She was christened Josephine. Eyebrows rose.
Her father’s name was George.
‘My mother was always prone to the whim,’ she learnt to say with her naughty smile.
The name was too unwieldy for a small baby so she became Jo, or Josie. There was a time when some called her ‘Feeney’ but her parents soon put a stop to that.
Word had it that her mother was prone to more than the whim, but she couldn’t have cared less.
She loved her lazy, long-lashed parent and, if her father were other than George, she didn’t want to know. He was all the father she wanted. She adored him. He was a broad and bulky man; his heavy, dark-complexioned face pitted with the scars of adolescent acne. They were oddly endearing. He was always easy and prepared to be amused. ‘And kinder than God,’ she said, which didn’t cut much ice with me as looking around I felt there was ample evidence that He was a lot less kind than He ought to be.
She also said, ‘Knowing George is like walking into a room full of treasures.’
That did impress me. If my father had had a room to walk into all I could expect to find would be empty bottles and a golf ball.
When I first knew her as a little girl she had slightly bucked top teeth, a lisp, and surprisingly large feet. As she grew older she lost the lisp but not the habit of carrying her tongue just behind the teeth, so that, when she smiled, you caught a tantalising glimpse of the pink tip. That, and the way her teeth lay so sweetly on her bottom lip, made you want to kiss her. Many did. She became an enthusiastic kisser at an early age.
Her legs lengthened, became strong and curved, and, so to speak, grew into her feet. The distance between her small bust and hipbones was long. Three men, standing side by side, could have encircled her waist with their hands, one encirclement above another. She looked as though she could be snapped in two. Her short fuse and quick reflexes made it unlikely that anyone would try.
‘There’s something about that girl,’ my mother said, vexed.
There seemed to be only two reactions to Josie, vexation or delight. She delighted me.
We were so lucky. I can’t think of a better place in which to spend one’s childhood than our little town on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. We lived, not so much by the sea as in it, and the country began ten minutes drive inland. We saw calves born, eggs laid, rabbits gutted and fell in headlong love with the horse. But our great passion was the beach.
We were both taught to swim as soon as we could walk — something one would have expected of Jo’s parents but hardly of mine. My father never went near the water and Ma was given to the decorous dip and quick retreat to the safety of the sun-umbrella. I suppose she regarded it as insurance against just one of the many dangers that threatened me — she made me well aware of the perils of swallowing fruit pips, contact with strange lavatory seats and men who asked me if I’d like a lolly. It’s a good job she didn’t know what Jo and I got up to when we were on the looser rein held by Paula, Jo’s mother.
Paula loved the sun and the sea.
‘She’ll be sorry when she’s fifty and has skin like an old boot,’ my mother said. But Paula was not only lovely but intelligent. Her skin was as cosseted as Cleopatra’s — if asses’ milk had been on hand she would have fallen on it. She made sure Jo used all her expensive lotions too. Ma put her faith in olive oil and vinegar followed by lashings of Nivea.
‘The only part of me that isn’t brown is between my toes,’ Jo said often, with satisfaction.
My olive skin just went a few shades darker. ‘The dusky maiden,’ George said.
We would watch Paula swim far, far out until the bobbing head at last turned and we could see she was swimming back and it would soon be safe for us to disappear and leave her to lie, all golden and spent, and looking utterly lovely, on her beautiful, expensive towels.
As soon as Paula was settled for her siesta we used to climb up the stony, uneven path that led to the lighthouse in a mad dash, which had the heart plunging and the lungs hurting, timing ouselves to see who could be the first to reach the top of the cliff. I still have gravel embedded in my knees from the falls in the equally precipitous rush down.
And there was the cave where the tide rushed in and the path around the rocks that could be lost to the incoming tide in no time at all, and the icecreams we bought from the kiosk with money stolen from Paula’s purse. Those were the carefree days before puberty robbed us of days in the month and the clear skin betrayed us by reacting to surging hormones.
We had always gone to the same school and sat side by side until secondary school when at the beginning of term we chose desks next to each other. By the middle of it we had been separated to opposite sides of the room.
‘Emma! Josephine!’ the cross voice said, ‘Pay attention to me.’
When the bell went for the end of lessons we rushed towards each other with the immediacy of iron filings. We rollicked through our schooldays … knocking off subject prizes and sports trophies like fairground coconuts.
But things began to change when Jo discovered boys and I became a tennis addict.
‘Masochism,’ Jo said, ‘all that sweating …’ Our differences were beginning to show. But one thing had not changed, we still shared a passion for life and we made plans.
In his youth George had roamed Europe; he set lanterns alight in our minds.
‘Did you know?’ Jo asked me, ‘that you can see the eyelashes on the statue of the Young Charioteer at Delphi? His eyes are lapis lazuli!’
‘Did you know that if you touch the stones of the Lion Gate at Mycenae, your fingers could touch what Agamemnon once touched?’
The dreary university grind was not for us; there was a World out there.
‘Then begin at the beginning,’ George said. ‘Learn some Greek.’
I was annoyed to find it such a cow of a language.
We were eighteen and had left school and were messing about trying to decide what to do next. Jo had a small but pure singing voice, drew well, painted boldly and was good at taking photographs; other people liked taking photographs of her. She had choices.
She was long on talent but short on self-discipline and resistant to anything imposed by others. I played tennis very well, had a good, all-round intelligence, but resented anyone telling me what to do with it. We were told we were wayward.
Jo was lusted after. I was not. I did not wish to be. At least not by the wave-obsessed surfers that were around.
She puzzled me. She was not promiscuous — for she showed discrimination — and ‘immoral’, ‘amoral’ and ‘non-moral’ were not the proper words to describe her either. It was as though she were plagued by curiosity.
‘It is so interesting!’ she said, ‘you wouldn’t believe how different they can be!’
It didn’t seem to occur to her that she might become pregnant. When her period was late she was incredulous. ‘It’s impossible!’ she cried.
It was all too bloody possible as I told her in no uncertain terms. ‘Who!’ I asked, tight-lipped.
‘Well — do you remember the twins who played in the footy match against …’
I remembered drooling over their expensive, incredibly handsome sports car.
‘Which one?’
‘Well —’ she said.
‘Oh Jo! Not both!’
‘They were so nice,’ she said defensively, ‘it would have been unfair. After all they were twins!’
‘And enjoyed comparing notes I don’t doubt.’
‘If you’re going to be horrid I won’t tell you any more.’
‘There’s more?’
‘Well, there’s Peter.’
‘Not Peter Holland!’ He was our doctor. Serious, detached. I had never got over my mother sending me to him when I was plagued by threadworms. ‘He’s over thirty!’
‘They’re better at it when they are older.’
I had no words.
She had plenty.
‘He was so off-hand — he got me nettled. All he saw was my ankle — he didn’t see me! I just had to see if I could — I wondered what he would be like when …’
‘Well, you know now,’ I broke in viciously, ‘and when you tell George do fill him in on all the details.’
She flinched, as I had intended she should; if I could have thought of anything more cruel to say I would have said that too.
In the event she didn’t have to tell him anything. Coming home from a day out shopping with her mother, she found him lying under the mango tree. Dr Holland was sent for at once but it was too late — the heart attack had been massive and darling George had died there on the grass, lying alone and unnoticed for most of the day.
When I rushed up to the house I found Jo’s mother walking round and around the living room saying distractedly, ‘But he was only forty-four! He was only forty-four!’
Jo was as pale as milk. ‘There was a ladybird running over his cheek,’ she said piteously.
She was brittle with shock and her hands were icy. She didn’t listen when I spoke. All I could do with her was to make her lie on the couch and wrap her in a blanket. While I was doing it I was thinking, ‘With a bit of luck this could bring on a miscarriage.’ And excused myself by thinking how sad George would have been if he had known. It was a bad time.
Paula pulled herself together enough to put the notices in all the relevant newspapers and Peter Holland helped her with the miserable arrangements that have to be made when somebody dies. Jo stayed in her room.
‘People will want to go back to the house after the funeral,’ she said, ‘I’d better make her one of my big fruit cakes and make certain she has enough cups and saucers.’
She was surprised I was surprised.
‘It’s the least I can do,’ she said indignantly. ‘I’m lucky. It could have been your father.’
That surprised me even more — she always showed him more exasperation than affection.
On the morning of the dreaded day we packed cake and china and went up to the house to see if there was anything we could do to help. We needn’t have bothered. Paula had got caterers in. Cups and saucers and trays of vol-au-vent and what they call ‘finger food’ were all laid out. Nevertheless my mother’s cake was at once given pride of place and some of the café crockery exchanged for our delicate Doulton. A little short on morals she might be but Paula never lacked good manners.
She was looking strained but quite lovely in a tailored suit and dangerously elegant shoes.
She saw my mother’s eyes fly to her wild nimbus of hair.
‘He never saw me in a hat,’ she said.
‘But for church —’ my mother said reprovingly.
‘Don’t start, Dorry. I’d feel just as blasphemous in a hat as without one.’
‘Where’s Jo?’ I asked hurriedly, afraid she might start on the ‘only forty-four’ bit again.
Just then Peter Holland came in from the garden and came straight over to me.
He bent down and said in a low voice. ‘Watch out for Josie, will you? She’s liable to go off like a Catherine wheel.’
I had never really looked at him before but now there was no option, our faces were so close together. I did not see his actual features so much as the integrity in the troubled blue eyes and the charitable curve of his mouth. He turned away quickly as Jo came in from the garden. She was wearing blue jeans and a floppy sweater.
Her mother made a cry of exasperation. ‘For heaven’s sake! Go and get changed! We’ll be late at the church!’
‘Don’t panic, Ma,’ she said reasonably. ‘You can go now. Don’t wait for me. I’m not coming.’
‘O-o-oh!’ The exasperation was turning into anger. ‘Of course you are! Don’t be stupid! Go and —!’
Peter Holland laid a hand on the raised arm. ‘Leave her be,’ he said quietly.
‘But —!’
‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘Leave her be.’
You can recognise a command when you hear it no matter how controlled the voice.
Paula sighed heavily but said no more.
Jo flicked Peter a small surprised smile of gratitude and went up to her room.
We gathered ourselves together and walked down the road to the church.
She had more sense than I had. I shouldn’t have gone either.
It did me no good at all to know that it was George lying there with the top of the flower-covered casket screwed down on him. He had been wearing his corduroy trousers and big loose pullover when he died. Would they have let him keep those on or did they think a nice clean pair of pyjamas was more suitable? I pitied whoever had had the job of changing him. He was a big man. Come to think of it, I had never seen him in pyjamas. There only seemed to be George under the big towelling robe he used as a dressing-gown and sat about in until he had had his coffee and a go at the cryptic crossword.
I kept my eyes closed when they carried him down the aisle.
There’s not much comfort in the words of the burial service and that theatrical gesture of throwing earth on the coffin after it has been lowered into the grave is not my style so I got away as soon as I could and went in search of Jo.
I found her where I thought I would, sitting under the mango tree.
‘It’s over,’ I said. ‘The mob will be here soon. What are you going to do?’
‘Stay in my room,’ she said.
And she did. She didn’t come down until after the last guest had gone and Ma and I were finishing the washing-up.
‘Peter gone?’ she asked.
He had.
‘Just came down to say I love you,’ she said to her mother, blowing her a kiss and mouthing a silent ‘thanks’ to Ma and me. Then she turned round and went upstairs again.
‘I’ll never know what to make of that girl,’ my mother said as we walked home. ‘I doubt if she even knows what to make of herself.’
I couldn’t answer. The full sorrow of there being no more George had finally hit me. I remembered Jo saying that being with him was like walking into a room full of treasures. I had shared some of them.
‘You would never have behaved like that if it had been your father,’ the relentless voice was going on.
I wouldn’t.
One can face a small loss. I would have been able to sit there, holding the prayer book steady for my mother, and letting it all flow over me. I would not have felt grief, just a sad, patronising regret that he had made so little of his life. And if that doesn’t say much for me, too bad. When you think of it, which is worse? To lose something precious or never to have had anything to lose?
‘The cake soon went,’ she was rabbiting on, ‘and no wonder! You’d have thought she’d have had the sense to heat those crumbly things — and realise it isn’t everybody who likes Earl Grey tea. She’d never have got through it if young Dr Holland hadn’t taken so much responsibility.’
The funeral was not the only thing for which he took responsibility — a month afterwards he married Josie. Quickly. In a registry office.
Jo wore her blue linen sheath dress — his shirt and slacks were almost the same colour. They looked like siblings. Paula was all floating chiffon and quiet relief.
I wondered about Dr Holland. Didn’t he have family? Friends? Paula and I were the only other people there. Was he ashamed of this marriage? Was he even in love with her? From what Jo had said it hadn’t been an affair — just a couple of explosive encounters.
In his position he could surely have arranged a discreet abortion — or did he fear that would not be discreet enough and feel the Medical Council breathing down his neck — after all she was his patient — he was supposed to be treating her for a wrenched ankle.
And what sort of thoughts were these to be having during the ceremony of holy matrimony?
I don’t go for these civil ceremonies — they seem so flimsy. One minute you’re single and then, wham, bam, you’re married. If I were ever to go in for it — if — I’d want something more substantial, words that unequivocally spelled out what you were doing.
When it was over we went to the local pub and had a couple of drinks and a counter lunch and then Peter went back to the surgery and Paula excused herself saying she had a lot to do. Jo and I were left looking at each other. Jo shrugged her shoulders.
‘Now George is gone and I’m off her hands she’s decided to sell the house and have a look round the world before deciding what to do next. Footloose and with a fistful of money.’
She sounded envious. ‘What are you going to do?’
I had been wondering about that.
Every plan I had ever had had always included Josephine. Thinking of life without her was like being a snail without its shell. A resentful snail. As we walked slowly back home I became aware I was carrying anger like a low-grade fever. How could she have been so stupid? She had over-turned not only her own life and Peter’s, but mine too. Now it was Jo-and-Him, not Jo-and-Me, and I had no idea what to do.
I had been having tennis lessons since I was ten and was now among the young players considered ‘promising’. There was the possibility that someone would sponsor me on the circuit, but that would mean hanging around, and I was in no mood for that.
‘I could go abroad too,’ I said recklessly. After all I had my own fistful of money — at eighteen Grandmama’s legacy had become mine.
‘Not to Greece!’ she said quickly, ‘not without me!’
I had no intention of going to Greece — it might be her Shangri-la but it wasn’t mine.
I can’t even form a coherent question in the language, and, as for that bloody alphabet! I prefer not to be in a place that baffles me with its street and shop signs.
It came to me in a flash. ‘I’ll go to France,’ I said. (I can speak French.) ‘I’ll take time to explore Paris and then go on down south — Arles and Provence — in search of Vincent!’
‘Oh — you —’ she said, making a face, ‘some people have all the luck.’ Strange words for a new bride.
My mother, of course, opposed my going abroad.
‘You don’t understand the dangers! There are always men waiting to take advantage of young girls!’
What she did not understand is that I am not the type of girl of whom men want to take advantage. When you are tall and athletic-looking and have a cold eye and a ready tongue they prefer not to bother. A man was once unwise to try it on and become physical, but he, not I, was the one to shed blood.
‘You ought to train to do something useful, not gad about squandering your money!’
I was not likely to squander my money; when you have grown up around someone as feckless as my father you soon learn it is not a thing to be stupid enough to do. Grandmama, bless her, had settled her money on me because she didn’t like to think what he might do with it.
‘Just as well,’ he had said, ruffling my hair and showing no resentment. I suppose that means he wasn’t such a bad chap after all.
‘It is a great deal of money for a young girl,’ Grandmama’s lawyer said.
I knew it was and had been reading the financial columns. I found that making money earn money was a good way of doing something useful.
‘Do you know a good broker?’ I asked him.
The one he found for me was a man who loved his work. He was very pleased to have such an eager client and delighted to find the extent of my assets. We spent a long time together. He insisted that I understand the reasons for every decision we made.
‘You have to study the market,’ he said, ‘learn to understand it so that you develop a “feel”. Keep your eye on political events and always be aware of the way the wind is blowing — learn to ride the currents and know when to step off the sailboard. You are a very lucky girl. How canny are you?’
I said I knew I had much to learn and that I was fascinated. I wasn’t just interested in making the money just for itself but also because the mind-games were so intriguing.
‘We will get on,’ he said.
We spread my money around leaving me with what I thought of as ‘the float’ readily available. As cash goes it was far from petty.
My mother now worked up a fair head of steam, not only because I was going abroad but because I was now what she called ‘a catch’. She was worried about ‘those men’ again. I told her that nobody looking at me would think I was a catch and I would make damn sure they didn’t find out.
‘Don’t worry Ma,’ I said, ‘I’m not going to become a robbed and violated virgin.’
Her expected reproof for vulgarity was mild so I suppose I must have set her mind at rest on one score.
‘At least you will be away from the influence of that girl,’ she said.
She couldn’t get anything right. Didn’t she know it is not the physical presence that counts but the presence in the mind? And Josie was never far from mine, nor was I from hers.
‘You must take a laptop,’ she said. ‘We need instant communication. And don’t mess about. Get a digital camera too. I want to see every single thing you see and know every single thought you think. Peter is clued up — I’ll get him on to it. Oh … before I forget he says a friend of his has a home near St Malo and if you need somwhere to stay you should look him up. I’ll get him to write out the address for you!’
Peter sent me a great wad of leaflets full of incomprehensible information about computers. Fortunately there was a note with it.
‘If all this fazes you, could you trust me to get what I think you will need?’ It was the first note I had from him. I have it still.
‘Let him,’ Jo said. ‘Then we can write the cost off against income tax. We could do with every penny we can get!’
‘Tell him to get one for you too,’ I said, ‘we’ll need it. I’ll send him a cheque.’
His response was swift. ‘Thank you, but no thank you. I will get one for Josephine.’
The laptop came. I pored over the instructions as though they were the word come down from the mountain. Jo hadn’t got hers yet. They were living in the house Peter shared with another member of the practice; the housekeeper stayed on and Jo had very little to do.
‘He has thousands of books,’ she said, ‘I am going to read my way through this pregnancy — it will make a change from vomiting.’
In what seemed no time at all Peter had sold his part of the practice and taken a job as a locum.
‘We are going to wildest WoopWoop,’ she said, ‘where I can pod unperceived.’
Actually they were going to Newtown.
Newtown was hardly Woop Woop but it was far enough away for anonymity. A short drive down the coast, cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge and in an hour and a half you were in another world — the inhabitant of a city — an ant in an anthill.
I hated the idea of her going but could see the sense of it — she was in her fourth month now and sharp eyes in our little town would soon notice the thickening of her body and arithmetic would be done. Not, I think, that she would have cared all that much — the decision to go was probably Peter’s. At least she was beginning to sound more like herself again and some of the colour had come back into her cheeks.
‘If you have to be married,’ she said, ‘I suppose one could do worse than good old Pete.’
I wondered how Peter thought he had ‘done’.
The day came for them to leave.
The car was loaded like a removal van — it was impossible for the driver to see out of the back window and the side mirror was cracked. I wondered how long it would be before they were pulled over by the police. I went into the house and had a really hot bath, washed my hair, plucked my eyebrows and drank the little bottle of Cointreau I had bought for a cake recipe.
I waited for her to ring to say they had arrived safely, but there was no word that night. Or the next day. Or the next.
‘All right,’ I thought savagely, ‘if that’s the way you want it!’
‘You are so cross about everything,’ my mother complained.
‘Cross’ wasn’t the word. Feeling abandoned had fanned smouldering anger into blazing life. I was mad with Jo. Mad as hell.
‘Oh, shut up, can’t you?’ I snarled and was not shamed by her hurt, bewildered look.
When you are in pain yourself it is only natural to inflict it on others.