Bad Behaviour

by Liz Byrski

  ‘That was a good day,’ Andy said, through a mouthful of sausage roll. ‘Remember those bloody great bacon butties they made us?’

  The camera panned around the kitchen and there she was at the stove, a slim black woman stirring a huge pan of baked beans. Richard’s heart seemed to miss a beat. She was wearing a short black skirt and a white T-shirt with a panther on it, and the apron around her waist was splattered with tomato sauce. Richard watched as she braced herself to lift the heavy pan from the stove to the table; he sighed and tried to mask it with a cough.

  ‘That’s her,’ Andy said, ‘the one who made the sandwiches – bit of all right. What’s her name again?’

  ‘Lily,’ Richard said, clearing his throat. ‘Lily Roscoe.’

  ‘Lily,’ Andy repeated, shaking open the Daily Express he’d brought in with him. ‘Took a bit of a shine to you.’

  ‘Really? I never noticed.’

  ‘Bullshit! You could hardly take your eyes off her.’ He glanced across at Richard. ‘Still can’t.’

  Richard stood up and pulled on his jacket. ‘Don’t dump that footage, Andy,’ he said, walking to the door. ‘Just stick my name on the can and hold it for me, will you?’ And, letting the door swing closed behind him, he walked along the passage, out through the foyer and up the street to a snack bar where he was unlikely to bump into any of his colleagues. He waited while the blowsy woman behind the counter poured tea into a thick white mug and slapped butter and cheese onto doorsteps of white bread. Then he carried his lunch to an empty table, measured two teaspoons of sugar into his tea and added a dash of whisky from the hip flask that had been a birthday present from his father. He was restless after watching the Oakland footage and more discontented than ever with his personal life.

  For the last couple of weeks he had vowed every day to end it with Zoë, and every day something stopped him. It wasn’t just his courage that failed him, it was that he did still care about her. Sometimes, usually when he wasn’t with her, he felt he still loved her. But he also wondered whether this was a Svengali-like attraction; whether what he loved was what he imagined he could make of her, because when they were together, almost everything she said or did irritated him. He felt, as he had so often felt before he left for America, that she wanted to drag him into her own narrow field of vision, to draw his attention and energy away from the things that mattered so much to him, and he felt smothered by it. His only weapons were surliness and sarcasm, but the more cutting his sarcasm and the surlier his moods, the more desperately Zoë hung on. Why didn’t she just tell him to piss off out of her life? She was like a loyal but irritating dog that followed him everywhere and whined outside the bedroom door. Zoë seemed to know instinctively when he was about to cut her off and each time she hooked him right back in, always with sex. Richard wasn’t proud of the fact that he always succumbed.

  He unfolded his newspaper, read a story about the police coverage that was being planned for Sunday’s anti-Vietnam march, and got out his notebook to jot down the names of people he needed to call. And then, sipping the remains of his tea, he drew peace signs in the margin of the paper and then an ‘L’, which he traced over again, finally adding an ‘i’, an ‘l’ and then a ‘y’. Lily. He wrote it again and stared at it until someone bumped against the table and splashed tea on the paper. He pushed back his chair, dumped the paper in the bin and went back to work.

  ‘You must be mad!’ Julia said, running her hand along the smooth edge of the cosmetics counter. ‘Why on earth do you want to do that? You’ll hate it, and anyway, you might get hurt or arrested or something.’

  Zoë picked up a perfume tester, sprayed Je Reviens onto her wrist and sniffed it. ‘I just thought it might make things better if I went. You know, show Richard I’m interested in that stuff.’

  ‘But you’re not! That’s the point.’

  ‘I know, but I could try to be. I think I should have tried before, when we first met.’ She pressed up against the counter, jostled by the crowd of shoppers. ‘I hate shopping when it’s crowded like this.’

  Julia grabbed her arm and drew her into a space near the fire hydrant by the lifts. ‘You think this is crowded? Just wait until you see the crowds at that rally; there’ll be thousands of people, pushing and shoving, and fighting each other. Honestly, Zoë, you have no idea. I saw those protests in Paris; they were digging up the streets, setting fire to cars, smashing windows. And the police! You wouldn’t believe it, bashing people with truncheons. You shouldn’t go; if Richard wants to, that’s up to him, but you don’t have to.’ She gave Zoë a little push. ‘Come on, let’s go up to bridal. I’m going to try on that white velvet dress from the magazine. My mother is being a complete pain. She wants me to have something made by her dressmaker and it’s bound to be hideous, so I’m just going to go and order what I want.’

  They squeezed into the lift as the doors were closing and emerged seconds later into the comparative calm of the bridal department. Waving her magazine imperiously, Julia summoned a sales assistant, who then hurried off to find the dress and led them to a fitting room. Julia had already acquired the Branston style.

  ‘It’s gorgeous,’ Zoë said, fingering the velvet. ‘But what would you wear on your head?’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ Julia replied, struggling out of her skirt, ‘what do you put with velvet?’

  ‘I’ll find you some headdresses to try, madam,’ the saleswoman said and disappeared through the curtains.

  ‘Julia,’ Zoë whispered, peeping out between the curtains to make sure there was no one else in earshot. ‘There’s something I want to ask you. Do you and Simon . . .’ she stopped.

  ‘Do we what?’ Julia prompted, hitching up her tights, and putting her head inside the muslin bag to protect the dress from makeup.

  ‘Do you . . . do you do it a lot?’

  Julia stared at her through the muslin. ‘Do what? Oh, you mean sex.’ She took the dress from its hanger. ‘Quite a lot, I suppose. But it’s not like we’re living together. When Simon comes home with me, we only get to do it in the car. It’s okay when I come up here and stay at the Branston because he can sneak into my room. Then we do it quite a lot. You and Richard are so lucky having two places to go to.’

  Zoë guided the folds of the dress and its silky lining down over Julia’s head and shoulders. ‘Like every day, twice a day – more?’

  Julia took the bag off her head. ‘Most days, when we get the chance.’

  ‘And Simon, he . . . does he always . . . does he start it?’

  ‘Oh yes, men are insatiable really, aren’t they? They’d do it anywhere, anytime.’ Julia liked the way she sounded; sophisticated she thought, and experienced.

  ‘And do you . . . do you ever . . . you know . . .’

  ‘What? Start it, you mean?’

  Zoë nodded, blushing.

  ‘No. Why?’ She wriggled, adjusting the tight-fitting bodice.

  ‘Oh, nothing. It’s just that Richard was like that. I mean, he wanted to do it all the time, but now . . .’

  ‘He hasn’t gone off it, surely?’ Julia said, turning away from the mirror to look more closely at Zoë, noticing for the first time that she was unusually pale and there were mauve shadows under her eyes.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Zoë said, ‘but you know how funny he is since he came back from America? Well, he doesn’t seem so keen and now it always seems to be me starting it.’

  ‘And is he keen then?’

  ‘Yes, usually.’

  ‘Well, then. Are you okay? You look a bit peaky.’

  Zoë shrugged. ‘I was up half the night, couldn’t sleep for thinking about it.’ And it was clear that she was fighting back tears.

  Remembering their conversation at the Branston, Julia could have shaken Richard. He’d been talking about ending it then but had let it drag on for weeks, and now it seemed to be making Zoë ill. ‘You shouldn’t let him get to you,’ she said. ‘You should tell him to get stuffed. It’s not that he sets out
to be unkind, but he’s thoughtless and can be a bit of a bully.’ She paused, took a deep breath and put her arm around Zoë’s shoulders. ‘Look, maybe . . . maybe Richard’s not the right one for you.’

  ‘He is,’ Zoë said firmly. ‘Julia, he is. I love him so much and he loves me, I know he does.’

  Julia patted her shoulder and took a step back. ‘If you’re sure. But you mustn’t let him get away with treating you badly. You have to stand up to him.’

  Zoë nodded.

  ‘And as for the other stuff, that’ll sort itself out. You know what men are like.’

  And, as Julia said it, she realised that she didn’t have a clue what men were like, and that Zoë probably knew even less. It seemed you only got to find out by a process of trial and error, in which both the trial and the error were likely to involve a great deal of heartache.

  She turned back to the mirror. ‘Richard’ll sort himself out eventually,’ she said, examining herself side-on. ‘He’s probably just het up about work. But don’t get dragged into going to that protest tomorrow. You’ll hate it and you look as though you need a rest. Anyway, what do you think of this dress? I think I like it.’

  Back at the Branston, Julia kicked off her shoes and curled up on the couch with another bridal magazine. She wasn’t at all sure that the flowers were right; she favoured all white, with plenty of green foliage, but Anita kept talking about apricot roses. She stretched out her legs, flexed her toes, and considered a long and luxurious bath with some of the deliciously scented oil Marina had brought her from Rome. Simon was out at a meeting that he’d been moaning about at breakfast. Lewis Branston had insisted that his son spend three months working alongside the general manager of the London hotel, before taking over in Paris in the New Year. Simon was insulted. The time he’d already spent in the Paris hotel had, he insisted, taught him all he needed. But Lewis was adamant; unless Simon went through this additional training, the deal was off. He wouldn’t be going to Paris until his father was sure that he well and truly knew the ropes.

  ‘It’s demeaning; I’m a Branston, for Christ’s sake,’ Simon had said on the day he’d conceded defeat. ‘I grew up in hotels. I’ve done my bit as a kitchen hand, waited tables, worked on reception, in the manager’s office, oh – and in the bar too. But most of all, I’ve lived in bloody hotels for as long as I can remember. What else is there to know?’

  Julia had thought it a remarkably sensible idea. Simon could be too casual about things that should be taken more seriously. He was often flippant and dismissive with the staff, and tended to think he could carry everything in his head and talk his way out of difficult situations.

  ‘It’s a people business, sweetie,’ he’d said sarcastically, when she ventured that his father’s plan might not be such a bad idea. ‘You just need to know how to handle people and that’s what I’m good at.’

  ‘Of course you are, but it’ll make your father happy, and it probably means he’ll stay out of your way when we get to Paris.’

  ‘Huh!’ Simon grunted. ‘Maybe, but it’s a total pain in the arse just the same.’

  Since her engagement to Simon, Julia had become quite interested in the business. If she’d learned anything from Tom, it was that the more you knew about something the more interesting it became. And, although she was now too involved in the wedding plans to think of much else, she did think that having some responsibilities in the Paris hotel might be nice.

  ‘I could help you,’ she’d suggested to Simon that morning. ‘You could train me, and then I could be your assistant, or have some little job in the hotel.’

  ‘Job?’ Simon said. ‘We can’t have the general manager’s wife working in the hotel. Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘But what will I do all day?’ Julia asked.

  ‘Well, you’ll be my wife, so you’ll be looking after me, for a start. You’ll be entertaining, and all that stuff; getting your hair done; shopping for frocks, I suppose – isn’t that what wives do? And there’s children, when we have them. If you want something else, you can use the tennis courts, or swat up on your French; that might be useful.’

  But Julia could see that the sort of ‘looking after’ most wives did would be done by the hotel staff. There would be no housework and very few meals to be cooked. She was quite comfortable with the idea of not picking furniture or curtains, or managing a household. But she did want something of her own, and some sort of job seemed a good idea.

  Simon’s words were also a warning that he was taking for granted something they had never discussed. There was no doubt in Julia’s mind that she didn’t want children. Looking after the Le Bon offspring had confirmed what she had always suspected – that motherhood held no attraction for her. The other thing she didn’t want, though, was to go back to being the sort of person she had been, back to boredom and sighing. In Paris, she had discovered what it was to be energetic and involved and she wanted the feeling back again. Clearly, she would have to wait until she was married to do anything about it.

  TWELVE

  Kilburn, London – October 1968

  ‘You look really rough,’ Sandy said. ‘You should see a doctor.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ Zoë replied, wandering around the kitchen in her dressing gown. ‘I’m just worried about Richard. I think he might be sick. Do you think he could have caught something in America?’

  ‘Like the clap,’ Sandy said with a laugh. ‘No, frankly, I don’t. The only sick thing about Richard right now is his vile temper. I don’t know how you stand it, Zoë. I mean, sometimes he’s just really horrible to you. And when did he start drinking so much?’

  ‘He doesn’t drink much,’ Zoë replied too quickly, defensive now that Sandy had asked the question she had been asking herself. She opened the fridge looking for butter, to avoid looking at Sandy. ‘He doesn’t mean to be grumpy.’

  ‘So, what – he can’t help himself?’

  ‘No, it’s not that. He’s just under a lot of pressure. It’s hard for him.’

  ‘Bollocks. What exactly is so hard for him, Zoë? He’s just being a rude, bad-tempered git.’

  ‘Right on!’ Harry said, coming into the kitchen. ‘That is, if we’re talking about Richard. Why d’you let him get away with it? Agnes would give me my marching orders if I treated her like that.’

  Hot tears burned Zoë’s eyes as she pulled out the butter and began to spread it on her toast. Sandy put an arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Come on, Zoë, it’s not worth making yourself ill for. Want to know what I think?’

  Zoë nodded, rubbing the heels of her hands into her eyes.

  ‘Richard wants to end it but doesn’t know how, so he’s trying to make you do it for him.’

  ‘Sandy’s right,’ Harry said. ‘Basically, Rich is a nice guy, he just doesn’t know how to handle breaking up. You have to be the one to do it.’

  ‘But I don’t want to break up,’ Zoë wailed. ‘I love Richard, I really love him, and he loves me. He’s said so heaps of times.’

  ‘But people change,’ Sandy said. ‘Sometimes things happen to them and they can’t help it.’

  ‘Like what? What could have changed him?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. Maybe that trip gave him itchy feet. Or . . . maybe he met someone else.’

  Zoë shook her head. ‘No. No, he wouldn’t. I just know he wouldn’t.’

  Harry thrust his arms into the sleeves of his jacket. ‘Sometimes things happen unintentionally, babe,’ he said, turning to look straight at her. ‘You know that. Sometimes people can’t help themselves.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Sandy said. ‘You know, twenty-four hours from Tulsa and all that, these things happen.’

  Zoë blew her nose and picked up the plate of half-buttered toast. ‘I know what you mean,’ she said, looking straight at Harry. ‘But not Richard, he’s too busy with what he’s doing, he’d never . . .’ her voice faltered. ‘Anyway, I’m going to this march thing, going to surprise him. And then, later, I’
ll try and talk to him.’

  Sandy rolled her eyes at Harry, who shrugged and headed for the door.

  ‘You need to end it, kiddo,’ he said, looking back at Zoë. ‘This isn’t doing you any good at all.’ And then he was gone.

  Zoë got off the bus at Lancaster Gate and walked on to Craven Terrace. It was twenty past eleven, so she had plenty of time; she’d heard Richard tell someone on the phone to get there in time to leave at midday. But she wished it were any other day; sleepless nights spent worrying about Richard had left her weak and exhausted, and her appetite had disappeared along with her energy. It was essential she turn up today, though. She climbed the stairs to the flat and rang the bell.

  Charlie opened the door wearing just a towel around his waist. ‘Zoë? What’re you doing here? Richard didn’t say you were coming.’

  ‘I wanted to surprise him,’ she said.

  He stepped back from the door. ‘Come on in, but he’s not here.’

  ‘That’s okay. I’ll wait for him.’

  ‘No. I mean he’s gone. He went down there early this morning. To the LSE; a big crowd of them slept there last night, and there’s a meeting about tactics.’

  ‘But I thought . . . I heard him tell someone to be here at twelve.’

  ‘Yeah, some people are meeting here. You can come with us, if you like.’

  ‘Thanks, Charlie, but I think I’ll just go and find him now. Do you know where he’ll be?’

  ‘I think they were meeting in the Old Theatre, but you should wait for us. It’ll be chaos down there. Come on in and I’ll make you a cup of tea; you don’t look too good.’

  ‘I need to find Richard,’ Zoë insisted, turning to leave.

  Charlie grabbed her arm. ‘I bet you don’t even know where the LSE is. It’ll be swarming with people, you’ll never find him. If you want to go to the rally, you must come down to the Embankment with us. I’m not letting you go off alone.’

  Reluctantly, she went inside to wait for Charlie to get dressed and the rest of the group to arrive.