by Liz Byrski
Heather shrugged. ‘He’s a man, they see things differently. It was a horrible mess. I suppose you could say I had a breakdown. Adam looked after me, doing all those things he hates, taking responsibility, doing the practical stuff, and holding off Mum and Barbara so they wouldn’t ask questions. We both thought they’d have a fit if they found out I’d been involved with a man who had a wife and children.’ She laughed, leaning back in her chair. ‘Weird. I mentioned it to Barb the other week and she didn’t turn a hair. Times have changed so much.’
It was something, but Jill was sure that there was more. ‘And that’s all?’
‘Yes, it’s Adam – being himself and not being able to get the past in perspective.’
Jill sighed, still unconvinced. ‘Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to hang in there and wait until he comes through it.’
‘You could be tougher with him, about the other stuff, the opting out,’ Heather said, signalling to the waiter.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You take on so much, you’re such a tower of strength for him; I sometimes think he takes advantage of that.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. You could stop doing that.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, Adam, lovely as he is, is very indecisive and hates taking responsibility. In the orchestra he has to. At home you pick all that up, and he doesn’t have to.’
‘You mean I’m contributing to it?’
‘Yes, actually, I do,’ Heather said, looking embarrassed now. ‘I’m not blaming you, but I know how frustrating he can be and I think you let him get away with murder. You’re super responsible, so he doesn’t have to be.’ She hesitated, looking away and then back at Jill. ‘I’m sorry, it’s not my business. I shouldn’t interfere.’
‘Go on,’ Jill said. ‘I asked, just go on.’
Heather paused while they ordered cappuccinos and the waiter took away their plates. ‘Adam’s always had me and Mum and Barb to rely on. He always did his bit, housework, shopping and so on, never shirked that, never grumbled, but he always had to be told, or asked. He never initiated anything, just waited for things to happen or to be told what to do. And, of course, we kept on asking and telling, and so did Yvette, by the way. So he was always surrounded by women who ran his life for him. We’re all the same, Mum, Barb, me, Yvette and now you. I often wonder what would have happened if one of us had stopped taking the initiative, stopped running things. If he were left to . . . to trip over reality, so to speak.’
Jill sat in silence staring at the pepper mill in the centre of the table. ‘If I stopped making sure everything runs smoothly, you mean?’
‘Yes. Stopped reminding him to pick up his tail suit from the cleaners, or jogging his memory about rehearsals, or reminding him to go to the dentist . . .’
‘Or getting his car serviced, or doing things he promised to do with the kids.’
‘Yes, all that. The thing is, of course, that it would be so hard for someone like you or me to do that. To hold back and let him, as I said . . . let him trip over reality. But who knows, it might just work.’
‘You may be right,’ Jill said thoughtfully.
‘I suppose,’ Heather continued, ‘it’s the sort of thing that’s made me avoid getting into a relationship again. I have this horrible habit of tying myself in knots and then feeling trapped by my own behaviour.’
Jill leaned forward. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I try to be the perfect woman, anticipate what they want, do all the looking after, take responsibility for making everything work, but in the long term it doesn’t work for me and I start to resent the burden. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ Jill said.
‘I resent the fact that I have to have my head cluttered with stuff that should really be someone else’s responsibility, and I end up feeling they’re to blame. I resent the fact that I can’t do my job properly because running the relationship occupies my headspace and uses all my energy.’ She shrugged. ‘But that’s just me, it’s probably different for you. You seem to take it all in your stride.’
Jill shook her head, thinking of her own mother. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I struggle with it and spend a lot of time feeling guilty for not being able to take it all in my stride. So what about Ellis, Heather?’ she asked, anxious now to take the attention away from herself. ‘Is this . . . I mean, are you . . . ?’
‘Are we sleeping together?’
Jill blushed. ‘That’s not exactly what I meant, although it had crossed my mind.’
‘We’re not, but I think . . . I hope . . . we might. I can’t work out what he wants.’
‘Sounds like you’re doing what you just described, working out what he wants in order to deliver it. So the obvious question is, have you worked out what you want?’
‘I’m so bad at knowing what I want from anything outside my job. And, as I said, I gave up on relationships a long time ago. But this . . .’ She stopped.
‘But this is Ellis, so it’s different?’
‘Yes, I think it is really. Despite the decades I feel as though I still know him, and know him well. As though it would be . . . safe, I suppose. He actually makes me feel safe and that seems important right now.’
‘Well, then?’
‘It’s still awkward, though. The terror of intimacy, sex after all this time, taking one’s clothes off again, being that vulnerable. Running away seems tempting but then when I’m with him . . .’ She paused and looked straight at Jill. ‘I can’t believe I’m talking to you like this.’
‘There’s always a first time,’ Jill said. ‘Like you said earlier, it’s shaken us all up. I wish I could meet Ellis.’
‘We could have dinner,’ Heather said, suddenly excited. ‘I’d love you to meet him, Jill.’
Jill shook her head. ‘I don’t think there’s any way Adam would agree to have dinner with Ellis.’
As the train pulled out of the station heading north to Chatswood and home, Jill rested her head against the window and tried to figure out how the gulf between Heather and herself had developed in the first place. Was it her fault? Today they had talked like friends. Had a phone call and a conversation over lunch been enough to eliminate the distance between them or had they needed a violent crime as the catalyst?
A crowd of teenagers in school uniform jostled each other for seats, slinging their bags onto the overhead racks. Jill closed her eyes, waiting for them to settle, remembering what Heather had said about the compulsion to do what she thought was expected, the guilt that came as one constantly fell short of the gold standard and the resentment that followed. Was this at the core of the crippling formula of love manifested as domestic and social control that had driven her own mother?
The household had been Pamela’s personal domain and attempts to introduce individuality into any part of it amounted to treason. She chose everything in the house, from the polished wood floors, chintz upholstery and prints of English hunting scenes, to the powder-blue kitchen cupboards and the pale green tiles in the bathroom. Even Jill’s bedroom, with its rose-covered wallpaper, frilled pink bedspread and kidney-shaped dressing table with a triple mirror, was her mother’s selection. The only exception was her father’s study, for which he had been allowed to choose his own desk and some Australian bush prints.
Pamela had high standards when it came to order and cleanliness, standards maintained with the help of a woman who came in for three hours on Wednesday mornings to polish the silver, clean windows and scrub the floors in the bathroom and laundry. Good wives, according to Pamela, were responsible for maintaining the family’s image and managing each person’s social, work and school commitments. Not an unreasonable load, of course, for someone with one very well-behaved child, paid help, plenty of money and no job.
‘You need to remember this, Jill,’ Pamela told her as her father drove them home after her university graduation, ‘home and family are what matters. That’
s what you’ll be judged on. You can have your fancy arts degree and your independence, but it means nothing if you can’t manage a home and family.’
Jill did want to be a good wife, but it was another twenty-odd years before she met the right person. Coming to marriage so late it seemed particularly important to get it right. When she and Adam met she was living in a tiny, very neat apartment which Adam said reminded him of a rather nice hotel suite. He had just bought a small but cute Federation cottage that needed lots of work and which he thought he might renovate. It didn’t take Jill long to fill it with her choice of furniture and pictures, to change the rather dark curtains and set about repainting the interior walls. Adam had thought it a big improvement and was glad to hand the house over to her. It was simple at first but with the arrival of Toby and then Daisy they needed more space. They sold the cottage and Jill’s apartment and bought the house, a big house, which was a good thing because then Kirsty joined them. So they had two small children and a teenager and two full-time jobs.
Jill knew she was pushing her luck, she knew women could have it all, but trying to have it all at the same time was risky. But the biological clock was ticking and if she didn’t have it all now she wouldn’t have it ever. The nature of the plan, as she had seen it back then, was that things would get easier as the children ceased to be dependent toddlers and went to school. Where the hell did she get that idea? And why hadn’t she factored in the psychological and biological effects of ageing?
The train moved off, and the teenagers whooped and punched each other and fell about over the seats in laughing heaps as it gathered speed. Perhaps Heather was right, she had colluded in the aspect of Adam’s behaviour that most distressed her. Maybe she had even set it up. She had assumed that he needed her, needed her to be as she was being, as she had been from day one of their time together. Now she wondered if perhaps what he really wanted was the chance to be needed himself.
TEN
‘I’m going to have a party,’ Barbara said. ‘A birthday party, before I go on this terrible course which may well kill me, but don’t mention that to Heather, she thinks I’m mad anyway.’
‘I doubt she thinks anything of the sort,’ Adam said, undoing his tie and opening the top button of his dress shirt. ‘She’s probably just surprised. It’s not something she, nor I for that matter, ever imagined you’d do.’
‘Me neither, but I’m doing it.’
‘And it is wonderful,’ Stefan said. ‘I admire this very much going to another country. The challenge, you know?’ He hesitated. ‘For me . . . my situation, it kept me sane. For you, I think it is a wonderful adventure.’
‘Thank you, Stefan, I think so too.’ She glanced at the kitchen clock. ‘Now, I’ll make you both some tea before you get on the road.’
The orchestra had been playing a single matinee at one of the vineyards, and Adam and Stefan had collected Barbara on the way there and brought her home again, before the drive back to Sydney. Adam opened the kitchen door and walked out onto the deck. There had been a brief shower as they drove back to Morpeth and the smell of damp grass hung on the dusky evening air.
‘Going to have a quick look at the garden,’ he called over his shoulder, and sauntered down the steps and along the path.
‘So you’ll come then, Stefan?’ Barbara asked, getting the mugs out of the cupboard.
‘Excuse me?’
‘You’ll come . . . to my party, I mean?’
‘Ah, but of course, if you ask me I’m honoured. You will have all your family?’
‘Yes, and a few of George’s too, I hope. He’s organising it. Nothing big, just family and a few friends.’
She didn’t add that she was counting on Heather bringing the mysterious Ellis, whom she had so far kept hidden. If she could get both Adam and Ellis in the same place with some excellent wine and food, it might help – besides which, Barbara was dying to meet Ellis. She had a niggling feeling that she was missing something significant in all this, that she knew something about it that was simply eluding her. She must be getting more forgetful. The ESL course would be good for keeping the Alzheimer’s at bay.
‘Aren’t we a bit old for parties?’ George had said when she told him.
‘You might be but I’m not,’ Barbara replied. ‘And frankly, if you’re not too old to trek off to China, you ought to be able to survive a small birthday party. Look, everyone’s been really upset by the shooting. It feels as though we’re falling apart. It’s weeks ago now and we need something nice to happen. And anyway, I’ve never had a birthday party before.’
‘Never?’ George said in amazement. ‘Not even as a child?’
Barbara shook her head. ‘My parents didn’t believe in parties. I’m sure I told you. They were in a very odd and strict little religious sect, and fun wasn’t part of it. No parties, no dancing, the only music was from the piano, and I was only allowed to play hymns. Roy and I had a very bleak childhood.’ She paused. ‘You know, Roy struggled against our parents for years, particularly Dad, and yet when he became a parent himself he seemed determined to re-enact that bleakness and austerity.’
‘Probably the only way he knew how to be a father,’ George said. ‘We often seemed destined to repeat all the things our parents did, the things we swore we’d never do.’
Barbara shrugged. ‘Probably. And of course the polio left him so weak he couldn’t do much. He was very bitter. It sounds awful but I’m thankful Roy died when he did. Adam was eleven and being the eldest child and a boy he’d already copped the worst of it. How would he and Heather have turned out growing up with a father like that?’
‘Hmm,’ George said. ‘Well, you did and you turned out all right.’
‘I suppose so, but I do wonder how much of Roy’s shadow has fallen across Adam’s life.’
George raised his eyebrows. ‘Adam seems fine to me.’
‘In many ways,’ Barbara said, ‘Adam is wonderful and not at all like Roy or our father, but I sometimes think the darkness of his early years has had a big effect on him.’
‘Can’t see it myself,’ George said with a shrug. ‘You worry too much about him and Heather. They’re fine people. Anyhow, a birthday party is one of life’s special treats and you must obviously have one and I will organise it.’ And since then he’d been busy on the computer designing an invitation which he was about to send out to everyone on Barbara’s list.
‘Jill and Adam and the children will need to stay the night,’ she’d said, ‘and maybe Kirsty and Nick too. That will fill up my place, so how would you feel about having Heather and her new old friend to stay with you?’
‘Is that one bedroom or two?’ George asked with a grin.
‘Not sure yet,’ Barbara said, ‘but I’ll find out. I’m hoping it’s one.’
‘You haven’t even met this bloke yet,’ George said. ‘You might feel like Adam does.’
‘I doubt it,’ Barbara said. ‘In fact, I’m determined to like him. He seems to be just what Heather needs at the moment. And Adam’ll get over it; whatever happened was donkey’s years ago. He’ll come round.’
Alone at the bottom of the garden, Adam sat on the damp timber seat enjoying the stillness and the silence. Until Barbara had made her move to the country it had never occurred to him that he might want to do something similar. Now, each time he came here, he longed for his own bolthole; somewhere green and quiet, away from the city and suburbs. It wasn’t on the cards yet, of course, they were both trapped by work, but when the kids grew up and left home, maybe he and Jill . . .
Adam leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. He and Jill, what had they come to? Her move out of the bedroom was such a dramatic gesture; more dramatic, surely, than the situation warranted and so dramatic that he had no idea how to respond to it. Now it hung between them, a cone of silence that grew larger and more oppressive as each day passed. Adam sighed with frustration at his own failure; he was a useless husband and father, a useless brother, a
useless musician. No wonder Jill moved out of the bedroom, presumably for the same reasons as Yvette had left him; strong women escaping from the leaden burden of his failure. And he was still awash in his own inertia, unable to claw back what was most precious to him.
When Yvette left, his sadness had been tempered with relief: the relationship had been in rapid decline and her affair had finally turned it sour. But losing Kirsty had been devastating. The one bright spot, Adam reminded himself now, was that Kirsty had chosen to come back to him, so he must have done something right. But if Jill left . . . he couldn’t even bring himself to think about losing her, losing Daisy and Toby. He had to find a way out from this torpor that made him feel as though he were living under a pile of wet newspaper.
‘Hey, Adam,’ Stefan called from the verandah. ‘Come drink your tea, we need to get going.’
Adam stood up and brushed a couple of dead leaves from his trousers. Get going. He had to get going. He straightened his back and stretched out his arms, feeling a slight stirring of energy. Get going, Adam, he murmured, get going or you will lose everything and you’ll only have yourself to blame.
When Ellis called Heather to fix a time to meet for coffee in the morning, he was offended that she couldn’t fit him in because she needed to go shopping and then to a meeting, after which she was having lunch with her sister-in-law. ‘I could meet for an hour or so around four o’clock,’ she’d said.
‘And I’ve got a meeting at three thirty. I’ve only got a couple more days in Sydney,’ he protested, ‘and you’re giving priority to shopping and your sister-in-law. You can meet her any time.’
They had finally agreed that she would cook something for dinner at her place that evening and he’d hung up, fairly ungraciously, and killed time alone before going to his meeting with Luke Scriven.
‘What we need first,’ Luke said, ‘are some products – an inspirational CD and a book.’
‘A book?’ Ellis said. ‘What sort of book?’
‘Your book of the journey.’
‘What journey?’
