The Science of Appearances

by Jacinta Halloran

  My intention is good, he thinks. Must he defend himself?

  She’s still fiddling with her cup, and the sound of the rattling china starts to grate on him. She catches his eye and flits her hands to her lap. ‘Good intentions are never enough in themselves. You have to take stock every inch of the way. You need to constantly reassess, end against means. Vigilance, Dom. Always.’

  ‘It’s just wheat,’ he says. ‘For making bread.’

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s the politics of hunger, and corrupt governments and war. Scientists must take note of politics and history as much as everyone else.’

  Famine is almost always political. He recalls Mr Welsh at the front of the Kyneton schoolroom, the colour rising to his throat. ‘How about we change the subject?’ he says, as lightly as he can.

  Hanna doesn’t smile. ‘If we can’t talk about important things, what’s the point of talking at all?’

  He’s often to be found in the glasshouse, breeding oat strains resistant to crown rust — at least, that’s the grander vision. What he does day to day is emasculate and pollinate, tag and bag. He’s still there when Rupert Kingsley returns at the end of the day. ‘Working back, Quinn? I was about to lock up but I can wait. What are you up to?’

  He tells Kingsley about the crosses he’s made: Laggan by Kanota by Belgar crossed with the variety Ukraine brought sixty-seven seeds from two hundred and fifteen pollinations, or 31 per cent yield. The same strains crossed with Nemaha brought 14 per cent yield from one hundred and thirty-one pollinations. The variety Cherokee had the lowest seed set. He’s been recording temperatures, humidity, time to germination: any quantifiable variable he can think of. It seems there’s a relationship of temperature to —

  ‘Thirty-one per cent,’ Kingsley interrupts him. ‘Remarkable. You have a flair for this, Quinn. There could be a career in it for you.’

  ‘I’ve thought so myself.’ He stumbles on. ‘Not the flair, so much, but the career.’

  ‘Great times for genetics, you know.’ Kingsley has that look he often gets in lectures, as if he’s on top of a mountain taking in the view. ‘So much good to be done. Crops and stock, of course. Humans, too.’ He casts Dom a sideways glance. ‘Ah, but sadly those waters have been muddied since the war.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dr Kingsley, I don’t understand.’

  ‘Eugenics, Quinn. Now, don’t get flustered. I know the word leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths these days. Hitler’s gross misuse of the concept, the Nuremberg laws banning interracial marriage: all terribly wrong, it goes without saying. Still, let’s consider the science. Mendel, Hunt Morgan, Avery, McClintock — all that brilliant work. Can’t we use our sound understanding of heredity for the betterment of the human race? Aren’t we obliged to?’ Kingsley’s eyes are shining, hypnotic.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Dominic mumbles. Is Kingsley just the tiniest bit cracked?

  ‘What are your politics, Quinn?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I haven’t had to vote yet.’

  ‘Come on, you’re at university. Haven’t you been swept up into one camp or another?’

  ‘No. I’ve avoided all that.’

  ‘Let me ask you something, then. Do you think it fair that a poor boy, intelligent and hard-working, be given less opportunity in life than a rich, privileged dullard?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  Kingsley smiles knowingly. ‘A rhetorical question only. Still, I ask because that’s how things work in a capitalist society. That’s always been the problem with the Western eugenics movement, this unproven assumption that social traits — poverty, mental instability, criminal behaviour — are largely innate. Where’s the science in that? We can now understand heredity at a cellular level, but we’re fighting huge social biases. So what’s the answer?’

  ‘Design an experiment to account for the biases?’

  ‘Exactly. And how might we do that?’

  He tries to think, but Kingsley beats him to it. ‘We create a socialist society, where every child — male or female, black or white or yellow — has equal access to quality education, housing, employment. Then we’ll see who carries good genes.’ He casts his hand over Dominic’s bagged wheat spikes. ‘See here. You’re creating enabling environments for your specimens. Varying temperature and humidity, crossing multiple lines, always with the aim of improvement in mind. Why shouldn’t we do the same for our fellow man?’

  They leave the glasshouse and Dominic waits while Kingsley turns the key in the lock. ‘I’m only a humble botanist,’ Kingsley says, ‘but there are other, more eminent people who share some of my views on this subject. We belong to a little organisation.’ He reaches into his satchel and pulls out a leaflet. ‘Always looking for fresh blood, Quinn. Young men and women especially — you know, new ideas, new energy. Perhaps you’d like to come along to a meeting when we start up again next year?’

  17

  The afternoon of Saturday 26 January 1952, one hundred and two degrees. A raging northerly blows dead leaves from the elms on College Crescent into the gutters on Grattan Street. The air is peppered with a fine grey dust, carrying the precious topsoil of places such as Kyneton, or further north, from the orchards of Shepparton and Kyabram, or the arid wheat plains of the Mallee, further north still. A fire breaks out in the roof of Wilson Hall, the Gothic revival showpiece and ceremonial hub of the university, where painters are retouching the ceiling. The fire brigade is promptly summoned, but the wind is against them, and the sorry flow from their hoses can’t quench the flames that quickly make their home in the heavy beams of the roof and the wood-panelled walls. Within an hour of the first flames the roof has collapsed — ten tons of masonry narrowly missing a posse of fire-fighters hosing the west portico — and the four walls lean inwards as if to form a new roof of their own. ‘It will never be rebuilt,’ announces Professor Paton, the vice-chancellor, to the crowd of reporters who’ve gathered to cobble together a story for the evening edition. Does the professor have a tear in his eye, or is it simply the smoke, stirred up by the wind, that makes his eyes water?

  The papers call it the most spectacular blaze in Melbourne since the 1947 burning of the Mahia at Victoria Dock. Ten lives were lost in that fire, caused by an explosion of sodium chlorate in the ship’s hold. The losses incurred in the Wilson Hall fire don’t include human life. Instead, the fire destroys valuable oil paintings of former university chancellors, some by Sir John Longstaff; a Hammond organ and a grand piano; stained-glass windows worth thousands of pounds; the chancellor’s carved chair; priceless oak panelling and a Gothic-style ceiling; and huge stocks of university stationery.

  The demolition is underway when Dominic returns to campus the following Monday. A crowd still gathers at the ruins. Some wait until a policeman’s back is turned to seize a pyrrhic trophy — a singed piece of brocade, a blackened doorknob — while others simply stand mesmerised, it seems, by the sad, slow act of dismantlement.

  It’s rumoured that the papers for the supplementary examinations, to be held at the end of the week, were also burned in the fire. Tibble, who has a microbiology supp, prowls the grounds around Wilson Hall in search of exams that might have escaped incineration. ‘You’d be much better spending your time actually studying,’ Dominic points out as Tibble ducks and weaves, snatching at scraps of singed paper nestled in shrubs and huddled in gutters. ‘The chances of finding something legible, let alone something that’s actually from first-year micro …’ Tibble sweeps up a cache of litter from a drain and begins to sift through it. ‘There must have been at least a hundred different exams in the fire,’ Dominic goes on, trailing behind him. ‘That’s if they were actually there at all.’

  Tibble loosens a blackened fist and a clutch of paper scraps float to the ground. ‘Shut up, Quinn. Help me look or bugger off.’

  Dominic gives up and lends himself to the game. Logic’s on his side, but he knows, too, that illogical
things can happen. If people win lotteries, against all odds, why then can’t Tibble find the piece of paper that will, at the very least, guarantee him entrance into second year? Raise your expectations, he berates himself, but his old instinctive caution pulls him back into line.

  They’re in Tin Alley when Tibble lets out a whoop of triumph. ‘Bingo!’ he shouts, waving a sooty page above his head.

  Dominic goes over to him. ‘It’s micro?’

  Tibble reads. ‘Discuss the relationship between the learning processes of repetition and organisation’ — he stops to brush ash from the page — ‘and the three main levels at which learning can take place.’

  ‘Bad luck.’

  ‘On the contrary, mate. This proves I’m onto something.’

  ‘Yes, but —’

  ‘I’m not giving up now. Any fool can cram for an exam, but I want to walk into that room knowing I found the questions in a bush. Ha! Tibble and the burning bush: now that’s a bloody good drinking story.’

  ‘All right, you mad bastard,’ Dominic says. ‘Another hour. Then I’m leaving.’

  The whisper of salvaged exam papers has spread as fast as the fire in the hall, and around Dominic and Tibble on that January afternoon, in the wake of the southerly change, a hundred students comb bushes and climb trees. They shout from the branches and throw gumnuts at passers-by until someone turns on a hose and cannons the climbers. Shivering and dripping, they descend from the treetops, victorious despite their thorough soaking. One by one they drift back to the ruins of the great hall, where some of the girls cry in mourning for something beautiful lost.

  ‘I’ve found French,’ someone shouts, and they’re all back to the search. The afternoon fades and the summer light softens, and a corner of second-year Chemistry’s found pinned against a fence. Third-year Physiology — a whole legible page! — is rescued from a grate. ‘I’m going to pass!’ someone shouts, and the wild cheer goes up. They’re in love with the whole crazy business, they’re mad for it: don’t they all want to beat the system, one way or another? The system’s old hat, and they? Why, they’re young and full to the brim with promise. Their time’s just beginning.

  ~

  Clarissa and Lucien, Sam and Madeleine. It’s Clarissa’s birthday, Lucien’s shout, and Mary’s first taste of champagne, here in the cocktail bar of the Windsor Hotel. Clarissa’s given her a heavenly dress, barely even worn, and Molly helped her take up the hem. Sam and Lucien discuss German philosophy. Sam smokes furiously and interrupts Lucien when he mentions Heidegger and the Nazis. ‘Don’t be so predictable,’ Sam says. ‘Look at what he’s contributed.’ Clarissa talks books: Stendhal and Proust. She’s studying French literature, and speaks the language, too — picked up during her year in Paris as a girl.

  Dinner at the Society Restaurant is oysters, served on ice, and chicken in herbs and cream. People at other tables turn to look, and Madeleine-Mary flashes them a sympathetic smile: a dazzling foursome like theirs is bound to turn old, balding heads. Sam’s hand traverses the small of her back as he talks about his move into abstraction; Clarissa’s eyes are on Sam, Lucien’s are on Clarissa, and she, Madeleine, is at the pulsing, magnificent heart of things.

  At the Downbeat club they drink brandy while the music flows through their veins and out their mouths. They speak jazz, think it, dream it. In the ladies’ she and Clarissa swap lipstick. ‘Remember the night I first met you?’ she asks Clarissa as they stand at the mirror. ‘I thought you the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.’

  Clarissa puts her hand to Mary’s face. ‘Lipstick, darling, right there.’ She sweeps her thumb in an arc over Mary’s cheek, rests it under her chin, and kisses her on the mouth. Madeleine kisses her right back.

  After dinner they all walk across the gardens, back to Sam’s flat, Clarissa and Madeleine hand in hand, Lucien carrying their shoes. In the salon Sam puts on a record. ‘I have a birthday treat,’ he says. He rolls a cigarette and passes it to Clarissa on a blown-glass ashtray. ‘I know how much you like it.’

  Clarissa picks up the cigarette. ‘The best present so far,’ she says, and kisses Sam on the mouth. The smoky purple of the ashtray is Turkish delight — don’t you know this is Murano, dear? Mrs Cameron croons — and there are Clarissa’s lips on the cigarette, her caramel eyes. ‘Have some of this,’ Clarissa whispers. Madeleine smokes and passes it to Sam. The air is cinnamon-caramel-sweet, and Gerry Mulligan’s saxophone plays just for them. Madeleine rests her head on Sam’s shoulder; she puts her hand to Clarissa’s cheek. Her beautiful gypsy, her golden artist: why should she have to choose? Sam takes her left hand and Clarissa her right. Lucien snores on the sofa, and Sam’s bed is generous enough for three.

  A bowl of apples, a pile of books — what to make of them, these ordinary things? ‘Art requires distortion,’ Donald says. ‘Great art comes from quality of form. Look at Cézanne, a great artist. Why? Because he’s discovered the secret of all great art — the formal construction of the picture.’ He holds up a reproduction and they see Cézanne’s apples, spilling from a basket onto the folds of a white cloth. The apples teeter as if they might roll off the canvas, and one side of the tabletop is lower than the other. Why is the cloth so bunched and folded? No one ever lays a tablecloth like that. ‘Perspective of time and space,’ Donald says. ‘This is what Cézanne understood.’

  They are to sketch the form from direct observation, turn their back to the table and paint from memory. ‘Narrative is sentimental,’ Donald chants, walking between easels, his hands locked behind his back. ‘Tell the truth in your work, but don’t tell me a story. Ideas, now that’s a different thing entirely.’

  A bowl of apples, a pile of books. Mary holds the charcoal to the paper and closes her eyes. She peeled Granny Smiths and stewed them on the stove while Dom did homework at the kitchen table. The squat, rough handle of the vegetable knife against her thumb, the tiny spurt of juice as the green skin was breached and the white flesh exposed, the pits and ridges of the wood against which the apple was split in two, and two again, each piece a half of its parent. Each slice veined with green, the white of the flesh pitted with a thousand tiny morsels. Were they the cells of the apple she could see? Dom could tell her. Truth, Donald said. Tell the truth. Her mother said the same thing, the day she left home, but her mother was a liar. Worse than that, a disbeliever. She opens her eyes to the blank sheet of paper before her. The charcoal is warm in her hand. Does truth come from without or within?

  ‘Colour,’ Donald says the following week. They are each given a piece of gessoed board. ‘We begin with an exercise.’ Another still life: a bottle, a plant pot, a small bowl of lemons on an olive-green cloth. He asks them to paint in black and white with only one extra colour. ‘A problem-solving exercise, ladies and gentlemen.’

  ‘What is the problem?’ Mary asks when he stops at her easel.

  ‘Perspective, direction, form: the same problems we grapple with every time we begin. Add to these the restrictions of palette. How are you to resolve all these to create something worthwhile?’

  She shakes her head. ‘How can you tell if it’s worthwhile?’

  ‘If the problems are solved, the artist has succeeded.’

  Week by week Mary grows more knowledgeable about shapes. Brush in hand, she strolls past the paintings on the studio wall, drawing in the air the cylinders, triangles and diagonals that give form and balance to the work. A still life becomes a complex concoction of shapes from a setsquare (shapes are easy, really), but does it matter? Isn’t colour the thing? White is all colours — the mother Russian doll of colour, all her babies tucked inside — and black is none. Or black is the enemy of colour: a shadow, a funeral. No need for black, except for the outline of things, but who cares about outline? Let it all blend and merge and mix, let colour beget colour, let the whole world become a glorious shining rainbow!

  Joyce telephones the kiosk and asks Mary to meet her
at the Fan Court café. ‘I miss not seeing you each week,’ Joyce says. ‘Lying there with your lovely head in the clouds.’

  Joyce is taking a sculpture class at Melbourne Technical College. She tells Mary, when they meet, about the work of Barbara Hepworth, the English sculptress: her vertical forms in stone and wood, the towering figures in blue Irish limestone that stood on the banks of the Thames during the 1951 Festival of Britain. ‘Commissioned by the Arts Council, no less. A woman, paid properly for her art.’ Joyce herself has begun shaping stone. ‘I feel like I’m there, really inside the work. With painting I was always apart from it, on the surface.’

  Joyce is in love: Mary can feel it. The intoxication of the project, the belief in the work, the clarity of the vision. Joyce has discovered the secret, the key to the door. Aren’t all artists hammering their fists against that door until their knuckles are bruised and bleeding? ‘I want to see what you’re doing,’ Mary says.

  ‘Come on, then.’ Joyce stands. She pulls Mary to her feet.

  Out on the street Mary realises their oversight. ‘We didn’t pay for our food.’

  Joyce’s eyes light up. ‘Then run like the blazes.’ Down Swanston, holding hands and laughing like crazy — oh, the thrill of the crime, the lure of the project! Both transgressive in their way. They run with doubled effort — running away while running towards. Past the State Library, across La Trobe Street and into Bowen Lane, only stopping when Mary breaks the heel of her shoe. Her only pair of lace-ups. They laugh about that, too.

  Joyce has a key to the sculpture studio. ‘We’re allowed to come and go. To work when the mood seizes us.’ She pulls back a dust sheet and Mary sees a bird sleeping, its head under its wing. So perfectly quiet, still, vulnerable. She turns to Joyce, who seems none of these things. ‘How have you done it?’ Just a few curved lines into stone and it’s there.