Frontliners

In the sharp, urban 90s world of dinner parties, feminist politics and open relationships, Richard and Vanessa Lawrence are frontline troops. Busy, witty and outwardly assured, they fire off one-liners, debate the way forward, challenge sex roles, question everything.

   But adult life is difficult. Caught between the pressures of teaching, parenting and political commitment, they struggle inwardly with a hidden loss of purpose. And their marriage is close to breaking up.

   They join a women-led collective, opposed to exclusive relationships. Here they each take a secondary partner: Vanessa engaging with ‘new man’ Lance and Richard beginning his wild and poetic nightwalks with ‘crazy woman’ Ginny.

  For a while their once-weekly ‘swaps’ kick-start their relationship. With their outings, walkabouts and surprise exhibitions they regain their shine. 

   But real acceptance is hard to come by. Like them, their friends are struggling with adult responsibilities, the collective is full of dreamers and political head-bangers and Vanessa’s parents, though generous, live a very different life.

   Full of strongly-drawn characters and sharp-eyed insights into modern relationships, Frontliners is a powerful account of how one couple struggle to square youthful principle with adult reality.

   “In the end”, as Richard says, “we adapt ─ and that makes the difference.”

 

 (Extract from Frontliners chapter 13. Old friends Ruth and Vanessa are at an all-woman rural retreat. When walking out of the house, Ruth suggests they play ‘the silence game’.)

Ruth took her friend’s hand. “Shhh now,” she said, raising their clasped hands towards the wood. “Let’s go down there, playing it. Absolute silence. Walk not talk.”

 Vanessa put a finger to her lips, stepping forward. She nodded and they started off. They were hand in hand and wordless.

At first the slope was gentle and they followed a sheep track, swinging their joint arm through a 20º arc. The sun came out and a skylark sang. It climbed and climbed, carolling wildly, then cut off altogether. Silence followed, as a light breeze fluttered the grass stalks. A sheep baa-ed and a horsefly circled. As they descended further the ground fell away, the track gave out and they unhanded. But the quiet still held them. It was as if they were attached, roped together by an invisible cord.

When they reached the wood the silence changed. It deepened and closed up. The leaves and branches acted as a wall; inside were whispers, light-plays, tonals. Their footsteps were cushioned, advancing softly, measuring earth. At one point a squirrel scrambled up a branch and disappeared into leaves. After its departure the branch continued shaking. As they ducked past an elderberry, a blackbird clacked a warning.

They pushed on through stillness, brushing against ferns. In the gaps there were light spots and patches, with birdcalls, leaf-shifts and insects circling. Where the wood closed up, the quiet returned. They walked through calm, following the path. Where the track divided they paused, gestured both ways, then set off side by side. Still they were silent, feeling the strangeness, the all-surrounding hush. The air was pure thought, it had its own medium, a long-held quality of persistence and delay.

As they circled back, Vanessa found herself watching. It was as if she was taking pictures, recording life. There were tree trunks and leaf tips, webs between bushes, a ditch, a fence-strip then the sky around the wood edge. On the climb uphill she took in the field, the footpath, the view round to the vineyard and, close to the top, the gate towards the farm. When they reached the house, she turned to look out.

“Well, I reckon that’s it,” said Ruth, breaking the silence, “game, set and match.”

Vanessa continued to stare across the hills. Her face was pale and slightly abstracted. Something inside her wanted to stay dumb.

“You all right?” asked Ruth, raising one eyebrow.

“Fine.”

“Sure?”

Vanessa nodded.

“I think the game has had an effect.”

“The walk did, certainly.”

Ruth laughed: “Ah, Vanessa’s taken her vow. I can see it in her eyes. The notice says: do not disturb.”

A wry smile touched Vanessa’s lips. “But what’s behind the notice?”

“What indeed. That’s the biggie. The Mona Lisa question.”

Vanessa hesitated. She was gazing thoughtfully at the landscape. “I used to think life was all about style. Almost like a stage show. As long as you delivered, then that was OK. And I believed I had style – or the words and the outfits. So I convinced myself, kept up a front, made it work, at least on the surface.”

“Yes. Seems funny when you look back now. We all thought we could strut our way through.”

The women exchanged glances. Their expressions had set to a long-term kind of puzzlement. They looked like jurors weighing up a case.

“I think we’re getting in deep,” said Ruth. “And I’m feeling hungry.”

“But I know there was something,” said Vanessa, “about that walk.”

“And the silence?”

“Well, yes. Definitely that.”

Ruth shrugged: “Silence is golden.”

“Maybe. But not in the way I remember that being said.”

“Ah yes. Girls, button your lips. The double standard.”

Vanessa stood back. She was clear-eyed, attentive, half turned to Ruth, half towards the view. It seemed she was gazing down a path, a route into being which led both ways.

“But it’s still important,” she said. “The game, and then the silence. However you look at it, that meant something.”

“So you’re still back there, with the birds and bees?”

Vanessa nodded.

Ruth laughed. “Well, I have to admit it was an experience. Something you don’t forget easily. Spooky if you ask me.”

“True, you don’t forget. Though what exactly it was about…” She frowned, glancing down the slope, “But I suppose, with time…”

Ruth laughed again, “In the meantime,” she said, “I need to grab a bite to eat.”

Vanessa made to say something then, thinking better, turned towards the house. Peering at her friend she blinked, then offered her arm. Seeing her readiness, Ruth linked in and they proceeded down the garden. “Well, we’ll see what we can nosh,” she said. “Love, silence or whatever it takes.” And they went in together, with an eager-eyed Ruth humming yummy yummy yummy I got love in my tummy and a tall and silent Vanessa smiling to herself.

 

 

 Quotes:

 “Some people throw plates, or chequebooks ─ or even rocks. They use words.”

 

“The men’s club,” Vanessa said, speaking slowly. “They’re not like us.”

 

“And whatever game you play,” she added, “you can never know what’s round the corner ...”