She found it hard to concentrate the next day at work. Her first class was on Pride and Prejudice. She always enjoyed the students' discussions, the girls keen on the book (although Becca knew that the familiarity usually came from television or film adaptations), the boys having to be coaxed into an appreciation of the finer points of Austen wit and subtlety. The theme she had centred this class on was choice, particularly the life choices men and women faced in Regency England. Was the men's choice between the navy, church or army less restricting than the women's of marriage, governess or spinsterhood? Discuss. They did, hesitantly at first but then getting into it as Becca gently steered them. Were modern-day choices less or more restrictive? Was it the same for their parents or grandparents? Was more choice always a good thing? Some talked confidently, others needed encouragement and proffered their opinions with diffidence, although she knew that all believed they were the centre of the universe. Their faces were so young, so unformed, Becca thought. They hadn't encountered any real life choices yet; life for them was still black and white and not shades of grey, and the universe was fundamentally benevolent rather than arbitrary.
She smiled, remembering how she'd resented her father telling her she'd understand when she was grown up, and that feeling of thinking she was grown up aged seventeen and perfectly able to go hitchhiking round Europe or go to an all-night party in the middle of the school week. It struck her that she had felt more confident and grown up then, more certain of maturity than she was now. If anything she was regressing into childhood.
Suddenly the whole June/Frank situation flooded her brain. Her parents were splitting up. Choices could be made, but ultimately life could be derailed by the arbitrary decisions of others. Last night June said she wanted a divorce. She was making choices and leaving Becca to cope with the results. There was a buzzing in her ears. I mustn't cry, she thought, not here, not in class.
She shuffled her lesson plans, the typed sheets blurred. Her hands were shaking. She made herself listen to what one of the boys was saying. He was one of the more hesitant ones, with mild blue eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses and he was saying something about money and marriage, and she nodded, although she had no idea what he was referring to. 'That's good. Thanks, Eddie.'
As she spoke she regained her equilibrium. The lesson plan swung into focus. 'Now, let's look at the life options Lizzie Bennett is offered and what she chooses, and compare them to those of some of the other characters, particularly Charlotte.'
- ooo -
Crystal was in the staffroom making coffee. She looked up as Becca came in, then looked again. 'Are they that bad? My lot are quite sweet.'
'It's not them.' Becca shook her head. 'It's just one of those days.'
'Christ, and it's only ten thirty-five.'
'What's up?'
Becca washed out a mug. She hadn't said anything to Crystal so far about June and Frank, hoping that it was a passing whim of June's. She wouldn't have said anything to a colleague, but Crystal was her friend, she knew June and Frank. 'It's June...'
'It's not cancer is it? God, that would be so typical, she has that wonderful party, then she's dead by the end of the year.'
'No, it's nothing like that,' Becca said, disconcerted. 'It's...well, she says she wants to leave my dad.' She gave a rueful smile, trying to put a brave face on it.
'No! You poor sausage! How dreadful!' Crystal gave Becca a hug, and Becca felt some easing of the tension. 'How come?'
'I don't really know. She just wants to do her own thing.'
'I can't bear it, I really can't. All those years together.' Crystal's mouth quivered, and to Becca's horror her eyes had gone all watery. 'How's Frank? How's he going to manage? You'll have to look after him.'
'He's not that old,' Becca said, taken aback.
'But it's awful. Fifty years together and...There's just no point, is there, for any of us?' She gave a huge sigh, her breath catching as if she might burst into tears. 'Let's go and eat all the chocolate we can find.'
'What's the matter?' Richard said coming over to them, his anxious eyes fixed on Crystal. 'You OK?'
Becca felt her news was being hijacked. Perversely it made her want to play it down. Besides, she didn't want it to be staffroom gossip. 'It's nothing,' she said, tension making a hard knot of her voice.
'How can you say that?' Crystal turned on her. 'It's the most terrible thing I've heard all week.' Her voice squeaked as she choked back a sob. 'It's so sad.'
Richard gave Becca a baleful glance as if she was the problem, and put his arm around Crystal. 'Would it help to talk things over?' he said to her, his voice dripping with sympathy and pastoral care.
'It's actually my problem,' Becca said sharply. 'And I don't want to discuss it.'
But she did. If only Martin had been more understanding, more sympathetic she thought as she drove home. Once he'd been the most brilliant shoulder to cry on, tolerant and gentle, endlessly patient with her interminable moaning. Had he thought she was over-emotional then? Melodramatic, even? What was the word he'd used last night? Excessive, that was it. Excessive. Becca snorted. He wouldn't have called her excessive if he'd seen Crystal's reaction.
Lily was at home when Becca got back, frantically tapping on the computer keyboard with a noise reminiscent of wild drumming. The gossip travelled on MSN like jungle drums, Becca thought, who did this, who said that.
'Have you got much homework tonight?' No response. Becca tried again. 'If you've got homework, can you make a start now before Hollyoaks.' She tried to make her voice authoritative, but tiredness kept the edge off.
'Yessssss,' Lily hissed, as if Becca was insisting on an intolerable and completely unnecessary procedure to be carried out. 'In a minute.' The frantic typing continued, clattering into the sore places in Becca's brain.
Becca knew 'in a minute' meant some time in the far far distant future. 'Lily. Homework. Now, please.'
Clatter clatter clatter.
'Now.'
Lily flung her hands off the keyboard. 'I've said I'm going to do it, can't I just relax for one minute, I've been at school all day, I've just got home, I just want to relax for one minute. One minute, that's all. Surely I'm allowed one minute. But no, I've got to do it all now, now, now. It's so unfair, no one else's mum makes them work the second they come home, you're so mean and uptight, you don't let me do anything except work, work, work, you think I'm a slave
Becca thought she would snap in two, the pain in her head was intolerable. She turned and walked out of the room, and kept walking. She walked to the front door, and then out into the street, and just kept walking.
- ooo -
She had walked to the end of the street before she realised that she'd gone without her bag or coat, the need to get away had been so powerful. She checked her step, then carried on. Lily probably wouldn't notice she'd even gone. Martin wouldn't. She strode down the main road. Why shouldn't she go out for a walk? Martin went running most evenings.
Cars whizzed past. People rushing home from work, people with happy lives, happy families, happy children. She walked on, not sure where she was going, or what she was going to do when she got there. Perhaps she would just walk for ever and never come back. The idea had a certain appeal.
She reached the point where Royal Victoria Park ran alongside the main road and for want of anywhere better to go, she turned into the park. There were boarders at the skatepark and she watched them for a few minutes, marvelling at their agility and flexibility. On the other side was the children's playground. On a sunny weekend it was heaving with children and parents but this evening it was quiet. Everyone was at home having their tea, she assumed.
She walked further into the park, past the boating lake. The ducks quacked and waddled towards her, hopeful of bread. She walked more slowly towards the botanic gardens. Walking out like that was childish. What would Lily be thinking? Becca sighed, knowing that if Lily had noticed her absence she'd probably assume that Becca had popped out on some domestic errand.
It was a pleasant evening, the sun still strong although getting lower in the sky. People walked along the central path that bisected the park. Some were dressed for the office, obviously making their way home after working in the centre of the city. Two were in tennis kit, heading for the courts near the playground. Others just strolled: tourists, dog-walkers, people taking the late afternoon air. Mothers pushing babies and toddlers, perhaps after an afternoon at the playground, now heading home for tea and bed.
Becca sat on a bench under a tree. She closed her eyes, feeling the sunlight playing intermittently on her face as light filtered through leaves gently swaying in the breeze. She opened her eyes to recognise the splayed pattern of horse chestnuts. Green conker cases hung, acid green, tightly closed, but soon they would ripen and discharge their cargoes. Becca wasn't sure if small boys were interested in conkers still; Lily hadn't been. There was something satisfying about their brown glossiness, a sense of potential waiting to be fulfilled.
Unlike her own. She felt old and used, a husk of a woman. Uptight, Lily had called her. That had stung. She had hated Lily at that moment with a fierce passion. Becca shifted in her seat. She couldn't blame June for wanting to get away. It was the same impulse she'd experienced after the party, that sense of: is this it? June was off to find herself, and never mind those left behind. She leaned forwards on to her elbows, her mind in turmoil. Martin had said she was excessively emotional; her father had said melodramatic. Perhaps she was, but she couldn't help feeling that your mother leaving home after fifty years was a reasonable excuse for emotional excess.
It hurt that Martin hadn't taken her in his arms - that was all she had wanted from him, just something that said her anguish, however excessive, mattered more than any stupid spreadsheet. It hurt that Crystal hadn't reacted in the way she'd hoped either. It hurt that she was supposed to be adult and controlled when inside she felt like a mass of molten lava waiting to explode. She banged her fists against her forehead three times, frustration and anger bubbling under the surface. But it didn't help. I don't want my mum to go, she sobbed inside. Hot tears ran down her face, and she pressed her fists into her eyes. I don't want things to change, I don't want to be alone. People walked past, feet clicking purposefully on the asphalt path, or silently in trainers, and she hunched into her hands, not caring if they looked at this strange weeping woman on the bench, rocking in misery.
Feet walked past. Then came back, closer. 'Are you all right?' A man's voice.
'Fine, thanks,' Becca managed to say in a tiny, tight voice, hoping the voice would go away. The feet moved away. Suddenly a wet black nose pushed between her knees. She couldn't stop herself from jumping.
'Sorry - come here, bad dog.'
The dog stayed where it was, panting heavily so a healthy pink tongue lolloped out from a black, hairy face.
'I'm sorry,' the man said, grabbing the dog's collar and clicking a lead on. 'I hope he didn't frighten you, he's only being friendly.'
'It's all right,' Becca said, looking up for the first time. 'I like dogs. Oh!' She looked back down again as she recognised the man as Paul Fitzwilliam, and quickly wiped her face with her hands.
'Here.' He held out a large handkerchief. 'It's clean.'
'Thanks,' Becca said, taking the handkerchief and still not looking at him. Bad enough being caught sobbing by a stranger, but at least you'd never have to see the stranger again. But Paul Fitzwilliam she'd have to meet on Thursday. She wiped her face again.
'You've made it worse,' he said. 'Here...' He sat down next to her and took the handkerchief from her, then dabbed at her face. His expression was neutral, as if mopping up weeping women was all part of his day's work. 'I think that's most of it.'
He hesitated, then handed her back the handkerchief. Becca clutched it in her fist as if it were a lifeline against further flooding. It was quite damp. 'I'll return this when I see you,' she said, not looking at him.
'Whenever. No problem.'
Go away, Becca thought. She blew her nose on his handkerchief. Paul stayed where he was. The dog had lain down on the path, its chin resting heavily on her foot.
'I'd be happy to listen, if you wanted to talk,' he said.
'I don't want to bore you...' Becca shook her head. 'I expect you've got lots you ought to be doing.'
'I'm supposed to be walking the dog, something I find excruciatingly dull.' The dog presumably had recognised the word walk', as it stood up, tail wagging. Paul stood too. 'We could walk and talk. Or not. Up to you. But I'd be pleased with the company. Do you have a dog?'
Becca shook her head, but she got up and fell in step with Paul. 'It's a weird situation. Somehow a dog gives you the right to talk to people you'd never talk to normally.' He bent down and released the dog from the lead and it rushed off, nose to the ground in search of some elusive scent. 'Sometimes you think you're the first person they've talked to all day. Sometimes they're the first person you've talked to all day. Apart from the dog of course.'
'You work from home?' Becca said tentatively.
'At the moment. I used to run a theatre company and have minions doing things for me, but that's no more. I have to be my own minion now.' The dog had found a stick and was prancing in front of them. Paul took it, and threw it. The stick arced impressively high as the dog raced over the grass for it. 'Why were you crying?'
Becca blinked at the direct question. She watched the dog retrieve the stick and trot back in their direction, tail high.
'You don't have to answer that,' Paul added. 'It's a bad habit; I'm notoriously nosy about people.'
'It's all right,' Becca said. 'It was silly of me to cry. My parents are separating and it's been a bit of a shock.'
'That sounds like a perfectly legitimate reason to cry.' The dog dropped the stick in front of him and he picked it up. 'I cry over everything - give me a hint of violin on the telly and I'm off. And I've no excuse to cry at all.' He threw it again, and the dog raced off. 'Have they been married long?'
'Fifty years. I organised a party for them in the summer. I don't know - my mum just says, that was it. She thought, fifty years, and she'd had enough.'
'It's a long time,' Paul said. 'Half a century. No hint beforehand?'
'None,' Becca said with a sigh. 'Or at least, none that I picked up. I suppose there were hints she wasn't one hundred per cent happy, and hadn't been for ages. But if people are going to break up, you sort of think they're going to do it sooner. And everyone seems to think I'm being pathetic by being so upset. To be honest, I think I'm being pathetic most of the time. It's not as if I'm a child, I've got my own family. This shouldn't affect me.'
They stopped at the road, having come to the end of the path. 'Should is an interesting word to use about emotions,' Paul said. 'It implies we can control how we feel, and I don't think we can. We can pretend we can control it, of course, sometimes even to ourselves. But I think what we feel is what we feel, and no one should be ashamed of that.'
'Let it all hang out, you mean? That's not very British of you.'
'Must be my theatrical background coming out.' He turned and started to walk back along the path. 'For what it's worth, in my opinion it'd be downright odd if you didn't find your parents separating upsetting, regardless of your own age.' He smiled at her, and Becca felt as if a weight had lifted from her shoulders. Stupid, because what did Paul's opinion matter to her, but she felt validated.
'I like your dog,' she said.
'Do you want him? Drives me mad.'
'Why do you have a dog then?'
'My wife's idea. She thought it would be good for the children to have an animal to look after. I wanted to get a mutt, but she insisted on this breed.'
'What is he?'
'A flat-coated retriever. He's a very posh dog actually. Got a pedigree as long as your arm.'
It figured that the glamorous blonde who'd turned up during her audition would choose a special dog. 'Are you going to breed from him?'
'Suzy wanted to, but he kept wandering away and shagging all the local dogs, so she whipped his bollocks off. Not personally, you understand,' he added. 'At the vet's.'
Becca wasn't sure what to say. 'I always wanted a dog when I was little,' she said. 'But my father doesn't like them, so we never did. Sometimes I used to walk the dog from across the road, and I'd pretend we were winning Crufts, or saving people from drowning, or winning obedience classes.' She pulled the dogs silky ears. 'What's his name?'
'Oberon,' Paul said straight-faced. 'King of the Fairies. You haven't got yourself a dog since?'
'We've got a hamster. At least, it's my daughter's but I've ended up looking after it most of the time. As you do.' It was strange how she felt she could talk to Paul. Perhaps it was because he was a near stranger, but she could imagine telling him anything about herself, and know that he would listen intently as if really interested. Perhaps being a director made him good at listening. 'I'm sorry I dumped all that stuff about my parents on you. Please ignore it.'
'It was a privilege.' He called the dog to him. 'Besides, I need to keep my actors happy. I don't want you dropping out halfway.'
'I did wonder if I ought to, what with my parents and everything,' Becca said, thinking of Martin and his running schedule. 'I'd hate to let you down later on.'
'I'd understand if you did, but it'd be a disappointment. You're a good actress,' he said. 'I need you.'