by Liz Byrski
‘Thanks but no thanks. I’m not into elevator music.’
‘You sound like Dad,’ Caro said, curling her legs underneath her. ‘By the way, I keep forgetting to ask how he was about the … you know … your stuff.’
‘Christ, that’s weeks ago now. He’s been okay, actually. Bit shaken, and I think he was going to give me the lecture about my misspent youth, but Lee cut him off. She was lovely and he sort of softened up and managed to say all the right things. I think the prospect of being a grandfather has had an effect on him. He’s very warm and fuzzy about that.’
Caro nodded. ‘Where’s Mum?’
‘Gone with her friends to look at a house.’
‘She seems to be spending a lot of time with those women these days,’ Caro said, unable to keep the edge from her voice.
‘Good, isn’t it? Good for her, I mean.’
Caro shrugged. ‘Don’t you mind this?’ she asked, nodding towards the suitcases.
‘Why should I mind? I was moving out anyway. You and Mike’ll have to come and see this place I’ve got.’
‘But don’t you mind the house being sold?’
David shook his head. ‘No, I think it’s a great idea. Makes much more sense for Mum – less work, new start, and I think she’s been a bit worried about money. This’ll sort it out.’
Caro shrugged again. ‘Suppose so. When are you moving?’
‘Day after tomorrow. You should call round at the weekend.’
‘Yeah,’ she nodded. ‘Okay, Mike’s off on Saturday evening, we’ll come over and we can get takeaway – or will you be out raging somewhere?’
He turned towards her, eyebrows raised. ‘Hardly. My raging days were over long ago. Mum says to take anything you want and then put everything else in boxes for the garage sale.’
Caro went along to her old room with butterflies fluttering inexplicably in her stomach. As she reached the door her heart started to beat quite fast and she stood for a moment, her hand on the knob, trying to calm herself. Just inside the door was the faded strip of pink ribbon that she had tacked across the carpet years earlier. She stood on the outside of it where anyone wanting to speak to her had had to stand until she actually invited them to cross the ribbon wall. Caro bent down and ran her fingers over the ribbon; faded and grubby, it was otherwise still in good condition. Once, during their first few months together, she had walked out on Mike and stormed back home with her backpack and headed straight for this room.
‘Fine,’ Fran had said, standing in the open doorway on the outside of the ribbon. ‘Your room is always there for you.’ And later that evening when Caro was lying on the bed crying her eyes out, her mother had tapped on the door, opened it slightly, and waited again to be invited in.
Caro smiled to herself and straightened up, looking around her. There had been so many times when, as a teenager, she’d hidden here, nursing her anger and her hurt, her terrible sense of impotence, hiding behind her ribbon. Well, it wouldn’t be here much longer, she was an adult now, and soon there would be a baby to look after. Caro broke into a cold sweat at the prospect, and flopped down onto the bed. Avery young Michael Hutchence smiled at her from the wall, and on the dressing table a pink fur teddy bear sat leaning against the triple mirror. It was still the bedroom of a teenage girl, the bedroom of the person Caro felt she still was.
She rubbed her eyes and lay down clutching a heart-shaped pink velvet cushion to her chest. She had held babies a few times, but never for long, and now a baby was living off her blood and organs, planning shortly to move out of her body and occupy her life in a different sort of way. She struggled to her feet, tossed aside the cushion and dived out of the door across the passage to the bathroom, where she sank onto her knees alongside the lavatory bowl.
Minutes later, David was tapping on the bathroom door. ‘Caro? Caro, are you okay?’
She staggered to her feet, splashed her face with water and opened the door, her face half buried in a towel. ‘Yep, fine. Morning sickness late in the afternoon!’
‘Poor thing,’ David said, putting his arm around her shoulders. ‘Come on into the kitchen and I’ll make you some tea. Then, if you like, you can sit on your bed like a princess and I’ll pack your stuff for you.’
Caro leaned against him, unable to control the sobs. He pulled her closer.
‘Whatever’s the matter, darl?’
‘You said that before,’ Caro sobbed.
‘Huh?’
‘When Dad left, the first time we had to go and stay with him and Lee for a weekend.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘I didn’t want to go but Mum said I had to and I cried and you said, “Sit on your bed like a princess and I’ll pack your stuff for you”.’
‘Really? I said that? That was an extraordinarily nice thing to say to a younger sister who was being a vile brat.’
‘Yes,’ Caro said. ‘You were nice then.’
‘And not now?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, swallowing another sob. ‘It all went a bit funny after that.’
‘The pink ribbon time? Yes, I do remember now. You wouldn’t let me in to pack the stuff and insisted on going just with what you were wearing. You wore the same stuff, including those awful pink clogs, all weekend, even in bed.’
Caro nodded. ‘It seemed a good idea at the time.’
‘And now?’
‘This is harder. I’m scared – the baby, Mum moving, you being sick … everything.’
‘Come on,’ David said, steering her towards the kitchen. ‘I’ll make the tea and you spill the beans, and then I’ll pack your stuff. Sisters – honestly! Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.’
TWELVE
Bonnie thought she was late. She’d had trouble parking and had run from the car park, up the escalators to the arrivals area, and reached the gate uncomfortably hot and breathless, to find that the flight was fifteen minutes late and was just landing. She breathed a huge sigh of relief and flopped down in a seat from where she would be able to see the aircraft taxiing towards the terminal. Slipping her fingers inside the polo neck of her black sweater she pulled the wool away from her skin. The airport, like most public buildings, was not designed with the comfort of constantly overheated middle-aged women in mind. Not only was she hot but her neck itched with the tiny hairs that had escaped the hairdresser’s neck brush.
She fidgeted slightly and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window glass. She thought she might look okay but who could tell when the image was so elusive, disappearing instantly as a blast of light emerged from behind some clouds and hit the window? Bonnie took a Wet One from the packet inside her bag and, holding out the polo neck, wiped the cloth around her neck and inspected the tiny hairs attached to it. Then, ignoring the stony gaze of a man sitting nearby, she tossed it in the bin. Maybe she looked a complete freak and that was why he was staring. She ran her hand over the remains of her hair and was struck by the thought that she might look like a prison escapee.
Two hours earlier, enveloped in a voluminous black nylon cape, Bonnie had sat staring in the mirror watching as the final strands of her dyed mahogany brown hair fluttered to her shoulders and then to the floor.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ Vincent, the stylist, had said, seeing the terror on her face. ‘Stay calm. Wait till it’s dry.’
‘It is a bit, a bit … short,’ Bonnie managed.
‘Yes, and it’s very cool, or it will be when I’ve finished. This was a good decision, very much of the moment.’
Bonnie stared on, wondering if she herself was sufficiently of the moment to be able to carry it off.
Vincent spread a little mousse across his palms, worked it lightly into her hair and picked up the dryer. Switching it to the strongest blast of warm air, he attacked her scalp with his fingers.
‘Scroggling,’ he said loudly over the noise of the dryer, smiling at her in the mirror. ‘That’s what I call it. Some people call it finger drying. I
think scroggling is a much nicer word, don’t you?’
Bonnie nodded compliantly, unwilling to argue with him at such a crucial stage in the process of her dramatic transformation. Her spirits lifted a little as the short, flat, wet hair began to lift from her head.
‘You’ve got great hair for this sort of style,’ Vincent said. ‘And your head’s a good shape. You’ll love it because it’s so easy.’
Bonnie had lived with her greying parting for several weeks, torn between getting it redone and trying to let the grey grow through. Since she’d been back in Australia she’d been increasingly uncomfortable with the way she looked: hair, clothes, make-up, everything. The things that had worked in Switzerland seemed out of place here, unsuited to the life she was living. She needed a more casual style. And the hair, well, it just didn’t seem to work anymore. That morning, knowing she had to meet Will’s flight at twelve-thirty, she had called in desperation for an appointment and raced in hoping for a liveable-with solution to growing out the colour.
‘There is only one solution, really,’ Vincent had said. ‘We just cut it, like, really short.’ He picked up a strand of hair and slid his fingers down the shaft, stopping at the point where the grey began. ‘Like to here.’
Bonnie gulped. ‘That’s awfully short.’
He shrugged. ‘That’s your only option – that or waiting until the regrowth is longer.’ Bonnie’s stomach lurched. ‘A lot of women are having it really short these days,’ Vincent said. ‘I can show you pictures.’ He turned away and brought out a hair magazine called Short Cuts. ‘Look,’ he said, flicking through the pages, ‘cut well it can look great. See, here’s Emma Thompson. Hers is shorter than yours will be, and she looks great, and see – it says here that Emma loves her new style, feels it’s really liberating. Yours won’t be anywhere near as short as that. Hers looks like a number two, and yours is thick so it’ll have more volume.’
Bonnie took a deep breath, closed her eyes, exhaled and opened them again. ‘Okay,’ she said, sounding far more decisive than she felt. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘I think you look fabulous,’ Vincent had said forty-five minutes later as he removed the cape and brushed the hair from her neck. ‘I give you forty-eight hours by which time you’ll love it too,’ and he put his hands reassuringly on her shoulders. ‘If not, come back.’
It was, Bonnie thought, a rather pointless offer – after all, the hair was so short there was nothing Vincent could do about it now except sell her a wig, and Emma Thompson would have a lot to answer for. But as she stood up brushing down her sweater and straightening the waistband of her jeans, she caught a glimpse of herself from another angle, and thought that maybe, just maybe, she might look all right. Jeans, sweater, very short silver hair – it was so unlike her, but perhaps that was just what she needed.
The first of the passengers began to straggle out into the lounge and as Bonnie stood up she caught sight of him almost immediately. His height helped, and his relaxed, confident manner always seemed to make him stand out from a crowd. Will had a commanding presence just like his elder brother, but in Jeff it had seemed perfectly natural, because he had the whole successful businessman look: greying hair, three-piece suits, confident gestures, authority oozing from every pore. Will, on the other hand, looked younger than his forty-three years, and his light brown hair, almost collar length, fell across his forehead. He was wearing jeans, a black t-shirt and a leather jacket, and looked more like a film director than a stockbroker.
He saw Bonnie immediately and headed towards her, a big grin on his face. It was the first time she’d seen him since Zurich, when he had stayed on after the funeral to help her sort out Jeff’s affairs. Bonnie felt the prick of grief-induced tears as Will put down his laptop bag and hugged her. To strangers the brothers had not looked a lot alike, but to anyone who knew them well the resemblance was strong, and more than skin deep. It hit her like a bolt of heat.
‘You look fabulous, Bon,’ he said, hugging her and then holding her at arm’s length to look at her. ‘I almost didn’t recognise you. So cool! I love the hair!’
She smiled, relaxing quite suddenly. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really, the hair, the clothes – the whole lot. You look younger, really cool and … you look like you’re coping.’
Bonnie said, ‘I’m coping. It’s hard going but yes I’m coping. And you look great, Will, I’m so glad to see you.’ She hugged him again. ‘How long are you here for?’
‘Just the two nights. I’ve got meetings all day tomorrow and then I’m off to Tokyo, and back to Hong Kong.’
Bonnie slipped her arm through his as they walked towards the baggage carousel. ‘And how come you haven’t got some gorgeous female in tow?’
He grinned. ‘I have now,’ he said, squeezing her arm against his side. ‘My favourite sister-in-law.’
‘Your only sister-in-law.’
‘Don’t quibble. Anyway, the last gorgeous female suddenly realised that I hadn’t been lying when I’d warned her that I wasn’t interested in settling down. It took her three months.’
‘Smart woman.’ Bonnie smiled again. ‘Some of the others have taken longer to catch on.’
Will grabbed his suitcase from the carousel and swung it onto the floor. ‘Jeff was the steady one in the family,’ he said with a grin. ‘It was up to me to be different, create a counterpoint. Here we are, there’s just this one bag. Let’s go.’
‘How about I take you to lunch somewhere nice before we go home,’ Bonnie said. ‘I’ve got a friend staying with me and I want to talk to you about something before we go back to the house.’
They sat at the same table she had booked for the first lunch with Fran and Sylvia. She liked the fact that even when the place was busy it was reasonably quiet. No distracting music, almost never any small children, an environment where noisy conversations were rare and when they did occur the carpets and soft furnishings soaked up the edge of the noise. Beyond the windows the river, steely grey, was ruffled by the wind, the sky overcast and threatening rain.
‘So,’ Will began, after they had both ordered, ‘are you really coping okay?’
‘Yes,’ Bonnie said with a nod. ‘I think I am now. The first weeks were a nightmare, but recently things have improved dramatically. I still miss him so much, Will, but I am starting to get my life together again.’
Will tasted the wine and nodded to the waiter to pour it. ‘So what made the difference? Just time?’
‘Partly. But I met up with a couple of old friends, my best friends from school, actually. We hadn’t seen each other for nearly forty years, but it’s changed everything.’ She paused. ‘That’s what I want to talk to you about.’
‘You want to trust me with your women friends?’
Bonnie laughed. ‘No way! Look, this is all very vague but both these women are really terrific at what they do and I was feeling useless, not good at anything. Then a couple of weeks ago I realised … well, what I’m good at is what they both lack, business sense. I can really see their potential and I’ve got this germ of an idea that I’m playing with. I need to talk it through. I think it could really take off but …’
‘But what?’ Will asked, unfolding his serviette as the waiter began to unfold Bonnie’s. She waved him away, taking it herself and spreading it across her lap.
‘Jeff was always telling me I should have a business of my own; I never did, of course.’
‘But you were invaluable in his.’
‘So he always said. I know I helped him, but it was Jeff who did it. I was just a sounding board.’
Will picked up his knife and fork and paused, looking up at her. ‘I think you’re underestimating yourself,’ he said. ‘I don’t think that’s how Jeff saw it, and it’s certainly not the way he talked about it. You’re a very smart woman with terrific business and financial sense. Because you didn’t take the final decisions doesn’t mean you couldn’t have done so. He always said that he would never have got his first two compan
ies off the ground without you. In the end, when you wanted to wind things up you did take big decisions, decisions that would have had plenty of other people in a spin.’
‘You helped me.’
‘I was there. But you made the decisions on the shares, the property investments. You made sound decisions and you made them very quickly.’
‘Did I? It was such an awful time it’s all a bit of a blur.’ She looked down and took a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m thinking of starting a business now.’
‘With friends?’ he asked, a flicker of scepticism crossing his face. ‘Always risky.’
‘Maybe, but I think it’s all in the way it’s set up and that’s what I need to talk through with you. I want you to tell me what you think and whether it could work.’
It was a disappointment to Irene that Marjorie had turned out to be a snorer. She lay in the darkness listening to the aggressive rise and fall of the snores that turned the stillness into something resembling a motor vehicle workshop. Marjorie at night, Hamish by day – what an exhausting holiday this was turning out to be.
‘Shut up, Marjorie, you’re snoring, turn over,’ Irene hissed across the hotel bedroom, and Marjorie, with an affronted ‘Hhhrrrump’, turned on her side and promptly started snoring again, just as loudly but in a different tone. So much for all that rubbish about people only snoring when they lie on their backs, thought Irene, getting up and wandering to the window.
She drew back the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the balcony. The air was soft and still, filled with the scent of the pines and the hot residue of the day: sun lotion, unidentifiable but tempting foods, the briny smell of the sea and the dry and dusty heat itself. In front of her the sea stretched dark, fathomless, lit in the distance by the moon glinting off its surface. On the horizon the pinpoint lights of fishing boats barely moved on the still water.
Irene sat down on one of the banana lounges, musing whether it would be comfortable enough to sleep on. Unlikely, she thought, pondering the prospect of dragging her mattress out and putting it on the tiles. The idea appealed to her but she didn’t quite have the energy. She didn’t like this hotel as much as she’d liked the villa. There was something international and impersonal about it, but there was still a week of island travel ahead before they returned to the peace and comfort of the villa. Maybe when they got back there she would get a room to herself. There was plenty of space and she and Marjorie had only shared because that’s what they’d agreed back in Australia. Sometime during the course of the next week she would suggest it, but carefully – Marjorie could be touchy at times.
