by Mandy Hager
I heard her climbing out her bedroom window and lay in bed debating what to do. I’d had enough of living in a combat zone — my drawing-obsessed childhood fractured by shouting matches and threats that escalated into hand-to-hand combat with Dad. She smoked, she drank, she slept around. She came home pocked with love bites and with a feral, fishy smell that lit my parents’ dangerously short wicks. The aftershocks lasted days.
If I’d known she’d organised a ride up north and wouldn’t get in contact for over three weeks, I might’ve told. But I loved her with fierce loyalty — she was the only one who made me feel like I counted, even if the clothes and treats she slipped me were mostly stolen goods. In the end I kept her escape to myself. Dad’s belt was meant for holding up his trousers, not leaving blisters on my big sister’s skin.
Oh, Van. When they named you, did they know Vanessa meant butterfly? Maybe you were always destined to fly away.
Unable to concentrate, I give up on the homework, go tuck in Dad and give him a big drink of water before I switch off his TV and settle him for the night. He looks so shrunken in his bed, his face relaxed and vulnerable in these moments before sleep.
‘Night, Dad.’ I bend down to kiss his dry forehead. ‘Love you.’
He grunts, the best he can do. I kid myself it means I love you too.
I leave his door ajar so I can keep an ear out for him. In the hall, my feet stop of their own accord at Van’s old bedroom door. I remember the day Mum stripped this room, a week after she finally told me Van was dead. If Mum couldn’t bear the memories that slapped us in the face each time we passed, it turned out an empty room was worse. It denied Van’s whole existence — especially when every other photo or reminder of her in the house also disappeared. Seventeen short years wiped from sight.
I slip inside the room. If I ever needed further proof that Van is gone, this freezing crypt is it. Spores bloom on the skirting boards and lichen creeps across the carpet. Where her posters have been taken down, little fatty stains linger. Where her head pressed back against the wall, there’s still a grimy mark. Of all the mess that cluttered every centimetre, only one box of photographs and papers remains, stashed at the back of the wardrobe as though worthless, thanks to Mum.
I slide open the doors and extract the box. Sit cross-legged on the icy floor and take a jagged breath before I lift the lid. Funny. I’d swear this sad little collection has grown. Yes, here, shoved down beside the photos, old school records, scraps of poems and the Belfast-postmarked letters bearing Van’s messy handwriting lies a bulging brown envelope I’m sure I’ve never seen. How long since I looked? Probably her last birthday. Or maybe the one before. At first I went through everything once a week, my own private ritual. But as time went on it grew too painful — it’s hard to cling to memories when you’re the only one who cares.
I stash the unfamiliar envelope in my dressing-gown pocket to explore later. Right now I need to see her face. The first photo I dig out shows Van when she was first exiled to Belfast with Dad’s brother and his family — tough love designed to rein her in. Seated on their sagging floral couch, Van death-stares down the camera lens. Even so, she’s beautiful. A gypsy princess, her wayward auburn hair framing her heart-shaped face — her only flaw the dark circles under her eyes. Happy birthday, Van.
There’s another here of us the day I started school. I don’t know who is beaming wider, her or me. She walked me there and back each day until she left for Intermediate, my own personal bodyguard with a killer pinch.
I’m about to delve for more when I’m distracted by Dad’s cough. Damn it, he must have slipped too far down the bed.
When I haul him up onto his nest of pillows again he doesn’t make a sound, just peeps for a moment through leaden lids before the meds pitch him back to sleep. I’ve often wondered if he still walks and speaks inside his dreams. I hope so. No one deserves to be crippled in their subconscious world as well. Maybe he even flies; meets Van in swirling Van Gogh skies and makes his peace.
The cold has seeped right through me now. I return the box to the wardrobe and hurry back to chuck an extra blanket on my bed and burrow in. I used to have an electric blanket before Mum purged the house of ‘luxuries’ in yet another attempt to trim the bills.
Thawed out at last, I retrieve the envelope from my pocket. It contains a wad of different papers: letters, by the look of them, plus random sheets — some typed and others bearing Van’s distinctive handwriting. I unfold one of these — it’s a poem, signed with her familiar flowery flourish.
My parents are The Thought Police
Dad’s silent eyes
tracking my every move
And though he cannot speak
he has the power to download
all his paranoid suspicions
from his mind to Mum’s.
My parents are The Thought Police
Mum processes his
secret Catholic Codes
and twists them to her own sick version
of the Pope’s perfect boy’s-own world
She doesn’t realise that
she’s just as much a slave as me.
My god, I wish I’d seen Mum’s face when she read that! I have to hand it to Van, she sure knew how to throw a metaphorical punch.
Next up is a note of condolence from Van’s old school. Terrible tragedy … such a waste of talent … much regret … I don’t recall them showing so much interest when she was still there.
I flip the next sheet over, impressed by its thick creamy texture. Bloody hell. It’s not what I expect at all. A page from the inquest into her death. I quickly scan the words. Sweet Holy Mother of Christ! I read it through again. Struggle to take it in.
Here’s Van’s case in black and white, its details undoing everything Mum said. She died in a car crash, love. Sheer bad luck. Meaning all the answers to the questions I forced out of her — What kind of car? Who was driving? Did she feel any pain? — were also outright lies. This is the official truth, stamped by some disinterested bureaucrat to confirm it’s real.
My beautiful big sister hung herself. Tied a rope around some obscure ancient monument, then somehow looped the other end around her neck. The vision of it rises up — all blacks and reds and shell-shocked whites. No longer Van, instead a broken, twitching rag doll, choking all alone until her life had fled.
2
How can I be of use to anyone? The best and most sensible solution all around would be for me to go away … to cease to be.
— VINCENT TO THEO, CUESMES, JULY 1880
HOW COULD THIS BE possible? Of all the people I’ve ever known Van had the most positive and vital love of life. Her enthusiasm was legendary: the girl who could be guaranteed to run faster, laugh longer, fight harder, to fill a room with energy the second she walked in.
It makes no sense. After all those years of fighting Mum and Dad she’d finally escaped. Sure the Irish rellies drove her mad, but she’d written just before she died and said she’d found some peace. I know the letter off by heart — it arrived two days after Mum broke the news.
At last I know what I’m going to do. Mum and Dad can stop worrying I’ll cause them shame. All my life, little T, for as long as I remember, I’ve been banging up against a concrete wall. But now I understand it all and the way suddenly seems clear. I’m going to put it right. Will never, ever cause them grief again. You can’t believe how good I feel. Be pleased for me — it’s for the best. For the first time since forever I’m at peace. Eternal love, your Van.
Tears sting my cheeks. How could I have been so stupid? So naive? All these years I thought it meant she’d seen the error of her ways; that the turbulence was over and she was ready to step calmly into adult life. While I was raging at the gross unfairness of that new life being snatched from her, I never for a moment thought she’d snuffed it out herself.
Why did Mum lie to me? Some pathetic cover-up of so-called mortal sin? Or maybe she felt too guilty. She’d blamed Van for Dad’s stroke an
d rubbed it in with every escalating argument and snide remark. You’ll be the death of him, you bealin’ little hoor. He should’ve thrashed the devil out of you while he had the chance. Instead it was Van who died — where the hell’s the fairness in that?
Did she look into her future and see no glimmer of relief, overwhelmed by shades of black and grey? Oh, Van! Don’t you know all colours are transformed by simple shifts of light? What seems black in one moment reveals itself as midnight blue in another; grey brightens to silver green when dawn evicts the night. It eats me up to think of her sharing Vincent’s dishwater-hued view of life. He claimed great artists die like women who have loved much, hurt by life. Hell yes.
I stare up at the universe of glowing stars I’ve glued to the ceiling to create my own personal Starry Night. Mould blooms swirl around them like the star nurseries of the Milky Way — now the perfect visual metaphor for my insignificance. What was going through Van’s mind as she secured the rope? Was she afraid? Oh god. Did she panic, change her mind right at the moment when the noose bit tight?
I can hear Dad’s breathing through the wall and find myself tracking his every breath. When he first came home from the hospital, after his second crippling stroke, I used to sit beside his bed to do my homework while Mum cooked. No matter how engrossed I was, a part of me always remained on high alert. Every snuffle made me jump. Each tiny movement triggered alarm bells in my head. I was terrified he’d die, would never undergo my dreamed-of transformation, softening like Captain von Trapp into a loving dad. But what I never envisaged was the gradual grinding down of hope as he lived on. Oh, Van. If anyone in our family was overdue to die it was Dad.
How could you leave me, knowing I was stuck at home to bear this on my own? For god’s sake, I was only twelve. A snail to your butterfly. Did you forget I never used to be so quiet and withdrawn? I saw my world explode before my eyes as you crashed through all the boundaries. I wasn’t as brave as you.
Instead, I stuffed it down. Took every harsh rebuke without a word. Chose to play the good girl in our family tragedy. You promised me I’d one day reach the age when I could leave. That we would live together. God damn it, Van, we had a pact.
My heart’s galloping so fast now I can’t lie still. I drag on my dressing gown and feel my way through the house and out the front door. It’s crazy to be out alone at this time of night but I need to escape what’s boiling in my head. I sprint up the weed-laced concrete path and down the street, past the Fletchers’ cobbled driveway with its fleet of BMWs, the Dixons’ Tuscany-pink McMansion, the Coopers’ flashy boat. Swing around the lamp post at the end of our cul-de-sac, then charge on back.
Too soon I’ve reached our gate again. I hate the place, this monument to my parents’ insecurities. I can’t believe they mortgaged us to the hilt to buy this leaking piece of shit. They truly thought that if Dad fixed it up they’d somehow be accepted by the rich. What a joke. Even if he hadn’t had the stroke and doomed us all to living in this squalor, chances are our neighbours would’ve thumbed their noses at their thick accents and white-trash ways.
I pace the path, fury still detonating in my chest. How could Mum lie? Or Van desert me? I slap my hands against my head to knock the thoughts away. Punch myself. Observe the heated sting of pain as I smash my fist into my cheekbone and punch again. And again. And again.
Next thing I know I’m slumped by the door, sobbing so hard it jolts right through me, on and on. I feel so betrayed. She chose to go. She knew that I was waiting at home and yet she turned her back. Why wasn’t my love for her enough to hold her here?
Now that they’ve broken free, I’m scared my tears will never stop. Five years I’ve buried them inside, fearing exactly this: grief that expands like foam to fill up every tiny space until there’s no room left to breathe. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. No notice in the newspaper, no funeral or memorial. They left her broken body in the country Mum and Dad had turned their backs on, laid to rest with strangers, with not a word from us. At the time I thought it was too painful for my parents. Now I’m placing all my bets on Catholic shame.
The cold is really biting now, my feet numb and teeth chattering between each sob. I slow breathe to regain control, then force myself back inside. Mum’s not due home till near on five tomorrow morning so there’s no point waiting up. I fill two hot-water bottles, one to thaw my feet and the other to wrap myself around, to soothe my aching chest. I need to have this out with her tomorrow night.
I WAKE TO HEAR her arrive home, shower, then go to bed. By six I can’t lie still a moment longer. I sneak back to Van’s room, retrieve the box and stow it in my room. Tonight I’m going to search right through, re-read everything, find out all I can. Right now I need to get the hell away.
I bustle Dad through his morning routine in half the usual time and am out the door for school by twenty to eight. There, at least, I’ll have some quiet time before the daily chaos starts.
The one redeeming feature of this crappy institution is my art teacher. She’s so chuffed to find someone who really loves to paint that she’s cleared a small storeroom so I can work in peace. The perfect hermit hideaway.
The plan for my Scholarship portfolio is to re-envisage six of Vincent’s paintings and six of Edith Collier’s. I know the combination’s strange — I had to do some fast talking to convince Ms Romano they were a complementary pair. First, they both suffered the strong arm of their fathers, neither of whom fully understood their child’s value to the world of art. Then there’s their unmarried states: one a lonely bachelor, the other a maiden aunt. The saddest juxtaposition is how Edith was suffocated by the small-minded obsessions of others and Vincent by the crazy obsessions inside his own head.
I’ve finished all but one of my reworkings of the Colliers, intensifying colours, amping up the emotion, redefining all her themes. Her father couldn’t understand her passion. He cut off her budding career because he couldn’t stomach the good people of Wanganui discovering she painted nudes. He burnt her work! My god, I don’t know how she bore it. She could’ve been up there with Frances Hodgkins and maybe even Vincent — but like other women painters of her time, she had the misfortune of not being born a man.
My fingers itch to paint. I shut the door and switch on the radio.
It’s playing a piece from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. I close my eyes. A chorus gently hums together, yearning voices building over the delicate massed plucking of violins and clear-throated flutes. They rise and swell, intermingling, soaring, filled with pain. It is the saddest, sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. I can’t hold back my tears. Inside my head I see Van staring back at me, eyes awash, rosebud lips pursed as if she is the creator of this unearthly sound.
While her image still burns brightly in my mind I slap a new canvas onto the easel, take charcoal and quickly sketch her face. It’s as if my hand is being guided, each stroke a loose caress across the grainy white surface, the spirit of another Butterfly emerging from the mist. But as the music dies away the bitter taste of loss swarms back. I turn the charcoal on its side and start to shade in contours with thick, angry smears, until she looks like Munch’s Scream. Every time I see that howling of the soul, I think of Vincent.
Dear Vincent,
How did you bear knowing your parents found you difficult and strange? I know it ate away at you, like it did Van. And that, like her, you turned yourself inside out trying to please them — shit, we all did — and failed. What if you’d not had Theo? Was he the safety rope you clung to when times got rough — or did his weighted love tighten the noose around your neck? For god’s sake, tell me how to deal with this anger, this storm inside. Yours ate away at you; built into moods so dark they warped your mind. How the hell do I stop that happening to me?
When the bell rings for class I ignore it. Ms Romano won’t dob me in. She hates this place as much as me, her days spent with kids who think art is a chance to slack. She’s good at keeping secrets. She hasn’t told Mum I’ve ditched Hi
story and Classics so I can juggle work with all the rest. Last year’s marks should be enough to see me into art school, so long as I can earn a decent scholarship to cover fees. Each week I stash away a little of my rest-home pay before handing the rest to Mum.
I load my palette with the precious stash of oils Ms R, despite the crappy art department budget, provides for me. Bistre and bitumen (two of Vincent’s favourites in his darker moods), ochre, terra sienna, chromium green-black and hartshorn white. Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto storms across the airwaves now, all drama and tight tempos as I choose my brush. I flick the paint onto the canvas, forming tiny ripples, weaving and melding, stretching the paint with turps. Up close now, I hatch the junctions between each slab of colour to round out the shapes. Van’s tortured face emerges from the canvas like Millais’ drowned Ophelia, so real and fully formed it feels as if my hand’s possessed.
The ringing of the next bell takes me by surprise. How can that be forty minutes? The painting still needs much more work but I’m glad of the break — the effort to summon up Van’s image from a blank canvas has left me drained. I’m just cleaning my brushes when Ms Romano pops her head around the door. She does a double take: first at the wet painting and then at me.
‘Jesus, Tara, what happened to your face?’
My hand travels instinctively to my cheek. Oh shit. I shrug and drop my arm as casually as I can. ‘I slipped while I was helping Dad.’
‘Really?’ She edges through the door and closes it behind her. Clicks off the radio and studies the canvas again before turning back to me. ‘You know if you need to talk to someone you can always come to me.’
