Family Secrets

by Liz Byrski

  Resting his cigarette on the edge of an ashtray Phillip leans across the desk and pushes open the window. Cool spring air and the sounds of the street float in – the beloved background music of his life. He settles into his swivel chair from where he can see right up the street to the sign outside Russell Square underground station. ‘Small pleasures,’ he murmurs, sifting through the personal mail he has brought up from the shop; the rest he left down there for Bea. She wouldn’t have let him get his hands on it anyway in case he lost track of something. Small pleasures: The Guardian, a fag, and Bloomsbury at his feet.

  ‘You’re an anachronism, sitting there, smoking, still surrounded by books, peering at the small print,’ his ex-wife, Lorna, had told him recently. ‘It’s the twenty-first century, Phillip. Get yourself a Kindle so that you can adjust the font.’

  ‘Kindle schmindle,’ Phillip says aloud now as he rips the plastic wrapper off the latest newsletter from his old school, ‘ebooks indeed. Smoking banned and real books being edged out. Heresy.’ It’s happened with music of course, cassettes first, then CDs, now it’s all downloading onto phones and iPods. Thank goodness he’s hung on to his vinyl, and stocked up on a lifetime’s supply of styluses when he saw it coming.

  The fate of real books, printed ones, is a constant source of worry to him, not just the potential loss of business in his own shop, but the whole global shift that could mean that real books just disappear. What is a home, a room, any place at all without books, without the smell of print and paper, the heft of a book in the hand, the joy of stroking covers and flicking through pages, of making those sinful notes in the margins, or falling asleep on the beach with an open paperback on one’s face. It won’t happen in his time probably, but the threat, he knows, is there, already he can sense it, and he frequently dwells gloomily on what this will mean for his grandchildren and their children. There may, he realises, be future generations of Tonkins who will never own a real book, will see them only as museum pieces, and who will never fully understand how their great-great-great-grandfather earned a living.

  Phillip opens the newsletter and starts to work his way through it. It always comes as a treat, although he’s finding that it doesn’t give him quite the same pleasure now that even the alumni list is crammed with unfamiliar names. The articles are about people much younger than his own children, and he has to search for snippets about his contemporaries who seem to be dropping off their perches with uncomfortable frequency. There is an appeal for funds to build a new gymnasium, news of exam results and university scholarships, and profiles of retiring staff and their replacements. He always reads it from cover to cover. Why is there an advert for The Samaritans? This is a school newsletter; is it the students, the staff or the alumni who are prone to despair or suicide? He reads on, grumbling quietly about declining standards, until he reaches the obituaries and finds himself staring at a photograph of a very familiar face.

  ‘Good lord,’ he says aloud, peering more closely, ‘Gerald Hawkins, good lord. Well, there’s a sad thing.’

  They’d been at school together and then at Cambridge, but some years later Gerry took it into his head to go back to Australia. Tasmania, for god’s sake, end of the bloody world more like, although he’d seen a program about it on television recently and it did look rather lovely. But Australia! Gerry had always seemed more English than the English. Father posted here to the embassy of course, that was when Gerry first came to the school, how they first met: same class, same dorm, rugby team, rowing, sixth form and then Cambridge together, pissing off the porters, smoking dope, and the drinking. Christ, all that drinking, a wonder they survived it really.

  Phillip stops reading for a moment, and stares out of the window. They’d exchanged letters for a few years and met once when Gerry had been in London on business, but that was back in the early eighties. Then it all tailed off except for Christmas cards but Gerry just stopped sending them and so Phillip eventually stopped a couple of Christmases later. He remembers the last time they’d met, they’d had lunch in the restaurant down the road, spent hours reminiscing. And now he’s gone. Bloody shame. He wonders if Bea knows, but of course she doesn’t or she’d have mentioned it.

  Phillip returns to the obituary: the academic and sporting honours, the starred first, the Cambridge scholarship, and then his life in Australia. He’d married the lovely Connie of course, children, public service career and, good heavens – member of the State Parliament of Tasmania. So he’d gone into politics after all! Phillip tries to visualise Gerald as a politician – not difficult, he thinks, but Tasmania? Tiny place, does it really have its own parliament? ‘Shows how little I know about Australia,’ he says aloud. He was a Catholic of course, Phillip remembers now, and there was a religious phase – lots of agonising over contraception and the Church – although with Gerry it was always hard to tell whether those contentious bones that he’d throw into a discussion actually constituted something he was wrestling with, or was just something he did to start an argument. He returns to the obituary. Long illness, what rotten luck. Survived by wife, children, grandchildren, and sister. Ah yes, Flora.

  Phillip leans his head back and closes his eyes. A punt on the river, Flora and Connie in summer dresses, bare shoulders turning pink in the sun, legs stretched out enticingly between the seats, a bottle of champagne. He can almost smell the dark weedy water, Flora’s French cigarettes and the scent of those girls’ bodies sweating slightly in the heat. He remembers longing to slide his hand under Flora’s skirt and up her smooth inner thigh to the warm acquiescent wetness that he was sure awaited him. Those were the days. Not that he’d had much luck with Flora though. He’d waited until Gerry was locked in a clinch with Connie, and then moved closer, pushing Flora’s skirt above her knee, and the moment he put his hand on her bare thigh she’d thrust out her foot and kicked him hard in the balls. Fortunately she wasn’t wearing shoes at the time, but just the same it doubled him up and he’d had a horrible feeling he might be going to throw up.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ she’d hissed, leaning close to his ear as he moaned softly over the side of the boat. ‘It’s not going to happen, not in a million years.’ He’d been worried that Gerald might have heard but he was far too involved with the intricacies of Connie’s bra to be even remotely interested in his best friend’s pain and humiliation.

  Of course it would be Flora who’d have advised the school of Gerald’s death. He should write her a note of condolence. ‘Wonder where the hell she is now?’ he murmurs, and then realises that of course the school will know. They’ll have at least an email address, and if they won’t give it to him perhaps they’ll forward a message on to her. On the other hand a letter of condolence should really be written with old-fashioned pen and paper and sent snail mail – more respectful. What he wants is a postal address. And he picks up the phone, dials the number and, swearing at the automatic answering service, he presses the third option for the administration office.

  *

  Andrew feels as though his head is exploding. All he wants is for this conversation, argument, fight – whatever it is – to be over. Any thought of emulating his father’s icy restraint and cutting language evaporated as soon as it began. It’s the night following the exhibition opening and Brooke has gone to a movie with friends.

  ‘Okay,’ Linda says now, her voice at a slightly lower octave than it has been for the last hour. ‘Yes, I’m having an affair. I didn’t plan it, it happened, and it happened because of you and our marriage. You’ve changed, Andrew – you used to be fun, we used to do stuff together. Now … well, I don’t know what happened to you but it’s like being married to a zombie, you’re so remote and cut off. I was bored and miserable and then Zach came along. He’s exciting, totally out there, he’s creative and clever and funny, and I fell in love because I was bored to death with you and our marriage.’

  ‘Do not blame this on me,’ Andrew cuts in. ‘You’re the one having the affair, and not just having it
but flaunting it at your poncy launch party, and plenty of other places for all I know. This is not my fault. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned this is the end. I want a divorce. Feel free to go and live with that ridiculous wanker if that’s what you want, move out, but don’t think for a moment that you can take Brooke. She’ll stay here with me.’

  ‘No way,’ Linda says. ‘You can have your divorce as soon as you want, what a blessed relief that will be, but this is my home and Brooke’s home and you’re the one that has to go. You get a place of your own and Zach can move in here with me and Brooke.’

  Andrew’s heart is pounding so hard that he feels it may burst out of his chest. ‘In your dreams,’ he shouts, ‘in your fucking dreams! This is my home too, and my daughter is not going to live with that man either here or anywhere else, so you might as well get that into your head right now, Linda. You’re the one that’s in the wrong. You’re the one who’s screwing someone else. I am staying right where I am.’ He turns away from her and sits on an arm of the lime green sofa that he hates. Arguing has always exhausted him, made him feel less of a man – so unlike his father. ‘I’m not having this conversation anymore, but tomorrow I’m getting myself a lawyer and you’d better get one too. And we should agree not to say anything to Brooke until we’ve sorted the details out between us. Even someone as selfish as you must be able to see that she should not have to be dragged through arguments like this.’

  Linda is silent for a moment. ‘So I’m the selfish one, am I? Well, that’s a laugh. But yes, I agree, we need to keep her out of it, behave as normal. Things are pretty chilly and have been for a while, so she probably won’t notice. But don’t kid yourself, Andrew, Brooke stays with me. She needs her mother and that’s what any judge in any court will tell you.’

  Andrew closes his eyes, trying to shut her out. The awful thing, he realises, is that Linda is probably right. If they end up going to court a judge might well favour the mother. But Brooke is almost sixteen, surely she’d be allowed some say in it … in which case, what would she say? Who would she choose? He hears the sound of a key being inserted in the front door. He gets up quickly.

  ‘She’s home,’ he says in a low voice. ‘Not a word about this. Agreed?’

  Linda nods. ‘Yep.’ She takes a deep breath and straightens her shoulders. ‘Hi, Brooke darling.’

  Brooke mumbles a greeting from below and as Andrew hears her begin to climb the stairs to the living room he is gripped by a terrible sense of failure, a feeling that Linda will win, that Brooke will slowly be drawn into a new and alien life in which he has no part.

  ‘Hi,’ Brooke says, stopping as she reaches the top of the stairs. She looks from one to the other and raises her eyebrows. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Andrew and Linda say in unison, their timing far too perfect to be natural.

  Brooke’s expression becomes anxious. ‘It feels weird, you two seem weird.’ She drops her bag on the floor.

  ‘Oh we’re always weird, darling,’ Linda says with forced gaiety. ‘Parents are always weird, you should know that by now.’

  And Andrew stands there, feeling as boring and hopeless as Linda obviously thinks he is, staring desperately at his daughter and willing her to read his mind and see how much he loves her and how it will kill him if he loses her.

  Six

  Flora stands on the hard sand letting the icy water lap around her feet and wondering if she has the fortitude to immerse herself in it. April is proving to be unseasonably warm on a coast that’s not renowned for warmth. The water is freezing but inviting, such a clear transparent green, and she can see the tiny shells shifting back and forth in the sand around her feet. She walks out a little further until it covers her ankles, and then a bit further to mid-calf. Her legs are almost numb but the sun is comforting on her back and shoulders. For Flora it is always the knees that are crucial; if she can make it to a depth that covers them she knows she’s going in.

  Turning around she looks back to the beach to where Connie is sitting on a towel, in a sunny spot between two rocks, head tilted back, facing the sun with her eyes closed. She has done a lot of sleeping since she arrived: jetlag probably but also, Flora thinks, a greater exhaustion, grief and an as yet undeclared relief at the lifting of a burden. How would that feel, Flora wonders, to be totally occupied with caring for someone for years and then to be finally freed? She wonders if Connie has any real sense of that freedom yet and, if she has, whether it thrills or terrifies her. Yes, a lot of sleeping, and not much talking. The latter has been something of a disappointment to Flora, who had anticipated conversations of the sort that it was never quite possible to have on a computer screen or by email. She’d imagined silences too, of course, but long companionable silences in which they would each be in their own worlds but also within the world of the past, its understandings, its memories and its own silences. But it hasn’t been like that. There has been awkwardness between them, something cautious and guarded, something more noticeable still when Suzanne is around. The hotel is a place of constant interruptions and mini-dramas. It will get better, Flora thinks, it has to, we just need more time alone, and Connie needs to chill out.

  She turns back to face the horizon and takes a small step and then two large strides forward until her knees are covered, holds her breath and plunges in, gasping with the shock and thrashing wildly around to warm herself up, swearing under her breath, until her body temperature drops and she can relax. It’s ages since she came to this beach although it’s her favourite and the closest to home of the little inlets off the cape. While she loves to walk alone, the beach, she feels, should be a shared pleasure.

  They had come here first as children, with her parents and in later years alone, her mother and father preferring the town beach. It seemed like a secret cove; of course other people did go there, but there weren’t many tourists back in the fifties and those that were around preferred the larger beaches with longer stretches of sand further up the cape. After her first visit to Port d’Esprit, Flora had mounted a relentless campaign to get both sets of parents to agree that Connie could go with them the following year. It was hard at first; her own parents had taken to Connie, who was quiet and polite. They thought her a very suitable friend for their daughter, and even Gerald had conceded that as girls went she wasn’t too bad. Connie’s parents were hard up though, and her father was touchy, quick to feel insulted. But eventually he had given in, and had insisted on paying her way and making a big fuss about it at the same time. So Connie had come with them to Port d’Esprit, and continued to do so every subsequent year until the summer after the year they finished school. After that Connie won her scholarship to the Guildhall, and Flora made her first – and, as it turned out, her last – step towards entering a convent.

  Halcyon days, Flora thinks now. They were free to do much as they wanted, sometimes with Suzanne, but more often on their own, exploring beaches and rocks, fishing with a cork and hook on a line off the quayside, wandering through the streets of the little town. Gerald had grown out of family holidays by then, although he did come one year and spent most of his time grunting irritably or skulking off into town to chat up local girls. Gerald! Flora feels the uncomfortable tightening of resentment in her chest thinking of the way he encouraged their parents’ anger and disapproval when she went to India. It was then, while Flora was away for almost two years, that Connie’s mother had died in a traffic accident and Gerald stepped into her life. And by the time Flora came home Connie was abandoning her dreams of the opera, and planning a wedding. Flora had long felt that she and Connie were like sisters and now that was about to be reality, but she was torn between joy at the prospect of her best friend being part of her family, and an uneasy feeling that Gerald had kidnapped her. And that was only the beginning. She wonders if Gerald ever had any inkling of the grief he had caused her or the insidious, long-lasting effects of his behaviour towards her some years later.

  Looking up to the beach Flora sees Co
nnie sit up and rub her eyes before she looks around, spots Flora, waves, gets up and strolls to the water’s edge, yelping as the ripples reach her feet. She looks good, Flora thinks; she’s always been sturdy but shapely, and her fine English skin has withstood the ravages of age pretty well.

  ‘Good heavens, Flora, it’s bloody freezing,’ Connie calls. ‘Have you gone raving mad, you could die of hypothermia.’

  ‘It’s gorgeous once you’re in,’ Flora says, wading back towards her.

  ‘Don’t splash me,’ Connie cries, ‘promise you won’t splash me,’ and she wraps her arms around her body defensively but keeps walking slowly into the shallow waves.

  Flora stops, sees her bend to dip her hands in the water and then rub them over her upper arms and neck. In that moment, Connie is eleven again, or thirteen, or even sixteen; this is how she does it, griping, gasping, slowly but surely heading towards full body immersion, and Flora begins to laugh.

  ‘What?’ Connie calls out. ‘Why are you laughing?’

  ‘You haven’t changed,’ Flora says. ‘Same old Connie, grumble, grumble, gasp, moan and then suddenly you’ll be in there, thrashing around and screaming.’

  And Connie stops, looks at her for a moment, takes a huge breath, plunges in and comes up gasping, water spouting from her mouth. ‘Right,’ she shouts, ‘you’ve asked for it, madam. I’m coming for you,’ and then she is half-swimming, half-running towards her, and Flora, breathless with laughter and exertion, turns to escape, stumbles, disappears underwater and struggles up again just as Connie grabs her, and instead of the dunking Flora is expecting, Connie hangs on tightly, throwing her head up, struggling for breath, and looks straight into her eyes.