Gang of Four

by Liz Byrski

  TWENTY-SIX

  ‘Y’know,’ said Steve, battling his way through the cottage door with a basket of logs, ‘I could’ve sworn that back in California you told me that Western Australia had a beautiful Mediterranean-type climate.’

  Sally laughed and went to help him. ‘We do. But it can get a bit full-on in winter sometimes.’

  ‘Full-on? Ha! Some understatement, lady! There’s a hurricane out there and listen to that rain.’

  The kitchen door swung open again in the high wind and Sally ran to close it. ‘It won’t last long,’ she said. ‘Never does. In fact, the sun’ll be shining again by this afternoon. The lovely thing about this place is that you can see the weather changes coming in from the ocean.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Steve. ‘I can hardly wait. I’m never gonna believe you again. Give me the mild Californian climate any day.’

  Sally’s face fell. She was pathetically vulnerable and she knew it showed. ‘Don’t you like it here, Steve?’ she asked in a small voice. ‘It’s winter, after all, and it’s been lovely and sunny until today.’

  He straightened up, brushing dust off his hands from the fireplace where he had juggled the fire to life. ‘Sure, I love being battered by the elements,’ he said. Looking up suddenly, he saw her crestfallen expression. ‘Hey, Sally, I’m only joking, honey. I love it here. You know I do.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really!’ He grinned.

  ‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’

  ‘Cross my heart. Rather not die, though. There are other more interesting things to do in a remote cottage on a wet morning in front of an open fire.’ He drew her down beside him on the couch and they sank into the softness of Robin’s purple cushions. ‘Trust me, sweetheart, I told you – I love it.’

  ‘Yes, but …’ She began struggling into a more upright position. ‘Would you want to live here?’

  ‘In this cottage? Hell no, too far from good coffee shops, movies and retail therapy.’

  ‘I meant Western Australia.’

  ‘I know, I know, I’m just teasing. You should know me by now. Yep, I reckon I could live here very happily. Beautiful place, clean air, magnificent scenery, very friendly people.’

  ‘But would you want to live here?’ she persisted. ‘Would you consider it as a permanent option?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Definitely not. Unless, of course, I was offered some inducement.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like you agreeing to marry me.’

  ‘That’s emotional blackmail,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Sure is!’

  Sally got up from the couch to close the bedroom door, which was tapping in the draught.

  ‘Be serious, Steve. We have to talk about the future.’

  ‘I know we do,’ he said. ‘I’m just fooling around, not trying to avoid the issue, if that’s what you’re thinking. Look, I’ll be straight with you, Sally. I love you and I’d go almost anywhere to be with you. What’s more, I actually like it here, love it, really. I’d be very happy to live here and I don’t mind leaving California, although I guess I’ll get a bit homesick from time to time. There’s just two hurdles as far as I can see. One – from what the immigration people told us, the only way I can stay here is if we’re married. Two – will I be able to get work here? I’m concerned that I might not be able to earn a living. Perth’s a small place and I don’t think there’s all that much demand for fifty-something photojournalists.’

  ‘I’ve got a job,’ Sally said. Teaching’s very secure, I can probably keep us. Whole families live on a teaching income.’

  ‘Sure they do, but while I like the idea of being a kept man, I know I wouldn’t like the reality and I’d be bored. Maybe I could find a business of my own. I don’t know what the answer is to that.’

  Sally nodded. ‘I know, and it’s the same for me in California. In fact, I might not be allowed to work there even if we did get married.’ She sighed. ‘Why do they have to make it so hard?’

  Steve reached up to take her hand and pulled her down onto the couch again, swinging her around so that she lay with her head in his lap. ‘Thing is,’ he said, ‘it seems that if we want to be together we’ve gotta take a risk on one place or another.’ He laced his fingers through her hair. ‘I’m prepared to give it a go here if you are. I can probably get some sort of work and do a bit of freelancing as well.’

  She caught his hand and held the palm to her lips. ‘You’re so sweet.’ He laughed. ‘But you are,’ she persisted. ‘You’re so easy to get on with.’ She drew herself upright and looked him in the eyes. ‘I never thought it could be this easy. Relationships have always been such a struggle. I don’t mean fights and arguments, just such hard work to sustain – emotional hard work.’

  He stroked her cheek. ‘I’ve had that too,’ he said. ‘Imagine what it was like being married to Stacey’s mother – she was Stacey plus! I said I would never ever get involved with a woman again. Just too hard.’

  ‘P’raps it’s because we’re older, and maybe a bit wiser,’ Sally said. ‘How d’you think Stacey will cope with you coming here?’

  ‘You can probably answer that better than me. You’re her confidante these days – thank God!’

  Sally laughed and lay down again. ‘It’s weird, you know. I really couldn’t handle her at all at first. I’d actually built her up in my head to be some sort of monster who was determined to keep us apart.’

  ‘Well, she was pretty obnoxious when she got back from London.’

  ‘But, Steve, think how lonely she must have felt. Do you remember that night, the first time we went to bed together and she burst into the bedroom? Well, later, when you were asleep, I was sure I could hear her crying.’

  ‘Maybe this is why I love you, Sally. Because you’re so fair and reasonable, and you even make Stacey seem fair and reasonable. She’ll be fine, I think. She was in a bad space and she felt left out and lonely. I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. She and I have sorted that part out, and she thinks the world of you.’

  ‘I like her too,’ Sally said. ‘I liked it that she came to me when she was in trouble, even if it was only as a last resort. We’ll be okay. I like getting to share your daughter.’

  ‘And your own daughter?’

  ‘Ah well, I’m coping with that. What do you guys call it? Closure? I’m getting there.’

  ‘So, I’ll go back and sort out the stuff for the book and come back again?’ he asked.

  ‘When?’

  ‘I can probably get back here for Christmas.’

  She sat up again, put her arms around him and kissed him.

  ‘It’s a deal,’ she said. ‘Christmas it is. Don’t be late!’

  ‘No, ma’am!’

  Grace lay on the bedroom floor practising her yoga asanas in an effort to calm her mind and body. However hard she tried, she didn’t seem able to shake off the sense of responsibility she felt for Robin, or the growing anxiety about her life after hospital. She was having great difficulty controlling the desire to take charge, and while Robin was certainly considering the situation, discussing it, entertaining various possibilities, it was all too vague and slow for Grace’s liking.

  She sat in the lotus position and tried to meditate but today it wasn’t working. Her head was spinning with the possibilities she wanted Robin to consider, but she knew she had to hold back. She couldn’t just barge in and set it all out – numbered options, facts and figures – as she wanted to. Robin wasn’t ready for that. She’d made it clear that she wanted to work backwards, or at least Grace thought it was backwards. Instead of having a list of possible solutions with costings and then thinking through which she preferred, Robin wanted to get a sense of how she would like things to be and then try to create the perfect solution. Grace found it disconcerting. She had expected that Robin, with her legal training, would have approached it in a more ordered fashion. She was battling her old-style irritation at things not being done her way. ‘Ah well
,’ she said aloud, standing up and stretching her arms behind her head. ‘I guess I’m learning. A year ago I would have been in there laying it out in front of her and bludgeoning her into accepting my system and my choice.’

  She pulled her bathrobe around her and wandered to the window. The dense Kings Park treetops swayed in the wind like a great moving carpet. There was more rain on the way. She wondered how Sally and Steve were enjoying being lashed by wind and rain in Robin’s cottage – was it bleak and dreary or cosy and romantic? They were so wrapped up in each other and Grace was happy for them, but she also felt a sense of displacement. Sally was her closest friend but now she had to accommodate Steve’s prominence in Sally’s life. Grace knew that her friendship with Sally could never be quite the same again. She accepted it, but she was having a little trouble trying not to resent it.

  And Robin – what about her love life? A few days earlier Grace had dropped into the hospital early in the morning and found Jim McEwan, looking very crumpled and drinking a cup of tea. He’d spent the night there, having gone straight from the airport to see Robin. He’d fallen asleep in the chair until the night nurse discovered him when she brought Robin a cup of tea at six o’clock. Grace wondered if the nurse had given him a dressing-down as she would have done twenty years ago. What would she do now? She thought she might just turn a blind eye. Must be getting old. So where was Jim going to be in all of this? Was that a flying visit or was he permanently back on the scene again? Robin hadn’t said – maybe even she didn’t know.

  Grace sighed and wandered through into the kitchen to make herself some toast. Orinda’s postcard of New Orleans stood on the windowsill propped up against a pot of African violets. She took it down, studied the picture and turned it over to read again.

  Grace! Don’t you forget our singing date! I got some great plans for your visit, sewing and singing and soul food. Did you book your ticket yet? Let me know when you’re getting here and I’ll start cooking! Love, Orinda.

  She sighed again and put the card back in its place. Should she take the chance and book, or just postpone it all indefinitely until Robin was settled? And was it wise to spend all that money on fares? She stared out of the window hating the dilemma and the fact that she was letting it occupy her head space and take over her life. Two different Graces were doing battle inside her: the control freak who wanted to be needed and to take charge of everything, and the new Grace, who wanted to learn to let go of it and press on with the journey that had just begun. The phone rang and she jumped. It was barely after six, unusually early for a call.

  ‘Hope I didn’t wake you. What time is it there?’ Vivienne said.

  ‘Just after six and, no, you didn’t wake me. It’s great to hear your voice. Isn’t it past your bedtime?’

  ‘Yep, but I got some news I wanted to tell you. How are you, anyway? How’s your friend?’

  ‘Not good at all.’

  ‘Does that mean she’s not good, or you’re not good at coping with it?’

  Grace laughed. ‘You’re far too astute for me at this time of the morning. It means both, really. She’s not good at all, the cancer wasn’t just in her breast. And there’s a problem with her heart …’

  Vivenne sucked in her breath. ‘So what’s the situation?’

  ‘Grim, really. They told her she has a few months, maybe more, but she’s very sick and she’ll deteriorate. We have to find some care for her but that’s complicated. She’s single, her family are all in England … well, you know. It’s difficult …’ Grace’s voice trailed away.

  ‘That’s very sad, Grace, I’m really sorry. So how are you coping?’

  Grace wanted to burst into tears. There was something essentially solid about Vivienne and it was much more than just her physical size. She had an ability to see around emotional corners, her bullshit detector was finely tuned and she was always straight to the point. ‘I think I’m schizophrenic,’ Grace ventured. ‘Wanting to be in charge one minute, wanting to be free and run away the next.’

  ‘Run away?’

  ‘Perhaps that’s not the right expression, but wanting not to have the responsibility.’

  There was a pause and Grace could almost hear Vivienne analysing what she had just said. ‘But you’re not responsible, Grace, deep down you know that. And from what you’ve told me about Robin, she wouldn’t think that either. You waved goodbye to all that when you didn’t race off to Tokyo to look after your daughter-in-law, when you stuck with your plan for yourself.’

  The tears had taken over now – there was relief in being able to talk about it to someone else. ‘I know, I know. But, Viv, she’s my friend, and there isn’t anyone else.’

  ‘Grace, there’s always someone else. You just have to make space for them to move in.’

  ‘Really, I don’t think there is anyone. Sally’s very involved with Steve, and she’ll be back at work in a couple of weeks anyway. Isabel’s not back yet. Robin’s quite a loner – she’s always travelled her own road.’

  ‘In that case the last thing she’d want would be for you to take a detour from your road.’

  ‘Viv, I know what you’re saying is right. It all makes sense, but what I can’t sort out is where the line falls between being a helpful and supportive friend and giving away too much of my own life in the process.’

  ‘Dear Grace,’ Vivienne said. ‘Sometimes, you know, I really believe there is a God and that he’s a man and he takes a sadistic pleasure in planning out the most perfectly designed tests for us. This one’s really an Oscar winner.’

  Grace smiled through her tears. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Look, love, I’m afraid I’m not going to make this any easier for you. I suppose if I were a different sort of friend I’d keep my news to myself until you’ve sorted this out. But I actually don’t think it would be very honest. See, your idea for Vietnam, the business plan you wrote, the only hitch was that we didn’t have the money to do it – yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ Grace said. ‘It’s going to be very expensive to get off the ground. I’ve no idea how to raise that sort of money. And I need to find work and try to live within my means, which I haven’t been very good at in the past.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I rang to tell you. You see, the money isn’t a problem, and nor is work. We’ve got it, enough to get it going and enough to pay you to do it.’

  ‘What? How?’ Grace’s heart thumped.

  ‘Remember Gary was taking some of the quilts to New York? Well, he hung three at some swanky exhibition, put ridiculously high prices on them and sold all three to a woman who’s a merchant banker. Rich as Croesus and – wait for it – really committed to supporting projects that provide self-sufficiency for women in developing countries. She bought the quilts, one for herself, one to hang in the foyer of some ethical investment company that she’s on the board of, and the other to auction at a ball for some women’s project in Harlem.’

  ‘Brilliant. That’s wonderful. But that money will go straight back to the women who made the quilts, won’t it?’

  ‘Yes of course, but hang on, I haven’t finished yet. A couple of days later she calls Gary and invites him for dinner and asks him more about the Patchwork Project. I had to email him some stuff in a rush because she was asking questions he couldn’t answer. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that she was over the moon. Said she’d come up with some money for a specific project, so I sent her your Vietnam plan and she jumped at it. She’ll cover the setting-up costs, including enough to pay you to do it.’

  Grace could barely breathe. ‘You mean it’s all there? All we need?’

  ‘All we need and more, Grace. You just have to get on that plane as planned, because Helena – that’s her name, Helena Wells – wants to meet you. She’s keen to be involved all through. Says she doesn’t want to interfere but she’s really taken with the whole thing and she wants to take a personal interest, so she wants to make a personal connection with you. And, talking about connections, there’s more.
She’s got great connections, she’s going to set up a fund to support this, and she’s going to help us market the best of the quilts from all the projects. It means that there is going to be some big money going back to the women, and you’ve got a job if you want it. Grace … Grace, are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, yes I’m still here. It’s fantastic. It sounds like a dream come true.’

  ‘Well, it is. A lot of women’s dreams have gone into this and Helena is just the sort of breakthrough that will make a huge difference. So there you are, Grace. Patchwork Vietnam is full-steam ahead.’

  Grace’s body was rigid with excitement. She had twisted the phone cable around her wrist so tightly that her hand started to tingle. ‘So what have you told her? What happens next?’

  ‘I’ve told her that you’ll be in New Orleans by September and then you’re coming on here. Helena wants you to go on up to New York and meet with her before you come to England. She’ll pay the airfare, accommodation, everything. And while you’re there she’s going to introduce you to some other women in this women’s ethical investment thing she’s involved in. If you can talk up the projects she may be able to get us money to expand in some of the other locations. I’m going to email you background on all the projects so you can do your homework on them, bone up before you go. All you have to do is turn up as planned and start talking – so you’d better book your seat, Grace, and start swotting.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘I’m not going to die, you know,’ Robin said, pushing food around her plate in a desultory fashion.

  ‘No?’ said Father Pat, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘Thank you for not saying “of course not”. That would have been unconvincing. But I’m not going to die, I’m not ready for it. I won’t be for a long time.’