by Liz Byrski
She had left home that morning angry. It was an anger that she had manufactured for herself to avoid naming her fear. It was futile anger at her own body for interfering with her plans, for interrupting her peace. This trip to Perth was the last thing she needed. She wanted the test over and done with, to get back to the cottage. She gulped some of the water and took deep breaths, grinning suddenly at the realisation that she was behaving just as Grace used to do when things got in her way. She drained the bottle, wondering whether Grace was really as different as she had sounded on the phone. Well, she’d soon find out, she’d be there in a few hours time.
She was looking forward to seeing Grace, who had been home for almost three months. It was the day before Good Friday and Robin needed to stay in Perth for the test results until Tuesday. She was grateful for Grace’s offer of a bed. Robin’s own house had sold quickly and the deal on the bookshop had gone through with similar speed, though the Tranters had asked to stay on until June before leaving for Tasmania. It suited Robin because she had also bought the cottage – the thought of leaving it in a month or two had been too hard and the owners were more than willing to sell it to her.
So, she thought, here I am heading for Perth, where I have no home, no office, no law practice, no lover, for some stupid test – and it will probably turn out to be just a scare. In mid December she had met Alec Seaborn for lunch in Bunbury and, despite his earnest request that she reconsider, had told him that she wanted to sell her share of the practice. She would buy the bookshop and the cottage, and would find another woman to help her run the shop, someone who could be left in charge when Robin wanted to spend time at the cottage. The bookshop would produce income and satisfy the businesswoman in her, but the cottage meant creativity and peace of mind.
After the meeting with Alec she had gone home filled with energy and resolve, and finally opened the envelope that had sat above the fireplace for the last few weeks. Jim’s note was dated the Monday after she had seen him in Pemberton.
Dearest Robin
Forgive me, but I’ve been desperate to contact you since Friday night. The people I’m with wanted to stop for lunch so I took the chance to duck out and try to see you to put things right.
I am so sorry about what happened at the pub. I was shocked to see you there and then when Father Pat waved me over I didn’t know what to do. It all felt terrible. I so want to see you and talk to you. Please don’t make me wait until this wretched year is up. By the way, I got your address from Doug Carter. I ran into him just before heading to Pemberton. So please don’t tear strips off anyone else for this.
I miss you so much, Robin. Please get in touch when you’ve read this and let’s talk things over.
My love always,
Jim
Strengthened by her conversation with Alec, she felt she could handle a meeting without falling apart and she emailed Jim saying she was prepared to see him. But within seconds of sending the message she received an automated response telling her that Justice McEwan would be away from chambers on leave until the end of January. Any urgent enquiries should be directed to his assistant. A few days later she got a reply from Jim himself. He had taken Monica and the kids to Fiji for an extended holiday, he said, but he’d be back in Perth on the twelfth of January. If she told him when and where she wanted to meet, he would be there. Her vulnerability returned, ignited by the idea of the long family holiday in an exotic location, but she replied, suggesting they meet at ten on the morning of the sixteenth of January at a small café in the hills east of Perth where they had once stopped for breakfast. She would meet him, but she was still too vulnerable to invite him onto what she had made her territory.
And so she had driven this same route on a brilliant January morning, leaving before dawn to allow plenty of time, and arriving to find him already there, nursing the morning paper and his second cup of coffee at a corner table. She paused a moment in the doorway, watching as he scanned the paper, his half-glasses resting below the bridge of his nose, the open-necked shirt a vivid blue against his Fiji tan. He sensed her looking at him, glanced up and for a moment they remained frozen in tension before he cleared his throat, smiled and stood to greet her. She couldn’t think what to do. A kiss on the cheek? A hug? Surely they weren’t going to shake hands?
‘You look wonderful,’ he said, hugging her before taking her hand in his and leading her to the table. She saw that it was going to be a struggle. Since she left Perth she had felt she had some control of the situation. Now, within seconds, the balance had shifted and he had taken charge again. ‘The southwest air suits you,’ he said. ‘You look younger, so relaxed.’
‘You look pretty good yourself.’ The words seemed to strangle themselves at the back of her throat as she faced him across the table. Her earlier confidence had evaporated. She was unsure whether what she felt was longing or panic.
Jim let go of her hand and picked up the menu. ‘Coffee? And will you have some breakfast?’
‘Just coffee, nothing to eat, thanks,’ she said, swallowing hard and feeling a flicker of irritation as he ordered bacon and eggs. How could he eat at a time like this? She remembered Grace’s story of the man who slept soundly the night his wife announced she was leaving. Men really were a different species.
They slithered cautiously across the black ice of preamble and pleasantries, the recent death of a mutual acquaintance, the new appointment of a woman to the High Court. The old intimacy taunted them with its inaccessibility.
‘So you weren’t annoyed with Doug?’ Jim said, suddenly changing tack as he picked up his knife and fork. ‘Telling me where you were, I mean.’
She watched as he moved a poached egg onto a piece of toast and speared it with his knife. ‘Not with Doug, no,’ she said. ‘But I was angry with you.’
He looked up in surprise. ‘But I explained how it was in the pub,’ he said. ‘What else could I do? Pat and I are old friends, I couldn’t ignore him.’
‘I don’t mean the pub. I know there was nothing else you could do then. But before you made that trip to Pemberton you got my address. You didn’t just turn up at my place to apologise for the situation in the pub. You planned to come there either during that trip or another time. Despite the fact that I made it absolutely clear I didn’t want you to get in touch, not even by email, certainly not to turn up on my doorstep.’
He patted his lips with his napkin. ‘Robin, I wanted to see you, needed to see you.’
‘And you’re used to getting what you want!’
‘True. Except when it comes to you and me. I love you, Robin.’
‘Do you, Jim? Did you? Really? And love conquers all, does it? Even respect for my wishes?’
He reached across the table to cover her hand with his. ‘Robin … you’re the most precious person in the world to me. I hadn’t seen you for months.’
She moved her hand. He felt like a stranger, though so much of what was happening was intimately and instantly familiar. ‘Let me explain something,’ she said, her voice low, her fortitude returning. ‘For four years I sat on the edge of your life, I respected your professional space and most of all I respected your family commitments. I never called you at home. I took exceptional care never to venture into the other areas of your life. I organised my time around your availability. I watched you and Monica being a couple at numerous functions and made sure I never crossed the boundaries. For four years, Jim, you called the tune on everything. When we would meet, where and for how long, where we could and couldn’t go … everything. I went along with it because I loved you, I respected your situation. But when I set some boundaries for myself, you trampled all over them. You ignored my requests to let me be alone, you kept emailing, you ferreted around to find out where I was, and you even turned up on my doorstep. Does any of this register with you, Jim? Do you see what I’m saying?’
‘Of course, of course,’ he said, setting down his cutlery and pushing the plate aside. ‘Of course I understand and I realise it w
as wrong of me. But doesn’t it mean anything to you that I love you so much and needed so desperately to see you?’
Robin threw her head back and crossed her arms. ‘Tell me this, Jim – if I had turned up to join you on the golf course one weekend, or rung your front doorbell one evening, or … or arrived at your hotel in Fiji because I loved you and wanted to see you, how do you think you would have felt? Do you not think you’d have felt that I had no respect for your wishes?’
He stared at her briefly and then dropped his gaze to the table, clasping and unclasping his hands.
‘I think …’ he began. ‘Well, I think that … it feels different somehow, the sort of situation you describe. It’s different, isn’t it?’
She shook her head. ‘No, Jim, not to me it isn’t, it’s not different at all. I can’t tell you the number of times I wanted to see you, to be with you when you were with your family, or your golfing friends, or any of the other places that I couldn’t go with you. I can’t tell you the number of times that I wanted to walk up to you when you were with Monica, wanted to touch you or kiss you or just share a joke with you. Even just to call you when you were at home. I didn’t do it because of you, Jim, not because of Monica or your children, because of you, because I loved and respected you. This situation to me is no different. You were totally insensitive to my feelings. It was your feelings you were thinking of, your love, your need. I don’t think you gave a second thought to how I might feel.’
She pushed back her chair, got up and walked out onto the verandah. She needed fresh air to calm her frustration and sense of helplessness.
He followed her, placing his hands on her shoulders. ‘Robin, I’m sorry –’
‘Monica knows, doesn’t she?’ Robin cut in, swinging around to face him. ‘She knows about us, I could see that in the pub.’
He dropped his hands. ‘Yes, yes, she knows.’
‘You told her?’ she demanded, longing to hear him say that he had told Monica as a prelude to a decision to leave.
‘She found out. Apparently someone whispered it to her at some function and I think she was already suspicious. So she confronted me with it.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘At first I tried to bluff it out and when it was clear that it wasn’t working, I owned up. But I told her that it was over.’
‘Over?’
‘Yes.’
‘When was this?’
‘Oh, I don’t remember exactly, a couple of weeks after you went south, I think.’
‘And you told her our relationship was over?’
‘Yes, yes, I did.’
‘And was it over then, Jim? Was it over for you?’
‘Well, no, of course not. You were just taking time out. I wouldn’t see you for a while. It seemed the best thing to say.’
Robin sank onto the wooden bench, shaking with a mixture of hurt and anger. ‘Do you remember telling me how much you wanted to leave but hadn’t the heart to tell her?’
‘Of course I do. Many times.’
‘How we talked about what you’d do if somehow she found out? You’d be relieved, you said. You wanted it over. Even if it weren’t for me, you didn’t want to be with Monica. If she found out and you just had to admit it, it would be a gift, you said. You’d leave on the spot.’
He said nothing. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he walked to the verandah rail to stare into the distance. ‘I couldn’t do it, Robin,’ he said quietly, without turning around. ‘When it came to it I just couldn’t do it. I don’t love Monica. We jog along okay but I don’t love her – well, not in the way I love you. That day, the day she asked me, I stood there looking at her and I couldn’t do it. Everyone thinks Monica’s as tough as old boots, but in many ways she’s quite fragile and dependent. We’ve been together for thirty years, and then there’s the children and the whole life, the context into which it all fits. I stood there looking at Monica and I realised that I couldn’t change anything – or perhaps I mean wouldn’t change it. However much I wanted to, wanted to be with you, do all that we planned, I couldn’t do it. It was too late. I was stuck and I didn’t know how to be any different.’
He turned to face her and there were tears in his eyes. ‘You’d made me feel I could be a different person with a different sort of life, but that day I knew I didn’t have the courage. So I did the cowardly thing. I lied, and somehow, in some horrible way, it felt right although I knew it was wrong …’ He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his eyes.
So that was how it was. For months she had argued with herself, one moment believing there was a future together, the next that there was none. One day believing that she preferred her life without him, the next hoping that time would bring them back together. So now she knew. She thought she should feel pain, or if not pain then panic or depression. What she felt was sadness, and relief that finally she knew what she was dealing with.
‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ he began. ‘I don’t even know how to explain it to you properly. I know it’s not fair to you …’
She put a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t, Jim,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to explain any more. I understand. I really do understand now.’ She took his handkerchief to dry her own tears. ‘I just wish that you had told me years ago. It’s all the dreams and expectations, you see, the promises, the plans that never materialised, that’s what’s made it all so hard. If I’d known from the beginning, I would have had a choice. I wish you’d told me before.’
‘I couldn’t tell you before because I didn’t know. Believe me, Rob, I didn’t know. I believed there would be a time when I could do it. I loved you so much, wanted what we’d planned. I still love you, I still want it, but …’ His voice trailed away and he shrugged. ‘But in the end I couldn’t do it.’
Robin tossed her empty water bottle into the bin and wandered back to her car, remembering how they had woven their words to find a peaceful way to separate.
‘Can we see each other?’ he had asked, and she had paused, wondering how it would be.
‘Is that what you want?’
He nodded. ‘Of course, but you’ve made me see how different it is for you.’
‘I can’t go back, Jim,’ she told him. ‘I love you, maybe I always will. But it can’t be as it was before. I think we can be friends, eventually, with a bit more time. Let’s just take it gently.’
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. ‘However you want it, Robin. I mean it. However you want it.’
Now, just over three months later, Robin shivered at the memory. The anger was gone but the sadness remained. The pain in her chest tightened and she glanced at her watch. Time to get back on the road or she’d be late for the hospital.
‘It’s just a little lump,’ she said. ‘Probably a cyst, nothing to worry about, but the doctor said I had to have this done.’
‘Quite right,’ Grace said, looking at her intently. ‘And they’ll give you the results … ?’
‘Tuesday morning, they said, but they wanted me to stay up in town in case I have to go back. It’s just a nuisance, it being Easter.’
‘Not a nuisance for me,’ Grace said. ‘It’s wonderful. Which breast is it, by the way?’
‘Left,’ said Robin, lifting her arm to indicate the side of her left breast. ‘Just here. Found it in the shower – anyway, enough of that. They’ve done the biopsy and I just have to wait till Tuesday. But what about you, Grace? You look great, different somehow.’
Grace grinned. ‘I am different, thankfully. You won’t believe it when you’ve been around me for a while, Robin. I hardly believe it myself.’
‘I’m so sorry about your father.’
Grace sat down on the couch, tucking her legs under her. ‘Thanks. I’m glad I got back in time.’
‘Did he recognise you?’
‘Just at the very end, he did, I think. I’ve seen it happen before – the person seems to have gone and then in the last few moments they come back
. There’s just this moment of clarity and recognition. It was like that, very peaceful. So much changed for me in England and then Dad died and it seemed like that completed something. There’s this very strange feeling that everyone who knew me as a child has gone. It’s very odd, as though that part of me no longer exists because it has no living witness. It’s a bit scary but it’s quite liberating too, like getting permission to change. And you, Robin, your shop and the cottage, I so want to hear all about it.’
Robin blushed. ‘I thought you might come down sometime over the next few weeks. You could come to the cottage for a few days and I’ll take you down to Albany. If you’ve time, that is. If you’ve sorted out the work stuff.’
‘I’ve heaps of time. I’ve done the handover and everything will be stitched up next week. After that I’m free, and I’d love to come down. I’m dying to tell you all about England and the women I met. I’m going to go back later in the year, but I’m going to New Orleans first. It’s so exciting, Robin. I know I’m going to bore you silly with all this stuff but this patchwork project I told you about in the letter is such a wonderful thing, I’m going to try and get it going in Vietnam.’
There was a new gentleness about her, Robin thought, the old need to control had gone. She had been a woman of sharp chiselled outlines that now seemed rounded and softened. ‘You even look different,’ Robin said.
‘Yes,’ Grace smiled. ‘Older.’
Robin paused.
‘It’s true,’ Grace said. ‘It’s okay, you can say it.’
‘Well, yes, you do look a little older, but better, more relaxed, healthier – more whole, I suppose.’
‘I’ll go for that – especially the “whole” bit. I’ve discovered bits of me that I never knew I had, and others that went missing years ago. Did I ever tell you that I used to sing a lot when I was younger, when I met Ron? I found my singing voice again, along with a whole lot of other things.’ She leaned back against the cushions. ‘And I lost some other bits.’ She grinned. ‘Some of the bits that were hardest to get along with, I think. And you’ve changed too. You don’t look particularly well, Robin, but you do look content. Anyway, you must be hungry. Why don’t we go out for a meal – somewhere we used to go.’
