He was shockingly promiscuous in those days and, Nina realised, extraordinarily lucky. By the time everyone was advocating safe sex, he had already feasted on all that liberated gay sex had to offer. It was as if the single grand passion of his childhood – Ramsay – had fragmented into the frenetic, short-lived pleasures that characterised those years. He kept odd hours owing to both work and play, but unlike her he needed little sleep. He would come home very late and thump and rattle through the flat. In the morning she’d be grey and grumbling because of her disturbed sleep and he’d be fresh and apologetic. It seemed to her that no matter how much he imbibed and how little he slept – and they did bear a relation to each other – he wore his excesses lightly. Compact and perfectly proportioned Sean, with sleek hair, golden skin and features that could grace a classical Greek statue. ‘My Aussie Adonis,’ Nina called him.
AIDS and an expanding career had both contributed to a tapering off of his tart years, and by the early 1990s that period of his life was over. She was already living in London. Sean had several postings in the Asia–Pacific region. Why can’t you get sent to London? she said. We could set up house here, you and me together in one of the world’s greatest cities. And just when she thought she had convinced him, just when she thought he was on his way, he met Tom.
It was Sydney, early 1994, during a sabbatical in which Sean planned to write a book on Asian political and economic alliances. He met Tom and his life changed. He never wrote the book. Later that year, he returned to the paper and at last received a European posting – the Central European desk and, as history would prove, the place to be. Europe was far closer than Asia, and Nina was pleased for that; but Australia, because of Tom was now home. Tom said he would keep the home fires burning while Sean flitted about the world – with the one condition that their base be in Melbourne. It was not Sean’s preference, but given everything else was on his terms, he had little choice but to agree.
For Sean, both the relationship with Tom and his career, firstly as a foreign correspondent and later as a travel writer, had endured, the career more smoothly than the relationship. There had been a couple of years when Sean and Tom had separated, during which time both men had explored their freedom and found it wanting. Their home continued to be in Melbourne, and Sean still intended to write a book, although the topic had changed with the years. The latest was to focus on South America.
It was quiet now on the patio. Nina leaned back on her stool; she could see Zoe standing near the steps. She was smoking and staring out at the garden, deep in thought; this had been no breezy chat with one of her friends. Nina checked her watch, they’d need to be leaving soon, and probably too late now to change their plans. But this would be the last time, she told herself again. No more threesome lunches.
When Zoe returned to the kitchen she made no reference to her phone call. Instead she asked whether Tom was joining them for lunch.
‘He decided to let us wander memory lane without him,’ Nina replied. A shame, she now thought: Tom would have helped defuse tensions between Zoe and Sean.
A cool change had been forecast with a blustery southerly and a plummeting of the temperature. The sky had already clouded over, and while as often as not in this blazing summer the predicted cool change petered out, this one might actually eventuate. Nina was wearing a slip of a sundress, and she and Zoe went upstairs to find her a jacket.
There is something private about marital bedrooms, or so Nina had always felt, and she hesitated at the doorway. Yet she could see that Zoe and Elliot’s private space was as cool and impersonal as the rest of the house: white walls, white carpet, a touch of blue in the bedspread. There was a large glass sculpture perched on a chest of drawers, two bedside tables each with a chrome lamp and a short pile of books (hard to imagine her sister and brother-in-law sitting up in bed together reading), a seascape in rough seas’ impasto on one wall, and on the opposite wall a large black-and-white photograph of Callum and Hayley. The entire space was as tidy as a hotel room.
‘Come in, come in,’ Zoe called from her dressing-room.
Nina crossed the pristine carpet, stepped into the alcove, and was pulled up short. The mess was breathtaking. The dressing-room – similar in size to Nina’s entire bedroom at home – resembled the pavement outside a Salvos store after a weekend of neighbourhood spring-cleaning. There were heaps of clothes on the floor, clothes shoved onto shelves, bras, singlets, shirts, dresses, pants, everything tossed in together, shoes, handbags, even jewellery.
Zoe was not in the least embarrassed. ‘Excuse the mess,’ she said off-handedly, and burrowed into one of the drawers.
This then was the foul rag-and-bone shop of Zoe’s heart. There was something both sad and exciting about it. Her sister was not the complete tidy object. Not yet.
2.
Just over an hour later Nina and Zoe were sitting with Sean Blake in a riverside trattoria drinking Chianti (‘It’s the cocktail hour somewhere in the world,’ Sean said) and making swift work of a platter of antipasto, or at least Sean and Nina were, Zoe confined herself to the wine. Sean, once so neat and compact, was now a swollen, slapdash version of his former self.
‘I’m afraid my mountain-trekking days are over,’ he said, tucking into a pile of fried anchovies and aioli.
Nina smiled affectionately at him. ‘I’d suggest even a walk around the block would test you.’
There was nothing remaining of her Aussie Adonis. His skin hung in jowls, there was the glimmer of a dewlap, his colour was pasty. Long days and late nights, too much food and booze all had left their mark.
‘I don’t know how you keep going,’ she said.
He shrugged as if to say he didn’t know either. ‘Tom says it’s time I settled down. Gave up my wanderings. Grew up.’
‘Does Tom think travel writers are caught in an arrested stage of development?’ Zoe asked.
‘Not all of them, but in my case, yes. Boys’ own adventures. Escaping adult responsibilities. Hanging on to the golden years.’
They’d been talking non-stop from the first hello. There’d been no need to worry about Sean and Zoe, they seemed entirely at ease with each other – a fact that underscored the weight of early friendship, of the period prior to George Tiller’s entrée into their lives. They decided on another bottle of Chianti and more antipasto. Sean added fries – ‘For a well-balanced meal,’ he said.
‘The Rasputin of Raleigh Court’, Sean had dubbed George all those years ago. First he’d conned Marion Blake, there was a short-lived period when he courted Sean, but really it was only Ramsay he ever wanted. And Ramsay, who needed someone to organise his life while he played the piano, was easily acquired.
When the wine arrived, Zoe filled the glasses then sat back in her chair, separate from the conversation.
‘Are you ever tempted to contact Ramsay?’ Nina asked.
Sean shook his head. ‘It’d be pointless. The person I miss is my teenage brother, and after years of George and fame I expect there’s little of him left.’
Nina glanced at Zoe, but there was nothing to be read in her face.
Nina mentioned Ramsay’s afternoon-tea party. ‘It’d be much more pleasant for me if you came too,’ she said to him, with another glance in her sister’s direction. Zoe made no response.
Again Sean shook his head, his pudgy face looking sad and aged. A moment later he excused himself and went to the bathroom while Zoe took the opportunity to go outside for a cigarette. When all three were seated again, Sean asked Nina if she ever heard from Daniel.
She tried to keep her face unreadable, her emotions under the skin. ‘Never.’
‘You two were my model for domestic happiness,’ he said. ‘You showed me it was possible without having to spend half the year abroad.’ Sean breathed an exaggerated sigh. ‘Romance, it’s such a tease.’ And then more seriously: ‘I emailed him, emailed Daniel soon after he absconded with the research assistant.’
Her grievance must have shown for he r
eached out and took her hand. ‘There was no point in mentioning it to you unless there was something to report. And there wasn’t. Daniel didn’t even reply. And yet,’ he nodded to accentuate what he was saying, ‘I can’t imagine this has worked out well for him. And not just the new girl, but all he’s lost.’
‘That’s if he appreciated what he had in the first place.’ Despite her sitting back from the table, Zoe was clearly following the conversation.
‘Loss is an excellent teacher,’ Sean said quietly.
It was a loaded statement from someone more inclined to joke about emotions. But then he had witnessed so much as a journalist – of loss, of brutality, of suffering. It took a few moments before Nina realised he was probably referring to Ramsay not his work, but by then the conversation had moved on.
‘So tell me about the job that brought you home.’ Sean spoke in a sprightly, let’s-change-the-topic tone of voice.
And so she launched into the TIF project, beginning with the group itself. ‘They’re dedicated to human rights. They’re idealistic people, undeniably good people. But,’ she frowned and shook her head, ‘they’re so naive, a pack of innocents. They don’t have a clue of the trouble they’re inviting.’
‘What’s the problem?’ Sean said through a mouthful of fries.
‘The group itself is the main problem. It describes itself as diverse – there’re Catholics, Jews, both Shia and Sunni Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists –’
‘The complete box of Smarties,’ Sean said with a laugh.
‘Yes,’ she said, grimacing rather than laughing, ‘there’s one of everything. But while their religious beliefs and cultural backgrounds are different, they all share the same liberal humanist values, the same commitments to social justice.’
‘Who exactly are they?’ In all the time Zoe had spent with Nina this was the first question she had asked about the job.
‘There’s a core committee of six to eight people, all of them people of faith, different faiths. Some are members of the clergy, more or less equal numbers of women and men. Then there’s a larger group of supporters that includes educators, artists, writers, performers, athletes, more clergy, politicians, each of whom, I suspect, are jostling for a piece of the action – should the project ever come to fruition.’
‘They sound like an agreeable crowd to me,’ Sean said. ‘The sort of people the world needs.’
‘You’re probably right, but not for this job. Entirely absent are representatives from the orthodox arms of the various religious groups. Although of far greater concern are the ultra-orthodox. All those zealots punchy with militant piety aren’t the sort to remain silent.’
‘And the monument?’
‘To diversity and courage, to freedom of expression and a common humanity. They want a monument to the best of human qualities.’
‘And what might that look like?’ Zoe asked.
Nina shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘But is this really a monument project?’ Sean’s question was more in the way of a statement because he didn’t wait for Nina’s response. ‘Monuments are erected to remind us of significant people and events in the past. Wars, soldiers, earthquakes, 9/11, genocide, independence movements, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, monarchs and leaders. Monuments are an aid to remembering. This isn’t the case with the proposed TIF monument.’
‘It’s to recall all that’s best in us,’ Nina said. ‘All that unites us – or rather should unite us.’
A smile spread over Sean’s face. ‘Well I think this project is one of your better ones.’
She detected the criticism in his words. ‘You don’t approve of what I do?’
He topped up his drink, he topped up all their drinks before he answered. ‘I’m in no position to approve or disapprove. I hardly know why you do as you do.’
‘But the results,’ she heard the defensiveness in her voice, ‘the monuments, you know about those.’
He nodded. ‘And the ones I’ve seen are attractive and moving. But to me at least, rather than being true to history they often side-step it.’
Nina did not respond immediately. It was an aspect of her work that made her uneasy too. The Lise Meitner project she’d just finished was a prime example. And so many grand war memorials that were paeans to nationalism rather than tributes to the fallen. And there was a surprising number of post–World War Two memorials in Central Europe erected to victims of fascism that failed to mention the main victims, the Jews, a neglect that suggested the widespread anti-Semitism of the past had a good deal of breath left in it. She helped herself to some feta, spread it with studied care on a heel of bread. There was no simple defence: she truly believed that a knowledge of the past enriched understanding of the present; at the same time she also knew the past was an ever-changing country.
‘Monuments tend to be as voluble about the present as the events and people they’re intended to commemorate,’ she began. ‘The preserving fluid of history, of all memories come to that, is constantly topped up with fresh supplies.’ Sean smiled at one of her own favourite metaphors. ‘History often gets a bollocking, you’re right about that, but people want remembrances, they want to honour the past.’
Sean was quick to respond. ‘But remembrance and history aren’t the same thing. Remembrance selects from the past, it appropriates a snippet of history for a purpose, perhaps to justify a grievance or a recent act of aggression, and ignores practically everything else.’
Nina was about to say it was better for some remembering than none at all, but he was not finished.
‘During my journalism days I reported on history in the making, I saw the damage justified by remembrance. Today’s violence often has roots in a single powerful event in history while the rest of the past simply withers in its shadow. In the mid-nineties the Serbs justified their slaughter of the Bosnian Muslims because of a battle fought in 1453. As if nothing else had occurred in five-and-a-half centuries.’ His face wore an expression of disgust. ‘And over in Israel–Palestine, all those settlers are prepared to fight for land they say was promised to them in biblical times. Biblical times! Remembrance so easily reduces history to nationalism, and nationalism is a thug. Less nationalism means fewer wars, and fewer wars means fewer war memorials.’ He started to giggle, sounding remarkably like his twenty-year-old self. ‘But no need to worry about your livelihood, Nina. You can build monuments to peace instead.’
There was nothing funny in what he said, she felt under attack. ‘But there are monuments to peace, hundreds of them across the world.’
‘But the peace they promote is peace that comes after a particular war. The peace is cemented to war. You don’t fight for peace. It makes no sense. You can defend it – with values, with laws, even with customs, but not with weapons.’ He leaned across the table; she thought he was reaching for food, but it was her hand he wanted. He pressed it between his own. ‘When it’s peace you’re defending it’s moral territory you’re concerned about, not land, not ridges and valleys, not villages and towns, not an enemy.’ He emphasised that last word. ‘If you lose sight of the values, the moral territory, you become a barbarian. Just think of all those young boys wielding guns and machetes, turned into killers before they’re old enough to acquire a moral compass.’
He squeezed her hand more tightly and then released it. In the silence that followed he popped a cold chip in his mouth and washed it down with wine. When next he spoke his voice had lost its seriousness. ‘Fewer memorials to war, I say, fewer monuments to heroes, and more that focus on peace and ordinary human qualities, the things that unite us. And build them quickly, before what’s good in us becomes vestigial.’
He reached for the bottle and refilled his glass. ‘I’m coming to think we need more forgetting – or now that I know they exist, more people like your TIF group.’
He sounded quite jaunty, but Nina was aghast. ‘You surely don’t believe that deliberate forgetting is possible?’
He nodded. ‘I do. Before po
st-traumatic stress disorder was invented it happened all the time.’
‘And shell-shock in the Great War?’ she said. ‘That was just PTS by another name.’
‘Yes, it was. But how do you explain all those other soldiers, the majority of them, who survived the trenches and went on to lead satisfying lives? And what about those survivors of the Nazi terror who lost everything, their families, their communities, who suffered unimaginable trauma yet managed to forge productive lives in countries far removed from Europe? And the Vietnamese and Cambodians who despite experiencing indescribable terror in their own countries left it all behind and built successful futures elsewhere. And all those Armenians, suddenly homeless and scattered across the world, yet managing to make their mark.’
Sean was on a roll. ‘People are remarkably resilient, or at least they used to be – they don’t have much opportunity these days. When some terrible violence occurs, a massacre, an air-crash, 9/11 itself, one of the first responses is to send in the trauma counsellors. The same occurs when there’s a natural disaster – earthquakes, floods, tsunamis. I think it’d be wiser to wait, let the dust settle, see how the people fare. Forgetting is an effective means of moving forward after trauma. And if you’re still in any doubt, how else to explain all those Nazis who supervised massacres and herded Jews into the gas chambers, who after the war enjoyed long, satisfying and contented lives? Forgetting works equally well for perpetrators as well as victims.’
The Memory Trap Page 6
