Cath Staincliffe - Trio

‘There were so many lies,’ she said. ‘I asked her, my mum, Lilian – I asked her once what time of day I was born, for a chart, astrology thing, and she told me, made it up. She even told me what my birth was like.’

‘What did she say?’

‘“Straightforward.” She’d had three miscarriages before they got me and she never told me about any of that. I thought we were close. I thought we had a really good relationship.’ She stopped talking and put her hand to her mouth. It hurt too much. After a minute she began to talk again, haltingly trying to pick her way through muddled thoughts, around feelings that caught at her like brambles.

‘I’ve never really had a serious relationship. I’ve never been close to settling down or getting married or having children. I used to think it was work, putting everything into that and… it didn’t seem all that unusual, lots of single women, modern times, but now…’ She paused. Donna listened. ‘First Joan, then my father, now Mum. They’ve all left me.’ She turned to the other woman, her face creasing, eyes hot with pain, lips stretching with grief. ‘They’ve all left me,’ she cried, ‘and they all lied, it’s no wonder I can’t trust anyone.’

Joan

‘It’s all coming to you, there’s no one else. Tommy’s no need of anything. There’s just George. I’d like him to have the platinum discs, for ‘Walk My Way’ and ‘Swing Me’.

Penny nodded. Joan knew she was fighting not to cry. But what did it matter? What were a few more tears between friends. More than friends. Lovers, soul mates.

‘I want to be cremated,’ she said. Penny made a small choking noise. ‘And my ashes scattered on the sea out there. I’ve written it all down. It’s in the blue box with the will. Oh, Penny, come here!’

She gathered the weeping woman into her arms, stroking her coarse hair. The texture had changed over time as Penny’s straw-coloured hair had gone grey.

Joan rested her chin lightly on Penny’s head, felt Penny’s hot, damp tears on her neck. She looked out through the window to the horizon. Almost noon and a strange brilliance, bright as neon, stretched the width of the skyline. Above it storm clouds hovered and solitary seagulls were tossed by mercurial winds.

‘I don’t want to leave you,’ she said quietly when Penny had calmed down. ‘You know that. I haven’t given up. I still love you, I still want to share my life with you, stay here…’

And there were all the other things too. All the tunes in her head, the verses, the phrases and words waiting to be found and shaped and completed. All the songs she wanted to write. Would never write.

‘Joan-’

‘Sshhh. But if it is time, if I have to go, then I want it to be here, to be with you, to make the best of it. A good death.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t. Don’t be sorry. No regrets.’

‘No.’ The women clasped hands.

‘God, I must look ghastly,’ Penny said.

Joan surveyed the bloated red nose, the watery eyes and blotchy skin. ‘Yep.’

Penny laughed and fought not to cry again.

Joan laid her head back against the headboard. ‘Get me a drink?’

‘Tea?’

‘I was thinking Pernod.’

‘Pernod? Do we have Pernod?’

‘No, don’t think so. It used to be my special drink, for celebrations, years back.’

Penny raised an eyebrow. ‘We’re celebrating?’

Every moment, Joan thought. She shook her head. ‘A glass of red.’ It might make her nauseous, sometimes it did but she loved to savour the taste. And she might manage another couple of hours before her next medication.

Penny went and returned with two glasses of wine. She climbed on to the bed beside Joan and they sat peaceably for a while. Penny spoke first; Joan caught the nervous edge in her voice before she made sense of the words.

‘Joan, the baby you had, the one that was adopted. Do you want to do anything? Try and contact her?’

Joan stiffened. ‘No.’ Definitely not. ‘It wouldn’t be fair. I’m dying. I couldn’t expect… I’ve never considered it before and it wouldn’t be right now. And I think if she’d wanted to find me, well, she’d have done it by now.’

‘Would you have liked that?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘It’s difficult to think about. It was a very unhappy time. Having a baby was the last thing on earth I wanted. I know I did the right thing and I’ve tried as much as I could to put it behind me. If she’d come looking, it would have brought it all back. I think that was part of why I moved to London, to create some distance.’

‘You’ve never really talked about it.’

‘I don’t think I can.’

There was a pause but Joan sensed Penny needed to hear more. She took a breath, sipped her wine.

‘What did you call her?’

‘Marion. I liked the name at the time, that’s all. No other reason.’

She had a giddy surge of memory. Little Megan, the one with red hair, talking about names and initials and Joan not wanting to pick a name, not wanting to choose clothes, not wanting any of it. ‘It was awful, Penny. There was another girl there at the time, Caroline she was called, very young – only sixteen – and her Grandma died and they wouldn’t let her go to the funeral.’

‘Oh, god.’

‘Would have let the cat out of the bag you see.’

‘Thank god times have changed.’

Joan drank some more and felt a wave of fatigue flood her limbs and up her spine.

‘I think I’ll rest a bit.’ She put her glass down.

‘Shall I leave the curtains?’

‘Yes.’

‘Penny?’

‘Yes?’

‘Love you.’

Penny nodded and kissed her softly on the lips.

Joan lay, facing the sea, eyes drifting open now and then. Noting the slow progress of the storm clouds, seeing how the sea changed from silver to lead. She could feel the electricity on the air, hear the snap of the wind in the eaves of the house. She shut her eyes and watched lightning sizzle and heard the low rumble of thunder leading to the crack at its heart. And she prayed that wherever Marion was, whoever she had become, that she was happy and healthy and loved.

Pamela

After getting her records and a couple more sessions crying to the counsellor Pamela had put it all on one side and got on with her life. Work was frantic. There were mergers going on with the Netherlands and Portugal. She spent four months in Lisbon and considered emigrating but there never seemed to be time to look into the pros and cons. When she did return to her cottage it felt just like home and she knew that she would have to keep it, and had she the energy to keep two homes? There was no time for anything. She still missed her mother, still caught herself wanting to ring and tell her good news, ring and say she was home, and then found herself hurting afresh as she remembered that she was dead, still dead. Would always be dead.

Curiosity about her background emerged very gradually, in fits and starts. She would go for weeks without giving it a thought then a chance conversation or news item would catch her unawares. I’m adopted too, she would think. She began to wonder more about Joan. Who had been the father? It still hurt to think that Peter, her beloved father, was not her natural parent. They had been so close. She remembered how he would play with her, football and snakes and ladders. Almost like a child himself, except he also told her about the wider world, injustice and the need to fight it. He’d talked about apartheid and human rights – to a six year old. They’d released Nelson Mandela this year; there would be a new South Africa but only last week they’d seen pictures of the Serbian death camps. Was the world any more humane since he had died? It didn’t seem so.