by Liz Byrski
‘Are you a strong swimmer, Archie?’ Gwen shouts above the wind.
‘Used to be, but it’s a long time ago.’
‘Best if we stay close together, then,’ she says, and gestures to the other Polar Bears to stay one on each side of him.
The water is breathtakingly cold and he yells in shock as a wave hits his crotch. Immediately, another huge wave rears up and punches him in the chest, hurling him up and then down into what is surprisingly deep water. Archie wonders where and when they will find his body, and bizarrely hopes that when they do, Gaby will feel really bad about having left him to do this alone. A large clump of seaweed wraps its thick slimy fronds around his legs and he kicks to free them, only to yelp in pain and swallow seawater as his foot connects with a lump of driftwood entangled in the weed. But he’s free now and he rises, spluttering, to the surface, gulping air, his heart pounding, and he breaks the surface suddenly, hugely exhilarated, as though he has achieved something amazing.
‘All right, mate?’ Bruce yells.
‘Brilliant!’ he calls back. ‘Bloody brilliant.’ And he swings his arms and kicks his legs in an attempt to swim either with or against the swell. Not far away, he spots Gwen, tossed on a wave but righting herself and struggling to swim again. And, with his eyes now accustomed to the darkness, he sees the bobbing heads and flailing arms of other swimmers and feels as though he is part of a heroic collective struggle against the elements. Actual swimming is well nigh impossible, but being there, thrashing around in the water, revives the exhilaration of launching his surfboard into the path of the perfect wave and hurtling towards the beach. Now he wants to stay here for hours. He is sixteen again; flying, balancing, re-balancing, tumbling into the tunnel of the waves, thrilled and fearless, cruising finally to the shore. Ahead of him, he can see Gwen standing up, shaking her head to clear the water from her ears and taking the last few steps out of the water.
‘Marvellous,’ he cries, running up, throwing his arms around her and lifting her off her feet. ‘Bloody marvellous. I can take on the world! I might go back in.’
‘We must have been in for about fifteen minutes,’ Gwen says, ‘long enough for me on a day like this, and long enough for a first timer.’
He nods reluctantly and they run side-by-side up the beach to the hut.
‘Eggs, bacon, baked beans and toast,’ Gwen says later, setting a heaped plate on the table as he emerges from the shower. ‘And the coffee won’t be a moment.’
Archie pulls out a chair. ‘Not just for me, I hope,’ he says. ‘You’re eating too, aren’t you?’
‘Of course,’ she says, putting her own, more modest, serving on the table and bringing over the coffee plunger. ‘We both deserve it. You know, Archie, I didn’t like to tell you when you arrived but it’s the worst morning so far this year, so you did do well. It’s exciting, isn’t it?’
‘Sure is,’ he mumbles through a mouthful of toast. ‘I’d forgotten the thrill of the ocean. But it’s a bit hazardous, Gwen. Are you sure you ought to be out there on your own on mornings like this?’
‘Oh, don’t you start,’ Gwen says. ‘Justine’s always on at me about it. But I’m not on my own. In the winter, when it’s dark, I always wait to go in with a couple of others nearby. Besides, I like the risk, one needs a bit of excitement at my age. And, to be perfectly honest, I don’t usually go when it’s as bad as this morning, but I was showing off for you.’
He laughs. ‘Well, I was suitably impressed, and I feel so good I’ll definitely be back.’ He feels surprisingly at home in Gwen’s bright, warm kitchen. They eat ravenously, and mainly in silence.
‘More coffee?’ Gwen asks eventually, pushing the plunger towards him.
He refills his cup and leans back in his chair. ‘What am I going to do, Gwen?’ he asks; the sudden, unplanned question sneaking unbidden into the warmth and intimacy of the kitchen.
‘About what, Archie?’
‘You know about what. Zoë, of course; Dan and Justine, the wedding, all of it. Gaby blew it all open the other night but, after that, we all backed off again.’
Gwen raises her eyebrows. ‘Yes. An opportunity lost; but then, it’s a very sensitive situation. What do you think is behind it?’
He shrugs. ‘I wish I knew. Zo’s been going through a rough time, mood swings, panic attacks, hot flushes; I think she’s a bit depressed. Maybe it’s just the nest beginning to empty, but something tells me it’s more than that. She’s always known Dan would get married one day; they all will, or they’ll leave in some other way. But it’s almost as though she’d made up her mind about the sort of woman she wanted for Dan, and Justine’s not it. And she can’t get her head – or, more importantly, her heart – around it.’
‘Justine thinks it’s about race,’ Gwen says.
Archie sighs. ‘I was afraid she might, but I really don’t think it is. I’ve known Zoë for a very long time, so I think I’d know if it was that. I mean, you know how it was when we were young. I was terrified of the Aboriginal people I saw as a kid. It’s how we were brought up, the fear and the distrust. But times change; you learn the history and you learn about yourself. If you care anything about people and justice, how can you not change?’
‘Well, very easily, apparently. I mean, it’s pretty clear that a lot of people simply don’t want to change. But I don’t know about Zoë. Maybe this holiday will help her sort out her feelings. We can only hope that things are different when she gets back. If not, you may have to be the one to open the can of worms.’
Archie nods gloomily. ‘I guess you’re right about that.’ He gets up from the table and starts to clear the plates, glancing as he does so at a framed photograph on the wall. ‘Is that your old farm?’ he asks, setting the plates on the draining board and crossing the room to take a closer look. ‘Beautiful place; don’t you ever miss it?’
‘Never,’ Gwen says. ‘I’d prefer to forget all about it. The photograph is up there because Justine wants me to keep it. I must take it down and give it to her, although I can’t imagine why she, of all people, wants any sort of memento of her time there.’
‘You rescued her from the convent, didn’t you? Not surprising that she wants to remember that.’
Gwen is silent, poised at the point of revelation. The sudden need to unburden herself after decades of silence is compelling.
‘What was done to those kids and their parents was bloody dreadful,’ Archie continues, ‘but Justine had a good home. A lot of those children went to people who treated them like shit. Justine was lucky, she wouldn’t be with you now and as close to you as she is, if you hadn’t been like a mother to her.’
Gwen hesitates; will she give him the simple explanation, or the whole truth? She puts a hand on the edge of the table to steady herself. She has kept her secret for more than three decades and has avoided friendships, fearing the compulsion to share her past. But the silence has become a burden. Perhaps the time has come for an honest conversation with a person of integrity; someone whom she can trust but who is not bound to her by love, as Justine is. It’s a risk, in a whole lot of ways, but it is one she wants to take.
THIRTY-FOUR
London – July 2000
Zoë has escaped to London. It seems ungrateful to think in those terms, in view of Julia and Tom’s warmth and generosity, but Julia’s apparent compulsion to look after her, despite many other commitments, was making her uneasy. Tom is a cheerful and undemanding patient and is making a good recovery, and Zoë has helped as much as she can. But Julia still has a lot to cope with and, to make matters worse, there are ructions at the language school. Two teachers have run off together and can’t be found. Replacements had to be recruited and, for some reason, the spouses of the missing couple both seem to think the school is in some way responsible for finding them. Zoë can see that Tom and Julia need time to themselves. Richard, who put in an unexpected appearance at the weekend, has given her a key to the flat. He will be away until Thursday, he’d said; she s
hould use it. Julia’s jaw dropped when Zoë had told her where she was going.
‘You’re actually going to stay at Craven Terrace?’
‘Why not?’ Zoë had said. ‘Richard’s going to be in Birmingham.’
‘It’s just . . . it’s not what I expected. I mean, I didn’t think you’d want to see Richard at all, or the flat. Bad memories, I suppose.’
‘I didn’t think so either. But I did see Richard and it was fine. No drama, no drugs, no therapy, no lobotomy.’
‘Well, that’s good, more than good; it’s wonderful, actually,’ Julia said. ‘Now all we need is for Richard not to bugger it up with his usual flair.’
‘Oh, I think I can handle Richard rather better now than I did in the past,’ Zoë said, smiling. ‘I know you think I haven’t changed much, but I’m not the doormat I used to be.’
And, as she takes an early train to Charing Cross and then the Underground to Lancaster Gate, she wonders about this sudden and dramatic change. How can something that has haunted her for so long just disappear? Was it a monster of her own creation, that she had clung to, thinking it was indestructible and letting it define her?
The walk from the station is surprisingly unchanged – a few different shops, a nice-looking café, and the building itself entirely recognisable, despite obvious refurbishment. As she turns the key there is a painful moment as she recalls arriving here in a Branston car with Julia and Dan, paralysed with misery and with the fear of what lay ahead. The interior of the flat is completely changed. It had been renovated, Julia had explained, several years earlier.
‘Until then, we all – me, Tom, Richard, even Hilary, on occasions – used it as a place to stay in town when we needed it. But it was crying out for a makeover, so we thought it would make sense for us to do it up and rent it out for a few years. Then, when Richard came home this year, he tarted it up a bit more. I suppose it must have seemed a bit faded after Manhattan.’
Zoë wanders through the hall, which is brighter now, thanks to the addition of a skylight, and into a new and, initially disorienting, space, which was once the rather small lounge. It has been opened up to incorporate the kitchen and dining room in one large living room and is familiar only because of the window seat, which she had always loved, and the view across the rooftops. She cautiously opens the door to the second bedroom. Charlie had once occupied it, and later she and Richard had painted it yellow, stencilled Beatrice Potter characters onto the walls and pasted a frieze below the picture rail. But the stencils and the picture rail are gone, and there are shelves packed with books, fitted cupboards and a large desk littered with papers and files. There is a fax machine and a computer, the frame of its screen dotted with Post-it notes. It is quite a relief to find it so changed; so entirely free of reminders of a past life.
Walking back to the kitchen, which is a mass of granite, brushed stainless-steel and state-of-the-art appliances that look as though they are rarely used, she spots a note addressed to her leaning against the kettle.
Zoë
Make yourself at home. There is food in the fridge and wine in the rack. Help yourself.
I suggest you sleep in the main bedroom, I’ve changed the linen. But the single bed in the office is made up too if you prefer.
Enjoy London!
Rich x
She opens cupboard doors and then the fridge. There is camembert, always his favourite; two different types of cheddar; bacon and eggs; Fair Trade coffee; milk; a couple of packets of smoked salmon; double cream; watercress; raspberries and two large bars of chocolate. In the freezer there is bread, a couple of steaks, a packet of prawns and some frozen vegetables. All it tells her about Richard is that he is a more extravagant shopper than he used to be.
She fills the kettle and while she waits for it to boil opens the door to the main bedroom. This, too, is changed beyond recognition: the old-fashioned bed, and the bedside table always groaning under books, newspapers, dirty cups, overflowing ashtrays and forgotten, wizened pieces of fruit, have made way for a queen-size bed, a fitted wardrobe, matching cabinets, and a large, and rather overbearing, work of abstract art in shades of red, mustard and charcoal that is on the wall facing the window. Zoë opens the wardrobe and surveys the row of suits and jackets, the shelves of neatly folded shirts and sweaters, the rack of ties and, beneath them, the rows of shoes. She runs her hands over the shoulders of the jackets, and then takes down a soft yellow sweatshirt and holds it up to her face. It smells of fabric conditioner but also of Richard; an intimate, vaguely remembered smell that brings her out in goosebumps. She wonders if there is a woman in Richard’s life – she suspects not; at least, not one who is here on a regular basis.
Zoë walks to the edge of the bed and sits down, feeling, at last, some sadness at the lack of evidence of the past; a sense of something precious having been ripped away, and memory obliterated by such mercilessly different décor. But incongruously, the old ceiling rose has been left in place and she lies back on the bed, staring up at it, remembering the many times and different moods in which she has lain here. She wonders what it would be like to make love with Richard now. He is – was – such a different lover from Archie, and she has only ever made love with three men. How would it have been if things had gone as planned? If she and Richard had stayed together, had more children, bought a house in a leafy suburb, as they had talked of in the last months that they had spent together here? Richard had been gentler then, more involved with her than he had been at any time since their early days together. It had felt as though the dropped stitches in their relationship had been picked up. Zoë sits straight again, clasps her hands and stares down at the floor. Regret is so complicated. She would not have Dan any other way, nor Archie and the girls; she would not change her life. But there is regret just the same, and a haunting curiosity about what might have been.
Sighing, she shakes her head to free herself from this maudlin speculation and gets up. When she has made and drunk a cup of tea, and taken a loaf out of the freezer for later, she takes her bag to the office, hangs a few things on the back of the door, lets herself out of the flat and walks to the corner to catch the bus to West Hampstead.
It is the sameness that strikes her as she turns into Delphi Street but, as she strolls along the pavement, she becomes aware of the changes. These houses, once occupied by the last surviving members of families and long-term sitting tenants, are now home to very different people. The Victorian character has been preserved by the tasteful renovations, yellowing net curtains replaced by fashionable cedar blinds or calico looped into elegant scallops. There are miniature trees and tall roses in glazed pots, burglar alarms, doors painted in rich colours with gleaming brass fittings. The battered Ford Prefects and Minis are gone; instead, there are BMWs, a Mercedes sports car, a VW Golf, and some trendy Japanese cars, with names she’s never heard of. The rusty swings and creaky roundabout in the park opposite, where Dan had so often played, have been replaced by a small playground equipped with brightly coloured cubes, climbing frames, swings and a slide, all safely fixed into artificial ground cover that softens falls.
She is outside number thirty-one almost before she realises it. This one, too, has been renovated: its dreary brickwork cleaned and repointed, the front door painted a deep crimson, window-sills now gleaming white, and stacked with troughs of lobelia and geraniums. Zoë steps back from the pavement into the road to get a better look, glancing each way as she does so to check if anyone is watching her. For a moment she stands there, wondering who lives in it now, what voices fill the high-ceilinged rooms, who sits on the seat in the bay window, and whether the old range is still in the kitchen. Taking her camera from her bag, she adjusts the lens, taking the photographs she knows Dan will want. And, as she refocuses, the light catches a brass plate on the fence adjacent to the gate. Is it a doctor’s surgery now, perhaps? If so, she might go inside on the pretext of making an appointment, she would, at least, get a glimpse of the interior. She puts the camera away
and walks to the gate to read the name on the plate.
Dr Gloria Laverne BSc.(Hons) PhD. MBACP
Counselling, Psychotherapy, NLP, Stress Management
Zoë’s mouth goes dry and she takes a step back, torn between the desire to run away and an overwhelming curiosity to see the person who had rescued her but who, even in memory, remains intimidating. As she stands there, the door opens and a woman comes out, closing it behind her, and walks briskly to the gate.
‘Excuse me,’ Zoë says. ‘Is Dr Laverne in at the moment?’
‘Oh yes, I just saw her. I think I was her last appointment for the day. Are you a client too?’
Zoë shakes her head. ‘No. I was wondering . . .’
‘Don’t wonder, don’t hesitate,’ the woman says, putting a hand on her arm. ‘She’s the most wonderful therapist. You won’t regret it, I’m sure. She’s absolutely changed my life.’ And she turns and walks off up the street.
Zoë stands for a moment, watching her confident manner, hearing the click of her heels on the pavement, catching the scent of her perfume still hanging in the air. And, feeling almost dizzy with anticipation, she opens the gate, walks up the path and rings the bell.
It is nine-thirty when Richard gets back to the flat to find it in darkness. This is not the way he planned it. He knows he’s been shifty, saying he was going away, giving Zoë the key and planning to turn up pleading a change of schedule. But he believes his intentions are good. He wants more time with Zoë, wants to get to know her again; something he can’t do with Julia watching them with all the subtlety of a Stasi agent. And he needs somehow to find the right moment to own up about how and when he first met Lily. Julia is quite right; he owes it to Zoë.
He switches on the lights and walks through to the lounge, wondering if perhaps she has changed her mind and is still in Rye. But then he sees that the note he left her has gone and there is bread defrosting on the counter, and, having checked the bedroom, he goes to the study and sees her open bag on the bed. In opening the door, he dislodges something hanging on the hook at the back and bends to pick it up. It’s a blouse, soft green silk. Richard looks at it and holds it to his face, and detects something old and familiar: Je Reviens, of course. ‘Ah yes,’ he says aloud, in his best Maurice Chevalier accent, ‘I remember it well.’ Hanging the shirt back on its hanger behind the door, he walks over to the bed and stares for a moment at the contents of the open suitcase.
