by Maeve Binchy
“We’ll start in the Town Hall Square—it’s not a very original idea, actually, that’s where everyone starts.” Monika laughed. “But I thought we could just stand there and see what was most appealing and head for it.”
They chatted easily, two handsome women on a bright, cool morning, attracting many a glance as they strode along to the square.
Laura had been about to ask if she could tour Royal Copenhagen porcelain, or one of the museums, something she could talk about at lunch, make herself appear knowledgeable and make Don proud of her. But today she was restless. She didn’t feel like doing her homework in order to make her handsome, successful husband look even better by demonstrating what a bright, supportive wife he had managed to find for himself. Today she wanted to be a tourist like other people who were on holiday.
“Can we go to the Tivoli Gardens?” Laura asked.
“Nothing upon earth I would enjoy more,” said Monika, and they headed along the Hans Christian Andersens Boulevard like children released from school.
Monika told tales of how they had come on a school trip to Copenhagen from Bornholm, and a wonderful teacher had let them spend hours in this great amusement park among the flowers, the fountains, the little shows, the fireworks. None of them would ever forget it. It was a magic place then and now.
They sat on a park bench and talked as if they were old friends.
“Does your little son Erik like coming here?” Laura asked.
“He loves it, like any child. This place is made for them.”
“I suppose he’s at school today, a pity he could not have come with us,” Laura said.
“That’s very kind of you to think of including him. If it’s not too personal a question, do you and Don intend to have children?”
“I do, I don’t think he does.” Laura had never spoken so directly before. There must be something about this place that made her drop her guard.
“Do you think that he would be delighted if a baby came along?”
Monika was sympathetic, interested; it was easy to talk to her.
“I don’t think so. Don doesn’t like surprises, or anything that is not planned. He hasn’t planned for a child yet. I am twenty-eight and he thinks that’s still very young, plenty of time, he says. After this merger, after that takeover, after this deal…”
“I know, I know.” And it appeared from her face that Monika did know. She seemed to understand that Don Dixon was not a man to be crossed even in a matter of delivering him a son and heir before he was ready.
“Was your husband delighted when Erik came along?” Laura had to know.
Monika paused for a moment before she answered.
“I have no husband. I had for six years a man I loved very much, but we were not married; we did not even live together. It is a long and complicated story. He was a musician, he wanted to be free, wanted nothing domestic to tie him down. No home, no rent, and definitely no child.”
Monika’s eyes were misty as she spoke of the free spirit that had been the center of her life for six years.
“Many of my friends were in the same position, but they carefully forgot to take their pill and it had all worked out very well for them. And that’s what I did too.”
There was a silence; the two women sat there in the morning sunlight as families went by to morning coffee in the little cafés dotted around the Tivoli Gardens.
“Tell me what happened.” Laura’s voice was a whisper.
“You have thought of this too possibly?” Monika asked. “Well, I will finish the story. For my friends, as I say, everything worked well, so why should it not be the same for me? Yet it was not the same. He was very angry when he heard I was pregnant. I came here to the Tivoli Gardens. I sat not far from here and thought about it for a long time. I hoped once he saw the baby he would change his mind. But I sat here and watched the children play and realized that it was a gamble. I faced the fact that he might not change.”
Monika got up and threw a stick for a big, ambling dog that had come to visit them. She still smiled, but her eyes were troubled.
“For him, this freedom thing was more important than a son. He wanted to be able to go and play at festivals, stay out all night at a session—it didn’t fit in with being a family. We said good-bye.”
Laura was full of sympathy. “Was it very, very hard?” she asked.
“Yes, it was very lonely. I couldn’t believe that we had shared so much and that he wouldn’t stay around to share the greatest thing of all. But when you think about it, I should have known. I should have read the signs. It’s so easy to do so in other people’s lives.”
“What about my life? Can you read my signs? Would Don change when he saw a baby?” Laura had never shown her hand so openly.
Monika spoke thoughtfully. “I think he values his kind of freedom with you there to help him on his career; as a mother you wouldn’t be so available to him as a glamorous wife, traveling companion, hostess, all that.”
“It’s all a matter of timing.” Laura sounded exasperated. “You see, one day he will want a family, someone to inherit all his great wealth.”
“But at his time, not yours.”
“And I can’t wait much longer,” Laura said.
“My musician too will one day want a home and a family, and he will find one, make one, but not with me.”
“Meanwhile, you have Erik.”
“Meanwhile I have Erik. I don’t have my musician, but nobody can have everything.” Monika was philosophical.
They sat companionably, as if they were old friends rather than two women who had just met that morning.
“I can’t imagine my life without Don now,” Laura said almost to herself.
“You might not have to make the choice.”
“No, I think you’re right. I suppose I have known this for a long time, but I wouldn’t think about it. I either have Don or a child. And if that were so, then I would not want Don’s child, always with me to remind me of the man I had lost.”
“No, that’s not the way it is. Erik is a person, a real person in his own right, so would your child be just that.”
Just then a man and a woman passed by, each holding the hand of a toddler, their faces lit up with pride for him as he took his faltering steps.
Laura looked down the months into the future. This was a picture where she and Don would never play the roles of Mother and Father.
Suppose she did get pregnant? She would have to hide the child away, make sure that the baby did not disturb their life; there would be nurses and nannies and mother’s helps. There would be business trips abroad where she would leave her child, accompany Don, closing her eyes as she already did to whatever little adventures he had, what knowing glances were exchanged. There would be more years of saying the right thing and never the thing that she felt or believed in her heart.
This was the price she would pay to be the wife of Don Dixon. And, in ten years’ time, he just might think she should begin to provide him with a son. A decade from now, when she might not succeed in doing this, when she would be tired rather than young with her child, when so much would have changed.
When, indeed, he might prefer a younger partner like he always wanted a newer car.
The clear morning light seemed to reach into parts of her mind that had never been properly lit before.
“You look sad,” Monika said and stretched out her hand to the other woman.
Laura took her hand and held it.
“No, it’s not sadness actually. No tears in the Tivoli any more than there were for you. Just decisions.”
They didn’t need to say any more.
They had coffee at a little stall, they rescued a balloon from where it was stuck in a tree and let it fly again up in the sky.
Monika said that tomorrow they might go to the Little Mermaid down by the harbor. It was much smaller than tourists ever believed possible but very beautiful.
“Could we drive out to Elsinore and see Ham
let’s castle, do you think?” Laura asked.
“Yes, of course, but I thought Don said that he didn’t really like things connected with Shakespeare, it made him think of school?” Monika had brought up the subject on the drive in from the airport.
“That’s true, and it’s one more example of his shortsightedness,” Laura said calmly. “But I would love to see it if it’s not too long a drive. I may never be in Denmark again, it’s something I always wanted to see.”
“I hope you will come back,” Monika said simply.
“Everything is possible,” said Laura as they left the Tivoli Gardens and walked out along the streets where the greatest children’s storyteller of all time had woven a magic future for children of every age and every land.
The Consultant Aunt
Mother had been the eldest of her family and Aunt Miriam the youngest. So Miriam was more like a cousin than an aunt. Miriam worked with management consultants. Sara had always been fascinated by the stories of how they got to the root of the problem here, spotted the trouble there, cut out the deadwood somewhere else. Miriam must have lived a very exciting life, Sara had always thought. Compared to everyone around her it was positively star quality. Mother always sighed when she spoke of Miriam.
“Thinks she knows everything, that’s always been her problem,” she said.
Sometimes she said it to Miriam’s face. “You’re too definite, dear, that’s your weakness. Men don’t like women with such very forthright views.”
“Oh, I think they do,” Miriam said.
“Well, you haven’t shown any proof of it.” Mother sniffed.
“Oh, by not being married, is that what you mean?”
“Don’t get me wrong, dear, you’re very attractive—much, much the best-looking in our family, but how was it that the rest of us were all well married by your age?”
“I don’t know.” Miriam pretended to consider it seriously. “It’s a mystery.”
Sara loved when Miriam came to supper and even more when she came for the weekend. Sara was doing A levels. Nobody else seemed to understand what it felt like. The feeling that you were too old for all this kind of study, that it was taking time from important things like the disco and Simon, who told Sara he liked her but he wouldn’t wait forever.
Miriam would lie on Sara’s bed as if she were seventeen also instead of being twenty-five. She never nagged Sara about getting on with her work, she talked about Simon as if he were a real person instead of throwing her eyes up to heaven about him as Mother did, or sighing heavily like Father.
“Why does he threaten, do you think?” Miriam asked about Simon. “Do you think it’s because he’s mad about you or could it mean there is a bullying streak in him?”
For ages they would discuss it, and then Sara always ended up, “What do you think, Miriam? What would you do?”
Each time Miriam was firm. “I’m hundreds of years older than you are, surely you don’t want my advice?” But Sara always did, and it always worked like a dream.
She told Simon that year that she would be very happy to go out with him on Friday evenings but at no other time because she wanted to study. She would go out with no other boy and he could consider them going steady just as long as he realized that she literally would not leave her books.
Simon said he thought that was perfectly fair, and that he would concentrate on his work; he had a job in a big hi-fi and stereo store. When it came to July, Simon had been promoted within the chain, had saved enough for a small car, and Sara had done well in her A levels.
Simon was twenty. Two years older than she was. He said he’d like to get married when he was twenty-one. Sara lay on the bed this time and Miriam sat in the chair listening. Simon had been so good to her, had accepted all the restrictions she laid down. He had agreed not to discuss sleeping with her until the A levels were over. Now that they were over he was discussing it pretty regularly and talking about marriage at the same time.
“Well, would you like to make love with him?” Miriam made it sound as if it was a thing you could do or needn’t do.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you don’t have to until you do know. I mean, it’s not a thing you do because you think someone’s been kind to you and might expect it. The postman’s jolly kind here and I’m sure he thinks you’re very attractive, but you don’t have to make agonizing decisions about yes or no with him, do you?”
Things were always beautifully simple with Miriam. You decided what you wanted and then you went ahead and did it. Miriam said it was all like management consultancy. The biggest thing was identifying the problem. Once you had done that, then it was quite easy to solve it.
Miriam was small and dark with lots of dark brown hair, which she wore in a thick, shiny bob. Miriam believed in consulting the best. She had gone once to a very expensive hairdresser and asked his advice. What hairstyle would be the most flattering? She took his advice and said she would go back to him every three years. He had laughed and said that his business would fall apart like a house of cards if everyone was as practical as Miriam.
Sara explained to Simon that she didn’t want to get into a relationship yet. She wanted to think about her career. Simon had been very annoyed. He had called her a tease.
Miriam had curled up on the window seat and listened to the sad saga.
“I honestly don’t know what he’s complaining about. Because of you, he’s saved his money, he’s got a promotion, and he’s had you as a date every Friday. It’s not as if you took everything and gave nothing. No, he’s got it so all wrong.” With Miriam it was all so clear.
Sara gave an exact parrot version of her aunt’s speech. To her surprise it worked. Simon said that was indeed true, he had been highly unreasonable. He agreed they should be friends, pals, mates, they would go out together when it suited them, they would have other friends or no other friends as they thought fit. Simon believed he had reached these dizzying heights of maturity on his own. By Christmas he told Sara that he had found another girl, and she did want to get married. So, if there were no hard feelings…There were no hard feelings; Sara even brought a Christmas present for his fiancée over to Simon’s house.
The fiancée, a silly, giggling girl, said she would never be able to live up to Sara; she said that Simon’s first love had been a star. “Do you think I’ll be a spinster sort of star?” Sara asked Miriam in a troubled tone. “I mean, I don’t want to have very high principles and be thought magnificent but live my life on my own watching enviously young lovers holding hands.”
Miriam pealed with laughter. “A beautiful eighteen-year-old girl on the brink of life, and you talk like that! Look at me, I’m twenty-six, and I don’t look like an old maid sitting primly on a shelf watching the lovers of the world go by two by two, now do I?”
Sara agreed. Even though Mother said it wasn’t natural for Miriam to prowl the world in that expensive outfit and that glossy hairdo. She should have settled down like everyone else.
Christmas was always much more fun when Miriam came; she simply loved hearing about their problems and trying to solve them. She would take notes about Father’s company, and ask him dozens of questions, and then triumphantly come up with the solution: they should give up their own transport, they didn’t need a fleet of vans and lorries, which took up so much time and were not at all cost-effective, instead they should have a rental agreement. It worked and Father was the hero of the firm. It was the same with Sara’s brother, Jack, and the problems in the club. In their case, Miriam worked out, the difficulties arose from not having proper permanent premises of their own, which they could then let out and use to earn revenue. Jack was made president for his far-seeing views.
And Mother had groaned and complained about the kitchen. It really wasn’t practical; it wasn’t big enough to eat in, yet it was wearying carrying everything through to the other room.
It was Miriam who saw that if you had a long hatch between the two rooms it would give ev
eryone more light, provide a place for books and the record player as well as a shelf for passing things through.
“There would be cooking smells,” complained Mother.
“A fan,” said Miriam.
“Suppose we wanted to keep the sitting room private for some reason?” Mother had protested.
“Why? Do you make love on the floor in there or something?”
When the alterations were finished Mother draped the shelves in houseplants and trailing ivy and received the compliments of all her friends with a lofty air.
For Sara, Miriam was her Consultant Aunt about everything: clothes, career, but mainly life and love.
The career was easy. Miriam recommended that Sara apply to a firm that took bright young management trainees. Soon she was on the ladder there, well in control of her work.
When Sara was twenty-one, Miriam pointed out the advantages of getting a mortgage and buying a small flat. Sara didn’t want to live at home under the parental eye forever.
“I might as well, considering that I live like a nun,” Sara had wailed.
Miriam was now an elegant twenty-nine, her hair was a mass of bubbly black curls, and she looked smarter than ever.
“It sounds to me as if you are ready to have a relationship,” the Consultant Aunt said firmly.
“Find me someone, Miriam,” Sara begged in mock helplessness.
“No, certainly not. But in the middle of negotiating loans and getting the flat, someone’s bound to turn up. Wiser not to find anyone at work, I always think.” Miriam’s dark eyes twinkled with some memories possibly. Sara agreed.
Through Miriam she found the perfect flat, the right mortgage, the exact furniture, the out-of-work art student to paint the place for her, and Peter. Peter was the solicitor, thirtyish, blond, very handsome, and very unanxious to settle down. Sara fell hopelessly in love with him.
That was exactly what it was, she told Miriam on the first Christmas after she had left home. Hopeless. There was no hope that bachelor Peter would make a move; he was set in his independent ways.
