by Liz Byrski
Diane thought about the woman several times during the flight, and observed her closely as she walked past on the way to the toilets. She had a relaxed air and seemed unconcerned by what people might think of her; as though she were saying to the world, ‘Yes, I’m an old woman and if you don’t like it that’s your problem’. Diane wondered if, in the process of ageing, there was a cut-off point at which one stopped worrying about one’s appearance, about trying to look younger, or thinner, or more attractive, and became happy just to be seen as oneself. She couldn’t imagine such a minimalist approach to appearance, one which didn’t factor in how others – men, mainly – would look at her.
Diane splashed her face with water and went through to the kitchen to make some tea. She had been away for two weeks and the house felt like a morgue. It had seemed big and lonely before, when Charlene moved out, but in those days she was living nearby with Shaun and so it was different. Now her daughter was really gone, gone for a long time. Gerry was gone for good, and gone too was the energy that she had drawn from her anger. She wondered if she would feel better when she got over leaving Charlene, if the place would feel more like home again, but she doubted it. What did she need with a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house anyway? There was no one to come and stay with her and she never entertained these days. The whole battle with Gerry about keeping it had just been part of her need to get back at him for hurting her. Now it seemed like a waste of time.
Diane carried her tea back to the bedroom, sat on the bed and switched on the news. Charlene would be getting ready for work now. At least she was in a safe place with nice people.
‘It sounds like a good idea,’ Charlene had said when Diane suggested the move to the Gold Coast. ‘Although I can’t imagine why you’re still talking to Shaun after what he did to me.’
It was at that point that Diane knew it was time to end the denial. The conversation that followed bore no similarity to any that had gone before. She listed the drugs, the lies, the excuses, the very real dangers of Charlene’s situation, and the painful truth of why the relationship with Shaun had come to an end.
‘This really is your last chance, Charlene,’ she’d said finally. ‘It’s a chance to start again, and sort your life out. And frankly, if you don’t take it, I don’t want to know anymore. You can move out, find a place, do what you want, but I’ve had enough – you’re not staying here.’
And while she had known she was doing the right thing, the responsible thing, she had felt like the biggest bitch of a mother on the face of the earth. And she was relieved and amazed when her daughter acquiesced and, three weeks later, when they stepped onto the Tarmac at Coolangatta, Charlene was excited at the prospect of working in a glamorous resort. Diane, meanwhile, felt drained by the events of recent weeks. If her daughter were starting a new life, the challenge for Diane was to come to terms with the old one.
She showered, dressed, unpacked the suitcase she’d been too tired to unpack the night before, loaded the washing machine and then poured some muesli into a bowl. She always ate it dry with some yoghurt but this morning she found it hard to swallow, and she pushed the bowl away and went out the back door into the garden. The lawn man was due and it was looking messy and overgrown. She should really get out there and do some gardening, pull out some weeds, prune the roses. Diane loved gardens but loathed gardening.
‘Why am I here?’ she asked herself suddenly and quite loudly, and a couple of parrots who had been sitting on the low branch of the lemon tree fluttered up and away in fright. ‘Why the hell am I here? This is the last place I should be.’ And she turned back to the kitchen, picked up the phone and dialled Gerry’s mobile.
‘Me,’ she said to his voicemail. ‘I want to sell the house. Call me back as soon as possible, we need to talk about it.’ And she put the phone down and picked up her handbag.
It was Monday and she normally went to Heather’s office on Wednesdays and Thursdays, but she needed to get out of the house, and somehow tennis and shopping had lost their appeal.
‘Oh, Diane, thank goodness,’ Heather said as she walked in the door.
A couple of constituents were sitting in reception looking rather disgruntled, and three of the four telephone lines were ringing.
‘Where’s Patsy?’ Diane asked, pulling off her coat.
‘She’s sick. Shaun’s at a meeting, and the Monday volunteer still won’t come in when I’m here in case he gets shot.’
Diane nodded towards the reception area. ‘Have they got appointments?’
‘Yes,’ Heather said. ‘And they’ve been waiting ages, because while I was seeing the person before them I also had to keep answering the phone.’
‘Okay,’ Diane said. ‘You see them and I’ll look after the phones.’
‘You are a saint, Diane,’ Heather said, and walked through to reception. ‘Mr and Mrs Tan, I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. Please come on in now.’ And she led them through into her office.
Diane picked up all three lines, asked two callers to wait, put them on hold and starting dealing with the third, who wanted to know if Heather could help her son with his problems with Centrelink. A vaguely familiar elderly woman came into reception while she was on the phone, and then another line started to ring. The woman’s expression seemed to be asking if she wanted some help, and Diane realised it was Barbara, whom she’d met a couple of times when she’d called in to see Heather.
‘Please,’ she whispered, holding her hand over the mouthpiece and gesturing to the other lines. ‘If you could take that call, put it on hold, and then talk to one of the other two.’
Barbara walked around the counter, sat down beside her, picked up the ringing phone, and the two of them worked on side by side, until the rush seemed to be over and Heather was ushering the Tans, now smiling, out the door.
‘I quite enjoyed that,’ Barbara said later, when she and Diane were in the café where Shaun had dispatched them for a break when he got back from his meeting. ‘I’d forgotten what it was like to be under pressure. I only popped in to say hello as I was in town.’
Diane leaned back in her chair and stretched. ‘I enjoyed it too. I don’t usually go in on Mondays, but I needed something to do this morning. My daughter’s gone up to the Gold Coast to work and it seemed really miserable being alone in the house.’
‘What about your husband?’ Barbara asked.
‘How long have you got?’
‘All the time in the world,’ Barbara said. ‘And I’m a very nosy person, I love hearing about other people’s lives.’
‘I’ll get us some more coffee,’ Diane said.
‘I suppose it could work,’ Heather said. ‘I mean, she’s not my first choice of someone to have around, although she’s nothing like as prickly as she used to be, and she does know the routine.’
‘She’s really much nicer when you get to know her better,’ Shaun said. ‘I think we should give it a try.’
‘Is Charlene still living with her?’
Shaun shook his head. ‘Got a job in a resort on the Gold Coast.’
Heather raised her eyebrows. ‘Gone away to get over you?’
‘Gone away to get a new life,’ Shaun said, looking away. ‘It’ll suit her up there.’
The door to the outer office opened and Barbara and Diane came in laughing. ‘Ah! The dream team,’ Heather called. ‘Come on through.’
‘That’s us,’ Diane said, ‘and we even brought you both some coffee.’ She lifted the cardboard cups out of their holder and set them on Heather’s desk. ‘Large flat white for you, Heather, long mach for Shaun.’
‘Thanks, Diane.’ Heather took the lid off her coffee. ‘Look, we were just talking. Apparently, Patsy’s got rheumatic fever, she’s really quite sick. I was wondering –’
‘Sure,’ Diane cut in, ‘that’s fine. I can stay for the rest of the day.’
‘We were thinking perhaps a bit longer,’ Heather said. ‘Shaun suggested that you might be willing to temp for us. We’d p
ay you, of course, but it would be nice to have someone who knows the office and the routine.’
Diane looked blank for a moment. ‘What . . . you mean . . . are you offering me a job?’
‘Well, yes, until Patsy comes back.’
Diane hesitated, her head spinning. A few weeks ago she was going to leave, but a few weeks ago she was there for different reasons – a few weeks ago lots of things were different. ‘Yes,’ she said, thinking her voice sounded nervous and high. ‘Okay, I’d like that.’
‘She might be away for a while; several weeks, a couple of months, even.’
‘Even better. Would you like me to start now?’
‘You already have,’ Heather said.
‘She’s a very pleasant woman,’ Barbara said as Heather walked her out to her car later. ‘We got on well. She’ll do a good job.’
‘I suppose so,’ Heather said. ‘I’ve never liked her much but she seems to be changing.’
‘She’s had a lot happening recently. Anyway, I’ve invited her to my party, and I hope you’re bringing your Ellis. We’re all dying to meet him.’
Heather pulled a face. ‘Not everyone.’
‘I doubt Adam is going to punch his lights out at my birthday party,’ Barbara said with a grin. She opened her car door and got in. ‘I’ll see you in a fortnight, then. Jill and Adam are coming with the children, and Kirsty and Nick. I can just about squeeze them all in. I thought you and Ellis could stay at George’s place.’
‘Fine,’ Heather said, ‘that’ll be lovely, if George doesn’t mind.’
‘Not in the least, but he needs to know whether to make up one room or two.’
Heather laughed. ‘You can tell him one will be fine. As if you hadn’t already worked that out.’
ELEVEN
‘I hate Nick,’ Daisy said, squirming round in her seat to look back at the object of her hatred, who was driving behind them with Kirsty. ‘Why does he have to come to the party?’
‘Why not?’ Jill asked. ‘I thought you liked Nick.’
‘He has to go everywhere with Kirsty and she doesn’t play with me anymore,’ Daisy whined.
‘Don’t talk rubbish,’ Jill said. ‘Kirsty took you rollerskating the day before yesterday, and last weekend she sat with you while we were out and you played some computer games.’
‘But Nick did too and he came rollerskating. I liked it when Kirsty lived with us and Nick only came sometimes.’
‘Well, you just have to get used to it. Nick makes Kirsty happy.’
‘But he makes me miserable,’ said Daisy with a huge sigh.
‘Ignore it,’ Adam said quietly. ‘She’s bored. She seems to be exceptionally demanding lately.’
‘Maybe we should get her an iPod too,’ Jill said, glancing back at Toby who was in another world, twitching and jerking to the music on his. ‘It certainly reduces the noise levels.’
‘Don’t even mention it, you’ll just get her started on that.’
‘Started on what, Dad? What will I get started on?’
Adam sighed. ‘See what I mean?’ He took his eyes off the road and glanced across at Jill. ‘And you can stop looking so worried. I promise I won’t upset Heather and I’ll be civil to Ellis. In fact, I’ll stay as far away from him as possible. It’s Barb’s birthday and I won’t do anything to spoil it.’
‘I know. I just think it would mean a lot to Heather if you could be friendly.’
‘Friendly is not on, civil is my best offer.’
‘Maybe he’s changed.’
‘Maybe he has,’ said Adam without conviction.
‘You never know, you might find you like him.’
‘And pigs might fly.’
‘Well, I’m dying to meet him,’ Jill said. ‘So is Barb.’
‘Ellis is a funny name,’ Daisy chipped in. ‘Is he the one that shot Aunty Heather?’
Jill sighed. ‘No, Daisy, I told you, it was a mistake, the police mixed him up with someone else.’
‘So is Aunty Heather going to marry him?’
‘No,’ Adam said. ‘Definitely not.’
‘You can’t be absolutely sure of that,’ Jill said quietly.
‘Over my dead body,’ Adam said, and pulled into the inside lane. ‘Okay, we’re stopping for a drink and the toilets.’
‘McDonald’s,’ Daisy shouted very loudly in Toby’s face. ‘McDonald’s, we’re stopping at McDonald’s.’
‘Shut up, moron,’ Toby said, pulling off his earphones and attempting to strangle her.
Adam changed gear and turned into the car park. ‘Okay, you two,’ he shouted above the din, ‘cut it out or no drinks.’
‘You stay here if you like,’ Jill said as the kids piled out of the car, and Kirsty and Nick pulled in alongside them. ‘I’ll go and get the coffees.’
Adam got out and stretched his legs as he watched the children race off ahead and Jill stroll across the car park with Kirsty and Nick. He was wordlessly grateful for her attempts to reach him, especially as he could barely reach himself. The night he’d found her back in their bed his immense relief was rapidly undermined by his fear of ruining it all again. He’d slipped quietly into bed beside her, listening to her breathing, certain she must be able to hear the way his heart was thundering in his chest. Cautiously he reached for her hand, and she took it, moving closer. Instinctively he let go of the hand and put his arms around her. Adam knew that the next step was up to him. Jill was waiting for him to talk to her, to explain to her what he couldn’t really explain to himself.
He strolled back and forth parallel with the side of the car, pushing the toes of his shoes through the cigarette butts, dry leaves and gravel. What would his father think? Pointless question, because everything would have been totally different if his father had lived. For his own part, Adam knew he’d never have dropped out of geology and taken up music, Roy would have insisted that he study or train for a proper job. Resisting his grandfather had been hard enough; he wouldn’t have stood a chance against his father.
When Roy died Adam had wept, but it was more from shock and confusion than grief. A dark blanket of cloud had been blown away, leaving the sky clear. Around him everyone was weeping and guilt told him that his feelings were unnatural, but even the guilt couldn’t destroy his sense of freedom. But freedom was not so easily won, for his father’s legacy was captured in his last words to him: ‘It’s up to you to look after them, son,’ Roy had said, ‘your mother and your sister. You’re the man of the house now, it’s up to you to take care of the women. Don’t let me down.’
It hadn’t meant much to Adam at the time. At eleven it was so obvious that even if he were occasionally needed to look after his younger sister, his mother and aunt were more than capable of taking care of themselves. Dorothy seemed happier now too, and life in the Balmain cottage with her and Barbara was bliss by comparison. But later, Adam found himself dwelling on those words and the burden of responsibility that he felt inadequate to bear. How was he to take care of them? As his sense of incompetence grew he turned to his music, practising his cello for hours at a time, cocooned in his own little world. And then there was his faith or, as he thought of it now, his religious practice and the rules that went with it, rules so clear and strict they eliminated moral dilemmas: you always knew what you could or couldn’t do. Adam clung to the security believing that it would, eventually, show him how to carry out his father’s last instructions.
He’d been questioning his religious beliefs when Heather moved out of home and they found the flat, and the events of the following year had rocked him. Even so, it was another couple of years before he finally worked out that what he needed was a spiritual life rather than a practice he followed for fear of the consequences.
‘But you still hold on to vestiges of it, don’t you?’ Barbara had asked him once. ‘I know I do. Not in any form my parents or Roy would recognise, but one that I believe God understands.’
Adam, then in his early forties, had been shocked at her me
ntion of God as though it were something they had in common, for they had never discussed religion except in terms of the crippling effects of her upbringing, and Roy’s own behaviour. He had thought that he was alone in his faith, an outsider, that God was now his secret in the family.
‘I still believe, if that’s what you’re asking,’ he’d said. ‘And those beliefs are still basically Christian. But it’s a lot more forgiving, more self-directed. Dad would have seen it as a total cop-out.’
But of course Roy would have seen his son’s whole life as a cop-out, the unfinished degree, the orchestra, his broken marriage to Yvette and, worst of all, his failure to look after the women, particularly Heather, first as a teenager and now in middle age. If Roy were looking down on him from heaven, Adam knew he would see a complete write-off, although he suspected that God himself might be a little more forgiving.
It was, Adam thought now as he climbed back into the car, hard to be a believer when so many of those around you assumed that you shared their disbelief. He watched Jill, Kirsty and Toby heading back, their hands full of takeaway coffee, drink cans and a large bag of barbecue chips. Bringing up the rear, Daisy was being given a shoulder ride by the recently hated Nick; she was squealing with delight and splashing milkshake into his hair. Adam glanced in the mirror and rubbed his hands over his face, hoping to brighten his expression. His father would have told him that God was the answer; he would have found solace in the word and the law of his religion. How much more simple life would be, Adam thought, if he could do the same.
