by Murray Bail
‘I can just see her being good at her work.’
Lindsey went on, ‘When I think of Wesley, I realise he had mini-breakdowns of some kind. I meant to ask Sophie for her expert’s opinion. He’d be going along all right, cheery enough, then he’d spend a week locked in his room. Until I got used to it, I’d knock on his door. There’d be no answer. I’d leave his dinner on a tray outside. After a few days he’d appear, and it was as if nothing happened.’
It was time for Erica to return to the shed, to submerge herself in the pages. But it was comfortable on the veranda, in the cane chairs with cushions, looking out past the sheds to the brown-purple horizon, tall spreading gum on the left. Lindsey was easy company. The way she allowed, and even encouraged gaps, imitated the landscape.
‘Both my brothers I would put in the unusual category,’ she now said. ‘But then I suppose I’m biased. Wesley was single-minded. You’ve no doubt noticed. He had our father’s jaw. Because of his work, Wesley had very orderly, methodical habits. It almost made him an unpleasant brother. Every other day he had to have boiled eggs.’ Lindsey turned to Erica. ‘Do you know he asked for his rain gauge to be buried with him? Can you believe it? Of course Roger carried out his wishes.’
Wesley used to go down with the proverbial splitting headache. No amount of darkened room and Aspro would ease it. They were after-shocks, not necessarily to do with the way he applied his mind to the most impossible of subjects – but then unremitting hard thinking each and every day of the week, from the moment he woke up, was bound to have an effect, upsetting the brain cells even. Often Lindsey came upon him with his hand covering his eyes. He was one of those hungry dogs with a bone, he said to his sister. ‘There’s nothing I can do about it, nothing at all.’
Apparently Roger had his oddities too. Nothing serious – but she didn’t want to go into them.
Amongst Erica’s strengths was an ability to concentrate. All Erica had to do was rest her elbows on a desk, and squash her face in her hands, and look down at a page. For hours at a time Erica could work in that position. Concentrating, she hardened. It was something she was aware of.
Now having skipped lunch she stopped reading to lean back in the chair. Sophie was driving back to Sydney in the small car, music station playing loudly. Couldn’t she see that the long solitary drive, a mad dash back, was not going to lead to anything? It was as if she was rushing into a future with sun in her eyes.
Erica stood up and stretched.
She went outside.
Instead of this time walking from the homestead on the right side she took the left side, and walked down and further across and further along until there were no more gates. It became progressively rougher, mallees and scraggy gums, just an occasional animal track. The land also fell away behind her. If she turned and had seen the lack of signs she might have paused. It was while walking that Erica decided to build, definitely, on her strengths, which seemed to be clearness in thought, a dispassionate logic before a given situation, an expressionless firmness, even a bit of coolness – or, all those strengths, while somehow avoiding the coolness. It would help in the appraisal of Wesley Antill’s papers, and when the task was finished (concluded) strengthen her own philosophical work, her own papers, as well as keep on even keel the personal aspects of her life. It was while thinking along these lines, and glancing at birds and stopping to look at ants, that somehow Erica lost her sunglasses. One moment she was wearing them, next she had nothing.
As she searched she cursed and wished she had someone alongside to help. She moved around in circles, searching low branches, under bushes, on bare ground. For this to have happened she must have been wandering in a dream. She even began to doubt she had been wearing them at all.
When she turned to go back she didn’t recognise anything. She kept walking in the direction she imagined the homestead to be. She also wanted more open ground – away from the dry bushes. Another reason for walking was to avoid getting cold. It was past four o’clock. All Erica had on was a short-sleeve cotton shirt, stopping short at the hips. Keep on walking just a little longer until she met a fence; a fence – any post with wire – would lead to the house.
Less than ten paces away Erica saw the beer-coloured fur move. It was behind some grass. The fox remained side on, then walked away, stopping and looking back at Erica, who had frozen, before it disappeared.
The ground now levelled out, but still no fences.
In the space of a few days so many things had happened. Now this. It was not yet panic stations, but she had to be careful. She sat on a very large rock – ‘to gather her thoughts’, a phrase she had always liked. She was lost, but not really lost. It would soon be dark. What if it started snowing? Be like the fox – fit in, be unafraid. And her small face assumed the expression of looking ahead, determined, clear, set.
Still she remained in the one spot.
At first the sound coming from somewhere was so unexpected Erica barely noticed. Only as it came closer and an unhurried bumping and rattling took over, which became altogether louder and intrusive, did Erica stand up.
Any relief she felt seeing the familiar truck made her annoyed at herself.
‘Are you coming with me, or do you want to freeze to death?’
Once seated Roger Antill looked at her. He took off his coat.
‘Thank you,’ Erica said. Heavy, and far too large, it smelt of sheep, soil and wheat dust.
‘It suits you.’
Driving one-handed he went in the opposite direction to where she had been heading.
‘If it’s Sydney you were looking for, it’s that-a-way.’
‘I’m not in the business of following Sophie.’
‘Sophie. What’s she been up to?’
Erica explained why Sophie had rushed back to Sydney – for no good reason, in her humble opinion. We are talking here about a married man who has a wife. Sophie had never given a full description of him.
Roger didn’t have a lot to say about this, and as Erica, feeling comfortable in the cabin in his warm coat, went on critical of Sophie and her impulses, he said, ‘Is she keen on him, or not?’ It was sometimes difficult, Erica explained, to tell the difference between Sophie’s restlessness and her sudden interest in another person, a man especially. Roger nodded.
So they drove and Erica waited as he stopped and checked a few things, such as stray ewes and the floats in the water troughs. Everything threw a long shadow; then it was dark.
‘Anyway,’ he said accelerating up to the lighted house, ‘it looks as if you’re marooned here, on this place.’
‘Marooned?’ That was funny. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been marooned before in my life.’
And to Lindsey in the welcome of the kitchen he reported, ‘I’ve saved her from the crows and the ants. She would have been picked clean inside a week.’
Lindsey saw Erica in her brother’s coat. ‘I, of course, assumed you were working in the shed.’
‘Just a walk,’ Erica shrugged, ‘that took longer than expected.’
‘Down past the long paddock,’ Roger said in a low voice.
‘See if there’s a special bottle left in our father’s cellar.’
After a two-course meal and one glass too many, and if the hands were past ten, Erica normally would be feeling drowsy. She would be thinking about the next day. But circumstances were not normal. She had survived an adventure, just. She had been saved by him. Here he was seated next to her. A very strange sensation, one she had not experienced before. She was grateful to him for coming by chance upon her, and then to treat it all lightly. Otherwise, she would still be out there, by herself, freezing to death. No wonder she felt light-headed, more talkative than usual. And it was why she followed him out onto the veranda on his suggestion, instead of hesitating or saying no thank you very much, her usual automatic response. Be unafraid. Why not? Besides, he leapt to his feet to find a coat, this time a heavy greatcoat – the sort that used to feature in Army Disposal stores
– and smelling of sheep, but also metal, engine oil, poultry – not unpleasant, not at all – which he draped ceremonially over her. She could recline in the deckchair, a philosopher at rest, except for one leg hanging over. ‘It’s too cold out here,’ Lindsey said. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Through the kitchen window Erica glimpsed her taking a swig straight from the bottle (and didn’t feel surprised or saddened).
To her left he cleared his throat.
‘Philosophy is your expertise. So what have you figured out for yourself ?’
‘I am still working on it. Working through it.’ This may have sounded precious, so she added, ‘I don’t like the word “philosophy” anymore. It sounds a bit off-putting, doesn’t it?’
Whatever she said out there on the veranda was sounding dry, theoretical, tentative, small, and her ‘philosophy’ was all of those things, of little use for the complexities of living.
While listening, Roger Antill hadn’t moved.
Erica felt a pleasant warmth through her hands, face and legs.
‘As far as I can see, your brother was constructing a theory of the emotions.’
‘What’s that, based on personal experience?’
‘I suppose, in part. Whoops! Sorry.’ Her left foot touched his. What an idiot: he’d think she was – .
‘All I know,’ Roger from the left, ‘is when our brother returned here, and he stood outside looking at the view, I said to Lindsey, “He’s gone all white in the hair-department, and he’s not much older than me.”’
‘This can happen,’ Erica nodded from her chair. The difficulty was knowing how to live in reaction to others.
‘I don’t know why our brother became like he did. Sophie might be able to throw light on that one.’
‘She must be in Sydney by now.’
She wondered if Roger was at all like his brother; did they even look similar? Was Wesley a helpful man?
Erica touched his arm. ‘I hope today you hadn’t gone out specially looking for me. If you hadn’t found me, I’d be in a sorry state by now.’
‘I’d be driving around all night sounding the horn, letting off firecrackers. I’d be organising search parties, hundreds of men beating the bushes with sticks. Helicopters using searchlights. We would have found you. You might have ended up a bit worse for wear, that’s all.’
It was the general immensity she was no longer afraid of. ‘Over-arching’, a word she had used in her philosophical work before.
When he asked how long it would take to finish the appraisal, Erica looked straight ahead and answered, ‘Many months, at least. Possibly more.’
In the dark alongside came an exaggerated groan.
She gave him a push. ‘You should be pleased to have a guest, and one who doesn’t give the slightest bit of trouble.’
‘I could do with a philosophy for myself. Nothing fancy.’ He stood up. ‘You must be getting cold.’ Taking her hand he raised her from the deckchair. Taller than her, he let his hand settle on her hip. It didn’t go away. But it seemed he was thinking of something else. She couldn’t see his face.
Erica reached up. ‘Thank you for today.’
She didn’t know whether it was relief, gratitude or carelessness. One of philosophy’s functions has always been to shine light into the dimly lit, the imprecise, the hopeful.
As Roger walked to the door he kept his arm around her waist. In the kitchen she took off and handed him the greatcoat and stood there the way she would remove for him a gown of some sort, a bathrobe.
27
— NATURALLY, I assumed – took for granted – could not think otherwise (I hadn’t thought about it enough) – that Cynthia, laden down with the embarrassment of her cameras, would come with me to the adjoining country, Germany. I didn’t let on it would be on my way home.
It was unthinkable that I would not include Germany. My studies in Sydney, and wanderings in England and Europe to establish some sort of deep-footing in philosophy, would not have culminated; I would have demonstrated, if only to myself, a lightness towards the subject. Never has there been so much dilettantism as today! Everywhere I look. The various recent isms have seen to it. After Greece – I had decided not to set foot in Athens – Germany is the natural home for philosophy. It is hardly worth stating.
Germany has given us not one or two, but five of the giants in western philosophy.
‘It must be something in the water,’ was George Kybybolite’s explanation. Or was it his brother, Carl, trying to make light of it?
Although it was high time I returned home, I toyed with the idea of learning German.
I told all this to Cynthia who had her camera resting on her thigh. We were in a beer cellar, near the station. She seemed to be only half-listening. I took it to be an obvious acceptance of the invitation – why would you even bother asking, et cetera? By train we would slowly zigzag via Hanover, Leipzig and other important centres, to Berlin. I began to anticipate my entry into Germany as a kind of smothering newsreel-dark greenness.
Raising the camera and focusing on nothing in particular Cynthia told me she was going off to Vienna with one of the Kybybolite brothers, George. They were leaving in the morning.
It had been going on under my nose!
As she kept her camera to her eye panning along the patrons of the beer cellar, I didn’t know what to say.
I must admit my relaxed attitude to the present – to myself and those around me – and to things like the taste of beer – was blown to pieces. Suffering a rejection hadn’t happened to me before. As an attempt at justification I told myself I didn’t really know Cynthia, because there was not a lot to know. She was at least fifteen years younger than me. If we talked she seemed to be somewhere else. Although we had been eating and sleeping together for barely a month or so, I wondered if I had mistreated her. (Answer was: how?) I sat very still and imagined how I must appear to her. But my abruptly altered view of her made this difficult. In her eyes I was a man, but one of the solemn ones. The marble brow, constantly trying to make sense – not far from coming across as a pedant. Boring! Meanwhile, the loud Kybybolite brothers in their democratic shirts and lumberjack boots went on horsing around, cracking jokes, ‘good company’.
A slender black-haired woman who only occasionally smiled. She gave me the flick.
The narrowness of my way of thinking had undoubtedly infected my behaviour. It had always carried the danger of rejection. Otherwise, no matter how carefully I examine my feelings, I do not get very far. I can never understand myself, not completely. Show me somebody who does. (And what does this mean?)
— By the time I crossed the border and entered Germany my thoughts had returned to where they should have been in the first place. Journeys by train tend to direct me towards extra-thinking. I’ve noticed this before. In England I became addicted to train travel – something to do with being a passenger through time, where the fleeting present can be seen instantly becoming the past, while the future goes on, perpetually out of reach? Some of my best thinking was done on trains going up and down the British Isles, just as my best note-taking took place in railway hotels, on railway platforms, and in the cafeterias.
I shared a table in the dining car with a completely bald picture-framer and his smaller friend who made violins, both from Mittenwald. Already seated was a man missing an arm, who said nothing. When I gesticulated to help him cut his frankfurt into pieces he got up and moved away. I assumed he’d lost an arm in the war. The two old friends from Mittenwald laughed their heads off. ‘Anybody who has a cough has tuberculosis,’ one nodded to the other. Fair enough.
The German fields, as they were called, possess a many-layered heaviness, like an ordered bog, and in the hamlets and towns the German churches strive to rise above them, using geometry, decoration, music.
It was the picture-framer, I believe, who said that everything in the world ended up, in one way or another, being framed – ‘contained’ was his term. A face being the obvious, everyday example. It is
framed by hair. And the human body. It is contained by clothing chosen to emphasise or subdue certain features. Things at one remove from the truth, such as oil paintings of fields, or of apples and grapes on a table, are given assistance by a frame which increases the illusion. This was said in heavy, pidgin-English. Here the violin-maker quoted from somebody, ‘there’s no such thing as an ugly bridge’, though since we were at that moment not crossing a river I assumed it had to do with violins. Odd how I remember the young woman, English, I found myself sitting alongside under a tree in Hyde Park, who had a violin case and proceeded to eat a vegetarian salad. Unusual eyes – set wide apart. She was on her way to a violin class. As we sat with our backs against the tree I imagined – without meaning to – her standing upright, practising Bartok or something difficult, naked. In an unaffected way she told me her father had been a mushroom farmer. She loved mushrooms. Every day, she said, she cooked and ate mushrooms.
We bump into a stranger, and soon forget about them; while others – there is no logic – we find ourselves remembering.
The two craftsmen from Mittenwald shared a serene manner. As we talked they kept glancing at the passing landscape framed by the large window, accustomed to their land, while taking note of it.
When they left the train at Heidelberg they bowed after a fashion and didn’t wave from the platform. No, I didn’t get their names.
Alone in the dining car I wrote to Rosie, describing them, and in a burst of irritation claimed I would never have met such interesting types, let alone their conversation, if I hadn’t been on a train in southern Germany. And in a further burst of what I can only think was a convoluted form of homesickness asked if there was a single violin-maker in the city of Sydney.
I went further, ‘Have you thought about making a visit? If not, why not?’
Instead of returning home I was suggesting Rosie drop everything and join me in Germany.
