Last Chance Café

by Liz Byrski

  ‘That’s just it,’ he says. ‘And you know what? From the minute I got that sense of what I was really doing, I wished I’d done it years ago. But now that it’s over I’m glad I did it now, when I can appreciate it in a way that I think I could only do at this age.’

  ‘Last chance,’ Griff nods. ‘Know what you mean.’

  They sit in silence for a moment and Griff lights up a small cigar. The bluish smoke drifts past Laurence reviving a memory of Bernard, years earlier when he was only in his thirties, reluctantly accepting a cigar pressed on him by a colleague in a Prague café, and almost passing out as he took his first draw.

  ‘Anyway, Laurence,’ Griff says, ‘a bet’s a bet. Will you have it in dollars or euros?’

  Laurence hesitates, thinking, and he’s about to tell Griff to forget about it and then he changes his mind. ‘Euros, please. I’ll match it with the same amount and we’ll put it in the collection box in the church in Santiago, a parting gift. I think it would be a good way to wind things up.’

  ‘They all look so young!’ Lexie says, glancing around at the students wandering the paths with backpacks and spreading themselves across the low stone walls and seats beneath the trees. ‘Some of them look as though they should still be in Year Ten.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Wendy agrees, ‘and frankly that’s where some of them belong! But I think it’s more a sign that we’re getting old.’

  They are on their way from Wendy’s office to meet her colleague in the café and Lexie is suddenly daunted by the size of the place and the casual confidence of the young people around her. ‘Don’t remind me!’ she says, her own confidence sinking lower by the minute. ‘I’m going to stick out like a sore thumb if I do this.’

  Wendy stops walking and turns to look at her. ‘You won’t, I promise.’ She glances around, craning her neck to get a better view, and then points towards the library building. ‘Look,’ she says, putting her hand on Lexie’s arm, ‘over there, that woman on the steps of the library, the one in the green shirt – see her?’

  Lexie looks to where she is pointing and sees a woman with long grey hair and a backpack sitting on the steps talking to a couple of younger women.

  ‘Enid,’ Wendy says. ‘She’s sixty-four and five years ago she was doing just what you’re doing now. Her husband had just left her for a thirty-two-year-old nail technician with plastic breasts, so her confidence was at zero and she was very fragile. I really don’t know how she got herself here to enrol but she did and she stuck with it; started from scratch like you, and now she’s onto her PhD. You won’t be on your own, Lex, there’s plenty like you. Every class you take you’ll find two or three mature-age students and they’re most likely to be older than you.’

  Lexie watches Enid, talking and laughing now with a couple of young men who have joined her and her companions. It’s obvious that she fits easily in this group, seems, in fact, to be at the heart of it. She stretches her arms behind her head, picks up her hair, twists it into a knot and fixes it in place with a chunky clip taken from her bag, then moves off with them up the steps and into the library. Lexie struggles to visualise herself on those steps, with that same confidence, the same air of fitting in, but somehow she can’t quite see it. It’s not only the predominance of all these smart young things, so much smarter, she is sure, than she is, and with the advantage of recent study experience under their belts, but it’s also the numbers and the way they are wandering vaguely around the campus. There is no sense of order.

  ‘And don’t think these guys are smarter than you because they’re young,’ Wendy says, as though reading her mind. ‘They’re not, and they’re often paralysed by shyness, and really worried about looking stupid and uncool. You’ll be surprised, Lex. Most of the older people who enrol totally underestimate the value of life experience in a university, but the younger students recognise it and appreciate it. Despite what you see the classroom is where the age barriers really will dissolve – if you let them.’

  Lexie nods, not entirely convinced, and they walk on, weaving their way between the students chatting in groups, or strolling alone, their ears glued to mobile phones or plugged into their iPods. It seems chaotic, such a culture shock. She had been telling herself that going to uni would also bring shape and order to her life, the sort of order that she was used to at the Faraday practice. But of course it’s not like that at all. At Faraday’s she created and maintained the order, she had employed and trained the administration staff, she had run the place like clockwork, and even the nurses and partners did as they were told on things relating to the organisation and running of the place. She was, as they’d constantly told her, an outstanding business manager and manager of people, but she wouldn’t be managing anything here except herself, and for a moment Lexie pauses at the edge of the brick path, stunned by her own naivety. At Faraday’s the only really unmanageable elements in terms of her responsibilities were the patients, and even they were to some extent manageable, dependent as they were on the goodwill of the admin and nursing staff and anxious to gain access to the doctors. This huge, unruly place, the systems, the timetables, the people who work here, is another world, one in which she will have no control, and the prospect is completely unnerving.

  ‘You okay?’ Wendy asks, glancing up at her. ‘You’ve gone a bit pale.’

  ‘It’s just … well, I’m realising how totally different life will be if I come here. How different I’ll have to be.’

  ‘Well that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’ Wendy says. ‘New start, new direction? And stop saying “if”. You’re coming, and you’re going to love it.’

  Lexie manages a smile. ‘If you say so, mein führer.’

  Wendy laughs and takes her arm. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to bully you, but I really do believe this is right for you. You’ll love it and you’ll do really well. Anyway, what about the rest of your life – Ross, have you seen him?’

  ‘Only once,’ Lexie says, and relates the occasion of his visit as she had done to Margot. ‘I think he’s as relieved as I am that it’s over, and over in a civilised way.’

  ‘Really? Not too civilised, I hope – after all, he was cheating on you.’

  Lexie shrugs. ‘Oh well, that’s history now and, like you said, a new start. But what about you? No one gorgeous on the horizon?’

  ‘I wish! Oh there he is,’ Wendy says, spotting her quarry at a nearby table. ‘No, I swear this must be the only campus in Australia that’s full of straight women. Not another dyke in sight, with the exception of the vice chancellor, and she’s not my type. Besides, she wouldn’t fancy me if I threw myself naked at her feet. Here we are, Patrick, sorry we’re late. I got caught up on the phone. Lexie, this is my colleague, Patrick Kelly; and, Patrick, this is my friend Lexie, who’s thinking of enrolling. At least she was until she set foot on campus, so I need you to reassure her that it’s not as intimidating as it looks.’

  ‘It certainly isn’t,’ Patrick says, getting to his feet and shaking hands with Lexie. ‘It’s actually much worse, but Wendy and I are experts in the art of pretending we understand it. Great to meet you, Lexie. I’ve met Grant and the formidable Rosie a few times, and a couple of weeks ago I met your mother when she was here with Dot Grainger, so I seem to be working my way through the family. Who’s next, I wonder?’

  Several days have passed since Margot’s conversation with Lexie but the emotional aftermath still haunts her. It niggles at her as she drags a bag of potting mix out onto the back verandah and tips the contents into the waiting pots. It interferes with the pleasure of pressing the moist compost around the roots of the geraniums and finally, unable to concentrate on what she is doing, she straightens up, pushes her hair back from her face streaking it with traces of compost, and stands, hands on hips, looking out at the garden. It’s taken decades of hard work for her to end up owning this small weatherboard cottage and it’s been worth the struggle, but now that she does own it not a month seems to go by without the need for some sort of repair
or maintenance. It is frequently too hot or too cold, new draughts or leaks appear as if by magic, but she loves it, and on days like this, when the sun fills the house with light and the garden seems to sigh with joy after the first autumn rain, the gaps in the skirting, the flaking paint and the clunky noises in the plumbing don’t seem to matter. What does matter is that she has acquired a space for her old age – it feels like an achievement. Margot drags a chair into the sun and sits down thinking that this is, in fact, her only achievement. What else does she have to show for her life?

  ‘But your lovely daughters,’ a friend had once said when, flushed with wine, Margot had disclosed her feelings. ‘Beautiful women, they’re your achievement.’

  ‘They are their own achievement,’ Margot had said. ‘And yes, they bring meaning to all those years and I’m tremendously proud of them. But I was going to do so much more.’

  So where did it go, the intellect, the talent, the drive of that young woman who leapt the puddle into Laurence’s car all those years ago? Dot has achieved so much and continues to generate the sort of energy that indicates she is about to do a great deal more. Even Phyllida has her time as senior mistress at a prestigious girls’ school to look back on, and now, as president of this and chair of that and member of so many things that Margot would actually hate to be involved with, her sister is nonetheless a reminder to her of all that she herself is not. Phyllida, although now, of course, dealing with such terrible worry and uncertainty, still has the satisfaction of a long and largely happy marriage, and the reassurance of financial security, wealth even, to sustain her.

  Margot reviews her old dreams of a life as a writer, a successful writer, shortlisted for awards, occasionally winning one and being photographed in the kitchen of a large family home full of children and dogs, or in a sunlit study, its shelves crammed with books, sitting at a desk piled high with papers and copies of her own books. It was not a dream that lacked foundation – a couple of awards for short stories, a university scholarship, a publisher showing an interest in the first few chapters of a novel – but now, at sixty-eight, there is no place for Margot to hide from her own reality; she has even wasted the years since the girls grew up, the time and space that came as they left home, time that she could have filled with writing.

  The ‘ifs’ of Margot’s life torment her: if only she hadn’t got pregnant, if she had finished her degree, if she had not always had to put food on the table, buy children’s shoes, pay the rent. But her true frustration runs deeper; if only she had brought the politics of the women’s movement to her own inner journey, rather than simply articulating it to others. If only she’d had the courage to make the political personal and change herself, then perhaps things might now be different.

  ‘What I don’t understand, Mum,’ Lexie had said that day as they drew up outside the house, ‘is why you stopped writing. You were always at it – at night when we’d gone to bed, Sundays in the garden, on holidays. What happened to it all? What happened to all those Moleskine notebooks? You used to take it so seriously.’

  The question had felt like a blow to the chest and Margot had caught her breath. ‘It was just scribbling,’ she said. ‘I can’t imagine that anyone would be interested in anything I’d write. Anyway, too late now,’ and she opened the car door and got out.

  ‘Mary Wesley was seventy when her first novel was published and she wrote dozens more after that,’ Lexie had said, looking out at her across the empty seat. ‘It’s never too late.’

  Margot shrugged. ‘Mary Wesley is the exception that proves the rule. Thanks for the lift, darling.’

  ‘Everything I’ve ever read about writing says that most people do their best work beyond middle age,’ Lexie called, starting the engine.

  ‘Not this far beyond.’

  Reliving the conversation now, Margot hears her own resistance, her stubborn refusal to contemplate the possibility, and she hates herself for it. Why did she stop? Getting up she goes back into the house, to the cupboard where her Moleskine notebooks, in neat chronological order, occupy several shelves. She runs her hand over the leather spines, remembering the joy of starting a new one, the strong, silky quality of the pages, the thrilling sense that this notebook might just be the one in which she would discover what it was she was meant to write. Taking the first notebook from its place on the shelf, she slips off the elastic and opens it to see a Christmas sticker which sends her back to the bedroom for her glasses.

  To the Greater Spotted Margot, for your writing. Happy Christmas, Love, Donald. Christmas 1958.

  This reminder that her first Moleskine had been a gift from Donald fills Margot with guilt. He had introduced her to the literary tradition of the Moleskine, given her the first one.

  ‘Never compromise on the things you need to help you do your best work,’ he had said. And for a long time he had continued to supply her with Moleskines and she had greeted them with mixed feelings. They were the notebooks she most wanted, hard to find and never cheap, but rather than gratitude she had chosen to believe that she registered so little on Donald’s radar that he couldn’t be bothered to come up with a different gift. In fact many of these Moleskines came to her as gifts, from either Donald or Phyllida, and from Laurence, who sent them from Prague when he and Bernard were working there. What strikes Margot now is the recognition that back then they had taken her writing seriously, but she herself has never taken it seriously enough to develop anything substantial or complete. And how long is it since she stopped keeping them? How long have the new notebooks, still in their cellophane wrappers, been sitting unopened on the shelf? Margot takes out five more notebooks at random and returns to the verandah where, back in her chair, she opens the first, flicking through, reading extracts, rediscovering long-forgotten ideas and random thoughts, laughing at cruel character sketches, cringing at observations about herself, remembering who she was, and who she had imagined she might become.

  It is late afternoon when finally, shivering in the chill, she stops reading, returns the notebooks to the shelf and takes out a new one. And settling herself in a warmer spot she once again begins to write on one of those pristine pages. But after a few minutes she stops, reads what she has written, slaps the notebook closed and throws it aside.

  ‘No!’ she says aloud. ‘No, not again,’ and getting up she goes to the spare room which doubles as a study, switches on the computer and, after staring for several minutes at the blank space of a new document, she begins to type.

  TEN

  ‘It’s me,’ she says when Dot opens the door. ‘Alyssa, from down the road, and from the lecture. You said to pop in.’

  ‘So I did,’ Dot admits reluctantly, wondering what on earth had prompted her to make the offer, and then remembering Alyssa’s encouraging thumb. This is the second time that she has invited strangers to ‘pop in’ and although Patrick has turned out to be a delightful person, she wonders now if she can really be bothered with someone in her early twenties who lives close enough to become a nuisance. In her days as what Margot calls ‘a celebrity’ and Dot herself dubbed a minor media personality, she would never have dreamt of telling anyone to pop in; time had been precious and limited, and she’d never tolerated fools, pedants or time wasters gladly but had often attracted more than her fair share.

  ‘I brought cake,’ Alyssa says, holding out a plastic container, and Dot, who has a very sweet tooth and is shamelessly greedy when it comes to cake, takes it from her and peers inside. ‘Raspberry and white chocolate,’ Alyssa says.

  ‘You have spoken the magic words, my child, come into the den of the evil old witch,’ Dot says. ‘I see you’ve brought your laptop as well.’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about something, and I can do it better if I show you stuff on the computer.’

  ‘Well, cake first,’ Dot says. ‘Would you prefer tea or coffee

  with it?’

  ‘Coffee, please, strong black if possible,’ Alyssa says. ‘This is a lovely house.’

&n
bsp; ‘I bought it back in the seventies, for what now seems a ridiculous price but was hard to manage at the time.’

  ‘It’s a bit like the one we’re renting further down the street. Same layout, I think, but ours hasn’t been renovated like yours.’ She wanders around, admiring the leadlight windows, the renovated kitchen which is worthy of a far better cook than Dot has ever been, and the sunroom at the back which she had added in the eighties.

  ‘These cakes are divine,’ Dot says, having pounced on them immediately they were seated out there. ‘Did you actually make them?’

  ‘I did. My mum is big on cakes, this is her recipe.’ Alyssa takes one for herself and leans back in her chair. ‘But I didn’t just come to bring you cake. I’m hoping you might be interested in something we’ve started.’

  ‘We?’ Dot asks through her cake.

  ‘Me and my housemates, Lucy and Karen, and a couple of other friends at uni.’ She opens up the laptop and switches it on. ‘It’s a campaign.’

  Dot’s heart sinks. The last thing she needs is an amateur campaign thought up by a group of students. Pretending interested attention she starts to formulate a script in which she commends the idea, whatever it is, and graciously points out that she is too busy, too old, too out of date, too anything to get involved.

  Alyssa puts the laptop on the coffee table and turns it so that the screen faces in Dot’s direction. ‘We’ve called it CASE,’ she says. ‘Campaign Against Sexual Exploitation. We want to raise awareness about the sexualisation of children, particularly little girls.’ She clicks the mouse. ‘Not sure if you’ll have seen this stuff,’ she says as a slide show of images begins to drift across the screen. There are tiny tots dressed up as if for adult beauty pageants, frilly knickers peeping out under their skirts, five-year-olds in satin corsets and fishnet tights, six and seven-year-olds dancing in leotards worn over obviously padded bras, all of them made up, spray tanned, with teased hair, glossy lips and nails. ‘We believe that the standards of the sex industry have infiltrated the fashion and beauty industries, and the advertising of all sorts of luxury and everyday things,’ Alyssa says. ‘Advertising, television, music videos, women’s magazines – that whole consumer culture sexualises women and restricts its representations to the young, the beautiful and the sexual. A lot of it is like soft porn. And it influences how women are seen and how they see themselves, how their worth is measured, and now that’s reaching into children’s lives as well.’ She pauses. ‘I can tell you more, there is much more …’