Bad Behaviour

by Liz Byrski

  ‘Horrible, isn’t it? Ghastly for people who have to go to work and come home again in the dark. Zoë used to hate it when she lived in London. Come on, let’s get out to the car and home. Tom’ll have the kettle on. We thought you might like to toast crumpets in front of the kitchen range. It’s a traditionally English sort of thing to do.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ Gaby says. ‘And thanks so much for inviting me. Gloria’s gone to Boston for Christmas. I’m so lucky she’s letting me stay there. I don’t have to move if I don’t want to. Gloria’s really cool – do you know her?’

  ‘I only met her once, just after your brother was born,’ Julia says, opening the boot. ‘But Zoë brought me up to date last year.’

  Gaby puts her bags in the boot and closes it. ‘Well, she says she’s happy to have company. D’you know, I’ve got the same room that Mum and Dan had?’

  Back home, as she watches Gaby capturing a crumpet on the old brass toasting fork, Julia tells Gaby how like Zoë she is.

  ‘I’m taller, though,’ Gaby says. ‘I get that from Dad, but otherwise, I’m more like Mum. Rosie’s just like Dad, though; lots of curly blonde hair and freckles, she hates it. She and Rob are going home for Christmas, so Mum’s over the moon. In fact, they’re probably there by now.’

  ‘And your brother?’

  Gaby pulls a glum face. ‘He’s in Afghanistan. We haven’t heard anything from him, and it’s awful for Justine. But it’s a good thing too because . . . well, because if anything had happened to him, we would have heard.’

  ‘It must be horrible, not knowing,’ Julia says, watching her closely and seeing so much of Zoë in her. She wonders with a sudden and totally unexpected sense of longing, what it would be like to have a daughter who is almost a double of yourself at the same age, trekking off all alone to the other side of the world. Mothers, as she has always thought, must have a wealth of patience and emotional fortitude that she has never possessed. ‘Is Zoë okay?’

  ‘Sort of. She hates the army, she takes it all very personally. I mean, it is personal, of course, but she holds the army responsible for Dan having to take risks, when it’s his choice and he loves it. That’s the weird thing, I think; him wanting to join up in the first place. But Mum’s a bit different this time. I think she feels she has to be strong for Justine because she’s really upset, what with Harry and everything.’

  ‘Bloody dreadful,’ says Tom from his seat at the kitchen table, where he is buttering a crumpet. ‘Afghanistan’s already been bombed to the stone age. But don’t get me started on it.’

  ‘No,’ says Julia with a grin. ‘Don’t get him started. Next thing he’ll be rehashing Vietnam and telling you about his nineteen-sixty-eight project.’

  ‘Really?’ Gaby says, almost dropping a crumpet. ‘I’d love to know about that. I did a huge project on it for school last year, and had to do a lot of research. I keep trying to talk to Mum about it but she sort of glazes over, like it all passed her by or something.’

  ‘Splendid,’ Tom says. ‘When we’ve finished stuffing ourselves with stodge, I’ll show you my collection of cuttings and photographs. I’m writing a book, and Julia’s brother, Richard, and I are writing up a proposal for a documentary to be ready for the fortieth anniversary in 2008.’

  ‘Oh my god, that is so cool,’ Gaby says, bringing a plate with the last of the crumpets to the table. ‘Do you really have the original cuttings?’

  Tom nods. ‘I have everything. Newspapers, photographs, torn posters and handbills from Paris and London. I’ve also got some stuff that a friend in Prague found for me. And Richard has materials from the Black Panthers and the Free Speech Movement in California. His second wife was in the Black Panthers. He’ll be here tomorrow too, so you can talk to him about it; he was very active in sixty-eight.’

  Julia looks from one to the other. ‘Oh lord,’ she says. ‘Now there are going to be three of you spending Christmas drooling over yellowing newspaper cuttings. I hope we’ve got a good supply of red wine to keep my spirits up.’

  Justine hadn’t expected it to be quite so hard. Since September 11, her anxiety had increased, along with frustration that decisions taken elsewhere would have profound implications for her family. She listened resentfully to the rhetoric of prime ministers and presidents, to commentators and clerics, to the rabid and the moderate, and waited, as did mothers’ wives and daughters around the world, in fearful anticipation. Her own brutal experience of decisions being taken by men conveniently distant from the people whose lives they were determining, gave her little hope that humanity would prevail. But she had promised both Dan and herself that she was tough enough to cope with the stress of being married to a very particular type of soldier. It had seemed an easy promise to make but living with it is much more difficult, especially now she knows that his heart is no longer in it.

  ‘I’ll write,’ Dan had said the day he left. ‘You know I’ll write whenever I can, and if they can get the satellite working, I may be able to phone, but don’t panic if you don’t hear. I may be out of touch for weeks at a time.’

  Dizzy with fear, too paralysed even for tears, Justine had watched him go, knowing that he would not turn around because he couldn’t bear it. Was this worse than being torn away from Norah? But what was the point of comparing them when both seemed unbearable?

  Now, on this warm Christmas Eve morning, as she sits in the shade of the peppermint tree with Harry curled beside her on his mattress, there is the sound of a car at the front of the house, and she hears voices. Justine shifts in her chair and closes her eyes, hoping that the visitors are for Gwen, she feels incapable of talking to anyone else. But from inside the house there is laughter and the sound of footsteps across polished floorboards.

  ‘Here she is!’ Rosie cries, from the steps outside Gwen’s kitchen. ‘She’s hiding under the peppermint tree.’

  ‘Rosie?’ Justine opens her eyes. ‘You’re back?’

  ‘I’m back,’ Rosie says, running barefoot across the warm grass, the metallic threads woven through her crushed cotton dress glinting in the sunlight. ‘We flew in last night, Jus. Oh, it’s so good to be home.’ She drops to her knees on the grass beside Justine’s chair. ‘I had to come and see my nephew for the first time. My god, he’s huge; I was expecting a tiny baby.’

  ‘He’s seven months old,’ Justine says, ‘and he gets bigger and better every day. You just missed the boring bits.’

  Harry stirs and opens his eyes as Rosie crawls beside him onto the mattress. ‘He is divine,’ she says, as his fingers curl around her own. ‘Hello, Harry, I’m your Aunty Rosie. May I pick him up?’

  ‘Of course,’ Justine says, getting out of her chair to join her on the ground. ‘He’ll soon let you know if he doesn’t approve.’

  But Harry approves wholeheartedly. He grabs at Rosie’s long hair and tugs, and gurgles with pleasure. Justine feels her own surge of pleasure seeing Rosie holding him, nuzzling his cheek and kissing the top of his head.

  ‘We’ve come to kidnap you,’ says Archie, who is walking towards her with Gwen.

  ‘Kidnap?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘You, Gwen and Harry.’

  ‘Mum sent us,’ Rosie says. ‘She says it’s silly waiting for Christmas to start, that you should come now and stay, so we’ll have Christmas Eve together as well. You and Harry can have Dan’s old room and Gwen can have Gaby’s; Mum’s already made up the beds.’

  Gwen looks at Justine. ‘What do you think?’

  Justine hesitates. ‘Well, I . . .’

  ‘Oh go on,’ Rosie interrupts, ‘please come. It’ll be fun; we can wrap presents, and do all the cooking preparation, and sing carols and watch rubbish on television.’

  ‘And you shouldn’t miss the annual treat of watching Zoë get tipsy from making the brandy butter,’ Archie adds.

  ‘Please, Jus, say you’ll come,’ Rosie says, getting up with Harry on her hip. ‘See how good I am with babies? I’ve had a lot of practice, working in that clinic.�
�� She reaches out a hand to pull Justine to her feet.

  ‘Does this mean yes, then?’ Archie asks.

  ‘It’s yes for me,’ Gwen says.

  ‘And for me,’ Justine replies. It’s an effort to enter into their mood, but that, she thinks, is probably what she needs. The current of Dan’s absence connects them; perhaps this will douse her fear, for a while at least.

  Richard and Gaby are shopping. Julia has dispatched them to get all the last-minute bits and pieces: extra gift wrapping, another roll of sellotape, a jar of cranberry sauce, and the chocolate peppermint creams and Turkish delight that she had forgotten but now believes are essential. Rye is overhung with the dense pale-grey cloud that promises snow; it adds to the Christmas fever, the shops bright with decorations, coloured lights strung across the streets, and shoppers hurrying over the cobbles. Halfway along the High Street, Father Christmas, assisted by two elves, is ringing a large brass bell and calling out to children to come and get a present.

  ‘It’s like a Christmas card,’ Gaby says. ‘Back home, this is how Christmas looks, but not how it is.’

  ‘I know,’ Richard says, thinking how similar Gaby is to the Zoë he first met. ‘I was in Queensland once for Christmas; talk about culture shock. Have you been into this café for tea yet?’

  Gaby peers in through the window to where logs blaze in the huge open fireplace, the flames reflecting off copper pans and kettles. She shakes her head. ‘I only got here the day before yesterday, and we cooked crumpets on the range.’

  ‘Come on then,’ he says, ‘It’s time you had a cream tea.’

  ‘What about Julia . . . won’t she . . .’

  ‘She’ll be fine – glad to have us out of the way.’ He pushes open the door and ushers her inside.

  ‘I totally love England,’ Gaby says, when they have ordered their tea. ‘It’s amazing.’

  ‘When did you get here?’

  ‘Four weeks ago, all of it in London until I came here. The Christmas lights in Oxford Street were awesome, and there were people singing carols on the street corners.’

  ‘And you’re not missing home?’

  ‘No way. I mean, I miss them all, but I don’t wish I was there, because this is so brilliant.’

  ‘There is something particularly lovely and traditional about it,’ Richard concedes, ‘although the older I get, the more I tend to compare it with how much better it all was when I was young.’

  ‘Old people do that wherever they are,’ Gaby says.

  ‘I’m not old,’ Richard bridles and then leans across the table smiling. ‘Well, not really old. The fact that I was a grown-up person in nineteen sixty-eight doesn’t make me a fossil.’ They have spent all morning with Tom in his study, exploring his treasure trove of memorabilia.

  ‘I know,’ Gaby says. ‘But you’re older than Mum, you’re probably the same age as Dad.’

  ‘Tell me about your dad.’

  ‘He’s great,’ Gaby says, leaning sideways so the waitress can put a plate of scones on the table. ‘He’s an engineer, a civil engineer; he’s doing stuff on the freeway extension, managing some of the construction, I think. He likes that. He’d rather be strutting about in work boots and a hard hat than having to put a suit on and go to meetings, but he has to do that too.’ She pauses, helping herself to a scone and then looks up, as though thinking of what to say next. ‘He’s funny, he’s cheerful, um . . . he likes fishing, and the footy, and he reads a lot of books about history.’ She puts down the scone, reaches for her bag and pulls out her wallet. ‘Here,’ she says, handing Richard a photograph. ‘I took this just before I left.’

  Archie is sitting on the steps of a verandah, hands clasped on his knees and smiling into the camera. He is a well-built man with blue eyes and a fair, freckled complexion. He is casually dressed in khaki pants and a white shirt, sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. He looks perfectly at ease, open and friendly, and he’s looking at the camera in a way that makes it absolutely clear that he loves the photographer. Richard is taken aback. How arrogant, he thinks, that he had always assumed that Zoë would pick someone who was physically similar to him. Archie is his direct opposite; probably height is the only physical characteristic they share.

  Gaby hands him another photograph. ‘Here’s one of him and Mum.’

  Zoë is sitting beside Archie, his arm around her shoulders. She’s wearing a denim skirt and a white T-shirt, and she’s smiling too, but with that characteristic anxious little furrow between her eyebrows – the furrow Richard knows so well – and she is wearing the enamel pendant. Richard is about to mention this to Gaby but changes his mind.

  ‘Do you have a picture of your brother?’ he asks instead.

  Dan’s likeness to Harry is striking; it’s almost like looking at Harry himself, the slightly lighter skin tone is the only difference. ‘Wow,’ Richard says, ‘he’s so like his father.’

  ‘What was he like, Dan’s father?’

  He hesitates. ‘He was a genuinely lovely man. Kind, probably wise beyond his years.’

  Gaby keeps looking at him thoughtfully, until he averts his eyes and looks down again at the photograph. Justine is darker than Dan, with glossy black curly hair that is pinned up. When Zoë talked about Justine she hadn’t mentioned that she was beautiful – perhaps she had failed to see it. Richard hopes she can see it now. Between them, a chubby baby sits looking into the camera, slightly puzzled.

  ‘And this is Harry junior.’

  Gaby nods. ‘Isn’t he adorable? I’ll miss his first Christmas but Mum says he won’t really notice much of what’s happening, he’ll enjoy it more next year.’ She hands him another photograph, this time of herself and a blonde girl who is very obviously Archie’s daughter. They are standing, their arms wrapped around each other on the same verandah. ‘Me and my sister,’ she says. ‘Didn’t Mum show you any photographs when she was here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not? Didn’t you want to see what we looked like?’

  He pauses, thinking about it. ‘I did,’ he said, ‘but not until it was too late and I wasn’t going to see her again before she left.’

  Gaby taps the edges of her photographs together and puts them back into her bag. ‘Did you show her pictures of your daughter?’

  He shakes his head. ‘She didn’t ask.’

  ‘That’s weird.’ She picks up the milk jug and pours some into their cups. ‘I thought that was what people did when they hadn’t seen each other for years, bragged about their children.’

  ‘I suppose it is but . . .’ he hesitates, wondering how to explain. ‘I think there was too much of the past hanging over Zoë and me. A lot of unresolved things; I guess we needed to sort all that out first and then the time just ran out.’

  Gaby pours the tea and hands Richard his cup, looking him directly in the eyes. ‘Were you pleased to see her?’

  ‘Absolutely delighted. It’s one of the best things that’s happened to me in years.’

  ‘Did you have a fight?’

  He looks surprised. ‘What, last year or in the past?’

  ‘Last year, of course; I know you must’ve had fights in the past.’

  ‘No, we didn’t have a fight last year. We talked a lot, about the past, about how young and confused we were. About the bad decisions we – well actually I made – about how things might have been different.’

  There is a long silence while Gaby plays with scone crumbs on her plate. Neither of them has started to eat.

  ‘So, what else did you do apart from talk?’

  ‘We had dinner here in Rye, and one time we met up at Gloria’s place and your mother had got very stoned, which was funny because she wouldn’t have gone near a joint in the old days.’

  Gaby smiles. ‘She told us about that but I didn’t know you were there too. What else?’

  ‘We went for a walk on Hampstead Heath . . . Oh, we also went to the pub and for a walk near my flat, which is where we lived when we first got married.’
r />   She looks up sharply. ‘I’d like to see that place.’

  ‘You’re welcome any time,’ he says. ‘When you go back to London after Christmas, call me and I’ll show you some of the sights.’

  ‘That’d be awesome,’ Gaby says. ‘But the first thing I have to do is get a job.’

  ‘What sort of job?’

  ‘Anything, really. Mum and Dad gave me enough money for three months without working, but I don’t want to use it all. I want to get a job as soon as I can. I was going to try to be a nanny but Julia was telling me about looking after those children in Paris and it’s sort of put me off.’

  Richard laughs. ‘She really hated it,’ he says. ‘Never stopped complaining. What else do you think would interest you? What do you like doing?’

  Gaby shrugs. ‘Finding things out, like, about the past and about how it sort of fits with the present. And I’m quite a good writer, my English teacher says I should be a journalist. I’m a bit of a feminist too, much to Mum’s dismay. Although Dan always says that Mum would be if she would only stop being scared of it and listen. She’s like “I’m not a feminist but . . . ” and then she lists all the things she believes about women, which is just all of what feminism is about. She has all the instincts, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I do know exactly what you mean. What about university?’

  ‘Oh, I suppose so,’ Gaby says with a huge sigh. ‘I didn’t want to but now I think I might have to if I want a good job. I thought journalism probably or history, or maybe both. But I wanted to learn something in the real world first, that’s why I’m here, to get life experience. Parents and teachers go on all the time about how important it is but then when the time comes, they don’t really want you to go out and get it.’

  ‘It is a bit of a wrench when your children want lives of their own,’ Richard says. ‘Are you going to eat that scone or just look at it?’

  In silence, they pile jam and cream onto their scones.

  ‘Bliss,’ Gaby says with her mouth full. ‘I am totally going to pig out. You know, I’m almost exactly the same age Mum was when she came to London.’