Bad Behaviour

by Liz Byrski

  She watches him now and sees that he too is watching Zoë. Definitely time to leave.

  ‘We should probably get moving,’ she says, standing up. ‘I’ll go and sort Harry out.’ She walks down the passage to Dan’s old room, where he is sleeping soundly in the cot that Zoë keeps there for him.

  Zoë, who has followed her, peeps over her shoulder. ‘Still asleep?’

  Justine nods and steps back so that Zoë can see him, arms flung above his head, covers kicked off, dead to the world.

  ‘You can leave him, if you like, and I’ll bring him over in the morning.’

  ‘I think you’ve got enough to cope with at the moment,’ Justine says. ‘Are you okay, Zoë? You must be worn out.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes, I am, I’m very tired. Jus, what do you think of Carly?’

  ‘Well, she seems really lovely, and she’s coping amazingly well. It’s a terrible shock, a deadly journey, and now she’s surrounded by strangers. It’s pretty grim for her.’

  ‘Yes, she’s remarkable. I like her too. Look, I know this sounds odd but how old do you think she is?’

  ‘How old?’ Justine shrugs. ‘Oh, early thirties, I suppose. Why? Oh yes, yes, I see what you mean, if she’s the same age as Dan . . .’

  ‘Exactly,’ Zoë says. ‘If Carly’s about the same age as Dan, then I want to know exactly when Richard first met her mother.’

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Perth – October 2002

  The darkness is peaceful, soothing, although something keeps niggling at him. He vaguely remembers a man’s voice shouting out that he couldn’t see; the voice sounded like his own, but he’s not sure. He remembers the noise, the flames crawling up his body, the smell of burning flesh, the scorching behind his eyelids, and then the pool. He’s going to be okay, though, that’s what matters, he’s alive after all. Sometimes he thinks he’s back in the swimming pool, but then he feels the bed and remembers he’s in hospital, and his hand twitches, trying to grasp another hand. He feels the pressure of the bandages on his head holding the pads firmly over his eyes. Carly is here every day, Zoë most days; doctors come and go, their voices are distinguishable now, so he knows who he’s talking to. The same, too, with some of the nurses. There are more of them, so it’s harder to identify them, but their touch tells him more about them than their faces ever could. Then, one afternoon when he has drifted briefly into sleep, he wakes and smells perfume in the room.

  ‘Patti?’ he says, trying to sit up. ‘Patti?’

  ‘Dorothy,’ a voice tells him. ‘Dorothy Connell, Mr Linton. I’m the hospital chaplain.’

  ‘That perfume,’ Richard says, ‘your perfume, it made me remember. Write it down, please, in case I forget again.’ He hears paper rustle, the scrape of a chair, feels a hand on his good one.

  ‘Okay, tell me,’ she says.

  ‘Patti Brisbane, or maybe Patti from Brisbane. Red hair, that perfume.’

  ‘Trésor,’ she says and moves something closer to his face, a wrist perhaps.

  ‘Trésor, that’s it. We were dancing. We . . . I held her hand and . . .’ he pauses, searching for the rest of it ‘. . . the bomb, a second bomb . . . her hand, it was there in mine.’ He thinks he’s crying now. The burning in his eyes is worse than ever, and his chest heaves. His good hand is twitching, grasping at the blankets, reaching for her hand.

  The chaplain takes it. ‘Your pain relief is here,’ she says, gripping his index finger and reminding him of the clip attached to it. ‘Do you need some more?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Not pain, the hand. Her hand in mine, that’s all there was.’

  There is silence and he can sense that someone else has come into the room.

  ‘Patti?’ he asks again.

  ‘No, Dad, it’s Carly.’

  ‘Find her for me, Carly,’ he asks her later when he has explained what happened. ‘Perhaps she’s here in this hospital.’ He is obsessed with the hand, he should have kept it close to him; they can do amazing things these days, reattach fingers, toes, perhaps even a whole hand. But he had let go and it has been lost in the flames, and because of him she must live without her hand.

  Her name was Patti Welmost, Carly tells him later. She has checked with the hospital and the information hotline that has been set up to deal with enquiries.

  ‘She was a hairdresser from Brisbane,’ Carly says, ‘and she was on holiday with a woman friend who’d met a man earlier that evening and gone off with him to the beach. Patti stayed on alone at the club because she wanted to dance.’

  ‘We danced,’ he said. ‘We just started dancing . . . her hand . . . did they find her hand? Perhaps they can . . .’

  ‘She died, Dad,’ Carly says softly, ‘she died instantly at the scene.’

  ‘Died,’ he echoes, ‘died, no, please not.’ He feels Patti’s hand cold in his own, cold and dead.

  A couple of days later, things are clearer. He can remember more and, unfortunately, feel more.

  ‘We really don’t know about your eyes,’ the doctor tells him, ‘at this stage, it’s impossible to say. One day at a time, that’s how we have to progress.’

  ‘I’ve brought you some talking books,’ Carly says, moving his good hand towards his good ear and helping him to fit the earpiece in place, guiding his fingers over the switches that make it start and stop. She has been reading to him, every day until now; her sweet voice leading him through the newspapers, through the letters and emails, through the messages on cards. ‘I won’t be back today,’ she says now. ‘Dan and Justine are taking me out for lunch at the beach. They think I need a break.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘of course you do. And Lily?’

  ‘She calls every day,’ Carly says. ‘She sends you her love. I read you her email yesterday, remember?’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘So, I’ll see you tomorrow and Zoë will be here this afternoon. You rest now.’

  Richard feels the warm swish of air as she leans forward and the brush of her lips against his cheek. How acutely aware he is of touch, how vital and tender it is when you can’t see. He vows to remember that, appreciate it still, once he can see again; if he can see again.

  ‘Julia and Tom will be here on Thursday,’ Zoë tells him when she arrives that afternoon. ‘Julia wants to stay until they can take you home.’

  ‘God knows how long that’ll be,’ Richard says despondently, ‘and then I’ll need . . .’

  ‘They know, Richard,’ she says, putting her hand on his arm, ‘they’re making plans but don’t worry about all that now.’

  He nods slowly. ‘They didn’t need to come, but it’ll be so good to see . . .’ he hesitates, ‘to have them here. I’m such a lucky bastard.’

  ‘There’s a card here for you – looks like it’s from Gaby. Would you like me to open it and read it to you?’

  Richard hesitates. His spine tingles with fear and every burn on his body throbs with pain. ‘Er . . . yes, please,’ he says, clearing his throat. He hears her tear open the envelope and take out the card.

  ‘It’s a great card,’ Zoë says, ‘you’ll love it when you see it. It’s a photograph of all different newspaper headlines, and over the top in big red letters it says “Stop Press”, and when you open it, it says “Today’s news is you have to get well soon”.’ She laughs. ‘It’s just the right card for you. Now, here’s what Gaby says. “Dear Rich, hurry up and get well, we all miss you, even me. Love Gaby”, and there’s a kiss. I’ll put it up with your other cards.’

  He exhales with relief, relaxing into his pillows. ‘Thank her for me, will you?’ he says. ‘And tell her . . . tell her I’m sorry for being such a tosser. She’ll know what I mean.’ He reaches for his beaker of water and Zoë puts it into his hand.

  ‘Richard, there’s something I need you to tell me,’ she says.

  ‘I know,’ he says. ‘I know what it is.’

  The room is silent except for the occasional bleep of monitors, the muffled rattle of a trolley in
the passage, the sound of lowered voices. Somewhere in the distance, something is dropped and crashes to the ground. Richard jumps violently, almost dislodging things he’s attached to, wrenching at painful parts of himself.

  ‘I didn’t know until I went back to Oakland years later,’ he says. ‘Even then, Lily didn’t tell me straight away. Carly was away on a school camp, and her mother thought I was just passing through.’

  ‘Like the last time,’ Zoë says. ‘Like you did in September sixty-eight?’

  ‘Exactly. It took her a week to tell me that I had a twelve-year-old daughter. She didn’t want me interfering unless I was going to stick around.’

  He hears Zoë exhale deeply and wishes he could see her face.

  ‘So, when Dan was born, when you and I . . . you didn’t know then.’

  He shakes his head. ‘No idea, Zoë, honestly. Carly was twelve before I knew she existed.’

  ‘But you did know that you and I were equally at fault, and yet, knowing that . . .’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you. I was confused when I got back . . .’

  ‘You were vile, you behaved as though you hated me.’

  ‘It was my guilt, that and my ambition. That trip, working with Martin, I could see what I wanted, I felt . . . you were standing in my way.’

  ‘But you didn’t end it. You could have told me you’d met someone and ended it because of that.’

  ‘I meant to, I kept meaning to, but each time I came close to it, something held me back. I loved you and resented you at the same time. The night of the march, when you were in the hospital I was going to tell you, and then . . . well . . .’

  ‘I told you I was pregnant. And then when Dan was born, I had to be the guilty one. I was guilty, of course, but you kept quiet and got to keep the moral high ground.’

  There is nothing he can say to this. The silence is long, and he starts to wonder if she has actually left. He moves his hand over the blankets.

  ‘Zoë?’

  ‘I’m still here.’

  ‘I should have told you when we met again. Julia made me promise I would. It’s why I suggested you stay at the flat. I always intended to come home that night and tell you. I thought we needed to be somewhere together, without other people. But you were at Gloria’s and still there the next morning, and up on the Heath . . .’

  ‘Why not then?’ she asks, and he hears the emotion in her voice; the hurt or anger, or both. ‘Or that evening back at the flat?’

  ‘It was such a beautiful day; and the evening, beautiful. I felt that something was healing in both of us. I felt . . .’ he clears his throat. ‘It was like it was the last months we were together and somehow I felt – stupidly, I suppose – that there might be a chance for us, you and me. You’d said that back then, had you known I’d wanted you back, it would have been different.’

  ‘And you really thought that meant that it could be different now, all these years later?’

  ‘You must think me stupid and selfish, but I hoped so, and I didn’t want to contaminate that chance.’

  ‘Contaminate it with the truth?’

  ‘That’s how it felt.’

  ‘I see.’

  But he doesn’t think she does. And he knows that something has changed.

  She guides him patiently through drinking his tea, holding the straw to his burnt lips, steering his good hand to the tiny crustless sandwiches, placing the paper napkin in his hand; she is both gentle and solicitous. Tomorrow, she says, she will be in during the afternoon, and will bring him some music, a CD she’s making for him of the music he used to love. There is now no anger in her tone and the hurt so apparent in their earlier conversation seems to have lifted, but there’s something else. He would know so much more if he could see her face, her gestures.

  ‘Zoë,’ he says, reaching out to find her hand. ‘You and I, we . . .’ he hesitates, ‘well we’re the products of our times and our upbringing. I’m not saying that excuses anything, but it does help to explain it. I want you to know that I loved you, I still . . . well, anyway . . . I know I’ve let you down again and I do understand if you feel you can’t come here again.’

  There is another long silence and he feels the breath of her sigh.

  ‘What you’ve told me, Richard,’ she says, ‘it’s like an acquittal. That one act of betrayal filled me with shame, and that has always been with me. I’ve tried to make up for it in my other relationships, with Archie, with my children, most especially with Dan. But now I know we were both culpable, we betrayed each other; I was no worse than you, but the consequences were different.’ She stops and he hears her sigh again, and senses that she is moving back slightly, maybe leaning back in her chair. ‘Frankly, though, I could strangle you for not telling me sooner, especially not having told me that day on the Heath. As for the rest of it, well . . . it’s hard for me to understand how you thought we could be together again. I did . . . I do imagine that, despite everything, we are old friends. And that’s why I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  He hears her chair move, the click of her handbag clasp, the rustle of a coat or jacket. He is hugely relieved, unbearably grateful; something has changed, but there is no hostility. He can feel her standing beside the bed, and she takes his hand again, turns it over, slips something smooth and small into it, and folds his fingers around it. Then there is just the sound of her footsteps, the creak of the door closing behind her, and the smooth curve of the enamel heart between his fingers is all that remains.

  2008

  FORTY-NINE

  Rye – February 2008

  Julia sits at the desk staring at the computer screen; there’s so much she wants and needs to say but where to begin? And how can she keep some of this for Richard, for Tom and most of all, perhaps, for herself, without taking something away from Zoë?

  Hi Zoë, she begins, and then stops again sighing, shaking her head. I know Gaby called you last night with the wonderful news, so here are some pictures so you can see your gorgeous daughter and Brad in all their glory. I so wish you and Archie could have been there to see them get the award. It was a wonderful evening, and you would have been so proud of her.

  Julia stops typing and reads what she has written.

  ‘I’m emailing Zoë about last night,’ she calls to Tom through the open window. ‘D’you think it’s okay to mention Richard?’

  Tom appears at the window, resting his arms, gardening gloves and a pair of secateurs on the sill. ‘Why not?’

  ‘You know, the past, and then the way she found out about Carly. That was all about nineteen sixty-eight and so is this.’

  ‘But Zoë and Richard were still friends,’ Tom says. ‘Zoë told you that herself when we went over there to bring Richard home.’

  ‘But I can’t expect her to feel as I . . . as we do, and last night was Gaby’s night – well, Gaby’s and Brad’s.’

  ‘But not to the exclusion of Richard. Zoë knows that without Richard, this wouldn’t have happened . . .’

  ‘It wouldn’t have happened without you either,’ Julia cuts in.

  ‘Probably not, but that’s not the point; we’re talking about Richard.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Julia says. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  ‘Of course I’m right,’ Tom says with a grin, pulling on his gardening gloves. ‘I’m a man.’

  ‘Oh, bugger off and prune things,’ Julia says, and starts to type again.

  I wished so much that Richard could have been there. It was the one award he always coveted and never managed to win. He and Martin thought they would win it for that first civil rights documentary in sixty-nine but someone else just beat them to it. But he would have been thrilled for them both, you know how fond he was of Gaby.

  They put a dedication at the start of the film and they mentioned him in their acceptance speech. ‘Our dear friend and mentor who died before this project came to fruition, but without whose inspiration and guidance it would not have been made’. It’s on the DVD too, right at the start
and on the cover. I wept of course; even Tom had a tear in his eye. The BBC is packaging Tom’s book and the DVD together as a special 1968 memorial pack, and I’m going to post a couple to you today.

  She stops again and looks at one of the packages beside her on the desk. Tom’s book; she is embarrassingly proud, and so very thankful that she has trained herself out of teasing him about not finishing things. There are even photographs in there of some of those crumpled fliers and torn posters from Paris, and on the back his own photograph, smiling, thoughtful. If only Hilary and Richard could have seen it. And the companion DVD; Gaby and Brad’s name on the reverse, with their photographs and a little box at the side with a picture of the book cover and explaining the tie-in.

  ‘Sometimes I just want to shake you,’ she says, looking up at Richard’s photograph above the fireplace. ‘Couldn’t you have waited a little longer to see them finish it? Couldn’t you have waited to celebrate this with us, especially with Tom?’

  But she knows he couldn’t; the blindness had beaten him. He had fought the depression and carried on for as long as he could, he and Tom talking endlessly with Gaby and Brad about the research, the various narratives, the angles to take, and then he had described the way he had imagined it, the way it would come together. That done, he had stepped back and begun the slow downward spiral until he was ready to go. Julia’s eyes fill with tears, as they always do when she remembers the day she came home to find Tom waiting for her in the doorway.

  ‘It’s Richard,’ he’d said, his voice faltering. ‘It’s over, Jules, he’s ended it.’

  She was supposed to believe that Richard died alone, that he chose a time when she was going to be away overnight at the London flat and Tom was also supposed to be out all day; that he waited until he had plenty of time alone and then took the tablets he had been storing for months. It was a couple of days later, in that distressing and awkward period before the funeral, that she discovered what had really happened.