The next day was difficult. Jo, as I knew she would be, was full of questions.
‘She’s very nice, I like her,’ I said.
‘And what sort of answer is that? The girl in the chemist’s is very nice — I like her. Oh, come on, Em. You can do better than that.’
Actually I couldn’t. All the grilling in the world could not have made me find the words. I could never have coped if she had focused her intensity on trying to make me speak. Fortunately, Jo had other things on her mind too.
‘You know that question I was going to ask you. Well, I’m nearly ready to ask it. Paula is very upset about this friend of hers — you know the one you helped her send all the stuff to? She’s talking of having to go over there.’
‘To Turkey?’
‘Yes. She hasn’t decided yet — and I haven’t said anything to her …’
‘You’re not saying much to me either. Get on with it.’
‘Well — George left me some money — I get it when I’m twenty-one. It isn’t much — we’re not on your scale! But I thought … if I asked her if she would advance some to me — after all she got all the rest — if she went to Turkey … I might go with her as far as Greece.’
So that was it. The Young Charioteer was showing his face again.
‘Oh, please, Em,’ she said. ‘You know how much it means to me. It could be my only chance. And I’d only be away a month.’
‘A month! What about Deet? What does Peter say?’
‘Oh, I haven’t said anything to him. You don’t think I’d stick my neck out that far, do you? Not till I knew you’d agree to stay on.’
‘And what about your crusade to help the birds and the bees you are so urgently putting together?’
‘A month won’t make much difference … And oh Em! I so much want to go!’
‘What does Robert think?’
‘I haven’t dared to ask him.’
‘That shows you know you are being outrageous,’ I said curtly and made to move away but she seized my arm.
‘Oh, Em! Why won’t you understand? You would have once. You know it’s what I’ve always, always wanted.’
‘That and everything else too. But you made your bed, didn’t you? Do you expect me to make things easy for you because now you find you don’t want to lie on it.’
‘You can be so hard,’ she said.
‘Not hard, just realistic. If you do go what do you expect to find? There aren’t any pots of gold at the end of rainbows?’
Her temper flashed. ‘I’d rather think there was than be like you and not believe in any rainbows at all. How can you when you always get what I want?’
‘Now you’re talking complete nonsense.’
‘No, I’m not. You have all the chances. Money. Freedom. Oh, Em,’ she said in a much softer voice, ‘there is so much to see — to do — don’t you ever feel there might not be enough time for it all — that there’s not a moment to waste? Is it so bad to feel like that?’
‘If it makes you unable to appreciate what you have got — a very loud “yes”.’
‘You mean Peter and Deet? But I do appreciate them.’ She paused for a moment trying to find the right words. ‘I understand now why I never blamed Paula for being — you know the way she was — but she loved George — she knew she had the best she could possibly have, but — I mean — well — I love avocadoes, just love them, but I don’t want to live on them for the rest of my life — not when I know there are so many other lovely fruits out there.’
‘You can’t pull that one on me,’ I said, ‘it’s an old excuse and not fair on the people round you.’
‘Not an excuse,’ she said, ‘get it right. It’s a reason and I know you think the worst of me but you haven’t got that right either. It’s not just what you think — it’s something much bigger than that —’
Whatever it was I had had enough of it for now. What I could call ‘greed’ she would be sure to try to justify as ‘hunger’. But for what? For bloody what? I didn’t think she knew any more clearly than I did.
I turned away from her but she had not finished with me.
‘If the others agree, you will, won’t you? Please say you will. Please Em.’
I could not face her pleading look. She made me feel unimaginative, hard, even cruel.
‘Maybe,’ I said. I could not bring myself to say an outright ‘No’ to her.
What was Robert’s reaction likely to be I wondered. Peter made his clear very quickly.
I was cleaning the mud off the pram after one of Paula’s adventurous outings when he cornered me.
‘This thing about Josie and Greece,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind her going — things would be much worse if she didn’t — “caging” would come up again. What about you?’
‘Not up to me.’
‘She’ll only be gone for a month. Could you — would you —?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ I said testily, ‘you know I’d stay on. What choice would I have? How could you run the practice and look after Deet on your own?’
‘Bless you,’ he said. ‘When everything is as black as it can be you always —’
I cut him short.
‘What about Paula?’
‘Well she’s definitely going to Turkey and she is quite agreeable about the money. Jo seems to think all she needs now is Robert’s blessing. She’s been hovering outside his room waiting for Tom Milward to go. But she’s with him now.’
‘What was Tom doing here? Making a house call?’ Keep your voice steady, Em, I told myself.
‘Could be just a social visit.’
I prayed to heaven that was all it was.
Robert may have wanted to see me last night but it could not be as badly as I wanted to see him now. Now it was my turn to hover. It seemed an age before his door opened and out she came, all smiles and carrying a pile of books. She pounced on me at once. ‘He thinks it’s a lovely idea. And look at this!’
She unrolled a scroll and thrust it at me. ‘Isn’t it a wonderful photograph of my Charioteer? I will be able to go to the museum at Delphi and have my own photograph taken right beside him. I must go and show this to Paula!’
Here we go again, I thought, everything going her way as usual.
She had left his door ajar. I tapped and went in.
‘You said yesterday you wanted to see me,’ I said. It felt like reporting to the headmaster.
He was sitting at his desk, his back to me and I was piercingly reminded of all the times in France he had sat working, and turned to thank me for bringing him his bowl of coffee. He turned round now and I could see he had not been working, just doodling on a sheet of paper.
Jo had not said he was looking ill. Damn her, she should have.
‘Tom Milward has been to see you,’ I accused him. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing for you to worry about.’
‘I’m not leaving this room till you tell me.’
‘Ah,’ he said, with a faint smile. ‘The forceful Miss Soames. How nice it is to see you. ‘We looked at each other. I felt as though my eyes had come home.
I wondered what Lisette would see if she were studying his face as intently as I was now.
Would she see the virility of the young man she had loved — for loved him she had, I felt no doubt about that — or the unmistakable touch of the seediness of middle-age. And, whatever she saw, would she feel the tenderness I was feeling now?
‘Oh, Robert,’ I said, ‘you are not well. I can see it, and what hurts you, hurts me.’
‘Then you mustn’t let it.’
‘Come into the sitting room and put your feet up.’ I had him by the hand and was leading him through to the big couch, and he was letting me. ‘Don’t fuss though,’ he said, ‘no plumping up of cushions and searching for a nice little blanket.’
He lay back on the couch with a sigh and patted the small remaining space.
I sat down close to him and took close hold of his hand.
‘Jo didn’t tell me you were ill.’
‘I didn’t tell her I was.’
‘But surely she could see —’
‘People only see what they want to see. All she wanted from me was an approving smile and I was happy to give it.’
‘But you are going to tell me — aren’t you? Believe me, I do not leave this room until —’
He lifted my hand and kissed it. ‘I have learned to respect the formidable will of my Miss Soames. You lovely, foolish girl — will you never let people learn to carry their own burdens?’
‘I’m waiting,’ I said.
He put my hand back in my lap and looked directly into my eyes.
‘I am developing the symptoms of MS,’ he said simply and my heart lurched.
‘You mean Multiple Sclerosis? But that is —!’
‘I know what it is — it comes within my field of research. And I know how to cope so there is no need to panic.’
I did of course but had the sense not to let him see it.
I had heard of MS but beyond knowing that it was a cruel debilitating disease for which there was no cure had no clear understanding of it.
‘I will do all the right things — there is every chance I might go into remission. If not there is an operation on the brain — later down the track.’
I couldn’t bear it.
I flung myself into his arms, which opened to hold me. We clung together as though we were drowning. ‘Sweet Emma,’ he said, his mouth warm against my neck, I pressed against him, over him, as though my body could shield him from all harm. The passion I felt was all in the heart. I kissed him with the purity of protective love.
There was a sound.
I looked up to see Jo standing in the doorway, staring down at us, disbelieving horror on her face. Our eyes locked and, for a moment held and I saw such hate, and then she was gone.
It was as though the earth had suddenly fallen from under my feet.
Robert had not seen Jo, the doorway was out of his line of vision.
‘I don’t want,’ he was saying, as I drew myself up, ‘the others to know — yet. There will be a time.’ He saw my face and gave a murmur of concern. ‘God, the things I do to you! I like it when you blush but when you grow so pale …’
His arms were round me again. Now he was the comforter.
Before I left him I extracted one promise.
‘Peter would be very hurt if he felt you couldn’t turn to him.’ I admonished.
I braced myself as I went downstairs. Jo had to be faced now, this could not be left.
I found her stony-faced, mopping the kitchen floor — something she hardly ever did.
She looked up sharply when she heard my footsteps.
‘Don’t say anything!’ she warned, her voice hard and high, ‘there is nothing to be said. I don’t want to know and I don’t want to see you ever again. I just want to be out of this damn house and away from the lot of you.’
‘It wasn’t what you think.’
‘Nothing ever is with you. Everything is deception. I loved you Em and I trusted you, I thought of all people in the world — but how wrong can anybody be? You take everything away from me — every time. You took Josh, now Robert — I suppose you will take Peter next!’
She silenced my cry of outrage. ‘Nothing you can say will make any difference. I know what I know. And this is for sure! I’m going to Greece and you are going to stay here and look after Deet so that I can go — you owe me that much! Just make sure you’re out of the house before I get back. And remember one thing will you? One thing you never could take — not then, not now, not ever. You were only a hanger-on. George was always mine’.
All the years of our friendship crumbled and broke as she spat the words at me. She was all wild venom — even if I had been capable of being able to defend myself she was past being able to hear.
She flung the mop down. ‘You can finish this. And then stay away from our part of the house until I’m gone. I’m sure Robert will welcome you into his part — or, of course, you could always go and stay with Josh!’
She hadn’t finished with me yet.
‘And there’s something you need to remember. I am the one who gave birth to Deet. She is my child, not yours and after I get back and you are gone she will soon forget you. You can’t take her away from me too.’
It was the worst moment of my life and the week we had to get through before she and Paula made their flight was the stuff of nightmare.
Robert stayed in the city and so knew nothing of what was going on. I stayed in the annexe, unable to eat or sleep very well. Paula was in and out asking was I ill, and whatever was the matter with Josephine. Peter was half out of his mind with worry about us both.
‘You look shocking,’ he said. ‘You ought to let Mitch examine you. And Jo is the living end. What’s wrong with her? We do everything she wants —’
‘Leave it,’ I said.
I caught a glimpse of her pushing Deet down the drive in her pram. Her face looked pinched and tight and I was reminded of how she had looked in the dreadful early days of her pregnancy before I had eased her mind of the worry of the likelihood of Peter discovering that Deet was not his child — as she feared she might not be.
‘Something has gone on between you two,’ Paula said. ‘What?’
She stood in front of me. Four-square. But all I could do was to shake my head.
‘I can’t get a word out of Jo, but I thought you’d have more sense,’ she said crossly.
I didn’t feel as though there was any sense left in me at all.
Paula got crosser than ever. ‘I’ve had to do all her packing and Robert has just rung to say he won’t be back before we go. I’m not at all happy about that. I’d planned for us all to have a nice little dinner together on the night before we leave.’
There was not only no nice little dinner, there were no goodbyes either.
When I got up on the day I knew they were due to leave the whole house was silent and empty. There was a note for me from Peter pinned to my door.
‘Deet is still asleep. Will you please look in on her. See you when I get back from the airport.’
Deet slept on and was still asleep when Peter arrived home, looking stricken.
‘I feel as though I’m living in a fog,’ he said. ‘Jo insisted we slip away without saying goodbye — not to you — not even to Deet — no explanation — and she was dumb all the way to the airport. Paula kept shooting glances at me in the car mirror and raising her eyebrows. What has gone wrong between you and Jo I don’t know — and won’t ask,’ he added seeing my grimace of pain, ‘but it’s killing me not to.’
I felt my mouth beginning to quiver and turned away.
I went to see if Deet was awake. She was, so I quickly changed her and brought her down for breakfast for she was clearly hungry, I had barely seen her for the past week and, even in that short time she seemed to have grown. I think she was as glad to see me as I was to see her. I was preparing her cereal when Peter joined us in the kitchen.
He was still picking at the vexed subject of Jo as though it were a scab.
‘Paula’s starting to get fed-up with her. She told me she had enough to worry about with the plight of this friend of hers without having to put up with Jo’s moods. I simply don’t get it. Jo has got what she wants — is going to where she had been yearning to go ever since I’ve known her and yet, do you know Em, when I saw her walking away to the transit lounge there was something about the way she looked that made me feel sorry for her.’
I could not contain the great sob that suddenly burst out.
‘Oh Em,’ he said vexedly and took me in his arms.
I pushed him away. ‘I have to feed Deet.’
She was sitting in her high chair, bright-eyed as a bird and impatiently banging her spoon.
He stood looking at her quizzically.
‘Here’s a funny thing though,’ he said. ‘About the only thing Jo said to me besides “goodbye”, was “Tell Emma the twins are left-handed”. Does that mean anything to you?’
I felt my colour do its annoying sudden drain from my face.
‘No. Nothing. It’s nonsense.’
‘Is it?’
‘Of course it is.’
‘I don’t think so,’ he said gently and made a gesture towards Deet who was still being very energetic with her spoon. ‘Notice anything?’
I shook my head.
‘Emma!’ he reproved me. ‘She is holding her spoon in her left hand.’
I stared at him, mouth open as realisation dawned. He knew!
‘I am a doctor,’ he said, even more gently, ‘and when a child has a blood group belonging to neither of her supposed parents —’
‘How long have you known?’
‘Since her first immunisation.’
‘And you didn’t —!’
‘What would have been the point? By that time she was Deet.’
I could find nothing to say but my mind was in a whirl. How much did he really know? Had gossip about the good-looking twins —? I could not ask him and he did not seem to wish to question me.
‘Give me that,’ he said, and took the little dish of cereal from me and began to feed her.
All I could do was hang about. He was speaking now without looking at me, seemingly intent on the job in hand.
‘Jo will be away for a month,’ he said, ‘what bothers me is what will happen when she gets back. You say you will be gone and I am afraid that left alone together, she and I will make each other very unhappy.’
‘But —’
‘Oh, yes, what we had in the beginning was lovely — but brief — and it should have stayed that way and would have but for — Anyway, after we were married she seemed to find the reason for the relationship gone — there was no more challenge — no more excitement. To give her her due she never pretended to love me. I have always been “good old Peter” and without love, sex for me soon became a very empty thing.’
He still did not look at me. The little bowl would soon be empty.
‘But you both love Deet,’ I managed to say.
‘Of course we do — each in our own way, but once Jo had lost her father — I don’t think she felt safe loving anybody — and she never has been the best “giver” in the world — you must know that.’
The tears could no longer be stemmed. He let me weep and tidied up the spills and Deet’s smeared little mouth. Then he did look at me.
‘Do you know how often I have thought — if only?’
‘Peter, please!’
‘Robert knows. He said it before I was sure I felt it. I have been wanting to tell you —’ And then we heard Robert’s voice.
‘Can somebody help me get these bags out of the car?’ he was calling and there was the slamming of doors, and the sound of his feet on the gravel of the drive. Peter took one anguished look at me and rushed out to greet him.
There was a clump as the bags were deposited in the hall and then I heard the well-known voice. ‘Miss Soames!’
‘I’m in the kitchen,’ I called out, and there he was.
‘Pff! Pff!’ he said. ‘What a poor face! I know they’ve gone but it’s hardly a tragedy.’
What I looked like to him I could not imagine but, one look at him and all my priorities fell into place.
‘You haven’t told Peter yet, have you?’ I accused him.
‘And I’m very glad to see you too!’
Why did he always seem to find me so damned amusing?
‘Haven’t told me what?’ Peter said, suddenly appearing.
‘He knows,’ I said darkly. And bundled them both out of the kitchen.
‘Now,’ I said, turning to Deet. ‘How about some nice apple puree?’
His face had looked dark and heavy. All the time I spooned food into the eager little mouth, it was before my eyes — a portent of real tragedy.
They were closetted away in Robert’s part of the house for what seemed like an inordinate length of time.
I had fed Deet, put her down for her sleep, done some washing and started lunch before I heard the door open and their voices again. They did not seem particularly gloomy. They were smiling as they joined me in the kitchen.
‘Miss Soames is concerned — but she does not cluck,’ Robert teased.
He did not know how much I wanted to.
‘Tom has everything in hand,’ Peter said. ‘It is all his call. I have been told as a member of the family.’
But he wasn’t, was he? And I knew too. What did that make me?
‘I hope you’re going to feed us,’ Robert said.
At least his appetite did not seem impaired.
We all had lunch together.
‘Quiet, isn’t it?’ Robert said with a mischievous look.
It was — and I was grateful, but when I was again left alone I found I was listening for voices — and there were none. A great wave of longing for Jo swept over me. Even after all that we’d said, all the angry words … she was still Jo.
For more years than I could count her voice had been the background music to my life — laughing, excited, wickedly mocking, loving. It was almost impossible to realise things would never be the same again — how was life going to be without her. No matter how exasperating she might be there had always been a deep well of affection for her — and I was sure she had felt the same about me. I was without her now. How did she feel about being without me? And I was no longer “me” to her — I was the betrayer.
Deet was getting restless. I picked her up and held her close and paced the kitchen. Her fingers were sticky and she tugged at my hair and made raspberry noises. And that was another thing. How could she leave her child with someone she no longer trusted? Oh, Jo, Jo, will I ever understand? Where does this urgency to be somewhere else come from. What exactly are you hoping to find?
The quicksilver energy, the lively mind, the innocently shameless body, the joyous race through life, both hands reaching out — all this I had loved because it was all I was not.
I sat down and gloomed and doomed. As if the sadness about her and the worry about Robert were not enough — what were the implications in what Peter had said to me? It seemed that life could hardly pile on more fret and agitation.
I didn’t know the half of it.
I cooked dinner for the three of us. ‘Always keep busy,’ my mother said, ‘that way you don’t have time to worry.’
She was wrong. I was able to cook and worry at the same time.
I had bought lamb chops for Peter. Would Robert find them too ordinary?
He did not. ‘As usual,’ he said to Peter ‘we must compliment the cook.’
I was grateful he had eaten well — at least seeing he was properly fed was something I could do for him.
We were sitting over coffee when the telephone rang.
‘Damn,’ said Peter, ‘just when I didn’t want to be called out.’
‘Mitch!’ he said crossly, ‘I thought we had …’ and then his voice tailed off.
‘No,’ he said in a different tone, ‘no, we haven’t had the television on. What? What? What exactly did they say? When? About an hour ago? Oh, God!’
He dropped the phone and turned to me urgently. ‘Mitch says it’s been on the news that a plane has come down off the coast of Greece. He has the flight number. I can’t remember what Josie’s was. She wrote it on that fridge thing in the kitchen — will you go and have a look?’
The fridge ‘thing’ was a pad on which she had drawn a fat bear to amuse Deet. Underneath it in her bold distinctive writing was the name of the airline and the flight number. I took one look and now it is engraved in my mind forever.
‘That’s the number Mitch took down,’ Peter said hoarsely, and everything went black and I heard somebody screaming.
Grief is a very physical emotion. It takes the breath, drains the blood and scours the bowels. It hit like a lightning strike. I heard the keening moans, felt the bruising impact of the witlessly flailing fists as the world shifted under my feet and no longer had shape or safety. I was being asked to imagine the unimaginable. I could not do it. Would not do it. You read about these things in newspapers — they did not happen to people you knew. They do not happen to Josie — especially not to Josie. The lovely, eager face, all cheek and charm was as alive in my mind as though she were by my side: ‘Of course it isn’t true, Em,’ she was saying and laughing her impudent, careless laugh. Jo was not the girl for death — life was what she was about. Life taken with both hands.
Peter was holding me pinioned to his chest. ‘Don’t,’ he was saying brokenly, ‘please don’t.’ And then there were other arms and a broader chest and a more authoritative voice.
‘Now then,’ it said, ‘now then.’
I don’t remember much about the rest of the day.
It had been bad, now it was a nightmare. My body vomited, my mind gagged, refusing to be force-fed with such enormity. Peter insisted on my taking a pill to quieten the nerves and give me sleep, but the coming back from the unknowing dark to the blinding light of reality was a lot worse than if I had not temporarily escaped it.
For Jo to be dead was bad enough — and my mind reeled at having to use the word — but I had to face the added horror of our parting on such terms. Now there would be no chance — ever — that I might say, ‘Listen to me, Jo. This is the way it was.’ And tell her everything so that she might understand and give me one of her impulsive hugs and say, ‘My poor Em!’ and love me again.
I imagined her — I was her — sitting in the cramped discomfort of a seat without sufficient accommodation for her long, long legs, unable to take joy in the fact she was at last on her way. And all joy should have been hers. She should have been thinking of George and all she was exultantly going to share with him. Instead of which …
Guilt lay on mind, heart and stomach, an intolerable weight.
Did she, when the flight was coming to its end, look down and see the white sprawl of Athens, and find a lift of heart? Did she realise as the screaming descent began that …
It was all too much.
But you have to come to terms with reality — it gives you no options.
We went through all the misery of official confirmation. There were no bodies to be buried.
Wreaths and flowers were going to be cast on the waters where the plane went down.
Would we be there?
We would not. I could not have faced it any more than Jo had been able to face George’s funeral.
‘It would only be a gesture,’ Peter said. Theatricality was not his line either.
We had been on the Peninsula too short a space of time for there to be enough people to attend a memorial service.
Does Jo know that, in spite of how it might seem, she is so constantly remembered?
I have muddled feelings about life after death. Did George greet them?
Was that lovely, loving man there with open arms?
George, I often say to him in my mind, she was your girl. Please look after her.
Time is going by.
I am still living in the annexe to the house on the plateau. How could I leave?
Who else was there to look after Deet while Peter contends with the demands of the practice?
But other things have changed.
The most important one is that Lisette now lives with Robert in his part of the house.
Against orders Peter told her about the disease which threatens him and, at once, there was no question about where the way ahead would now lie. Nobody seeing them together could doubt the ties that always bound them.
I love them both, and I think they love me.
Josh is still in his ramshackle house and often joins us all for meals. I do not believe he is the ‘monastic’ type Peter said he is and believe that, someday, he will find happiness again.
For Peter and me things move slowly and I think perhaps we have got them right. Liking turned to affection and affection into love acknowledged but not yet allowed to flower. Both of us feel the ground secure beneath our feet and the quiet assurance is enough for now. The look of strain has gone from his face and the tenderness I feel for him is precious.
I will never again know the passion I felt for Robert — that is something separate and now put away. Remembering the suffering it brought to each one of us I still feel passion is dangerous and am grateful for the calm waters we have all found.
But I will never come to terms with the unfair way life chooses its favourites.
Why should I be given so much, when Jo, who needed so much more than I ever did was allowed so little? The thought hurts.
She is always alive in my mind. Like she did with George, I ‘chat like mad’ to her, and like George she has not a lot to say in reply.
I have, hanging in the kitchen, a photograph of the statue of the Young Charioteer who so captured her imagination.
‘Did you know,’ she cried, ‘you can see his eyelashes! And his eyes are lapis lazuli!’
But they aren’t. She got it wrong. They are not that lovely bright colour but the dull brown of agate. I wish they weren’t.