Last Chance Café

by Liz Byrski

  ‘That’s fine, Mrs Shepperd, thank you,’ says the older of the two. ‘We have all we need, we’ll take it from here,’ and he nods across to his colleague, who walks over to the astonished Trevor and begins to caution him.

  ‘You did a great job there,’ he says as Phyllida peels away the tape from her chest and extracts a tiny microphone from inside her shirt. ‘We’ll get you a job as an undercover agent.’

  ‘Once is enough, thank you, Inspector,’ Phyllida says, handing over the equipment. ‘But it was extremely satisfying. And it’s nice to know that my years as a dedicated fan of The Bill were not wasted. That poor young man, beaten up on the street and taken to hospital and then he dies, perhaps because my husband had been drinking.’

  ‘We don’t know that yet,’ the man says, ‘not for sure. We might never know.’

  ‘No,’ Phyllida says, ‘but I think we can make an educated guess. And it’s the cover-up that I can’t stand. Donald showed nothing but contempt and disrespect for that boy. This has been a very difficult time, Inspector, and I have been trying to practice forgiveness, but this is one thing that exceeds the boundaries of forgiveness and I think it always will.’

  Emma finds a parking space across the street and sits for a moment in the car, looking at the house and trying to gather the courage to get herself to the door. It’s always been hard for her to come here, but today is harder than ever.

  ‘No, it wouldn’t be a disaster if you asked someone else to pick your daughter up this weekend,’ her therapist had said, ‘but it would be a big step forward if you could do it yourself. At some point soon you’re bound to see Grant again, and I think you’ll feel better if you can face up to this.’

  Emma lowers the car window and studies the front door. He might not be there, it could just be Wendy and Rosie, and that would be easier, although of course Wendy will know. She’ll know all about Emma’s freak-out in the arcade, about how Grant rescued her. How he took her home, made tea and toast and talked to her, waited with her until Phyllida got home. Saint Grant again, Emma thinks, but she knows she was lucky that he’d picked that moment to cut through the arcade. He’d just listened and nodded when she told him what had happened, and then – and Emma can’t believe she did this – she was so grateful to him that she’d actually told him about the therapist. So Wendy will know about that too, in fact they probably spent the whole evening discussing how totally fucked up she is.

  Emma sighs, winds up the window, gets out of the car and walks across the road and rings the bell.

  ‘Hi, Em,’ Lexie says, opening it. ‘Wendy said it’d be you. Come on in, she’s on the phone. Grant and Rosie went shopping and they’re not back yet.’

  Emma steps inside, heart sinking; so now Lexie knows everything too, and she and Wendy will have been discussing it as well. ‘What are you doing here, Lex?’ she asks, trying to stay cool, behave normally.

  ‘Stuff for tomorrow – the march. Thanks for volunteering; I can give you your marshal’s badge and visibility jacket now, and the list of instructions. Come through to the kitchen, Wendy’s got some coffee on the go.’

  The house is in its usual state of disarray, thanks largely to Rosie, but it’s easy to see that the mess is superficial. Wendy is super organised but she’s also relaxed about it and Emma, who needs everything to be in its place all the time, finds this ability to tolerate a level of untidiness unnerving. She moves a couple of Rosie’s books off a stool and sits at the bench.

  ‘Hi, Em,’ Wendy says, hanging up the phone. ‘Thanks for coming to fetch her. They’ll be back in a minute. And look, I’m so sorry about that debacle the other day. Coffee?’ She pours some into a mug and pushes it across to Emma.

  Emma takes a deep breath. Here it comes, she thinks, the interrogation with two inquisitors. Maybe the best thing to do is just meet it head on. ‘About the other day …’ she begins.

  ‘Yes,’ Wendy cuts in. ‘It’s my fault. I should have checked out what Jacinta’s parents had in mind. They did say dressups and dancing, but I had no idea about the Bunny thing. I’m so sorry. Laurence said you gave them a good serve.’

  ‘He said you were terrific,’ Lexie agrees. ‘I just hope it made them think about what they were doing.’

  Emma opens her mouth, shuts it again and adds milk to her coffee.

  ‘What really surprised me,’ Lexie goes on, ‘is that Rosie obviously went for it in a big way. It’s so unlike her.’

  Emma’s sense of guilt is still raw but Phyllida’s words have resonated with her. ‘This is not about you, Em,’ she’d said. ‘It’s much bigger than that, so if you want to do something about it then stop whingeing about it being your fault and get stuck into the campaign. We need as much help as we can get.’

  She takes a few sips of coffee. ‘Well I guess it’s as easy for Rosie to get sucked into something as it is for the rest of us,’ she says. ‘Especially as I have a horrible feeling she may have thought I’d approve of it. I’ve been pretty naive about all this. I don’t mean the stuff about the little kids, I’ve always thought that was horrific. But when I’ve been planning promotions I’ve picked the images on the basis of how sexy those girls look; the younger, the sexier the better – glossy pouting lips, smouldering stares, pumped-up boobs. It’s all sex, isn’t it? It’s all part of the same thing.’

  Wendy nods. ‘Sure is, all designed to persuade women and girls that they’re making choices, when really it’s about pressuring them to believe that the measure of being a woman is how she looks. And that look must be young and sexy. I’m so sick of it being thrust in front of my face every time I turn on the TV or pick up a magazine.’

  They are silent for a moment, Lexie checking her lists for the march, Wendy slipping a tray of scones into the oven. Emma watches them; they are so much at ease, so confident, so mature, and quite suddenly she yearns for that, for what she sees in them, yearns for something they share, that is shared too by Margot and Dot, by some of the women in her own office. Is this, she wonders now, why Margot had talked to her about Phyllida needing friends? Could her mother see then what Emma now sees for herself, that she and Phyllida have more in common than she had ever realised? Is this sort of unspoken understanding, this connection, something that she could have, could be a part of? She has always thought that Lexie and Wendy, and practically every other woman she met, was judging her and probably finding her wanting. Now, quite suddenly, she is not so sure.

  ‘I think I got very caught up in it for a while,’ she says now. ‘I mean, it is nice to look good, to feel you look good, but it doesn’t fix anything, does it? I was like a mouse on a treadmill going round and round in circles, wearing myself out, going nowhere, solving nothing.’

  ‘Well you are going somewhere now,’ Lexie says firmly, slapping a list of instructions and a map in front of her. ‘At least tomorrow morning, and the place you are going is this corner here across from the park. Please take your mobile with you, and the girls down at the starting point will call you when the marchers start moving. But bear in mind there will also be people waiting on the side streets to join the march as it reaches them.’

  Wendy looks across at Emma and grins. ‘She’s incredibly bossy, isn’t she?’ she says, nodding towards Lexie. ‘Was she like this as a kid?’

  ‘Worse actually,’ Emma says. ‘Had to be in charge of everything.’

  ‘Yes, well I’m getting my comeuppance now,’ Lexie says. ‘If I learn nothing else from all this I will certainly have learnt never to volunteer to organise anything ever again.’

  ‘We’re back,’ Grant says, sticking his head around the kitchen door. ‘Sorry we’re late, Em, but your sister, the leader of the pack over there, said I had to drop off some fliers on the way. Rosie’s just gone upstairs to get her bag. She won’t be long.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Emma says, sliding off her stool, ‘but we’ll get going as soon as she’s ready,’ and she swallows the remains of her coffee and begins to gather up the paperwork for the march
without looking at him.

  ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Grant says, picking up the visibility jacket. ‘Come on, Rosie, your mum’s ready to go.’

  It was what Emma had hoped to avoid, being alone with Grant – well, alone except for Rosie – but a few minutes later he is carrying her things and Rosie’s bag across the street and then strapping Rosie into the car seat.

  ‘There you go,’ he says, planting a kiss on Rosie’s cheek. ‘Be good. I’ll see you tomorrow at the march.’ And he backs out and straightens up. ‘Got everything?’

  Emma nods. ‘Yes, thanks. And … well thanks for the other night.’

  He shrugs. ‘No worries. You okay now?’

  She nods. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘One day at a time, you know how it is. You … er … well, Wendy didn’t say anything.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The other night.’

  ‘Well no, she wouldn’t. How would she know?’

  ‘You mean you didn’t tell her?’

  ‘Of course not. Was I supposed to?’

  ‘No, no, I just thought you would, that’s all. You didn’t even tell her about the therapist?’

  ‘I assumed you told me that in confidence.’

  ‘I did, of course I did, but I just thought …’ She hesitates. ‘You must think I’m –’

  ‘I think what you’re doing now takes courage,’ he cuts in. ‘I really admire you for it and I actually think you’re terrific, always have, always will.’ And he kisses her lightly on the cheek, waves to Rosie through the window, and turns away to cross the street back to the house.

  Sunday morning and Dot is restless and ready to go. She’s been ready for ages, having woken early and spent the next few hours wandering around in her pyjamas, trying to focus on her speech and being constantly derailed by waves of nausea-inducing anxiety. Time and again her thoughts return to Patrick, to the shock of his identity and to what she must tell him. Vinka’s brutally accurate assessment of her may have been well meant but it had increased Dot’s fear. She had needed to talk to someone and it was, in a way, refreshing to be beaten around the head by Vinka’s forensic dissection of her psyche. But it made her more aware of the anger and distress that might be in store for Vinka when she learns the whole truth, and she dreads the moment when that anger will be directed at her.

  ‘You must tell him about his father,’ Vinka had insisted again, just as she left. ‘He has a right to know. If it is too hard then you tell it to me and I tell him for you.’

  Dot had shaken her head then. ‘No, I have to do it myself, and I will. Tomorrow. I promise I’ll tell him then.’

  In a few hours’ time she will have to deliver on that promise and even Vinka, with her great insight, has no inkling of what there is to tell. It would never have been easy for Dot to face the child she relinquished all those years ago. When, over the years, she had considered the unlikely possibility of their meeting, she’d assumed that it would be a slow and cautious dance, each of them feeling out the territory, getting to know each other, and always with an open back door through which she could scuttle to safety, slamming it closed behind her. Never once had she considered that her son might be someone she already knew, someone she admired, someone linked to other friends, particularly to her oldest friends. Who knows who and what will be unravelled by this?

  She would like to sit somewhere still and quiet now, some place from where she could watch Patrick as he lives his life: watch as he works, as he talks to Lexie and to his students, to Laurence and to Vinka. She wants to sit in silence as he reads or walks or gives a lecture, to watch every move and every gesture, because in the time that she has known him she has not taken sufficient notice of all these things. She has learned him casually, as one learns a new friend, without consideration of what weight may hang on the connection. She has squandered chances to know him better and now, perhaps, she will never have the opportunity to begin again. After decades of not knowing him, Dot aches for the intensity of connection. Her head throbs with questions, her heart aches with something so new and strange that it seems unbearable.

  She stops pacing and sits again, her hands knotted together in her lap. They are like a stranger’s hands, old and knobbly, the backs of them crossed with raised veins and speckled with age spots, the palms soft and pale, with a maze of those fine lines that apparently tell the story and predict the future of one’s life. Is Patrick here in one of these lines – his birth, his return to her life, their connection and their future?

  This is not the state of mind in which Dot had imagined delivering her speech. She had imagined waking from a good night’s sleep with a clear head, ready for a final run through. But this morning she is exhausted with lack of sleep, strung out with anxiety, her head spinning as conflicting demands and emotions intersect. But there is no choice and so, with time to spare, she locks the door behind her and sits down on the long wooden seat on the front verandah, to wait for whoever has been appointed to collect her. It won’t be Alyssa, that’s for sure; she too has a speech to make and someone will get her to the right place at the right time, ply her with water and encouraging words, just as they will for Dot. It won’t be Lexie who comes for her because she, along with Patrick, is directing operations. And it won’t be Phyllida, who’s in charge of ensuring that the soft drinks and hot dog stands are set up and for getting the women’s choir in place. Dot leans back on the seat, resting her head against the tuck-pointed brickwork, the morning sun on her face, eyes closed. She hopes it will be one of those wonderful sparky young women whom she’s grown to admire so much; Karen, perhaps, or Lucy, or one of the volunteers. She wants someone energetic, enthusiastic, who knows absolutely nothing about her personal life and who will not call her to account on any of this. So when a car hoots out in the street and she opens her eyes and recognises the blue Barina, she is less than delighted to see that her chauffeur is one who is far too emotionally close for comfort.

  ‘Shit!’ she murmurs. ‘More explaining, I suppose. God, if you’re up there, you really haven’t been paying attention.’ And picking up her bag, she walks out to the car.

  ‘You’re early,’ she says, buckling herself into the passenger seat. ‘Very efficient.’

  ‘You always like to arrive in good time,’ Margot says. ‘Are you okay? You look rough.’

  ‘Thanks, that’s reassuring,’ Dot says. ‘Let’s just get going, shall we?’

  Margot had switched on the engine but now switches it off again as she swivels around in her seat to face her. ‘Look here, Dot, you can cut that out. I’m your friend, remember? I’m not criticising you, I’m not making any judgments, I’m just your friend, and this morning I called Karen and told her I’d pick you up because I thought you might need some moral support. But if you’re going to behave like a sulky child you can damn well get out of my car and call a cab.’

  Dot, who has been staring straight ahead through the windscreen, turns now to look at her. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘Sorry, you’re quite right. I’m … well, a bit defensive this morning. I suppose you’ve heard the news from Lexie?’

  ‘Of course, and Laurence filled in the blanks.’

  Dot nods. ‘I’m sorry about that – I couldn’t tell you at the time and Laurence, well, he was really good. I don’t know how I’d have coped without him.’

  ‘You could have told me,’ Margot says, ‘but I can see how it wouldn’t have seemed that way at the time. But I would have come myself, I would have understood.’

  ‘Mmm … Well I guess I know that now, but at the time it all seemed impossible.’

  They sit briefly in the silence.

  ‘Patrick’s a wonderful man,’ Margot says, ‘you should be very proud of him.’

  ‘I can’t take any credit for that,’ Dot says. ‘I feel I can only do him damage.’

  ‘Stop it,’ Margot says, thumping her hand on the steering wheel. ‘Can’t you just accept this, see it as a gift? Laurence says you never wanted anyone to know, but it’s too late no
w, we all know. No one’s judging you, and Patrick needs to talk to you.’

  Dot takes a bundle of tissues from her bag and blows her nose noisily. ‘I can see it as a gift, I do see it that way,’ she says. ‘Every instinct, every part of me wants to grasp this chance to know him, to let him know me. You’re right, he is a wonderful man, more than I could ever have hoped for. But it’s complicated, Margot, and I need to discuss that with Patrick before I tell anyone else. The awful thing is that when I do talk to him I believe he will hate me, that he will never forgive me, and so there may be no chance to know him as … well … as my son. No chance at all.’

  THIRTY

  ‘I could of gone with Dad or Wendy, you know,’ Rosie says as she and Emma stand together at the corner of Collins and Spring Streets. ‘Dad said I could go with him to the station, or with Wendy, or to the gardens with Aunty Phyl. He let me choose so I could of gone with any of them.’

  ‘Could have, not could of,’ Emma says. ‘Well I’m glad you chose me. It’s much nicer than being here on my own. But there might be a lot of people around so don’t get lost, and don’t wander off.’ For Emma, coming so late to the campaign and largely unaware of the number of volunteers and the work that has gone into organising the rally, the fear is that no one will turn up. It’s only in the last week, as the lists of volunteers and their responsibilities have been distributed together with the running sheets for the rally, that she’s come to realise that it’s been planned like a military operation and, according to Alyssa, Lexie has been the driving force behind that. Now she’s dreading the possibility of a few straggling protesters standing in a great empty space, making the whole thing look ridiculous.

  Rosie heaves a huge sigh. ‘I know, Mum,’ she says. ‘But I picked to come with you ’cos Dad said I’d get to wear one of these things … what’s it called?’

  ‘It’s a visibility vest, so people can see you clearly. That’s why it’s this lime green colour.’

  ‘I like this colour,’ Rosie says, ‘it sort of makes my teeth hurt. Does it make your teeth hurt?’