‘You’re right. We know how good she is at “tracking”.’
She laughed again and he turned the key to start the engine, sorry for her sake that she’d ended up by his side for all this, but inordinately pleased for his.
10
Lena’s fourth and final installation of her Family series was located in the centre of a newly created green space in the CBD. The square sat in the midst of tall office buildings and, on a normal day, would no doubt be populated in much the same way as the small park where The Brother was, by workers looking for somewhere to eat their lunch in peace. That night, however, the square was playing host to a much more illustrious pack.
A black marquee squatted across the space, low-roofed and menacing, with a thick carpet leading from the kerb to its yawning entrance like a great, ebony tongue. A multitude of people lined the carpet, all with cameras or phones trained on those entering the tent, only the flashiness of their equipment separating the press from the fans.
Not that that was how we entered, of course. Eschewing the valet with a frown, Theo drove us round the block to the back where, after a quick chat to a harried-looking woman with a headset and a discreet mention of the Leventis name, we were directed to park in a side alley.
A separate white tent behind the imposing black one housed the catering set up and it was through there we weaved to enter the main marquee. I’d left my coat in the car and was glad I had, as the food preparation area was bustling and hot. My eyes roved back and forth, taking it all in. Theo seemed to feel the need to apologise for our somewhat unorthodox entrance, but I was enthralled, finally in my element after so long out of it.
‘Are you kidding?’ I asked in wondrous disbelief. ‘This is excellent! Look at the way they’re garnishing the trays. Oh, sniff that!’ I put out a hand to stop him and tilted my nose into the air. ‘Tarragon!’ I exclaimed once I’d identified the dark, aniseedy scent. ‘I bet you that, from now on, whenever I smell tarragon I’ll think of tonight.’
‘I hope for your sake you don’t smell it too often, then,’ he murmured.
I decided it was probably best not to reply to that and, following a troop of servers dressed – surprise, surprise – all in black, we snuck into the main tent.
It was a shock to go into such a dark, hushed space after the bright, noisy kitchen. The marquee was dimly lit by flickering lanterns and felt very medieval and dramatic. There was something about the heavy gloom that made people talk in lowered voices as they moved around the cloaked centrepiece.
From Lena’s monologue back at the house, I knew that only the ‘right’ people had been invited, but ‘right’ seemed to cover quite a vast demographic. Slouchy teens with haircuts specifically designed to make them look as unattractive as possible stood in sullen groups. Sharp-suited business types with super shiny shoes moved about purposefully, greeting people everywhere they turned. The ‘arty’ set dramatically adjusted pashminas and air-kissed anyone they could lay their hands on. Together, they produced a low thrum of energy that, coupled with the low light and the evening we’d had thus far, made the brief high of the catering tent plummet to an ominous feeling in the pit of my stomach.
The sculpture was covered in a swathe of material that hung from the ceiling, a startlingly vibrant red among all the muted colours that offered no glimpse of the shape it tented.
‘What do you think it is?’ I asked Theo as we joined the exotic throng making a slow three-sixty around the mystery sculpture.
‘An indictment.’
I’d noticed his attitude growing steadily more dour as we’d driven towards the unveiling, the brief moment of levity we’d experienced in the car after escaping the Leventises replaced by as grim a countenance as I’d seen on him.
‘I know you said The Brother is kind of Lena having a go at you. Are the others, The Mother and The Father, I mean, supposed to be negative as well?’ I asked carefully.
‘Champagne?’ He plucked two flutes off a passing tray and offered one to me.
I accepted it, but continued to look at him expectantly until he sighed and said, ‘It’s not that they’re negative, that’s not the way Lena means them. She just thinks they’re the truth.’
‘And you don’t?’
He took a pull from his glass and then said slowly, ‘I don’t think the truth’s always just one thing, I definitely don’t think people are.’
‘You mean you’re not just a man of learning corrupted by the siren song of capitalism?’ I asked innocently and, as I’d hoped he would, he let out a short laugh.
‘I hope not. And, in the same vein, I don’t think Philomena is always an empty cylinder encapsulated by shrillness and Harvey has moments of being more than an eye of judgement cradled in the silver spoon he was born with. Still.’ His mouth twisted slightly. ‘Perhaps other facets of our personalities don’t make for good sculptures.’
It was like a variation of ‘never meet your idols’, I thought, never find out the meanings behind your favourite sculptures. Not that I was ever that big a fan of Lena’s other work – The Brother was the one I’d properly loved. And, no, I was definitely not going to read into that in any way.
The numbers around the hidden sculpture had swelled as we’d talked and, by unspoken agreement, we withdrew from them. Theo may have managed to keep himself out of the spotlight since becoming an adult, but some diehard Leventis fan was sure to recognise him if we stayed front and centre for too long.
‘I don’t get them,’ Theo said as we headed over to a quieter area and, for a moment, I thought he meant Lena’s handpicked guests and was about to agree. Following his gaze, however, I saw that he was staring up at a large screen suspended above the cloaked sculpture that was showing images of Lena’s other sculptures. ‘Them or any of it,’ he continued, ‘never have.’
‘What?’ I asked. ‘Art?’
‘Yeah.’ He tapped his little finger against the delicate stem of his champagne flute and then shrugged. ‘I can acknowledge talent and appreciate the skill it takes to create something, but I don’t . . . feel anything. I don’t think I even understand what I’m supposed to feel. I grew up surrounded by it all, some days my life felt like a conceptual art piece in and of itself, and yet–’ he gestured at his sister’s work, ‘–I get nothing from it.’
I considered this, wondering anew at how different our upbringings had been. I mean, I’d grown up surrounded by people whose first instinct when seeing the word ‘Murkoff’ would be to replace the m with an f and the r with a c, not worry that they didn’t appreciate art in the way they were ‘supposed’ to.
I wanted to say something to reassure him, but wasn’t sure what, so I just went for the short, sharp and shiny advice my mum had given me during my few high school crises of identity: ‘Everyone’s different.’
Theo was silent for so long that I worried I’d offended him, or made it seem like I was dismissing his concerns, but when I looked up at him he didn’t seem angry, more thoughtful.
‘Succinct,’ he said in the end, but before he had time to say more, a tall, thin man with skin a few shades darker than mine and wearing a bright orange suit, sprang between us with an alacrity that made me both jump and smile at the same time.
‘Bossman!’ the newcomer exclaimed enthusiastically. ‘What are you doing here?’
Theo seemed unsurprised by the dapper man’s exuberant entrance, suggesting it was nothing new. ‘Family reunion,’ he said shortly in response, but it was the shortness he used with me, a sort of friendly shortness. ‘Giovanna, this is my assistant, Ari.’
‘Assistant, counsellor, best friend.’ Ari’s smile, if possible, seemed to have brightened a notch upon seeing me standing there and he considered me with obvious interest before snagging the arm of a woman next to him and saying, ‘This is my sister, Isma.’
Isma was tall like her brother, dressed in a flowing, long-sleeved, berry-coloured dress and matching hijab. Her dark eyes, when she turned them from scrutinising the images on the
screen, were friendly, but didn’t hold the thousand questions that were clear in her brother’s. She looked so classy and beautiful that I found myself reflexively tugging at the hem of my dress again, in spite of Zoë’s clear instructions not to.
‘Isma, nice to see you.’ Theo, predictably, nodded at her and she did the same back.
‘And you,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Please tell me you actually did give Ari the invitations and we haven’t gate-crashed your evening.’
‘The cheek!’ her brother retorted, indignantly.
Theo let out a half sigh, half laugh and I was instantly pleased Ari and Isma had arrived on the scene. Their familiar presence obviously relaxed him.
‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured her, ‘I definitely gave him the invitations. Although, if I hadn’t known it was mostly you I’d be disadvantaging, I’d have taken them off him after he left another self-help book on my desk.’
Ari gave a smug shrug. ‘You’ve only got yourself to blame, if you’d just get on with helping yourself, I wouldn’t have to bother.’
Clearly used to, and bored of, her brother’s dramatics, Isma turned to me and asked politely, ‘Are you a fan of Helena Leventis?’
I hesitated, some of the sculptor’s less flattering characteristics that I’d recently become aware of flitting through my mind. ‘Of her work?’ I asked carefully. ‘Sort of. I like The Brother.’
Ari snorted loudly, but as Isma frowned at him in surprise, I suspected she didn’t know Theo’s connection to the Leventises and quickly said, ‘How about you?’
Her face split into the grin of a complete fangirl. ‘Oh, absolutely,’ she said. ‘I’m writing a thesis on community-based sculpture projects and she’s definitely one of the inspirations.’
‘You should tell Theo about it,’ Ari jumped in. ‘He needs all the help he can get, recognising the value of a community art culture, right, Bossman? While you do that, Giovanna and I are going to go and see if we can spot anyone famous in the dark corners.’
We were?
‘Ari–’ Theo said warningly, but his assistant had already started to steer me away, leaving me, as I had at his parents’, to just send a quick smile back at Theo to show it was all right.
‘It’s good to finally meet you.’ Ari smiled disarmingly as we moved through the growing crowd awaiting Helena’s arrival. ‘Are you the homewrecker everyone at AHC says you are?’
Before that evening I’d have found his words confronting, but the Leventises had raised the bar when it came to antagonistic behaviour, so it was with gratifying aplomb that I shook my head.
‘Definitely not,’ I said firmly, raising my voice as we passed a group of people who’d missed the ‘hushed tones’ memo and were cackling and shrieking. ‘As far as I know, everyone’s home is as intact as it was when I met them.’
Ari’s eyes sparkled mischievously. ‘So, come Monday, I’m not going to find O’Connor sobbing in the toilets over his broken heart?’
My chest gave the briefest clench at the mention of my best friend, but I was completely honest as I replied, ‘I doubt it.’ I wondered at this point whether it was worth getting business cards made up to hand out to people. Hi, I’m Giovanna, I have NOT had sexual relations with either Theodore McKillop or Declan O’Connor.
I couldn’t have said whether Ari believed me or not, but his cheerful demeanour didn’t falter and I amused myself thinking about how much of an odd couple he and Theo must be around the corridors of AHC.
‘You and the Bossman are friends, then?’ he asked, reminding me a bit of Vanessa as he continued to press for information.
‘We’re neighbours.’ I left it up to him to decide whether I was agreeing with or correcting him. I didn’t quite know myself.
We continued walking the perimeter of the marquee and, although Ari had clearly just been looking for an excuse to get me away from Theo and do the friendly interrogation thing, I noticed that we actually were coming across celebrities in the darker reaches. I recognised quite a few faces in the shadowy recesses, each one reinforcing the pull Helena, or perhaps the Leventis name, had.
‘You know who he is, don’t you? What all this–’ Ari gestured at our almost absurd surroundings, ‘–is to him?’
I wasn’t sure that even Theo really knew what ‘all this’ was to him, but I nodded anyway, because I understood what he was getting at.
‘I know he’s a Leventis, or used to be a Leventis, I guess.’ Then, because I still couldn’t quite believe it, I said, almost as a confession, ‘We just went to see his family.’
‘You what?’ Ari came to a dramatic halt and stared at me in disbelief. ‘And how was that?’
‘Intense,’ I said fervently and he threw back his head and laughed, drawing looks of disdain from the artistic types around us who were presumably too postmodern to partake in anything as jolly as a belly laugh.
‘I bet it was. Did Harvey hit on you?’
I flushed, fairly sure that he had, but not wanting to accuse Theo’s stepdad of anything out loud.
Ari seemed to understand, however, and shook his head knowingly. ‘Course he did. But presumably not enough that Theo had to challenge him to fisticuffs at dawn, or anything?’
‘No,’ I said with a smile. Then, sure that Ari could be trusted, I added, ‘There was a bit of a weird moment when nepotism came up, though, and–’
I stopped as he groaned loudly. ‘He didn’t bring that up again, did he?’ He ruffled his expertly styled hair, threading it through his fingers and rearranging it in a frustrated movement. ‘I tell you what, he doesn’t help himself. You’re lucky you both made it out of the Murkoff crypt alive.’
Despite that somewhat worrying reaction and the cross-examination that’d preceded it, I was pleased I’d met Ari. Over the past couple of weeks I’d got the feeling that Theo didn’t exactly have a lot of confidantes, so it was good to know that Ari understood the situation with the Leventises and had his mate’s back.
I was about to ask him how long he’d known Theo when there was a sudden uptick of noise and a hum of excitement rippled through the crowd. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. The Leventises had arrived.
‘Better get back to our boy,’ Ari said, reading my mind as I’d already started to scout out the quickest route back to Theo.
I was distracted, however, as I heard Ari let out a sound of amusement. His height gave him a better view of what was going on in the rest of the tent and something had caught his eye. Seeing my enquiring look, he explained, ‘Philomena’s making a statement, as usual.’
Uneasily, I stood on my tiptoes and caught a glimpse of that famous head of tousled dark hair. For a moment I wasn’t sure what Ari meant as Philomena looked as she had when I’d seen her an hour or so ago, then I realised that that was what he meant. She looked exactly as she had at her house, meaning she’d come to the unveiling in her satin dressing gown, the sash loose, the front gaping.
Without wanting to see any more than that, I dropped back down on my heels and began hurrying back to where I’d seen Theo last, Ari at my shoulder.
My neighbour wasn’t what you’d call demonstrative upon our return, but I could tell he was relieved when he saw us.
‘All right?’ he asked, and it took me a moment to realise he was asking how I’d gone with Ari’s interrogation.
I nodded quickly, Ari’s probing definitely no longer at the forefront of my mind. I’d hoped the buzz of nerves in my stomach would lessen when I was back with Theo, but, if anything, they intensified. The tense set to his jaw as he watched his family move through the crowd, air-kissing and waving, made me bite at my lip anxiously, chewing off the subtle colour Zoë had slicked across it earlier that evening.
In our small group, only Isma was excited to see Helena, bobbing her head this way and that to catch a glimpse of her before suggesting we move closer and seeming confused when we all declined.
Eventually Helena, Philomena and Harvey made their way to the hidden scu
lpture, and the crowd was ushered back by grim-faced security men to give them space. Theo’s family were greeted enthusiastically by a wiry, white-haired man dressed so completely in black that, but for his pale face and hair, he could camouflage himself against the marquee. As he produced a microphone it became clear he was the emcee and, after the obligatory technical mishap or two, he began the official proceedings.
And, boy, were the official proceedings tedious.
It seemed that anyone who’d ever even vaguely had any input into the commissioning of sculptures in Australia got to make a speech, every one of them gushing about Helena, most of them sparing some time to lavish praise upon Harvey and Philomena as well.
We were told that The Family was the culmination of one of the most important sculpture series Australia had ever known, that it pulled together Helena’s other three family pieces and would transform what we thought we knew about the traditional family unit.
Isma lapped it all up, occasionally laughing along with the crowd when an incredibly esoteric joke was made or nodding solemnly at the mention of a name that meant nothing to me.
If it wasn’t for Theo thrumming with tension beside me, it would’ve been boring. As it was, I stayed on high alert, not missing the significance when Ari oh-so-casually moved to place himself between his boss and a pack of photographers snapping pictures of the audience.
Eventually, every single name that could be dropped seemed to have been, and the emcee started a countdown to the reveal of The Family, the screen above us switching to a close-up of the veiled shape.
Ten . . . Nine . . . Eight . . .
At this point, all the dim lanterns went out and we were plunged into total darkness, except for a few phone screens that were making their owners’ faces glow blue.
Seven . . . Six . . . Five . . . Four . . .
The darkness gave me the confidence to reach for Theo’s hand, entwining my fingers through his and giving them a little squeeze to show that I was there and that I was on his side.
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