The Woman Next Door

by Liz Byrski

  ‘We haven’t done it since you moved,’ Joyce says. ‘Which is now several years ago, and I don’t even have a key to your home any longer so I’d like mine back.’

  Helen shrugs. ‘Oh well, if you’re going to be like that . . .’ she begins, twisting the key free of the key ring. ‘But I’m hardly an intruder. You were obviously in and I thought you might not have heard or even perhaps be ill or something.’

  Joyce takes the key and puts it in her pocket. ‘Did you want something, Helen?’

  ‘I came to tell you what’s been happening.’ She starts to unbutton her coat. ‘I had to come home earlier than I planned because Dennis made such a mess of the arrangements for selling the apartment and I . . .’

  Joyce holds up a hand to stop her. ‘I know what’s happened, Helen. Dennis told Mac and he told me. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be able to sort things out now you’re back. But I need you to go. I’m very tired and still have a lot of study to do for an exam. Even Mac and the kids are banned at the moment.’ She walks past Helen to the front door and opens it, taking great care to stay cool and distant. ‘I hope you manage to fix everything up and get a good price, it’s a lovely apartment.’ And she stands there, holding the door open, waiting.

  ‘I brought a bottle of wine,’ Helen says, as though she hasn’t heard a word of it. And she starts to walk away from Joyce towards the kitchen. ‘I thought we could get into this and order a pizza, or a curry.’

  Joyce says nothing. She is struggling to stay and look calm standing there by the door, but inside she is boiling with resentment not just at what’s happening now but at all the things that have happened in the past few years, that have hurt or angered her and which, in her effort to manage the friendship and keep the peace, she has never mentioned.

  They face each other in icy silence and it is Helen who breaks it.

  ‘Oh well, if that’s how you want it I’ll take my wine and go home,’ she says, and she walks briskly down the passage and back out through the open door. ‘So much for friendship, a lifetime of friendship,’ she says, grabbing her umbrella on the way, and Joyce watches as she runs down the path through the rain back to her car.

  Joyce closes the door and leans back against it. She has a pain like indigestion in her chest, and is close to tears. The relief of the closed door is enormous, but it is matched by the sense of loss. It is, she knows, the end of a connection that was once very special, but which has been a long time dying. The lives of their two families had hung together largely on her friendship with Helen, a friendship now so soured that it taints the memories of the good times. She stands there, still leaning on the door, listening to the sound of Helen starting her car and accelerating away up the street, and as the sound fades she locks the door, puts on the chain, and walks back to her chair in the kitchen. She remembers a time some years ago, not long after Helen and Dennis had moved, when she and Helen had gone to an event at the Perth Festival, and then walked across the grounds of the university where it was held, in the midday heat.

  ‘I know you’re angry about a lot of things, Helen,’ she’d said. ‘Perhaps these are things you should have dealt with a long time ago but they all sound to me very much like the usual things that happen in a marriage, situations change, people change, some of it’s you, some of it Dennis, some unavoidable circumstances. But within all that you had the chance to be happy, to make what you could of it or do something different. You were never entirely powerless, and I think you have often chosen resentment over looking for ways to change things. I mean, it seems to me that there have been times when you have chosen to be unhappy rather than looking for solutions.’

  Helen had stopped walking and looked at her in amazement. ‘I can’t think what you mean,’ she’d said. ‘But it seems unfair, after all I’ve done . . .’ and off she’d gone into one of those terrible monologues and Joyce had felt the black hole of negativity opening up in front of her again. Helen had changed so much from the days when for both of them a coffee, a glass of wine, the chance to let off steam and end up doubled up with laughter had been how they had solved their problems.

  Perhaps, Joyce thinks, life is simply like that, people change. I’ve changed. Helen has changed. We’ve simply outgrown our friendship. Whatever the causes, something that was once very precious has juddered to a halt and restarting it is out of the question.

  *

  Despite the fact that he would like the house to himself again, Mac has enjoyed Dennis’s company, as well as the feeling that he’s been able to do something for his friend. They’ve spent more time together these last couple of weeks than ever before and it’s surprised him to discover how much at ease they’ve become. Now as he stands on a ladder painting the ceiling in the laundry Mac pauses for a moment, thinking that without Dennis around to talk to he might have found it harder to cope with the change in Joyce. Not that he’d mentioned that to Dennis, of course, but listening to him talk, learning more about how things between him and Helen have been over the years, has helped Mac to get this in proportion. Has Joyce actually changed? The more he’s thought about this the more he feels that there’s something about her tone, her manner, that’s different. She’s abrupt, distracted, and it seems to Mac that it’s always him calling her, rather than the other way around. He’s still smarting over the way she’d told him not to come home, and hung up on him. At his lowest he feels she’s abandoned him in favour of this new interest, and while deep down he realises that might be a bit pathetic it continues to niggle at him. But he’s determined not to say anything, not to make waves, although who knows how far out a wave might be building? Dennis and I are alike, he thinks; we prefer to avoid trouble, particularly trouble at home. However did he cope all those years?

  A couple of times Mac has considered calling Carol, suggesting that the three of them meet for a meal, or that Dennis goes with him on his morning walk at the beach, but something has held him back. How would he explain this to Dennis, when he has no idea how to explain it to Joyce? And because he can’t answer that he decides to leave things as they are. He takes Charlie to the beach in the mornings, and Dennis, who is not by choice an early riser, takes him out along the bush path in the afternoons.

  ‘Two old codgers doing their own thing,’ Dennis had said the other day. And it had jarred with Mac, because he’s not yet ready to be an old codger. In fact, as he sets out in the morning, to swim or walk or both, knowing Carol will most likely be there, Mac feels younger than he’s felt in a while. There is something about being with Carol that reminds him of who he used to be; not at the time when they had met, but later, much later, the time in his fifties when he was at the top of his profession: confident, competent, respected; in control of the entire research facility, making decisions that would have serious and far-reaching consequences. The time of his life when he’d felt he’d finally grown into the man he was supposed to be. How strange that somehow that had evaporated without his even noticing it. And he lays the paint roller in the tray and stands there at the top of the ladder, wondering how to hold on to that; how to be old and at the same time hold on to that same sense of himself.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Early July

  Stella sits in front of her computer waiting for the call. She’s a bit early and as she waits she drums her fingers impatiently on the desk. She’s early because she no longer trusts herself to remember how things work and sits, waiting impatiently for this call to happen like magic. She and Gemma haven’t spoken for months, not since before Stella started work on Cross Currents, but yesterday she’d got a text from Gemma suggesting they should talk today, she set a time and said she would call then unless Stella told her not to.

  It’s odd, Stella thinks now, how easily you get out of the habit of catching up with someone; you miss a couple of weeks or a month and somehow the habit is broken. She’s loved Gemma since the day she first saw her – a rosy cheeked, dark haired little angel,
clutching her mother’s hand as she watched the removalists unload their furniture from the truck. In those days Stella lived in Melbourne, but she often returned to Fremantle for a break, always staying in the house that she had inherited from Nancy. She’d been there on the day the people who’d bought the big house next door moved in, and she’d wandered out into her garden to get a glimpse of her new neighbours. A woman was standing with her back to her holding a small girl by the hand, while nearby her husband chatted to the removalists, and a boy, older than the little girl, stood by impatiently kicking some stones at the side of the road.

  Stella had just decided to go across and speak to them when the little girl turned around and saw her.

  ‘Who are you?’ the child said, tugging at the same time on her mother’s arm.

  ‘I’m Stella, I live in this house,’ Stella said, and the mother turned and smiled and walked over to shake hands.

  The day she first met Joyce and Gemma, and later Mac and Ben, has never faded from Stella’s memory. It had been the beginning of much more than a friendship, so much more that she often feels as though Joyce and Mac, Ben and Gemma are her de facto family. Some years later, when Polly bought the place on the other side, Stella had counted herself lucky that the people she had grown to love most in the world were ideally located on either side of her. The one thing that would have made it perfect would have been to have Annie there too. But by then Annie was married and living in Queensland, and although they wrote and talked on the phone they met only occasionally.

  Annie, Stella thinks now. I wish she’d hurry up with this call, I’m dying to talk to her, it seems like ages, years since we met. Now that I’ve finished Cross Currents I should fly up there for a visit, yes, that’s what I’ll do, we’ll make a date and I’ll book a ticket today . . .

  The computer makes a chiming sound and an icon appears in the middle of the screen; of course that’s it, that’s how Skype works. Ignoring her glasses, which are resting on the table beside the keyboard, Stella clicks the icon and the screen opens up.

  ‘Annie,’ she cries in delight. ‘You’re late calling, I thought you might have forgotten.’

  ‘It’s Gemma, Stella,’ the person on the screen says. ‘Sorry I’m late, I just couldn’t get the connection to work.’

  Stella stares at the face on the screen, knowing that this is not Annie, but knowing too that the woman is familiar. ‘I’m sorry . . .’ she begins, and then the little dark haired angel slips into place. ‘Gemma, of course, so sorry, I was thinking of Annie and . . .’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Gemma says, smiling at her all the way from Switzerland. ‘How are you, it’s ages since we Skyped, you look really well. Mum says you’ve finished Cross Currents now. Did it all go well?’

  Back on track again Stella eases herself into the conversation, enchanted as always by watching Gemma on the screen, and awed by the technology that makes it possible for them to talk face to face like this. They chat for a while, about Gemma’s work, Joyce’s course, and Mac’s sojourn in Albany. ‘And now Dennis is there with him.’

  Stella says, ‘Did you know that he and Helen split up?’

  Gemma nods. ‘I did, Nick let me know. It seems such a weird thing to happen at their age, doesn’t it?’

  ‘The weirdest thing to me,’ Stella says, ‘is that it didn’t happen years ago.’

  Gemma laughs. ‘I guess. Aunty Helen isn’t the easiest person to get on with, but she was always lovely to me. She made me feel very special.’

  ‘We all think you’re very special, Gemma,’ Stella says.

  ‘Ha! That’s the advantage of being the youngest and the only girl among three boys. But you mentioned Annie . . .’

  ‘Just me and my ancient brain,’ Stella says, feeling her face flush with embarrassment. ‘I was thinking about her while I was waiting for you to call, and . . . oh well . . . I had a very senior moment.’

  ‘I never met Annie,’ Gemma says. ‘I wish I had.’

  ‘I wish you had too, she was wonderful,’ and a lump rising in her throat takes her by surprise.

  ‘How did you two meet, was it in the theatre?’

  Stella shakes her head. ‘Not originally,’ she says. ‘We met in the lingerie department of Boans; do you remember, the big department store in the city?’

  Gemma nods. ‘I remember it. Mum used to take us there when we were little.’

  ‘Well my first job was in the old Boans store, and Annie used to get some casual work there. She was a bit older than me, and she was an actor and in between things she’d always pick up a few days’ work in Boans. It was Annie that got me into the theatre, but I must have told you this before.’

  Gemma shakes her head. ‘No, never. I never knew how you got started.’

  ‘Oh well, Annie was always telling me that I should audition for something. She thought I’d be good because I could mimic people and could dance and sing. Then one day she persuaded me to go with her to an audition. “Come on, Ess,” she said, “give it a go. What’ve you got to lose?” So eventually I gave in and went with her one Saturday morning and . . .’ Stella stops abruptly, rummaging in her memory, which seems to be deserting her.

  ‘Go on,’ Gemma says.

  ‘I was just trying to remember what the production was – I can see it all so clearly but can’t remember the title,’ Stella says. ‘Anyway, there were quite a few girls my age and four of us were called out of this long line of hopefuls to read for the part of a French maid. Awful cliché, isn’t it, but that’s what it was. After we four had each read the part the director picked one and the other three of us trouped off all disappointed, but then he called me back. “You with the red hair, Essie, is it?” he said. “We want you to read for something else.” And he gave me a passage from one of the bigger parts, the heroine’s younger sister. So I read it, and they didn’t say anything. The director and his assistant and some other man with them just looked at each other and sort of shrugged and then nodded, and the director said, “Okay, love, you’ve got it.” And he stuck a copy of the script in my hands and said, “Be here ten o’clock Monday week, be on time and make sure you know your lines.” And I said, “Well I can’t do that because I have to go to work.” And he just looked at me and rolled his eyes and said, “Do you want this job or not?” And of course I said yes. So I went home and told Nancy. I thought she might be annoyed with me but she was really excited. She’d always loved the theatre and had wanted to be a dancer. So I gave my notice on the Monday and worked my last week at Boans and Annie and I learned our lines together in the evenings. That’s how I got my start in acting.’

  ‘So it happened almost by chance,’ Gemma says. ‘What a lovely story, and is that when you changed your name?’

  Stella nods. ‘Yes, when I turned up for the first rehearsal the director couldn’t remember my name, so I reminded him. “It’s Essie,” I said, “Estelle Barwell.” And he just looked me up and down. “Not anymore,” he said. “Dull, far too dull and infinitely forgettable. Estelle, eh? How about Stella? And Barwell’s a shocker. Lamont! That’s it – from now on you’re Stella Lamont.” And so that’s who I became.’

  Later, when she and Gemma have hung up, Stella strolls out into the garden with the secateurs, snips the dead heads off the roses and then sits for a moment on the back step thinking back on their conversation. Did I really do that?, she asks herself. Did I really forget even just for an instant that Annie is dead? If I can forget that then I could forget anything; important things, how to do things, how to look after myself. The idea of it turns her cold with fear, and she gets to her feet and paces across the lawn and back again. I could do anything, something really crazy. I could hurt myself, or even someone else. She reaches the open door at the back of the garage, sees her red Honda and stops suddenly. I might cause an accident, she thinks, might crash or run someone over. Should I be driving? I might get lost, not be able to f
ind my way home. She slams the door shut, her head reeling. The enormity of what this means is overwhelming: her whole life is changing before her eyes, her independence sliding away. But if it was really bad someone would have told me, Polly or Joyce, or Gareth – he’d certainly have told me . . . and then she remembers something. Polly a while ago, looking at photographs . . . saying something about forgetfulness, about seeing a doctor . . .

  Stella drops the secateurs on the back steps and opens the side-gate into Polly’s garden. Polly will help me, she tells herself, Polly will know what to do.

  *

  When Stella calls out to her from the back door Polly is talking to Alistair on her laptop.

  ‘Hang on,’ she says, ‘it’s Stella at the back door, I’ll bring her in so you can say hello.’

  Stella is standing in the kitchen looking as though she’s seen a ghost. ‘Thank goodness, Polly,’ she says. ‘I had to come straight away, I had to see you,’ and then suddenly her expression changes from anxiety to a sort of puzzlement. ‘I had to come . . . it was important . . . but now I don’t know what it was . . .’

  ‘Okay,’ Polly says, ‘don’t worry, it’ll probably come back to you. I was just talking to Alistair on Skype, do you want to come and say hello?’

  Stella’s face clears, she breaks into a smile. ‘I’d love to. I haven’t seen Alistair for ages. I was talking to someone earlier . . . someone . . . oh yes, Gemma, I was talking to Gemma. I love Skype, it seems quite magical to be able to see the person you’re talking to, so much better than the phone.’

  She is relaxed now, caught up in a moment of pleasure, and Polly urges her through into the study, where Alistair is waving to them, and she pulls another chair over to the desk and drops into it.

  ‘Stella, my darling, how lovely to see you,’ Alistair says. ‘And you look simply marvellous. Younger than ever.’

  ‘And you are as full of bullshit,’ Stella says, laughing, ‘but the very best kind of bullshit, it’s lovely to see you too.’