The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt

by Tracy Farr

  One night, drawn to the scent of the sea, I did not turn back at the Stadthuys. I turned instead down a narrow road, then followed the path along the bank of the river to the docks, where the river widened towards the sea. I heard the clanking syncopy of metal on metal, the ting of brass fittings, the slap of water. In the dark, I could just read the names of ships, and their home ports, painted on their sides in straight or curving scripts. I imagined myself in these elsewhere places – Hong Kong, Peking, Roma, Sydney – anywhere that was not Malacca.

  Turning back, I seemed to lose my way to Christ Church. I walked down side streets, past the doorways of establishments where I imagined men went to gamble and smoke, to whore. From the street, the rooms looked long, narrow, and deep, their darkened interiors smoky, velvetdark. Men pushed into them, and spilled out of them, Chinese and white men and Malays and all, but I saw no women. Three men – white men – stopped in front of me in the narrow street. I was not sure whether to be afraid.

  ‘Ya lost?’ one of them said to me, and the others nudged him and pushed him and jeered, and before I could speak, they moved on, stumbling into the night.

  An old Chinese man sat smoking a cigarette on a rattan chair at the door the men had spilled from. He looked up at me, staying seated, as I approached him.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I started to say, ‘I need to get back to Christ Church.’

  He nodded his head at me, singsonging words I could not understand, and waved his hand towards the door.

  ‘Come in, Missus. Come in.’

  Smoke spilled from the doorway. I moved forward. He laughed the laugh of a little child, giggling, musical.

  ‘Come in. Come in, Missus.’

  There was even less light inside than the moon and stars had provided outside. The darkness, through the door, was soft, velvet, smelled of grog and men and spices and smoke with, underneath those rich smells, something sharp, ammoniac. Voices were muffled, low. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw bodies reclining on divans and benches, on cushions, against walls, pipes to their lips. Metal tinkered against metal, ceramic clinked, as lids were lifted and replaced. I watched a man roll his palms together, like a child rolling balls of salt dough, slow and careful. Everything happened slowly, as in a dream. I smelled resin, sweet smoke.

  A curtain hung at the end of the long, narrow room, heavy and concealing. An arm looped it, swept it aside and up, and figures tumbled from behind it into the velvet dark of the room. They were four men: a large man, a thin man, each of them molten against the side of a smaller, slighter partner, two small coffee-skinned men, smooth-faced and young. The large man – Uncle Valentine – saw me first, as the two small darker-skinned men melted back behind the heavy curtain, melted back so quickly, so smoothly, that I wondered if I had imagined them there between my Uncle and Mr Holland; if I had imagined the money slipping from Uncle Valentine’s hand to that of the young man close by his side, his fingers lingering on the thin brown arm.

  ‘Good God, Helena, what the hell are you doing here?’

  I embraced my uncle, hid my face in his shirtfront. He smelled of musk and curious smoke, and a combination of other smells I had not before encountered.

  It was Uncle Valentine’s companion – Father’s business partner, Mr Holland – who told Father where they’d found me. Father was roused from sleep that night as the three of us arrived by rickshaw back at the big house in Jalan Kuching. An explanation was not required from me – there could be none, in Father’s eyes. I had brought inescapable shame upon his house, his name. I could damage his name in business, he roared. I was sent to my room, while the men talked, and Father raged. Again, I did not care. There was nothing to hold me to this house in Malacca. I opened my cello case and brought my cello into my arms, between my skirts, and played a loud lament into the night air, drowning the sounds of Father hammering on my locked door.

  HOME AND AWAY

  I tapped ash from my cigarette out of the upstairs window of my bedroom. The squeak of the gate signalled Father’s return. I pressed my cigarette against the enamel dish to extinguish it, popped a cachou into my mouth. Running my tongue around my teeth, I tasted tobacco smoke.

  The dining-room door slammed below me; the crystal lid of the decanter clinked. I imagined Father standing by the cabinet, drinking whisky from the cold crystal, feeling its smoky burn in his throat, its comforting warmth hit his belly. I heard Uncle Valentine’s voice, heard its register but could not make out distinct words as he spoke to Father in a low and urgent tone. Father’s voice, in response, rose in pitch and volume, punctuated by a sharp noise – a door crashing, perhaps a book being slammed with force onto a table. There was silence then; and then again, their two voices, each in counterpoint with the other.

  I tucked an enamel pin into my hair, smoothed my hands down the front of my dress and, as the clock in the hall below me struck the hour, I left my room and walked downstairs.

  I pushed open the door to the dining room. Uncle Valentine looked up at me and almost smiled as I stood just inside the door. Father stood at the long window at the back of the house. He clutched a tumbler, his hands together holding the glass under his chin, his head slightly bowed, as if in prayer.

  ‘Good evening, Father. Uncle.’

  Father nodded his head in reply, but did not speak. I stood as I was – my hands by my sides, my body tense, on tiptoes. I realised that I was holding my breath and, as I realised, I willed myself to exhale. Father turned from the window, draining his glass. He moved towards the cabinet, addressing me without facing me.

  ‘Helena. Join your uncle and me in a glass of whisky.’

  Father had never offered me anything stronger than sherry. I didn’t hesitate to accept.

  ‘Thank you.’

  As he filled the glass his hand was steady as a rock, as it always was. He handed the glass to me. We stood, the three of us, what passed for family. We had formed a circle without meaning to, facing inwards. Father raised his glass, not quite looking either of us directly in the eye.

  ‘Good health.’

  ‘Health,’ Uncle Valentine echoed.

  ‘And happiness,’ I added.

  I felt the welcome fire down my throat. But Father’s words, wafting with his whisky breath as he spoke them into the quiet of the room, hit me in the belly before the whisky could.

  ‘Helena, as I have just told your uncle, you will leave Malacca. You will travel south as soon as passage can be arranged. Your uncle is leaving too; he will return home with you; his business interests require his attention.’

  Uncle Valentine had moved a step backwards, broken the circle we had formed. He leant against the back of a chair. His eyes pointed downwards, did not meet my eyes. There was a look of distaste on his face that I imagined matched mine.

  Father continued to speak; Uncle Valentine and I continued in our silence, receiving his words, passive. You will leave; there is no need for discussion; there is nothing to keep you here. He stopped speaking. His final offering, something about a small allowance to be paid to me, I failed to take in properly, although I registered his final words, the first time he had mentioned her.

  ‘It is money from your mother.’

  It had taken little for me to disappoint my father, but in truth, he too had disappointed me. Father, home, family; empty words, without meaning for me. I was sick of these places my father called home: of his home in Malacca; even Uncle’s home by the sea could not draw me back. The faint taste of dishonour in my throat made my lip curl. I would go south, as Father dictated, but I would not go home. I would find a new way in the world – my own way.

  I left Malacca with the promise of a quarterly allowance from Father, and with an adequate but not generous bank note that I could cash on my arrival in Australia. Uncle Valentine and I arrived in Singapore glad to leave the sticky boredom of Malacca behind us, Uncle ready to sink back into the comfort of his house by the sea, far to the south of us. But I had heard stories on the journey south from
Malacca, stories of a city that called my name, a bigger city, modern and vibrant.

  And so, Uncle Valentine and I parted company on the docks in Singapore. He kissed me, hugged me tightly, then boarded a ship headed south to Fremantle. I took the Houtman, bound for Sydney.

  COTTESLOE

  1991

  Like jamming, like jazz

  HIGH EIGHT

  The filmmaker continues to visit. She comes with a camera now. A video camera, she is quick to tell me, high eight, she calls it. A lesser type of camera; tape, not film.

  She films me in the front room, the music room. It is just her and her video camera; to get the feel of things, she says, to run through some setups. I sit in my accustomed chair, settle back into the worn leather. She brings one of the hard wooden chairs from the kitchen. She sets up the camera, a light, a microphone on the table, talks to me as she puts each piece in place, adjusts their positions.

  ‘When someone makes a film,’ she says, ‘or writes a novel, or creates a painting, they choose what to leave in, what to leave out. That’s storytelling. You know, that’s the craft. Even when you’re making a documentary, or writing a newspaper article – they’re supposed to be factual, yeah, accurate, historically correct?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well, maybe. But I think often they’re not. There are a million and one choices the artist makes about the story they’re telling. And that’s not even factoring in the veracity of the information they have to hand – whether they’ve done enough homework, enough research.’

  ‘And have you done your homework? For this film?’

  ‘I’ve done some. But that’s why I want to just talk with you now, and probably for a few weeks, before we start filming properly. I want to hear your version. Your story. You know, collect it, capture it. Now, how’s that light? Are you getting used to it?’

  The light is not bright; the camera is small, quiet. I’d forgotten the process of being in front of the camera. At first it’s all you think about; head up to avoid a double chin; good side to the camera, watch your words, watch your expressions, keep it clean. But a good interviewer has that magical ability to make you forget about the camera, distract you.

  ‘Oh, I’ve brought these. From my first – maybe second – visit; remember? What do you think?’

  She hands me a manila folder. In it are photographs, eight-by-ten prints, black-and-white. I flip through the photographs. In each of them, the light is dim, the exposure long. The photographs appear pitted and bitty, the print all contrast and darkness and light. You can feel the movement in them.

  ‘I used fast film. It gets that grainy, gorgeous look.’

  ‘I look as if I’m moving. Yes; what you really see is motion. Very good.’

  ‘I love this one. Your hands. I want to make sure we film this.’

  It’s a close-up. They almost don’t look like an old woman’s hands; the fingers are long, sleek, busy. The fingernails are neat. The loop of the theremin looks cold and hard behind my skin.

  ‘Your hands are so busy. Even when you’re not playing. The rest of you – your body – stays very still. That’s the kind of detail I want to capture. That’s part of your playing.’

  I hand her back the folder of photographs. I rest my hands in my lap, consciously keeping them still. She laughs.

  As we work, I find myself opening to her in a way I had not expected. I feel my shoulders relax. I feel my torso relax, my gut. We talk, as the camera hums, until her talk becomes questions, and my talk answers.

  TAPE RECORDER MEMORY

  She is here today with the video camera, and with another woman. They talk of lights and camera angles. They are filming me again, in the front room. The new woman, who she introduces as Caroline, operates the camera, takes control of the lights, shoots photographs with a Polaroid camera. The filmmaker concentrates on me; am I comfortable? Is there anything in particular that I’d like to talk about to start with? The women work well together. Watching them, I start to see how the process itself will work.

  They stay for longer today, but it is not tiring. The pace of their work is measured, careful; they are quiet. When they confer, their heads close together as they stare into the camera’s eyepiece, or figure notes in a notebook, they murmur sotto voce. I listen to the soft rise and fall of their voices, catch the hiss of sibilants, but miss the meaning.

  The filmmaker tells me she’s reasonably happy with the footage she’s getting so far. It’s starting to be a story, she says, starting to flow.

  ‘But we need to watch the tape recorder memory thing,’ she tells me.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You know, when it feels as if you’ve told it before, as if what you’re saying is rehearsed, or learned. Like lines in a play. Or like a recorded version, played back. I’ve come across it before. I call it tape recorder memory.’

  ‘Well, it is what it is. I remember it, and I tell you what I remember.’

  She screws her mouth up, waves her head back and forth, clearly not agreeing. ‘I think – well, I think it might be particularly common among performers. Like learning to play a piece of music; you’ve learned to perform a version of your life, and it comes to seem real to you. And maybe it is. But maybe it isn’t, too.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that there’s a lack of truth in what I say?’

  ‘No, no – look, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to suggest that at all. Tape recorder memory; it’s not pure memory, it’s retelling the story the way it’s always been told. There’s remembering what happened, then there’s remembering how to tell the story, and that’s like remembering the way the music is written down, and remembering how you’ve always played it.’

  ‘Hmmm. Perhaps.’

  ‘So, maybe what I’m asking you to do is to improvise. Like jamming, like jazz. Maybe that’s a way of getting your story to flow in new ways, true ways. Making it fresh.’

  I roll the idea around in my mind. Improvising makes a sort of sense. I risk alerting her to the appeal that it has for me. ‘But doesn’t improvisation move even further from the score – the text, the truth – than any practised performance? Surely that moves away from the truth, not towards it?’

  ‘Maybe. But remember that I’m not looking for strict documentary, a strict retelling of history, of reality. I want to acknowledge that there’s memory involved in all of this, and I need to find a filmic way of showing that. I want to make the camera move the focus, mirror it in and out of sharpness, like memory moves the focus in your head. Someone said once that a documentary is in between inventing and capturing reality. I want our documentary, this project, to sort of acknowledge both things, both invention and reality. I guess I need to know what the reality is, though, if I want to show it. At this stage, I feel as if I’m still missing pieces. These interviews – this is supposed to be the reality, not the invention. I dunno. Maybe it’s just something we need to keep in mind as we move through the process.’

  She sighs, gathers up her notebook and pen from the table. ‘Look, it doesn’t really matter. I’m sorry if you thought I was suggesting that you haven’t been up-front with me.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I was thinking out loud. I do that.’

  ‘It’s fine. I understand.’

  ‘Well – do you have energy for one more session? Or would you like to stop for the day?’

  ‘No, no, let’s keep going. I’ll try improvising. Extemporising. See what bubbles up, shall we?’

  I follow her down the hallway to the front room, where Caroline has busied herself with cameras and lights while we’ve been in the kitchen. I sit down in the chair. Caroline flips a switch, and the light flares. I close my eyes, blocking it for the moment, until I need to face it. I have never enjoyed improvising. I prefer a fixed score.

  When they have finished, while the camera woman is in the front room packing the lights and camera, the filmmaker goes to the kitchen, where she has left her bag. I retrieve the video tape from my
bedroom. In the kitchen I hand it to her, thank her.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘are you sure you don’t want to keep it?’

  ‘Thank you, but no. I have watched it. I don’t need to watch it again. It’s a fine film. You must be pleased with it. You were young when you made it, I think.’

  ‘Yeah, twenty-four, twenty-five. I discovered Beatrix Carmichael’s work a few years before, when I was at art school. She really stuck in my head – her work did. Actually, I have a confession…’

  She fishes in her bag and brings out a postcard, a reproduction of the blue painting, the portrait that Beatrix painted of me, the painting that everyone knows.

  ‘It was this painting that I was really taken with. You know that experience when you have a postcard, or a photo from a magazine, and you stick it on the wall by your desk, or above your bed, almost as a talisman? Like a fan, like a schoolgirl crush? Well, I’m afraid that was me, with the Carmichael portrait of you.’ She holds the postcard out to me, in both hands, like an offering. ‘Electrical by Nature. I loved it. It gave me goosebumps. Still does.’

  I reach out and take the postcard from her. ‘How fascinating.’