‘Arrête, minou, arrête!’ Nina Favre flaps her hands at the dog and it trots over to a leopard-print basket in the corner and curls itself into a circle, nose on paws. ‘Would you like a café?’ she says. ‘Or du thé. You are British, yes?’
I nod and accept the tea when it arrives, even though it’s just a mug of already cooling water and a Lipton Yellow Label on the side. I made the mistake of ordering tea last week in a cafe in Montreux and it came like this. Maggie would be aghast.
‘I do not speak of Le Mouvement des Femmes Lausannoises for many years,’ Nina says once we’re installed on the cream leather couch.
‘You were part of it?’
She nods and a wide smile spreads across her face. ‘Absolument. It was a fantastic movement. With fantastic people.’ She pauses. ‘Fantastic women.’
It takes little prompting for her to go on, and even though she struggles for the English words at times, I get the idea, not least from her animated expression as she talks, that this was one of the best times of her life. Women coming together, newly enfranchised, to fight for further rights, to shout for revolution and demand they be heard. Salary equality, childcare provision, reproductive rights… all causes they championed through rallies across Switzerland, joining other women from around the country. For a time, Nina lived in an all-women commune, she tells me, and she once spent a night in a police cell for participating in an illegal protest outside a government building – there’s a definite sense of pride in her face when she tells me that. Having read Mum’s article, I knew something of Switzerland’s history of women’s rights before coming here, but until now, hearing Nina talk, I hadn’t known quite how late some rights came to women here. It took until 2002 for the abortion law to be liberalised, she tells me, while statutory maternity pay was agreed two years later.
‘Women in the canton of Appenzell Rhodes-Intérieures, they could not vote in cantonal elections until mille neuf cent nonante et un,’ she says, adding slowly in careful English: ‘Nineteen ninety-one.’ She laughs at my shock. ‘Yes, we fought a long battle. Now you understand!’
I take a sip of tea. ‘I wanted to ask you about someone in the organisation. Did you know Evelyne Buchs?’
My heart leaps when Nina claps her hands. ‘Oui, bien sûr. Evelyne was so passionate about our cause. And she was a good friend.’
‘Was?’
Nina nods. ‘She died many years ago, after an illness.’
My stomach plunges and I’m embarrassed to feel my eyes prick with tears that I fight back. I didn’t even know Evelyne, but I suddenly realise how much I wanted to meet her, not only because she might have known something about what happened to my mother in 1976, but to hear someone who knew and liked Mum speak of her once again.
I drain the teacup. It rattles as I put it back in the saucer. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
Nina shrugs. ‘C’est la vie.’
‘How about Brigitte Mela, does that name mean anything to you?’
Nina frowns. ‘In the movement? No, I don’t remember anyone by that name.’
My hopes sink, but I try not to show it. ‘Were any men involved?’ I change tack.
Nina smiles. ‘We didn’t allow men to be members of our group – the movement was by women, for women – but sometimes they would come to the demonstrations. Boyfriends and friends of the women, the younger ones. But not really the older ones, especially husbands. Married men, they do not prefer to encourage their wives.’ She leans forward, conspiratorially. ‘That is why I prefer a dog to a husband,’ she says and lets out a peal of laughter.
I smile back at her and look down at the little yappy thing in the basket. Can’t say I can see the appeal. ‘I don’t suppose you remember a British woman who came to visit Evelyne once, in 1976. She was a journalist.’
Nina thinks for a minute, as though trying to dig out a memory, and then shakes her head. ‘Maybe, but… non, désolée. It was a long time ago.’
I take out the article and smooth out the creases, handing it to her. ‘The journalist who visited is my mother. This is what she wrote.’
Nina takes it from me, puts on a pair of reading glasses and studies the print-out. She gives a sharp intake of breath when she sees the photos. ‘C’est moi!’ she says, pointing to a photo of a young woman in scruffy dungarees and an oversized brown cardigan, long dark hair almost to her waist. I smile, unable to equate that figure with the elegant person I see in front of me now.
‘Oui, I remember that day,’ she says. ‘We were in Bern for a demonstration. So many people. It was a very wonderful experience. And yes, perhaps I do remember a British woman, a writer. But I was so excited about the event, I’m sorry, I don’t remember anything about her.’
I take the article and put it back in my bag, deflated. I don’t know what else to ask her. Evelyne’s gone. Nina doesn’t really remember Mum. I don’t know anyone else who spent time with them in Switzerland back then. Frustration curls into a knot in my chest. Perhaps she sees my expression because she pats my knee and disappears, before coming back a few minutes later with a photo album.
‘I think in here there is something of Evelyne. You want to see?’ She motions for me to move closer and opens the album – a bulky affair with tracing paper in between thick pages of black card. As she turns the pages, I see the dates – 1975 Décembre; 1976 Mars – and the pictures, most in black and white, some in faded colour, depicting people in flares and turtle neck knits, kids on long wooden skis.
‘Here!’ Nina points to a picture of a group of people lined up outside a building, which the handwritten note below the photo says is Rue Haldimand 8, Lausanne. ‘This is Evelyne.’
And my breath sticks in my throat because standing right next to Evelyne is my mother.
‘That’s her,’ I say.
‘Your maman?’ Nina looks at me and then back at the photo. ‘She looks sympa. Very nice.’
‘She was,’ I say, fighting to keep my voice even. I stare at the photo, at this version of Mum that existed before I was born, and I wonder what was going on in her head that day. Was she excited about her trip? Did she like being in Switzerland? She’s wearing a heavy Afghan coat and flared trousers, a purple bobble hat on her head, and she looks so young. It’s strange to think that those were the hands that later held mine, that was the smile I knew so well, yet right then, at that point in time, she was completely unaware of everything that was to come later. Did she even know she was pregnant?
Nina cocks her head as she looks at the photo and I can almost see the memory coming to her. I wait, not wanting to disturb the flow.
‘En fait,’ she says eventually. ‘I think I do remember a journalist visiting. And it was the same time as Evelyne’s brother. Yes, that’s right. They arrived on the same night, just before the demonstration. He must have taken this photo.’
‘A brother?’
‘Yes. A younger brother. I think he was here in Lausanne, staying with Evelyne. A few weeks, a month, perhaps. After that, I don’t know. I hear nothing of him since.’
It’s a glimmer of hope. Evelyne may be gone, but perhaps this man might remember something, anything, that could help me hurdle the brick wall I’m facing.
‘Do you remember his name?’ I say.
Nina squeezes her eyes shut and purses her mouth while she thinks.
‘Daniel,’ she says finally, a note of triumph in her voice. ‘Daniel Buchs.’
MARCH 1976 London, UK
SYLVIA
‘Pregnant?’
‘Yes.’
‘You?’
She nodded.
‘Fuck, Sylvia.’
‘Yes, that must have been how it happened,’ Sylvia said, even though she didn’t think this was anything to make light of. Maggie, sitting next to her on the sofa in their tiny Clapham flat, was fiddling with the frayed end of her tunic like it was a string of worry beads, a gesture that provoked a flood of panic in Sylvia. Maggie rarely worried, her essential optimism was one of the th
ings Sylvia admired most about her. She turned back to the television and the two of them watched – or, at least, stared at without seeing – as Columbo peered at some dirt on the carpet and then transferred his inscrutable gaze to a tall man with white hair and a dastardly air.
Maggie turned back to her. ‘Seriously though, how?’
Sylvia shook her head. ‘That’s what I’ve been asking myself.’
At least, that’s what she’d been asking herself when she dared think about it. She’d managed, fairly successfully, to keep the thing caged in some far corner of her mind throughout her trip to Switzerland, but on the plane home, and the long taxi ride back to Clapham, she’d been unable to keep it from wrestling its way forward. There’d been a young mother on the plane with a screaming toddler, of course. An apologetic smile on her face. Tears in her eyes when a businessman pointedly asked to move seats.
How? Well, she supposed it didn’t matter now. But she still wanted to know. She remembered going to a family planning clinic in her first year of university and the lecture the doctor gave her when she requested a prescription; her refusal to cower with humiliation when he asked if she was married, even though the pill had been perfectly legal for unmarried women since 1967. She didn’t care that the conservative media said it turned girls like her into promiscuous harlots. For her it was about freedom and control. It was a way to protect herself, to keep her life exactly as she wanted it, until she and Jim decided otherwise. A way to stop herself turning into Gilly, married at eighteen, with three children by the time she turned twenty-four.
How long had it been since Gilly’s wedding? Nearly six years, she supposed, the autumn of the year they finished school. Six whole years since they all lay sprawled on the grass outside the assembly hall the afternoon of their final A Level exams. Sylvia still recalled the sense of freedom that welled up in her chest back then. It returned to her every time she smelled cut grass and spring blossom in the air – or heard Let It Be on the radio, because it was the end of something for John, Paul, George and Ringo then too, back in 1970.
‘I reckon you’ll marry a lumberjack.’
‘What?’ Fiona had propped herself up on her elbow and squinted at Gilly.
‘I think you’re going to marry a lumberjack – or someone like that – and live in the woods.’
Fiona laughed. ‘That’s the future you have mapped out for me? Gee, thanks.’ She punched Gilly lightly on the arm and lay back on the grass, staring up at the sky. ‘It’s scary, isn’t it?’
‘What, the prospect of marrying a lumberjack? I should say so,’ Maggie said.
‘No, silly! The future, I mean. What’s going to happen next. We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us and no clue where we’ll end up. I think it’s scary.’
‘It’s exciting, more like,’ Sylvia said. ‘We can finally do anything we want.’
‘You really think so?’
She shrugged. ‘Well, you can try at least. Why not dream big?’
‘It’s all right for you,’ Gilly said. ‘You’re clever. You’re going to Oxford.’
‘You’re clever too,’ she said, though lately she’d wondered if that were true. If Gilly were clever, why was her only plan to marry Brian and settle down in a semi-detached right here in Hertford? Didn’t she want to get out? See what the rest of the world had to offer? Sylvia felt full to the brim with it: the urge to leave where she grew up and forge her own path.
‘Well, we all know where you’ll be, Gills,’ Fiona said.
‘His parents are meeting mine tonight. We’re all going out to dinner to celebrate.’ Gilly beamed. She hadn’t stopped fiddling with her ring all afternoon.
‘What are you going to wear?’
‘I went shopping with Mum the other day and got this lovely green dress. It’s sophisticated, you know. And it shows off my boobs.’ She jiggled her breasts and the others giggled, even Maggie, though Sylvia caught all she needed to know about Maggie’s opinion of Gilly’s engagement from a briefly arched eyebrow and a loaded glance in her direction. They’d always been able to communicate silently – a sort of telepathy honed over ten years of sitting next to each other at school.
‘Are you sure this is what you want?’ Sylvia picked at a daisy and twirled it in her fingers. ‘I mean, what’s the rush?’
A flash of annoyance passed across Gilly’s face. ‘Of course it is. We’ve been together two whole years, why would we wait any longer?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, because there might be other more exciting—’
Maggie elbowed her arm. Don’t, she mouthed. ‘Well, good for you, Gills. I love a wedding. All that cake and champagne.’
‘And the dishy waiters.’ Tracey was lying on the grass staring up at the sky. ‘My sister said they’re right goers, waiters at weddings. She worked at one once and said they had a bet going to see who could get off with a bridesmaid.’ She rolled on her side and looked at Gilly. ‘Can I be a bridesmaid?’
Fiona laughed. ‘Slapper!’
‘Just an opportunist,’ Tracey grinned. ‘Well, how about it, Gills?’
‘Er, well, I’ll have to see.’ Gilly’s voice was shrill. ‘I know Brian’s sisters have to be in the wedding party so I don’t know how many more bridesmaids I can have.’ She waved her hand. ‘Anyway, back to the topic in hand.’
‘What was that?’ Fiona said.
‘Our futures! Predicting where we’ll all end up! I think we should write it down.’ She fished around in her bag and pulled out a pen and a school textbook, tearing off the back to write on. ‘Won’t be needing that anymore,’ she trilled. ‘Right. So, Fiona: lumberjack.’
‘Is that it? Is that all you predict for me?’
‘Well, for the moment. How about Maggie – bank teller?’
‘That’s not a prediction, that’s a fact!’ Fiona laughed.
‘That really stinks, that’s what that is,’ Tracey said.
Sylvia saw the expression on Maggie’s face. She couldn’t think of a worse job for her best friend, who’d always hated maths at school, but she knew Maggie wouldn’t dare say no to her father’s plans for her. ‘That’s just a stopgap until you figure out what you want to do, right Mags?’
Maggie blew her fringe off her forehead. ‘Try telling that to Dad.’
‘Okay, temporary bank teller. Just until you get married and have kids. I reckon you’ll have three.’
‘You’re talking out of your backside, Gills,’ Tracey said.
‘Stop being such a spoilsport, it’s just for fun, okay? I’m going to keep this and then one day in twenty years or something we’ll meet up and laugh about what we said.’ Gilly gave them all a pointed stare and wrote down ‘three kids’ in big letters next to Maggie’s name. ‘Right, how about Sylvia?’
‘Prime minister!’ Janine said.
‘Astronaut!’
‘Stop taking the piss,’ Sylvia said. She’d always felt faintly embarrassed by her reputation at school. She couldn’t help it if she did well in exams. She couldn’t help being interested in things. But it had never been cool to be academic, so she’d apologised for herself, almost been pleased when she’d got a B instead of an A in a test, just so she could feel she fitted in with the other kids. But all that was behind her now, she realised. Today was the end of all that. She’d been released from the shackles of schoolyard social pressures and would be going to Oxford, where no one, she was sure, ever had to apologise for doing well.
‘I know what.’ Maggie put her arm around her and smiled. ‘She’s going to be a newspaper editor on Fleet Street.’
Sylvia snorted. ‘Like that’s possible,’ she said. But as the smell of summer mingled with the thrill of the new, she thought, yes, maybe I just will.
* * *
That all seemed so long ago now. How cross she would have been with her future self if she’d known what would happen! She couldn’t bear the thought she’d potentially squandered her opportunity for freedom so soon after escaping the limitations of childhood. She
thought of the women she’d met in Switzerland, how much she admired their fight, and felt determination well up in her again. A baby simply wasn’t part of her plan. It would ruin everything.
‘What does Jim think?’ Maggie said.
Sylvia shook her head, staring at Peter Falk as he cuffed the murderer. ‘I haven’t told him.’
Maggie’s eyes narrowed. ‘And when will you?’
‘I don’t know. When I’ve sorted out in my head what I want to do.’
‘You’re not considering…?’
Sylvia looked at her. ‘Maybe. At least, I’m going to look into it.’
She thought of Jim, cooing over her sister’s kids whenever they visited; the delight in their faces when they saw him, since kids seemed to love Jim as much as he loved them. Yes, he’d agreed to wait until they were older, but she knew he’d never agree to a termination now it had happened. So if she decided she wanted to get rid of it, she couldn’t ever tell him she’d been pregnant. She met Maggie’s eyes and knew she didn’t need to spell it out.
‘I get it, Syl. God, I get it. But you can’t do that to him.’ Maggie took Sylvia’s hand and held it in her lap, and Sylvia felt the roughness of her friend’s skin, a badge of honour for the hours she’d spent in the art studios at Saint Martin’s, creating the pieces that had won her a hard-earned art degree and her new job at the National Theatre. ‘Can you?’
‘I don’t know, Mags.’ But she didn’t think she could do the alternative, either.
* * *
She made an appointment for the next morning and had her suspicions confirmed. Dr Greenham clearly expected a delighted response on delivering such happy news, but she sat mute, in shock despite having already known what he would say. Then he glanced at the single diamond on her finger and his face changed.
‘When are you due to marry?’ he asked.
‘Next summer,’ she said.
‘Do it quickly and you’re out of trouble.’ He said it kindly, conspiratorially, as though she should be grateful. But instead she felt as though the walls of the office were closing in.
The Other Daughter Page 7
