by Liz Byrski
‘How long have you known?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, a year, maybe more … I’m not sure now.’
‘But how did you know?’ Robin asked, confusion adding to her anxiety.
‘This is a small town, Rob, we move in a fairly limited circle. Jim McEwan has a high profile and you’re not entirely unknown yourself. You know how stories get around. Doug heard it and he told me.’
‘But we’ve been so careful,’ Robin protested, her heart thumping fiercely in her chest.
‘I’m sure you have,’ Isabel said. ‘But it’s very hard to hide. One person says something to someone else and so it goes, and people always find things that confirm their suspicions.’
‘You never said anything.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I suppose because you didn’t. You didn’t want me – well, us – to know, otherwise you would have told us.’
‘What about the others?’ Robin asked. ‘Do they know too?’
‘I suspect not,’ Isabel said, picking up a handful of sand and enjoying the way it trickled through her fingers. ‘I’ve never mentioned it.’
‘A year or more,’ Robin said quietly. ‘What must you have been thinking all that time? I guess you must be shocked.’
Isabel turned to her. Robin’s face was a pale oval in the fading light. ‘I’ve been worried for you, Rob,’ she said. ‘I wondered how it was, how you were coping with it all. I hoped that it was worth it for you. But shocked? No – why would I be?’
Robin felt a surge of relief at being able to talk about something she had hidden for so long. She wanted to blurt out every detail, every fear and frustration, every jealousy, the intensity of her feelings for Jim, but she kept a grip on her voice. ‘Because of what we’ve always talked about. About married men and the women who have affairs with them, about deceiving other women, about sisterhood and not doing things that undermine other women. About not being able to build happiness on someone else’s misery.’
‘Ah! I see what you mean. Sisterhood, and everything that it entails. You have sinned against feminism, is that it?’
Robin nodded and pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her shorts. ‘Exactly. It goes against everything we believe.’
Isabel took her hand. ‘That’s the way life is, Rob. It’s easy to have all those ideals and beliefs when we’re not being challenged at a deeply personal level. But we only really find out how we feel when something thrusts its spanner into our own lives. Then it’s not so easy. You have integrity, Robin, you’re a loving woman, and I am assuming this is not just a casual fling.’
‘It’s not a fling for either of us,’ Robin said. ‘But you can imagine the complications. We talk about it all the time, we search for painless solutions and there are none. So we talk about it again and still end up doing nothing, not ending it, not being honest about it, and hoping something will happen. In the end, of course, we’ll just have to make something happen one way or the other.’
Robin put her face in her hands and Isabel slipped an arm around her shoulders. They sat in silence as the sun slowly melted into the sea.
‘I feel too old to be doing this,’ Robin said. ‘There’s something undignified about having an affair with a married man at my age. This should be a thing of the past, somehow it ought to be more straightforward.’
Isabel smiled. ‘We’re never too old to fall in love, and who knows where the chemistry will strike? Jim’s about the same age as you, isn’t he?’
‘A bit older – fifty-three.’
‘No one thinks it’s undignified for a man of his age to have an affair,’ Isabel said. ‘Robin, I bet even you haven’t thought it’s undignified for Jim.’
Robin managed a smile. ‘No, of course I haven’t. It’s just the “mistress” thing – the “other woman”.’
‘You’re sounding very fifties. You’re not in Battersea and this is the nineties. I think you can stop judging yourself so harshly.’
The sun was gone now, the sky turning rapidly from pearl to charcoal, and the temperature had dropped a couple of degrees. The cooler air was a relief, and they walked back to the water’s edge and stood where the soft ripples lapped around their feet.
‘I could eat something,’ Isabel said. ‘Shall we walk up to the salad place?’
Robin nodded and they headed towards the path away from the beach.
‘What do you think about the others, Grace and Sally?’ Robin asked as they reached the top of the path and stopped to put on their shoes. ‘Do you think they’d be shocked? They’ll disapprove?’
Isabel brushed sand off her feet, dragged on her sandals and straightened up, looking at her friend in the shaft of light from the restaurant across the street. ‘I can’t speak for them,’ she said. ‘But how would you feel if it was one of us?’
Robin paused for a moment. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that I would feel as you seem to feel, only I doubt I could have put it as well as you’ve put it to me tonight. I’d be concerned for them, I’d understand, I’d empathise, I suppose.’
‘So then why do you feel that your friends, all three of whom love you dearly, would be any less generous to you than you would be to them?’ Isabel asked.
‘Shame, I guess,’ Robin replied after a long pause. ‘It’s my guilt and shame that makes me feel that way I suppose I disapprove of myself.’
‘That’s the hardest thing of all,’ Isabel returned. ‘I’ve been worried about you. I hope you’re being honest with Jim about what you need and not just accommodating his situation. Promise me you’ll take care of yourself?’
Robin nodded. ‘I promise. I do feel more aware of it, more able to name it all since you started this ball rolling.’ She reached out to hug Isabel. ‘I’ll miss you so much.’
‘Me too,’ said Isabel. ‘Deciding to go away has really made me appreciate what I’m leaving behind. I hope I like the reality as much as I like the idea.’
‘You haven’t been to yoga for weeks,’ Sally said to Grace over the phone. ‘Don’t you miss it?’
‘I suppose so,’ Grace said, ‘but I just have so much on at the moment, there doesn’t seem to be time.’
‘That’s the time you need it most. Come with me on Friday morning. The six o’clock session. We can have breakfast before we go to work.’
‘Er … well … now, Friday …’ Grace began.
‘Please, Grace,’ Sally said. ‘Indulge me. I’ll be gone soon – and in America I’ll have to go to yoga on my own!’
‘I can’t believe you made all this happen so quickly,’ Grace said. ‘One weekend you’re talking about it and by the next weekend it’s organised. Long-service leave, unpaid leave, registered for the course …’
Sally thought there was something plaintive about the way Grace’s voice trailed away.’ Well, I had to move quickly so I could get into the course. And the school had had a request from an art teacher in England who wanted to work here for a year, so I knew they’d be okay if I disappeared for a while. It suddenly all seemed to come together. Are you okay?’
‘Of course!’ Grace snapped back. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. You just sound a bit tense.’
‘Well, you know me – tense is the story of my life!’
‘Yes! So come to yoga?’
‘Sure. I’ll make the most of you while you’re still here. It’s bad enough Isabel going but you too … I’ll miss you, Sally. I’m just realising how much.’
At seven o’clock on Friday morning they came out of the church hall and walked in the crisp early sunshine along the cappuccino strip. Grace sat at a table while Sally went inside to order and returned with a tray heavy with coffee and almond croissants.
‘I can’t believe you’re going so soon. It still doesn’t seem real. We’ve all been doing the same things for so long and now everything’s changing,’ Grace said, helping to unload the tray.
Sally sat down, drawing her coffee cup towards her.
Autumn had given the mornings a slight chill and she was glad she had put on her emerald jacket. ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,’ she said. ‘I was thinking about how much I’ll miss you and I realised that I have some things I need to say to you.’
Grace pulled a long face, her coffee halfway to her lips. ‘That sounds ominous. Am I in trouble?’
A young man with a large, hairy dog sat down at the next table and the dog promptly settled beside Grace and put a heavy paw in her lap. Grace picked up the paw and patted the dog on the head. ‘You’re gorgeous,’ she said, ‘but I have to go to a meeting in this skirt,’ and she pushed the dog away, brushing the hairs and dust from the burgundy silk. ‘I sometimes think of getting a dog,’ she said as the young man pulled his dog to the other side of the table out of their way. ‘But then I think it would just be something else to look after and, anyway, you can’t have a dog in a flat.’
‘Grace, I know you’re not going to like this, but I have to ask you to bear with me,’ Sally said.
Grace nodded to her to go on.
‘I know you say you don’t want anyone to worry about you, but I do, I love you and I have to talk to you about it before I go. You’re incredibly capable, and very efficient and all that. But I see you taking on more and more, getting more and more stressed and tense. You’re stretched to your limits and show no signs of stopping.’
Grace’s fingers tapped impatiently on the table and Sally, unnerved, spoke faster hoping to hold her attention: ‘You must let go of some of these things, the committees, the people – all the things you do. Oh God! I just sound as though I’m lecturing you and I know you’re annoyed.’
Grace creamed the foam off her cappuccino with a spoon and transferred it to her mouth. She was silent for a long time. So long that Sally, who knew it was best to keep quiet, almost opened her mouth to speak again.
‘I don’t really know how to do that,’ Grace said suddenly, and Sally thought she could hear a tremor in her voice. ‘I’ve never learned how to live without the sense that I’m in control of everything that moves. I wasn’t quite so bad when I was on the wards because even as a sister you can’t be in control, even as a director of nursing. You can’t program the patients to do as you want, you can’t control the doctors, but most of all you can’t ever control what will happen with people’s illness. I sort of got used to that but in my present job it’s easy to have the illusion of control.’
Sally looked at Grace in amazement. She had expected to be told to mind her own business, but here Grace was actually implying that things weren’t quite perfect. ‘Why do you feel you have to be in control?’
‘Because it’s safe and it’s powerful, that feeling that other people rely on you to know what to do. It’s like a drug – at least, it is to me. But now …’
‘Now?’
‘Well, I don’t know, really. It’s just all this sudden change. It’s what you’ve been telling me for ages, that I can’t really keep going on like this. It’s as though my life has become a bit slippery and I’m losing my grip. But I don’t know what to do.’
Sally was shocked to see what looked like fear in her eyes. She took Grace’s hand across the table. ‘Now that I’ve opened this up I don’t know what to say,’ she admitted quietly. ‘Except that I appreciate you telling me. I know that’s not easy for you.’
‘No, it’s not one of my strengths, but I do realise how much I’ve relied on having you and Isabel and Robin around me. Now it all feels a bit rocky, as though a whole lot of stuff deep inside me has started to rise to the surface. When I think of you and Isabel leaving I feel as though I’m being cast adrift.’
‘Just because I’m going away it doesn’t mean that our friendship is less important to me,’ Sally said. ‘I’m sure that’s true for Isabel too.’
‘Oh, I know that,’ Grace said. ‘But it’s made me realise that I am nowhere near as much in control as I thought I was … it really doesn’t make any sense. I always thought everyone needed me, and now I’m starting to think that perhaps it’s the other way around.’
The tables were beginning to fill with regulars settling to drink their coffee and study the morning papers. A few early tourists drifted in to consult their guidebooks over breakfast. Sally, who only ever stopped here when she was with someone else, suddenly felt how bleak it would be to sit there alone. The familiarity was deceptive. She was filled with the uncomfortable sense that she was about to desert Grace at a really important time, a time when she needed support.
‘Maybe I should think about therapy,’ Grace ventured. ‘What do you think?’
‘I wanted to suggest that but I thought you’d have a fit,’ Sally said.
‘I guess I haven’t been very open … in the past, I mean … you’ve often warned me …’
‘It doesn’t matter about the past,’ Sally said, hugely relieved. ‘The thing that matters now is the present. There’s a terrific woman in West Perth. I’ll phone you later in the day with her number.’
‘I never thought this would happen to me,’ Grace said. ‘Needing therapy … okay for other people but not for me! But I do think I need someone to guide me through it.’
‘You know I worried that one day you would just crack up, or get ill from stress. I kept thinking you’d have a stroke. Please do something about it soon.’
‘I won’t have a stroke,’ Grace said with a smile. ‘But ring me with the number. I’ll call this week.’
FOUR
When Grace told Sally that she would call the therapist she honestly intended to do so, but somehow events overtook her. That same week she had to cope with a very important meeting of the midwifery standards committee, and there were staff problems to sort out. Angela, her daughter-in-law, got a virus, so Grace went to help out with Emily. Before she knew it the twelfth of May had arrived and she, Robin and Sally were at the airport with Isabel’s family, waving goodbye and wiping away their tears. Then she flew to Sydney for a nursing conference and a couple of weeks later she was at the airport with Robin to say goodbye again, this time to Sally. Somehow the therapist got lost.
‘I know you haven’t phoned her yet,’ Sally said in the airport toilets, half an hour before she got on the flight to San Francisco. ‘But promise me you’ll do it soon.’
‘Of course I will,’ Grace replied. ‘This week – I promise.’
‘Keep an eye on her, Rob,’ Sally said, nodding towards Grace as the three of them walked towards the entrance to the departure lounge. ‘She’s a health hazard.’
‘We’ll keep an eye on each other, won’t we, Robin?’ Grace said, hugging Sally.
‘Absolutely,’ Robin said, her eyes filling with tears.’ But we’ll miss you. It seems so strange without Isabel – what‘ll we do without the two of you?’
‘Work less. Relax more. Don’t take on anything else – either of you!’ Sally said, wiping away her own tears. ‘Take care! And write – promise you’ll write!’
‘We’ll write!’
But of course Grace didn’t phone the therapist, and several weeks after Sally’s departure, the Post-it note with the therapist’s name and number was still stuck on the fridge and other things were demanding her attention. Just a few days after Sally left, June, Grace’s motherin-law, died and Grace moved into her top-level organisational mode to deal with the funeral and the administration of her estate.
‘Gone then, has she?’ Grace’s father commented when she told him. ‘Shame, really. She was my only daughter, you know.’
Grace took a deep breath and wondered for the umpteenth time just what went on in the mind of a person with Alzheimer’s. ‘I’m your only daughter, Dad,’ she said patiently. ‘I’m Grace, June was my motherin-law, Ron’s mum. Do you remember Ron, my husband?’
‘Course I do, course I remember Ron. Blackfella. Came from the Western Desert all the way to my church, brought his dog.’
Grace gripped the arms of her chair and prayed for patience. ‘No, Dad, Ron was not a blackf
ella, and anyway, these days we say “Aboriginal people” or “indigenous Australians”.’
‘Nothing wrong with blackfellas, you know. Don’t care what you call them, God loves ’em same as the rest of us.’
Every time Grace argued with her father she ended up feeling guilty and ashamed of herself. The Alzheimer’s had stripped him of his independence, his sense of authority, and his mobility. Even his faith was sometimes absent. Why couldn’t she just let him be? What did it matter if he thought Ron was black? What did it matter if he confused her with June or with her own mother, or thought he was eating breakfast on Friday when he was having afternoon tea on Wednesday?
‘What you need to understand, Grace,’ the geriatrician told her, ‘is that for people with Alzheimer’s, the world is wrong. They have no insight into their own behaviour. Arguing will get you nowhere. Just go along with what your father says, enter into the fantasy. It’ll keep him happy – far better than arguing.’
Grace wanted her father to enjoy whatever happiness was left to him, and each week as she drove to the nursing home she told herself over and over again that she would be different. However, argument came more easily to her than entering into fantasy, and her father’s harmless delusions would have her on the edge of her chair within minutes. As she left he would be planning a sermon he would never give, jotting down confused phrases and half-remembered quotations on a piece of paper, and she would be in a high state of anxiety, cursing her own need for things to be absolutely right.
‘You’re such a control freak, Grace,’ Isabel had said. ‘This is a wonderful opportunity for you to learn to let go.’ Isabel’s stepfather had died with Alzheimer’s a few years earlier. ‘You can’t control what your father thinks, so stop torturing yourself.’
‘But all my training says that people should be given the correct information, told the truth and allowed to take informed decisions,’ Grace groaned. ‘It’s all about rights.’
‘Maybe, but there comes a time when you have to accept that a person is no longer capable of making decisions or seeing reality. You can’t force your father to believe something just because you know it’s true.’
