You look like you wanted home
Far from god, and close to none.
1968 - Berkeley, California
Hello My Darlings -
I am so sorry to have missed your trip to my particular kind of heaven here in California but unfortunately this opportunity to travel to parts unknown arose suddenly, and as Susan can attest, I have always been party gypsy. I hope that in the two years Claire has been here I've been able to impart enough local knowledge to have her play a successful tour guide. A few friends may pop round to check in on you. Susan may recognise Iris and Hailey from Jean's letters.
Please treat my home as yours. I've stocked a decent supply of proper tea & bourbon (the least I can do). Jean has vouched to the comfort of the bed in the guest room and the water heater for bathing is one of the largest I could find (bless this country's indulgences!).
J'adore -
M.
"Well that's a shame," Timothy exclaimed, reading the letter out loud before handing it off to his wife.
"Oh, it's to be expected, Millie isn't happy unless she's adding a stamp to her passport." Susan sighs, folding the letter and putting it down. "Claire's put the kettle on for tea if you wanted to take a bath?"
"Hmm - not a bad idea, sure you wouldn't rather go first?"
"No, I'd rather bathe before bed. I'm rather tired as it is - the warm water would put me straight to sleep."
"Alright then - won't be long!" Timothy kisses his wife's cheek before making his way to the bathroom, loosening his tie as he goes.
"Sure I can't help you, love?" Susan asks her daughter, listening to the movement from the kitchen.
"I'm fine! You unpack and get comfortable mum." Claire calls back.
Susan takes a breath, telling herself that her frustration is simply jet lag and exhaustion instead of anything else. She takes in the room, trying to overlay the pictures Claire has shared from the last two years with the actual room, which was larger and brighter in real life. Two low jade green sofas and a coffee table, a credenza with the radio, record player, and television stood to one side, flanked on either side by low shelves of books and records. She lifts the lid of the record player and reads the label, Aretha Franklin - One Step Ahead, though they'd heard of her, this one hadn't made its way over to them yet. Susan runs her fingers over the label, the grooves, the A-side well worn. Some things haven't changed then, she thinks to herself smiling, thinking of the songs Millie would listen to repeatedly on when they lived together - if she never heard another Glenn Miller song, it would still be too soon. She absentmindedly presses play, the gentle rhythm flooding the room before Aretha's voice began. She can't help but smile at the sentiment of the song. She should be angry, she should be exasperated, she should be so many things, but she can't help it - this soft spot she has for Millie. Same as she supposes Millie can't help hers. "Oh my goodness-" Claire laughs, startling Susan, "I thought one benefit of Aunt Millie's absence is that I won't have to hear that song again!"
"She used to do that all the time. Glad to hear some things don't change." Susan smiles at her daughter and takes a sip of the offered cup of tea. "Thank you, I suddenly feel much more human."
"It's a long trip, but I'm so glad you're both here."
"We are too darling, now," Susan sits on one of the couch, and smiles as she watches her daughter sprawl out across the other, "How do you like it here?"
"Oh, it's so different mum. The kids, the teachers, everyone. It's not bad, it's just…so much more work to try and understand the mechanics of people. You're smiling…"
"I'm afraid you've gotten that from me."
"Oh, don't be. It could be worse, Aunt Millie has basically become an American translator for me, and Simon does his best."
"And this Simon- "
"No."
"You don't even know what I was going to say."
"The answer will likely be no. He's very nice, but…much like everything, very different."
"Alright." Susan sips her tea. "And how do you like living with your Aunt Millie?"
"She's fantastic! She's a lot of fun, and so helpful. She's one of the most popular professors you know?"
"That doesn't surprise me."
"And she's helped me meet so many people. And it doesn't feel like - well I'm living with a friend of yours. I mean, I don't feel like she's running to the post to tell you everything I'm doing-"
"And what are you doing that would require her to tell me?"
"Oh nothing, it's just… I was worried she'd be more like Auntie Jean."
"Far from it."
"I know! It's just…" She searches for the right words, "I feel like I don't know her yet? I'm up here all the time, or she and I will meet on campus or go to the museum, or coffee, so she feels like a friend, but also…"
"Distant?" Susan watches her daughter nod, "That's just her way - hot and cold, she doesn't mean anything by it."
"It's not hot and cold necessarily, more - she reminds me of you in a way."
"Me? Well, no one's ever said that before!" Susan scoffs.
"You're both - an arms length away. Never sharing anything that matters."
"Oh." A pause. "I'm sorry you feel that way." She knows she can't hide the look of being wounded, but she wasn't expecting this, made all the more cutting by its casual nature.
"Feel what way?" Timothy asks fresh from the bath. "And I have to admit, Millie was rather right about that water heater."
"Oh - nothing dear." Susan fumbles, "Tea?"
"Yes, would love one actually. You and your mum catching up, Button?" He asks, settling down beside his daughter as his wife rises, trapping her from following her mother. "Well what's this?" He asks, looking at the wall opposite the credenza, covered in a large map, surrounded by pictures. Susan returns and hands a cup of tea to her husband before placing a hand on her daughter's shoulder and giving it a slight squeeze before taking in the map and smiling. She spots the black pins in London, Bombay, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Glasgow, Paris. All with strings extending out to photos of Jean, Lucy's family, the Gray family's last photo, a handsome man in New York, a couple in Los Angeles. Green pins dotted places Susan recognised from Millie's travels back when she sent her postcards after Bletchley, with strings leading postcards. She fingered the red pins, marked for places she assumed Milly hadn't traveled yet - Hong Kong, Shanghai, Japan, Polynesia, Australia, a few places in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa. "So many places left on her list." She murmurs to herself.
"Still," Timothy comments, sipping his tea, "Rather a curious way of marking it, don't you think?"
"She says it's so she can remember why she's working…to afford these adventures she'd like to go on. We're up there mum," Claire points out, getting up and wrapping an arm around her mother's waist, a silent apology.
"I see."
"And Auntie Jean, and this is her cousin Edward who may stop by. He's so dashing!"
When Millie returns home a month later, she's relieved to find the entire house empty. She kicks off her shoes, pours herself a bourbon (straight, no energy to make a proper drink), and lights a cigarette. It's not that she's tired of traveling, it's just… good to be home. Even if home was thousands of miles away from where she started from. She stares at her luggage, almost offensive in what it demands of her. Unpacking, laundry, sorting this or that, when all she really wants is to sink into the bath. Forget it - she's an adult and she is making the very adult decision to ignore her adult responsibilities and to take a bath and drink her drink and smoke her cigarette at 11.23 am on this Tuesday morning.
Set in her decision, she steps away from the pile of luggage towards the radio which she switches on and begins to unbutton her blouse and run the bath water. She makes her way down the short hall as the tub fills, purposely not looking at the guest room (and all the other adult duties that would entail) and makes her way to her room, sighing when she sees the vase of roses on her bedside table, a note placed beside it. She shucks her clothes and brushes a hand over the roses - still fragrant and fresh - before she grabs her robe and leaves for her bath.
She doesn't think about the letter as she eases herself into the hot water, or as she sips her drink. She doesn't think about the letter writer as she hums to the radio, or finishes her cigarette. She certainly doesn't think about it as she rolls her shoulders trying to loosen the tightness in them. She does everything she can to think about everything and anything else until the next morning when she wakes up at four in the morning, anxious and on edge from jet lag and restless sleep. Her arm stretches to just far enough to be able to tug the curtains back and let in the pre-dawn lightness and she curses as she strains something in her neck. It's like this, bare faced, hair askew, aching in places she's never ached before that she chooses to read Susan's letter.
Millie slides her finger along the edge of the envelope and breaks the adhesive seal. The letter is good quality stationary with Susan and Timothy's names gilded across the top, very up-market. She grimaces at the fact that her Susan has been reduced to such…inane and mundane ways of life. Imagine wasting valuable suitcase space for this. Imagine this is your life. Millie cannot, she'd left that way of life years ago with very little regret but she also concedes that a very small part of her bitterness is at the fact that it's Susan who never once expressed any interest in this way of life. But then again, she thought, Susan very rarely chose to disclose anything, preferring to allow others to project their own desires upon her and simply reflecting them back onto others. If she was in a more generous mood, she'd have likened Susan to the moon, but she's rather stroppy now and simply sees it as a weakness, a failing of character.
The letter is bland, full of polite thanks at taking care of Claire so well, and how much they enjoyed California. Millie's eyes roll so far back that she's worried they may stay there permanently. She reaches the second page - and there, in Susan's familiar script:
…how happy Timothy and I were to find you unexpectedly settled into a perfectly ordinary life.
All our best -
S. Gray
It was at this exact moment that Millie realised that the pang in her chest when she thought of Susan was no longer love, but rather, anguish. She had learned to live without Susan, but she still missed her sometimes. And though she knew Susan no longer loved her, possibly never loved her, Millie hated herself for still wanted the other woman. Her heart and her flesh were weak and she hated herself for that. But she exhausted and she could no longer carry the weight of the other woman's rejection, no matter how familiar. She had fled half-way around the world, and some how it still wasn't enough.
It would never be enough.
She would never be enough.
And that was the heart of the matter, wasn't it? That's where they were with their friendship. Subtle digs at one another over some imagined transgressions. What even tied them together other than a few shared years? The secrecy around everything: their work; the elusive nature of their relationship; and the death of Crowley all seemed to conspire with the distance (both physical and metaphorical) between them until it all seemed heavy with meaning and mixed messages. But strip everything down the the facts, and the facts were they were certainly no longer friends. Maybe they had never been friends, not really. Necessity forced their intimacy, but freedom revealed its artifice.
It was a relief then, to be able to accept this. To be able to give herself permission to move forward, move on. If this was the truth that had chased her around the world, then perhaps it wasn't so scary? She smiled a weak, watery sort of smile to herself and set her shoulders back.
It was good to have your heart broken every once in a while, she rationalised to herself. It built character, added mystery. Stiff upper lip and all that. She had survived worse, and she would survive Susan Gray.
