Homesickness

by Murray Bail

  There were fine realistic renderings of Daguerre, Talbot, Lartigue, Rejlander and Julia Cameron, et cetera; a mysterious oval portrait of Mangin; and what appeared to be a child’s drawing on graph paper of Lewis Carroll. From America came a rare blurred portrait of Marey descending stairs and in charcoal a Cherokee’s sketch of Brady. There was a small group of twentieth-century works where a painter has employed a photograph (Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol), closing with a stunning tongue-in-cheek canvas after the French aristocrat Picabia, Portrait of Camera, (c. 1917).

  But was photography ‘art’?

  A brave attempt to sort this one out was made at the big Hayward Gallery, across the river. Posters and banners announced the continuous conceptual ‘event’: a series of boxing matches between artists and photographers. Big names had flown in from Europe and across the Atlantic. So far, the artists had won every round, though each fight was recorded on videotape—a point the photography faction claimed as an overall victory. A number of photographers were accused of cheating. A disciple of crazy Eadweard Muybridge insisted on wrestling with his opponents, naked. Shoot-outs between trigger-happy Polaroid teams took place at dusk.

  Gerald didn’t bother crossing the river. He’d returned to the hotel, bewildered.

  ‘What about the Tate Gallery?’ Hofmann asked, being sympathetic. The Tate had a fine collection of stripe paintings. He’d been planning to go.

  ‘Don’t bother. I was told that instead of the paintings—can you imagine—they’ve tracked down the actual subject or place. And these were carefully photographed—understand?—so a person could see what the scene really was like. So at the Tate there’s nothing but colour slides of French canals, haystacks and lily ponds, apples, yellow chairs, and ballet dancers; God knows what else. For this they flew one photographer to Tahiti, so I was told.’ And Gerald hung his hands between his legs. ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to.’

  Sheila felt sorry for him; she hated seeing people upset. Gerald drained his dry sherry and ordered another.

  ‘So that’s what’s on at the Tate?’ Hofmann said.

  Borelli who had joined them looked down at the carpet, toeing a crown.

  ‘Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism, Abstract Expressionism and Tourism are all related. I doubt now whether one can do without the other.’

  Oh and Commercialism, never one to be left out: two multinationals, Kodak and the Kraft Corporation, had joined forces to sponsor a European food photographic competition, ‘SAY CHEESE!’

  Hofmann turned to Borelli.

  ‘If it’s tourism they’re after, they’re going about it the wrong way. I must say I’m surprised at the British letting this happen. They’re normally better than anyone with museums. As I say, I’m surprised.’

  ‘I completely agree,’ said Gerald, putting it mildly.

  But Kaddok had bumped into his chair, followed by Gwen.

  ‘Ah, hello there,’ said Kaddok in his monotone. His fingers followed the edge of the bar. ‘My wife and I have just been to the National Gallery. It was the finest exhibition I’ve ever seen.’

  As Kaddok spelt out the highlights they sat quietly, politely. Gritting his teeth Gerald looked towards the door.

  ‘Leon just loves his camera,’ Gwen whispered to Sheila.

  ‘Tell you what’—Garry Atlas had sat down—‘have you been to the Imperial War Museum? I’d always wanted to have a squiz there. What I’ve always wanted to see was a real Spitfire. I’ve never seen a Spitty. But all they had up was aerial photographs, whacking great things, of bomb damage—mainly World War Two. Chrrrist, you should see Hiroshima. Not a shack standing. They also had about six different camera guns.’

  They had a photographic history of camouflage; a discussion on the picture-plane; selection of retouched press photographs with captions to show the art of propaganda; nineteen-forties newsreels.

  ‘Hey, and you should have seen this incredible bloody picture of a bullet hitting an apple. Amazing. You’ve got to hand it to the Yanks.’

  ‘Gwen, make a note. Where was that?’

  The rest were intrigued, but subdued.

  Since they had arrived, this famous city London seemed to have become one vast montage. And already there was something dated in the sight, or even the thought, of such well-documented factography. Unlike painting, photography wasn’t timeless. It depended on death. The curiously dated clothing in photographs of former prime ministers standing in Downing Street reminded them of the past and their own fleeting presence. Photography: melancholia.

  In the hollow-sounding halls of London University a seminar chaired by an Austrian discussed ‘The Difference between Photography and Philosophy’: ‘Vell I vould have thought, yes, vun is logical vhile the other is negative.’

  Commiserating with Gerald, Borelli suggested that the armies of photographers tend to come from countries similarly bent on golf: America and Japan, for example. These people photograph to indicate their freedom, to remind themselves and others of the work which enabled the leisure. With his photograph a photographer likes to feel superior to the viewer. Familiar scenes—Borelli went on—are given meaning or context by the photographer placing the partner, usually a wife, in the foreground. Later this proves not merely ‘I was there’ but ‘I saw’.

  ‘I say,’ Kaddok objected, as Louisa gaily laughed.

  Mrs Cathcart stumped over to the news-stand to see the postcards. At least Doug joined in, nodding, ‘This is right, this is right.’

  Garry Atlas ordered another round, and cold ones, not that warm piddle.

  Remembering Wimbledon, Sheila told them how she’d bumped into that Australian man they’d seen in Africa, and reddened.

  ‘Then London isn’t entirely grey,’ smiled Borelli, not unkindly. ‘Alas, for some of us, as you have heard, it is.’ He placed his hand on his heart in mourning; and even Gerald, a grey one, had to laugh.

  Nothing appeared to concern Borelli. He was loose with time. Yet as Louisa Hofmann watched he fell silent and gazed down at the floor.

  Glancing at his watch Hofmann took Louisa’s elbow.

  As they were leaving, Cathcart cleared his throat and told Garry about the photos he’d seen at Australia House. These were on special Masonite stands in the foyer, quite an interesting group: shots of old fencing posts, bleached shearing-shed walls, and a selection of eccentric gates taken all over the ruddy outback.

  ‘Christ! That sounds all right,’ Garry nodded sagely.

  Cathcart smacked his lips. ‘And tell you what. It makes you appreciate the old place.’

  They dressed up that night for the theatre, though some had other tickets by mistake. At the Opera the Kaddoks shared a box with Louisa, sat quietly behind her, and in the dark the crumpled arm of Borelli’s jacket kept shifting, occasionally brushing hers. Louisa wasn’t sure what to say. Talking in the group at the hotel she thought he might have looked across and posed one of his questions again, or even acknowledged her. He didn’t seem to notice her. Then why should he? So Louisa began stretching her neck concentrating on the stage, so that no one knew her thoughts. Neatly clasped, her hands formed a T across the programme.

  ‘What beautiful scenery,’ she whispered out of the blue.

  Borelli sat up. ‘Shall we have a drink?’ He turned to the Kaddoks too. ‘I’m having one.’

  In the loges opposite Louisa saw other people seated motionless, intently watching the opera. Shirt fronts and pale irregular faces showed as patches of light; jewellery and spectacles glittered in the dark; here and there equidistant mauve stars (contact lenses?) shone similar to the eyes of foxes when caught in a spotlight. Louisa no longer looked at the heavy soprano, now tiptoeing with the strain. One hand rested on her cheek. She bit her top lip. For the audience, of which she was part, this was entertainment at the end of a long day. Fashions had changed but in the darkened hall the scene would have been the same as on any night seventy or a hundred years ago. Men and women then had dressed up and sat in thes
e seats through each act, engrossed, a night out. They had since gone; had died. This audience too, these men and women, would gradually be replaced. They sat now engrossed, some leaning forward, oblivious.

  This faceless replacement of life and pleasure caught and held Louisa. She felt isolated and irrelevant; a childless body draped in fine clothing briefly bumping around. Even pleasure seemed futile. When the lights came on she suddenly wanted to be alone. The Kaddoks said something and stumbled out.

  Louisa wanted to turn away.

  ‘Isn’t it odd when you look at it,’ Borelli was murmuring. Slumped in his seat he waved one hand: ‘That a place like this has been specially built to be filled with polite people, strangers sitting next to each other, to witness some entertainment or other performed by other people? And see how it’s been built; deliberately ornate, almost grotesque. It has to be ornate. No one wants to come to a bare hall. This decoration says: you are out having a good time. You are, for the evening, in a separate remote world. Or feelings to that effect.’

  The tall walls were fluted, balustraded, spiral-columned, draped with royal velvet and lunging caryatids. The ceiling was pastel cupola, inside of a lemon, gesso, adorned with little lights.

  Borelli remained slumped.

  ‘I wonder if other cultures have these elaborate, set-aside places? It all seems strange. Do you feel that? I wouldn’t, myself, have come here if I wasn’t travelling.’

  Louisa glanced at him. His speculations had wandered up and down and around her, searching. Vaguely they were similar to what she had been thinking, though not exactly.

  ‘Partly, that’s why we travel. Tourism compresses time and events.’ He laughed at himself. ‘In a sense we actually live longer. At least that’s what a tourist somehow feels.’

  ‘You have so many theories.’ And she was about to add, ‘What good do they do?’ But when she looked at him, he was still slumped.

  ‘You were tired before; you look pale.’

  He sat up. ‘You’re right.’

  Her foot knocked over the gin-and-tonic. It was enough: she began crying, a little. She couldn’t stop herself.

  Borelli was leaning close to her.

  ‘I am sorry. I didn’t mean…’

  ‘It’s not your fault. But I don’t know,’

  The night, the emptiness, the distance. Her size.

  His hand took her arm.

  ‘Shhh. You should be happy. Imagine yourself. You’re on holiday. Isn’t that what they say?’

  ‘It was my husband’s idea. It was to go away together. I don’t mind but it was his idea. We haven’t been getting on.’

  ‘Then, Louisa, you’re not having a good time?’

  ‘I am really!’ She suddenly smiled.

  The Kaddoks had returned.

  Taking out a small round mirror Louisa began checking her face and telling Borelli about the stripe painting Ken had bought at Christie’s. He nodded, watching her. Part of Gwen’s burlap shawl came between them. Smiling in the dark, Gwen asked if one of them could change seats so Leon could photograph the last act.

  Such a cold afternoon, Tuesday, as expected. A river of a wind to boot. It soaked into their ears, chill brains, and down their open necks, cleft chins and cleavages. It soon found gullies in their trousers; entered regions where it shouldn’t. They were crossing the Thames: which of the London bridges? It was possible to walk across all nine in a day. North had undertaken to guide them. He had a map and a pair of sturdy shoes. The cold certainly livened the man up. Among many other things he noted English tramps were attracted to bridges and invariably wore neckties (usually red). And it seemed that much of the population was either lost or establishing its location: so Sasha and Violet began laughing whenever they saw a couple bent over a map in a small sedan, or another policeman pointing for a squinting pedestrian. A colonel consulted a khaki compass. Taxi drivers shouted across at confused drivers. Almost from birth, North had an unusual knack for folding maps. People would bring them to him to fold. It was his love of maps, of globes and atlases, which had years ago led him, in a roundabout way, into the world of zoology. So many maps had he pored over in his time that he dressed, without fully realising, in the gentle pastels of cartography: yellow corduroy trousers (6000–9000 feet above sea level), the jacket of darkly woven maroon (Antarctic Tundra), shirt of Viyella peach (less than 1 inch of rainfall per annum), and the red fleck in his woollen tie looked like International Boundaries or ‘population over 500 persons per square mile’.

  They sat down in ye olde tea shoppe and Sasha’s nose was shining. Violet lit up a cigarette.

  ‘Colleague of mine in Sydney,’ North was telling them, ‘collected railway stations. He claimed to have the finest collection, I think it was, in the Southern Hemisphere. Of course. Jack had travelled a good deal in his youth. For example, he still has the old Dresden station, and some of those in Japan, before they were destroyed. You’d find with Jack that he’d always angle a conversation around to bring out his “collection”. Nothing would stop him then.”

  North laughed softly. His shoulders shook. Sasha and her friend were both interested.

  ‘In his collection he has the world’s hottest station, the longest and the widest. There is one somewhere or other that’s circular. He often mentions Mussolini’s station at Rome. Do you know that one? Huge marble mausoleum. He even has one of the mock ones stashed away, built in Germany for the concentration camps… But I must say, others sound extremely attractive. Up in the Himalayas, a tiny one which smells of fresh tea leaves; coffee-smelling ones in Brazil too. My favourite is the Zanzibar station. According to Jack, it’s always hot and has a permanent aroma of cloves.’

  Sipping his tea, North pulled a face.

  ‘Reminds me. He spent years, home, trying to duplicate railway-station tea and coffee, but could never quite achieve this elusive wateriness. Let me think. What else did he have? That famous New York station located under the skyscraper, and a Mexican one inside a cathedral. Flinders Street, Amritsar, Edinburgh and Rangoon. In the Philippines the station built completely out of cane—cane walls, cane seats. There was a nightmarish one somewhere…I forget now…but it was completely rusty. The platform, benches, even the ticket office, according to him, were all made from old railway track. Passengers would always come away with orange hands. But he’s like any collector. It’s the rarities he’s most proud about. He has one where the trains are always early, Latin American stations suspended by cables, and one near the Arctic Circle where the platform is made from blocks of ice, and replaced every night—a translucent station. A good collection. But I’ve been talking too much. Excuse me.’

  ‘No, go on! He sounds terribly interesting.’

  ‘Oddballs are, aren’t they?’ Violet added, inhaling; and a sliding shadow of a double decker engulfed her arms, face and throat.

  North coughed. ‘Well, he prefers Leftish governments everywhere, because they appear to have more time for railway stations. His favourite painter of course is the Belgian man, Delvaux; and there’s apparently a German collagist who liked to use train tickets in his act. With books he’ll talk only about those which have a climactic chapter in railway stations. You know, Anna Karenina, To the Finland Station, and so on. The ones he holds high though are a little Czech book, A Close Watch on the Trains and an English one—John Wain—called A Smaller Sky. Both are novels set entirely inside railway stations. I can only tell you all that because he forced me to read them.’

  Violet pulled a face. ‘Fancy living with such a man. How obsessive.’

  ‘I think it would be funny,’ Sasha laughed.

  Looking at North she noticed he’d let one of his cuffs unravel. A thread was hanging down.

  ‘He is obsessive, but then I’ve told you only the railway station side of him. I imagine he’s what the newspapers call Incurable Romantic. He is a harmless, gentle character. Such people are antidotes; I sometimes think we’d go mad without them. Jack actually is extremely intelligent. In
any case, collecting appears to be a central human characteristic. We are, ah, part Bower Bird.’

  ‘Is he a good friend of yours?’ Sasha asked.

  ‘I used to see a good deal of him!’

  ‘I’d love to meet him.’

  ‘Sasha, what for?’

  North smiled: lines spreading out from his eyes, sinusoidal projections. ‘If you like, but he’s my age. He’s old enough to be your grandfather. Shall we move? I think we should.’

  Again and again: bent figures consulting maps. On the second last bridge they saw the Kaddoks approaching, Kaddok holding his wife’s elbow, at a jog.

  ‘Hello,’ Sasha waved. ‘We’ve just been—’

  ‘Leon’s left his light meter on a train. Does anyone know the Lost Property Office? We can’t get a taxi at this hour.’

  As they spoke a ferry-load of tourists below tilted up and photographed them: five talking on a London bridge.

  North said, ‘It used to be over there. It’s not far, but it’s complicated.’ He turned to the others. ‘Shall we drop the last bridge?’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Sasha.

  It was an old brown station made redundant by inflation.

  Sasha leaned against North, ‘I bet your friend what’s-his-name doesn’t have this one.’

  North stroked his beard. ‘I don’t remember it being like this myself.’

  It resembled the small out-of-the-way museum, run by a dedicated amateur. The Found Objects, as the sign pointed inside, were behind the counter, placed at easy intervals on tables and shelves, labelled, clearly visible. There were also pigeon holes; as the attendant explained to North, these were for lost pigeons. You’d be surprised how many they get, some with foreign words on their feet.