Invented Lives

by Andrea Goldsmith

  Click.

  ‘Surrender to this miraculous place, don’t analyse it, don’t try to understand it, immerse yourself in this colour and light, saunter among these glittering figures, marvel at the gold, the jewels, the semi-precious stones. You are actually inside a work of art.’

  The screen goes dark. The hall is silent. The knitter is poised between stitches. Andrew gazes out at the audience; he thinks the lecture has been a success. And when the applause begins, loud and prolonged, he knows it has been. If only he could leave now with a job well done, and avoid the agony ahead of him.

  Andrew accepts another top-up, his third or maybe his fourth, he’s lost count; it’s still too early to leave and the alcohol helps. He tries to concentrate on what the woman is saying. She’s one of several people gathered about him, and while most of them have stories to tell, she’s not inclined to relinquish the floor. She’s describing a trip she made to Ravenna — ‘a mosaic wonderland,’ she calls it — and with an admirable memory for detail she’s unlikely to finish any time soon. Not that he’s concerned: people like to talk about themselves and their experiences, and his preference always is to listen.

  Another fifteen minutes and he should be able to leave.

  The alcohol has softened his nerves, but with his face still burning he expects he looks like a ripe tomato. And why his body should turn traitor in this way has always confounded him. The blushing, the revved-up heart, the sweating, the wayward eye contact, the trembling hands, the stammering, a swag of betrayals that never run out of steam. Even in a situation like this — he’s the guest of honour, his lecture was a success — his body doesn’t let up. He likes praise as much as anyone, but unless it comes in the mail, he’s never free to enjoy it.

  Lecturing and teaching are different. Far from the anarchy of these social occasions, they’re performances, he’s in control, there are no surprises. He expects he might have succeeded as an actor if he hadn’t chanced on mosaic first. He’s good at following scripts.

  The woman is winding down. She reconfigures her facial expression and leans in towards him. ‘So,’ she says, ‘do you have any plans to return to Leningrad?’ She’s so close he can see shreds of food lodged between her teeth.

  He shakes his head and steps back. Then, drawing on his customary lifesaver, answers her question with one of his own: ‘Have you been to Leningrad?’

  And she’s off again, and while others eager for their turn might be annoyed, Andrew is not: keep the other person talking, is his tried-and-true solution. Although the best solution is to avoid these situations altogether. Usually he tells his hosts he’ll need to dash off after a lecture, but it’s a challenge to come up with a prior engagement when an invitation is issued months in advance.

  The foyer is crowded; he expects the post-lecture conviviality is as much of a drawcard as the lecture itself. The cheese and cabana disappeared quickly, but the wine, donated by one of the sponsors of the lecture series, is in good supply. There’s a jostling of bodies, a clamour of voices, wafts of powder and perfume, and from his height advantage, a bobbing of bald heads and neat grey hairstyles.

  One of the larger groups is congregated around him, and now that Ravenna woman has finally been elbowed aside, a lively chatter ensues. Everyone is having a good time, yet all he wants is to be out of here. Though that’s not correct: he wants to be here, in this room with these people, but he wants to be enjoying himself, and not crushed by this utterly useless self-consciousness.

  ‘I am all thumbs at life,’ Rilke, favourite poet and life companion, wrote. I am too, Andrew intones silently.

  He manoeuvres himself into his out-of-body experience, a private and reasonably reliable device he has never mentioned to anyone for fear of being judged crazy. And it seems to be working. He hears his voice — he sounds quite sensible — and he sees himself from a distance, a man who looks to be at ease, a man at the centre of a group and in control of the situation. He just needs to maintain this for a few minutes longer, but a woman intrudes with an unexpected question, and wrenches him back into his own wretched body.

  He knows these toils of his are camouflaged, that others see a reserved, slightly bashful man — the sort of demeanour one would expect of an artist. He knows his tomato face is ascribed to the heat in the room, and any hesitancy in his speech is attributed to his being a considered and thoughtful conversationalist. But knowing he is alone in his agony does not lessen it, not one bit. O to be mellow. O to acquire the gift of mellowness.

  ‘It strikes me as curious,’ the woman is saying, ‘that the anti-religion Soviets would be spending a fortune on restoring the Church of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood.’

  The group is looking to him for an answer. His heartbeat ramps up, his throat has constricted, but before he can collect his words, Ravenna woman is answering. Thank you, Ravenna woman. She refers to changes under Gorbachev; she says that despite religion being outlawed, there are plenty of Russians who remain loyal to the Orthodox Church. And these restored sites, she continues, are important to the nascent tourism industry — she, herself, visited just two years ago — with its influx of foreign currency and other benefits. What other benefits? someone asks. Jeans, cosmetics, books, music, practically any material goods are wanted, she says. Andrew nods and smiles. Encouraged, she keeps talking, while he follows the conversation, rehearsing some sentences just in case he’s called upon, and monitoring his demeanour — mustn’t appear aloof or disengaged or, god forbid, arrogant, and to dispel any possibility of this he broadens his smile, only to feel his mouth quivering, as if the muscles have gone into spasm.

  O for a more muscular sensibility, he is thinking, but at what cost? Rilke, when considering psychoanalysis, famously wrote to his lover, Lou Andreas-Salome, that while psychoanalysis may well drive out his devils, he was afraid that his angels, so essential to his art, would be driven away too. Andrew knows he is far from being mosaic’s counterpart to Rilke, but still, he wonders if his social squeamishness in some way feeds his art, that a more muscular sensibility would have seen him as the engineer his parents wanted him to be. The fact is, this sensibility of his, this crippling millstone in public, is ideal for the solitary work of the artist.

  A man is offering to refill his glass. Now is his opportunity. He’d love to stay, he says, but he has another engagement and, he adds, after consulting his watch, he’s already late. He says goodbye to the people around him, he finds the organisers and thanks them, he strides to the door, springs down the stairs, sprints to the entrance, and finally he is outside in the warm steamy dusk. Blessedly alone.

  Twenty minutes later, Andrew Morrow arrived home. Godrevy greeted him with much leaping and licking. It was worthwhile going out in order to receive such exuberant love on your return, although, given Godrevy quietened down immediately his dinner appeared, Andrew was in no doubt which commanded the greater canine devotion: love of food or love of human companion. He tossed his satchel on his desk, took a beer from the fridge, would have smoked a joint if he’d had any dope, kicked off his shoes and flopped into his armchair. Goddy, his dinner finished, flopped on the floor next to him, his head resting on Andrew’s feet.

  The dog snuffled and snored, there was a hum of traffic coming from the street, and the intermittent squawk of rainbow lorikeets flying overhead. Andrew sat in the darkening studio, eyes closed, sipping his beer; the thud of his heart softened and the squeeze in his head eased.

  He needed to cut back on these events, on teaching, too. They took too much out of him and, besides, were no longer the financial necessity they once were. He was mentally sifting through his upcoming engagements, counting off those from which he could withdraw, when the phone rang. He guessed it would be his mother, ringing to check how the lecture had gone; he let the call pass to the answering machine. Soon he’d prepare a meal, just a few more minutes in the peace and quiet, when the phone rang again. Yes, definitely Sylvie. She’d be
checking on him when he was sixty.

  He had not wanted a phone, and with a public telephone box just up the road, he didn’t need one. But Sylvie had insisted, his friends, too. The public phone was all very well, they said, but what if they wanted to call him? He’d always hated the telephone. As a child he’d watch his mother with the receiver jammed to her ear, exclaiming and gesticulating, grimacing and laughing; he’d see how exposed she was, and he would cringe for her. And the other person on the end of the line, they might be laughing at you or making fun of you; they might be bored and itching to finish the call; if the cord was long enough, they might even be using the toilet. You can’t read people if you can’t see them, which made the telephone an unnerving and risky prospect. Not that he’d said any of this to Sylvie, he simply explained logically and coolly why he didn’t need a phone.

  There was, however, to be no discussion, his mother had said. He lived alone, he worked alone, and his place was located on the opposite side of the city from her and his father. (This was more than a mere statement of fact, it was a complaint.) ‘I need to be able to contact you,’ she said. ‘And you may need to contact us. You could be seriously injured, you could be unconscious.’ In which case, a phone would be of little use; but realising how worried she was, he relented.

  Now the phone rang a third time. He slipped his feet from under the sleeping dog and picked up.

  Sylvie’s familiar voice came down the line. ‘I knew if I hounded you long enough, you’d answer.’

  Perhaps it’s the fate of all only children to have over-protective parents. Or perhaps it’s only the shy ones and the not-quite-right ones, but all too often his parents seemed to forget it was the free-wheeling 1980s, that their son was a man of twenty-six, that he’d travelled alone overseas for prolonged periods, and had been making a reasonable living for years, that their son was a man who was, in fact, a man.

  ‘How did the lecture go?’

  Sylvie typed his lectures for him, which gave her an acceptable excuse to enquire, but he knew her real reason for ringing was to check he hadn’t collapsed in an attack of nerves. It was of no matter that he’d never botched a lecture, she was convinced he still might. Ever since his senior years at school, she had typed his papers; she was quick and convenient and she enjoyed the work. But maybe, he was now thinking, it was time to find a more detached typist.

  He assured her the lecture had gone well, that the audience had travelled with him inside the church, that they experienced something of the wonder he, himself, had felt. But still she persisted.

  ‘Sylvie!’ He spoke more sharply than he intended. Then more quietly, ‘Mum,’ — he never called her ‘Mum’ — ‘I’m fine, and the lecture could not have gone better.’

  And before she could say any more, he told her his dinner was getting cold, and he would speak with her later in the week.

  He wished that a meal really was ready. It was foolish not to have bought a hamburger on the way home. He could never eat before these events, and he was now very hungry. He went to the kitchen to investigate. The choice was limited; he could cobble together fried eggs on a single slice of toast, with a banana for dessert. And set about preparing it.

  For the first half of the century his kitchen had served as tea-room for the staff of Simon & Sons, manufacturers of men’s suits, and apart from a new stove and oven, this area remained largely unchanged; even the blackboard for the tea-room roster was still fixed to the wall, although it was now converted to a memo board. His living quarters, about 20 per cent of the entire space, occupied the former company offices with the partitions removed, and the factory floor had become his studio. He had moved in here nearly three years ago, and now couldn’t imagine making his home anywhere else.

  He ate his dinner in front of the evening news, the plate perched on his knees, and Godrevy on the alert for crumbs. He ate slowly, concentrating on the food not the TV, and when he was finished he took himself to the far end of the studio. Here was a work in progress, an indoor oasis he was creating for himself, and the very first piece he had ever made specifically to keep. He was working freehand, directly onto the floor, creating a mosaic pool at the base of the wall. He had decided, with a nod to Monet, to add a few waterlilies, and on the wall itself, a white-faced heron standing in a cluster of reeds. He wanted to bring nature into his studio, an area of tranquillity within the squall of his life. He slipped a cassette of Joni Mitchell into the tape recorder and settled on the floor beside the half-finished work. As the songs spooled into the room, his pool of blue grew.

  People asked him if he was ever lonely, alone in his studio day after day, month after month, year after year. But he’d never been lonely, and certainly not in the act of creation: anxiety trumps loneliness every time, and work is the best cure for both.

  He used to hope he would leave his shyness behind with childhood. But while his voice deepened and his body hardened and inches were added to his height, the shyness remained unchanged. He would take its temperature each year with his parents’ question: What do you want for your birthday? Translated, this became: What matters to you? He would answer he didn’t want anything in particular. But he always did. There was the year of the basketball and the year of the dog, the year of the sleeping bag and that of the oil pastels. Every birthday, Christmas too, found him wanting something, and every birthday and Christmas, in response to his parents’ question, the same dread, the same discomfort, and the same reply: ‘You decide. I like surprises.’

  He hated surprises, but he hated exposing himself far more.

  He managed at school because he was good at sport. He made the first cricket eleven, he played on the wing in the first football eighteen; he learned the role of the sporty boy and performed it well. It brought him friends and followers, it brought him protection. He was also a swot, but in a high school known for its academic standing, his retreating to the library was not considered odd or unusual. That he retreated for respite rather than research was known only to himself.

  These days, he no longer hoped for change: no point in wanting what would never eventuate. He wasn’t unhappy, he wasn’t lonely, he didn’t dislike people, nor was he intimidated by them; but being who he was — shy — he had learned not to need them. The exceptions were his parents, a few longstanding friends who accepted him as he was, and the girlfriends — not many, but sufficient to prove he was neither a weirdo nor a virgin. In fact, the girlfriends said he was refreshing, that unlike most males, who were animated only when the subject was themselves, Andrew seemed genuinely interested in other people.

  The situation might have been different if he’d become the engineer he started out to be. His parents and teachers had proposed engineering as an excellent career for one who liked science, liked precision, and liked his own company. The fact that he also excelled at art had not figured in their considerations, although it had long been central to his.

  He followed their advice: they were so certain about what would be best for him, and being so unsure himself, he found their certainty reassuring. He applied for engineering, and with good results in his school finals he was accepted. But within a month of starting the course he knew he’d made a mistake. There was a soulless quality to engineering, or perhaps he simply lacked the capacity to find engineering’s soul.

  During that first term, he determined on numerous occasions to tell his parents engineering was not for him, but the right time never seemed to present itself. It would be preferable, he knew, if he could offer them an acceptable alternative.

  All through childhood his secret dream job was that of lighthouse-keeper-come-artist. While such a choice might be a cliché for a shy person, his lighthouse-keeper dream had provided him with powerful and reliable escape. He would imagine himself alone with his dog, living in a slender tower perched on a rocky crown surrounded by a rollicking sea. His living quarters, about halfway up the tower, contained a single comfortable ar
mchair, a basket for the dog, a table and chair, charts and logs, a shelf of books, a stereo, easel and paints. Up a few more steps from the living area was the bunk room, and twisting up from there was the long spiral staircase leading to the lamp. He and his dog would climb to the top of the tower several times a day, for maintenance on the lamp and for maintenance of fitness. He loved being up there amid the roar of the ocean, the blustering wind, the whirling rain.

  He had just started high school when he learned of Godrevy Lighthouse. One day, while browsing the books on his mother’s bookcase, he found a slender volume called To the Lighthouse. He’d not noticed it before and quickly pulled it from the shelf. There were no pictures, and there wasn’t much of a story either — even the cover painting was of a girl in a red skirt and not of a lighthouse. But slipped inside the book was a postcard. It depicted a sea scene with a cloudy sky, calm waters, and in the rosy light of dusk or dawn, a magnificently isolated lighthouse called Godrevy. The postcard was unused. He took the book and postcard to his mother, and not knowing what to say, simply held both up for her to see. Her face opened into a smile. She told him how she and his father, on their trip to Britain before he was born, had driven down to Cornwall where they saw the Godrevy Lighthouse. This was the lighthouse used by Virginia Woolf in her novel.

  ‘Such a wonderful trip that was,’ she said.

  She had gazed at the postcard for a long time — Andrew could see the happy memories in her face — before replacing it in the book. Then she had a change of mind, for she retrieved the postcard and handed it to him. ‘You keep it,’ she said.

  Godrevy Lighthouse became the lighthouse of his dreams. Like lighthouses throughout the world, it had been automated for decades, but he didn’t let that spoil his imaginings. Later he learned that a number of lighthouses had been converted to meteorological stations, so he considered becoming a meteorologist-come-artist. But what he knew for sure was he didn’t want to be an engineer.