‘Have you ever been back to the UK?’ I asked.
Mitch shook her head. ‘I haven’t. There was nothing there for me apart from Sara Rose – sorry, I mean Lisa – and I wasn’t sure where she was in any case; her adopted parents could have taken her anywhere. My parents moved to New Zealand, as you know, and Fi eventully moved out there too. We were never that close, anyway, as you probably remember.’
‘Have you seen your mum?’ asked Jo.
‘Oh yes. She’s comes out every other year and I’ve been over to her. She’s happy where she is and, with Fi and her family nearby, she has someone to make sure she’s OK.’
‘And did you ever think of us?’ asked Jo.
Mitch thought for a minute. ‘I did, of course I did.’
‘But you never tried to get in touch, not after the Rainbow Children,’ Jo persisted.
‘Nor did you. I know—’
‘Are you angry with us?’ Jo asked.
Mitch looked at the ground and shifted on her feet, clearly finding the conversation difficult. ‘Are you angry with me?’
‘I was,’ said Jo, ‘my wedding and all that, but hell, that’s a long time ago. Even after the Rainbow Children group dissolved, though, you didn’t make any effort to get in touch.’
‘I know. I could have but so could you, any of you.’
Ah, I thought, so she was angry with us, possibly still is, and who can blame her?
‘I guess one of the things about friendship is that it needs to be fed,’ Mitch continued as she indicated the land, ‘like a plant that needs sunshine, food and water, friendships need to be nurtured.’
Should I say something? I asked myself. I didn’t want our time together to be unpleasant, taken up with old resentments or miscommunications. ‘How do you do that?’ I asked. ‘Nurture friendship?’
Mitch was quiet for a few moments. ‘Shared experiences. Making sure you spend time together in person. When we were at school, we did things together, classes, all the exploration of teenage years and, in doing that, we discovered we were kindred spirits, that we reacted the same way, we understood each other. It’s complicated. I suppose I felt that none of you got what I was into when I was with the Rainbow Children and then …’
‘We were no longer kindred spirits?’ I asked.
Mitch nodded. ‘For a time, no we weren’t. The movement was important to me, but none of you got it or really tried to. Plus so much had happened to me that I couldn’t share, didn’t want to. But … how were you to know? You didn’t, so I have no right to be angry with you. As I said, it’s complicated. I put that wall up and moved on from my former life and you girls were part of that.’
‘I can totally relate to that,’ I said. ‘Different circumstances, but I did something similar myself. After a rough time, I hid away and, as you said when we FaceTimed, put up a wall to keep the bad out, and in doing that I also kept the good out and let my friendship with Jo and Ally fade. I hope to remedy that with them and with you too.’
Mitch studied me for a long while, as if searching for something or someone. ‘We did have a bond, didn’t we?’
‘We did, we really did. And we could get into blame and accusations about who should have made more effort to stay in touch and all that, but the truth is, we’re all as guilty as each other. I wish I’d done many things differently but I can’t go back forty years. I can, however, go forward. We let something precious die, but I for one am hoping it can be resurrected.’
‘Me too,’ said Jo.
Mitch considered what I’d said. ‘I hear you, but I’m not the girl you knew any more, Mitch from the old days … I have a lifetime of experiences behind me that neither of you were any part of.’
‘As do we. I’m not that young girl you knew any more either …’
‘We’ve all had our share of successes and losses,’ said Jo, ‘big and small, but there is a part of me that is still Jo, the girl you knew; older, not much wiser, but in essence still there.’
Mitch was silent for a while and we continued on our way around the grounds.
In bringing up the past, have Jo and I ruined the moment? I asked myself. It was naïve of me to have thought we could just turn up and we’d be back as we were, at that bus stop so long ago, promising that we’d be friends for ever.
‘I guess, like in any relationship,’ said Mitch finally, ‘you can get it wrong, make mistakes.’
I nodded. ‘I know I did, but mistakes can be remedied. It’s never too late.’
Mitch reached out, took my hand and squeezed it. ‘Let me think about it. It’s all been so much to take in.’
‘Can you forgive us?’ Jo asked.
‘Can you forgive me?’ Mitch asked.
‘We were young, so much to learn,’ I said. ‘We have to forgive ourselves too.’
Mitch laughed. ‘When did you get so wise, Sara?’ she said.
‘Me wise? I don’t think so.’
Mitch looked at me with kind eyes. ‘I guess we all broke the rules of friendship.’
‘Forgot them more like, but I am relearning them and the importance of old friends and you are up there with them. There’s a lot I regret. I could, should have made more effort to come and see you while I was at university, called more often.’
‘Goes both ways. I could have too,’ she said as she checked her watch and I realized that she was anxious about Lisa’s arrival. We began to walk back towards the house and no more was said, but we’d made an inroad into talking about the past, we’d broken the ice and hopefully there would be other times, more appropriate times, when we
