Gang of Four

by Liz Byrski

  Grace seemed fixed to the spot. She saw her mother setting out around the town in her neat belted suit and trim little hat, a basket on one arm. She saw herself following behind as they went from one house to the next, then on to the church to check the flowers and the cleaning rosters, then to the village hall to a meeting about the Christmas concert, or the Easter Bilby party. She saw herself standing silent and polite and playing quietly alongside her mother’s chair at CWA meetings. She remembered the pressure of being the vicar’s daughter, the need always to be clean and tidy, to be quiet and polite, an example to other children.

  Instantly she was suffused with the loneliness, the hurt and frustration she had felt as her mother’s attention focused always on other people. She felt the same weight on her chest that she always felt when her mother came to kiss her goodnight on her way to do something else, look after someone else. She teetered on the edge of the great black hole that had haunted so many of her childhood dreams, and that had threatened to draw her into its darkness the day Tim and Angela broke their news. She saw the teenage Grace helping to run the Sunday School, reading the paper to old Mr Barns who was nearly blind, collecting odd balls of wool for the CWA and magazines for the hospital, organising the little kids to sing Christmas carols at the old people’s home. She grasped for the free spirit she saw in Emily, that she remembered in her own children, and she knew that it had not been part of her own childhood.

  Vivienne put a hand on her arm. ‘Good God, Grace, I’m so sorry. Whatever have I said? You look terrible. You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

  Grace turned to her, a mass of confusion. ‘I think I have,’ she said. ‘I think a ghost is exactly what I’ve seen.’

  SIXTEEN

  ‘I think I’m gonna put you here, Sally, next to Chuck. Then perhaps Linda and Craig over there and Steve down the end here next to me.’ Nancy paused, hands on hips, surveying the table, which was set for thirteen.

  Sally put the place cards in front of each setting. She had painted them, as Nancy had requested, on cream card with borders of autumn leaves. How long was it since she had been anywhere for dinner where there were place cards? What had seemed quaint when Nancy had first suggested it now seemed delightful.

  ‘So then we’ll have Dick here, please, and then Barbara over there just where you’re standing, and Steve’s daughter – what’s her name again?’

  ‘Stacey.’

  ‘Yes, Stacey – she can go here. What’s she like, anyway? D’you think you two’ll get along okay?’

  Sally put the cards in place and stepped back from the table with a shrug. ‘She’s okay, I think. I haven’t really had a chance to get to know her yet, but I’m sure it’ll be okay’

  ‘Well, honey, don’t fall over yourself with enthusiasm, will you?’ Nancy laughed. ‘It doesn’t sound like she’s going to be a bosom pal.’

  ‘No, but she doesn’t have to be, does she?’ said Sally with a wry smile. ‘Steve and I are just friends, after all.’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ Nancy said with a grin. ‘And I can check her out myself this afternoon. Doesn’t the table look terrific?’ She walked over to Sally and hugged her. ‘I’m real glad you’re here for Thanksgiving. It’s such a special time for us.’

  ‘My first ever Thanksgiving – it’s so good of you and Chuck to include me.’

  ‘Include you? You’re part of the family now. How about we try out Chuck’s punch before we go get ready?’

  Back in her apartment Sally surveyed herself critically in the bedroom mirror and decided she looked considerably better than she had done a few weeks earlier. The shadows under her eyes had faded and her skin had regained some of its freshness. The deep sea green of the dress highlighted the colour of her eyes. She hung her head forward, vigorously brushing her hair up from the roots, then straightened up, letting it settle before fixing it back from her face with the tortoiseshell combs. Satisfied with her appearance she wandered through the living room to the window and fixed her gaze on the San Francisco skyline. What would the Mendelsons be doing? How would they spend Thanksgiving? Surrounded by family and friends probably, a log fire burning in the grate, wintry sunlight pouring through the windows from the courtyard, warmth and laughter, shared memories weaving through the conversation. And Lisa? Where would she be? In the midst of it, or perhaps more likely with her carer in the quiet of her own suite. Sally sighed and turned away from the window, picking up Estelle Mendelson’s letter. Despite the countless times she had read it in the last three weeks, she unfolded the soft handmade paper and read it again.

  Dear Sally

  Thank you for your letter. Oliver and I have read it many times, and talked at length about what happened.

  We appreciate your honesty, and know it must have been a difficult letter to write. The first time we met we both felt most warmly towards you. We felt we could share our love and concern for Lisa. After you left that day much of our anxiety had lifted.

  You obviously realize how devastating your second visit was for us but your letter has helped us to understand the circumstances in which you gave up your baby, and the pain and remorse that you’ve lived with so long. We can understand how the shock led you to react as you did. I too have blamed myself just as you blamed me. Over time the sharpness has eased, but there is not a day in my life when I don’t wake to guilt and sadness; rather, I suspect, as you have woken each day with the guilt and sadness of your loss.

  So where does this leave us? Well, we feel we must put what happened behind us and move on but we both feel we need a little longer for the dust to settle. Thanksgiving is nearly here, and Oliver has a three-week concert tour between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Our suggestion is that we meet on the first of January. We have always spent that day at home here with Oliver’s parents, it’s a family tradition. So why don’t you join us for lunch on that day? Perhaps you would like to bring a friend along.

  Just send me a line to let me know if you accept our invitation and then we can all look forward to the start of a new and different year.

  Oliver and I send you our warmest wishes for Thanksgiving.

  Estelle

  Sally sighed and folded the letter back into its envelope. She knew she was incredibly fortunate to have a second chance but the weeks until New Year’s Day seemed to stretch interminably ahead. ‘But they’re right,’ she said to herself, taking her coat from the wardrobe. ‘Of course they’re right.’ And picking up Steve’s car keys, she let herself out, and went up the steps to the street in fading light to collect Steve and Stacey for the Thanksgiving dinner.

  At the far end of the table Nancy was explaining to Steve that the incredible tenderness of the turkey was due to a method she had discovered the previous week in the cookery pages of The San Francisco Chronicle. ‘Before you cook it you soak it for twenty-four hours in a mix of cold water and rock salt. Lord knows how it works, but I must say I’m really happy with the way it turned out.’

  ‘Definitely your best ever, Mom,’ Linda called across the table. ‘A culinary triumph!’

  ‘Great turkey, but I hope it’s not the best the Chronicle can do,’ said Stacey through a mouthful of food, her rather loud voice shocking the rest of the table into silence. ‘Aw, shit, guys. No, Nancy, I don’t mean that, it’s the best ever turkey. I mean, I just hope there’s more interesting things to do at the Chronicle than cookery features.’ She leaned back in her chair, looking around the table. ‘Cookery writing isn’t really my scene.’

  ‘Ah yes, Stacey, you’re going to work at the Chronicle,’ Chuck began in an attempt to relieve the awkwardness. ‘When do you start?’

  ‘Monday. It’ll be cool, I reckon. I know a guy there who’s on the international desk. We were in college together here in Berkeley.’

  Linda helped herself to roast potatoes and passed the spoon over to Craig, her boyfriend, who was dissecting the remains of a drumstick. ‘Why’d you leave London, Stacey?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh well, y’know, Lond
on … it’s dark, it’s cold and it’s full of English people.’ Stacey looked around in anticipation of a laugh, which didn’t come. ‘The English, y’know, they’re so full of shit!’

  Nancy raised her eyebrows at Barbara, her oldest friend, who had kept her distinctively English accent despite having lived in America for almost twenty years. ‘Don’t take it personally, Barb.’ Nancy smiled.

  ‘Oh gee, Barbara, you’re English, of course. I’m sorry. There’s a lot of good things in England, like … well, like the countryside, and the buildings, great old buildings, castles and stuff …’

  Barbara gave her a long look and turned back to Chuck’s brother to resume their stalled conversation.

  Nancy pushed back her chair, moving to clear the plates, and Sally got up to clear from her end, watching as Stacey leaned over to engage Barbara’s Texan husband, Dick, in a conversation about old cars. Take my dad here,’ she was saying. ‘He’s driving around in this old Jag that just gobbles up the gas. Now, wouldn’t he be better to change it for something more modern?’

  Steve met Sally’s glance and grinned. ‘She means being driven,’ he said. ‘Only ten more days, then I throw away the strapping and the stick and drive again. But I’ll be sorry to lose the chauffeur service.’

  Sally smiled. ‘Don’t kid me, you’re just itching to get back behind the wheel. I can feel it every time I start the engine. And you’re constantly fighting the urge to tell me how to drive it.’

  ‘That obvious, is it?’

  ‘ ’Fraid so. But it doesn’t bother me in the least. I think it’d take me years to get used to driving here.’

  While Nancy carried the desserts through to the table, Sally stacked the dirty plates in the dishwasher and stood for a moment watching Steve’s daughter through the doorway. Stacey tucked her thick blonde hair behind one ear, the fingers of her other hand drumming impatiently on the table. She was wearing a lime-green T-shirt, black jeans and a broad silver belt. On one golden forearm was a small black stylised tattoo of a bull’s head. Stacey was a Taurean, and appeared to delight in accentuating her bullish characteristics.

  Sally had worked so long with teenagers that she had thought herself immune to the culture shock she experienced with younger generations, but Stacey was something else. From the moment they met at the airport, Sally had felt constantly on the wrong foot. Stacey’s peremptory manner, her loud voice and her habit of crossing personal boundaries, physical and otherwise, unnerved Sally. Stacey was, as the kids at school in Perth used to say, ‘full on’. Sally recalled reprimanding Dani, a quiet, awkward girl, for losing her temper and yelling at a good-natured but irritating newcomer to the class. ‘But she’s always in ya face, Miss!’ Dani had protested, wandering off to sit hunched and brooding in her usual corner spot. It was a good description of Stacey, Sally thought – always in ya face. And with Stacey behaving like a disruptive twenty-seven-year-old teenager, Sally felt uncomfortably like Dani.

  ‘It’s a combination, you see,’ Stacey was saying, leaning so close to Dick that he actually shifted his chair slightly. ‘My dad is Steven and my mom is called Tracey, so they called me Stacey. Cute, they thought. I think it’s a bit sick.’

  Steve rolled his eyes at Nancy, who was handing him a portion of apple pie. ‘Okay, Stace, give it rest, will you? It was your mother’s idea.’

  It was midnight by the time they had watched the fireworks from the balcony, and the party began to break up. Steve was hugging Nancy in the hallway, and Chuck was thumping Craig on the shoulder with promises of a game of golf. Pulling on her coat Sally waited as Steve released Nancy, shook hands with Dick and Barbara, and turned to say goodnight to Chuck.

  ‘We don’t need you driving anymore, Sally,’ Stacey said, leaning in front of her to pick up the Jaguar keys from the hall table. ‘I’ll drive home.’

  Steve swung around on his crutches. ‘C’mon, Dad,’ Stacey said, urging him towards the door. ‘Sally doesn’t like the traffic and I need the car anyway – now, let’s get going. Thanks, you guys.’

  Steve’s eyes met Sally’s across the hall. ‘Sally? What d’you, er … ?’ He looked at her, wanting help, but she had none to give. His discomfort was obvious.

  She shrugged. ‘It’s up to you,’ she said. ‘Your car, your daughter …’

  He seemed frozen. ‘Okay, then. Okay, if that’s all right with you.’ He leant awkwardly forward to kiss her on the cheek. ‘I’ll call you.’

  ‘Sure,’ she replied, swallowing the tremor in her voice. ‘Take care. Goodnight, Stacey.’

  But Stacey was by now halfway along the path, calling to Steve to get a move on and to mind the steps.

  It wasn’t about the car Sally told herself the next morning as she walked to the little market near the station. She really preferred to walk, she needed the exercise. No – it was the feeling of being pushed aside. She had enjoyed being chauffeur, which had involved a great deal more than just driving. She had cooked meals and they had shared takeaways, watched old movies on video and she’d introduced him to some Australian films. The movies had crystallised her homesickness, left her feeling uncomfortably disconnected. While the US might dominate the news back home, in America Australia might just as well not have existed. She hadn’t seen one item of Australian news in the papers or on the TV bulletins. As far as Americans were concerned, Australia was a big zero, and some people really did believe that there were kangaroos on the streets of Sydney. Most of the people she talked to had never heard of Perth and didn’t even know there was a state of Western Australia, but Steve was really interested. So interested that they had raided the library and his coffee table was stacked with books about Australia and a couple of Australian novels.

  Standing in the queue to pay for her vegetables Sally felt a great stab of homesickness. The young Mexican guy at the checkout packed her food and handed it to her with a greeting in Spanish. She left the market and found a table outside the coffee shop. The front of the café was already decorated for Christmas and across the street the shop windows sparkled with rows of gold angels and silver snowflakes. Sipping her coffee in the winter sunshine Sally was overwhelmed with longing for the company of her friends, for their conversation, their laughter, and the sense of being understood. She smiled to herself, thinking how Grace would have taken Stacey on with a few biting remarks, how well Isabel would get along with Nancy and how Robin and Steve would have enjoyed talking politics.

  It was the twenty-sixth of November, and they had promised to exchange news at Christmas. A detailed warts-and-all record, photocopied and sent to each of the other three. She would reveal the real reason behind her trip to California. Warts-and-all it would be, although she was not sure she needed to reveal the full extent of her attack on the Mendelsons. It would be a long, hard letter to write. Isabel’s card had told her to send the letter to Doug, who was meeting her in Germany. Grace seemed to be staying with a woman in Sussex, and Robin’s would go to the post office box down south.

  Pushing her cup aside, Sally picked up her shopping and set off for the walk home. Stacey wouldn’t be around all that long, she supposed. Eventually she’d find a place of her own, buy a car and move out. But maybe it wouldn’t be the same then, anyway; perhaps the times she’d enjoyed with Steve were simply a product of his reliance on her. She was annoyed by his mild acceptance of Stacey’s command-and-control style and the way he had allowed her to be displaced by it. It was so typical of a man to take the line of least resistance as long as it didn’t inconvenience him. Harry had been like that, deeply involved one day, offhand – even cold – the next, always picking the easy option. Anyway, it wasn’t as though she was having a relationship with Steve. He was just a friend, and he hadn’t seen his daughter for a couple of years. Perhaps she should be more understanding. But by the time she reached the apartment she was still annoyed and Steve’s message on the answering machine asking her to call him added to her irritation. She didn’t feel like talking to him.

  She unpac
ked the shopping, made herself a sandwich and sat down to work on an assignment that was due on Monday. By five o’clock the work was finished, and she got up to put on some music and flex her muscles before starting the letter. She rarely closed the blinds as the view was always so engaging – in the next-door garden and along the street the tiny white pinpoints of the Christmas lights grew brighter as evening closed in. The phone rang and she let the answering machine pick it up. It was Steve again, saying that he hoped she was okay, he guessed she must be busy. He asked her to call back. When he hung up she took a deep breath and got out a thick pad of ruled paper. Switching on the desk lamp she sat down again and with a last look out of the window, she began to write.

  Dearest Isabel, Grace and Robin

  What wouldn’t I give for a round-table conference right now! I’ve missed you all so much and, as I start this letter, I’m realising just how much. Where will I begin? I’ve heaps to tell you and I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about it all, but I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning, the very beginning …

  When Sally walked into the lecture hall on Monday afternoon, Steve beckoned her to the seat beside him just as the lights dimmed and the lecturer began his critique of the images on the screen. For the next forty-five minutes they sat side by side in tense silence.

  ‘I was getting worried, Sally,’ Steve said, turning awkwardly towards her as the lights went up to a trickle of applause. ‘I left a couple of messages.’

  ‘I know. Sorry I didn’t get back to you. I had to finish the assignment and there was other stuff I needed to do.’

  There was a tightness around his mouth that she hadn’t seen before. ‘I guess you must have been glad not to have to run around after me for a change.’

  When she had seen him sitting there an hour ago her annoyance had changed to pleasure and then to a mix of confusion and anxiety. Now the annoyance returned in force. He was playing the victim, throwing out self-deprecating remarks to make her reassure him. It felt like Harry, trying to manipulate her into saying that she wasn’t really hurt by the hateful things he’d said when he was drunk the night before. She was sick of that game. Sick of picking up emotional baggage. She looked him straight in the eye. ‘No, I was really pissed off about Stacey’s behaviour and what happened the other night. I needed time to get over it.’