Julia chapter 2 part 2

to admiHow could God make two sisters so different, and how was it that despite all the things that Valerie had, the cars the holidays, the houses, the kitchen with an Island, Julia was not jealous of her, but she was perhaps of Julia?

In her mind she had often thought of what it must be like to be her sister. The problem of course was that as soon as she tried to imagine it her own reactions kicked in, ruining the picture. She thought of her sister standing in the rain at Greenham Common with the other women shouting at military convoys and pushing at the chain link fences and she tried to imagine the fierce spirit that howled within her, but her mind then presented her with a further string of images; those of being arrested, of standing naked in front of a policewoman, of being photographed and numbered, and taken down to the cells. She heard her mother’s voice ‘disgusting bunch of hippies.’

Then she thought of Julia at art school drawing graphic images of men with their bulbous genitals hanging down in a threatening and totally unnecessary way. Why did she need to do that when the Renaissance painters always managed to bring them down to an adequate size?  Julia’s outraged voice rang in her head ‘well what do you expect Valerie, Keith happens to be very well endowed, if you don’t like my work then don’t come into my studio.’  Then Julia’s disappearance in Morocco came to mind and the subsequent search that cost her father a fortune and according to her mother, his health.  She longed to be Julia then, away across some vast desert, smoking hashish, sleeping under the stars watching the glorious diamond studded past of the night sky end the once burning day. If it had been her though, how could she have come home?  How could she, Valerie, even dare to show her face again in the home counties? But Julia did.  That was the difference, Julia dared, and she could not.    

She took a sip of coffee and looking around furtively opened the cupboard door next to the dishwasher.  She removed the dishwasher tablets and reaching deep in the cupboard withdrew a packet of cigarettes.  Her hands were trembling as she withdrew the white stick then tucking the packet back into its hiding place. Next she clicked the cooker ring into life and pointing the end of the cigarette into the flame took the filter to her lips like a lovers skin and drew breath.  Standing for a moment watching the blue circle of flame from the cooker ring she inhaled a glorious mouthful of smoke that filled her with shame and intense pleasure at the same time. She had tried not to go to the cupboard, but she could not resist.  Was this a tiny glimpse of what Julia had felt all those times she had done something she was not supposed to? Did her blood rush in the same way, her hands tremble slightly at the thought that someone might find out? It only took a moment to make that deceitful decision but what a glorious moment it was.  She felt alive, for it was hers and hers alone. The feeling did not last long however, for she soon began to make her way to the conservatory door to exit the house and stand like all smokers did nowadays outside in the cold.  She drew on that thin stick like it was a lifeline to salvation closing her eyes in a way that she imagined women did when they felt the full force of their lovers energy bringing them to ecstasy.  Geoffrey never managed that trick and so in return he received her predictable groan prior to stubbing. He never seemed to notice whether she was participating or not. 

The garden into which she made her way had been landscaped by an award winning garden designer who had exhibited at Chelsea and Hampton Court and reached down via herbaceous borders and a large pond to a stand of mature trees that screened their house from those on the other side. On several occasions Valerie had mentioned their designers name at dinner parties but to her disappointment his not being a TV celebrity meant dinner guests rarely seemed to know to whom she was referring. It didn’t matter though for the main thing was that anyone visiting would have been hard pressed to know that they were in an urban setting, which was why they employed him.

 She thought herself lucky that the garden was sheltered from the neighbours. They couldn’t see her huddled like a schoolgirl by the back of the gym, smoke twisting up her arm as she held the cigarette by her side. How many years had she done this? Fourteen, fifteen? Sometimes she could go a whole week, although it depended upon her levels of stress.  Some days she reached for the packet more than once but they were rare, and usually had to be on a bath day in order to get rid of the smell.  Once, she actually noticed her skin exuding that nicotine smell in the bath, it oozed out of her before she had dowsed the water with bath oil and she panicked and felt guilty the whole evening in case Geoffrey smelt her. Cleaning up after a smoke was a ritual as important to her as the act of smoking itself.  It was her way of hiding something from Geoffrey.  It confirmed he did not own everything in their ultra clean, ultra predictable relationship.  Other women had affairs, whilst she sneaked a cigarette.  How pitiful, she admitted to herself.  The stub was disposed of in the wormery, Geoffrey never entered the garden unless it was for a ‘stroll around the estate’ as he called it, and that did not involve looking at the worms.

 She was on her way back when she heard the phone ring. Hurrying through the conservatory and into the kitchen she picked it up on its third ring.

‘Hello?’

‘Valerie, its your mother.’  Her heart was racing.  Was that from exertion or from the outrageous thought that her mother had psychically known she had had a cigarette?

‘Yes mum, what can I do for you?’

‘Have you heard from her?’ Valerie knew she meant Julia.

In a moment of panic she lied. She couldn’t tell her mother that Julia had phoned her to say that something was drastically wrong with Brian. That he was not the person they believed him to be, that her intuition was screaming out he was not what he appeared.  

‘No, I haven’t.  Have you?’

‘She won’t contact me will she.  The last time we fell out it was six months before she decided to call.’ Her mothers voice was harsh and overbearing.

‘Well she doesn’t normally contact me either.’

‘Brian says he thinks she has a mental problem.’

‘A mental problem?’  Valerie is taken aback by the suggestion.

‘Yes, he says it’s quite clear she is overly aggressive due to her unstable nature.  After you’d gone he told me he was in the same carriage as her on the train and she was on the phone all the time in the quiet zone and when he politely asked her to stop using it she was very rude. Typical Julia.’

‘Well I don’t think….’

‘He was adamant that she didn’t come and stay again. He has his job to consider.  He can’t afford to be connected to anyone who is mentally unstable.’ 

‘But she…’

‘I knew it would end like this of course. All those years ago I realized there was no way I could put up with her forever. I told your father she would get worse as she got older.’ She recalled the tone in her mothers voice from her childhood.  It harbored that frantic gnarled quality dredged up from some inner infection that said so much more than the words she spoke.  It was clear that losing Julia was causing her distress but only in the way that an addict misses that to which they are addicted.    

‘So are you going to call her?’ It was a demand rather than a question.  Prior to Julia’s call, she had written off the relationship, albeit reluctantly, and Geoffrey had added his weight to her decision.

Her mind raced to think of ways of avoiding the call, and, knowing her mother respected Geoffrey and deferred to him as she always did to successful males she said, ‘Geoffrey thinks that I should withdraw from Julia.  He is adamant that she should sort herself out before we make contact.’

‘Oh, I see,’ her mother was clearly disappointed but the brief silence that ensued indicated she was not prepared to counteract Geoffrey’s decision.  Eventually she spoke again.

‘Well if Geoffrey thinks so, then I suppose you should do what he says.’  It was a half hearted acceptance. Valerie needed to reinforce the decision whilst she had the chance for she knew that if she did not, her mother would badger her to change it.

‘From what you were saying so does Brian.’  Touche.

‘Yes, yes he agrees with Geoffrey.  Well that’s and end to it then.’  Despite her mother’s apparent acceptance Valerie knew in her heart that her mother would eventually rebel against it, she always did. When she wanted something she made sure she got it. In a moment of insight Valerie caught a glimpse of Julia’s defiance in her mother.  Like Julia her mother also refused to do what others wanted, the difference was that her defiance was underhand, twisted, and always coercive.  Whereas Julia would stride out in the face of overwhelming resistance, proclaiming to the world what she felt and what she was going to do, her mother would give the appearance of going along with what had been agreed but underneath her grudging acceptance she would be burrowing a tunnel to get out, to get her own way. The refusal to accept the status quo was equally strong in both of them, but the means of getting where they wanted to go was totally different. Julia was honest and her mother was not. That was why, despite all of her apparent faults, Julia’s peers had always had a grudging respect for her. In that moment it dawned on Valerie that her mother too was jealous of Julia, jealous of her courageous defiance of convention hence her proclamations about how awful she was. At some level her hypocrisy was eating away at her and the older she got the harder it was to accept she would never be able to change Julia.  So she punished her instead.

 The phone call and the cigarette had unsettled Valerie.  She felt anxious and lost as to what to do next.  A disturbing thought came into her mind, had she hidden the cigarette butt or had she walked into the house with it still in her hand? She looked around in case she had placed it somewhere indoors.  No, it wasn’t there. She sighed deeply as she left the conservatory for the garden to check the wormery. Sure enough on lifting the lid she saw it.  How stupid!  In her rational mind she knew she wouldn’t have done something as ridiculous as to leave evidence about, but in that deeper irrational space from which fear emanates the alarm bells had rung. Then something unexpected occurred to her.  It must have been a result of the opening of that fearful door within her, for out of the blue she had this overwhelming feeling that perhaps all was not right about Brian.  That what Julia had implied in her phone call was actually correct.  She went cold as she realized that more often than not Julia was insightful about other peoples characters. Her openness enabled her to see through convention, through social politeness, and their dishonesty often defended as tact.  Perhaps Valerie had been avoiding the truth about Brian because she couldn’t bear to face her mother and tell her she might be mistaken.  Maybe the thought of an unexpected week in Teneriffe with a happy mother had blinded her to her deep doubt. Or maybe the ultimate truth was that she was happy to hand over responsibility for her mother to someone else, no matter who.  For she knew that her mother was getting old, that she would need supervision in her old age, and that Julia would not be the choice of carer. 

She picked up the phone and dialed.  ‘Julia?’

‘Valerie I’m in the middle of something right now.’ Julia’s voice was clipped.  Was she telling the truth or just unwilling to talk?

‘I wont keep you. Its just that I have been thinking about what you said on the phone, about Brian?’

‘You told me what you thought the other day ‘why can’t you ever let mum be happy,’ were your exact words.  Valerie took the rebuke on the chin.

‘I know I did, and at the time I meant it. I don’t know why but this morning I suddenly had this awful feeling that something isn’t right. Call it intuition or whatever.’

‘Intuition, well there’s a new word for you.  I thought you felt intuition was for hippies and psychics.’

‘Look Julia lets not fight again, I am struggling here, I have been doing some thinking and I realize it was totally wrong not to have told you about mum and Brian, but she threatened me about it. You know what she is like, and you know I can’t cope with her in the same way you can.’  There was a silence on the other end of the phone.

‘Julia?’

‘It’s all right, I was just saying goodbye to Michael.  Well why are you phoning me, I can’t do anything about it they’re married now, it’s too late? I only called you the other day to give you some warning that this whole thing is going to end badly, not to suggest I thought anything could be done to save it.’  Julia’s voice had changed it was softer now, as though she had calmed down and actually felt sympathy for Valerie’s dilemma.’

‘What shall I do Julia?’ Valerie had suddenly become a child, the one Julia used to look after in mothers absence. 

‘Pray that I am wrong Valerie’ was all she said.

Chapter 3   Mrs Brian Spenser

 Julia’s mother stands looking at the photograph of herself and Brian.  It is hanging above the fireplace and is mounted in an ornate Gold frame.  The photographic shop had placed the picture onto canvass so that it has the appearance of an oil painting.  The two of them are smiling and the photograph has been taken in soft focus that makes them both look younger and in her mind like mature film stars.  She does not look much at Brian but instead concentrates on herself, admiring the dress she had purchased in Harrods, the wide brimmed hat, and of course the ring which she had insisted the photographer made sparkle.  Somehow, and she wasn’t sure how, he had done an excellent job for it threw flashes of light that streaked her skin. If she had nothing else in the world she would be satisfied with this picture for it shouted success.  She is Mrs Brian Spenser, a married woman again. Sixty eight years old wearing a large diamond ring whilst standing on an exotic beach and smiling like the queen.  All the years she had spent alone, all of those painful years as a divorcee (she hated the word so much she felt a sense of disgust even thinking it.) Those miserable times were wiped out with the click of a camera shutter.  No longer would she face the scrimping and saving, no more would she wonder whether in her old age she would touch the cold sheets at night and long for another’s warmth.  She was the wife of a successful civil servant whose pension would ensure the heating bills would be paid and the car tax renewed. 

Had anyone been looking in the window they would have seen her standing and staring for a full ten minutes, as if in awe of some fine work of art. Eventually she sighs and pulls herself away. As she moves through the house she is still taken aback by the pristine paintwork, and the plush furnishings. After years of neglect it has become a show home.  Brian had insisted of course. He had just bought the house from her ‘to give her a nest egg’ and said they both deserved a fresh start but after all, as he reminded her, she now had the money in the bank.  So she paid for the redecoration.

Brian’s first wife Edith had passed away from a long and sad death from cancer two years before their chance meeting.  He told her Edith’s death had taken away his zest for life, until he had met her of course.  She recalled the day he knocked on the door looking for a long lost friend and they had immediately become companions. It was a whirlwind romance worthy of Mills and Boon albeit Brian was not swarthy, square chinned, or swashbuckling. In fact she would not have given him a second glance in the supermarket.  No it was his charm that won her over.  He seemed to know immediately what made her tick, what she needed in life. He sent her flowers and tickets to a local show, and walked with her in the Botanic Gardens even though he confessed to having no knowledge of anything botanical. 

‘I like to see a nice garden’ he would say ‘but don’t ask me what anything is.’ It didn’t matter; they took tea and scones and cream and she was able to smile at the other visitors and think ‘I have a man at my table.’ No more huddling over a single serving, a lone teapot. Her mind could not help but drift into thoughts of the physical side of their relationship.  She'd missed this side of life more than she liked to admit.