Scene Fifty

Helen was not to know but her rapid phone call to Margaret about the slight change in the arrangements sparked off Margaret's fears of what she was to face as it coincided with the very eve of the conference. It was one thing meeting her new friends that had given her the joyful feeling of a sudden visit from any of her them, of driving her car to Nikki and Helen's flat. What she hadn't faced for a long time was the terrifying realization that her all qualities would be severely tested the following day. Of course, she could sit back and let her friends fight it out, hammer and tongs but she knew beyond doubt that it would be a gross betrayal of everything she'd ever stood for. She hadn't been afraid of fighting battles in her past and the last weeks or months had shown her that her faculties were intact. It gradually dawned on her that in crossing swords with her friends in the friendliest of fashion, she was unconsciously readying herself for a more brutal battle and in fact, had become if anything quicker witted than before. She knew she still had a lot to give and this meant that she couldn't hear of standing aside. She remembered the debate with her friends at 'Chix.' She had volunteered to speak. She simply couldn't back down.

Her ingrained honesty made her realize that that there was more to it than the conference itself. She had to accept that this moment was only the convenient trigger to facing the worst set of experiences of her life that had all come together about the same time. She knew beyond doubt that she simply had to face this reality this as a prelude to fighting the battle tomorrow. They all hung together, no matter how frightening that was. She knew also that all her narration of her past experiences had delicately steered her away from facing this.

"All right," she mouthed to herself, resuming a habit of hers," I know you're out there. I've committed myself to fighting the good fight, in confronting some nameless functionary. I've been dragged down by despair for all those months till I found new friends. I'm stronger than I used to be. I'm ready to face you. This is my secret, mine and Julia's."

********

The years had steadily moved onwards ever since Julia and Margaret had started reaching outwards beyond the constricting confines of her own land. As the years went by, more strands of white hair showed on both Julia and Margaret. The first ominous signpost for the future was when the regular Friday afternoon Paris salons started to fizzle out as there were more empty chairs than either woman cared to remember. Of course, there were obvious reasons why the generation of women who came before them started to dwindle but both women were still of the belief that the passage of time would escape their world.

Finally came the first of the series of telegrams, which became the harbingers of bad news. It was on 2 February 1972 that the first slipped through the letterbox. The stiff square capital letters felt edged with doomy black 'Terrible tragedy. Must let you know Natalie Barney died suddenly of heart failure.' That primal horror blocked out everything. The church service that history recorded them having attended was as if written in the history book. Living memory held no record of that, only their shared grief at the loss of one of their major heroines. Who would they look up to, right now?

The answer came with the next telegram that Violet Trefusis was seriously ill. This time, instinct told them to set straight out abroad again. It didn't matter if they looked a little

dishevelled when they hurtled up the endless flight of steps in the private hospital. As soon as they flew through the swing door and raced up to the hospital bed, they knew they'd done the right thing……

"Don't worry, darlings' Violet Trefusis whispered, her eyes half closed, her lashes almost concealing her well remembered blue saucer eyes as she lay there in the hospital bed. Every breath was an enormous labour of effort for her, let alone one huskily articulated word with what dimming strength there was in her body, yet still she spoke to them. They had had sporadic encounters at Natalie's salon and they sensed Violet's regret that they'd spent too little time together but the last ten years or so weren't for nothing or she wouldn't be speaking to them.

"I can see my beloved Mitya calling me. That's my name for Vita Sackville West. I can see her at the top of a wide, golden-lit staircase. She looks so young, so strong, the way we used to be. Pretty soon, we'll live, as we should have been. Be strong my darlings………….."

These were the last words they heard from their idol who had inspired them so much with daring to live the way they were. She had become their very dear friend. It wasn't the last they heard about her……..

It was a few days after Violet died on 2nd of March 1972 when yet another telegram landed on the doormat. Both Julia and Margaret clutched at each other in a spasm of fear

"I want to express sincere condolences at the sad news of the death of one of our indomitable fighters for truth, your friend and mine. She always spoke kindly of you. Francois Mitterand."

"The man was only the leader of the French Socialist Party and President of France from 1981 to 1995," laughed Margaret loudly to herself,"yet he knew Violet the same way we did. I must tell my friends this. I would hate them not to know that we made our mark in this minor way."

The laughter rang cracked and hollow in her living room as it detracted from the journey she must take though she dreaded what she would find. This time, she knew she had no choice. She had to face her demons and somehow survive it.

***********

Violet's death had one positive effect in sparking the two women to consult a solicitor friend of theirs, Michael Freeman. He had set up his own firm in the early nineteen sixties, breaking away from the old fashioned firm that had served the Desmond family. They remembered only too vividly how they had once been humiliated and belittled in their efforts to put the mansion into joint names. Although they had never been happy with the situation that the mansion was in Julia's name only, they had let matters drift on.

They stared open mouthed at Michael's simple and highly wrelcome advice.

"It is the easiest matter for each of you to leave your worldly possessions to each other in the event of one of you…passing away. In fact, the bane of my profession is in unscrambling client's problems whose their provisions have been either badly thought out or where nothing has been provided for. Of course, your mansion can be put into joint names here and now."

"But we were definitely told that it wasn't possible," they both exclaimed in unison and in rising anger.

"Oh, isn't it? You leave it to me and I'll make the necessary arrangements."

They got a delicious feeing as as they proudly signed the documents in thumbing a nose at the man who had badly misused his professionalism for the sake of his power trip. Of course, they saw it as at the time as a sensible precaution, not as something that would become more real as time went on..

Margaret could remember the growing fears in her when she realised that Julia was starting to lose weight and the persistent cough that she couldn't shake off. The timescale had slid forward, as they were poised at the dawn of the new national mood of wonder left them both feeling cold and alienated from the national spectacle.

"Nonsence darling," Julia protested with that familiar wilfulness that Margaret had always admired about her. With a flourish, she reached for her cigarette holder and lit up another cigarette. It was at moments like these that Margaret was torn two ways, in the growing fear for her lover's recklessness and her loving admiration for her. Both women were in their seventies now and the physical and mental strain was starting to tell on Margaret as Julia's health was gradually declining, a cruel inch at a time. Looking back on that period, Margaret never knew how she had restrained her pent up fear and frustration as best she could. At periodic intervals, news came to them of the deaths of their old friends, one by one whose funerals they loyally struggled to attend, sat amongst family members to whom they were emotional strangers.

Finally, came the bitterest blow that Olivia and Virginia, still fortunately together had died in quick sduccession in far-off hurt them most was that Julia's health was too frail for them to travel and that hit hardest at their sense of self worth. Despite all the rational arguments, they should have got there somehow or other. The only crumbs of comfort were the bundle of letters, carefully read and preserved in response to theirs. They were permanent reminders of their friends' life in the Bohemian quarters of Greenwich Village, New York. Amongst the faded papers lingered bittersweet feelings that at least their friends had been admired by the local hippies both for their sense of style and the least they had finally achieved happiness amongst their trials and tribulations.

It was this spark of comfort that finally prompted Margaret to confront her partner over morning tea and toast, placing her knife carefully on her plate.

"You will have to go to the doctor, darling. I insist on it."

There was an ominous pause as , judging by the expression on Julia's drawn face, Margaretr feared that there would be an explosive reply. Neither mentioned the ominous pointing finger of the line of obituary notices.

"Even though I don't believe a word of what you've been saying, if it makes you happy, I'll go."

Margaret flung her arms round Julia's increasingly frail shoulders. She tried not to think about what her hands were telling her. Finally, Margaret could remember the look on Julia's face as she walked with a distinct effort towards her in the little waiting room in the surgery. It told her everything she feared to know.

From then on, her admission to hospital and downwards descent was terrifyingly quick, something that Margaret's mind did not want to wax lyrically in descriptive phrases. The living nightmare was happening, day by day, that's all and she couldn't wake up out of it. Finally, came the day when she phoned desperately for the ambulance and she crouched in the back of the vehicle as they bumped their way towards the hospital, somewhere she'd never been in her life. She remembered waiting ages for the paperwork and for nurses to bustle around and men in long white gowns to stride around. Finally, a kindly nurse ushered her through endless clinically white corridors until she anxiously opened the door to the side ward. She was vaguely aware that she was reenacting her life. Instead of Violet Trefusis, this time it was her Julia, same look, same feel and same conversations. It alarmed Margaret to see how a drip feed was hooked up to her lover's left arm and the array of monitering machinery surrounded her. That and the drawn face of her lover lying helplessly in her bed told her of the seriousnessness of the matter.

"Darling, it looks like we won't be able to go to Gateways tonight," Julia said so faintly pitch that it was difficult for Margaret to hear. It had only the fraction of the vibrancy of her normal tones yet her spirit remained poignantly intact.

"They might not let us in," Margaret replied, trying to play the part, knowing full well that Gateways had closed in 1985, along with so much of their shared past.

"Pass me my drink, darling. A shame it isn't a cocktail,"she gestured with her free hand to the drinking bottle with a straw. She took a few sips as Margaret held it and sank back on her pillow. Her breathing started to become more laboured and somehow Margaret's eye caught the expression on the nurse's face.

"Julia, don't leave me. You're my life," she called out.

"I can see the guiding light welcoming me to the party with all our old friends. Don't worry, darling.I won't disappear as easily as all that," came the very laboured, faintest whisper. A few moments later, Julia's eyes closed forever. It seemed to take an age for the faint rise and fall of her chest to finally fade away. The machines that she was connected to registered the terrifyingly horiziontal line of her pulse

It took even longer for Margaret's horrified mind to connect with the way the doctor intoned the time of death in medical terminology the the truth which, deed down, she knew. It was then that Margaret started to weep and sob uncontrollably as if her heart would break. Looking back on it now, the wonder was that it didn't in that undefined period of blackness that followed, depth and time without measure. It took her a long time to slide out of that black period in her life for that spark of mischief to resurrect itself. One fine day, she went to her bureau drawer and sent her hated niece a postcard version of the portrait of three naked ladies. A smile started to curve itself round her lips at the memory as she could remember the three shapely ladies in the painting as they were and how it brought all her new friends into her life.

"It's bedtime darling. Buck up and get yourself some sleep. You need to be ready for the party tomorrow and to be at your best," said a voice said from out of nowhere. It could only be Julia, spaeking in forceful, persistent tones. Margaret could not only hear her but she felt her magnetic presence as always.

"You know what's going on?" Margaret gasped in astonishment.

"But of course. I've been enjoying every minute of the way you've relived our lives for us. You have been positively brilliant. I can't wait to see our new friends again."

Slowly, Margaret returned to the present and looked at her watch hazily. It was beyond her normal time for bed. The bottle of spirits on the occasional table had shrunk quite drastically. It didn't matter for one night, she thought hazily, so long as she was up early the next morning.

"How could I resist you, darling. I never could," she murmured her affectionate reply.

The image in the photograph with tight blond curls and loose fitting trouser suit smiled back at her. She raised herself to her feet surprisingly easily and made for her bedroom calmly enough to prepare for tomorrow. In finally facing up to the worst part of her life, she was sure she would be in the frame of mind to face this conference.