pretty good record.’
Dan cups his gloved hands around a cigarette, lights it and draws deeply on it. Justine would have a fit if she knew he was smoking, but extreme conditions breed extreme habits. Many of them who never smoke at home do so on active duty, it’s the illusion of comfort, the camaraderie. He exhales, watching the smoke drift away from him. Clandestine patrols in Taliban country, and soon, a push further north to the mountains of the Hindu Kush. What a way to spend his son’s first Christmas.
‘Who’s coming with me?’ Zoë asks late in the afternoon. ‘Just a stroll to South Beach, nothing strenuous.’
The turkey is cooking slowly for Christmas dinner, which they’ll eat in the evening when the heat of the day has passed. The vegetables are ready and waiting, the pudding that Gwen made weeks ago wrapped in its cloth. On a rug on the grass, Justine and Rosie are trying to divert Harry’s attention away from a length of silver ribbon and towards one of his Christmas presents. Archie, in his favourite chair on the verandah, is two chapters into a book Gaby has sent him about the building of the London Underground and Eileen is taking a nap on Rosie’s bed before Jane and Tony arrive.
‘I’ll come,’ Gwen says. ‘If I don’t do something, I’ll fall asleep and wake up grumpy.’
They walk in companionable silence through the streets where the muffled sounds of celebration drift from open windows. As they cross the road near the yacht club and turn onto the beach, the sea breeze is a pleasant relief from the heat.
‘I wonder what it’s like in London,’ Zoë says, as they kick off their shoes to stroll to the water’s edge. ‘Or Rye, really, that’s where Gaby is. She’s hoping for snow.’ She sighs. ‘It’s strange without her; Dan’s often been away at Christmas but until now, both the girls have always been at home.’
‘Do you think you’ll hear from Dan?’ Gwen asks.
‘Maybe. But they’ve not been there long, and it sometimes takes a while to organise communications; I think they have to get a satellite link, so it might be too soon. People used to tell me I’d get used to this but I never have. It’s the uncertainty that’s so hard to cope with.’
‘That’s just what Justine said,’ Gwen says. ‘She’s finding it harder than she expected.’
Zoë nods. ‘It’s bound to be harder now that she has Harry, and sometimes talking on the phone just adds to the fear. I was talking to Dan once and some sort of alarm went off. It was an emergency and he hung up almost immediately, but I was left there wondering what on earth was going on, and, of course, dreading the worst. Imagination is the curse of wives and mothers in these situations. Having your children leave home is hard enough without the element of danger.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ Gwen says. ‘I felt absolutely lost when Justine went away to Europe, and she’s not even my daughter.’
‘But you’ve been like a mother to her.’
‘In some ways, but Norah was her mother. I tried not to get in the way of that, and I still try not to, even now that she’s dead. She and Justine were robbed of so much that it seemed very important to be clear about the prominence of Norah in Justine’s life. I can’t begin to imagine the misery that Norah endured.’
‘What was she like?’ Zoë asks.
‘Tough,’ Gwen says, without hesitation. ‘Incredibly tough; there are lots of women in Justine’s family, and they’re all tough and wise, and such fun. You’d like them, Zoë, and you would have loved Norah. She had a wicked sense of humour and said exactly what she thought. But she was vulnerable too, especially with Justine.’ She turns to Zoë as they stand there side-by-side, barefoot in the shallow water. ‘I’ve never said this to anyone else, but I think that Norah always felt that because of what had happened, there was a part of Justine that she could never know. Seeing them together was beautiful, but it was so sad too because nothing could ever make up for what was done to them.’
Two families race into the water alongside them; the adults lifting the toddlers, squealing with delight into the air, the older children plunging noisily, joyfully, out towards the deeper water, and a large black Labrador, its wet coat glistening in the sunlight, barking excitedly and running circles around them as if trying to round them up.
The two women stroll slowly on up the beach towards the rocks.
‘Justine told me what happened to her,’ Zoë says and Gwen nods, saying nothing. ‘It must have been hard for you too.’
‘Yes, but compared to what Justine went through, it seems horribly self-indulgent to admit it.’
‘How did you . . . I mean . . . what happened to him? I suppose he went to prison.’
They’ve reached the rocks now and, almost in unison, settle on a low flat surface that forms a natural seat.
‘No,’ Gwen says. ‘No, he didn’t go to prison.’ Her heart beats faster as the old fear grips her. She should have told Zoë sooner; it’s not right that both Dan and Archie know the truth, when she doesn’t. She can only excuse herself because Zoë had erected the barricades that had made disclosure impossible. ‘Look, Zoë, I should have told you this before now, but things weren’t all that easy at the start.’
Zoë’s lips tighten and she nods. ‘I know. My fault. I’m really sorry, Gwen. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’ Gwen takes a deep breath. ‘I’m not proud of this but, no, I didn’t go to the police.’
‘But wasn’t he punished? He should have gone to jail. How could you . . .’ she stops suddenly, seeing the look on Gwen’s face. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘Sorry, Gwen; go on, tell me what happened.’
Gwen is silent, screwing up her eyes against the sun. Telling Archie had proved surprisingly easy, but she had always known that it would be harder to tell another woman. ‘When I discovered what he’d done to Justine, all I felt at first was horror, and guilt that I’d been so blind, that I was the sort of person who could have that happen under my nose and not even realise it. I knew he was violent, especially when he was drunk. A few years earlier, he’d beaten up a fourteen-year-old boy who’d worked for us. He was always rough with the men, and a couple of times he’d hit Gladys and, I’m ashamed to say, I’d let him get away with that. I got used to keeping the peace, I suppose. It was tough out there, intimidating, because although the farm belonged to me, Malcolm claimed it just by being married to me. For years I felt it was him and the men against me. But that day I drove back from the hospital, I knew I wasn’t going to be intimidated anymore. I was determined to get him off the farm and out of my life, and to look after Justine.’
She hesitates briefly and then continues. ‘Mal had been away buying stock. I didn’t even know if he’d be back, but as I drove up, there he was, out on a stretch of cleared land near his office, playing cricket with his mate Greg. It was early evening and the rest of the men had gone down to Toodyay to a dance. I felt sick with anger when I saw him there, playing this stupid two-handed game, when Justine could have died because of him. As I got out of the car, he started yelling at me and I couldn’t quite hear, so he yelled louder. “I hope you’ve taken that boong back to the nuns.” Something exploded inside me then. I walked right up to him. He was sort of crouching over his bat, waiting for the next ball, and I grabbed the collar of his shirt and shoved my face into his and screamed at him to get out, get off my land or I’d call the police.’ Gwen pauses, takes a deep breath, and shakes her head.
‘He l
aughed at me, Zoë; can you believe it? He just stood there and laughed at me, and then he grabbed my wrist and sort of thrust me out of the way, and I tripped and fell. Well, he found that hilarious. He grabbed me by the arms and dragged me onto my feet, and put his face really close to mine. He was laughing still and gripping my upper arms, and then he suddenly kicked my legs from under me and I sort of staggered. He thought that was hilarious too and he kept holding me like that. I was blind with rage by then; I’d hit my head on a rock and I could feel blood trickling down my face. I struggled to get away from him but he was much stronger than me, so I spat in his face. He went berserk at that. He threw me back against the office wall.
‘“You are such a fucking tight-arsed bitch,” he said. “You think you’re so much better than me; your father, he was the same. But I could kill you out here and no one would know. I could put my hands round your throat like this and strangle you, and in minutes you’d be dead.”
‘And he did it, just started to squeeze my throat really hard. I was choking and then I heard Greg yell at him. He ran at Mal and pulled him off me, and I fell on the ground. I was dizzy and my throat was burning and he came at me and kicked me several times until Greg pulled him off again. And then he swung round at Greg, and punched him in the face, and he went down.
‘I was terrified, Zoë; I was sure he was going to kill me. I was struggling to get up and I saw the cricket bat on the ground where he’d dropped it. I grabbed it in both hands and swung it at him. I was quite strong in those days and I got him across the knees. I heard the crack and he just folded up on the ground, screaming with the pain and yelling that he’d have me arrested for assault.
‘“And I’ll have you arrested for rape,” I said.
‘“And who d’you think’ll believe you and that dirty little whore?” he yelled.
‘And I realised he was right. The police wouldn’t care about a black child being raped, and I’d just be another victim of domestic violence and they might even say I provoked it. But a white woman smashing her husband’s kneecaps with a cricket bat; well, that would really get them going.