Elizabeth 08: Generations

"You will?"

"I will."

"Don't you want to think about it a bit first, Agnes? You only just got home after all those years in the field, and this is seriously off the beaten path!"

"The field is my home, Robert. I see that now from my visit here. It was nice visiting my past, but I don't want to get bogged down in it."

"Well, then, congratulations, Agnes. I should have known I could count on you for this!"

"That is quite all right, Robert. Before last night, I don't think I'd have been so sure."

"What happened last night, then?" He sounded concerned rather than nosy.

"You don't want to know, Robert. Trust me, you don't want to know!"

On my arrival back at the cottage, Elizabeth and Jonathan were enjoying gin and tonic on the veranda with Catherine, who had just gone twenty-one some weeks before. "Won't you join us, Auntie Agnes?" Catherine asked when I appeared in the doorway.

"I'd be delighted to," I said, after a cursory look down the hill to see Teddy frolicking with Katie on the beach, all clearly having been forgiven. Lillian was playing a game I did not recognize with some neighbour children elsewhere in the water; Margaret, as usual, was nowhere to be found. "Thank you," I said as I saw Jonathan was already mixing my drink.

"How was your meeting last night, then?" Catherine asked. "It is ever so shameful you've got to work even now!"

"Oh, it was a most pleasurable meeting," I reassured her, careful not to look at either of her parents and arouse any suspicion. "I wish they were all such fun, actually."

Jonathan could not disguise his laugh entirely as he handed my glass to me, but Catherine did not notice. "I'm happy to hear that, Auntie Agnes," she went on. "Mum and Father were just telling me how a job can actually be great fun if you find the right one. Can't say I'm looking forward to being done with uni all the same."

"No one ever does," Elizabeth said. "But you can't live that life forever."

"Didn't the three of you and Auntie Irene, though, back before I was born? You talk about it like it was the Garden of Eden!"

"The Garden of Eden wasn't forever, and neither were those days," Jonathan reminded her. "It was a lovely few years, but it was only a few years. Nothing remains the same forever. You're old enough to know that. Besides, that was when we were all a few years out of school and older than you are now."

"I suppose," Catherine said. "Still, I wish there were some way to know whatever comes next could be as pleasant as it was for all of you back then."

"It didn't happen overnight," Elizabeth said. "And there certainly were bad times along the way."

"Absolutely right," I said. "I don't know if your parents ever told you, when I first met them, I was engaged to a man who we now know was homosexual. You can imagine how satisfying our relationship was for both of us!"

Catherine's eyebrows flew up, and I could see they had not in fact told her. "Heavens, Auntie Agnes, I'm sorry!"

"Don't be," I reassured her. "If I hadn't met your mother and father, I never would have had the courage to follow my career everywhere it's taken me."

"I do love all your stories of the wide world," Catherine said. "I only hope you can be happy settling down back home now!"

"Of course she will, Catherine!" Elizabeth reassured her. "Everyone needs a home to come to, and Agnes knows how delighted we are to have her back." She looked at me like only an old friend could do, and at that moment I resolved not to tell anyone the big news for the time being.

I held to that decision all the more fiercely later that afternoon, when Elizabeth coaxed me into wading out into the low tide and floated her idea about Margaret and Porter's Cove. How I had missed these adventures with my dear friend, and would miss them again! "So, I hate to ask you yet another favour in teaching my children about sex, Agnes," she said. "But I hate so to see my beautiful daughter suffer so."

"It will be my pleasure to help, Elizabeth!" I reassured her. "You and Agnes did nearly the same for me, after all, and I feel I owe it to you, really. But how on earth do you expect to persuade Margaret to join us?"

"I don't," Elizabeth said. "That is why I have no intention of giving her a choice."

I gazed out upon the horizon and laughed. "Only you, Elizabeth! How I've missed this!"

"I assure you, our family life has been nothing like this for the most part," she said. "Perhaps that is why it is all boiling over now. In any event, you'll be seeing for yourself how dull our life is most of the time now that you've come home." She took my hand under the water and squeezed it. "I am ever so happy to have you back, Agnes!" she said. "I've loved my life with Jonathan and the children, but I still miss the Westfordshire days so. I know it can never be again, but it will be such a joy having the company of someone else who remembers!"

At this, I felt a stab of absolute heartbreak. Going away was something I needed to do, that I knew full well; and it was best for Elizabeth and her family as well now that Teddy and I shared the bond we did. But I had already known telling her would not be easy, and now I saw it would be far more difficult than even I had assumed.

In that idyllic late summer afternoon, I found I absolutely could not spoil the scene. Rather, I returned the pleasant squeeze of her hand and said, "I wonder what either of us would have thought in those days had we known what I would get up to with your son last night!" That, at least, might remind her of the tangled web we were in together.

To my relief, she laughed. "Indeed! Now, I don't need to know all the details, of course; just tell me, does he know anything about how to treat a woman?"

"He was a perfect gentleman at all times. Except when that would have been a poor idea." I slipped into a laugh, which Elizabeth also caught.

"Wonderful," she said. "So he will be able to make Katie happy if she is so inclined?"

"Very, very happy," I agreed, and the still-fresh memory of his caresses all over my body made me glad once again that I would be away again soon.

The following morning after breakfast, we cornered Margaret in the girls' bedroom after Lillian and Catherine were off to the beach, and learned that - just as we had feared - every ounce of our resolve would be necessary.

"No!" Margaret snapped. "Mother, how on earth can you even suggest such a thing?! I already look hideous in a bathing suit, why would I want to lay about without one? And with men there?! You wouldn't have done that at my age, would you?!"

Elizabeth and I looked at one another, and then she turned back to Margaret. "As a matter of fact, Margaret, we did it all the time with other women, and occasionally with men, when we were only a few years older than you are now. And it was a wonderful experience, which is why I want you to share it with us now. You need this, to be frank! I don't want you to feel ashamed of your body, like I did for far too long."

"What I need is to never come on another beach vacation, especially not with you!" Margaret shouted. "Don't you know how embarrassing it is for us, the way you let your...your hair hang out of your bathing suit like that?"

"It's not embarrassing to your mother, Margaret," I admonished her. "And I happen to know your father has no objection. So why should you?"

"Because it's not how things are...done! Catherine and Lillian don't have this problem!"

"It's not a problem, Margaret, no more than the colour of your eyes is a problem," Elizabeth said. "The fact that you think it is a problem is exactly why you need to join us today. I won't have you going through life hating your body, dear."

We could both see she had struck a chord, for Margaret burst into tears and curled up on her bed. "Why me? Why only me?"

"It's genetics, Margaret." Elizabeth sat gingerly on Margaret's bed and rubbed her back gently. "You can think of it as a curse if you want, but it doesn't have to be that way. You're beautiful just as you are, and I can tell you from experience that there are a lot of men who will find you beautiful, too."

Margaret raised her head. "Oh, come on!"

"Your father was one. And far from the only one."

"I did not need to hear that!" The crying had stopped quite abruptly, and now Margaret sat up and looked at her mother in disgust.

"I wish I could agree," Elizabeth said. "But your attitude all the time we've been here shows you need a strong dose of medicine, I'm afraid. That is why you are going to join us, one way or another. You can fight tooth and nail like a spoiled child, or you can join us like the young adult you are and see for yourself how beautiful you are if you will only allow yourself to be."

To both of our surprise, Margaret actually smiled a bit as she ran her fingers through her hair to get it under control. "So you say there are men there who will find me attractive?"

It was not the resolution Elizabeth had hoped for; but she and I both reasoned that if finding herself attractive to men was Margaret's first step towards self-acceptance, the ends would justify the means.

Ten minutes later, her eyes were dry and she was sitting beside Elizabeth in the car as we set off for Porter's Cove. "Now, Margaret, it is clothing optional," I explained from the back seat, having done my homework on the matter the night before. "So you will be allowed to keep your clothes on if you insist. But whether you believe it now or not, I assure you that you will find yourself more uncomfortable in your clothes than out of them, when everyone else is in the nude."

"Perhaps I shall wait and see if any young men find Mother attractive," Margaret said. "If they like her, they ought to love me."

I feared Elizabeth might take offense; but she burst out laughing. Seeing it was safe, I joined her. At long last Margaret did as well.

With the ice broken, Margaret wanted to know all about these long-ago days when her mother and I had gone without clothing in public. I was somewhat surprised to realize Elizabeth had never told her children about the baths in Westfordshire City. But once she began waxing nostalgic about our youth, I could see well enough why she had not, for Margaret was not impressed. "Splashing about in a bath with a dozen other women or more, Mother? Why would a girl want to do that?"

"There's been nothing so intimate in my life, before or since then," I told her.

"There really is a sense of camaraderie that you'll never find in any other circumstances, Margaret," Elizabeth reassured her. "And you also learn to love yourself in the most comforting way when you realize bodies have all sorts of variations and we are all beautiful in our own way."

"Especially your mother, and for the very reason that has given you so much pause about your own body," I added. "We called her 'the belle of the baths,' you know."

"Because you were hairy?!" Margaret demanded of her mother. "I hardly believe that!"

"Not only because of that," Elizabeth said. I anticipated that she would add a great deal to that; but she followed her remark only with a coy smile as she kept her eyes on the road.

We parked the car outside the gates of Porter's Cove, which betrayed nothing of how anyone beyond the wall was attired. I had little doubt that Margaret was utterly embarrassed at the prospect of passing through those gates in the view of the young men who passed by along the pavement beyond the carpark. But she made no comment, and kept her eyes focused straight ahead as we three passed through the gates. The ladies' changing house was off to the right alongside the wall, with the beach and its bare revelers only just visible from the near entrance. Margaret gazed upon the teasing view in what I am certain was growing curiosity.

To the surprise of no one who knew her, once inside the building Elizabeth made a detour for the water closet. "I'll see you both outside," she said as Margaret and I continued along our way to the lockers.

"She always has to wee," Margaret grumbled as soon as it was safe to say so. "Father, too. At least I didn't inherit that from either of them."

"You couldn't have inherited that from your mother," I pointed out. "It's a result of her lifestyle choices. As is her love for her own body, you know. And you could follow that lead as well, Margaret."

"But that was such a different time!" Margaret replied, watching passively as I placed my purse in a vacant locker and began undressing. "It was the style then, wasn't it?"

I paused with my dress pulled halfway off and looked at her in disbelief. "Style? Good Lord, Margaret, has your mother told you nothing about our youth?"

"Only what she just shared in the car, about how the two of you and Auntie Irene were ever so popular at the baths. I simply put two and two together."

"And got fourteen," I couldn't resist my wry tone. "Margaret, there are things in your mother's past from which she clearly has hoped to shield you. It is not my place to betray those secrets; but I do feel safe in telling you that you've read her stories all wrong." I paused to hang my dress in the locker. "In the event, Margaret, your mother's intimate appearance was no more in style in our day than it is now. She simply made it acceptable in our circle through sheer refusal to apologise for her own natural beauty, or to compromise on it in any way. She knew that she was unusual in a beautiful way, and the way she carried herself made others see that as well. And you are just as capable of that as she was and is, if only you would let go of your self-pity."

"It is not self-pity!" Margaret snapped. "It's awareness that I'm the only one among us who ended up a freak like Mother did. How can I help that?"

"You can stop believing that having more hair than your sisters makes you a freak, dear." Having already done away with my brassiere, I now slipped off my panties. For the second time that week, I stood stark naked and unabashed before one of Elizabeth and Jonathan's children. Margaret's reaction was all too nearly the opposite of her brother's adoring gaze. She made no effort to hide her irritation at the middle aged woman who stood, nude and proud, before her. I refused to take the bait. "All of us are beautiful in our own way, Margaret, if we allow ourselves to be. I do hope you don't waste much more of your life feeling painfully shy about your body like I once was, or ashamed of it like your mother was."

"Ashamed?" Margaret asked.

I cringed, for I had betrayed a secret Elizabeth had evidently wished to keep. But the damage was done, and as I took Margaret by the arm and guided her out into the sunshine, I acknowledged, "Yes, Margaret, ashamed. Just as you clearly are. But she was able to overcome it, and you can too if you try."

I had all my clothes stowed away by then, and set off for the door before I could let my nerves catch up with me. (It had, after all, been quite some time since our heyday at the baths, and that had been indoors and with women only!) My resolve seemed to be contagious, though, as Margaret followed me with no further complaint.

I had little doubt she would presently feel overdressed in her short, flowery frock. But there was no use in telling her so, and so I simply smiled and took her by the arm as we stepped outside.

"I do admire you for being brave enough to do this, Auntie Agnes," she said.

"I admire you as well," I reassured her.

"Admire me for what? I'm the one still in my dress!"

"I know it is a big step for you to join us at all."

"Well, you and Mother hardly gave me a choice, did you?"

The path through the shady trees and down to the sand was well-traveled with numerous other visitors of every shape and size, and they all wore welcoming smiles and - in most cases - nothing else. I returned their greetings, and soon enough Margaret was doing the same. She made no effort to hide her fascination with the naked men, who without exception accepted her gawking agreeably. The one clothed young man we passed, who was enjoying a picnic with his family, exchanged knowing laughs with Margaret as we passed. As for the women, they all set a wonderful example for her: happy and unabashed and free, regardless of the many deviations from the norm that their bodies provided. Birthmarks, wrinkles, pendulous breasts and tiny ones - nearly every variation one could name was represented, and all were accepted.

There was, however, not another Elizabeth or Margaret to be seen among the crowd. That worried me, but I reasoned that Margaret would have to grow accustomed to that in one way or another in any event. Like her mother, she would always stand out in that respect.

"It feels so queer being the only one with a stitch on my back!" Margaret confessed as we emerged into the sunshine.

"I rather suspected it would," I told her. "No one is stopping you from joining us except yourself, remember!"

As we found a trio of reclining chairs on the beach and Margaret helped herself to one on the end, she gave me a look that made me believe for the first time that she was considering doing just that. Immediately she did not; but she did indulge in a leisurely look at a clutch of young men and one woman among them who were splashing about in the tides, tossing a beach ball about. "They all do look wonderfully free, don't they?" Margaret asked me. "Even the girl looks perfectly comfortable, and them with her."

"Yes, and do you believe every one of them grew up utterly comfortable with everything about his or her body, Margaret? Or any of them for that matter?"

She gave me a silent, thoughtful look, and I sensed a breakthrough on the horizon. But then she redirected her gaze over my shoulder and her look turned to one of bewilderment. "Mother," she uttered, her angst having returned in full force.

I turned to see Elizabeth standing over us, wearing a broad smile and, of course, nothing else. "It has been entirely too long, hasn't it, Agnes?" she asked me, ignoring her daughter's implied gallery of insults and indeed declining to sit down just yet, so that Margaret had no choice but to behold her still-robust lady-garden.

I made no effort to hide my appreciation at my first look at it in ages. "Oh, Elizabeth, look at the two of us!" I remarked. "Older but wiser, I should hope?"

"I do feel that way some days," Elizabeth said, stretching up on her toes and gazing out at the sea. One of the young men Margaret had been admiring took note of her and gave her a smile and a wave, which she returned most uninhibitedly. "But I think we have aged well," she concluded, sitting down at last.

"I couldn't agree more," I said. And it was true, my friend still looked magnificent.

"I see my daughter doesn't agree with you," Elizabeth needled.

"I only wish, Elizabeth, that she could see the wonderful way you carried yourself back in Westfordshire, in the baths," I said. "We were all ever so awestruck, you know."

"I do sympathize with her," Elizabeth said. "It did not come naturally to me, as you know. It was a decision to stop being miserable, to accept that some people would find my body was ugly and to remember that was their problem, not mine."

"And to carry yourself in a way that made even some of them respect you in the end," I concurred. "Elizabeth, I must apologize, before you arrived I fear I shared a bit of information with Margaret while you were in the water closet that you may not have wanted her to know. I didn't realize you had never told her you were once ashamed of your natural beauty just like she is."

Elizabeth sighed. "That is quite all right, Agnes. I kept that from my children because I hoped to avoid ever giving them any cause to think they had anything to be ashamed of. I suppose I forgot that I had only the greatest love for my body when it first blossomed into womanhood. It was only those little monsters at school who taught me to hate myself." She looked across me at Margaret. "Darling, if you were bullied at school -"