Window Gods

by Sally Morrison

  ‘No darling. Miles has a wife and a son. He’s retired now and lives down on the coast. David used to show with him when he first came down to Melbourne to be near Allegra. He doesn’t have anything to do with David these days because of the debacle at Mad Meg. Bart kept up with David for a while, but even he was disgusted and only did it because without him, David had no other family.’

  ‘And now I’m his only family?’

  ‘Yes love. I suppose there are other members of his family around somewhere, but David’s never looked for them and they’ve never looked for him.’

  ‘Gosh, Figments is still famous, even though it’s been shut for years.’

  ‘Yes, Siècle is the only one from those days still in the area. Figments was great. It was just up the hill from Mad Meg in a warehouse. Bart brought his artists down from Sydney once to have a big double show there called Turner at Figments. That’s when David met Allegra. Bart and Miles were very good at promoting the work of young Australian artists. They took it right up to the taste makers and the big name galleries. Turner would still be going if Bart were still alive and Miles only gave up Figments because he wanted to live out of Melbourne – I think the excitement had gone out of it by then – for Miles, at least.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Perhaps he was afraid of becoming what he despised. His painters went on to become big time. They were the best of that generation…’

  ‘Except for Dad?’

  ‘Look, David wrecked himself in mid-career, Nin. No one wanted to handle him for a while…’

  ‘After what he did to you at Mad Meg?

  ‘Mainly. But there were other things. He was feral, a terrible drunk.’

  ‘Doesn’t drink anymore.’

  ‘Well, that doesn’t surprise me. He probably can’t with all the chemo he’s receiving.’

  ‘Oh, he could. He just doesn’t,’ she says as if she is sticking up for him…then, a little bit aggressively, ‘Anyway, what happened to Mad Meg?’

  ‘I thought you knew that, too.’

  ‘Bits of it, but I want to know what you think.’

  ‘Well, Mad Meg was great, but a bit of a failure – not in the feminist sense, but financially. We didn’t have any business nous; we thought we were living through a revolution or something – well, Allegra did. Bart and Miles had nous. They definitely took after their mother; Therese trained as an accountant when she had David to look after. David takes after her in looks – she was a nice, compact little woman with thick, dramatic hair that clung to her head like David’s before it all fell out.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Died. She was old.’

  ‘So he lived with Miles after he came to Melbourne?’

  ‘Yes. Sort of “camped” with Miles when he decided to stay down here and I remember how jubilant Miles was when Allegra relieved him of the responsibility. David kind of went from minder to minder…’ and it occurs to me that he is still going from minder to minder. People are very stuck in their ways when you look at it. It’s very, very hard to break out of the mould. Maybe you can’t.

  ‘Are he and Checkie an item?’ I suddenly think to ask in case history is going to repeat itself right down to the level of the bed.

  ‘No.’ Nin looks startled.

  ‘Just wondered.’

  ‘He has his own room. She likes having him around now he’s stopped smoking and he’s very neat. And he knows everything about art that interests her, Bel.’ She brushes the back of her head with her toy-free hand and looks up at me at last with an expression verging on anger. ‘And he’s talented, you have to admit that…’

  ‘But that’s not…’ My mouth again. I was going to say that’s not the point; I’ve never said David didn’t have talent or that his work wasn’t interesting. Nor have I ever said that he didn’t know what he was talking about. He can be quite convincing in what he says – but it doesn’t take a genius to pick his prejudices. And it’s very, very hard to tell a child that their father is despicable. ‘It’s not straightforward, Nin. I find him a burden.’

  ‘Because of me?’

  ‘Well, I need to be honest here. David was never capable of looking after you and he gave me bugger-all support, material or emotional, if you really want to know. Whenever he gave us anything it’d come in a large wad so it looked as though he was giving us a lot. I got into a rage once and worked out that he averaged about a thousand dollars a year towards your keep and that didn’t nearly cover costs. He was never amenable to anything when you were a child – I couldn’t ask him for anything – in fact, we spent most of our time hiding from him so he wouldn’t aggravate us. I know he’s been a better father to you since you grew up – but it’s easier to be a father in absentia than the hands-on dad of a little kid. So, in that way, I’ve had to carry David. But he’s a burden to me also because of what he did to my show and because of the appalling way he treated Allegra.’

  ‘Do you think he was responsible for her death?’

  ‘Well…I’m not going to ask you the silly question he always used to ask us whenever we found him baffling. He used to ask “What do you think I think?” As if we could make his own thoughts clear to him. You have to understand that David’s childhood and adolescence were completely stuffed up. Bart and Miles did what they could for him, but he’d been ridiculed or assaulted by his grandfather for everything he did, every aptitude he showed… In the end, who killed Allegra? Maybe Cec Turner.’

  Or then again, maybe Allegra herself. Love keeps me steering shy of blaming Allegra. If she’d known how many houses of cards she would bring down, how many hearts she would break – and whose – she wouldn’t have had the callousness to do away with herself. Of that I’m sure.

  ‘And then, there’s depression. Depression puts you outside. You live like a shade in Hell. You daren’t tell the people you love what you see and what you experience for fear that you will drag them into the whirlpool with you. I know this because I’ve been there. “Love” just becomes a cardboard coin to trade. You can say you love someone and they love you, but really, it’s just a syllable in your mouth, you become an alien, un-human, your body functions like a check-out chick upfront…Oh, I’m sorry, darling, now I’ve made you cry.’

  She flings herself on my neck, great globular tears budding from her lashes, splashing us both. ‘You’re good at tears, my baby.’ I pat her back. ‘But if it’s Checkie who’s made you the offer of work, be very careful. She might be my half-sister, but her mother was a crocodile and I think Checkie is, too. I fear she’s using David to get to you to spite me.’

  Nevertheless I can see that Siècle is one direction in which Nin could turn to her great advantage. She could become part of it and, as Checkie hasn’t any children…But no, Checkie will leave Siècle and its story to the state – at best, Nin would end up as her minion. I set her back down on the couch so I can look at her with more composure. ‘So what do they want you to do at Siècle?’

  She wipes the tears off her cheek with a lavish twist of the hand and shrugs, looking down into the plastic face of Bob the Builder. Then, disingenuously, ‘How do you know they want me to do anything?’

  ‘Because I do.’

  ‘Wish the art world wasn’t so full of scheming. It’s not my fault, is it?’

  ‘No. And I suppose they could do with someone like you, someone who isn’t a born bitch. You always sound so pleasant, like fresh air.’

  ‘Yes, Checkie is a bit of a bitch, isn’t she?’ She laughs through her tears. ‘She’s such a smarm on the phone. Calls herself Chechilia Coretti.’

  ‘Of course… eyelids at half mast, UberMelburnian intonations, Che-chilia Coretti speaking.

  ’ ‘You got it.’

  It’s sickening to think Checkie has as much right as Nin or I have to call herself Coretti – but go on, Isobel, accept, accept, what’s in a name?

  ‘I’m glad she’s not your mother,’ I say.

  ‘So am I.’

  �
��If you were her daughter, you know, you wouldn’t be with Wendy.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Whatever your sexuality, you’d be married off to some rich bloke.’

  ‘But Checkie’s not married herself.’

  ‘I’m sure Viva tried to make it happen. There was a terrible crumb in her life once who came from a rich family – his surname was on the lips of all the arterati; they were even going to announce the banns at a top notch church, would you believe? They became high church Anglicans with big black crosses around their necks for a while there after Dadda died. But it didn’t happen.’

  ‘Checkie might be a rebel against Viva?’

  ‘Oh darling, don’t be fooled. She’s a clone: all she needed was Harry Laurington’s money and gallery know-how to set herself up in her own way as a wealthy woman. I think Checkie hasn’t married because she hasn’t met anyone who would suit. If she had a daughter, she’d be on the lookout for royalty or a billionaire to add more rungs to her ladder. Checkie’s all about hierarchy, position.’

  ‘Why would she want to get hold of me, then? I’m a lesbian mother.’

  ‘You’ve got cachet, babe. You’re beautiful, you’re personable, you know the family history and you’re Allegra’s daughter. She’d love to get hold of you.’

  I don’t add that she’d love to get hold of the paintings, too, because that could lead us to bedlam. Nin stands still now, tossing the toy limply and looking dazed. At length, she says, ‘How do you work out that she’d use me socially?

  ‘It hasn’t occurred to you?’

  ‘Only…kind of…hmm.’ She puts a hand on her hip and looks to me for an answer.

  ‘I don’t know, Ninny. I might be quite wrong, but I’m not altogether wrong, am I?’

  ‘But Checkie likes Wendy…And I have to say, Aunty Bel, that it’s more than you do.’

  Well, this puts a different complexion on things. A large, dry peanut butter sandwich-ful of news. Think of it. Wendy and Nin both under Siècle’s wing.

  No, I don’t adore Wendy, it’s true. She’s branded me as a homophobe. But I’m not objectively a homophobe. I just don’t think I share Wendy’s values, whatever they are – I have a darned hard time working them out. I don’t think the same way as Wendy.

  ‘Are you worried about the paintings?’ Nin asks.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Don’t forget there’ll be Grandma’s money one of these days. That would keep you going for a bit.’

  ‘Oh Nin!’ Now I think it’s my turn to cry. But you don’t cry, Isobel, do you, because guess what? Right at the psychological moment – even though you wouldn’t cry anyway, would you? – we can hear the latch clicking and Daniel running up the path. Nin gets up and walks really fast down to the door, with ‘Guess who’s come? Guess who’s come?’

  ‘Sibella!’ shrieks Daniel and hurls himself into my arms – Sibella is the name my father called me and it came miraculously from Daniel’s lips as he struggled to say ‘Isobel’.

  ‘Hello Danny-boy,’ I try to say joyfully.

  ‘I not Danny-boy. ‘I’n Ironman.’ Daniel has come up with ‘I’n’ as the opposite of ‘I’m not’.

  Wendy follows him in unsmilingly. Wendy would rather I was out of their lives. Wendy and I in the same room together make Nin nervous. Now that Wendy’s here, Nin would like to shovel me out the door. She perches forward on her toes, ‘Go on, Dan, get your gear.’

  ‘Why Sibella not have a sleepover at our home?’

  ‘You’re going to have a sleepover at hers.’

  ‘I want she have a sleepover here. She can sleep my bed.’

  Wendy goes, ‘Your Mummies need to relax, Dan. It’s been a sorely trying day.’

  ‘What means sorely trying?’

  ‘Tiring. We’re tired,’ says Wendy.

  ‘No, you not.’

  ‘Daniel.’ Nin is breathing heavily. ‘GO and GET your GEAR!’

  And I know where Nin is. I’ve been there – the child of your body and the mother of your mind are making life difficult for you and your lover.

  No, you can’t get out of the world, Isobel. You’re in it for keeps and if you have to unravel Nin’s cryptic silences, then Wendy is out to invent ulterior motives for what she thinks are your ulterior motives.

  Daniel comes hurtling out with his paper-cup windmill, his red Spider-man cape and his Ben 10 trolley and wants me to carry him out to the car. ‘Dillbone,’ I say to him, ‘I haven’t got ten hands.’

  A letter addressed to Eli came here this morning. I wish I knew where he was so I could send it on. I’m beginning to fret that he hasn’t contacted me by now. I hate being anxious about Eli because it wrecks my concentration and my ability to handle my million and fifty commitments.

  When he brought Phoebe back to marry her, they were full of plans. There was an apartment to buy in Washington, a Porsche… ‘A Porsche!’ went Nin. ‘How can you afford a Porsche?’

  I was still driving rattle traps and Nin was riding a bike to school.

  ‘Mon-ney!’ sang Phoebe; she had a marvellous voice, deep, rich and tuneful. ‘We’re rich folk now.’

  ‘You’re rich!’ Nin twitted. ‘Eli’s not.’

  They had booked a flash hotel in town and now we were sitting on the floor of the humble single-fronter corridor with bedrooms off that had served as our home since I had to sell up the beloved bungalow of my nightmares. Around us was a mound of tissue paper and London bags and we drank lemon and ginger tea and ate homemade plum cake with double cream. Phoebe was a glamorous angel descended into our midst, decked out in the latest and loveliest chic clothes.

  ‘Oh, I went mad after Pakistan,’ she sang. There were bags, too, full of things for Nin and me. ‘Don’t worry! The salary’s fantastic!’

  ‘Will you go back there?’ I asked her.

  ‘Oh, I have to all the time. It’s part of the job. The US is heavily involved in Pakistan. I have to go to high level meetings with generals and do all the translating.’

  ‘What do you wear then?’ asked Nin. She was trying to picture Phoebe among the generals looking as she looked on our floor – ‘like something out of Harpers Bizarre!’ as Nin was fond of calling the Bazaar.

  ‘Oh civvies, Nin.’ She was smiling. There was no doubt about it. She was sweet and charming and warm and even my wayward, questioning Nin was awestruck.

  ‘You mean pants suits?’

  Eli butted in. ‘You don’t wear pants among the generals, Nin.’

  ‘Cockhead.’ Phoebe lay back in his arms. ‘No Nin, you wear conservative stuff, you know, navy-blue suits and you put on a headscarf if you’re among strict Muslims. I wear a scarf because they don’t come across many blondes over there and you get all sorts of reactions to blonde hair. If I hadn’t spoken the languages better than the other candidates, I wouldn’t have got the job because of my hair.’

  ‘You could always dye it,’ said Nin.

  ‘Well, I do sometimes, Nin, but I’m so fair that the dyes can look weirder than the natural thing, so I have to compromise. I do hair chalk, but if it’s really hot, it gets messy and runs everywhere.’

  ‘Nothing worse than being the same colour as your hair!’

  ‘Well, you’d look funny, Nin,’ said Eli.

  ‘Bel would look funnier. Sort of striped.’

  ‘Well thank you, Nin. So, how often do you go?’ I asked Phoebe.

  ‘It depends what’s happening. It’s quite interesting at the moment. Benazir’s in trouble.’

  ‘Do you know her or something?’ went Nin.

  ‘Shut up, Ninnie.’ I said. ‘Everyone calls her Benazir to distinguish her from her father, who used to be the prime minister. We seem to like her over here, Phoebe. What’s her problem?’

  ‘Well, she hasn’t been able to change anything. The Hudood Ordinances are still in place and a lot of people hate them. And she’s only young. She’s a woman. She’s got a hostile president and army chief – it was the army who did her father in. A
nyone who’s prime minister of Pakistan has a network of obligations replete with nepotism and paybacks for favours. There are no democratic institutions strong enough to override local and tribal interests. That’s just how it is there. Nothing like here. Eli was telling me about Italy and his grandfather’s story. In Italy the fascists killed off the liberal democrats and socialists with the result that the strongest anti-fascist force there during the war was the Mafia and the Mafia got their funding from outside and it was impossible to get rid of them afterwards. You think of it – peasant Italians couldn’t read and write; they were in the hands of local fixers. It’s the same in Afghanistan and Pakistan and now there are pan-Islamic groups emerging, like this Al Qaeda mob. Al Qaeda means “the base” and I guess it’s their intention to spread their message from “the base” of fundamentalist Islam. The fundamentalists want to re-establish Islam as it was in the days of the prophet, but Islam’s never been as it was in the days of the prophet in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where you’ve always had to buy your way into your social position and the weak seek protection from the local strong man. And if you want to buy anything in Afghanistan, you buy it with drugs.’

  ‘Really?’ I began to think about Eli and the photo he’d sent home of himself with the hookah in the hash den.

  ‘Well, they have to keep themselves somehow, Mum,’ said Eli, reading my mind.

  ‘Yes,’ said Phoebe. ‘They don’t have other things. So, in a place where you can’t get pharmaceuticals but there’s an abundance of opium and hash, that’s going to be your source of income. Opium’s everywhere. Newborn babies are anointed with rubs made out of it to send them to sleep. Mothers blow opium smoke into the kids’ mouths or spit the juices from their chewing wads of raw opium into them. And then imagine sitting on your haunches day in and day out weaving carpets as some of them do. It’s slow going. They have to compare every new bit of pattern with a piece already done, because they can’t count, so there are no patterns or anything, so they relieve the tedium with a ball of opium gum in their cheeks or some smoke from a hookah. They use opium and hash like we use aspirin. When I was in my old job, I used to see Afghan women going out from the camps during the sowing season to put in the poppy crops for opium dealers. They used to go out over the mountains, on foot – sometimes the journeys would take days to these hidden valleys…and they knew what they were doing when they got there because they’d been croppers in Afghanistan. They’d sow them and then, at harvest time, back they’d go with their little knives to scrape the seed pods and set them oozing milk. They leave the milk to set into gum overnight on the sides of the poppy heads and then they’d come back and scrape it off. They went and did this all willingly – it’s part of an old, old trade that’s been going on for centuries. Any efforts to stamp it out fail because they just set up black markets in the camps. They grow hash, too. They mature it in sheep or goat skins and you can tell where it’s for sale when they hang the tails up outside their tents.’