Gang of Four

by Liz Byrski

  The glasses chinked and Isabel smiled. ‘I am desperate for it and I’m sure I’ll love it here.’

  They walked together back into the hall and through to a large room that combined a dining and sitting area. Glass doors led to a terrace, which looked out in the opposite direction from Isabel’s room. ‘Feel free to use this room. It is for guests, my own rooms are upstairs. The other guest accommodation is down there.’

  Isabel looked over the terrace wall to what looked like a studio situated at the bottom of a flight of steps. In the open doorway a man dressed in shorts and T-shirt was sleeping in a cane chair, a light straw hat tipped over his eyes, an open book facing downward on his lap. At his feet a tortoiseshell and white cat stretched out on the warm tiles.

  ‘Klaus, Herr Hoffmann,’ Antonia explained softly’ Tosca, my cat, is very attached to him. You will meet them both later. I have invited Klaus to have dinner with us this evening, Tosca will invite herself. I hope you don’t mind cats.’

  ‘I love cats,’ Isabel said. ‘And this house is beautiful. You’ve kept the original building but renovated it so carefully.’

  ‘It was done by a friend,’ Antonia said. ‘I told him what I wanted and he made it work. I don’t have many guests. Monsaraz is too quiet for most people but it suits those with a need to get away from busy lives. But you must be tired, we’ll talk later. Dinner is at eight-thirty out here on the terrace.’

  Isabel was tempted to blurt out her questions there and then but stuck to her decision to wait a while. Perhaps that evening over dinner she would produce Eunice’s photograph of the house in Lisbon, but for the moment she would simply enjoy her surroundings. The adventure had begun. Now, at last, she could feel once again the passion that had driven her to make this journey She sipped the lemonade and gazed out across the rooftops and plains to the next hilltop village.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ she whispered. ‘Like stepping back into the past. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be here.’

  SIX

  Sally had been in Berkeley for four weeks before she finally opened the telephone directory and did what she had imagined doing since she stood in the art gallery looking at the earthquake photographs. That day, her skin prickling with goose bumps, she had pictured this moment – her finger moving swiftly down the ‘M’ pages of the San Francisco directory, slowing at the first Mendelson and then seeking out the ‘O’ initial, until she saw the address that she had held in her memory for twenty-five years. Would they be listed under ‘O’ or ‘O & E’? Would they still be living there, at the address on the yellowing pages of the letter?

  She almost stopped breathing – there it was under ‘O & E’, the same address in Hyde Street, Russian Hill. She wrote down the number and closed the directory. From the window of her apartment she could see across the rooftops of Oakland to the bay and the city of San Francisco, cream and gold in the hazy light of late afternoon. Strains of Ella Fitzgerald floated down from the CD player in the house upstairs and the volume swelled as Nancy opened the sliding doors to the balcony. Sally went back to the watercolour on her easel, picked up her paintbrush and put it down again, trying to calm the frantic activity in her mind. How should she do it? Should she phone or write? Was she really ready to cope with this?

  The elegant outline of the Bay Bridge, linking Oakland and Berkeley to San Francisco, seemed sketched in charcoal above the still waters of the bay, thirteen kilometres of iron and steel. She had stood in the gallery in Perth, in front of the photograph of its crumpled girders and crumbling concrete, thinking about this place. Now she was here, in a small ground-floor apartment in a house clinging to a steep escarpment in Berkeley. A card in her purse identified her as a student of the University of California, her name on a list allocated her to a postgraduate unit in photojournalism. She had attended the first five lectures and tutorials and appeared to be doing exactly what she came here to do, but Sally knew that she hadn’t really started.

  From the balcony above, excess water dripped through the timber slats. Nancy was watering the geraniums, and Chuck’s voice began to compete with Ella and won - the music was turned down. She had seen a few hellholes in the search for a place to live, but the moment she walked into this comfortable space where shafts of afternoon sunlight filtered through the trees to trace delicate patterns on the polished wood floor, she knew it was the place for her. The rent was a strain, almost twice as much as she was getting in rent for her townhouse in Perth, and her long-service leave pay didn’t translate to much in US dollars. If she was very careful, her father’s legacy would just about see her through. She had been lucky with her landlords. Chuck and Nancy Parker were kindred spirits, intelligent, thoughtful and friendly, both in their sixties and still busy with their own teaching commitments at the university.

  Sally stared at the phone wondering whether to call now. What would she say? After all these years how would she even broach the subject, and what chaos would she cause by announcing her presence just a few miles away across the bay? She glanced at her watch. After five. She would wait until tomorrow. What was one more day after all this time?

  She picked up the worn envelope, addressed to her at the flat in Earl’s Court that she had shared with Vanessa. Unfolding the pages, Sally stared at the neat sloping writing and the words that she knew by heart.

  Dear Sally Erskine

  I have started this letter so many times and then changed my mind, but for months I’ve known that I had to write to you. I am not supposed to know who you are and you have a right to be angry that I have discovered your name and address.

  My name is Estelle Mendelson and three years ago my husband Oliver and I adopted your baby. All I know is that you were a single mother and that Lisa was born in London on 18 November 1969. I have thought of you and wondered what it can have been like for you to part with Lisa.

  I always felt that if you wanted to make contact with Lisa there were ways for you to do it while we were living in England. But last year we moved back to San Francisco, which is our home town. We have taken Lisa away in a very final sort of way. We both love her as if she was our own child, but we intend to tell her at an early age that she is our chosen, not our natural child. We will also tell her that her mother loved her but could not care for her in the way she wanted.

  So often I look at Lisa and wonder about you, how you are and if you are happy. I am sending you our address in San Francisco. If, one day, you want to make contact with Lisa we will do our best to help, provided of course that it seems to be in her best interests.

  I hope this letter will feel like reassurance rather than an invasion of your privacy. To have Lisa with us is the greatest gift we could imagine.

  Yours sincerely

  Estelle Mendelson

  Sally folded the letter feeling the strips of sticky tape with which she had repaired it, years after she first tore it up. She could hardly remember the person she was then, and the person she had been in 1969 when Lisa was born. When Simon thrust the envelope of five-pound notes into her hand and roared away in his cream Volvo, she knew she couldn’t face an abortion any more than she could face the pursed lips and disapproving sniffs of a small Australian country town. Her parents would be hurt and horrified, her older sister self-righteous and condemning. None of them must ever know. Despite his point-blank refusal to use condoms, Simon had blamed her entirely and, because he was so much older and a man, Sally believed he was right to. She struggled through the pregnancy, designing greeting cards at a small company in Islington, until the day she was shocked by a sudden intense contraction two weeks before her due date.

  Lisa was born on a dark November morning when the streets of London were black and treacherous with freezing rain. Her body exhausted and her heart breaking, Sally lay in the hospital bed holding the tiny blue-eyed baby and fighting back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. Kissing the top of her downy head, she handed Lisa to the social worker and turned her face to the window and the dark abyss of
the hospital car park, listening to the dismal tap of the woman’s shoes as she walked away down the hospital corridor.

  Three weeks later Sally took Simon’s money from its envelope and caught the bus to Oxford Street. In the fabric department of John Lewis she bought dress lengths of wool and velvet, silk and cotton, enough to make herself a whole new wardrobe. From there she headed to Selfridges, where she had her wild curly hair highlighted and restyled. The next day she saw a flat share advertisement in the Evening Standard and caught the bus to Earl’s Court. She loved the flat and really liked Vanessa, who had inherited it from an aunt. She paid a month’s rent in advance for a bedroom with casement windows, a steeply sloping roof and a white shag-pile carpet, which was just like one she had seen in a magazine at the hairdresser’s. The next day she moved in and two weeks later she had a new job in a bigger greeting cards company. She had bought herself a new life and she closed the doors on the past, sealing away her pain, refusing to allow herself to feel her own grief. Two years later, with the money she had saved and a determination to get a degree and become a teacher, she made her way back to Australia.

  Estelle Mendelson’s letter arrived the following Christmas. Sally took the train to her parents’ home for the holiday, a two-hour trip from Melbourne, where she was studying and working as a part-time waitress. The airmail envelope from London was sitting on the hall table, inside it a Christmas card from Vanessa and the envelope from America. ‘It came a week ago,’ her mother said. ‘I didn’t bother to forward it, knowing you’d be here shortly.’

  Sally stood in the lounge reading the message in Vanessa’s card and wondering who could have written to her at Earl’s Court, and who she might know who had gone to San Francisco.

  ‘Everything all right, love?’ her mother asked, glancing up from the kettle to see Sally’s face white and set, the pages of the letter fluttering in her shaking hands. ‘Not bad news from Vanessa, I hope.’

  Sally stuffed the letter in her bag and, mumbling about putting her things upstairs, fled to her old bedroom where she sat bolt upright on the bed staring at the familiar rose-patterned wallpaper. She felt as though she had been stripped naked. This letter had lain on her parents’ hall table for a week. Anyone could have opened it and discovered her shameful secret. The social worker had promised her total confidentiality, it had been the one fragment of consolation, the thought that her family would never know. Sally tore the letter in two and then into four pieces, but stopped herself from throwing it in the wastebasket. She’d have to dispose of it tomorrow, put it in a bin on the street. If she dumped it here someone might discover it. Carefully she put the torn letter back into its envelope, folded it and zipped it into the side pocket of her handbag. But the next day there was no opportunity to go out and although it seemed like a bomb waiting to explode, the letter stayed put.

  Christmas and New Year passed in scorching heat and it seemed easier just to pretend it wasn’t there. She spent the days in the garden, chatting with her mother and sister, and watching her nephews playing under the sprinklers. And in the evenings her father and brother-in-law charred steaks and sausages on the barbecue, and neighbours turned up with six-packs and flagons of wine. When she caught the train back to the city the letter was still in its hiding place and when, months later, she finally went to dispose of it safely she couldn’t quite bring herself to do so, its dangerous potential dissipated by the passing of time. She kept the torn sections folded in the envelope until one day, more than a decade later, she realised that the letter had lost its power. She got it out and stuck the pieces back together.

  In her twenties Sally had cast Estelle Mendelson as a nosy, interfering stranger with the power to destroy her life. But time had changed the way she viewed the world, and the letter that had once filled her with fear and rage, at this point seemed generous, even courageous. Now Sally gazed at her painting and the view beyond it. Was she a fraud? She had grasped at the motivating force of Isabel’s decision but she had done it dishonestly. It was true that she had always wanted to learn photography, but there were a hundred and one places where she could have done it. It was Lisa that had brought her to this place. Even so she had resisted doing anything until she was in California, determined to start her search where nobody knew her. What did Lisa look like? What sort of woman had she become? Sally imagined her daughter in her own image, but without what she saw as her own faults and weaknesses. She pictured her daughter as the person she would like to have been. Strong-minded, courageous, ambitious. But how would that young woman react to the appearance of a mother who had given her away at birth? Joyful acceptance and welcome? Fierce anger and rejection? She could not bid for the former without risking the latter.

  Perhaps she wasn’t quite ready to phone. Tomorrow she would get the train into the city, walk up to Russian Hill, have a look at the house. Pick up the vibes, Isabel would say, and Grace would shrug, discomfited by the words. Why had she never told them about Lisa? A friend who had gone to San Francisco, she had said. It was totally misleading and when Robin asked her if she had managed to track down her friend, she had flushed deeply and said she was still trying to trace her. She had isolated this from the rest of her life; if she was going to crack open the memories, the hopes, the fears and the shame, she would do that in isolation too.

  Nancy’s feet clattered down the steep wooden staircase at the side of the house and Sally heard the rattle of silver bracelets as she appeared at the screen door. ‘Come on in,’ Sally called. ‘I’m just making some coffee.’

  ‘Gee, that’s beautiful,’ said Nancy, nodding towards the landscape on the easel. ‘You sure captured that view. I wish I could paint, always wanted to. Always too busy teaching politics to students who think they’re gonna change the world.’

  Sally laughed and filled the kettle. ‘And did any of them change the world?’

  ‘Uh-uh,’ Nancy smiled, shaking her head. ‘But I did hear from one who’s working in the White House. Mind you, that’s nothing to boast about. Thanks, I’d love some coffee. You got those eucalyptus trees just perfect, but then I guess you’d have a lot of those back home.’

  Sally nodded. ‘Somehow they look different here, though, the effect of the landscape is that the same things seem totally different. Oh, look!’ A grey squirrel darted along a branch and leapt off onto the top of the fence.

  ‘Those darned squirrels don’t even have the manners to be shy.’ Nancy laughed. ‘Sally, I don’t know if this’ll appeal to you, but Chuck has to go away next week and we have tickets for a concert on Thursday. It’s the San Francisco Symphony. Nice program – some Beethoven, Haydn, and I can’t remember what else. You’re welcome to Chuck’s ticket if you’d like to come along.’

  ‘I’d love it, Nancy. Thanks. There’s such a huge choice of concerts and theatre here, but I haven’t managed to get to anything yet.’

  They settled opposite each other on the two big cream couches. Nancy, small and supple as a teenager, kicked off her shoes and sat cross-legged, leaning back on the cushions. ‘I always wanted to sit like that but my legs won’t do it,’ Sally said with envy.

  ‘Yoga.’

  ‘I’ve been doing yoga for years but I still can’t sit in that position for more than a minute or two.’

  Nancy shrugged. ‘Some people can’t. Being weirdly undersized helps. You’d be welcome at our yoga class, y’know. It’s only a couple of blocks away. Walking distance. I go on Wednesday evenings but there’s a whole stack of classes. I’ve got a timetable upstairs. Look, honey, are you okay down here? Warm enough? Got enough saucepans, blankets … ?’

  ‘Nancy, it’s great. It feels like a five-star hotel. I can’t believe how comfortable you’ve made it.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad. We’re so happy to have you here. We only bought this house a year ago, and this is the first time we’ve leased the apartment. Our son Ross lived in it for a few months, but you’re our first real tenant.’ She reached out to pick up a framed photograph sitting
on the side table, the Gang of Four taken at a party at Isabel’s house a couple of days before she left for Portugal.

  ‘My friends in Australia.’

  ‘They look so nice,’ Nancy said. ‘You must miss those women. My friends are so precious to me. You know how it is – no secrets because they don’t make judgments. Women friends are so special. When I was young I was so closed and secretive, but my women friends shook me out of it.’

  Sally felt a deep flush creep up her neck. ‘I do miss them,’ she said. ‘Very much. Although I do have a few secrets, even from them.’

  The early morning fog had lifted, replacing the damp chill with glorious sunshine and a clear blue sky. Ahead of her the famous zigzag of Lombard Street rose steeply towards the junction with Hyde Street. Sally made her way up the steps forcing herself to breathe deeply. There was nothing to worry about, she was just going to walk along the street and take a look at the house. Maybe she would see someone coming out, maybe – but she pushed the thought away and walked on between the borders of blue and white hydrangeas, and up the steep sidewalk. Pausing at the top she caught her breath at the view of the city spread around her, the pastel buildings scattered over the hillsides as though by the hand of some amiable giant. Across the bay a ferry loaded with tourists ploughed a trail of white foam towards Alcatraz. How often had Lisa looked out on this view?

  This was one of the city’s most desirable districts. The large elegant houses bordering Hyde Street gave it an air of solid wealth. With property prices being forced through the roof by the youthful entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley, these homes were worth millions. The Mendelsons’ was an old and beautifully restored, double-fronted, three-storey house, its walls painted a light cream picked out with touches of charcoal grey. A wrought-iron gate opened from the sidewalk onto a paved courtyard where orange and lemon trees grew in massive earthenware pots and water trickled from the mouth of a stone fish into a shallow limestone bowl. From the courtyard a short flight of stone steps led up to the front door. This was where Lisa lived or had lived, where she had spent her childhood and her adolescence. This was the gate she had walked through to go to school, returned through from her first date, perhaps walked out of to be married. An elderly couple, cameras around their necks and guidebook in hand, stopped nearby to photograph the view. Sally thought they must have been able to hear her heart pounding, or feel the intense heat that flooded her body. But they just smiled pleasantly and walked on.