The Broken Book

by Susan Johnson

Now is the time to sing the strumpet song, time to declare yourself queen of the kingdom of men, empress of all you survey. Now is the moment you will come into possession of your fullest powers and learn the ancient song of women who have ruled the world of men, of women who have divided and conquered. Wield your beauty like a knife! Slice through those soldiers! You are the queen of American men, Australian men, Canadians, English men, young and old. You are the owner of something they want, the body incarnate. On leave from the army you will dance with handsome American airmen on polished sprung floors, drink cocktails with indistinguishable numbers of Australian soldiers in khaki. One man will slip you his telephone number at the railway station while your companion for the night isn’t looking; another soldier will come up to your table at the jazz club while your partner is in the toilet. ‘You must have dinner with me. Promise?’ And he will push into your hand a note with his name and address. Cressida, you had no idea you had it in you.

  Do you sleep with any of them? Do you bestow on any of them your magnificent favours? So many men, so many penises: thick squat ones with little hats, thin bowed ones, pointed ones, incy-wincy ones no bigger than a pencil. Penises, arise! All of them aimed at your softest centre, just like your mother supposed. Blush for shame, how many did you say? At ten you stopped telling, at twenty you grew tired of those repetitive voices saying how beautiful you were, how much they wanted to kiss you, sleep with you, marry you. What is it that you get from these penises? Love? Attention? Promiscuity’s saddest hope that causing a penis to rise in homage must therefore afford you some value? The fleeting triumph of having some nameless man choose you? What hollow triumph, what failure of self. Surely that is not a sorrowful tear still hoping for the true man to come along to see the true you? Surely you are not still dreaming of salvation?

  Cressida, how long before you stop counting? How long till the day arrives when you sleep with two men in one day? The one you went home to bed with, the one you will meet a few hours later for lunch. Your ovaries are protected by a tight rubber cap now, snug against the entrance to your womb. Such a watery trickle still from the river of men.

  Walking down the street you think: I have slept with two men in one day. You scan the passing faces to see if anyone can tell, if the river of men has left some visible trace upon you. But the flush of triumph is withering fast, turning into a feeling of cold, hard pain. How to staunch the flow of sadness that has been inadvertently released, how to crawl somewhere warm and safe, somewhere noble and clean?

  It is upon waking the next day that you remember the warmth of the book. It is upon waking that you become the girl in the story who says, ‘Every morning is the same. I place my feet upon the floor. I walk to the bathroom, wash my face, look at myself in the glass.

  ‘I want to be the girl who sees the world, who marries the right man, who wakes each morning to something new and exciting. I want to be the girl who dared to dream, who flew so high she felt the breath of angels.’

  It is then that you remember a book is a house with walls and a door, which only you can open. You remember you can go into this book and lock the door and no matter how hard or long anyone knocks, you are the only one who has the key. ‘I know!’ you cry. ‘My book will be my boat, my wings. My book will be the engine of my hopes!’

  My name is Cressida Morley and when I am twenty-three years old I will begin the long and arduous business of writing myself into existence. In writing my first poems, my first stories, I will begin to write the story of myself.

  I am that former teeming girl who feels herself to have burst from the carapace, who through building the words of the story remembers the pleasures of the physical world: the hard white chop of teeth into steak, the thrust of an iris in spring, the push and shove of a baby’s head rending me open. In the book my eyes can bear to remember the swivel of her head upon her new neck, the grief which is like a throb beneath my skin. In the book I see again her velvet, boneless feet; the tiny triangle of her upturned face. I see that she was little more than a puff of cloud upon the pillow, only hours alive to the air. In the broken book of life my disappearing girl is here again, right here under my heart.

  The Island, Greece, 1964

  Midnight

  I suppose I should feel furtive, or guilty; instead I feel the most insane sense of liberation. How did I ever suppose I could never sleep with another man? It felt like the most natural thing in the world.

  When we were girls Pat and I used to wonder what it would be like being pregnant; we couldn’t imagine what it would be like having a baby inside you. We supposed it would feel alien, unnatural even. When I did get pregnant, I couldn’t get over how known it felt, almost like a bodily memory.

  Sleeping with Jerry is like that. It’s exciting and rough and tender and charged but it also feels fine, entirely within the realm of the known. (Of course there was the initial shock of everything being different—his skin, his mouth, his smell, the whole shape of him—but I soon got over that.) Whoever would have guessed? So light-hearted, so free of angst, the complete and utter opposite of being with David. I was reminded of what being happy feels like; it’s a holiday from life.

  Now I am wondering about other things I thought I could never do, other crimes I am capable of committing. I fear I am capable of anything.

  I am relieved, too, that Jerry doesn’t appear to be taking it seriously. I don’t need undying declarations of love; I am too old to want to claim another scalp.

  ‘I’m not going to ask you to leave your husband,’ he said afterwards, when we were smoking cigarettes on the balcony.

  ‘I am mortally offended,’ I said. ‘It’s the least you can do.’

  ‘I just want to fuck you,’ he said, pulling me towards him and kissing me softly on the mouth.

  In the morning we sat around drinking coffee laced with Mataxa while he read his poems. They are pretty good. He has a kind of secondary career as a folk singer (he plays guitar) and my hunch is that is where his real talent lies. His songs, delivered in that extraordinarily deep and resonant voice, were outstanding.

  I finally walked home late this evening, so I’ve got time to clean up the house and prepare some food before David and the girls get back from Athens in the morning. They’ve got another three dental appointments after this, which doesn’t allow much time to conduct the rest of my love affair.

  It’s going to be short and sweet, a romance rather than a marriage. How nice to feel strong on my feet again, my eyes clear, seeing everything for exactly what it is. I like talking to Jerry and he enjoys being with me.

  How lonely I have been.

  I don’t even want to think about David.

  Monday

  It is surprisingly easy to lie. ‘Lie’ is perhaps the wrong word; it is easy, rather, to evade subjects, to deceive by omission. I haven’t told David anything that is untrue; I have simply left things unsaid. We live with the unspoken: there are entire continents to which we do not go.

  I spent the morning with Jerry swimming at the cove. When I came back at lunchtime, David asked whether I had enjoyed myself. It was no lie to answer yes.

  We’ve been together only one other time since David’s return; a hasty coupling against the rocks one night on the way back from a dance. David was asleep when I got in: I slipped into bed beside him, and lay sleepless until dawn.

  Saturday

  Today the house is silent. The girls have absented themselves, sensing pain; at midday, David is still in bed and I have only just got up. I have a small, egg-shaped lump on the back of my head, painful only if I press against it. There is a terrible calmness in the air.

  I can’t believe it was me who suggested a drink on the waterfront last night. We’ve been trying to avoid that malicious evening gathering for months; it was doing us more harm than good, drinking with those childless Peter Pans every night, those untested geniuses who could prove their genius at one stroke if only they could finish their novels or their paintings or their poems. They
all believe that if they had the time or the money or the right circumstances they would produce a masterpiece. A bestselling masterpiece, too.

  It was me who suggested we go. I’ve been feeling increasingly desperate, hemmed in, and the thought of other people, any other people, seemed preferable to spending another night alone with David. He’s been working feverishly, only stopping at sundown to begin serious drinking. For weeks we’ve been locked together in speechless misery, sitting on the roof each night before catatonically falling into bed. I needed air, comfort; also, I suppose I was hoping to get a quick chance to talk to Jerry.

  ‘Come on, let’s go down to Pan’s,’ I said. ‘We can have one drink and leave if we don’t like it.’ For a moment I longed for London, for any big city with anonymous faces and crowds and endless choices.

  We threaded our way through the dark lanes, past the dimly lit houses. We paused a moment outside the little church where Lil was baptised; the sound of chanting rose up from inside, a full-throated yearning for God. The moon was full and I felt again the strangeness of existence, the absence of answers.

  ‘Do you ever wonder what we’re doing here?’ I asked David, not looking at him.

  ‘I think about it every day. I wonder who I am, and what I’m doing. But most of all I wonder about you.’

  I looked at him; he held my eyes fast.

  I glanced away.

  I should have known the signs were ominous. David only ever seems to notice me when he senses some part of me is withdrawing.

  Everybody was there: Christophe, the dapper little painter who claims to have dined with Satre at the Flore and the Deux Magots, Stephanie and her sister Mathilde who is visiting from France, assorted American and English would-be writers and poets, and, of course, Jerry. He gave me a wink as I sat down in a chair I judged to be far enough away from him.

  ‘Attention everyone, Mr and Mrs David Murray have arrived. To what do we owe this unexpected honour?’ It was Harry, the smart-arsed ex-public school boy who claims to have had an affair with Auden. Everybody looked up for a moment.

  ‘We thought we would grant you the pleasure of our company,’ said David. ‘You may need an example of erudition.’

  Harry snorted. ‘And how is The Great Australian Novel going?’

  ‘It’s going,’ replied David. ‘How about your poems?’

  ‘I should have a collection finished by the end of summer. I think the best publisher for them will be Faber.’

  ‘Katherine’s first book was published by Faber,’ David said. ‘You might like to talk to her.’

  Harry looked at me with scant interest. ‘Your books are long out of print I hear. I imagine you have a stack of first editions mouldering away in some cupboard.’

  Jerry unexpectedly let out a laugh. ‘You’ll be lucky if you get into print, Harry. Your poems are execrable.’

  Harry gave him a contemptuous look; by now the attention of the rest of the table was elsewhere. ‘And of course the world is absolutely littered with top-class poets from Canada,’ Harry said.

  ‘Why don’t you go home and polish up your masterpiece, man? You don’t want to waste precious time.’ Jerry lifted his glass to him.

  ‘And you don’t want to waste time making eyes at Mrs Murray. Mr Murray wouldn’t like it.’

  I gave a weak laugh and was careful not to look at David. There were other conversations going on; I wasn’t sure if he had heard; besides, he knew as well as me the malicious nature of island gossip. Half of what you heard was untrue, the other half was ridiculously embroidered.

  Nonetheless, I was careful not to speak to Jerry. I spent the rest of the evening talking to Christophe, who gave me a long lecture on the nature of the artist. ‘The artist must live for himself alone,’ he announced. ‘His art must be his entire life. Look at Proust, Flaubert, Stendhal—solitaries, every one. The true artist must never form attachments.’

  I thought of Tolstoy and Picasso and Hemingway—men whose lives were littered with children and wives—but suddenly found myself too tired to argue.

  At some point I looked across at David. He was sitting there, not speaking, watching me closely.

  When we got home, it started. Why was I flaunting myself again; why was I so susceptible to calculated flattery; what hollowness was at the heart of me that I needed to debase myself in such a way?

  ‘Debase myself?’ I shouted. ‘Listen to yourself! You sound like a puritan.’

  ‘And you sound like a woman with no shame.’

  I stepped closer to him, speaking into his face. ‘I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of,’ I said calmly. ‘Have you?’

  ‘I’ve always told you everything,’ he said. ‘I told you straightaway about Evelyn. My life is an open bloody book.’ He gave me a little push so that I stumbled backwards against the wall. He stepped closer.

  ‘You keep everything secret. What other dirty little things don’t I know about, Katherine? How many men have there been? Ten? Twenty? Fifty? Of course, you started young, didn’t you? You had a head start.’

  He was shouting hard into my face; I pushed him away. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You got your degree in men. It’s your métier.’

  ‘How dare you! I haven’t looked at another man since I met you.’

  ‘You were too tired from the legions you’d already had. Besides, I didn’t say anything about looking, darling. You’re cleverer than that. Secrecy’s your thing, isn’t it, covering your tracks.’

  His voice was low now, snarling with contempt. I started to cry, in helplessness and despair. ‘You’ve always excelled at crying, too. Tell me, do you ever cry when no one is watching?’ He still had me pinned to the wall. ‘Does your boyfriend know your dirty secrets? Does Jerry know?’

  Instinctively, I shoved hard against his chest. ‘All right! All right! I did sleep with Jerry. He was kinder to me than you could ever be.’

  He pushed me violently against the wall; my head gave a sharp crack against the stone. His teeth were bared like a dog’s; for a split second I feared for my life. Then, without warning, he suddenly let me go; both of us sank to the ground.

  He collapsed in my arms, his shoulders heaving. When at last he stopped, we sat wrapped around each other on the cold floor. In the dark, we held each other for a long time; from somewhere I heard the sound of a cock crowing, the creak of a bed. My limbs were aching; I was growing cold, but I dared not move. We sat there, wrapped around each other for an hour, more; at last, very quietly, I began to speak.

  ‘It’s you I love,’ I said, speaking into the top of his head. ‘No one but you.’

  ‘If only that was enough,’ he said.‘You won’t let me in, Kate. After all these years, you still won’t let me in. Your heart is a secret. What are you frightened of?’

  I didn’t answer. How can you prove you love someone? How can anyone make the invisible visible, turn ghostly love into solid, breathing matter?

  ‘It’s you I love,’ I said softly as he stood up. ‘You.’ He held out a hand to help me to my feet.

  My sleep was troubled and full of dreams. I dreamed that David asked me to jump out of an aeroplane with him. He was the one wearing the parachute and I was meant to jump with him holding me in his arms.

  I was supposed to trust that he would keep holding me. In the dream I understood this is what love asks of us: it asks us to jump, to believe in the power of silk and ropes and a lover’s willingness to keep holding us up.

  I woke unable to remember whether David held me fast. I remembered only the sensation against my face of cold and rushing air.

  The Island, Greece, 1965; Sydney, 1965

  I cannot bear to write about leaving the island, I cannot bear the finality of words. David slipped away without fanfare two months ago to set up everything in Australia, leaving us to weather the full Greek departure: bunches of flowers, a speech from Thanasis, Pan on his lyra, photographs, the agonisingly slow arrival of the boat to Athens.

  Soul
a was distraught, her fat cheeks wet with tears. Jerry was hovering somewhere in the background while Cassandra sobbed hysterically in Lil’s skinny arms. I shut the door of our house for the last time, on the lemon tree I planted, on the plum tree, on the walls I whitewashed myself. And then the last sight of the cobbled crescent of the harbour.

  The island receding, its unforgiving hills, its heartless rocks, my island in the grip of the sea.

  Do not make me look back. Let me raise my eyes to the sea ahead, to the eternity of the unbroken sky. You have broken my heart, do not make me write the final word.

  On the boat to Sydney

  I am trying to wake up, trying to imagine ourselves wreathed in glory, of David’s news that he has won Australia’s most prestigious literary prize. Money. The prize at last. Too late. Alas, too late.

  His telegram from Sydney came the day before we left. Darling, we have triumphed. We have finally proved the naysayers wrong. But what have we proved? What have I proved, here on this ship, trying to wake up?

  Nothing but good news from Australia, he writes, entirely forgetting that we cannot afford to pay our own fare back even at the moment of our triumph, entirely forgetting that only a few months ago when he finally learned about Jerry he could not bear to look into my eyes. Has he also chosen to forget that the girls and I are entering our homeland as assisted migrants, that the garlands on our triumphant brows are bound with dried tears? If he could only see Anna’s cautious face now, her wariness and fear about what lies ahead in that country she no longer remembers. What does she remember, I asked the night before we left. Reaching up to open a door. A mulberry tree in someone’s garden. The scratch against my bottom of a grey stone sink in which I was being bathed.

  She does not remember my father, my mother; she does not remember the flashes of the cameras as we were leaving; the glamour of our new season’s coats. She is eighteen years old, tall, with fully grown breasts, she intends to go to university to study maths. She is cool, intelligent, a virgin; she is Greek, Greek, Greek. I wanted a girl better than myself, more polished, more accomplished, more. She is all that, my icy maiden, completely fluent in Greek, Latin and English, not bad in French. She knows how the sky works, the laws of the sea, she knows much more than me. Please let her learn, too, the republic of the heart, let her be richer and wiser and luckier than her faint mother.