An Authentic Life, page 31
Joanna rings Wendy and the plan changes as they all think about the best way to have everyone together but to give Wendy and Joanna time to talk. Lou and Geraldine will walk on the Findhorn beach and visit the whole food shop and the bookshop with all its New Age music and spiritual and psychological books. Geraldine wants to look for texts on art therapy that she feels could help some of her patients with dementia and she thinks there will be plenty of children’s books to interest Lou as well.
So, two hours later, Wendy and Joanna drop the two others at the slipway by the yacht club on what is a glorious and still sunny day in early winter. The pair are well wrapped up and they know that the exercise of playing in the sand and walking will keep their circulations stimulated and their bodies warm. They will walk to the spiritual centre from the beach and Joanna will pick them up there. Joanna could not feel more secure in leaving her daughter with anyone than she does with Geraldine.
“Wendy,” she says almost as soon as they are alone for the twenty-minute drive to Bobby’s house, “What do you hope to get out of today?”
After a long silence in which she thinks about the question and Joanna manoeuvres the car out of the village and back to the main road, Wendy finally says just two words.
“To survive.”
“Do you think it will be that bad?”
“Yes, I do actually. Look at it from Bobby’s point of view.”
They do not need to rehearse how that must be. Joanna knows that Bobby has been deceived and that Wendy and Jerry were doing this long before Lanzerote, long before Bobby’s birthday party and long before the supper they all five had together when Joanna and Geraldine’s relationship was discussed. How many more times, Joanna chooses not to ask. On the way to Elgin, she has little idea how the session will go, but she just hopes that Wendy is wide of the mark and that it is nowhere as near serious as being about survival. She is not too confident, though, but she says nothing.
They are a nervous Wendy and a worried Joanna who arrive outside the bungalow in its cul-de-sac. The sun is beginning to drop towards the horizon and the lights are already on in the lounge that faces the road. Joanna wonders just what she has let herself in for. She would like to be back on the back on Findhorn beach with the people she loves most.
Chapter 40
It is Bobby, of course, who shows them in. She does it with just a weak smile at Joanna and she can barely look at Wendy. But she manages to say, ‘Hello, Wendy’. Wendy manages ‘Hi’, in reply. Joanna reminds herself that these two are as much friends as everyone else in the Gang. She needs to hold on to that right now. So do they.
They are shown into the lounge in silence. It is empty. Jerry is not there. Joanna looks at Bobby, waiting for her to explain.
“He’s just coming,” she says. “He’s working on the computer.”
Jerry is an IT expert and he works at the local college. The three women sit in three separate armchairs, Joanna taking up position so that she can see the expression on Jerry’s face when he finally shows.
“Jerry,” Bobby calls finally, her voice patient. “They’re here.”
And the moment that Jerry comes through the door, Joanna knows how this will go. Sheepish is not too strong a way to describe how the great bear of a man looks. Always a gentle man and one who, till now, she thought lived only for his wife, he has clearly made his decision. He has told Bobby the truth and has played to save his marriage this way. He comes into the room, hands in pocket, and does not kiss either of his two guests. In other circumstances, the charming Jerry would always do this. Today, a kiss on Wendy’s cheek would be an insult to her and an anathema to Bobby – Joanna can see that. Instead, he gives first her and then Wendy a weak smile and comes in to sit on the sofa – beside Bobby. He leans forward on the sofa, elbows on knees and finally says,
“It was a mistake.”
Bobby looks ill and grey. She is looking now to Joanna to say something, to lift them all from this mess. And in an instant, Joanna knows that Bobby is devastated, Wendy is humiliated and Jerry is safe - scarred but safe.
She gathers her wits, from this, the quickest of appraisals.
“It seems to me that now everyone knows the basic truth of the matter. The question is - where do each of you go from here?”
She turns to Bobby.
“Bobby, you have two decisions to take. You have to decide what to do about Jerry. And you have to decide what to do about Wendy.”
Bobby sits silent and still. She is composed but Joanna can see that she is right on the edge of her emotions. Finally she speaks, looking at Joanna and not at the other two.
“Jerry has promised me that it is over. I have to learn how to forgive and trust him again. That will take time. A bit of me died today. That’s as much as I can say about Jerry just now.”
“When did he tell you?” Joanna asks as she tries to gauge just how raw Bobby will be.
“Just before you arrived. He and Sam talked this morning. He says Sam thought it would be for the best,” Bobby answers, referring to her husband in the third person as if he were not there. And at one level, he is not there, as he is not in her affections at the moment.
Joanna asks Bobby again,
“And what about you and Wendy?”
Wendy starts to say something, but Joanna nods quietly to her to let Bobby answer and she stops.
Now Bobby looks directly at Wendy.
“How could you?” There is more enquiry than animosity behind the question.
Wendy seems to choose her words after some thought. She glances at Jerry and then says,
“It was pretty meaningless as a fling. I want you to know that, Bobby. And I fell into it without truly thinking it out. I would not have hurt you for the world. I just did not mean it to go on and I certainly did not mean you to find out. It was just not that significant, I suppose.”
She looks now with something like disdain at Jerry and says,
“I never did put as much emphasis on physical encounters as most women do. I should have thought about how you would feel about it, Bobby, and I didn’t.”
Now it seems to Joanna that Jerry is the one being humiliated. But at least Wendy is saying the right things, though Joanna doubts their sincerity. Joanna knows from their previous conversation how Wendy felt about Jerry as a place to offset the failed marriage she feels herself to be in. Jerry was important to Wendy, no matter what she is saying now.
“Jerry, I guess this is hard for you, having all of us here. Is there anything I can say to make this easier, now or later?” Joanna tries to make some sort of connection with the man who is still looking at the floor, head bowed.
When he looks up, there is raw anger in his face. Joanna knows this is to the good. Gentle Jerry would much more easily say nothing and seethe later. At least, they will all know where he is coming from and what that will mean for the future. What each of them says here matters. It will be something that they will all have to hold to. It will be something that will cement them, whether they like it or not.
But what he says is tempered, as if he knows that he holds the key to sorting out this mess. He may be angry, but he is also suddenly confident.
“Bobby and I will no doubt be OK. At the end of the day, I love her and we go back a long time. I deeply regret ever getting entangled with you, Wendy, and I will as long as I live. In fact, I just hope that Bobby has the good sense never to see you again.”
‘So, he is leaving the impression that Wendy is some sort of scarlet woman, is he,’ Joanna thinks, protective of her friend. ‘That’s not on.’
“Come on, Jerry,” she challenges him, “Wendy is no more in the wrong in this than you are yourself. You’re not suggesting that she led you astray? Or are you?”
Bobby laughs.
“Typical. For God’s sake, Jerry, it takes two to tango. You’re a bit long in the tooth to be trying that line.”
Jerry sees the funny side for a second and he laughs quietly in an abstracted way. If any one else in the room realizes, at least they ignore the fact that some memory - presumably of a seduction scene between him and Wendy - is playing itself out in his mind.
“No. You’re right.” He gives Wendy a glance in acknowledgment of apology.
“Anyway, Jerry,” Bobby raises her voice for the first time, “ I’ll decide who my friends are. You certainly won’t. And that goes for Wendy. She and I have been friends for a long time. It’s between her and me whether we go on from here.”
“And your lesbian pals?” Jerry launches the words like a missile. It is not the words; it is the way he says them that is meant to sting. It does sting Joanna. She sits quietly, though, as though unfazed, and lets Bobby reply.
“And my lesbian friends. And don’t you ever speak in pejorative tones about my friends again.” Bobby is quiet, firm, determined.
Jerry could not have played his cards in worse fashion. Joanna knows that they are all but through the woods.
“Bobby, have you decided what you want to do about you and Wendy?”
Bobby looks again at Wendy
“It is truly over?”
“Yes. I am no threat to you and never was.”
“True. But you deceived me.”
“Yes. I know. But I want your friendship, Bobby. Yours and the Gang’s. The Gang won’t be the Gang anymore if we don’t sort this out.”
“You won’t deceive me again?”
Wendy shakes her head. Everyone in the room can see that she is in earnest. The two women will make it. ‘Bobby is some woman to handle this like this’, Joanna thinks. ‘I’d have torn the eyes out of any woman who had a fling with Stephen.’ But it is not time for praise. She turns to Jerry.
“Jerry, can you and Wendy see each other in the future without either ending up back in an affair or going at each other’s throats?”
Jerry and Wendy were neither of them expecting the question. They look at each other in silent communication. A whole new future has to be determined in the course of a few minutes. What does each of them want to do in all the circumstances?
Wendy speaks first.
“My women friends mean most to me in this now. And it won’t help anything if Toby finds out. Jerry is only one of the issues.”
She looks at Bobby. Bobby shakes her head. She will not say anything to Toby.
“There’s been enough damage,” she says to Wendy, by way of promise. Jerry nods in silent agreement. No doubt he does not want Toby’s wrath on his doorstep.
“So if it helps us to go on being friends,” Wendy continues, “I do not mind either seeing Jerry when all of us in the Gang socialise, or not seeing him, depending on what you think, Bobby.”
Wendy could not have put more on a plate for Bobby if she had tried. It is also clever. Bobby has the control of the future. Bobby says nothing. She looks at Jerry.
“Jerry?”
“I like Wendy. I always did, long before we …long before it all happened. If we see each other, it will be in company. Anyway, nothing will happen again. It’s over.”
Joanna does not know why she is so certain, but she believes him. On a hunch, she says,
“Hating each other will not help, either, Jerry, Wendy.”
“Indifference is a better place than hate, believe me.” Jerry’s words are cutting but then they are the words of a bruised man. She can let them go. Wendy looks at the floor. No matter the position she is adopting, that remark hurt.
Bobby comes in.
“I guess it will all take time.”
“Where do we go from here”? Joanna asks.
Jerry laughs and says,
“I vote we start as we mean to go on.”
“How?” Bobby asks, relinquishing control, at least superficially, to the man who during all their marriage has looked after her and the way they live.
“Let’s have a drink and toast the future and everyone’s survival.”
But Joanna looks at her watch and says,
“Actually, Geraldine and Lou are at Findhorn. I need to pick them up.”
“Well, let’s go to Findhorn,” Jerry suggests. “I owe you and Geraldine a drink, I think.”
That is as far as he can do to withdraw his dig at Geraldine and her and she smiles at him. And she also sees an opportunity.
“Jerry, why do you not come in the car with me, and Wendy and Bobby can come behind us?”
No one disagrees and Joanna knows that this will give the two women a chance to talk in private. But before she gets up to leave, she asks,
“Is there anything we should be saying before we go that we’ll regret later if we don’t?”
There is a silence and then Bobby asks,
“Do Sam and Michelle know? Does Geraldine know?”
“Sam knows,” Jerry says, looking a bit awkward, I had to talk to someone.”
‘Fair enough,’ Joanna thinks, conceding that Jerry has had a big life crisis to face alone. Aloud, she says,
“Geraldine has not asked. I think she knows something is up. And Michelle’s antennae are up. She knows something is wrong and probably guesses.”
“Sam will have told her,” Jerry reasons. Then he continues, “Would this be as good a chance as any to meet up? We could all have supper at the Findhorn pub.”
He goes off to ring Sam and the women resist the temptation to try to hear what is said. That would not be the way forward. And as they head for the cars a few minutes later, Bobby turns to Joanna and just says,
“Thank you.”
The two cars arrive almost at the same time and as Wendy and Bobby get out of theirs, Joanna can see at a glance that they have made some form of peace between them. Whatever has been said, they have ensured that the Gang will continue.
Cindy agrees to look after Lou and an hour later, the five women and the two men are sitting holding the kind of ordinary conversation that follows a crisis. The talk is low key, the humour easy and the caution amongst them as they regroup is palpable. But it is good that it is happening. Bobby is reasonably at ease, and Geraldine has the instinctive sense to chat to Wendy; Michelle to Jerry.
And later, on the way home, Lou asleep in the back and curled up against Wendy, Geraldine asks,
“Is any one going to enlighten me?”
Wendy laughs.
“I suppose so. You seem to be the only one who does not know.”
And an hour later again, the child in bed and Joanna and Geraldine having a mug of hot chocolate before they separate, Joanna has a thought which she shares with her friend.
“I doubt I would have been any use to them if I hadn’t had that train journey yesterday.”
Geraldine laughs.
“From barely coping yourself in life to enabling others to move on, and all in one go. I like it.”
As she gets into bed, Joanna thinks that the Gang may be fragile right now but it is still their Gang. She has played a big part in that. But then, today, each and every one of them did. Her last thought is to wonder if Toby, the only one not party to the day’s proceedings will ever be any the wiser. She suspects not. But she also suspects that Wendy and he will make out and that he will be a part of their circle of friends in the future.
Chapter 41
Across the desk from them, Ed is looking serious. Joanna knows that it would be an expression of worry if his professional role permitted that look.
She and Geraldine have just explained. They intend to fight this issue of Lou’s future together. He has not tried to dissuade them He knows that they are far too set on their path for him to do that.
“But I do have to point out the fundamental change you are making to what may happen. Now the issue is one where you are maintaining that you are in a relationship with another woman and that it can still be in Lou’s best interests to remain with you.” He looks at them in turn as they nod their agreement. “You are changing the situation from us arguing, Joanna, that you are a single parent family to a position in which you are prepared to argue that you are in a relationship and it remains in the child’s best interests to be raised by you, possibly with Ms Spence here in the same house.”
Again, they both nod.
Ed has no choice but to labour the distinction. And he knows that their minds are set. He accepts that his legal representation is about to change. He leans forward and says,
“Fine. So be it. I suggest we start rehearsing the facts and the issues.”
Geraldine smiles at him. This is only the second time she has met him but she has clearly taken to him.
“Thank you. If you had said anything else today, I might yet have persuaded Joanna that this was not a good idea.”
Ten minutes later, after Geraldine has talked at some length about her own family and professional life, Ed smiles at her in turn and says,
“Until we had this conversation, I might have been persuaded myself to advise against this course of action. But you are two mature and sensible women, each of who is well able to bring quality of life to any child. I think the issues in front of you are threefold. One: to persuade the court that you are a fit mother, Joanna, and that the testimonies of the Rodgers are just malicious. Two: to persuade the court that you can provide an appropriate upbringing for Lou as two women in a relationship together.” He stops and looks at them.
“Three?” Joanna asks, unsure that there is anything else.
Ed hesitates.
“Joanna, do you remember, back on the day when you read Stephen’s suicide letter here in my office?”
Joanna pales and looks at him.
“Yes.”
I said that day that I would have to deliver other letters.
“Oh God,” she groans aloud. “What letters?”
Geraldine is looking at her, concerned.
“Stephen left instructions,” he says, looking now at Geraldine, “That if ever this situation arose, I was to deliver letters to various persons. One is to go to you, Geraldine, as the woman that Joanna has chosen to have a relationship with. I know that this will not be easy, Joanna, but I took the liberty of having the letter here for this meeting.”
