by Liz Byrski
It was the first time Zoë had been out since being released from hospital three days earlier, and it was more than a week since the fateful day of the march. Outside on the street, everything seemed shockingly bright and noisy, the traffic unusually fast and intimidating. As they turned the corner into Bayswater Road, Zoë’s legs felt weak and she thought she might faint.
‘You’re probably still in shock,’ Julia said, taking her arm and drawing her over to a low wall. ‘Sit there and I’ll flag down a taxi.’
‘Sorry,’ Zoë murmured minutes later as she sank into the cracked leather seat of a cab. ‘I feel so pathetic.’
‘Stop apologising,’ Julia said, ‘you’ve had a horrible accident, a nasty shock and you’re pregnant. Anyway,’ she went on, smiling, ‘we’re sisters now – well, we will be in a couple of weeks – and I want to make sure you get to that registry office in one piece.’
Zoë nodded. ‘Poor Richard, it’s not what he wants. You don’t think he’ll change his mind, do you?’
Julia shook her head. ‘No, he knows he has to go through with it. Although, I must say that until he just folded up like that the other day, I wasn’t sure what he’d do.’
‘I’ve never seen him cry before.’
‘Me neither, and never expected to. He can be a real pain sometimes but, you see, he knows what’s right and what his responsibilities are.’
‘I hope so,’ Zoë said. ‘I really do love him, Julia. I hate the feeling that I’m forcing him into getting married, but I don’t know what else to do.’
‘Look, you’re both stuck with the situation. Richard has to stop thinking only about himself. He’ll come to terms with it. It’ll be all right, you’ll see.’ She slipped her hand through Zoë’s arm. ‘I always wanted a sister.’
‘Me too,’ Zoë said. ‘And I don’t know how I’d get through all this without you, Julia. Since I came to London I’ve put everything into being with Richard, and when he was so angry and upset, I felt so alone.’
‘Well, you’re not alone now,’ Julia said squeezing her arm. ‘I’ll stand by you now, and I always will. Your wedding, my wedding, your baby, and whatever comes after that, we’ll always be there for each other.’
Richard picked up the forms the receptionist had given him, slipped them into his inside pocket, and walked out of the registry office and down the steps into the street. So, it was done, the booking made; his fate sealed by completing a form. This time last year, he had just won the job on Panorama and anything had seemed possible. Now he could only see the walls closing in. In two weeks he would be married. It was a marriage he hadn’t sought and didn’t want, and it was his own fault because he should have ended things with Zoë months ago, before he went to America.
‘I don’t know how to be a husband or a father,’ he’d said to Charlie, who’d got back from Brussels the night before.
‘No one does, man,’ Charlie had said, pouring them both a drink. ‘It’s not like there’s a training course; we’re all dumped in the deep end when it comes to marriage. I’ve known Polly for six years and been engaged to her for two of them, but the prospect of getting married next year is still dead scary.’
‘At least you have time to be scared,’ Richard said, ‘and you do have a choice.’
‘There’s no angry father chasing you with a shotgun.’
‘There might as well be.’
‘Look, you said yourself it’s your fault for not ending it sooner, but Zoë’s lovely and it’s not so long ago you couldn’t keep your hands, or your mind, off her. I know you think it’s different now but things’ll settle down when all this is over. Before you know it, you’ll be handing out cigars and boring us with baby pictures.’
Richard made a grudging attempt at a smile.
‘Better make the best of it, Rich,’ Charlie went on. ‘If you walked away from this, you’d never forgive yourself. Life goes on, and that means your life too.’
Now, standing outside the registry office as it started to rain, Richard turned up the collar of his coat and wondered if Charlie really was right. He was right about it being his, Richard’s, responsibility, but was he right that he would never forgive himself if he walked away? In that moment, Richard felt he could have happily walked away without ever turning back, if only he had somewhere and someone else to go to. And, as he headed off in the direction of the Underground to go back to work, he thought again of a slim, dark girl, her apron splashed with tomato sauce, lifting an enormous pan of baked beans off a stove, and he cursed himself for his own procrastination.
Julia sat in the front row of seats in the registry office between Charlie and Simon. It was a small, awkward gathering: herself, Simon and Charlie on Richard’s side; Sandy and Harry on Zoë’s, all of them uncomfortable and embarrassed, each one nervous about saying the wrong thing. The irony of the situation was not lost on Julia. Only a few months earlier she had railed at Tom for agreeing to marry Alison and, now, in the last couple of weeks, she had been urging her brother to do the right thing by Zoë. It seemed that she had lived such a bland life until she met Tom; since then, things had changed completely. Sitting there in the silence, waiting for the registrar, Julia remembered the hurt and despair she had felt in that smoky Paris café and in the days that followed; emotions so intense that she’d felt they would devour her. Besides the hurt there was shame for having been naive enough to believe in Tom and there was a real hatred of the woman she would never meet but who had stolen her promise of happiness. But now it all seemed so different. Blame, which had seemed so obvious and appropriate then, seemed unreasonable now that she was caught between two people she cared about. Zoë’s fear of what might happen to her and the baby if Richard left her seemed perfectly reasonable; as reasonable as Richard’s frantic longing to escape the burden of responsibility that he feared would trap him and cripple his career.
Julia had spent the last three weeks listening to, comforting and frequently shouting at both of them. She felt as though she had been catapulted into a particularly difficult stage of adulthood for which she was totally unprepared. It made her doubly thankful that, once married, her own life would be wonderfully uncomplicated. She reached out for Simon’s hand, and he took it and moved his chair a little closer.
‘What have you told your mum?’ she had asked Zoë that morning.
‘Nothing yet,’ Zoë said, straightening the white pill-box hat they had bought together two days earlier.
‘Not why you’re getting married?’
‘Not even that I’m getting married.’
‘But you said you would. You said you were going to tell her on the phone.’
‘I meant to, I tried, but I didn’t know how. She’s always been terrified of me getting into some sort of trouble like this, just like she did.’
‘But at least you are getting married, that makes it better, surely?’
‘I suppose. But she sort of wanted me to make up for what happened to her by doing everything right. You know, marrying the right person, having a lovely wedding and then perfect children a few years later.’
‘But –’
‘You don’t know her, Julia,’ Zoë said sharply. ‘You couldn’t possibly understand what she’s like.’
‘But you can’t just not tell her.’
‘Richard hasn’t told your parents,’ Zoë said defensively.
‘That’s different. He’s older than you, he’s a man and he hasn’t told them anything about himself for years. They’ll have a fit when they find out that you’re married and about . . . well, about the baby. But it’s not the same. You know that.’
Zoë seemed about to cry again, and Julia had been torn between conflicting urges to slap and comfort her. She had spent much of the previous day with Richard, up close to his anger at himself and at Zoë, and to his fear of and reluctance about the marriage. Since the night at the Branston when she and Zoë had first met, they had become increasingly close. But Julia also felt closer to Richard now; seeing him brok
en by his circumstances had brought home to her how much she cared for him. As the registrar invited Zoë and Richard to approach him, Julia couldn’t rid herself of a niggling uneasiness. She loved them both; Zoë’s situation was awful and Julia was sure that it hadn’t been deliberate, but was keeping the baby really just a way of holding on to Richard?
Simon squeezed her hand, and she looked up and smiled at him as the registrar began his opening address. In six weeks’ time there would be another ceremony; a real one, with flowers, and church bells, guests and gifts. It was ironic, Julia thought, watching as her brother took Zoë’s hand and began saying his vows, that love and sex, tied so strongly to the promise of happiness, should actually deliver such misery.
For months, almost since the day they met, Zoë had dreamed of marrying Richard, of standing beside him on the steps of a church, the moment captured forever in a white brocade-covered album. She had imagined herself in a white satin dress, and a full short veil that lifted in the breeze, and Richard in a morning suit, looking lovingly down into her face as confetti and rose petals floated in front of the camera lens. The flash of Charlie’s camera as they left the registry office was a reminder that there would be no album, and that this awkward moment – her with her hand tucked stiffly into the crook of Richard’s arm, the cut on her forehead and the bruise beneath her left eye still visible through her makeup – would be the lifelong reminder of that dreadful march and the misery of the last three weeks. There was no white satin, just a lavender wool empire-line dress to hide her expanding waistline, and a small bunch of white roses and lavender; Richard beside her, gaunt and tense in his dark grey pinstripe suit; and around them a few joyless, but well-meaning, friends attempting to turn disaster into celebration. She wished they could go straight home, as they had first planned, but Richard, guilt stricken in the last couple of days, had decided to salvage something. He’d booked a restaurant, invited a dozen more people to join them there, and sought Simon’s help in calling forth a wedding cake from the Branston kitchens. Simon had added a crate of excellent French champagne. So, it was better than it might have been but, to Zoë, it was still awful.
She doubted she would have got through any of it without Julia. Richard’s sister had turned out to be an entirely different sort of person from the plump, pale-faced teenager in the photograph at Bramble Cottage, and for the first time in her life Zoë knew what it was like to have a close and trusted friend. But not even Julia could help her break the news to Eileen.
‘I’ve decided to write to her,’ she told Julia after the cake cutting was over and the waiters had distributed the neat slices. ‘I just can’t tell her over the phone.’
Julia nodded and lit a cigarette, ‘And what about our lot?’
‘Richard says he’s going to tell them we got married, but not say anything about the baby. He says that by the time we see them at your wedding, it’ll be obvious that I’m pregnant and too late for them to make a fuss.’
Julia rolled her eyes. ‘Very subtle! Oh well; it’s up to him, and to you, of course.’ She looked intently at Zoë. ‘Are you sure you’re going to be okay?’
Zoë shrugged. ‘Richard seems resigned to it now. At least he’s stopped being angry with me. And Charlie’s got that job in Brussels, so he’ll be moving out and we’ll have the place to ourselves. I don’t know how your parents will feel about it; though, after all, it is their flat.’
‘I think you can expect a mix of disapproval and condescension, but they’ll do the right thing,’ Julia said. ‘They’re not going to kick you out.’
‘Let’s hope so. I just hope Richard’ll get used to the idea.’ Zoë sipped her half a glass of champagne and watched him across the room, trying to remember what it had been like at the start; when it was simple and fun and full of promise. At heart, she thought, we’re still the same people – perhaps, when all this is over, we’ll be like that again.
‘I’ve got good news,’ Harry said, slipping into the seat beside her. ‘I’ve got a job.’
‘That’s fantastic,’ Zoë replied. ‘I’m so pleased for you. What is it?’
‘It’s a research position at a university in Glasgow. Agnes is coming with me and we’re gonna get married.’
‘Glasgow? But it’s so far away. I’ll never see you.’ She had seen very little of him in the weeks since the march, and the prospect of his leaving came as a shock.
‘Course you will, babe. It’s not goodbye.’ He took her hand in his and kissed it. ‘We’re special friends, Zoë. We always will be. You know that.’
For a moment it was there again; the sexual chemistry that both thrilled and scared her. ‘I know. I hope it’s really wonderful for you, Harry,’ she said, swallowing hard to stop her voice from breaking. ‘Everything you’ve worked for.’
‘And for you,’ he said softly. ‘Things’re gonna settle down for you, Zoë; it’ll all come good, you’ll see. You’re going through some rough stuff now but Richard’s a great guy. It’s going to work out fine for both of you.’ He leaned back from her, his hands on her shoulders as he surveyed her face. ‘It suits you, babe, pregnancy. You’ll be a beautiful mother.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘I’ll always remember, Zoë, you know that, don’t you? I’ll always remember.’
1969
FOURTEEN
London – April 1969
As winter gave way to spring, Richard found himself in a rather better position than even he could have hoped for. The civil rights documentary was a critical and professional success, and had been nominated for a prestigious award. Also, he and Martin had taken a proposal for a series of thirty-minute programs about significant protest movements to the head of documentaries, who approved it immediately. By February they were working together again and, while Martin was still clearly in command, there was a subtle but significant change in their relationship; the series had been Richard’s idea and he had done most of the work on the proposal. Rather than derailing his career, marriage had proved to be a comfortable backdrop to it. It seemed incomprehensible to him now that for most of the time he and Zoë had been together, he had been terrified of being drawn into just this sort of relationship, often fighting it with sheer nastiness. But Zoë seemed not to bear any sort of grudge and she was less needy and more serious than she had been.
They had grown closer and, in the last few weeks, Richard had come to realise that what he had thought of as a combination of duty and affection was, in fact, love; a love that was steadily settling and maturing. But that love was spiced with guilt. In the four months they’d been married, she had never once referred to the way he’d treated her when she told him about the baby. It sickened him to remember how he had tried everything possible to avoid facing his responsibilities. Now, though, the situation felt so right, as though it were what he had always wanted.
Pregnancy suited Zoë: the extra weight had filled out her face and arms, and she was different in other ways too; calmer, more thoughtful. She had even started reading the newspaper, and talking to him about the things he was involved in. She was growing up, just as he had hoped she might. And as she did so, Richard’s thoughts of Lily and how things might otherwise have been had faded.
‘I do love you, Zoë,’ he had said, a couple of days earlier, coming home to find her on the settee with her feet up, knitting a matinee jacket.
‘You didn’t when we got married,’ she’d said, giving him a wry smile.
‘It wasn’t that I didn’t love you,’ Richard said, pouring himself a drink. ‘It was just that it was the wrong time. I didn’t want to be tied down.’
‘And now you don’t mind?’
‘More than that. It’s good, really good. And I’m so proud of you.’ Putting his hand on her belly, he felt a ripple of movement. ‘Moving!’ he said. ‘That’s good.’
‘He’s been on the go all day. He kicks so hard, I think he’s going to be a footballer.’
‘You’re still convinced it’s a boy?’
‘Absolutely c
ertain.’
‘A daughter would be nice, though . . .’
‘Yes, but this is a boy.’
‘I’m so sorry, Zoë,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘I was a complete arsehole about . . . well, about everything. Have you forgiven me?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I forgave you ages ago; you know that.’
Later that night, as he lay in the darkness unable to sleep, Richard realised that something quite profound had happened: the balance of power between them had changed. Zoë’s neediness, which had always given him the upper hand, had gone. They were bound together by marriage and the baby, but somehow she had claimed an emotional distance that had always been his. He sat bolt upright and looked across at the dark shape of her body in the bed. Even in his worst moments of disenchantment, he had thought he might love her, just doubted that he could stay with her. Well, now he knew he could, and not just could but wanted to. But did she still love him?
‘Zoë?’ he whispered softly, leaning over and putting his hand on her shoulder. ‘Are you awake?’
She gave a small soft moan, shifting slightly, and her breathing settled again.
Richard took his hand away and lay down again. She’d always loved him; now pregnancy had matured her. He turned onto his side, curled against her back and draped an arm across her. She was still the girl in the red coat and black boots, but now she had also become the woman he would spend his life with. They were growing together, that was the only thing that had changed.
At the end of April, Zoë’s blood pressure rose unexpectedly and her ankles began to swell. The doctor ordered her to rest, but she was irritatingly restless and fidgety. Richard began to worry and started leaving the BBC early, bringing work home. Out of necessity, he took on the shopping and then some of the housework.
‘The vacuuming is mine,’ he announced one Saturday morning. ‘I don’t want you lifting that heavy thing out of the cupboard. And stop trying to lean over and clean the bath, I can do that. You absolutely have to rest and take care.’
