Put your head down between your knees and take deep slow breaths.
This instruction from a school first-aid manual, repeated several times, had an effect. The single anxiety was more fundamental than the vague apprehensions she had refused to identify or confront and now thought almost trivial. It had a definition, because she had finally brought herself to name it, and it was crueller because, unlike the other problems, it was beyond her influence. Its source was the fragile thread of another's life.
If you refused to acknowledge something, did it exist? If you didn't express it in words, was it less likely to come to pass? She thrust these questions away like some specious residues of a former faith. Into her mind the words arrived, already arranged in sentences, seemingly of their own volition.
What if he were to have died without my acknowledging his existence?
What if he were to have died without my knowing him?
19
Greer's reflection looked back at her, steely and unblinking, from the octagonal mirror in the bedroom. She asked herself, is the alteration visible? There should be something new in the expression of the eyes because I am different. I have undergone a change, perhaps even an epiphany, and that must have left its mark. If I were painting a portrait of this woman, it would be necessary to locate a subtle shift in the emotional territory of her face.
I believed I had an epiphany once before, as a result of a momentous conversation with a young stranger, sitting on a beach on the Isle of Pines, New Caledonia. How strange that I should have believed that. But perhaps it's not so strange at all, because the two are linked. In a funny way they are part and parcel of the same epiphany.And yet they are poles apart.They are the opposite of each other.
She went to her desk and took out a pencil and a sheet of writing paper. With fast, unhesitating strokes she sketched from memory the nuance of expression she had just studied.The face in the drawing regarded her evenly. It was the face of a woman who had lived with some intensity.The expression conveyed an impression of something discovered. Greer had the sense of retrieving another thing, long mislaid. She thought, I have not lost my touch.
Tony was not in his cottage. When she reached the studio and pushed open the door of the upper level she heard the low buzz of male voices. Mischa and Tony stood under the south windows. Mischa's head was bent. Approaching, she saw he was looking at one of Tony's small photographs.
Greer said to Mischa, whose face was angled away, 'Show me.'
She was quite unprepared for what she saw, but she recognised it instantly. It was a photograph of a twenty-five-year-old picture, Mischa's painting of her reclining on her side, a sensual and serious nude figure, one leg raised and bent at the knee, the other folded into the body. He had begun that painting while she was holidaying on the Isle of Pines with Charlie, consumed with longing for Mischa.
Greer and Mischa had carried it, unfinished, to Sydney, where she had last seen it leaning against the wall of their sitting room. Instead of continuing to work on it, Mischa had rolled it up soon after they arrived and put it aside. She had expected never to see it again.
Tony said,'I'm feeling kinda sheepish about this,Greer. When I told you I hadn't found any works from the Sydney period, that wasn't a hundred per cent accurate.There was one. This one. This stunner came up for auction last year, coincidentally just before I got to Australia. The State Gallery of New South Wales acquired it.The curator nearly creamed his chinos when he saw it, he told me. Well, and who wouldn't? It's an iconic work.'
Greer's eyes were riveted on the picture.Although it was more than two decades since she had last set eyes on it and the reproduced image was small, she could detect important changes. The lines of the torso, which had been sketchy, were complete and emphatic; the background had been filled in with dense pigment. Against it, the archetypal female form glowed with a translucent pearly sheen.
The work had the self-belief of a painting triumphantly accomplished. She searched Mischa's face. He must have heard about this sale. He hadn't told her.There was something in his expression she couldn't read.
He put his hand on her shoulder and said, 'I gave it to Marlene.'
Immediately she knew what it was about Mischa's expression. His face looked exactly the same as it did when she uncovered one of his hidden stores of chocolate. He looked like someone who had been found out.
Tony was going on, in a conversational fashion, 'It was the first time this particular work had surfaced, so I was able to trace that sale back to the guy that offloaded it.Well, I'm not sure she'd like me calling her a guy. The sassy old gal who owned it.'
Greer said, more to herself than to Mischa or Tony, 'Dear, funny Marlene.' It was painful to pronounce that name again. It brought back a past she had repudiated.
It brought back crossing the landing to unburden herself in the perfumed boudoir of Marlene, the uber-female who revelled in girl talk. Invariably finding her in a state, obsessing about waxing her legs or wailing over ladders in her stockings or the bunions from her tight, teetering shoes. It brought back finding Dietrich on the turntable, most likely, because this self-annointed namesake of hers was always falling in love, while insisting she never wanted to and couldn't help it.
Within minutes of Greer's arrival the two of them would be shrieking with laughter over some silly thing.The laughter was cathartic, verging on hysteria. In those days both of them, for their different reasons, were teetering on the brink.
'Marlene, right. Now there is a name to conjure with.' Tony's uninhibited gaze swerved between the two of them.
'She'd hung on to that painting all these years, since Mischa left it out for her. Said she'd always regarded it as her superannuation, her sole family jewel. She could only bring herself to part with it when she was on her uppers.The job market's not that crash hot for drag artistes who are way past their prime.' He grinned at them. 'She referred to it as her garage sale.'
Selling the picture had put Marlene squarely back in the black.
'She told me with great relish that she'd joined the fat pussies and paid off her apartment – not the same shitty old dive she had back then, she said to tell you. I checked out her place, it's a riot. She said to be sure to say that as a result of her garage sale she fronts up to shareholders' meetings now and creates quite a stir, which I can believe, and she has a harbour glimpse to die for in divine Elizabeth Bay.'
His eyes went with an air of invitation to the dictaphone. Greer was still looking at Mischa.
'I've got the address for you. In Evans Road.'When they didn't respond,Tony added,'She was good interview talent, Marlene. One of the best. And I'd rate that as one of your best too, Mischa, huh? That Sydney picture?'
Mischa said,'That was not a Sydney picture. It was done in Melbourne.'
'Before you left. Mostly.Yeah, Marlene told me that. She knew its history. I guess you must have told her about it one day,Greer.'
'I guess I must.' I guess I told her about just about everything in those days.I had to.There was no one else to tell.
'She still has the postcards you sent from Port Douglas and Cooktown. She said to send you her fondest love, and you'll always have a special sequinned place in her heart.'
Greer saw on Tony's face the iridescent memory of Marlene. He added, 'Oh, and she said these days she pulls suits in the corporate world like you wouldn't believe.'
Mischa's hand still rested on Greer's shoulder. The sunlight lay in oblongs on the studio floor. It was dusty, Greer noticed. She must get Agnieszka in here. Mischa always hated it when she did that.
Tony asked, 'Were there any other survivors?' They looked at him and away again.
'Surviving pictures, I mean. From the great Boxing Day bonfire of 1979.'
Greer heard her own soft intake of breath. At the same time she was reminded incongruously of the Bristow comic strip set in an office, with its references to the Great Tea Trolley Disaster of 1963.Tony's voice was light and innocuous, as if he was fully expecting to hear
an amusing anecdote. So that was how he was going to play it. Well, playing it down was probably preferable to up.
Mischa said,'I burnt the others.'
'Out the back of the block of flats. On a total-fire-ban day.And the cops slapped you on the wrist with a fine.Why did you do it, Mischa?'The voice, buoyant, might have been asking why he disliked team sports.
'I got rid of them because none of them were any good.'
'Did you agree with that, Greer?'
'Agree with what? That they were no good, or they should be burnt? Or that he was fined for lighting a fire on a day of total fire ban?'
'I understand you weren't there at the time he did this,' Tony said in a softer tone,'but what did you think about the quality of the work he put on the bonfire?'
'Oh, I –' She hesitated. She felt dizzy all of a sudden and short of breath.'I don't –'
'She didn't like them because they were full of shit, Tony,' Mischa roughly interrupted.'That's all there is to say on the subject. Go away and get over it.'
He propelled Greer across to a trestle table with bench seats. Table and benches were covered with books, magazines and newspapers, sketchpads, empty mugs, stray CD boxes and an old cassette radio.
Mischa brushed a space for both of them on a bench. He put his arm round her. Greer leant against him with her back to the table. She looked at the dust on the floor. Put your head down between your knees and take deep breaths. She had thought she might be about to faint.
Tony, unruffled, squatted on the end of the table and placed his little tape recorder in front of him.'Verity showed up one time while you were in Sydney, not long before you left, right? Said she saw Mischa but not you, Greer. Neither of you had been in touch for months and she was stressed out, not knowing how the works for the next show were coming along.'
His eyes flicked to Greer and away again.'She remembers the paintings very well. No way did she think they were shit. No way in the world. She particularly remembered the self-portraits, because she'd never seen Mischa make any before.'
And he would never make any again. Greer closed her eyes against the images, but they were burnt on to her retinas. The heads, all of them Mischa's, splattered with marks that were slashed into the paper like wounds.The bodies,his and hers, grossly distorted and asymmetrical. Shadows, ominous and malevolent, looming over hospital beds. Writhing contortions.Changelings.
Mischa had always employed different styles in the same picture, held in bold, finely judged equilibrium. It was his trademark.This was the first and only time Greer had ever seen him produce work that she feared was out of control.
Mischa said,'Verity was talking through her hat. She was always biased in favour of me.'
'True, but she said those pictures were pretty remarkable, Mischa. She was taken aback by them. Said they were confronting and bleak, but really strong. She likened them to Goya's "The Disasters of War".When she heard what happened to them she was so shocked and appalled she said she nearly threw up on the spot. Not her exact phraseology, but –'
Tony jumped visibly as Mischa sprang to his feet without warning and yelled,'Don't tell me her opinion! I don't want to hear what she thinks! I didn't want her to see the pictures, I didn't want her to show them and I didn't want them shown in the future! Not to anyone, do you understand?'
Mischa dropped his shoulders and exhaled hard, looking down at Greer, whose head was bent again. He said in a more normal voice,'We don't want to see them again,Tony, so my decision is, there's no point to cart them around. Better they go up in smoke.'
His eyes settled on Tony's dictaphone. He seized it, vaulted on to the table and thrust the small gadget in his face, like a singer with a microphone.'Don't worry, people, I did the right thing by my crazy pictures! I got a green plastic bucket and went and scattered the ashes in the cemetery so they could have a view of the sea!'
Greer got up. She said quietly to Mischa, 'It's all right, I'm OK,'and to Tony,'I'll be in the house.'
She crossed the floor fast, concentrating on planting her footsteps one in front of the other.As she went she detected a note of excitement, carefully supervised, in Tony's modulated voice.
'Is that right? No kidding.You went out on Boxing Day, that same night, with the ashes from the fire?' And then conversationally, as if it were of no great moment,'In a green plastic bucket, huh? And which cemetery would that be?'
Outside the studio Greer made a beeline for the house. She was feeling nauseous, the way she used to feel before exams. There was no one about, for which she was glad. She didn't want to see anyone just now, not even Rollo. It was Saturday, she remembered. Jacopo and Giulia were reputed to be coming this morning with the forklift. She glanced at her watch.They were due any minute but they were bound to be late. Probably an hour at least before they showed up.
In the kitchen she sat quietly and drank a glass of fizzy water, which was supposed to be settling.The early morning energy, with its concomitant gust of wellbeing, had gone. She felt detached, and at the same time resolute. She didn't want to think about or work out what kind of resolution this might presage. It was just there, surrounding her, the way the forcefield of Mischa's creative concentration surrounded him.
She went into her study and took out the diary. Before opening it she sat with her elbows on the desk, chin in her hands, looking at the sketch she had made earlier of herself. Finally, she opened the diary at the back and wrote without preamble, as she had told Mischa without preamble that she was leaving Charlie.
21st April 2006 (later)
The waters broke at 3 am on Boxing Day morning.That it happened to be Boxing Day was immaterial – we had not celebrated Christmas. Mischa and I had been painfully silent all day.
Marlene, my friend who lived across the passage, had gone to an Xmas lunch party. She came back in the evening with bags of leftovers, turkey and pudding. She banged on our door, very drunk, mascara running, with two cold bottles of Veuve Clicquot, & made Mischa open one of them then and there.We went down to the concrete yard where we put the food on Marlene's card table and she sat me on a chair bolstered with her Thai silk cushions.
We were a forlorn trio, in the tiny boiling hot courtyard in the twilight, among the overflowing rubbish bins. I drank two glasses of champagne.They drank the rest.
It was the champers, Marlene insisted, that oiled Greer's carburettor two weeks before her due date. This was an uncharacteristically masculine analogy for something that was a deliberate ploy on her part, as Marlene informed Greer in the car in the early hours of the next morning. It had had the same galvanising effect on her sister-in-law. She more than anyone knew that by this stage in the piece Greer was fighting a losing battle against discomfort, distress and desperation in roughly equal parts.
By this stage in the piece, moreover, Marlene was having trouble keeping her hostility towards Mischa under wraps.And vice versa.Looking back,Greer thought Mischa had been in a catatonic state for weeks, scarcely responsible for his actions. But even as that had made him incapable of looking after her, it hadn't stopped him working away in a kind of rampage of productivity.
On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, before her show, Marlene had insisted on taking Greer to a Croatian clairvoyant in the Cross she'd heard amazing things about. The woman, who was younger than Greer, had scrutinised her client's palm and at once pronounced her to be a passionate woman. Moreover, Greer was besottedly in love and she was soon to have a momentous experience.
These things had a reasonable chance of being true, given Greer's burgeoning appearance, but the fortune teller had taken note of her client's set face and gone on to say, gravely, that she could see big, very big difficulties.There was a major impediment preventing these problems from working out. Greer knew what this was, didn't she?
'But will they work out?' Greer had wretchedly asked her.The girl, who seemed pleasant, was looking increasingly uneasy.
'There seems to be a solution, but it's –' She was obviously reluctant to go on. Seeing
this, an agitated Marlene had hustled Greer up and out of there, voluble with apologies for her own feeble-mindedness in suggesting this stupid outing.
Marlene had tried to persuade Greer to come to Christmas lunch with her. 'They're darling people, darl, you'll adore them.You've seen nothing till you've seen the seven stripping Santas, they're a scream. It'll do you good to party, you can't be moping on your own.'
To Greer's half-hearted protest that she wasn't alone, Mischa was there, Marlene had retorted that he might as well be in Timbuktu.But the idea of paper hats and mincing Santas made Greer feel sick.
The waters had broken while she was on her way back from the bathroom, in the narrow passage between it and the bedroom,where she had been sleeping alone.They had flooded across the floor, which was on a slight tilt, and trickled through the doorway into the sitting room where Mischa slept on the sofa.
Greer had stood there, rooted to the spot, stunned by the amount of liquid that gushed out of her. Her first thought was that Mischa would be horrified. Her second thought was to call Marlene. Marlene had made Greer promise to come and get her the moment it happened, whatever time of day or night it happened to be. Even if Marlene was high-kicking in the chorus line, Greer was to haul herself up on stage and drag her, pun intended,darl,into the delivery room.
Marlene brought a bucket and mopped up the water while I rang Josie.This was not the problem it might have been, as Josie, mindful of premature surprises, had been organised for ages. But she now had to find an early seat on a plane. I didn't have to pack a bag for myself either. Marlene had had it ready for a month at least.
I didn't wake Mischa. Marlene and I went to the hospital. Marlene insisted on driving, although she wasn't feeling well.
She put a line through the full stop and added the words 'at all'. In truth, Marlene had been feeling exceedingly ill in the aftermath of Christmas Day and had vomited out of the driver's window on the way to hospital. The blasé nurses at the Royal Women's, Paddington, were used to everything. No eyelids were batted at the tall, disastrously hungover person of indeterminate gender and ravaged make-up who presented herself as Greer's dedicated birthing coach.
The Biographer Page 28
