She was grateful, and not only for her friend’s thoughtful ideas. It helped to share Arthur and Emily’s fledgling world with someone who could quietly hold it.
A meaty aroma rolled through the air. Six o’clock. Time to baste the roast, to tease dainty thyme leaves from their stems and fry dark-lipped mushrooms in the pungent leaves and butter. Maybe add a hint of lemon zest to cut the richness of the meal.
Duncan would arrive home with only enough time for his shower. Then, at dinner, they would make conversation.
‘How was your day?’
And, ‘How was yours?’
‘How are the new units going?’
And, ‘Did the plumber call?’
Not, ‘How is your writing going?’
Not, ‘What is happening to us?’
Two worlds: the present and the past. She could no longer tell what was about the world she had entered and what was about her own daily world, about Duncan and her. The two worlds were intertwined, each weirdly affected, she sensed, by the other. And with Emily’s pain still to be written, Alice felt constantly on the verge of crisis. Power was about to be wielded, compromises made, but in which world? Disquiet permeated her thoughts, gave her the sense that their new coming together – hers and Duncan’s – had been a false beginning, had been at too great a cost – had elevated his needs above hers, his concern for himself above what she needed from him. Which was what? Some kind of unequivocal support. Some kind of trust. So now their love faltered, or so it seemed to her.
And what about Duncan? In his mind, it seemed, she had already abandoned him. Swung the spotlight of her attention away from her husband and onto subjects that didn’t interest him: pain, female bodies, Victorian medicine, hysteria. More, she had found a new guide to living: herself. Her body, her dreams, her desires. She saw that for him this was a rejection, an abandonment that, perhaps, echoed his mother’s ‘abandonment’ of him all those years ago.
But, she protested – silently, futilely, as if she were her husband’s own tardy conscience – he had sworn to love and cherish her, hadn’t he? He had promised to be on her side, to listen to her, to share her troubles? Hadn’t he? Well, he’d broken that promise. He’d let her down. He’d closed himself to who she’d had to become in order to survive and then thrive. He’d shut the door to her and become the same person he was with his mother: guarded. Untrusting. By this she understood that if he had betrayed her, he believed she had betrayed him too.
She lowered the blinds against a faint outline of clouds, dense in the darkening sky. Closed the door on her study. Pulled her jacket from the back of a kitchen chair and slipped it on. Basted the roasting meat and stepped back from its angry spit. Flicked on the lounge light. Turned on the heater.
The sofa was hard against her hip, its cushions cold, unwelcoming. God, she was sick of this protracted winter, its stubborn intrusion into spring. She remembered Duncan’s arm, warm and heavy along her shoulders, when he first showed her his home. Recalled again her brazen words: It’s a mausoleum! Nineteen ninety-eight. She, an undergrad and he, her former tutor. Their giddy laugh on that sweet January morning, then their confident stride into a sunny future.
Oh, the arrogance. The naivety. Because now, look, it had come true. The deathly chill and closing walls. The realisation that she had been buried alive. The only warmth to be found in the new Alice. The only light, her writing. The only air, Arthur and Emily.
CHAPTER 19
February 26th 1866
My dear Beatrice,
No, we did not go, nor will we ever! Something has changed & I hardly know how to speak of it. It’s not the pain—well, not directly, in any event. I’m not being deliberately mysterious, Bea, it’s just that I feel Arthur & I have entered a new world, & I am overcome by what I find here. I have no words yet to describe it—I don’t want to describe it, because to do so would be to spoil it.
I will write again soon. Don’t fret in the meantime: all is well.
Your Em
February 28th 1866
Dear sister,
Thank you for not asking questions, for just saying you are relieved & glad! I can tell you, now, a little of what happened, even if I am still unable to make complete sense of it.
On Sunday night, in the earliest hours of the morning, Arthur began crying & tossing about in his sleep. I tried to wake him, but he would not be stirred at first. It was as if he were in a place distant to me & could not hear me, so it took some minutes until he was fully restored to himself, & even then he cried & swept his hand through his hair, over & over. I begged him to tell me what was wrong, what I could do to ease his feelings, but he told me these were not tears of pain. He said they were tears of joy mixed with sorrow that could find no words.
I held him—we held each other & cried together—& when he could finally talk, he said he had been in a place to which he was drawn often in his dreams. The elm thicket along the path to Herdley? He said, “It is a place where I suffer & am lost, as I was after Mother died.” This time, he said, it was different, but all he would say of his dream was, “I heard the quiet voice that tells the truth” & something about your mother & fending for those unable to fend for themselves. He said he knew then what he should do.
Does this mean anything to you? Arthur says it might. Please come to us this evening, if you have no engagements—we can talk more then.
Love Emmie
March 1st 1866
Dear Bea,
I am so glad, so sincerely gladdened, that you & Arthur could share your memories of your mother & who she was, not only with each other, but also with me. I would have loved to have known such a kind & wise woman.
Would it surprise you to know that I have felt James with me more since this happened, & that it is a good & a comforting feeling?
Your sister,
Emmie
March 2nd 1866
Bea,
I must tell you, we received a telegram from Paris this morning:
AVOID THE PROCEDURE BY ALL MEANS POSSIBLE. LAWLER
Thomas returns in two weeks & Arthur wished to reassure him straightaway, so he has gone to the telegraph office on his way to work. He says he will write a letter to Tom this evening so we can find out why he is so definite. Thank goodness we did not go ahead!
Emmie
March 9th 1866
Dearest Bea,
Father is cross at me for not having the operation, but Mam is her usual self: loving & docile. She wonders if I would like to take the country air for a good, long spell & Arthur thinks this an excellent idea, though he would rather have me with him, he says. At all events, the three of us have decided on it & Mam says she will hold firm, even if Father grumbles & thinks me silly for not doing as he wanted. So Mam & I will go to Almsford very soon & I will stay there until you all leave London in July. Arthur will visit me when he can & we will be reunited with the rest of our Rochdale family at Hierde House for the summer break, just when Father joins Mam at Almsford. How does that sound?
Beatrice, it is a strange thing, but I feel better already, even though the stabbing & burning are unchanged. The disorder still plagues me, but I feel friendlier towards it. Why does this cheer me, I wonder?
Your Em
March 16th 1866
My loving sister,
You ask what has worked the change in me. It is to do with trust, I think, & being listened to properly. Arthur had stopped believing in me & me in him, but really it was the terrible affliction that turned us both from each other; I see that now.
Arthur says it was the appointment with Baker Brown that helped open his eyes, & the looming surgery. That when it came to it, he could not countenance inflicting further harm on me. And when I turned to him & leaned on him once more—when we began to draw together again after that horrible consultation—he says that he could no longer believe I was irritating the nerve in the way that Brown suggested, if I did not confide this to him—that he trusted me. And then that final thing: the
dream that came to him in our darkest hour … It was then that he placed me above him, when I was no longer able to do this for myself; then that he considered me & believed me over all others.
I am still trying to work it out, but there is no hurry, not when we both hold true to the best in each other, just as we once did.
Love Em
CHAPTER 20
PERTH, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2009
Alice flicked the switch as she came back into the lounge room and Penny’s hair sprang from blonde into gold. Once it had been a glitzy shade of red, Alice remembered, and she saw Pen’s crimson hair and dress again, the birthday party where she herself had laughed with strangers while Duncan glowered in a doorway – Not really my bunch, he’d said as they drove home. At the party Alice had chatted, flirted a little, sat on sofas and kitchen chairs easily, comfortably, without thought, not knowing that very soon this would be impossible, sitting. Over two and a half years ago, that night. Such a short time, really, in which to become a new person. And, somehow, Pen was also different. Softer, perhaps. Or was that just her own changed eyes?
‘Here you go,’ she said, and put Penny’s glass on a coaster, sipped from her own as she slid onto the sofa, bunching cushions to support her back and head.
Afternoon was darkening to evening; their cups of tea had segued into glasses of wine. Basil and garlic filled the house and the charred sweetness of roast capsicum drifted from the kitchen. Alice’s mind drifted for a moment too, and Arthur and Emily rushed in just as they always did, given an opportunity. She’d already spoken about it with Pen, that compulsion to write – words coming to her now in torrents, and scenes erupting out of chronological sequence, raw and higgledy-piggledy, leaving great narrative holes. She felt the pressure of them, these stuttering blanks, their demand that she fill them with the missing pieces of story.
‘So, they’re supporting you then? The uni?’ Penny, picking up the conversation where Alice had been forced to interrupt it with one of her more prickly dashes to the loo.
‘Well, they’re supporting me, just not financially. It’s an honorary post – not paid.’
Her last meeting with the head of school had helped counterbalance that, given her a sense that she was valued, even valuable. She’d realised he knew about her pain, though she could only imagine how those collegial conversations had gone: ‘Yes, well, she has some kind of disorder … there, you know, in her … reproductive area, I mean.’ Yet he’d treated her without doubt or judgement, and with a careful kind of respect.
‘Unis love publications,’ she went on, ‘and I’ve had another of my family stories accepted – the cabbage patch doll one. The other stuff’s doing well too. Those essays, you know? Two have been published and there’s one in editing.’ She shifted her body around on the sofa. ‘I thought it might be tricky at uni, writing and publishing about vulvodynia, though it shouldn’t be, of course.’
It’s important that you’ve taken something so … difficult and created strong work from it, the head of school said at that meeting. She’d felt herself expanding at his words. Found herself saying, without thought or reflection, Well, I guess you gotta make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear!
And that’s exactly what you have to do, she’d thought afterwards: take this ugly fleshy ear and make of it something beautiful. Join its panels together with strong threads. Place in it the jagged language of pain, the snippets of her life, the bits and pieces she’d been reduced to. Work with these fragments, listen to them, feel them heating and shifting like alchemy into the soft-spun words of narrative. She didn’t see how there was any other way. Not for her.
Now, she continued, ‘But without the sessional teaching I’m earning nothing – just small amounts for publication.’
Duncan had begun making the odd comment. Never an overt, ‘When are you going to teach again?’ Just gentle digs. Pulling the Visa statement from its envelope, This is a biggie. Shading his eyes and surveying the roof, It’ll be good when we can get that guttering done. Making a fist and pushing it against their mattress, We’ll have to wait for the new one. And she felt it, she did, her inability to contribute to their lifestyle, even if his income was more than enough for them both. Still, she wouldn’t complain about such pettiness, not with things always just that tiny bit stilted between her friend and her husband.
‘But there’s talk of me taking one of the old units in semester one.’
‘Oh, Alice, that’s fantastic!’ Penny’s smile shifted. ‘Do you think you’ll be up to it?’
‘I think I’ll be okay. It’s almost manageable, with the physio and the exercises. And I’m learning what to do and what not to do, other than sitting.’
It had been so long now, that daily waking litany: biting vulva, stinging urethra, aching buttocks, tingling thighs. The lament less intense than it once was, but still depleting, and part of a conversation that went nowhere, really. But at least it felt like she and her body were no longer enemies. Felt like even, at times, she was her body.
Thunk.
Duncan. His tread along the hall and into the lounge.
‘Penny!’ The delight in his voice seemed genuine.
‘Duncan.’ Penny up-tilted her head. ‘Great to see you.’
‘You too.’ He squatted next to the sofa and gave Alice a quick kiss. Then, moving back to take both of them in, ‘It’s been way too long.’
They all nodded in the moment’s silence, while Alice thought about all the catch-ups with her friend, delicately and silently timed to include just the two of them. Would he notice this new attempt to bring her separate worlds together?
‘How’s work?’ Duncan filled the silence.
‘Oh, it’s fine. You know, unruffled waters, plain sailing, all that. I could really do with a holiday, though. Just some cruise where I can lie down and do absolutely nothing for a week.’
‘Yes, well,’ said Duncan. ‘I think we’d all like to take a break, if we could.’
Was it a crack at her?
‘You’ve been busy, Duncan. Alice tells me the new book’s a success.’ Pen, saying just the right things.
‘It was a long haul, but I finally made it.’
He looked like a success, standing there. Broad-shouldered, fit in his tennis garb. Emanating, as always, that easy sensuality. Would he tell Penny that while the publication of his Hemingway biography had received good reviews from other academics, even experts in the field, book sales had been a little disappointing? Comments like ‘historical’ and ‘competent’ a little off-putting?
‘That’s great.’ Penny flashed her wide smile at him. ‘And what’s next?’
‘Well, we’re having a bit of a restructure at the university at the moment, so I need to put some time into that. A couple of new units …’ He trailed off. ‘But on a Saturday,’ he mimed the swing of a racquet, ‘it’s all about brushing up the game for summer.’
Laughter. They were behaving well.
‘Speaking of which,’ he continued, ‘I’d better have a shower. Make myself presentable for you lovely women.’
‘Take your time,’ Alice said. ‘Dinner won’t be ready for another half hour or so.’
‘Okay.’
He loped off to their room – the other end of the house.
‘Gee, he looks well, Alice.’
‘Yes, he does.’ But she wanted to communicate something of the shadow side. The side he didn’t present to anyone but her, not even his own mother. ‘It’s been a hard year for him, though. The changes at uni, and the book. Promotion – a little travel for that.’
‘Has it put pressure on you guys? Having him away, I mean.’
‘No. Well, not for me, anyway.’ Her voice had dropped. She felt bad saying it, but she needed to speak the words, so she continued quietly, ‘I feel like I’m more myself alone.’
‘Shit, Alice, I’m sorry.’ Penny’s voice held genuine regret. ‘Is it because of the sex?’
How good it was to be with Pen: the cut to the chase
a relief.
‘No, cos we can have sex now. Not heaps, but enough.’
How to explain how it started?
Perhaps with her realisation that the younger Alice had shaped herself to Duncan’s desire. Reduced herself and the woman she might become, willingly, even eagerly. Then, his disappointment in her, her … inability to open herself to him. And how that mistrust of her – that he didn’t understand that she would have him inside her if she possibly, possibly could; that she would put him first, if only he could continue to believe her and believe in her, place her somehow above him – was a betrayal of sorts. Of loyalty. Of faith. Of them. And when they began, it should have been wonderful to hold his sweaty, satisfied body against hers and see that body restored to itself, proud and full, to feel the stirrings within her of what, one day, she might be able to call pleasure, even passion. It should have felt good, no, right, to join properly with him again. But for all their heat there was also a certain coolness, a strange distance their bodies couldn’t bridge. What else? Oh, yes. How he seemed to resent the research and writing she’d been brought to. This obsession, he’d said one night, spitting the word, this bloody obsession with vulvodynia and sick women. That sweeping motion he made when she tried to share something of her world – her excitement at discovered papers and historical artefacts, her new words lush with pain – as if his hand were a brush flicking the dust of her away. And finally, finally – this the most hidden thing, hidden even from herself over all their years together – the sense that there was something about him, something fundamental, that was missing. Or flawed. The word that came to her the other morning as she woke from a dream … the Roman statues, the empty eyes … her hand on cool marble … as she opened her own eyes to his sleeping, undefended face … the word she wrote … semblance, that was it, the impression, the feeling, though she did not know, exactly, was still finding out, what she meant by the word. What it meant to her. What it meant to them.
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