After She Left

by Penelope Hanley

  Keira sat up straighter. What a find. She could reproduce them in her essay, photograph pages of Deirdre’s handwriting; she may well have done little drawings in them as well. They would introduce a new dimension to the essay: she would have the text, the photographs … and now the letters!

  ‘There’s a big batch of letters from our clients. So many of them went abroad after the war.’ Pettifer lifted his bulk off the leather chair and moved to a wooden bench against the wall, took two bundles of letters off it and said, ‘I’ll sort these and you do those.’

  They sat sifting through the envelopes. Stamps from America, France, England, Spain, Italy … A few were without envelopes and she had to look at the signatures at the end of the letters. No Deirdre Wilds.

  He chuckled. ‘Some from Janet Bell. She went to live in Majorca – she’s still there. Janet visited India with a friend who caught lumbago from sitting on a damp elephant.’

  Pettifer laughed so much he coughed. ‘Sitting on a damp elephant,’ he repeated once the coughing had subsided. ‘It’s the sort of thing Deirdre would do.’

  Keira looked at him intently.

  ‘But no, it wasn’t her. Deirdre was there, with Owen, but wherever they are they’re not there anymore. They moved around a lot in Spain and France. I lost track of them.’

  ‘Ah, I’ve got one from Janet Bell, too,’ said Keira. ‘She says Majorca is wonderful: the cognac is cheap and so are the cigarettes.’

  ‘That’s our Janet!’

  Keira finished her pile before he finished his, probably, she thought, because he kept getting distracted. Finally, he stopped and looked over at her.

  ‘Afraid not,’ he said. ‘I shall write to Janet and see if she has any news of Deirdre. Now I do have something else for you.’

  He disappeared up the steep wooden stairs and came back in a few minutes with a small tan-coloured book.

  ‘Is it a diary?’ She eagerly accepted the battered, compact book.

  ‘It’s Deirdre’s address book. How Tamsin ended up with it I don’t know.’ He tapped it with his bent finger. ‘It might do you some good. The only one I know is Madge Burnside. She still lives in The Rocks. She’s a malicious old gossip, her nose in everybody’s business.’

  This was good news. She would telephone Madge Burnside soon.

  Once home, Keira sat down at her desk feeling a wave of gratitude towards the old walrus, Geoffrey Pettifer, but she also didn’t want to get her hopes up about an address book decades old. Many of the names had addresses but no telephone numbers. She pictured her letters to these people piling up in the Dead Letter Office.

  Flipping through the cream, blue-lined pages with pale brown marks on them, she looked for possible contacts.

  Albert and Eileen Bailey 89 City Road, Camperdown … Maddy Carlson 68 Johnston Street, Annandale … Bernadette and Peter Knox 2/11 Greenknowe Avenue, Potts Point … Seamus Mike 55 Firth Road, Fitzroy, Melbourne … Here was Pettifer’s Gallery at a different address, Oxford Street, Paddington …Owen Wynter 9 Grove Street, Annandale … All these people from so long ago. The little book was a seashell whose occupants were gone. Madge Burnside, her mother had told her, still lived in The Rocks. She was the only clear lead.

  She flicked through the pages again, and noticed something she had not seen before. Under ‘O’ was a piece of pink paper folded into a tiny square. She unfolded it. Olivia Dathcett c/- Broughton Hall, Rozelle. Reading it was like listening to the eerie music from the interior of a seashell.

  She made a list of names and phone numbers to arrange interviews with, methodically going through the address book in alphabetical order. That was organised behaviour, wasn’t it? She had been a little distracted by her relationship with Alan but now she was turning over a new leaf.

  The first person on the list, Lizzie Adams, was an art student from Deirdre’s classes in Rowe Street. Keira had no trouble getting through to her and they arranged a meeting at the Café Continental.

  Before meeting her the next day, Keira wrote to Deirdre again, explaining more about her project and asking if she would help her.

  *

  As a bonus, Lizzie brought two friends from the same art class, Maddie Carlson and Norma Bennett.

  Keira opened her spiral notebook and picked up her biro.

  ‘Oh, you’ll be copying down all our pearls of wisdom now!’ said Norma. They laughed. ‘Do we remember Deirdre O’Mara?! How could we forget her?’

  ‘Yes, those clothes – like a modernist painting. She had a black velvet skirt and soft black jumper with pillar-box red stockings and a trailing scarf to match. Sometimes a red beret too, like a French girl. She drew second glances wherever she went.’

  ‘But it wasn’t just the clothes,’ said Maddie, looking stern with crimped grey hair and tailored grey trouser suit. ‘She was a beauty, with those dark eyes and white skin, and a long swan neck too, dear, like yours. But you look strong.’ She looked at Keira, intent and appraising. ‘Deirdre was a bit fragile looking – shorter than you too.’

  ‘And you met her at Signor Roberto’s in Rowe Street?’

  ‘That’s right. We learnt about the science of colour and did life drawing,’ said Maddie.

  ‘Deirdre modelled there sometimes too,’ said Lizzie. Her green and orange geometric print dress and cheeky smile made her seem younger than the others. ‘She was a good model, unlike some – remember Rosaline Norton?’

  Norma groaned. ‘Scrawny, black bags under her eyes, and covered in mosquito bites! Most uninspiring. She used to go to sleep sometimes, if the pose was a lying down one, and there was a sign Signor had put up: “Silence is requested while the model is posing.” Then someone changed it to: “Silence is requested while the model is dozing!”’ They all laughed.

  ‘Oh, good – here are our sandwiches,’ said Maddie as the mini-skirted waitress with a cloud of curly blond hair and an expressionless face put a platter of sandwiches in the centre of the table and distributed white china plates. She was new there and Keira had not met her.

  ‘And remember the girl with six toes?’ said Maddie, helping herself to a ham sandwich.

  ‘Olivia Kettlewell,’ said Norma. ‘I’ll have a cheese one, thanks.’

  ‘Remember the sandwiches at Mockbell’s?’ asked Maddie. ‘They had marble-topped chess tables. We’d drink coffee there, which was unusual – most people drank tea then.’

  ‘Most people wore respectable clothes then,’ said Norma. ‘But Olivia Kettlewell wore shorts! She’d tear along Pneumonia Alley on her bicycle in white shorts!’

  ‘She made her own clothes,’ said Lizzie.

  ‘Did she make her own shoes too?’ asked Keira. When they looked at her blankly she added, ‘With such wide feet.’

  They laughed and she asked, ‘What’s Pneumonia Alley?’

  ‘Rowe Street in winter was like a wind tunnel. You could catch your death from that freezing wind,’ said Norma.

  ‘Oh, Rowe Street,’ said Keira. ‘I used to work at the Notanda Gallery.’

  ‘Did you? It’s still a shame they demolished it, just for a stupid tower and shopping mall.’

  ‘Yes, I agree. It was unique, and so old, full of intriguing little shops and galleries. What happened to Olivia?’

  ‘She wound up in Broughton Hall,’ said Maddie, ‘the asylum, called Callan Park now. She had an unhappy marriage with someone connected with the Razor Gang.’

  ‘Razor Gang?’

  ‘After the law was changed in the twenties to make gun carrying illegal, some off-colour types around Darlinghurst and Kings Cross used to carry cut-throat razors and get what they wanted that way.’

  Keira chewed half-heartedly on an egg and lettuce sandwich as the three prattled on. None of this was relevant to the photographic essay she somehow had to write. Maybe she should have taken them to a pub and got them pissed; they might have spilled something useful then.

  She broke into the conversation. ‘I haven’t been able to track down any paintings of Deirdre
’s. Do you know how I should go about it?’

  ‘Deirdre sometimes gave away her work on impulse before even exhibiting it,’ said Lizzie. ‘There must be people still living in Clovelly Bay who knew her and could help you. They used to call Clovelly Bay Poverty Bay, you know. Taxis refused to go there because they probably wouldn’t get the fare paid at the end.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ said Keira. ‘My parents are still in the house that Deirdre lived in.’

  ‘What has your mother told you?’ said Norma.

  ‘She won’t discuss it much. They’re estranged, more or less, but she won’t tell me why.’

  ‘The daughter of a flamboyant mother needs to step out of her shadow,’ said Norma. ‘Maureen resented her mother’s bohemian life and Deirdre wasn’t really suited to motherhood and domestic life.’

  ‘You ought to try to talk to your mother again,’ said Maddie.

  ‘Yes,’ said Norma, ‘keep digging! You’re a photographer. That’s why you want to see the paintings – but try to get hold of documents too.’

  ‘What sort of documents?’ said Keira, frowning.

  ‘Birth certificates, passports, things like that. They tell you lots.’

  ‘And you should see Alfred Foote. He studied history at Sydney University with me,’ said Lizzie. ‘He dropped out and became a gravedigger at Waverley Cemetery. He lives in his parents’ old house in Erskineville. He was a good friend of Deirdre and Olivia’s. And always scribbling things down in his notebooks, so there could be something useful there if he’s kept them. He’s in the telephone book – it’s Foote with an “e” on the end.’

  Keira wrote down the gravedigger’s name.

  16

  DEIRDRE

  April 1935

  Owen Wynter had not even wanted to go to the party. The increasing general swing towards fascism in Europe and the specific swing against him by Rhonda, the nurse he’d been going out with for five months, disposed him to bury himself in a book and a bottle of beer that night.

  As he was taking the beer from the kitchen of the shared house to his room the doorbell rang. Maybe it was Rhonda.

  No. It was only Trisha, Rhonda’s workmate and his sister.

  ‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘Come on in.’

  Trisha followed him, chatting animatedly about her day at the hospital. Then she said, ‘I’m off to Janet and Paul’s for a party. You should come too. I’ve knitted Janet a jumper. She should like it – her favourite colour’s purple.’ She indicated a gift-wrapped parcel in her basket and rested it on the bed. She sat on the single chair in the room.

  ‘That’s a big present, isn’t it?’ asked Owen, getting two glasses from the bench.

  ‘Oh, no beer for me, thanks,’ said Trisha. ‘It’s Janet’s thirtieth birthday.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘All right you’ll come?’

  ‘All right that the level of present is suitable for the occasion.’

  ‘But you will come with me, won’t you? We can hop on a tram and be there in a tick and you get free food and wine.’

  Owen gulped his beer. He watched Trisha get up and use his wardrobe mirror to apply lipstick and comb her curly brown hair.

  ‘It will get you out of yourself and Janet and Paul always have interesting people at their parties – come on, it’ll be a nice distraction for you,’ she said, opening the wardrobe door and taking out his corduroy jacket. She closed the door, their reflections swinging crazily for a moment. She handed him the jacket.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ he said.

  Twenty-five minutes later they were there and Trisha was introducing him to Deirdre Wild.

  He worked with words but could barely utter a syllable. Something about that pale face and sad dark eyes … he couldn’t say what … he just wanted to pull her slender body in the soft green clingy dress to his, to drown in those deep black eyes, to kiss and hold her forever.

  Finally he found his voice and answered her question. ‘I know Janet through my sister Trisha. I was reluctant to come. I’m glad she persuaded me.’

  ‘And what about Paul?’

  ‘I know him slightly – we’re both journalists but we write for different papers. I write for the Worker’s Weekly.’

  ‘Do you know John Klein?’

  When he nodded, she said, ‘He’s your art critic.’

  ‘And he covers politics and sport and whatever else needs covering.’

  ‘That makes me feel better about his bad review,’ she said, smiling ruefully.

  ‘You’re an artist? What sort of work do you do?’

  Deirdre shrugged her narrow shoulders. ‘They call me a surrealist but I don’t like labels.’

  ‘The French poet Apollinaire coined the term – a poet, not a painter. What did John write about your work? And let me get you another drink – what is that?’

  ‘Thank you – it’s hock. I’ll come with you.’ Together they wove their way through the crowd and she continued: ‘He criticised my multiplicity of styles. He damned with faint praise my rendering of dead cormorants and said the satires of Captain Cook and his effect on Australia were mere caricatures – but his main insult was an overabundance of styles: “stylistic incoherence” – that was what he wrote.’

  ‘Ouch!’ They had reached the kitchen and Owen poured wine into Deirdre’s glass and into his. He fished a cigarette from a pack in his jacket and offered her one. She shook her head. Lighting his smoke he said, ‘But you know, a man who did that would be called “protean”.’

  By the end of the evening he was examining her overabundance of styles for himself at Beach Lane. She introduced Sir Dudley and Merlin to him and then managed to settle the dog down.

  ‘The rest of my work is in the studio up the back,’ she said. ‘But these give you some indication of my … continually evolving style.’

  Deirdre poured two glasses of claret and put them on the coffee table near the sofa and sat down as Owen went slowly around the room studying the paintings on the dove grey walls.

  ‘These are amazing,’ he said. ‘You can tell it’s the same painter even through the stylistic differences. The fascination with nature, a kind of mystical vision of the Australian landscape.’ He turned back to the works. ‘And these domestic ones – it’s an eerie evocation of … is it the conflicts in responsibility for children, of bringing them into a dangerous world? Something like that? They get under the skin – the fear and dread – but I couldn’t really articulate why.’

  ‘You’re intuitively right. It is something like that – and also the danger for a woman of being swamped by the domestic side of things. The fear of being sucked into a vortex of tiredness, mess.’

  Owen asked if he could see the Worker’s Weekly review. He sat on the sofa and she rummaged in the drawer of a bureau in the corner. ‘Here it is and here’s The Sun critic on the same show.’

  She sat on the sofa sipping her claret while he read with quiet concentration.

  His hair had gone white but he looked like a boy. He was probably ten years younger than her, she calculated. Finally he was finished.

  ‘Aaghh,’ he said dismissively, ‘John Klein knows more about politics than art and his real passion lies in Rugby League! So you know not to take that one seriously. Why didn’t they ask me to review it? And then we’d have met earlier.’ They laughed and Owen reached to the coffee table for his wine. He began reading the second review. He said, ‘Now, tell me what The Sun reviewer means by: “In the series based on cormorants struggling in a storm the artist transforms a personal iconography of desolation into a wider political metaphor for these troubling times”?’

  ‘Oh … personal desolation … my husband died two years ago. It feels much longer.’

  ‘My condolences. That’s awful.’

  ‘Thank you. I did paint a lot of dead birds after,’ she said, smiling ruefully. ‘And the sense of unease and anxiety in my landscapes intensified. Critics read things into my art that I haven’t necessarily analysed –
I just pour my feelings out – and what I feel about poverty in Australia and the scary build up of militarised fascist movements abroad does get expressed, even if I’m not consciously thinking of it while I’m working.’

  He nodded. They sat in silence for a few moments. He said, ‘I have some desolation of my own.’ He put his glass on the coffee table and turned to her. ‘My sister Trisha and I are orphans. Well, obviously we’re too old to be in that category, but part of the desolation stays with one. Our parents were both killed in 1929.’

  ‘Oh, no! Now you have my condolences. How? How did it happen?’

  ‘Thank you. A drunk driver lost control of his car on George Street and they happened to be crossing the road in his path.’

  ‘That’s terrible. How old were you?’

  ‘I was sixteen and Trisha was thirteen.’

  ‘You poor little things.’ She moved closer to him and took his hand. ‘Who looked after you? I mean, I know you weren’t a child but still too young to fend for yourself and Trisha.’

  ‘Our aunt and uncle took us in. They only had one child, Robert, eight years older than me.’

  ‘Did you get on with them?’

  Owen gave a brief smile. ‘They did their best. They’re restrained, conservative people. Of course, it must have been terrible for them – the tragedy for them too and having two extra mouths to feed … but … this will sound trivial, but our parents knew how to have fun, you know? And they didn’t. We never really felt at home or accepted. We were always made aware of the good deed they were doing in taking us in.’

  Deirdre nodded. She squeezed his hand and said, ‘Have you been in journalism for long?’

  ‘I started writing articles for the local paper in my last year of school. And Trisha began training to be a nurse when she was sixteen. Have you always been a painter?’

  ‘Yes. I was always drawing, with bits of charcoal from the fire or anything I could find – I come from the Blasket Islands – and my Aunt Maeve in Dublin used to have me over to stay sometimes and she paid for art lessons.’

  ‘How long have you been in Australia?’

  ‘Nearly eight years. My daughter is seven.’