Pearl took in my dark wavy hair tied back with a ribbon. My green eyes, pale face and the shapeless brown cardigan and sensible, plain wool skirt I wore. My hat and shoes long out of fashion; my homemade blouse. She watched with amusement as I flushed red. I felt so gauche!
‘Birdie, this is Pearl,’ he hesitated for the briefest moment, ‘my wife. And with her are my two daughters: Thomasina and Marguerite. Girls, say hello!’
Of course this glamorous woman was his wife. Even on this initial brief meeting as we stood awkwardly grouped together I felt Pearl to be much harder than Enid. I wondered privately if Maxwell had been so distracted by her beauty, he had misread the steely, petulant, challenging spirit I saw within her eyes. We all knew that Pearl Tatlow, the famous children’s writer, had finally overcome her hatred of country life and agreed to move to Pencubitt from Hobart. For the last year Poet’s Cottage had been the subject of an extensive renovation as local tradesmen strived to make it liveable for Maxwell’s family.
‘How do you do, Birdie?’ Pearl said. ‘You must come and visit me at Poet’s Cottage. I could do with a companion who sets me on fire. Any pal of darling Spider is a friend of mine. Cheerio!’ And after tossing that statement my way she continued her strut along the street. Several lounging youths on a smoke break from work watched her from outside the blacksmith’s, their eyes boggling. The brazen Pennyquick boy – cheeky monkey – dared a wolf-whistle as she passed. He was rewarded by a nod and smile from Pearl. This was clearly a woman who loved men and male attention.
Allowing his daughters to follow their mother, Maxwell grabbed my arm. ‘What do you think, Birdie? Isn’t she something?’
‘She’s very beautiful,’ I agreed, and then couldn’t resist adding, ‘Spider?’
Maxwell laughed, flushing slightly. ‘You’ll soon discover Pearl loves to bestow nicknames. For some unknown bloody reason I’m Spider. Come and have tea with us soon! I know my two favourite girls will get along. I’m the happiest man in the world!’ He patted my arm before pursuing his family with his long, elegant strides.
My head spun at his fervour, but I couldn’t help feeling concerned as I watched Maxwell running behind Pearl. I remembered a line from a letter he had written me when he’d first proposed to her: She could have had anybody, but she chose me! I also had extreme doubts that Pearl and I would get along as Maxwell had predicted. We seemed to have little in common except a love of words and Maxwell.
Over the next few months, I tried to avoid Poet’s Cottage and its new occupants; I felt a little guilty as I had promised Maxwell I would befriend Pearl. I busied myself instead with caring for my mother, whose health always deteriorated in the colder months, and with making several draft sketches at Blackness House for a book I was planning to write on the mansion’s history. Books and history, art and photography were my passion: no man could interest me as much as that quartet.
The days moved briskly from autumn to a cruel winter. There were several large snowfalls and countless frosts and half the town went down with the flu. Although I didn’t honour my promise to Maxwell, several other locals did. Nearly all of them complained at their treatment by Pearl. She made an outright enemy of Pamela Watson, the policeman’s wife, by spurning several of her calls with a curt, ‘It’s my writing time!’ Various others, hoping for a sticky-beak at the new lady of Poet’s Cottage and the restoration work on the old place, were disappointed when Pearl failed to appear. Maxwell was forced to make conversation with them in the front room while the clacking of Pearl’s typewriter upstairs conveyed her disapproval of these uninvited guests. Pearl didn’t attend church – although Maxwell and the daughters did – and the milkman claimed, to much ribald laughter, that she had opened the door nude to him one day and nearly caused him to drop his bottles.
When I eventually did become friends with Pearl, she laughed about those visits from curious townsfolk and the fights that she and Maxwell had over her non-appearances. I believe what everybody in Pencubitt overlooked was that Pearl was a dedicated writer. She took her craft seriously and it never failed to irk her that others didn’t. Maxwell, bless him, didn’t have a creative bone in his body and he would have been appalled by Pearl’s rudeness in failing to sacrifice her writing time to entertain visitors, even uninvited ones. Like most men of that time, Maxwell took it for granted that the home would come first with any respectable woman. As we were about to find out, however, Pearl was far from respectable. She was often referred to as ‘fast’, because she painted her face and smoked. ‘Fast’ was a term that both repelled and intrigued me. Despite Mother’s condemnation of fast or loose women I was fascinated by them. At seventeen I was an innocent. I remember being shocked when I discovered how babies were made at around fifteen through schoolyard talk. I could never have asked Mother about sex. Women who were fast represented a dangerous freedom to me.
The one visitor who Pearl did open her door to was Mrs Bydrenbaugh from Blackness House and her nineteen-year-old daughter, Violet. ‘Money attracts money,’ the locals sniffed when they spotted Pearl strolling arm in arm with the two women or when Mrs Bydrenbaugh’s Vauxhall disturbed the peace of High Street, the trio laughing inside, veiled hats protecting their hair as they sped past onlookers. I was bewildered by the unlikely pairing of dark-haired, sophisticated Pearl with Violet, who resembled a pretty blonde milkmaid. On the surface they had little in common: Pearl was a wife and mother, Violet an unmarried girl. I was also, truth to tell, envious. Shyness prevented me from making friends easily and few in Pencubitt shared my artistic interests. Pearl and Violet seemed so carefree and confident. It was money that did it, I told myself, and I burned with resentment that it was so scarce in our house. Money opened doors that remained forever shut without it. Violet had never bothered mixing with anybody in Pencubitt before Pearl arrived. She was always the aloof fairytale princess, educated in a Launceston boarding school and seldom spotted in the street. I made the mistake that so many of us did in Pencubitt, of assuming things we had no knowledge of: it was widely believed that Pearl was rich. The furs she wore and the expensive shoes all added to the myth. We took it for granted that she must have been so happy in those days when so many struggled with financial hardship between the wars. She had everything, didn’t she?
I ran into Maxwell a couple of times and I sensed his disappointment that I had failed to call in to Poet’s Cottage. He seemed to accept my excuses about my mother’s ill health and my Blackness House project but his handsome face was slightly more guarded than it had been in the past and there was a question in his dark eyes that he didn’t articulate. Fate, however, was determined that I would overcome my lack of confidence. After several months of successfully avoiding Pearl, one day I was placed right in her path.
It was late afternoon. I was taking Snowy, my Westie, for his walk on Shelley Beach, revelling in the breeze that whipped my hair and made Snowy run as if crazed. He showed off for my benefit, leaping into the air, chasing imaginary sprites. Enormous white-tipped waves slapped the shore; the isolation of the wild beach encouraged my fantasies about mermaids, pirates and foreign lands. Then an unwelcome intrusion – walking towards me was the unmistakable figure of Pearl Tatlow, wrapped against the cold in a thick coat. I was caught. There was nowhere to hide.
She stopped in front of me and pushed her hair back off her face. ‘Well, if it’s not the only person in Pencubitt who hasn’t called on me yet! It’s Birdie, isn’t it? Maxwell’s published friend?’
‘Yes,’ I said and then, feeling I had to fill the awkward silence, blurted out, ‘My mother’s health is delicate. I’ve been caring for her.’
Pearl’s expression said clearly that she didn’t believe me. ‘You don’t look like a Birdie,’ she drawled, looking me up and down. ‘I think I’ll call you Tricky.’ I blinked, taken aback by her eccentricity and friendliness. ‘Who is that little fellow?’ She indicated Snowy. ‘A West Highland terrier, isn’t he?’
‘Snowy.’
‘A perfec
t time for a walk, isn’t it? I love this time of day. You can almost feel the spirits gathering. Twilight. A dangerous time, when you could slip and be lost between the worlds. Do you think that fanciful, Birdie?’
‘No,’ I answered honestly, marvelling at her beauty now that I saw her up close. Her skin was translucent, her eyes the colour of clear green glass.
‘I didn’t think you would.’ She stared at me intently. ‘You’re shy,’ she announced. ‘I like that. I like shy people.’
I felt my face burning with embarrassment and something like pleasure.
‘I’m shy too, so I understand,’ she went on.
I didn’t believe her, of course; at that moment I was too entranced by her glamour, the spell she had woven, to think that her words might actually have been true. I was ignorant enough in those days to believe that beauty compensated for everything. Beautiful people didn’t bleed, wound, or even cry in my imaginings.
‘If you ever feel like visiting me, you would be welcome,’ she said.
The wind snatched her words away and I wondered if I had heard her correctly. She bent down to pat Snowy, who had paused in his antics and sat panting at her feet. When she stood up, I thought I glimpsed sadness in her eyes. ‘I came down here to reflect,’ she said. ‘I needed to get away. I felt as if my mind was being squeezed by some dark vice. A terrible gripping hand, choking my every good thought. Too many ghosts from my past have followed me to Pencubitt. You seem like a sensible, wise little thing. Do you believe in God, Birdie?’
I had no idea how to reply. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Not the God that most people believe in, perhaps.’ It was a question I had often pondered as I walked along the beach or sat in mass, but would never have been brave enough to ask another.
‘If there is a God, he must be a monster,’ Pearl said vehemently. ‘The things that he allows us to suffer. God must be an evil, uncaring, tired old man.’
‘Man has free will.’ I found my tongue although I shook with nerves as I spoke. ‘God made us in his image but man has a brain to create his own destiny. Such was the fall from the garden of earthly delights.’
‘Then, worse than evil, God is ineffectual. His creation has usurped him. God is dead.’ Pearl nodded her head several times. Taking a packet of cigarettes from her pocket she offered it to me (I refused), then placed a cigarette in a black holder and lit it. Watching as she exhaled in a long elegant stream I vowed to practise in private, although I doubted I’d ever be able to achieve Pearl’s effortless sophistication.
She spoke again. ‘I came to this beach and in my desperation I attempted what some people might term a prayer. I prayed for help, for an angel, and then you, Miss Birdie, came walking along.’ She fixed me with her intense stare. ‘I think you are the answer, Birdie. The sign I was looking for.’
Then she did something quite unexpected and shocking. Flicking away her cigarette she shrugged off her coat to reveal she was naked. ‘I like to have a quick dip, even in this temperature,’ she said, kicking off her shoes. She ran to the water while I stood open-mouthed, watching her cavorting and squealing with laughter. I was stunned, barely able to comprehend her actions. I had never seen another woman naked and Pearl was so uninhibited, so carefree. Her body was as white as my cotton sheets. I had a confused impression of full breasts and a thick patch of black hair between her legs. I was terrified for her that the fishermen could see her from where they were gathered on their moored boats, working.
In a few minutes she charged back to me, shaking her wet hair. Embarrassed, I turned away. ‘That feels better! Aphrodite has been honoured. Oh, Birdie, it’s only a body! Good heavens, dear girl. Do you need to sit down? You’re not going to faint, are you? Oh, Birdie!’ She clapped her hands in mirth as I burst into tears. That was the beginning of our strange friendship.
The first time I visited Pearl at Poet’s Cottage I was so nervous I almost ran away before pulling myself together and knocking on the door. A beaming Maxwell opened the door with: ‘Birdie! It’s so good to see you. How is Eva?’
‘Mother’s looking forward to the warmer weather. Winter’s tough on her.’ He helped me with my coat and I marvelled that I was never shy around Maxwell. I babbled on, ‘It’s cold today. I’ve got the fire going at home.’
The children were playing noisily in the back garden and from upstairs burst the clacking of a typewriter. Maxwell glanced up anxiously. ‘I hear you have an admirer,’ he teased me, but his manner had become slightly strained.
‘Victor? So the town is saying, but if so I’m not aware of it.’ Victor was the son of Pamela and George Watson. He had been to boarding school at Launceston and had recently returned. He was handsome, like a blond Valentino, and a couple of gossips had spotted him chatting to me at Blackness House as I sketched. According to the town we were now an item.
‘I know Vic,’ Maxwell said. ‘He’s a decent enough chap; any supporter of Joe Lyons is my mate. He had better treat you well, old thing, or he’ll answer to me. I might have him around for dinner or we could fix up a date for the four of us. Wait in here, Birdie, with the fire. I’ll go and fetch Pearl.’ He led me to the front room where music crackled from a gramophone, before dashing up the staircase yelling, ‘Pearl! Pearl!’
I sat before the fire, taking in the volumes of poetry, Dickens, and children’s fairytales piled on the rug before me, trying not to listen to Pearl’s angry voice from upstairs. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? It’s my writing time!’ Maxwell replied in a pleading tone and the typing stopped. ‘You tell her then!’ Pearl shouted.
I wanted to leave the house immediately, but loyalty to Maxwell held me there. I studied the room’s large collection of framed and unframed prints, artwork hanging or stacked against the red walls. I wondered who had done the pastel sketch of Pearl naked on a bed. Not Maxwell, surely? A divan was piled with mismatched cushions. There were several statues in the art deco style and two red-fringed lamps, slightly frayed and tatty. Children’s toys lay scattered on the floor and there were pencil scribbles on the wallpaper. Heaped in every corner were books. The room could have done with a good dusting, a polish of the floorboards with some Fisher’s wax and plenty of elbow grease. My mother would have been horrified to witness such neglect of housekeeping duties, and in spite of myself, I also felt uncomfortable to see the lovely bright room left in such a shameful state. I wondered if such contempt for order was an essential part of the artistic temperament.
After a few minutes of tense silence, I heard footsteps on the stairs and then Pearl entered the room. To my relief, she was fully clothed. She looked as beautiful as ever, except paler.
‘Hello, Birdie,’ she said, taking a cigarette from a black lacquered box. ‘I’m in the middle of a scene that’s flowing beautifully. Would you mind if I turfed you out? I’m sorry, darling girl, but you know how it is.’
‘Of course I understand,’ I said. My cheeks were flaming red but in a funny sort of way I did understand Pearl’s reluctance to abandon her work. I knew how abstracted I became when I was sketching, writing or daydreaming, and how I disliked any interruption. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you. I’ll come another day.’
‘Thanks, Birdie. You’re a chum. Maxwell gets so cross when I tell people to leave but I know you’re artistic and will understand. We just don’t think the way normal people do.’ She scrunched up her face in disdain at the word ‘normal’ and at that moment I would have forgiven her anything. She caught me in her arms and kissed me on the cheek and the smell of her perfume invaded my nostrils. ‘I’ve finally got that scraggy, irritating kookaburra right where I want him and I really don’t want to disturb the muse.’
As I began to gather my coat, gloves and scarf, Maxwell came in. ‘Going already, Birdie?’ he said in a disappointed tone.
I glanced between the couple. ‘Yes. I couldn’t stay for very long, Maxwell,’ I lied. ‘Mother wants me to do some shopping. I’ll return when I have more time.’
‘Come back this eve
ning,’ Pearl ordered. ‘Would five suit? No, make it seven, after we’ve put the girls to bed. We could have a chinwag and some din-dins then. Stop scowling, Maxwell, you look like a constipated owl. I simply must sort out Kenny. I really should kill off the feathered devil – but the kiddies would be so distraught! The publishers are beastly to insist he live. It’s no use you being beastly about it, Maxwell.’ She grabbed him by the chin. ‘Look at the wrinkles forming in that handsome face! Your little Birdie understands. Thank God somebody understands me in this backwater!’ She vanished upstairs and Maxwell led me to the door.
‘I’m so sorry, Birdie.’ He made a face. ‘ “The muse”, you know.’
‘It’s perfectly fine, Maxwell,’ I said. ‘I understand perfectly.’ And I did. I really did. Far more than poor old Maxwell was capable of.
I did return to the house that evening, and many more evenings besides. Some of my happiest memories of that time are of sitting in front of an open fire, tossing pine cones into the flames as we read aloud to each other, an untouched glass of wine beside me (unlike Pearl, I found it difficult to enjoy our toasts to Dionysus). Or of playing mahjong, the pleasing click of the tiles accompanying the crackling of the fire; or hands of rummy or five hundred for a few pennies’ bet. The conversation was always stimulating and varied, and sometimes silly. Pearl could discuss methods of attracting fairies to the garden or the latest Cole’s Picture Book with as much fervour as she expended on her fiery, intense musings on poets, philosophers or politics.
During these visits, I rarely saw any evidence of the tension that later crept between her and Maxwell, although there were already small signs of the melancholia that eventually overcame her. Once or twice, she spent most of the evening staring into the fire, refusing to respond to attempts to draw her into conversation. I also recall her flaring up in temper at some comment Maxwell made about her new haircut; she screamed, growled like a tiger, uttered a coarse word and threw a book at him. The most shocking aspect of that early incident was the speed with which she switched from carefree to furious over something so trivial.
Poet's Cottage Page 5
