Last Chance Café

by Liz Byrski

  ‘You don’t need to,’ Dot says. ‘I’m as appalled as you obviously are. Is this also the subject of your PhD?’

  Alyssa nods. ‘And as you can probably tell I’m a bit obsessed about it. I, we, believe this sexualisation of little girls is a part of a vicious circle.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Four and five-year olds dressed up as sexy adults are being set up to believe that this is what it means to be beautiful. It’s the slippery slope. They compete on how they look, the look is always sexy and the competition is fierce and brutal. The winners are rewarded and the others learn that they are not quite good enough, and it’s not quite good enough in a very powerful way because it’s about how they look and what they think they’re worth. They’re learning that this is how their worth is measured. But it’s not just the lunatic fringe who are letting this stuff infiltrate their kids’ lives, it’s right on the doorstep: the cosmetics for toddlers, the branded pencil cases and mini handbags, the padded bras for five-year-olds worn under t-shirts emblazoned with overtly sexy messages. It’s all part of what you were saying at the shopping centre, that women are trapped in a culture of youth and beauty, dominated by unrealistic sexualised images, where appearance is what matters and getting old is terrifying.’

  Dot reaches for her coffee and leans back in her chair. ‘I feared you might want me to help save the whales, and while I love whales and am all for saving them, it’s not something I would personally put my time into. But this … well … tell me how I can help.’

  ‘Well,’ Alyssa says, leaning forward, ‘it started with something my nan said. I think you know her, she was in some women’s lib stuff with you in the seventies – Glenda Dunne?’

  Dot nods. ‘I remember her well; you’re a lot like her.’

  ‘Well, I was over at her place the day that story about you was on the front page of the paper. She showed it to me. She said she’d been waiting for years for you to get back up on the soapbox again, and she said it was a shame you didn’t still write the column in the paper because we could ask you to write about this. And that gave me the idea …’

  Dot grabs another cake, wondering what’s coming.

  ‘I wondered if you’d be willing to run a blog, about all the same sorts of things you wrote about in the seventies and eighties, but particularly featuring stuff about how women are portrayed. The things you said in the paper would tie in with our campaign. There are heaps of people who remember you, Dot, and when they find your blog they might follow the link to our site. I’d set it up for you, you could just write whatever you want, and we can get you on Facebook and Twitter. You could pull heaps of people into the campaign, especially mothers and grandmothers.’ She hesitates and it’s as if she is suddenly losing her nerve, backing down. ‘And there’s something else too. We need someone to make us look serious, respectable, give us some gravitas. But of course it’s only if you … well, if you want to, if you’re interested … Perhaps you need time to –’

  ‘Don’t!’ Dot cuts in and Alyssa jumps. ‘Never back down, and don’t ever let anyone see you’re losing your nerve even if you are. You’ve done something terrific, now stand behind it and sell it.’ She gulps the remains of her coffee and fixes Alyssa with a gaze that has had many lesser women blinking like rabbits in the headlights. ‘This is the first time I’ve ever been accused of respectability or having gravitas,’ she says. ‘Perhaps it’s another of the many advantages of getting old. How long does it take to build a blog?’

  ‘A couple of hours.’

  ‘Well then, you’d better get started. It’s four o’clock already.’

  Emma spots a space in the hospital car park, reverses into it, switches off the engine and sits there, trying to think herself into a better frame of mind before she goes inside. Around her people are getting in and out of their cars, walking anxiously, armed with flowers, fruit and magazines, to the hospital entrance, while others emerge stricken and tearful, heading silently hand-in-hand in the opposite direction. Emma wishes she had a hand to hold but these days she doesn’t seem very good at letting people hold hers. It seems too hard, too dangerous, to get into hand-holding and all that it implies. Safer to stick her hands in her pockets and walk alone.

  She takes the key out of the ignition, gets out of the car, walks briskly in through the entrance and presses the button for the lift. Perhaps someone else will be there too, Lexie maybe, or Margot, or one of Donald’s friends’ wives. Anyone at all would be a relief, a diversion in the awfulness of that room with its tubes and pads, its dials and drips and the overbearing monitors that testify to the workings of Donald’s body. Nothing seems natural in there. Even conversations with her aunt – which have always been a pleasure because they have so much in common, like their love of clothes and shopping, the same taste in movies and TV programs, a slight shared disapproval of Margot’s liking for op shops and Lexie’s preference for art galleries over shopping malls – now seem incredibly awkward, freighted as they are with the knowledge that as each day passes the likelihood of Donald’s recovery diminishes.

  There is a soft swish as the lift stops and as the doors begin to open Emma steps forward and almost crashes into three people who are coming out.

  ‘Oh whoops, sorry!’ she says, stepping back. ‘Bit too eager to get in.’

  ‘And we’re pretty eager to get out,’ the man says. He is carrying a small overnight bag, and the woman beside him is carrying a baby wrapped in a white crocheted shawl. She is staring intently into its face and a nurse with some papers in a plastic folder is escorting them out of the hospital.

  ‘Taking the baby home,’ the man says. ‘Very exciting.’ His pleasant, open face is pink with pride and pleasure, and he reaches over to move the edge of the shawl so that Emma can see its face. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

  Emma swallows hard, smiles and leans in closer. ‘Absolutely gorgeous,’ she says. ‘Congratulations. You must be dying to get her home.’

  ‘Can’t wait,’ the mother says, obviously still spaced out, exhausted by the birth but also mesmerised by the wonder of it all. And she smiles vaguely at Emma as the nurse steers them towards the exit.

  Emma steps into the lift, leans against the wall of smoky glass and presses the button as the doors close behind her. Her stomach heaves as the lift jolts upwards and she stares at her own reflection on the opposite wall, remembering the terrifying sense of panic that had gripped her as she and Grant stepped out of that very same lift with a newborn Rosie. In that moment she had wanted to run, run as far as she could and keep running until she reached a safe distance, until she was free of the certain knowledge that had haunted her pregnancy, that she had committed herself to something she really didn’t want, and at which she was destined to fail. The indicator light settles on the number four and Emma takes a deep breath and steps out into the passage. She pauses, waiting for the wave of guilt to pass, and then walks slowly in the direction of Donald’s room.

  Phyllida knits the last stitch, fastens off and spreads her work on the edge of Donald’s bed, delighted she chose this particularly soft light wool. Well actually she didn’t choose it, she’d given Wendy the pattern and sent her off to the wool shop with instructions, and now that it is done she can forgive Wendy for not getting the exact colour she’d asked for.

  ‘I think this would suit Rosie better,’ Wendy had said, handing over the bag, ‘but of course if you really would prefer the pink I can take it back tomorrow. They said they’d change it.’

  Phyllida, by now reliant on knitting to keep her calm, could not survive another twenty-four hours without it. Perhaps Wendy was right, she had thought grudgingly – after all, she probably knew Rosie better than any of them, with the exception of Grant.

  ‘It’s called burnt orange, and Rosie’s rather keen on it at the moment, but it’s up to you,’ Wendy went on.

  Now that the poncho is finished Phyllida can see that this colour is far more suitable than pink, and she picks it up and carries it to th
e window – the hospital’s fluorescent lights distort everything.

  ‘Is that a poncho?’ Emma asks, appearing in the doorway and moving over to greet her aunt. ‘I haven’t seen one for years.’

  ‘It is indeed,’ Phyllida says, returning her kiss. ‘Rosie ordered one. Apparently her new best friend has one, although hers is designer-made in Peruvian yak wool or something equally exotic.’

  ‘I didn’t even know you could buy them these days,’ Emma says. ‘They’re very eighties.’

  ‘Earlier than that,’ Phyllida says, folding the poncho and putting it into the carrier bag in which Wendy had brought the wool. ‘Maybe they’re coming back and Rosie and her friend are at the forefront of fashion.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Emma says, ‘hard to imagine. I suspect she thinks it’s like a surplice for conducting bird funerals. But it is nice, I like the colour.’

  ‘Well you’ll note I’m not offering to knit anything for you,’ Phyllida says. ‘I’m well aware of your distaste for anything without a designer label.’

  ‘Well only for me, not for Rosie,’ Emma says, ‘and I bet you’re not knitting anything for yourself either.’

  Phyllida grins. ‘Too right. Rosie is bearing the brunt of my current need to knit, poor kid.’

  ‘How is he today?’ Emma asks, nodding towards Donald.

  ‘Odd,’ Phyllida says. ‘Restless, moving about a bit. I’ve been so frustrated with him lying there day after day just breathing, and then this morning he jerked his arm and knocked a cup out of my hand and I actually shouted at him. Isn’t that awful?’

  Emma smiles. ‘I think it’s natural. It’s very bad for you, sitting here all the time. We all think you’re overdoing it.’

  Phyllida knows very well what they think, but they are not married to Donald. It is she, not them, whose life will be changed in almost unimaginable ways by what happens next. Being here is the only way to cope with that. And despite her annoyance over the tea, she’s convinced herself that this moving is a good thing, a sign of improvement. Until today she has faced every morning in the belief that this would be the day when Donald’s oldest friend would sit her down and tell her that they should decide to let him go. She had wondered whether, if Donald were not one of the hospital’s own, this would have already happened by now. But movement, she thinks, makes a difference, it must do.

  ‘Don’t you think his face is a better colour?’ she asks Emma now.

  Emma moves closer and looks at Donald’s face, which is as ashen as it has been for weeks. ‘Well …’ she hesitates, ‘it’s hard to tell in this light, isn’t it? Anyway, you’re probably right, moving is better than nothing. But I do think you need a break. Let’s go down to the café, or we could have a little walk outside. You need to get some fresh air.’

  Phyllida pauses. ‘Well, I don’t know really …’

  ‘Do you think he’d want you to be cooped up here all the time?’

  Phyllida sighs. ‘Probably not. If he could speak he’d probably tell me to bugger off and do something useful.’

  ‘Well then …’

  Reluctantly Phyllida picks up her bag and takes another look, a closer look, at her husband’s face. ‘I’m going out with Em for a bit, Don,’ she says. ‘Coffee, fresh air. Back soon. Don’t go anywhere.’ And she smiles down at him and follows Emma out into the passage.

  It’s a beautiful autumn afternoon, the sky a brilliant blue streaked with high cloud and a fresh breeze and as they settle on a bench with their cardboard cups, Phyllida closes her eyes, enjoying the sun on her face. Emma was right, she needed this; and she is filled with a sudden and urgent longing for normality, for her life to be back once again as it was, busy, filled with things that need to be done, things she knows how to do and does well. She longs for the structure, the daily rituals, the minor irritations and rewards of her ordinary life, and the certainty that was a part of it. And although she now knows to her cost that certainty was just an illusion, it’s one she would very much like to reclaim.

  ‘I want my life back,’ she says suddenly, turning to her niece. ‘I so want all this to be over, Em.’

  Emma smiles and puts a hand over hers. ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘Of course you do.’

  Something strange is happening as they step out of the lift. Beyond the woman in the green overalls who is making slow progress along the corridor with the tea trolley, way past the elderly man in a crumpled suit who is grasping the arm of a frail woman in a blue dressing gown, there is panic and a flashing red light, the clatter of a trolley and the streak of white coats disappearing through a door. The old man stops and turns to look; the tea lady, filling a cup from the urn, cranes her neck to see past an inconvenient cupboard, and from somewhere in the opposite direction another, very familiar doctor, white coat flying open, races past them and in that moment Phyllida knows that it is Donald’s light that is flashing, Donald’s life that is in the balance. Her chest is tight with shock and tugging her arm free from Emma’s she runs as fast as she can, the leather soles of her shoes slipping on the tiles, the old man and his wife watching in trepidation as she skids to a halt outside the room and almost falls through the door.

  Donald is lying flat on his back, his pyjama jacket open, and alongside him a doctor in charge of the resuscitation trolley is counting backwards from three.

  ‘Clear,’ he shouts, and as others pull back he slams the pads onto Donald’s chest.

  Phyllida gasps in horror, her hand over her mouth, as Donald’s body wrenches upwards in a twisting spasm and falls again. The staff watch mesmerised as a line on one of the monitors peaks and drops again.

  ‘Get her out of here!’ a doctor yells, spotting Phyllida, and a nurse hurries to her side and takes her arm.

  ‘Get off,’ Phyllida shouts, pulling away from her. ‘Stop it, you have to stop.’

  ‘Clear,’ the doctor cries again, and the current sends another spasm through Donald’s body, and the line lifts and jerks and flattens once again.

  ‘Come outside please, Mrs Shepperd,’ the nurse insists.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ Phyllida shouts, and she strides to the bed, staring down at the great mass of Donald’s chest, and above it his strangely distorted, ashen face, and she knows he is no longer there.

  ‘Three, two …’

  ‘Stop!’ Phyllida shouts, grasping the doctor’s arm, and he turns to her in shock.

  ‘Out of here, Mrs Shepperd, I insist,’ he says, stepping back. ‘You must leave now.’

  ‘No,’ Phyllida says. ‘You must stop – now. I know he’s your friend, but he’s also my husband and he’s dead, for god’s sake. You know he is, he’s been dead for weeks. We have to let him go.’

  The man’s face is stricken; he has worked with Donald for years. He steps back, and around her Phyllida sees the staff exchange awkward glances. One nurse, hand over her mouth, looks as though she might cry.

  ‘Time of death sixteen-thirteen,’ the doctor says, his voice husky in the sudden and awful silence.

  ‘Please leave, all of you,’ Phyllida says eventually, surprised by the authority in her own voice and the sense of calm that has overtaken her.

  Slowly they get ready to withdraw, the trolley is wheeled away, instruments are collected from the bed and the night table, dials turned, and switches flicked to off, tubes are removed and a nurse begins to close Donald’s pyjama jacket, but Phyllida leans across and pushes her hand away.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she says firmly. ‘Just go away. Please go away.’

  The door closes and one by one she fastens each pyjama button, straightens the top sheet, folds it neatly back just below his top button and smooths it across his chest and under his arms.

  ‘You too, please, Em,’ she says, looking at her niece white-faced and stricken on the other side of the bed. And Emma pauses for a moment, appears about to say something but changes her mind, and turns towards the door, squeezing Phyllida’s arm as she passes.

  Phyllida looks down into Donald’s distorted
face; she strokes his forehead and gently, with the fingers of both hands, she massages his face back to familiarity.

  ‘I told you not to go anywhere,’ she says softly, ‘but you had to have it your way, didn’t you? Well there it is, all over now.’ And taking his hand in hers she sits down beside the bed, still talking, until she has said all she needs to say.

  ELEVEN

  Nine weeks, almost to the day, since Donald was taken away in an ambulance, Phyllida watches from the front door as the last guests stroll to their cars. It’s almost five o’clock; she had hoped they would all have had enough of the wake by four, but some were reluctant to abandon the very good wine and opportunities for reminiscence. The sky is a dull steely grey and a blustery wind is playing havoc with the young Norfolk pines that she ordered on Donald’s instructions just a year ago.

  A week, Phyllida tells herself, I have been a widow for one week and I still feel nothing, no grief, no anger, no sense of panic. What sort of woman am I to feel so much of nothing? All the emotions that had threatened to smother her during those weeks in the hospital have evaporated; she is disconcertingly calm, thinking clearly, as she had been on that day a week ago when she had banished the medical staff from Donald’s room. Even at night, alone on her own side of the king-size bed, she lies still, her thoughts moving between past and present and settling on nothing until she sinks eventually into sleep. It is as though she is standing outside herself observing all this happening to someone else, and while she can remember the hysterical outpouring of fear and grief on the night of Donald’s initial collapse, those feelings are now beyond her reach. During those tense weeks at the hospital her whole being had hummed with anxiety and fear; now she is cocooned in exhaustion, quarantined from what should surely be terrible grief, but she has not shed a tear. It’s the shock, she tells herself for the hundredth time, just shock, and she closes the door and leans back against it.