Zoe was only two years away from fifty, but looked younger in that stretched way of thin people. Both sisters were tall, but where Nina was dark-haired and dark-eyed, Zoe was fair with white-blonde cropped hair and blue eyes. And there were the bodies: whippet-thin Zoe and nicely cushioned Nina. And the clothes: Nina’s bright and flowing garments compared with Zoe’s chic black. Zoe selected her clothes with care, but the care showed, so Nina thought, and so, too, the Sunday-best personality Zoe wore in company. Always her smooth, competent disposition, her nothing-is-too-much-trouble attitude, and a particular smile that flashed huge and vivid, just for a moment and then it was gone. Not faded, but instantly gone. Too brief to imply pleasure in the moment, it was programmed: Zoe smile. Smile now. And she was always busy. Despite a full-time teaching job, Zoe managed to be active in so many lives. She was available to her son and daughter, and to her husband, that charming (although never to her) brittle man; she attended to the sick neighbour, the needy friend, the distant acquaintance whose mother had just died. Zoe was social worker, psychologist, empathic listener and efficient personal assistant.
This past week when Nina had met people in Zoe’s world, all had remarked on her kindness and generosity; Zoe, they said, was always available to lend a hand, a shoulder, a sympathetic ear. But beneath the perfect surface of both house and person what misery lurked? How could her sister not be miserable living in such a hostile marriage?
With Callum away at music camp and Hayley holidaying at the coast, there was nothing to dilute the poisonous atmosphere at home. Zoe and Elliot were excruciating to be around; she was polite and cool, while he, always heavily armed, bombarded her with criticism and derision. Nina used to count herself fortunate to have a husband like Daniel rather than Elliot, but the fact was the good husband had absconded and the bad one was still around. How to explain it? She wanted to discuss this with Zoe, she wanted to unzip this sister who was so emotionally guarded about her own deeply emotional matters. But while Zoe never tired of hearing about Nina’s failed marriage, she was quick to deflect any questions about her own.
A few days after her arrival, Nina had approached from the front. ‘Your marriage, Zoe, it’s a shocker. To my mind it’s never been worse. And ignoring it won’t make it any better.’
Zoe hardly missed a beat. ‘Dwelling on it, as you’d have me do, doesn’t help either. Elliot and I manage, otherwise we wouldn’t still be together.’
‘Don’t you want more than merely “managing”? Don’t you think you deserve more?’
Zoe shrugged. Her face was blank.
That Nina was prepared to talk about marriage was further evidence she was feeling much more her old self. It was, she decided, being back home with its reminder of who she used to be. How twisted out of shape she’d become in the aftermath of Daniel’s desertion, and how quickly it happens that an abnormal state can assume the norm. But now she was back inside familiar skin, she felt not only the relief of it but a recognition, like stumbling across an old friend not seen for a long time and realising how much you have missed her.
The impersonal serviced flat helped, coming as it did with neither history nor demands. Zoe had a guest room, she actually had a guest wing, and as soon as Nina had arrived she’d begged her to reconsider. Briefly Nina hesitated, she hated refusing this sister who was herself endlessly obliging. But five minutes in the company of Zoe and Elliot on that first day had revealed tensions so intense and the threat of breakage so great that Nina couldn’t leave fast enough. Afterwards, guessing why Nina had departed so abruptly and still hoping she might reconsider the guest room, Zoe insisted that things between her and Elliot were fine. But what Zoe considered to be fine in her marriage was, from Nina’s perspective, unbearable.
The situation was made worse, sadder, because except with his wife, Elliot was good company. He was a nicely put together man in that American clipped and polished way: tall, well built with large white teeth and dark wavy hair. He wore a closely clipped beard which was, unlike the hair, shaded with grey. He liked women and was easy in their company, probably because he was not tempted to stray; and despite his being a non-drinker, his humour and athleticism won him plenty of male friends. Women described him as a woman’s man, men described him as a man’s man. As one friend said, being with Elliot was like taking a holiday. But not for Zoe. Elliot bullied her, he goaded and attacked her, and his behaviour was made worse by his being so charming with everyone else. At any time and without warning he would fire off an arrow at her, always with bull’s-eye accuracy. Target practice for his own frayed ego? Nina neither knew nor cared, for he could wound.
Nothing Zoe did was right. Elliot criticised what he saw as her lack of ambition: ‘Who stays in the same job for twenty years?’ He criticised her intellect: ‘My wife prefers jigsaws to books.’ From Nina’s perspective he never missed an opportunity to run Zoe down. Last night before dinner, when she and Zoe were having a glass of wine, Zoe had stumbled. Elliot had leapt forward and saved her from falling, then, in that nasty tone he employed only with her, he said, ‘You don’t even know how to drink properly.’
Nina knew firsthand how devastating a marriage break-up could be, yet you survive, you get over it. But the incessant ridicule that Elliot meted out to Zoe, the scorn with which he spoke to her, the growling derision despite the perfect home and her perfect appearance, all this must eventually break her. And once this happened Nina doubted Zoe would have the capacity to put herself together again.
At least Elliot was out of the house most of the time. Despite it being the summer vacation, he was working hard. There were consultations with his doctoral students, but his main energies were directed towards finishing his biography of Elizabeth Hardwick. He was, he had told Nina, under pressure. Frances Kiernan, who had written such a wonderful life of Mary McCarthy, was also writing a biography of Hardwick. Kiernan and he were taking different but, he believed, complementary approaches, with Kiernan drawing on her vast knowledge of the Partisan Review – New York Review milieu. Her Hardwick biography would encompass twentieth-century American letters, while his focused more specifically on the Hardwick life and the marriage to Robert Lowell. But still, whoever published first would have a distinct advantage, so he was pushing himself. Despite a fully equipped office at home, Elliot preferred to work at the university. He left home early for the gym, spent the day at the university, went to AA a couple of evenings a week, and returned home in time for dinner. For her sister’s sake, Nina was pleased.
Yet how much more was Zoe willing to suffer in this marriage? And what kept her there? Callum was already at university, and Hayley at sixteen was mature for her age. The children could not fail to see the situation with their parents; they’d understand if this marriage was brought to a close. Why did her sister stay? And Elliot? Why did he stay with a woman he appeared to despise?
It is a truism that you can never understand a marriage not your own – and even your own can deceive you. Nina tried a couple more times to get Zoe to open up, and then decided to leave it alone. Her lost marriage was no reason to be meddling in Zoe’s. And besides, she was happy to be seeing so much of her sister. She was happy to be home.
2.
When Nina left Australia in her early twenties, she had given her leave-taking surprisingly little thought; a similarly casual connection had characterised her several trips back to Melbourne. But this particular homecoming seemed weighted with significance. She had put down roots in New York and more firmly in London, but her attachment to this place, this Melbourne, seemed now to penetrate far deeper than both. So it happened one morning that she responded to an unpremeditated urge to visit Raleigh Court and the house where she had grown up.
The heat was fat and leathery by the time she left the apartment, and the sky that matt violet blue reserved for the hottest days. It would have been far more sensible to spend the day beside Zoe’s pool, but the pull of the past, or pumped-up nostalgia, or the simple attraction of home was propelling
her towards Raleigh Court.
The traffic was light and the journey short, and soon she was standing alongside her car at the neck of the court. Stretched before her was the pale cement road surface, the clipped verge cupping the curves, the uniform trees planted in the grass, the eleven solid family dwellings. And then with deliberate slowness as if that might soften the shock – her initial glimpse had already alerted her – she directed her gaze to the old family home. The red brick had been plastered over and painted cream, windows sufficiently large for the Jameson family had been replaced by mammoth panes of glass, an upper storey had been added and all the walls were blocked and squared off. A 1950s triple-fronted brick home was now brazenly au courant.
Nina was last here a dozen years ago with Daniel – she had wanted him to see where she came from, the me-before-you was how she put it – and at that time fewer than half the houses had been renovated. But now only the house next door, the Blake house, remained unchanged. It was located at the top of the court, the prime position according to her parents; Marion and Michael Blake had modernised it when they moved in with their two boys in the 1970s and, if the exterior was any guide, it had not been touched since.
She looked again at her old home. There was something troubling, even wrenching about the juxtaposition of familiar memories – this court, the houses, her own house in particular – and the strangeness of what presented itself. And she wondered if it was always the case that when long-established memories were undermined, not by another person but by uncompromising reality, one was tripped up, knocked sideways.
The Blake house was just the same, no unnerving quiver when she turned her gaze on it, just the old cloudy disquiet that had long accompanied any thought of this place and its current occupants. And yet it had not always been so: for many years the Blake house had been her second home, and Raleigh Court itself had provided a storybook environment in which to grow up. Sean and Ramsay Blake had been the brothers at number six, Zoe and Nina were the sisters at number seven. The other children in the court were older, with playgrounds far removed from parental gaze, leaving Ramsay and Sean, Zoe and Nina the run of the street.
They played together as a foursome, ballgames in the court and endless hare-brained schemes, but as so often happens with groups of children, special alliances developed. From the very beginning, Nina claimed Sean as her best friend and he felt the same about her. And Zoe had always adored Ramsay – it was the open secret of their childhood – and not just Ramsay’s music, which, being musical herself, mattered to her; she loved everything about him, including all those qualities that others found off-putting.
Ramsay was not predisposed to love anyone, with the single exception of his brother, but because Zoe played the cello he was happy to be called her best friend. It was clear though, in those long-ago days, that Sean came first. ‘Sean is my brother,’ Ramsay would say, ‘and my number-one music partner.’ And a remarkable duet they made, Sean with his violin and Ramsay at the piano. But even at number two, Zoe claimed a special place in Ramsay’s life. And Nina and Sean did as kids do, spying on them and playing endless tricks, and teasing them with soppy love songs – all of which was received in good spirit by Ramsay, because even as a child such things washed off him, and Zoe, because she basked in any reference that acknowledged her special relationship with Ramsay.
For seven years after the Blakes moved next door theirs had been an idyllic childhood. They even had their own secret gang. It was Ramsay’s idea, Ramsay, who wasn’t yet totally self-absorbed proposed they form the Raleigh Posse with a closed membership of four humans and two dogs. There was a lot of make-believe after that, and like kids in books and films they had wild adventures that took them way beyond Raleigh Court. The two fathers built them a club house in the Blakes’ sycamore tree; there were rules and private codes, a secret food stash, and special audio equipment for communication with extra-terrestrials. And so they played through the years under the watchful eyes of the Blake parents, and the more lax, indulgent gaze of the Jamesons.
Then it all fell apart. Sean, the devoted brother and violinist, was shunted to Siberia and Zoe was ensconced in his place. And while Sean had remained Nina’s friend, her only lifelong friend, relations between Sean and Zoe had never been properly repaired. As for the brothers, they remained estranged.
Nina, the youngest of the four, was five years old when the Blakes moved into the court; next in age were Zoe and Sean, both seven. Sean was only fourteen months younger than Ramsay, but being all sharp angles and lanky limbs Ramsay always looked much older than his nicely compact sibling. In those days Sean loved his big brother with a devotion reinforced by blindness. Others were less enamoured, but Ramsay’s music was so remarkable and his willingness to share it so keen that people overlooked his failings. Even the children at school, perhaps alerted by their parents to the extraordinary boy among them, were kinder to Ramsay than children tend to be with kids who stand out. Certainly that was the case with Nina, for she would never have chosen him as a friend; in time she realised she did not like him at all. But during those first few years, Ramsay being the oldest claimed a certain respect, and people were impressed when she said she knew him; he was well stocked with fun ideas and a cracker at poison ball, but most important of all, he was the boy next door and you can’t be on bad terms with him. Yet these reasons notwithstanding, his less attractive qualities were rarely obscured.
He was a boy with a peculiar detachment. Often his gaze would be set to the middle distance: he might respond if spoken to or he might not. He could be silent in a boisterous group or he could rattle on about his latest arcane interest – the geometry of the pyramid, writing scripts of the world, cemeteries, taxonomy – a series of bizarre obsessions about which Ramsay knew everything to the point of tedium. But at the piano he was irresistible, at the piano even Nina was seduced; music made sense to Ramsay in a way people did not. Ramsay Blake with his prodigious talent was, everyone said, marked out for fame.
Ramsay was performing regularly while still in primary school. He won a slew of piano competitions and attended master-classes with visiting maestros. By the time he reached his mid-teens there was little space left in the cabinet displaying all his trophies and medallions and gold-lettered certificates. And always close by were the proud parents: Marion Blake directing his career from the moment she noticed a musical aptitude in her infant son, and Michael Blake who worked hard to give both sons the advantages he himself had lacked. And Sean, the brother with his sweet disposition ideally suited to being a second son when the first took up all the oxygen. If you could create the perfect family for a genius you would use the Blakes as a model.
Such fame as a boy and, with the passage of years, Ramsay had not disappointed. Most people in the musical world would include him in the top twenty contemporary pianists, all would locate him in their top forty. And how much more fortunate had he been than those other gifted boys and girls who had once shared his world. So many prodigies but so few geniuses, Nina had often thought, and perhaps people – parents – should contain their enthusiasms until the gifted youngster has lived sufficiently for experience either to deepen the gift or let it drift away. ‘Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising’ as Cyril Connolly observed. Of all those child prodigies who had rubbed shoulders with the younger Ramsay in 1970s Australia, only Ramsay occupied the world stage as an adult.
Zoe and Nina, Ramsay and Sean were all connected by age and geographical proximity, but the other three shared music as well: Ramsay with the piano, Sean the violin, and Zoe her cello. Nina loved how music made her feel, and she loved the way in which it whisked her into imaginary places, but she was a hopeless musician. She failed first with the violin, then the flute, and when the clarinet defeated her she accepted the hard truth and settled for books instead. The unfairness of the situation was not lost on her: the others could have books as well as music, but her creaky fingers barred her from ever playing an instrument.
&
nbsp; ‘I don’t know how you missed out,’ her mother would say, holding Nina’s wooden mitts in her own musician’s hands. It was said with incredulity, never criticism, but when everyone speaks a language that despite your best efforts eludes you, it’s hard not to feel an outsider, hard not to feel that you lack something – more so when one of your circle is a prodigy and the other two are considered talented.
Sean said it didn’t matter to him she was unable to make up a quartet, and after the rupture between him and Ramsay he told her he was pleased she was not musical, he was finished with musical friendships. As for Zoe, she would have loved Nina no matter what she might have lacked. ‘You’re my sister,’ she said simply.
I was formed here, she thought, a woman in her forties and a preserver of memory standing at the top of the court. She loathed the old Jesuit maxim, ‘give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man’. Even as a girl, planning her future with Sean and living with the best parents in the neighbourhood, the ones who took the four of them to the local pool on hot days, who annually took them to the Royal Melbourne Show, who arranged tickets to the circus and visits to the museum, she still wanted to forge her own future. And she had – although the primary motivations had not been entirely of her choosing.
Yet she was pleased with the path she had taken – her career, living overseas and now that the pain had settled, Daniel too. But if not for the death of Michael Blake and the arrival of George Tiller as Marion Blake’s new husband, if not for Ramsay Blake and those slowly massing toxins, if not for the alliance formed between Ramsay and his stepfather, she might have remained in Melbourne as Zoe had done and made a life here.
The Memory Trap Page 4
