by Alex Miller
He stepped on to the verandah. Teresa was not going to forgive him. He knew that. He had betrayed her, and for Teresa that would be the end of it. He thought of how his father had created art as a haven, had refused the hazards of the human likeness and of public reputation, and had searched within the familiar objects of their lives for a morality that had sustained himself and his family; a morality that sustained Toni even now, and which had in it something that was essential to his belief in himself as a man and as an artist. That would always be the case. He would always know himself through his father’s vision of art. And perhaps what Marina had said in the Red Hat was true, and there was no point in trying to explain or to understand such things. He opened the front door and stepped into the passage.
Nada ran towards him from the living area calling excitedly, ‘Daddy! Daddy! We’ve been waiting for you!’
Teresa stood at the far end of the passage silhouetted against the light from the courtyard windows. He lifted Nada into his arms and hugged her to him.
She struggled to loosen his grip. ‘Uncle Andy sold your pictures, Daddy!’ she cried breathlessly. ‘He said we’re going to be rich!’ She chanted, ‘We’re going to be rich! We’re going to be rich!’
Teresa came up and she laughed and put her arm through his. ‘There’s a message for you from Andy. Listen to it while I open the champagne. We’ve been waiting for you.’ She turned and kissed him, cupping her hand to the back of his head and pressing her lips firmly against his mouth. ‘God, I love you, Toni Powlett!’
‘We’re going to have a party!’ Nada cried, forcing her head between them.
In the kitchen he held Nada in his arms and the three of them listened in silence to Andy’s message, Teresa watching him, the bottle of champagne in her hand, her eyes smiling, her pleasure for him. Andy’s voice, loud and confident, coming into the kitchen. I’m in Sydney, mate. They love your stuff up here. Geoffrey bought Marina Golding Asleep on the Island. You like the title? He’s showing it to his friends. It’s his latest coup. I knew that was the picture for Geoffrey. Five thousand. Okay? How do you like that? He’s set the starting price for you. Theo Schwartz Reading Paul Klee’s Diaries went for three and a half. Don’t worry, that’s a terrific price for an old man reading a book. We’ll put twenty-five on The Schwartz Family. We’ll test them. I think they’re ready to get serious. How’s that other big one coming along? I’ve told them up here you’re on a roll. Sydney’s got the hots for you, mate. You can tell Terry you guys are going to be rich. Just keep painting, buddy!
Andy talked until the machine ran out of tape.
Teresa handed him a glass of champagne. ‘It’s happened, darling!’ She touched his glass with hers, watching for his reaction.
Nada reached for his glass and he let her have a sip. ‘I told Andy those pictures weren’t for sale yet.’
‘You know Andy. With Andy everything’s for sale. He’d just think you were trying to push up the price saying a thing like that.’
‘I wouldn’t do that.’
‘I know you wouldn’t do it.’ She gazed steadily at him, measuring his response. ‘Isn’t it fantastic, though? I knew you’d do it. I knew from the minute I saw you at Andy’s party that you were the only real artist in the place. Don’t you feel like yelling and dancing? Do you really think he’ll get twenty-five thousand for that picture? Has Marina done a background for it? Has she still got it? You won’t have to give her half will you? How much will Andy’s commission be?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Didn’t you ask him?’
‘Andy will look after us. I don’t need to ask him.’
‘You’ll have to start being businesslike about it. There’s no point giving money away.’ She refilled their glasses.
He carried Nada over to the couch and sat and rested his head against the back of the cushion. He closed his eyes.
Teresa brought the bottle over and sat close up beside him, studying him. ‘You look worn out. There’s nothing the matter, is there? You’re happy, aren’t you? You’re selling your pictures. It’s happening at last. You’re a real artist. You’re being who you’ve always wanted to be. This is what you’ve worked for. It’s the beginning, isn’t it?’ She reached for Nada and took her from him. ‘Let Daddy have a rest for a minute, darling. Don’t give her too much of that, it’ll make her sick. We’ll be able to repay Dad. God, you’ve got no idea how good this makes me feel. Can I ring Mum and tell her yet? I can’t wait to hear their reaction.’
They drank the wine and Teresa talked about the money they were going to make and what they would do with it.
He lay back against the couch, struggling against the whirling in his head, struggling to keep his eyes open.
•
Later he read Mog’s Mumps to Nada and fell asleep beside her on the bed. His sleep was deep, soundless, dreamless; a sleep of exhaustion. He woke with Nada’s arm over his neck. They were both sweating; her head thrown back and her mouth open, dark strands of hair sticking to her forehead, the sweet, intimate smell of her child’s breath in his face. He held her close, then eased himself free of her encircling arm. He got up and straightened her on the bed and stood looking down at her . . . The telephone began to ring. He went down the passage to the kitchen. The clock on the refrigerator showed two a.m. He picked up the telephone. ‘Hello,’ he said cautiously. He already had the feeling it was going to be Robert.
Robert said, ‘I’m sorry to wake you, Toni.’
‘I wasn’t asleep.’
‘Dad’s had a stroke. We’re at the Alfred. I thought you’d want to know at once.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’
There was a short silence. Toni could hear voices and noises in the background, an echoing space, a siren wailing. Robert said, ‘No. I don’t think they expect him to survive the night.’
That word, Dad! ‘I’ll come over,’ Toni said.
Teresa came into the kitchen and walked across to put her hand on his arm. She whispered, ‘Who is it?’
‘There’s no need for you to come over,’ Robert said. ‘There’s nothing we can do. He’s not aware of us.’
He held the phone away. ‘It’s Robert. His dad’s had a stroke.’ He put his mouth to the phone again. ‘I’m coming over. I’m sorry, Robert. I’m terribly sorry.’
‘You were fond of him. He thought a lot of you. He was glad of your friendship.’
‘I meant, I’m sorry for you.’
‘Thanks. I know you did.’
‘I’ll see you in half an hour.’
Robert said, ‘We’re not in intensive care. Come to casualty. They’re not giving him any treatment. They’re just making sure he’s comfortable.’
Teresa went to the front door with him. ‘I came in to look at you,’ she said and she kissed him. ‘I couldn’t bear to wake you. You both looked so beautiful sleeping in each other’s arms.’ She kissed him again. ‘Drive carefully!’ It might have been that the sudden grip of death on Theo had rendered them all vulnerable.
As he pulled out from the kerb he turned and waved. She lifted her hand.
He drove along the empty streets of the city and thought of Theo asking him not to tell Robert his real reason for coming back; I came back because I was hoping to distract myself . . . You won’t tell Robert, will you?
The hospital was a blaze of light and activity, a hub of life and death in the sleeping city. He found Robert and Marina in a curtained cubicle in the casualty department. Robert stepped up and embraced him, taking Toni by surprise and holding him strongly in his arms. He began to cry.
Toni put his hand to the back of Robert’s head and held him against his shoulder.
Robert yielded to his friend’s embrace for a moment, then he drew in a big breath and stepped away. ‘Sorry!’ he said, and he laughed; he was an emotional, almost boyish version of himself, suddenly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose. He looked at Toni and grinned. ‘I don’t kno
w why, but seeing you made me cry. I saw you come through that curtain and it caught me in the throat.’
‘I can have that effect on people.’ He thought Robert seemed younger and lighter with his grief, almost as if he had shrugged off a burdensome inhibition.
They laughed and both reached at the same instant and touched each other’s fingers, then let their hands fall away, something of pleasure, shyness, surprise and embarrassment at this sudden intimacy, the unaccustomed openness of their emotion with each other.
Robert said, ‘You walked in just then and I remembered the way it used to be with us. The old days. You know? The way it was for us? I’ve got to ease up.’ He stood looking at his father lying in the bed, tubes and drip lines and pulse meters coming out of him.
Marina came up and she and Toni held each other lightly, their eyes meeting, then they stepped apart.
Theo lay on his side with his mouth open, a clear plastic tube going down the black hole of his throat, an oxygen mask clamped over his nose with an obscene pink garter around the back of his head, his wispy hair waving back and forth in the cold stream of the airconditioning. Theo’s eyes were closed and his skin was the colour of stone, one skinny arm out of the covers, a drip insert coming out of the back of his hand. Except for the noise of his breathing he looked dead.
Robert stood at his shoulder. ‘We might go and get a coffee. You want a few minutes alone with him?’ He looked at Toni, giving him an awkward sideways grin. ‘You might like to say goodbye.’ He shrugged and turned quickly and walked across to where Marina was waiting for him, and they went out through the curtain.
Toni took Theo’s hand and held it. The hand was cold and still. No sign of the jumping nerves. ‘I’m sorry to see you go, Theo.’ But his voice sounded insincere and he was self-conscious with it, as if he were acting the role of saying goodbye to a dying friend. It was easier to speak his thoughts silently. But what if Theo could still hear? As if in response to this thought, Theo gave a shudder and his hand closed around Toni’s fingers. For a brief second it was unnerving, as if Theo were taking hold of him, then Toni realised it was probably a final contraction of the nerves, a lifetime of nervous reactions echoed in this last mockery of friendship’s clasp. He thought of saying something about Theo rejoining his Marguerite, but the thought was too sentimental to utter. Remembering Theo telling him old men talk too much not because they fear to die, but because they hate knowing their experiences and their knowledge are going to die with them, the fruits of their struggles going for nothing. He leaned and touched his lips to Theo’s forehead. The skin was cold and slightly damp. He straightened. Theo’s blatant borrowing, his bold plagiarism of the French printmakers, an example that had broken a deadlock in him and made him see that he had to become the familiar of his own nakedness if he were to be an authentic painter of the human likeness. He turned away and went in search of Robert and Marina and a coffee.
eighteen
Theo died the following night. The funeral was held on a day of grass fires and hot winds from the desert, a final vicious blast of summer before the tempering of the seasons. As he stood with Robert and Marina in the chapel at the crematorium, the heat storm seemed to Toni an unfitting send off for Theo, whom he had thought of as having been a Central European by election, and as having shared something of the cool, grey, indeterminate tones of that mythical ancestral place with his own father, each of them an artist and an exile from his native country for most of a lifetime.
During the first week or so following Theo’s funeral an unreal stillness settled over his work and over his life with Teresa and Nada. He tried working during the day again and sleeping with Teresa at night in their bed, for this seemed to him a necessary concession to Teresa’s cherished normality. Nothing difficult was discussed. It seemed events had sobered them, and they had both eased back on their demands and expectations. Robert telephoned one evening while they were watching a show on the television and offered to give Toni his father’s collection of sketchbooks. ‘He wanted you to have them,’ Robert said. But Toni could not accept them. Robert’s gesture was far too generous. And, anyway, Theo had cherished hopes for his work that had reached beyond the grave, and Toni did not want to be the gatekeeper of the dead man’s dreams.
Each weekday morning at seven forty-five he kissed Teresa and Nada goodbye at the front door and watched them drive off to the kindergarten and the agency. After they had gone he made coffee and went down to the studio. But his work did not advance and he failed repeatedly to place the figure of Marina convincingly in The Other Family. He had lost touch with the picture. Without Marina the project had stalled, and he began to realise that he was not going to have three major works finished in time for the island show. In frustration he telephoned Andy and asked him to borrow back his painting of Marina asleep on the island from Haine. ‘That picture was my main reference and I need to look at it.’ But Haine had gone to New York and Andy was unable to get hold of the painting. Toni needed more life studies of Marina, but he did not feel at liberty to call her and ask her to sit for him. It was a baffling situation, and he began to resent the compromise that it represented for him. The storm had not broken over his head and destroyed him and his family; but the manner of his survival scarcely seemed to have made the escape worthwhile.
•
He stepped away from the canvas and stood looking with disgust at the failed figure of Marina. He didn’t have the will to scrape the image back yet again and he left the painting and stood at the window. The blackbird was back, taking a bath in the fountain. The faint hum of the city out there. He turned away from the window. In the studio everything had come to a standstill for him. He picked up a book at random from the pile by the door and took it over to the chaise. I came to Warley on a wet September morning with the sky the grey of Guiseley sandstone. I was alone in the compartment. I remember saying to myself: ‘No more zombies, Joe, no more zombies.’ He had soon developed a loathing for the book and its principal character, the miserable Joe Lampton, but he kept reading as a kind of punishment for not having the courage to face up to The Other Family. His own craven attitude was mirrored in the weak personality of the book’s hero, and his loathing for the man was, he knew, partly self-loathing. He could not imagine his father enjoying such a book, but the old Penguin paperback was well-thumbed and had obviously been read a number of times. He had been reading for an hour or more, slumped miserably on the chaise resenting the power of the story to keep him there, when he heard a car pull up in the lane and the slamming of its doors. He tossed the book aside and got up and went over and opened the back door of the studio. Marina was straightening from the back of her car. She turned, a carton hugged to her chest.
‘I brought Theo’s notebooks,’ she said. ‘Robert insists you take them.’
They stood looking at each other.
She looked down helplessly into the carton in her arms. ‘There are thirty of them. One for each year. I haven’t counted them.’ She looked up. ‘Please, Toni! Don’t look at me like that! Where shall I put these?’
He stepped up to her and took the carton from her and they went into the studio and she closed the door. The black notebooks each had a year blind-stamped on its spine. ‘They belong to Robert,’ he said. ‘I can’t take them.’ He could smell the familiar perfume of her.
‘You’re working,’ she said, and she walked across and stood in front of The Other Family. ‘You and Robert can sort out the notebooks. He’s not going to take them back.’
He set down the carton. ‘You and I are not finished with this yet.’
‘The male figure is wonderful,’ she said. ‘It’s even stronger than I remember it.’ She did not mention the new figure of the solitary woman.
‘I was working with the right information for that one.’ He watched her turn from the painting and move restlessly about the studio, as if she were afraid of being still or of standing too close to him. She went over to the window and lifted the sheet and looked a
cross at the house. He picked up his sketching block and began making a rapid drawing of her.
She turned from the window and watched him. ‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘I have to go.’
‘Do you want to see the notebook Theo gave me?’ He gestured towards the plan press. ‘It’s there. Have a look at it before you go.’
She walked over and picked up Theo’s book and stood leafing through it, making little exclamations of amusement.
He drew quickly, finishing one sketch then doing another, hungrily gathering as much information as he could. ‘So what do you think?’
She said, ‘It’s very Theo.’
‘Not exactly a memoir for his son of his last days.’
She said gently, ‘I do miss him.’
‘So do I.’ He waved his stub of charcoal at The Other Family. ‘He gave me the key to that figure.’
