‘Last week,’ he said. ‘It would have happened sooner – we actually came pretty close when you were off on that South Australian production last year, but Nat knocked me back. Out of deference to you, of course.’

  Well bully for you, Nat, I thought, perhaps cynically but, still suspended in a state of disbelief, vaguely aware that I felt no anger. Surely the timing was a bit off though – I’d just buried my father.

  Once again Joe appeared to read my thoughts. ‘It does seem a bit rough,’ he went on apologetically, ‘that it happened while you were away at your dad’s funeral. But it was going to happen sometime, Jac, and in six weeks you’re heading off to Melbourne, so I decided the time was now. We have to make plans.’

  ‘What sort of plans?’ This sounds ominous, I thought. So they’ve had a fling, but we can get over it, surely. I’m prepared to forgive and forget. Well, forgive anyway – sort of.

  But Joe had clearly decided from the start that brutal was the way to go.

  ‘Nat and I are in love,’ he announced boldly. ‘We probably have been for quite some time, but neither of us was prepared to admit it, even to ourselves let alone each other. We just pretended to ignore our feelings, but now we have to face up to the fact and make plans for the future.’

  I could tell his resolve was weakening, and for the first time since he’d embarked upon this confrontation, which he’d obviously determined to meet in a full head-on collision, he looked guilty.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jac,’ he said. ‘I really am sorry. I never meant to hurt you, and neither did Nat. It just happened . . .’ A miserable shrug. ‘Over a period of time . . . A very long period of time . . . It just . . .’ A hopeless shake of his head. ‘I dunno . . . It just happened. Nat and I are right for each other.’

  He was struggling so hard to explain something he couldn’t understand, but as he went on I could.

  ‘I love her and she needs me,’ he said. ‘I love you too, Jac, and I always will. But you don’t need me. You never have.’ There was no accusation in his tone, just the declaration of a long-observed truth. ‘You’ve never needed anyone. And somehow that makes a difference. At least it does to me.’

  Oh yes, I understood implicitly. How could I not? Once again, and after all these years, my choice in men had proved disastrous. Not disastrous for me, but disastrous for him. Poor darling Joe, what a rotten wife I’d been.

  I downed the remains of my shiraz and poured myself another.

  That particular change should have been a massive one, wouldn’t you agree? But somehow it wasn’t. Joe just shifted three doors down the street – tastefully six weeks later when I was in Melbourne – and the girls split their time between the two homes. As they had for the past eight years anyway.

  The divorce eventually went through, quite amicably. Joe and Nat married the year after that, and everyone was happy. How bizarre can you get? I felt no animosity towards Nat, although I tried hard at first. She was still the same lovely person with the same lovely nature (still homely looking), and she was so right for Joe.

  The next big change came another eight years later when Mum died. (In numerology, my destiny number is eight, so that may have had something to do with the scheme of things.) Her death brought with it that jarring sense of my own mortality. Surely it’s the same for everyone, isn’t it? The moment when you realise you’re the next cab off the rank? A sobering thought.

  We had preparation time, though, Mum and I; time enough to say our goodbyes. She’d been diagnosed with cancer – pancreatic, stage four, inoperable, two months at the most. She didn’t accept the offer of chemo, which might have bought her extra time.

  ‘What’s the point?’ she argued, ‘I’ll opt for quality not quantity, thank you very much. Should they become necessary, painkillers will do.’

  I cancelled everything and moved to Perth to be with her, and I cannot tell you how precious our time together was. I treasured every minute of it, and do to this day. The memories we shared! And, oh, how we laughed.

  She didn’t make the two months – she barely made five weeks – but I’m convinced she willed things that way.

  ‘I’m not going into hospital, Jac,’ she announced the moment I arrived. ‘I’m going to die right here, in my own bed, in my own home. That’s important to me dear. You do understand, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’ It sounded distinctly like an order that I was to obey under all circumstances, but what if I couldn’t? What if she became so incapacitated she had to be hospitalised?

  I needn’t have worried. Mum looked after everything herself, dying in her own bed, in her own house, just as she’d said she would. I regretted at first that I hadn’t been there with her, holding her hand right at the very end, until I realised she’d wanted to be on her own. She’d said her goodbyes that very same evening as I’d sat on her bed and we’d chatted away. I hadn’t realised they were goodbyes at the time; I’d just thought she was being reflective.

  ‘You never really did understand Margaret, did you, dear?’ she asked out of the blue, taking me completely by surprise. ‘You considered her the aunt from hell.’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ I replied, thinking this was going to become one of our jokey reminiscences. ‘But with pretty good reason. You’ve got to admit she was the most terrible tyrant.’

  ‘She was the closest thing I ever had to a parent,’ Mum said in that distant way that signalled she was somewhere else. ‘Margaret was mother and father all in one. A truly good person devoted to her siblings, particularly me, being the youngest.’ She jumped back to the present. ‘You couldn’t see that, could you?’

  I felt it essential I back down at this stage – just a little anyway – although I wasn’t prepared to lie. ‘No, I couldn’t, Mum. I couldn’t see that at all, I’m afraid. But I didn’t view things from any perspective other than my own in those days. I was young and selfish. All young people are selfish.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. You’ve always been selfish. You still are. And yet you’re no longer young.’ In typical fashion Mum was making no accusation, merely voicing an observation, but I couldn’t help wincing at the remark.

  ‘Oh don’t be hurt, dear. It’s pointless. You are who you are, and I wouldn’t want you any other way. You’ve always chosen to live life on your terms, and if on occasion things didn’t turn out for the best, you can’t be held entirely responsible.’

  We both knew exactly what she was talking about, and her frail hand reached out to pat mine.

  ‘Joe was fully aware of what he was letting himself in for, you should never have felt guilty the way you did all those years ago. It was your strength he fell in love with, after all. And you know what your greatest strength is, Jac?’

  I shook my head. I really had no idea.

  ‘Your honesty. You’ve been true to yourself for the whole of your life. Ever since you were a little girl, you’ve never been afraid to say what you think and be who you are.’

  I wonder where I got that from, I couldn’t help thinking.

  ‘That sort of honesty is to be respected, Jac. I’m proud of you and I love you.’

  ‘I love you too, Mum.’ I leaned down and kissed her.

  ‘That’s nice, dear.’ Her smile was one of sheer bliss, and although her face was weary and worn, emaciated even, I thought she’d never looked prettier. ‘I’m going to sleep now.’

  ‘You don’t want me to read to you?’ I usually read until she nodded off.

  ‘No thank you, dear, not tonight. I’m very tired.’

  ‘Right you are.’ I stood. ‘Night-night then, see you in the morning.’

  ‘Goodnight, Jac.’

  They were her last words to me. I hadn’t realised that she was saying goodbye, of course, but I knew the moment I saw her the following morning, lying there so serene, so peaceful. She’d said her goodbyes and slipped away quietly on her own, just as she’d planned. Oh god how I loved that woman.

  Life’s changes continued in relentless and unpredictable fashion. The girls graduated from university. Mandy became a lawyer and Rosie an architect – our funny little Rosie designing grand buildings, just fancy that! I’d pictured her more as a stand-up comic. Then Mandy got married and had a baby. Good grief, I was a grandmother!

  ‘Do you want to hold him, Mum?’ Mandy asked, thrusting her newborn at me.

  ‘No thank you, dear. I’d rather not.’

  The laughter that followed. They all thought I was joking. Oh my goodness, how Mum continued to live around every corner.

  Joe and I had long since sold the little semidetached in Bondi. This was around about the time the girls finished school, and Joe was by then a father all over again. He and Nat had a baby. And guess what? It was a boy! I was genuinely happy for him. When I called around to congratulate them, Nat didn’t offer the baby up for a cuddle though. Joe had obviously warned her.

  When I turned sixty I ‘sort of’ retired and moved up to the Central Coast, a couple hours north of Sydney. I mean it when I say ‘sort of’, because I hadn’t really retired at all. By that time my work was mostly done on computer anyway – not only the drawing up of budgets and schedules, but a great deal of communication and meetings were conducted online. God, the poor actors were expected to film their audition pieces and email them to the production company. Who would ever have thought things would come to that! Having spent the whole of my existence maintaining the line that ‘work is who I am’, retirement was hardly something I was eager to embrace anyway, and the ‘sea change’ wasn’t all that difficult.

  My move north brought with it the greatest and most unpredictable change of all. After the disastrous choices of men I’d made throughout the whole of my life, I finally met another partner! Ronnie. The same age as me. And no, Ronnie’s not short for Ronald. Veronica’s her name.

  I never knew I could be attracted to a woman – sexually, I mean. Plenty of my straight female friends have been over the years. Good grief, in the world of film and show business in general I think I was one of the few who’d never been tempted to experiment with their sexuality. I don’t quite know why – it had simply never occurred to me.

  Not so Ronnie. She’d known she was a lesbian from a very early age, and she told me it’s her greatest thrill to ‘turn a straight’. She just loves the challenge, she said. Always has and still does.

  ‘What?’ I asked. ‘Even now when you’re over sixty?’ I was shocked. ‘You’re surely a bit beyond that, aren’t you?’ I’d had no idea she was doing a line for me at the time. My shock lay in my personal assumption that people over sixty didn’t have sex.

  ‘You’re never past it if someone’s the right person,’ she said, her black-currant eyes beaming holes into mine. The power of Ronnie’s full focus can be pretty overwhelming. ‘And age is never a barrier for anything,’ she added with her contagiously wicked smile, ‘unless perhaps you’re aiming at the Olympics.’

  That’s when I recognised this was a line, and that the line was aimed directly at me. It was very effective.

  I didn’t fall for it immediately, of course – a period of adjustment was necessary – but I did allow us to become friends.

  Ronnie’s an extraordinarily attractive human being. Not beautiful, not in the least, and she wouldn’t have been even in her youth. I know this for a fact – I’ve seen the photos. But she’s highly intelligent and outrageously funny with an energy impossible to ignore. Above all, Ronnie is fearless. And I’ve discovered that fearlessness is a quality to be admired in anyone – male or female. Little wonder it wasn’t long before I succumbed.

  ‘You know what I like most about you, Jac?’ she asked that first time as we lolled around on a late Saturday afternoon.

  ‘No idea,’ I said, still dazed and lost in wonder at this latest turn my life had taken.

  ‘You’re so readable.’

  ‘Oh.’ I was disappointed, and more than a little hurt, but I covered the fact. ‘How insufferably boring of me.’

  ‘Not at all. It’s refreshing. You don’t play games. You are who you are and you’re not afraid to admit it.’ (Why did Mum spring instantly to mind?) ‘I like that. I like that a lot.’

  Ronnie and I have been together for nearly five years now. The girls are totally accepting of our relationship. They were from the very start, which I suppose was to be expected – they’re young and they’re modern.

  ‘We’re happy for you, Mum,’ they said. Which pleased me.

  Joe, too, was accepting, and that came as more of a surprise because Joe’s a conservative man at heart, even bordering on the old-fashioned.

  ‘You’ve always known what you wanted, Jac,’ he said. ‘I’m happy for you.’ Which also pleased me.

  But even if none of them had been accepting, I’d still be with Ronnie. Because that’s who I am, as both Ronnie and Mum would say. Living life on my own terms. Selfish to the very end.

  Ah well, this concludes my ramblings, although as I said from the outset I’ve no idea who they’re intended for. The girls perhaps? I don’t think so. The girls know me far too well; they’d find no surprises here. For the grandchildren maybe, when they’re of an age to be remotely interesting to me, that is. Yes, possibly. I’ll give Ronnie a look, of course – bound to raise a smile there. But I think ultimately this will be for me – I’ll read it ten years from now and see what further changes may have occurred.

  Life is so interesting, isn’t it? You never know how things are going to pan out. I must say, though, at this stage in my journey it’s very nice having someone to grow old with.

  A WORD FROM JUDY

  I recently came upon a mysterious folder in my computer files that bore the title ‘General Notes’. As I have a sea of folders in my computer, each relating to specific books or short stories, I wondered which particular one these notes might belong to, but I called it up only to discover it didn’t belong anywhere. The file contained just a series of observations I’d made over the years – bits and pieces jotted down in sundry notebooks that at some stage I’d decided to file away then promptly forgot I’d done so. And now here they were.

  The discovery was quite a treasure trove really, this collection of musings and memories. I decided to use some of my ‘General Notes’ in a story written from the perspective of an older woman reviewing her past, and that’s how ‘Changes’ came about.

  THE HOUSE ON HILL STREET

  Timothy Drew lived in Hill Street, West Hobart, a pleasant street in a pleasant, middle-class suburb in the postcard-pretty capital of Tasmania. Timothy’s house was one in a line of a half dozen or so terraces built at the dawn of the twentieth century, which now, in 1983, were regarded as fashionable. Brick-rendered and identical, the cottages were not as picturesque as the stone terraces that were a feature of ‘old Hobart town’, but they were attractive nonetheless.

  Timothy didn’t actually own his cottage, he rented it from Henry Jervis, a real estate investor whose passion for restoring old houses had made him a wealthy man, but Timothy felt as though he owned his cottage. He’d lived there quite happily for the past decade and, apart from a biennial raise in the rent, he’d had no interference whatsoever from his landlord. It was not surprising – Henry Jervis only wished that all of his properties could be leased to introverted pharmaceutical assistants like the grossly overweight, meek and malleable Timothy Drew.

  Timothy took great pride in his house and his garden, and the community in general. He considered it a privilege to live in Hill Street – such a respectable neighbourhood. Good heavens, there was even a scientist a few doors up the road. Professor Jameson and his family had moved into the end terrace just the previous year. The professor was a biochemist, employed by the CSIRO no less. In Timothy’s opinion, a person of such standing was a credit to the community and, although he hadn’t dared attempt to cultivate the great man’s friendship, he always kept a packet of sweets in his pocket for those times when he bumped into Mrs Jameson and the children. This was usually during the weekends when she took the boys to the park – always on her own. The professor was rarely to be seen, he was clearly a busy man.

  Eileen Jameson seemed a very nice woman – late thirties Timothy guessed, quite a deal younger than her husband, who appeared in his early fifties. Good-looking, brunette and stylish, as befitted the wife of a scientist.

  Lately, Timothy had taken to accompanying Eileen and her children on their stroll to the park. For Timothy it was more of a struggle than a stroll as he waddled beside them trying to keep up. When they got there he would push the swing for the youngest boy, Thomas, who was six. Nine-year-old Robert, fiercely independent, would eschew any form of assistance, swearing he could swing himself higher than anyone could push him. Eileen, seated on a bench, buried her head in a book and ignored the lot of them. Ten minutes later, when the swings had lost their appeal, the boys would gravitate to each other’s company and Timothy, his supply of sweets by then demolished, would be redundant altogether. That was when he would make his departure.

  ‘Cheerio,’ he’d say, and Eileen would look up from her book and give him a wave.

  Timothy loved his visits to the park.

  One chill autumn day, emboldened by the dreadful knowledge that, with the advent of winter, the park would soon be out of bounds, Timothy made a move that surprised even himself. He joined Eileen Jameson on the bench.

  Clasping a knee with both hands, he heaved one hefty thigh over the other and crossed his legs in a clumsy attempt at nonchalance. ‘I’d be happy to babysit,’ he said a little too loudly.

  Eileen glanced up from her book into the currant-brown eyes of his doughy face and the desperate plea that lay there.

  ‘You could drop the boys off at my house any time during the weekend,’ he said. ‘Or, if you like, I could call by and collect them. And I’m free in the evenings too . . .’ He tailed off lamely as he noticed that she did not appear particularly receptive to his suggestion.

  Eileen Jameson supposed there was nothing sinister in Timothy Drew’s offer. He was just the lonely man she’d always presumed him to be, she told herself. But she found his bid for her children’s company repellent nonetheless. Her response was polite, but unequivocal.

 

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