Authors: Grace Wynne-Jones
Doug lived in a geodesic dome in Mill Valley. The road to his dome was up a steep hill. There was a sheer drop on each side. ‘Leave everything behind – let go’ was tacked to a tree at the bottom, and when you got to the top there was another notice that said ‘And that too’.
And I suppose that’s what we did for a while – the days melted dreamily into one another like the big globs of mozzarella on our Big Sur sandwich specials.
Doug didn’t take our virginity because it turned out he was
gay. This was just as well because being sexually inexperienced we’d thought we could share him. So we longed and
listened to him instead and off-loaded our purity elsewhere.
One night, when we were sitting on the hill overlooking
the redwoods, Doug told us about taking LSD. He said it was
like getting lots of information at once but so fast it didn’t
quite make sense. He knew it was important but he’d taken
the shortcut and maybe you needed the long way round to get the whole message.
And then he said that some people, and he felt sure Susan
and I were among them, could look at, say, a table, without
taking LSD, and see that it was just a mass of moving
molecules. He felt sure that if we sat and stared at it for long
enough we would eventually see all the little molecules just
whizzing around and know that everything, and everybody,
is just energy in the end.
The silence was so strong on the hill that night you could
hear it. We looked up at the huge inky sky above us and all the
little golden stars and thought what an incredibly amazing,
magical place the universe was.
The next day we flew home to discover the Irish nation
had spent the summer discussing who should be allowed to
sell condoms.
During these reminiscences I have moved to the reception
area of Jurys hotel. It’s still raining outside and I’m sitting
on a sofa. I’m having a quick gin and tonic and a sandwich
before I go to the supermarket and wondering if life will ever
feel magical again.
I’m also wondering who first decided to associate ice
cream with sex and whether I’ll get away with a large tub
of chocolate chip and hazelnut for dessert – some of Bruce’s
colleagues are coming round to dinner. I really really wish
they weren’t.
Then I look up.
I look up and I look straight into the eyes of the man I have
craved hopelessly – passionately – for the past ten years. He looks at me in a bored sort of way, then turns back towards
the reception desk.
I’m
a rather nervous
hostess. Even after months of having
Bruce’s production colleagues and actors round to dinner
I have still not learned how to talk about the Algarve and
not burn the stuffed tomatoes. I have still not learned how, for example, to listen to Cait Carmody drone on about how
her brassière burst during a particularly poignant scene at
the Abbey without jumping up in the middle crying ‘Oh my
God the olives!’
Of course what Cait and Bruce and the rest of them are
not to know is that while they are relaxing from, though
probably still discussing, things Thespian, I, with no dramatic
training, have been flung onto centre stage. It’s bad enough trying to get props, such as olives or fettucine carbonara in
place, I have to get the lines right too. And so much relies
on improvisation.
Before Bruce left ‘national broadcasting’ he did most of
his entertaining in restaurants. But now he’s formed his own
production company he’s had to tighten his belt and do some
entertaining at home. In a way I’m glad he’s left national
broadcasting because I was getting tired of his tirades about the place. His descriptions of a day there sounded like something out of
I
Claudius.
When I told him this he said
I
Claudius
was precisely the
sort of quality drama he could have created if his former employers had had any guts and vision. When he starts talking like this a sort of weary look comes over his face because I know, at heart, he doesn’t think I will ever truly comprehend the entire complex saga.
National broadcasting were so sorry to see Bruce go they
gave him quite a lot of money. And the speeches at his
farewell were almost euphoric in their appreciation. He was, it seemed, a linchpin in their entire operation. One wondered
how they would ever manage without him.
And the funny thing now is national broadcasting are
making more drama again. So Bruce is getting very buddy
buddy with lots of people he professed to despise. They’re really being rather nice to him and it looks like they may fund his independent film –
Avril: A Woman’s Story,
which is set sometime during the Second World War.
As far as I can gather, Avril lives on the west coast of Ireland with her aged uncle and collects rather a lot of
seaweed. The seaweed is fertiliser for the farm she’s managing
single-handedly and one day, on the beach, she meets a man
who’s on the run from England for espionage, only he’s innocent. Avril somehow knows this and he becomes her lover. And then it turns into a thriller that hasn’t much to do with Avril at all.
Avril is now the ‘Other Woman’ in our marriage. Bruce is
obsessed with her – what she’d wear – whether she’d take the local bus to town or walk to save the few shillings. I
can’t help wishing he’d just once shown the same interest in
me, and I grow rather tetchy when he asks whether a woman
of her young years would wear a headscarf and whether she
should lose her virginity in the hayloft or the sand-dunes.
Cait Carmody is going to play Avril and that’s why she’s
coming to dinner, along with Eamon, who’s going to play her
lover, and Alice, who seems to be doing just about everything
else. Alice is the production co-ordinator and enormously efficient. She’s been working with Bruce for years. I once asked her why she doesn’t produce films herself and she said she couldn’t stand all the crap. I’ve always liked Alice.
So now here we all are sitting round my new distressed pine table. We are eating salad and slightly burned lasagne. As Cait asks me whether the dressing is Paul Newman’s or my own, I suddenly realise I haven’t put the ice cream in the fridge so I rush into the kitchen and bung it in the freezer. Then I pour myself a gin and tonic because the wine doesn’t seem to be calming my nerves. It goes down very quickly and so I have another and pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming about what happened in Jurys this afternoon.
When I return some minutes later I’m amazed that I have the presence of mind to explain that the ice cream is going to be a little more mushy than usual.
Naturally everyone says that’s just the way they like it and then, as we all start to tuck in, Bruce brings up Avril. He’s wondering how Avril can get food to her lover without her uncle suspecting.
‘Surely he can just go to the shop and buy some,’ I say with a vehemence that makes me aware of how much I’ve drunk.
‘Of course he can’t, Jasmine,’ Bruce says patiently. ‘He’s living in a hayloft. Agents are looking for him everywhere.’
‘Seaweed’s quite nourishing.’ I’m smiling now.
‘Oh, really!’ Bruce drinks the last dregs of his ice cream wearily and asks Alice if she’s made arrangements for the location recces next week. Then he gives Cait a long, knowing look – one of many he’s been giving her all evening. He’s trying to shut me up – shut me out. But I’m not having it.
‘It seems to me,’ I begin, slurring my words slightly, ‘it
seems to me that Avril has such a sod-awful life she should
start worrying less about these – these men and more about
herself. It seems to me she should move to Dublin and start
– start a massage course or something.’
‘A massage course?’ Alice is intrigued.
‘Yes – a massage course,’ I say. ‘A friend of mine, I can’t
quite remember who now – she – she did a massage course.
Aromatherapy. None of that sex parlour stuff. She has her own house now. Hey – I’ve got a new tide for you –
Avril:
The Aromatherapist!’
Then I collapse into giggles and knock over my wine and
Bruce goes off to the kitchen to get the coffee and a cloth.
Cait follows him in ‘to help’ and we hear whispers followed
by the clatter of crockery and giggles and then silence which
goes on for some time.
‘How’s Katie?’ Alice asks rather too cheerfully.
‘Oh, she’s fine, I hope,’ I reply. ‘She’s in her first year in Galway studying anthropology…no, no psychology.
I really miss her.’
‘And the animal rights – how are they going?’ Eamon chips in.
Semi-inebriated as I am, a small shiver has gone up my
spine and I am aware that something is happening in the
kitchen that I need to be aware of.
‘Oh, much as usual.’ My tongue suddenly feels very heavy
and unwieldy. ‘We’re marching with a pig down O’Connell
Street
on Monday. She’s called Rosie. She’s a lovely pig.’
‘I’m sure she is,’ says Alice, who’s looking uncomfortable.
‘A lovely pig,’ I repeat. ‘Very sensitive – very loyal.’
‘How very nice,’ says Eamon. ‘Ah good – here comes the coffee.’ For Bruce is at last returning followed by Cait who
has slightly smudged her lipstick while collecting the cloth.
The cloth she uses to clean the spilt wine off the table. She
does this very carefully and ostentatiously while the rest of
us move to the sofa and armchairs.
I go to my favourite chair in the corner. It’s not particularly
comfortable but it used to belong to my father. I sit there, as
far away from them as I can get, and wish Dad was alive so
I could tell him.
Tell him that for one moment in Jurys Hotel this afternoon
I looked into the eyes of Mell Nichols.
Tell him that I think my husband may be having an affair
with Cait Carmody.
Tell him I miss him and wish I could believe he’s still
around.
Susan believes he’s still around. Susan believes in Guardian
Angels too. She says we all have someone watching over us
all the time.
I get up. ‘Excuse me for a moment,’ I say, going into the
kitchen. ‘I’m just going to get my Hermesetas.’
But I don’t. I go out the back door into the garden where
I look up at the huge inky sky above me and search for the
little golden stars.