Autobiography of My Mother

by Meg Stewart

  My suitor cooled off quickly, annoyed at my mercenariness, as he called it. Not a word was spoken as we drove back to Randwick. He dropped me at the top of Botany Street as I asked and drove off without a backward glance. Four days later a cheque for two guineas came in the post with a cold little note.

  The portrait of my mother, the other painting in the show, disappeared. I don’t know what happened to it, but I never saw it again. The show had turned out to be a disappointment, but then the Australian Watercolour Institute accepted some of my paintings for their annual exhibition. My career was under way.

  The tenants were gradually moving out and Margaret Street was becoming empty. But I painted on, undeterred. No one came round for the rent. Weeks went by and my conscience nagged me so I visited the architect who was to be in charge of the demolition and construction of the new building that would replace it.

  ‘I think I owe you some rent,’ I said reluctantly.

  I needn’t have bothered. He didn’t seem to care who was living there. He hadn’t the slightest interest in collecting rent and let me off most of mine. I don’t think the other artists in the building paid any rent.

  There was no caretaker and I often saw strange people wandering around the building. The weekends were especially eerie. I had been there about eighteen months and was one of the last tenants to leave. It was hard, working away on my own; I used to hear strange noises coming from an empty room upstairs.

  Rats, I thought. Natural enough in an old, deserted building.

  The police came round again; this time they were more successful than they had been in their previous raid on Joe Holloway’s studio. A wanted criminal was holed up in the empty room above mine. He had been there for weeks, perhaps months. So much for the rats.

  That terrified me. I bought a huge padlock and every evening as I left I bolted my door on the outside. I wasn’t taking any risks. I didn’t want any desperate characters camping overnight in my studio.

  I started looking for another studio soon after this episode and soon moved into 38A Pitt Street, right in the thick of Circular Quay life.

  The Quay itself was lovely. It had no overhead railway, that was the big difference. Towards the end of Pitt Street near the harbour was a spreading fig tree, not a Moreton Bay but a smaller branching Port Jackson, under which was a fruit stall. The outline of the stall and the tree in front of the open space of the Quay looked so pretty.

  The words, ‘Circolo Isole Eolie’ were handwritten on a piece of paper in a café window at the Quay. I loved the sound of those words. I had no idea what they meant, but the rolling vowels conjured up endless romance in my imagination. After about a year, I found out that the words meant ‘The Aeolian Islands Club’, an Italian social club, but ‘Circolo Isole Eolie’ was far more appealing.

  Other names at the Quay intrigued me. Mischa Burlakov and Louise Lightfoot seemed appropriate names for dancing instructors. They had a ballet school and even put on a production in a theatre. Later they also performed at the Conservatorium. Another couple danced the tango together and gave recitals. Over the years, the woman partner grew too heavy and in the end the man was struggling to lift her off the floor for their finale.

  A shop at the Quay sold every sort of pie: rabbit, pork or beef, apricot. Pies were a staple of our diet. Round the corner in George Street was Plasto’s hotel, where women could safely have a beer in the upstairs lounge. Old Nick’s was another cafe in George Street with plates, cups, saucers all printed with a grinning devil and pitchfork. We could have chicken cooked any way we liked – steamed, boiled, roasted – for 2s 6d there.

  Maniaci’s, the Italian fruit shop, arrived later at the Quay. Before that, there were two Chinese fruit and vegetable shops opposite each other in Pitt Street. Fruit wasn’t so varied then. We never saw an avocado or a pawpaw, but the Chinese fruit shops did sell rice whisky on the side. They couldn’t have had a licence but nevertheless they dispensed a fierce alcohol that burned a fiery track down your inside. Chinese whisky came in full, round-bellied bottles with a brown glaze. Each one was a bit different, a bit crooked-looking, because they were handmade. There wasn’t a studio in town that didn’t have a Chinese whisky bottle for still lifes. I loved anything Chinese. A bit later on in Campbell Street, I bought Chinese dolls with delicate porcelain faces and elaborate, brilliantly coloured cloth costumes. I put the dolls in paintings, just as I did some other blue ceramic figures that also came from Campbell Street.

  Another integral part of Quay life was the little grocery shop there. It was run by a woman, and despite the gallons of disinfectant she and her husband poured over the floor, always smelt of mice and rats. This woman spoke fast, and her turn of phrase was so very Australian it was like a language of its own. ‘Bran’ new, never been worn before, tore it on a floggin’ nail’ was her vivid description of tearing an apron which I never forgot.

  The Quay yielded other delights. A Chinese ship was in town and as I was walking down from Plasto’s hotel, I saw a line of sailors from the boat. They had been fishing at Circular Quay and were walking hand in hand along the street. Every second one was carrying an octopus. It looked so Oriental.

  When a Dutch ship docked on Queen Wilhelmina’s birthday, Dutch sailors wandered round, wearing necklaces of yellow flowers in honour of their queen’s birthday.

  I’ll never forget another sight I witnessed going down to Rah Fizelle’s studio another night. A tall, thin blonde girl ran out of an hotel, bleeding from the mouth and with blood on her chin. A sailor was running after her.

  I stopped, horrified, wondering what was going to happen next.

  But the sailor took the girl in his arms and they kissed passionately and kept on kissing, the blood still pouring down her chin. Even though I felt I should move, I couldn’t stop looking at them.

  The harbour fascinated me. I suppose this was because I grew up in the country and hardly saw any water except when the river flooded, until I suddenly discovered the harbour that first summer in Sydney.

  The most romantic night I ever spent in Sydney was on the harbour, and it began at the Quay.

  Dora Jarret had been to Paris. This was romantic enough. We were thrilled and envious when she set off. Like everyone else, I still dreamed of going to Paris and studying art; at one stage we even persuaded Madame Henri to come and give her conversation classes to about eight of us in Alison and George Duncan’s studio.

  Coming back to Australia on a French ship, Dora had a love affair with an officer and arrived home engaged. She invited Alison, George and myself to meet her French fiancé. At sunset on a summer evening, sailors from the ship rowed over to Bennelong Point and picked us up. The ship was moored off Kirribilli and we had to climb a steep, almost perpendicular ladder up its side. The harbour at night had always entranced me. Our night with Dora was totally captivating. Even the food was special, fillet steak with champignons. I had never eaten a champignon before; even ordinary mushrooms were rare. We drank French wines, champagne with dessert and liqueurs. Then we sat up on deck looking out on the city lights like distant jewels across the inky indigo water. Dora’s officer had a gramophone in his cabin and afterwards we danced. None of us wanted the night to end. But at midnight the sailors rowed us back to Bennelong Point, thrilling with the splash of oars resounding across the silence.

  The French ship went on to Brisbane, the officer’s attention wavered. He turned to new conquests in new ports, and the romance broke up. Dora was heartbroken.

  Dora was usually involved in whirlwind affairs of the heart, engaged one minute, unengaged the next. Eventually she married a Chinese doctor, but her love life kept us perpetually in suspense and surprise.

  Number 4 Dalley Street, where Alison and George had their first studio, was also a condemned building (owned by the Electricity Commission) so Alison and George paid cheap rent for a large room, plenty big enough for parties, except that the caretaker made it almost impossible.

  The caretaker was a crabby old
man who used to shut the outside door at six o’clock and refused to let anyone in. One Saturday a few of us from the Royal Art came round for an evening with Alison and George. We banged and banged on the door, to no avail. The caretaker wouldn’t let George open the door. ‘Nobody’s having a party here tonight,’ he snapped.

  The studio was on the third floor, the top storey. George had a brainwave. He put his head out the window and lowered a long string – it must have been a whole ball of string – with cooked frankfurts down to the street. We were having a downgrade party that night; punch parties were upgrade, frankfurts and beer were downgrade. Beer bottles followed on another string and we had our party sitting outside in the gutter.

  At last the caretaker grudgingly let us in after much sweet talking from George. But as soon as the party warmed up and we started dancing on the bare boards, the caretaker was back, thumping on the studio door for quiet.

  ‘Mad artists!’ he shouted through the keyhole. This was his favourite refrain.

  George later found out the cause of the caretaker’s obsessive fear about opening the door after six. The back lanes between Bridge Street and the Quay were frequented by sailors and men off ships. They went on shore leave drinking sprees after the pubs closed at six o’clock, and there was nowhere else for them to go. Back lanes saw savoury and unsavoury action of all sorts. Two sailors had been sick on the steps of 4 Dalley Street. The caretaker ordered them off. The sailors wouldn’t budge; they were happily sprawled across the steps, singing. The caretaker went into his room and fetched a kettle of boiling water which he poured under the front door.

  Boiling water got the sailors moving all right; it scalded them. It also made them angry. They swore they would come back and do for the caretaker. That’s why he kept the door closed after dark; he was frightened of the sailors returning.

  Often after a party, I would catch the tram home from the terminus at the Quay. The Coogee, Bondi and Maroubra trams all left from Circular Quay. Each tram had a different-coloured light in front. The Coogee tram was green. One night I was up in Phillip Street waiting for its green light to appear. I waited and waited; there was no sign of a tram. A taxi came by and stopped. The driver asked me what I was doing.

  ‘You’ve missed the last tram,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t hang about here if I was you. I’ll take you home.’

  I don’t have the money for a taxi,’ I answered. This was the truth.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. If I had a daughter, I wouldn’t want her standing round late at night. Hop in, I’ll take you home for nothing,’ he said, and he did. I didn’t know whether to trust him or not but something about his face told me he was honest, and he was most fatherly on the trip out to Randwick.

  It wasn’t very long before Alison and George moved to a studio in Bridge Street, which in those days had a row of palm trees growing in the middle of it. Their new studio was as spacious as Dalley Street. It still had three flights of stairs to climb, but there was no cantankerous caretaker to contend with. Number 8 Bridge Street became famous for its innumerable bohemian parties.

  That was where I saw the last of my old flame, Luigi Nobili. Luigi rented himself a room on the top floor of a building in Dalley Street opposite Alison and George’s new studio. To Luigi’s consternation, he caught the mumps and no one would go near him, especially the men. It was quite a bad case and Luigi’s face had to be swathed in bandages. Alison could see up into his room; she used to wave across, trying to cheer him up.

  Luigi’s idea of convalescence was to paint his self-portrait. My last image of the Latin lover is a swollen-faced figure busily at work before a large easel, reproducing his bandaged self.

  My own studio at 38A Pitt Street was also a largeish room. Along with the rest of my paraphernalia, I successfully shifted over my red cedar shelving and my mirror from Margaret Street. Miriam Moxham, who had found the building, rented a studio there, too.

  The rent was cheap at 12s a week, but we did have a caretaker now, a woman. I had seen Alison and George’s sufferings at the hands of their caretaker and 38A Pitt Street was my initiation. Caretakers were always most suspicious of artists. I was lucky to have escaped so far.

  Our grey-haired, lard-complexioned, many-times-a-grandmother caretaker Queenie refused to give either Miriam or me a key to the front door. We had to rely on her letting us in, which was infuriating when we wanted to paint at night or on the weekend.

  Queenie had what she called ‘SP-ing’ at the back of the building. She ran an illegal betting establishment and had a room lined with telephones to take bets. This meant she didn’t like anyone being in the place on Saturday afternoon or Sunday, in case it attracted the attention of the police.

  A constant battle of wits went on between us and Queenie. We had one laugh on her, however. Miriam came into my studio almost choking with laughter.

  ‘Has Queenie told you about her operation?’ Miriam spluttered.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s just given me a blow-by-blow description,’ Miriam shrieked. ‘She told me she had forty-six stitches in her penis.’ Miriam, normally rather proper, shrieked with laughter again. ‘Forty-six stitches in her penis, my dear!’

  ‘Miriam, you can’t be serious.’ I was as much astonished at Miriam at the revelation.

  ‘Yes, I am serious,’ Miriam replied. ‘That’s what she said. I don’t know what she meant, but that’s what she said.’

  Maybe she meant forty-six stitches in the place where her penis would be if she were a man; that’s as far as we dared hazard a guess. Queenie herself never shed any further light on her predicament.

  Each studio party had its own special name. Alison and George’s ‘loincloth party’ was held at 8 Bridge Street.

  The guest of honour was Professor Radcliffe-Brown, who was the head of anthropology at the University of Sydney and a member of the Five Arts Club. Radcliffe-Brown was a well-known celebrity round Sydney in those days and a bit of a dandy with long hair and a monocle. He was to entertain the party with a demonstration of Pacific Island dancing, for which purpose he brought along a gramophone and a sarong to put on for his number.

  The guests streamed in, some sedately dressed in street clothes, others in more fancy dress. Dora Jarret came as a pierrot in a pretty dress with a frilled neck and Alison’s cousin wore a grass skirt in honour of the professor.

  A frail, delicate girl who wrote fairy stories and lived in a tiny room at the top of number 8 was enamoured of Professor Radcliffe-Brown. Most of us were; he was very good-looking. The fairy story writer arrived at the party decked out in trails of orange, green and brown georgette. Her long, dusty red hair hung loose to her waist. I asked her what she had come as.

  ‘I’m an autumn leaf,’ she answered. An autumn leaf was just what she looked like, an autumn leaf, newly dropped, ready to be bowled along by the wind. The professor was nice enough to everyone, but I don’t think he gave her a second glance as she wilted around, desperate with unrequited love.

  It was a hot night and after two or three glasses of George’s powerful rum punch, the party was away. The professor emerged wrapped in a scrap of material from New Guinea or somewhere. Very fetching, very exotic. As soon as he started his South Seas dance routine, the party became out of control. Everyone was stripping off, though the girls didn’t undress as much as the males. The men grabbed the drapes off the models’ throne and improvised their own loincloths, much briefer than sarongs. Hardly there at all. Amid gales of laughter, we dubbed it ‘the loincloth party’.

  The men cavorted in their loincloths, doing more island dancing. George was wrapped in a piece of curtain netting embossed with pink and green roses. My sister Mollie had come to the party with me. Her eyes opened wide when she saw George in his netting.

  ‘I don’t mind him wearing it,’ she whispered agitatedly in my ear. ‘But I don’t think it ought to be net. George is such a large man.’

  I don’t know if it was the net or what she glimpsed u
nder it that was upsetting Mollie. Perhaps she would have preferred George in chintz.

  The professor was in his element, undulating round the room, monocle miraculously in place, equally charming every woman. I used to consider myself a bit of an Isadora Duncan. I did a dance at studio parties to the ‘Pagan Love Song’. I Isadoraed away the night. The loincloth party was a raging success.

  The party started to wind down about two or two thirty. Mollie and I had well and truly missed the last tram.

  ‘Not to worry,’ the professor declared gallantly. ‘I will escort you home in a taxi.’

  We left about three and made out way up Pitt Street, Mollie, the professor and I. The professor, who had thrown a black opera cloak over his loincloth, seemed to have entirely forgotten or abandoned his ordinary clothes.

  We went up to the Café de Fairfax, an all-night cafe on wheels frequented by reporters and newspaper staff, on the corner of Pitt and Hunter Streets, outside the Herald building. When we had finished devouring pies as if they were the greatest luxury around, the professor grandly hailed a cab. He sat in the middle of the back seat with a fond arm round Mollie and me on either side of him.

  Somewhat to our alarm, he dismissed the cab outside the flats in Botany Street and came tiptoeing after us. To make matters worse, we had lost our front door key. We crept up the path: me first, then Mollie, with the professor in the rear. Mollie put her finger to her lips.

  ‘Don’t make a noise or you’ll wake our mother,’ she mouthed at the professor. We were going to be in enough strife coming home so late if Mum caught us without having to explain a professor in loincloth and opera cloak. Cautiously I opened the window of the downstairs flat in which we were living and scrambled in. Mollie followed. The professor was about to do likewise – his hand was on the sill – when Mollie slammed the window shut.

  ‘Go home, you must leave, our mother is awake,’ Mollie mouthed again through the safety of the window glass.

  The professor made frantic gestures of protest from the lawn, but Mollie ignored his pleas. He stared through the window, staggered at this rejection. Thank goodness he was too much of a gentleman to break the glass. Eventually we heard him making his way off down the path. Mollie and I looked at each other, rolled our eyes, heaved sighs of relief and stole off to bed.