by Liz Byrski
‘Very scary to do deals with,’ Bonnie said. ‘I think I’ll have to get some.’
‘You don’t need them,’ Lenore countered. ‘You’ve got great eyes. They turn to steel – I was terrified.’
They laughed and Fran thought she would probably survive the next stage of the meeting. But she had no idea what was ahead. It was another hour before they left, an hour in which Lenore challenged everything Fran said. An hour in which she had to argue to defend everything she wanted in the book, and in which Lenore made counter proposals which Fran was driven to argue against. When they finally sat back after reaching an agreement with all Fran’s original ideas intact, she was totally exhausted and extremely irritable.
‘Wonderful! ‘ Lenore said. ‘It’s a winner, Fran, great concept. I know we can do well with this. It’s hard to find new angles for food – there’s so much competition – but yours is a winner.’
Fran’s jaw dropped. ‘But you’ve been arguing with me about everything,’ she said.
‘Devil’s advocate! I need to know you’re clear about it all and that you’ll organise the material, come up with the new recipes, use the historical, literary and sociological material effectively. We have to work together on this, Fran. I needed to be infected with your passion, and now I am. So, what about the title? Did you have one in mind?’
Fran hesitated, struggling with uncertainty about how they’d react. ‘All the years I was thinking about the book, long before it became a reality, I did have a title in mind,’ she said, glancing around the table. ‘But now I think it’s not really suitable.’
‘So what was it?’ Lenore asked, leaning forward, chin on her hands.
‘Well … because it’s obviously about food, and it links attitudes about food to love and sex and eroticism, and then there’s the part about how those things really transcend levels of wealth or poverty, I’d thought of calling it Food, Sex and Money.’
Jack flinched and Lenore drew her breath in sharply through her teeth. ‘Food, Sex and Money. I love it. What do you think, Jack?’ she asked. ‘Does it do it for you?’
Jack paused, frowning slightly. ‘It does and it doesn’t. I mean, I think it’s valid as a title but I’d be concerned about perceptions. It might not set the right tone. This is a prestige publication … I’m not sure. People might be drawn to it for the wrong reasons.’
‘What do you mean “the wrong reasons”?’ Lenore asked.
Jack shook his head, trying to find the right words. ‘I suppose I mean that they might be buying it either because of the possibly sleazy connotations around sex and money, or, indeed, not buying it for the same reasons.’
‘I think they’d buy it in droves with a title like that,’ Lenore said.
‘I think Jack’s right,’ Bonnie said. ‘It’s risky.’
‘Risky or risqué?’ Lenore said with a laugh. ‘Come on, guys, it’s a great title.’
‘I think they’re right, Lenore,’ Fran said. ‘Although it’s been in my head for so long, I’m not really comfortable with it now. Maybe we could have food and love in the title, instead of food and sex.’
Lenore raised her eyebrows. ‘Not suggesting that they mean the same thing, I hope,’ she said, looking hard at Fran, who blushed.
‘No, but love is in the book – you know, the preparation of food is often about love, and … it’s often about duty, so –’
‘Food, love and duty!’ Lenore cut in. ‘I like that. Not as much as the other one but it works. Jack? Bonnie?’
Yes,’ said Jack. ‘Connotations of history and tradition, good – I like that.’
‘Me too,’ Bonnie said. ‘It’s much better.’
Fran took a deep breath, ‘Okay, then?’
‘Done,’ Lenore said. ‘I still prefer the first one, but I bow to your collective sensitivities. Food, Love and Duty, it is.’
‘Thanks, Bon, you were brilliant,’ Fran said, leaning wearily against the side of the lift. ‘I’ve no idea how you managed it. That woman is a nightmare, and I have to work with her.’
Bonnie smiled. ‘She was a tough one, but I liked her, liked them both. I think it’ll be okay, Fran. You do your bit, she’ll do hers. And as long as you deliver she’ll stay off your back.’ She swapped her briefcase to her other hand. ‘While you were busy with Lenore, Jack and I were discussing the Boatshed. I’m going to take them down there tomorrow. Want to come?’
‘I think I’ll take a raincheck,’ Fran said with a grin. ‘Sylvia’s going to come and see the house and then take me shopping for curtain fabric. I don’t think I can face another marathon with Lenore quite so soon.’ They walked together out of the lift and into the bright cold of the spring afternoon.
‘Do you think Sylvia seems different?’ Bonnie said as they reached the car.
Fran shrugged. ‘Not really. She’s probably just adjusting to being back. I thought she looked very well when we met her at the airport. More relaxed, I suppose.’
‘Mmm … you’re probably right. Maybe it’s just my imagination but she looks like the cat that got the cream.’
‘After all those years with the Incredible Sulk, if anyone deserves the cream it’s Sylvia,’ Fran said. ‘Maybe she met some rich and handsome Englishman who swept her off her feet. Has she made up her mind about the Boatshed?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bonnie said. ‘I didn’t like to ask her last night but I’ll talk to her this evening. By the way, after you’d gone last night I did notice she’d bought a mobile phone, quite a flash one, and someone called her on it. She and Mum and I were in the living room and when it rang, Sylvia went out of the room to take the call.’
‘There you are then,’ Fran said triumphantly. ‘I bet you anything you like she’s met someone.’
‘Not so soon after Colin, surely?’ Bonnie said.
‘It’s not soon, really,’ Fran said. ‘Sylvia and Colin were over a long time ago. It was just that the separation was a long time coming.’
‘Maybe,’ Bonnie said. ‘Well, good luck to her. I hope he’s young and cute.’
*
Irene was determined not to let Bonnie’s attitude deter her from enjoying herself with Hamish. She felt it was really too silly for words, as well as being quite hurtful and insulting. The only concession she had been prepared to make to Bonnie’s sensitivities was that she had agreed with Hamish that he would not spend a night at the house just yet. She resented it somewhat – after all, it was her home and she felt she should be free to do as she wanted in it. If this had happened a year ago it wouldn’t have been an issue. Irene was sure that had Bonnie been safely in Zurich with Jeff she would have been delighted to know that her mother had someone special in her life.
In her efforts to be fair, Irene had thought very seriously about how she would feel if Bonnie brought a man back to the house, and she realised that it would take some getting used to, but it certainly wasn’t something she’d disapprove of. How would she feel if she bumped into Bonnie’s lover in the mornings? Uncomfortable at first, she thought, but she’d accommodate it, and that’s what Bonnie would have to do. Just the same, she’d decided to hold off for a while to give her daughter time to adjust, and because she really didn’t want Hamish to find himself in an uncomfortable situation. A few nights earlier, Bonnie must have heard them come home after they had been to a concert. Hamish had left about eleven o’clock, but the next morning it was clear from Bonnie’s stilted manner, and the way she kept glancing around surreptitiously as though expecting Hamish to materialise beside her, that she assumed he had stayed the night.
‘Tell her to mind her own business,’ Marjorie had said. ‘It’s your house. If she doesn’t like it she can stay somewhere else.’
‘She’s my daughter and I love her, and it is her home too,’ Irene said. ‘You’re not a mother, Marjorie. Despite all your training you don’t understand what a minefield that relationship can be.’
‘No, thank God,’ Marjorie said. ‘Far too complicated. All the same, Irene,
Bonnie mustn’t be allowed to spoil this for you and Hamish. You have every right to do what you want. Bonnie should be happy for you, all your friends are, even an old harridan like me.’
‘I think she will be eventually,’ Irene said. ‘I suppose it’s a surprise for her, and in a way I think it’s making her feel the loss of Jeff all over again. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but at the same time I am getting a bit fed up with all this.’
‘She might just be jealous, I suppose,’ Marjorie said, ‘although being jealous of your eighty-year-old mother is a rather extreme reaction for a mature woman.’
Irene conceded that there might be an element of jealousy along with loneliness for Jeff in Bonnie’s reaction, but she thought it was more subtle and complex than that. ‘It’s not the idea of me having a man friend she objects to,’ she said, ‘it’s the fact that we sleep together. She’s shocked, and I think it’s more than just the shock everyone feels when they have to acknowledge that their parents have a sex life. The real problem for her is that Hamish and I are old and old people having sex is somehow indecent or obscene. We’re supposed to be past it.’
‘Human beings are never past it,’ snorted Marjorie.
‘Obviously! But you know what it’s like – younger women think we’re old crones, that we used to be women but aren’t anymore.’
‘Bonnie’s no spring chicken herself,’ Marjorie said. ‘I wonder what age she thinks is the dividing line.’
Irene shrugged. ‘Goodness knows. Anyway, Sylvia’s back now. A third person in the house makes it a little easier.’
Sylvia’s return had certainly made a difference. The careful dances that Irene and Bonnie had been performing around each other were less apparent, the awkward silences were diluted somewhat and Sylvia’s was a calming presence. Irene hoped she would stay, take the guest cottage and settle down. Now that Bonnie had the business, Irene had plenty of time to herself and Bonnie’s friendship with Sylvia and Fran was an added pleasure for her too. All she wanted now was to sort out the present tension. She needed equality in the relationship with Hamish and while she could only stay at his place it was too one-sided. He might start to think about her moving in and that was definitely not on the cards. Love and companionship were enriching her independent life, but cohabitation was the fast route to domestic disharmony.
Irene ran her fingers over a beautiful length of pale green silk that Sylvia had brought her from Hong Kong. ‘I know you love this colour,’ she’d said, ‘so I thought I could make it up for you – a dressing gown, or even a jacket. I could line it with the same colour or perhaps cream, if you like.’
Irene slipped off her jumper, stepped out of her skirt and stood in front of the bedroom mirror in her slip. She thought her skin looked like that crumpled fabric that was so popular at the moment. You wouldn’t get old women wearing it, that’s for sure: there’d be a puzzle to work out where the fabric ended and the skin began. She picked up the green silk and draped it around herself. It fell in sensuous silky folds over her body and she smiled at herself in the mirror. She was a different woman from the one who had set off to Greece, more like the old Irene who for so long had been aware of herself as a joyfully sexual being.
Dropping the silk she stared again at her body, the body of an old woman and entirely lacking sex appeal, but a body that once again was providing her with sensual and sexual pleasure. She understood that Hamish loved her for herself but she couldn’t really understand why he loved her body and at first she had been alert for the slightest sign of disappointment, but his appreciation was evident. He loved her and wanted her, just as she loved and wanted him. He had told her that he too feared her response to his body, while she had been delighted by it. She had thought that sex and sensuality, tenderness and love were over, only to discover those precious gifts were hers once again. And, despite what Bonnie might want, Irene was determined to enjoy them to the full.
TWENTY-THREE
Sylvia was back in Australia only twenty-four hours before the cocoon of pleasure and self-indulgence established in Hong Kong melted away, and she found the new woman was still faced with the old dilemmas. In Will’s apartment she had felt like a goddess, but she had also faced the reality of her age. The full-length mirror had revealed a much less than perfect body, a complexion showing the ravages of time, a woman looking good, very good, but also, very obviously, in her late fifties.
Will was an adventurer, she too had been having an adventure, and she was determined to exit with the magic intact. She would not hang on until he was ready, as he inevitably would be, to discard her. And so, despite his pleading with her to stay on, she stood her ground and insisted on travelling home as planned. Will began to talk about his next visit to Melbourne, and about keeping in touch – he would call her daily, he said, he would need to hear her voice because without her he would be bereft.
‘And I bought you this,’ he said, on that last morning, handing her a small silver mobile phone, with a pack of phone cards. ‘I don’t want to call you on Bonnie’s number, that would be very awkward.’ Sylvia had never owned a mobile before, although Colin had one, and Bonnie and Fran used theirs all the time. ‘I’ll call often,’ he said, ‘and text you too.’ And then he had shown her how to use SMS, and she smiled and stroked his hair and teased him about his intensity when he explained preemptive text and how to change symbols and insert numbers.
Against her better judgment, Will had persuaded her that it was best to say nothing to Bonnie at this stage. ‘Hearing about you and me is probably the last thing she needs right now,’ he said, explaining that he had spoken to her on the phone a few days earlier and she seemed upset, maybe jealous, about Irene’s new friendship with Hamish.
And although Sylvia thought Bonnie’s reaction was probably based on something more complex than jealousy, she agreed to keep the secret for a while. It couldn’t hurt, she thought, for once they left Hong Kong this relationship would have a very short life. Back home in Perth, Will would soon find another, younger object of his affections. The mobile phone connection would be short and sweet, shorter perhaps than the life of one phone card. And so when Fran and Bonnie met her at the airport, Sylvia told them at length about England, about Kim and Brendan and the grandchildren, and only briefly about her time sightseeing in Hong Kong.
‘And Will looked after you well?’ Bonnie asked.
‘Wonderfully well,’ Sylvia said. ‘He was a delightful host and tour guide.’
‘He’s a lovely man,’ Bonnie said. ‘And he’s been so good to me since Jeff died. Mum’s fond of him too. She’s back home now, of course, and looking forward to seeing you.’
The following evening, after Bonnie had given her a blow by blow account of the contract meeting with the Bannisters, Sylvia opened up the subject of the Boatshed, telling her first about Kim and about her own dilemma over the future. Bonnie looked stricken.
‘But you wouldn’t, would you?’ she asked. ‘Your life is here. Everything, everyone that matters to you is here …’
‘Well, not exactly, Bon. Obviously Kim, Brendan, Charlotte and James aren’t here, and that’s what this is all about.’
‘Oh yes, of course, but all the same …’ Bonnie blushed at her own insensitivity. ‘Would you really want to live in England? What sort of life would you have there?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to work out,’ Sylvia said. ‘It’s a big decision and I don’t want to make it in a hurry, which, of course, brings me to the Boatshed.’
‘You don’t want to do it, do you?’
‘It’s really a matter of whether you’re able to meet me halfway,’ Sylvia said. ‘It’s not the same for me as for Fran. She has her profile to invest and that’s something you can actually build the business around. Obviously Fran has to be in for the long term if she is going to be in at all. It’s different for me. I think I could get the gallery going, and I’d love to work with you, but at this stage I can’t make a long-term commitment. If you’re happy with
that, I promise I’ll work my bum off getting the gallery up and running and, if I do decide to go to England, I won’t leave until it’s going well and we can find someone to take it over.’
Bonnie shot out of her chair and flung her arms around her. ‘Yes,’ she cried, ‘yes yes, of course. I understand, and it’s fine. Not as perfect as having you sign away the rest of your life, but terrific just the same. You’re on, Sylvia. I’ll put you on the payroll from next week, on the terms we discussed before. And I warn you I shall be utterly ruthless in manipulating you into staying.’ She bounded out to the kitchen and returned almost immediately with a bottle of champagne and three glasses. ‘Let’s celebrate,’ she said. ‘Mum? Mum, where are you? Come and have a glass of champagne to celebrate Sylvia working at the Boatshed.’
Irene wandered through from the study and briefly it seemed that the tension between mother and daughter was forgotten as they drank the toast.
‘I’m so glad, Sylvia,’ Irene said as Bonnie went to phone Fran and give her the good news. ‘I was only next door and I couldn’t help overhearing. It sounds like a wise decision, but don’t let Bonnie bully you. In the long run you may decide that being with your family is what you want.’
‘I think I’ve given up being bullied,’ Sylvia said, ‘but I know what you mean. I certainly felt bullied by Kim, and Bonnie’s very good at getting her own way.’
Irene nodded. ‘Exactly. Mothers and daughters, we all think we know what’s best for each other. But Bonnie can’t get her own way about everything, and she’s going to find that out sooner than she expects.’
*
The birthday party was Caro’s idea, born as she sat in the kitchen crossing days off the calendar and wishing she had stayed on at work. Not that she had the energy for it, but she was bored shitless with nothing to do and as soon as she started something, anything, she just wanted to lie down. Four weeks to go, twenty-eight days, possibly more, of rolling around like a beached whale, eating like a horse and having to ask Mike to paint her toenails. Her concentration was shot to pieces, she could barely get through half a page of Marian Keyes’s latest book that normally she’d be sitting up half the night to finish, and she seemed to spend most of her life peeing.
