In a pub in Soho, Richard plants a light kiss on the lips of a beautiful young woman in a halterneck dress, and slides his hand down her bare back, speculating fleetingly on the wonder of breasts that need no visible means of support. He walks with her to the door, holds it open, and she smiles at him over her shoulder and steps into the street. At the bar, he orders two pints of bitter and a whisky chaser, and carries the drinks back to the table.
‘Keeping the blood/alcohol level topped up, I see,’ Charlie says, nodding to the whisky.
‘Don’t you start,’ Richard says, pushing a beer across the table to him. ‘Everybody seems to be an expert on my level of consumption.’
‘And the expert consensus is that it’s too high. Cheers.’
They’ve met several times for lunch since Richard moved back to London, where Charlie is now principal of an exclusive sixth form college in the city.
‘Cheers. So, what do you think of Amanda?’
‘Delightful. How long has this been going on?’
‘Five, six weeks.’
‘And she’s how old, exactly – twelve?’
‘Gimme a break, she’s twenty-six.’
‘And just remind me again how old we are.’
‘We are sixty this year. You first, as you may recall.’
‘And you don’t see a problem with that?’
‘Well . . . I can see that . . .’
‘Don’t bullshit me, Richard. She’s young enough to be your daughter, almost young enough to be your granddaughter. You’re turning into a cliché. Next thing, you’ll be getting your ear pierced and buying a Harley-Davidson. How would you feel if it were your daughter with a sixty year old?’
Richard delays his reply by taking a long swig of beer. ‘She’s getting married, my daughter – Carly,’ he says, seizing the chance to change the subject. ‘Did I already tell you that?’
‘Twice,’ Charlie says. ‘I meant what I said about Amanda. She’s lovely, but what do you have in common?’
‘Well, media, of course. We’re in the same business.’
Charlie looks skeptical. ‘She’s a junior feature writer on the beauty section of a women’s magazine; you’re an ageing and fairly distinguished overseas correspondent and documentary maker – forgive my cynicism. What do you talk about, you two?’
Richard grins and tosses back his whisky. ‘Who needs conversation?’
‘Well, you do, actually, and your perennial problem seems to be that you persist in pursuing women with whom you can’t have the conversations you want. You’re still doing it.’
‘Amanda’s not stupid.’
‘I didn’t say she was but I doubt she’s ever going to debate US politics or Middle East tensions with you. The only woman you’ve ever had a relationship with who would, or could, have those conversations was Lily.’
Richard fidgets in his chair and then sits back, crossing his legs. ‘If we’re on the subject of ex-wives, I saw Zoë last week.’
Charlie puts down his drink and leans forward. ‘Good heavens. How did that happen?’
Richard explains Zoë’s renewed friendship with Julia, her visit and the circumstances of their meeting.
‘Interesting,’ Charlie says. ‘I always liked Zoë, she was far too nice for you. Tried to chat her up myself once but she was too besotted with you to notice I was doing it. How is she? What’s she like these days?’
‘Married, with the son, of course, who’s now thirty-one, and two daughters. In many ways, she’s just an older edition of who she was – very sweet; warm; a bit more confident; cautious, I think; and a bit sad.’
‘Aren’t we all,’ Charlie says. ‘Actually, I think that a bit of sadness is a rather fine quality; attractive.’
‘Yes,’ Richard says thoughtfully. ‘It can be, I suppose. Zoë is still quite attractive, and, even though I don’t think she realises it, quite sexy.’
‘You, of course, find any woman sexy as long as she’s breathing,’ Charlie says, finishing his beer.
‘Not really. Margaret Thatcher never did it for me. Neither did Madeleine Albright.’
‘I’m sure they’ll both be devastated to hear that,’ Charlie says. ‘Anyway, I must be off, meeting to go to.’ He gets to his feet. ‘Give Zoë my love if you see her again and, remember, beautiful girls with perky breasts and perfect skin are ten-a-penny. Wise, loving and attractively sad older women are not, and they make better companions; you’re shopping in the wrong mall.’ And, thumping Richard on the shoulder, he squeezes out between the tables and heads off into the street.
Alone again, Richard contemplates his friend’s parting remark. Charlie may well be right, he thinks, but it’s easy for him. He’s been married for years to a lovely woman they both knew at university; it’s the sort of rich, lively and loving relationship that Richard would give his right arm for but how will he find it at this time of life? Not long ago, he tried internet dating with women of his own age, but most of them just seemed to be looking for someone who’d take care of them financially. Even on a first meeting, they asked him what he earned, if he owned his own home, if he was internet dating with a view to marriage. After meeting several pleasant, but uninspiring, women who seemed to see sex and cooking as a sort of barter for financial security, he gave up. That was when he had started thinking about the possibility of getting together with Lily again. Some of the best times of his life had been with her; even the rows were exciting, and the conversations were incomparable.
Over a long career, he has learned that the media – and television, in particular – has for some women a glamour attached to it, and that having a face that is even remotely familiar from the television screen gives him choices other men would kill for. Sadly, he’s found that the people it attracts are often vacuous, juvenile wannabes. Amanda is certainly not one of those. She’s smart and good company. Besides, there are other perks: the ego boost of being seen with a beautiful, and much younger, woman, the mind-blowing sex and being flirted with by her friends. But Charlie is right; he does yearn for something deeper and more satisfying, and for the comfort of a different sort of companionship – something he’d considered a hopeless cause after the recent shock of finally losing Lily. Was Charlie encouraging him to pursue Zoë? Surely not . . . and does he want to, anyway? She is married, after all, seemingly happily married, with a life and family on the other side of the world. Where could it possibly go?
He orders another double scotch and turns his chair to the alcove window so he can watch the passing parade outside. Girls in flimsy summer dresses, the sunlight shining through their skirts just like in Princess Diana’s first press photograph; backpackers, in tiny shorts and cropped tops that leave little to the imagination; and the occasional elegant young professional in linen and silk who would distract the attention of an entire boardroom. Women, women, women – what is he supposed to do? Spend the rest of his life alone, a boring old fart, forgetting to wash and shaking his fist at potential intruders?
He’d thought that if he and Zoë met it would be brief and prickly, but it had been easy and fun. And it was spiced somehow with the curiosity born of an intimate shared past. It had seemed almost risqué, sitting with her in Tom and Julia’s garden, walking her home, driving her to London and back again, and spending the following day with her. How easily, Richard thought now, with two pints of bitter and a couple of double shots of whisky under his belt, how easily it could have developed into something more. How easily it still might.
It is still pitch dark when Archie’s alarm goes off on Saturday morning. As he stretches his arm out to silence it, his heart sinks at the sound of rain and wind whipping through the trees. He buries his face in the pillow and groans; what madness made him agree to this? But he is a man who keeps his promises and, rather than risk falling asleep again, he puts on the light, gets up, steps straight into his swimming trunks and a T-shirt, and pulls on his tracksuit. In the ensuite, he sluices water over his face and brushes his teeth. It is ten past five and he can hear Gaby’s alarm clock. Rubbing his hands through his hair, he goes to her room, switches off the clock and puts on the light, adjusting the dimmer switch to a low level.
‘Come on, Gabs,’ he says. ‘Time to get moving.’
An irritable grunt comes from the mound in the bed but there is no movement.
‘Come on, love,’ he says, gripping the curve of her shoulder through the duvet. ‘Don’t go back to sleep.’
‘Okay, Dad!’ Gaby says sticking a disgruntled, sleep-blurred face out from the covers. ‘Okay! I can hear.’
‘Well then, get up and get moving, or we’ll be late. I’m going to make some tea.’ And he heads off to the kitchen, stopping on the way to collect the newspaper from the front step, and reassuring himself that in a couple of hours this caper will be over. He can come home, have a nice hot shower and plan his day. He makes two mugs of tea and, peeling the cling film off the West Australian, starts to read the front page story, about a scandal involving finance brokers. Sipping his tea, he turns to the rest of the story on an inside page and then to a related double-page feature. By the time he’s finished it, he’s drunk his tea, and is horrified to see that it’s five-thirty and there is no sign of Gaby. He taps on her door.
‘Come on, Gabs, time we left.’
There is no sound from the room. He tries again and, when there is no response, opens the door. Gaby has switched off the light and disappeared back under the duvet.
‘Gabs!’
‘Shut up, Dad,’ she mumbles. ‘I’m not going; it’s cold and wet out there.’
Archie, in the doorway, tosses up whether to drag her out and face the resulting hassles or leave her behind. He decides that the latter is easier and, grabbing a towel from the linen cupboard, he steps out into torrential rain and runs to the car.
In the windswept car park near the surf club, a couple of people shrouded in rain capes are running through the puddles to the hut where the Polar Bears meet. Gwen’s car, he notes, is parked as close as possible to the hut. Archie takes a deep breath to steel himself for the ordeal ahead, opens the car door and runs, head down, to the hut. It’s warm inside and the light is dazzlingly bright. At one end of the small space, a woman whose wet hair is dripping onto the shoulders of her tracksuit is making toast – a reward, presumably, for surviving the ordeal of the ocean; others stand nearby stamping their feet, their hands clasped around mugs of tea or coffee. At a glance, it appears to Archie that everyone in the hut is his age or considerably older, and he wonders what on earth it is that compels them to turn up here almost every morning of the year to hurl themselves into the water. In summer, yes – but in mid-winter?
Just inside the door, Gwen is leaning against a cabinet and chatting animatedly with a couple of burly older men in swimming trunks who are yet to take to the water.
‘Ah! Here he is,’ Gwen says. ‘Hello, Archie, I was just starting to think you’d chickened out.’
He rubs his hands together. ‘Not me! But Gaby has, I’m afraid. She’s still glued to the bed.’
‘That’s the young’uns for you,’ one man says. ‘Faint hearted. Not stoic like us. Nice to meet you, Archie. This is Derek, I’m Bruce. It’s pretty rough, so we thought we’d wait and go down with you, as it’s your first time. Shall we get going?’
Archie takes off his tracksuit and, acknowledging to himself that nothing can save him now, follows Gwen and the two men in a cautious jog to the water’s edge, feeling unusually vulnerable. It is still pitch dark, and barely possible to see where the sea stops and the sky begins, but the distant lighting in the car park reaches far enough for him to see that the waves are enormous.
As a young man, Archie was a keen surfer and for years, the beach was his second home, but other things have slowly taken over his life. Marriage, children and all the responsibilities they create, advancement in his engineering career and the different lifestyle that has brought, have all gradually squeezed out his first love. Walks on the beach, a bit of swimming in the summer, and the occasional fishing trip are all he manages to fit in around the competing claims of work and family. And on this cold, dark morning, with the wind and water roaring in his ears and icy spray hitting his body, his youthful comfort zone is a horrible challenge.
‘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.