by Peter Carey
Under the influence of a number of shandies, Molly began to reminisce about her life.
Annette had no curiosity about the subject. The blend of sentimentality and naivete that Molly brought to her tales of the late Mrs Ester offended her, but not nearly so much as the happy smile on Phoebe's face as she decorated her mother's colonial ramblings with "Dear Mummy"'s.
Annette, the faint-hearted, had no confidence in anyone. A few "Dear Mummy"s and she imagined Phoebe's character changed immediately. She saw her back-sliding into sentimentality and provinciality. Sloth and mediocrity, she thought, would come to claim her.
Annette, as usual, leaped to embrace the thing she feared the most.
She sipped what Craig's Hotel was pleased to call sherry and, although she nodded her head politely, her eyes sparkled with indignation.
Phoebe, she saw, was touching my leg beneath the table and the activity was being noted with disapproval by a silent group of Creswick matrons (who sat stiffly at the next white-clothed table) and with lewd amusement by the young boys who waited on us.
It was typical of her luck in life, or so she thought. She had invented Phoebe (another misconception) only to have her treasure plundered by the barbarian opportunist who sat opposite nodding his head, bringing nasal charm to bear on the widow whom Annette judged to be helpless in the face of such dishonest flattery.
Annette, Annette, for Christ's sake. You do me a disservice, an injustice. My heart, at that table, was as light as Molly's. I felt myself, not incorrectly, a kind man. The terrible whimpering journey up through the Brisbane Ranges from Geelong would have been worth it if it had lasted four days not four hours. It had been worth climbing gates, breaking windows and running over both dog and cockerel. I would have run my wheels over cats and goldfish to achieve this end: that Molly, after all, would not go mad with grief. I wished only, as Phoebe's leg pressed gently against mine, that Jack could be alive to witness, if not his daughter's leg, at least the kindness I had shown his widow. I was not a bad man after all. I was capable of kindness, and the kindness, or at least the anticipation of more kindness, built up in me until my ears were humming with the delicious pressure of it. I vowed, there and then in Craig's Hotel, to do everything in my power to make these two women happy. I would nurture them, protect them, be son to one, husband to the other. If it occurred to me that I had stolen a family from Jack, I must have wrapped the ugly thought in blankets, trussed it up with twine, dispensed it quickly down a laundry chute, slammed the lid behind it.
The cook had, at last, gone home. The young boys stood in the corner and watched the agitation beneath the tablecloth. They were in no hurry to knock off and did not mind that Molly wanted to tell her daughter the story of her journey to Point's Point. They admired Annette's breasts as she leaned back, bored and miserable, in her chair. When she brought an ebony cigarette holder to her wide red lips, they could only think that she must surely be an actress. Thus distracted, they missed the real event at the centre table which was Molly, who had glimpsed a future, like a rosella, hardly seen, swooping through the high umbrellas of the bush.
59
I stayed in my room alone that night, which is just as well, for if I had followed my natural inclinations I would have found my adversary in Phoebe's room engaged in a passionate debate of which I was the subject.
"He is a confidence man," Annette said. "It is there for anyone to see. Even the waiters knew it. They gave the bill to your mother. Doesn't that tell you? They thought he was a gigolo."
Phoebe had taken off her hat and veil and kicked off her shoes. She sat cross-legged on the bed, a little drunk, not caring if she crushed the black linen suit she had, all day, been most particular about. A red toenail peeped through a hole in her stockinged foot and reminded Annette, painfully, of the girl with ingrained dirt on her knees and ink smudges on her fingers.
"What's a gigolo?"
"You know very well what a gigolo is," Annette smiled. "You want me to say something common."
"Perhaps I do," said Phoebe through barely parted lips, "perhaps I don't." Annette felt a short sharp rip of jealousy because she judged, quite correctly, that the excitement in Phoebe's eyes, the high colour in her cheeks, had been triggered by the pressure of a man's bowed leg.
"A gigolo", Annette said, "is a man paid by a woman for certain services."
"A waiter?" Phoebe suggested.
"No, you stupid child." Her pupils dilated and her eyes did not leave Phoebe's "A man paid to slide his rod," Phoebe whispered, closing her eyes and rocking slyly on her haunches.
Annette moved slowly and sat beside her pupil who smelt of dust and lavender. She kept her hands in her lap and did not risk rejection.
"Oh God," she said. "I'm so miserable."
"Poor Dicksy."
And she was in her arms and Annette was kissing her. "Tell me," she whispered in Phoebe's ear, "tell me what he does to you."
Phoebe told her. She whispered in her ear while Annette moaned and twisted in the opposing tides that would pull at her all her life: pain and pleasure, jealousy and lust, the potential suppliers of which contradictory needs she would recognize in buses and restaurants, on footpaths and in ballrooms, men and women whose sensual lips were never quite in harmony with the unswerving ambition of their brilliant eyes.
60
On Wednesday Molly McGrath ate a breakfast of steak, chops, bacon, fried bread and eggs. Somewhere between the first mouthful and the last she decided that she could not live in Geelong any more. Once she had decided she was eager to be out of it quickly, so quickly that she would, to everyone's surprise, agree to fly in the Morris Farman to Melbourne, leaving behind wardrobes of clothes for the Brotherhood of Saint Laurence and an eccentrically renovated property for Mr O'Brien of Mallop Street to dispose of by auction.
This decided on, although not yet spoken of, she rose from table, went upstairs, packed her case, and, when the urge took her, bustled noisily down the passage to the toilet.
She sat in the huge white-tiled room whose high window contained a perfect square of sky. She grunted happily, pursed her lips, and expelled a turd of such dimension that it would not be flushed down no matter how she tried.
The widow shrugged and turned her back upon it.
Annette, who followed her in, found the thing like a giant beche-de-mer inside the bowl. It lay there, dull and malevolent, a parasite expelled, abandoned on the porcelain shores of Craig's Hotel.
61
I am pleased I have lived long enough to finally meet a psychiatrist, although I cannot believe this one is typical. Jack Slane the lunatic psychiatrist and Maroochydore taxi driver has come out of retirement to take an interest in my case, and when I listen to him I fancy I know why he took to driving taxis.
I told him something (but by no means all) about the snakes. By God, you should have heard him. Snakes and aeroplanes, he says, are not snakes and aeroplanes at all, but symbols. Well, it's entertaining anyway and I would not have missed it for worlds.
When he discovered my tits he nearly wet himself. I expressed a little milk for him and he put it in a bottle to take away.
I told him the tits were just a lie, but he doesn't seem to understand. He has the milk and he is happy and he understands nothing about truth and lies. If my voice was better I would explain it to him. If I had more time I would write a letter for him, but I cannot spend my life amusing him. There are other customers to take care of and I must push on to the years 1920 and 1923 and get them done with. I wish I had been able to control them as well as I can now, for half the time I blundered ignorant and blinkered in the dark, not knowing what was up and what was down, blind as a bat, clumsy as a coot, but now I sit behind my instruments like Christ Almighty summoning up a stolen letter from Jonathon Oakes's drawer to get the next leg started.
62
Oriental Hotel, Collins Street, Melbourne December, 1920 Dear Dicksy, You were wrong to write me off and cruel to ignore my letters which I hope you have
had at least the decency to open. I know what you think about me and hardly a day goes by when your unsympathetic judgement does not cause me pain and I am determined upon convincing you that you are wrong, terribly wrong. You think I have wasted it all, thrown it all away, but I am far too aware of my life, all life – what a treasure it is – to squander it.
You see today I have flown an aeroplane. My eyes are sore and red from dust because I did not like the goggles H. wanted me to wear and so I insisted on going without them. No, it was not a solo flight, but Dicksy, Dicksy, it was a flight. We took off from Port Melbourne where H. has some land and then went right over Port Phillip Bay. I fancied I could see Geelong but am told this was impossible. In any case, Ithought about Geelong, and you there in that terrible school and while the air was so fresh and clean I imagined you (not in a scornful way, I promise you) having to endure all the smells I remember and I fantasized a dictionary of smells which I have rendered, not as a proper dictionary, but as a poem which I will enclose if I can have time to make a fair copy before H. leaves.
You would not recognize Mummy. She has been buying (under my guidance) new clothes and she looks quite the grande dame. She has taken a fancy to the theatre and as Herbert also cares for it (I suspect actresses in his past) we take a box at the Athenaeum, the Lyceum or the Royal and make quite a night of it with dinner afterwards.
You did not say a thing about our plans to marry. Please do not be hurt. You must not be hurt. I will not allow it. I am selfish enough to demand not only your approval (for whose else can I ask?) but also your pleasure in it.
We have plans for entering the next big air race as husband and wife. Doubtless you will read about us in the papers but I would much rather, dear Dicksy, that you took the train up one weekend. I have spoken to Mummy and if you are wretchedly poor at the moment she will happily (yes, happily) pay for your hotel room here at the Oriental where we are quite the "Honoured Guests" and are known to all staff who we are privileged to call by first names although they (do not bite your red revolutionary lips with rage) are not permitted the return of this familiarity.
H. will take no money from us. It is a sore point and we have given up offering to help him while he establishes himself again. The loss of the aircraft factory was a cruel blow to him and now he must start to build up again. He is selling cars for Barret's, the Ford agents, working very hard indeed poor dear. He is also building a house although where or what it is he will not tell us. It is to be my wedding present from him.
Dear Dicksy, he is so kind. He looks after Mummy so nicely and does not complain when she wants to be driven here or there or become impatient when she wants to crawl along at five miles an hour, so slowly that men in horse-drawn wagons want to overtake and shout abuse at us. Hedoes clench his fists around the steering wheel and look like he could bite a rat, but he is quite lamb-like and does nothing nasty.
I have a lovely room overlooking Collins Street and I see all manner of celebrity walking below. Alfred Deakin, a fat old man, was at dinner last night (not at our table) and Herbert was kind enough to get his autograph for Mummy which was so nice of him, because he is not a groveller and the incident must have caused him pain.
I am writing ceaselessly. I am due for flying lessons on every Wednesday morning. I go to the theatre and the galleries. I remember the things that you taught me, Dicksy. I think of you as a true friend. If you will not answer my letters properly at least send me a postcard, unsigned if you wish, to let me know that you are, at least, opening the envelopes.
With much love and affection, your friend, Phoebe 63 Melbourne, in case you did not know, has its charms: botanical gardens, splendid churches, a high-domed public library where an old man can read the newspapers and stay cool on a hot day, etc. But there is no use denying that it is a flat place, divided up into a grid of streets by a draughtsman with a ruler and set square. The names of streets are just as orderly. King precedes William, neatly, exactly parallel. Queen lies straight in bed beside Elizabeth and meets Bourke (the explorer) and Latrobe (the governor) briefly on corners whose angles measure precisely 90 degrees.
Melbourne has a railway station famous for showing fifteen clocks on its front door, like a Victorian matron with a passion for punctuality, all bustle, crinolines and dirty underwear. It has Collins Street which is famous, in Melbourne at least, for resembling Paris, by which it is meant that the street has trees and exclusive shops where women in black with violently red lips and too much powder on their ageing cheeks are able to intimidate women like Molly McGrath by calling them "modom".
Oh, it's a good enough town, but it can take a while to realize it.
There is a passion in Melbourne you might not easily notice on a casual visit and I must not make it sound a dull thing, or sneer at it, for it is a passion I share – Melbourne has a passion for owning land and building houses. There is nothing the people of Melbourne care for as much as their red-tiled roofs, their lemon tree in the back garden, their hens, their Sunday dinners. You will not learn much about the city strolling around the deserted streets on a Sunday, no more than you will learn about an ants' nest by walking over it. Thus, when I seek something peaceful to think of, some quiet corner to escape into, I do not think of sandy beaches or rivers or green paddocks, I imagine myself in a suburban street in Melbourne on a chilly autumn afternoon, the postman blowing his whistle, a dog crossing the road to pee on those three-feet-wide strips of grass beside the road that are known as "nature strips".
The people of Melbourne understand the value of a piece of land. They do not leave it around for thistles to grow on, or cars to be dumped on. And this makes it a very difficult place for a man with no money to take possession of his necessary acre.
When Molly, Phoebe and I took up residence in the Oriental Hotel in Collins Street, Melbourne, there was pressure applied to me to accept money from the McGrath Estate in order to purchase land. I will not say I was not tempted, but I am proud to say I did not succumb. I found my land, and took it, although its legal owners (the Church of England) were not aware of it at the time.
What the Church of England wanted with those poor mudflats on the Maribyrnong River I will never know, but anyone could see that it was no site for a cathedral and was of no use for anything but what I intended. It was a place where you could set up a windsock, land a craft, build a house and not expect to be troubled unless you asked for electricity to be connected.
The Maribyrnong is, in places, a pretty river, but as it snakes down through Flemington and pushes out through the flats to the bay it is neglected and dirty, enriched by the effluent from the Footscray abattoirs.
I took possession of my land by circling above it.
"There's my land," I shouted. Not once. Three times.
Phoebe had no goggles. Her eyes so streamed with wind-drawn tears that she could see nothing but the misty confluence of grass and water: brown and green like a runny watercolour.
Later, over cucumber sandwiches at the Oriental, she described my land quite lyrically.
Now if I had never seen Jack's house in Western Avenue, never known a tower, a music room, a library, I may well have built my usual type of structure, something like the place I made for the girl in Bacchus Marsh, or the slab hut I built for the barmaid up at Blackwood. I could not have dug a hole, of course, because the land was not suitable. But I may have set up a series of rainwater tanks, connected them with short passages, and covered the whole with earth for insulation. It would have lasted a year or two. However, you cannot ask women who have lived in a house with a tower to feel comfortable inside a burrow and I was not such a fool as to try to persuade them. On the other hand, I had no money. I could not even pay my keep at the Oriental Hotel and it offended me.
You see, my dear Annette, it was not the way you thought it was – I was not about to milk them dry, buy French champagne, visit actresses, contract syphilis and pass it on, talk sharp, dress slick, steal the Hispano Suiza or use the widow's fortune to buy
an Avro 504 and leave them at home to knit while I flew across the world and got myself written up in papers from Rangoon to Edinburgh.
It was Molly and Phoebe who spent the money. By God, they loved it. There were boxes in the theatre, dinners in the hotel, new hats and dresses and picnics in the Dandenongs. I kept a notebook and recorded what they spent on me, and I got a job.
I have put off discussing the job. It was not what I wanted. But tell me what else I was to do? I hated that clever Yankee bastard, but there was no easier motor car to sell. Yes, yes, I took my book of cuttings round to Colonel Tarrant who had the Ford agency in Exhibition Street and he hired me on the spot. I worked right off the floor, which I had never done before, and I cannot say I enjoyed the city style of selling cars. It did not suit me. I would rather have been standing in paddocks ring-barking with the O'Hagens, in some room lit by hurricane lamps while the daughter of the house played the piano accordion. I would have happily suffered indigestion from bad food, done my card tricks, told some yarns, and taken my time to make a sale.
All of this, I tell you now. But for twelve months I did this work and did not let any of my feelings make themselves known to me. I could not. My great talent in life was my enthusiasm and I drew on it relentlessly, careless of how I spent it. I poured it over my new life with the same reckless style with which Molly poured creme de menthe over her treacle pudding, not giving a damn for the pounds it added or the pounds it cost. I was protector and provider, or intended to be, and the role, of course, took its toll on me. A portrait taken at the time shows the increasing depth of the wrinkles around my eyes which the retoucher's well-meaning brush made more, not less, noticeable. My black hair was already showing flecks of grey and receding in such a way as to make a long promontory of what had once been admired as a "widow's peak".
