Vermeer's Chair

VERMEER’S CHAIR

MICHELLE L OPERT

Copyright © Michelle Lopert 2008

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

To Jules, the mad artist who inspired this book

and

To Mike, my father, who imbued me with a love of art and tolerance towards artists.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I’d like to thank my long-suffering and supportive partner, Monty Glass, for putting up with my obsessive hours of writing, huge slabs of time when he jocularly announced I had disappeared up my cloaca. His literary and gourmet feedback kept me sustained. I’d also like to thank luthier, Graham Caldersmith, for providing the sanity of his companionship after my escape from a tempestuous marriage. His tranquil house on the edge of the forest provided a writer’s haven that allowed me to disappear up my cloaca and give birth to my first novel. I’d like to thank my musically-talented mother, Toby Lopert, for reading through my manuscript, laughing at my whimsy and sharpening the musical references. Many thanks to my talented writing friends Gill Goater and Marion Tracy for their erudite feedback. I have taken their advice and removed the excessively florid adjectives and slashed and burned those overblown metaphors that were full of sound and fury and signified nothing. And last but not least, I’d like to thank my ageing and slightly incontinent, but ever-loveable bull terrier, Kato, for allowing me to shamelessly portray his heroic character.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Vincent Van Gogh: Reader of Novels.................................... 1 2. Edvard Munch: The Scream................................................ 11 3. Paul Cézanne: Three Bathers............................................... 17 4. Egon Schiele: The Embrace ................................................ 24 5. Russell Drysdale: The Medical Examination ..................... 30 6. Norman Rockwell: The Critic.............................................. 37 7. Honoré Daumier: The Three Musicians ............................. 44 8. Franz Hals: The Laughing Cavalier.................................... 53 9. Honoré Daumier: The Hypochondriac................................ 62 10. Vincent Van Gogh: Hospital Corridor at Saint-Rémy ........ 69 11. Vincent Van Gogh: Starry Night ......................................... 76 12. Vincent Van Gogh: Chair and Pipe..................................... 88 13. Edouard Manet: Bar at the Folies-Bergère ........................ 96 14. Wladyslaw Slewinski: Woman With Red Hair ................. 108 15. Pablo Picasso: Guernica..................................................... 118 16. Vincent Van Gogh: Self-Portrait with Shaven Head ........ 130

17. Claude Monet: The Luncheon ...........................................138 18. Paul Gauguin: Vision After the Sermon ............................146 19. Hans Heysen: Approaching Storm .....................................155 20. Paul Cézanne: Suicide’s House..........................................162 21. Edouard Manet: Déjeuner sur l’Herbe .............................169 22. Vincent Van Gogh: Vase With Sunflowers .......................179 23. Francisco Goya: The Madhouse ........................................191 24. Honoré Daumier: Three Lawyers in Conversation ...........202 25. James Whistler: The Artist’s Mother.................................214 26. Turner: Burning of the House of Lords and Commons....225 27. Honoré Daumier: The Uprising.........................................234 28. Russell Drysdale: Happy Jack............................................243

1. Vincent Van Gogh: Reader of Novels Amy “Jack, we need to talk.” Words of dread to any man’s ears but I had to break it to him some time. “Talk, squawk. Not interested,” he replied. The afternoon was slipping by and Jack was storming about the house like a cyclone, searching for old camping equipment but with little success from the sound of it. “Seriously, Jack. There’s something we need to discuss before you leave. It won’t take long.” Jack slammed his fist against the wall. “Well, I don’t want to discuss it.” The house creaked under the force of Jack’s temper. Almost fifty years old and Jack was still a powerful man whose moods could crack the composure of a saint. And I was no saint. “For God’s sake, Jack. Why don’t you sit down and relax for a moment? You’re making me dizzy.” “Haven’t got time. We’re leaving in two hours and I haven’t finished packing.” For a man who rarely left his studio, stepping out of the house was a major event. It was only a fishing-boating trip but the accompanying theatrics were hard to bear. Admittedly, it was a lousy time for a heart-to-heart discussion so I dropped the idea with a sense of relief and resumed reading. Fifteen minutes later, Jack stomped into the kitchen, refilled the kettle and gazed at the dog whose yelping dreams pierced the air. “I had this amazing dream last night,” he blurted out. Jack and his dog had a lot in common in the sleep department. They were even beginning to resemble each other. I hid behind my book, ignoring his fidgeting, the way he filled 1

the room with his irritability. It was probably my big chance to open up some meaningful dialogue, as they say in my textbooks, but something told me the right moment had died. Best to leave it buried. “Want to hear it?” he asked, drumming his fingers on the counter. “Definitely not. It’s bad enough listening to the dog dreaming.” Jack waved his tattooed arm in the air to dispel my protest then launched into his nightmare, a tale of drowning, suffocation and watery madness. I yawned in an exaggerated Shakespearean manner, hoping my boredom would stem the tide of this psychic tsunami, but he battled on with his Jules Verne saga, oblivious. “Wow. That’s a complex dream, all right,” I said when he paused in his narrative to gasp for air. “Your mind’s one great Pandora’s Box, Jack. I reckon a Jungian analyst would have a field day with that one.” “Bugger the Jungians. You’re the one studying psychology. What do you think?” He shook his head in wonderment. “It was so real, like an underwater movie.” I closed my book and smirked. “I think it’s called a wet dream, Jack.” “Very funny.” Blood vessels on his forehead pulsated. “But what does it mean, Mrs Know-it-all?” I slapped my novel onto the table and sighed. I could see I wasn’t going to get much reading done. “Maybe you’re worried about tonight’s boating trip. Or you have some deep-seated morbid fear of fish. I really don’t know.” Jack grabbed a book and leaned towards me, his breath reeking of whisky. “Want to know what your dumb book says? It says choose an interpretation that resonates.” He threw his hands in the air like some startled thespian. “Resonates? Of course it fucking resonates. I remembered the bloody thing in minute 2

detail, didn’t I?” “I think you’ve missed the point, Jack.” “Oh, of course. Stupid me.” Jack shoved the book away and it slid along the kitchen counter and head butted the toaster. The kettle whistled at the same time and he snatched it off the stove. He threw open cupboards, extricated the coffee maker, rummaged around the ruins of our pantry for coffee beans and dumped them onto the cluttered counter. It was like watching one of those hyperactive silent movies, only Jack was far from silent. My books were scattered around the kitchen where I studied in winter. It was the warmest room in the house. Jack scowled and elbowed them aside to make room for his one act barista performance. With outstretched arm, he lifted Psychology Today by the corner as though it was infectious and dropped it onto the floor. I curled up in the chair and pretended to read, my jaw tense. Jack was revving himself up to fever pitch, testing my tolerance levels, seeing how far he could push me before I cracked. That was the only sport he played. “I wish you’d remove your crap from the kitchen,” he said, with a superior tone. Never mind the disaster of his art studio out the back. It dwarfed my pathetic little mess in the kitchen. Jack plucked Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, waved it provocatively in front of my face then let it belly flop onto the floor. “Freud. Know what I think of him? A total waste of space.” I couldn’t help chuckling. Only Jack had the panache to denigrate a century of psychoanalytical theory with one sweeping gesture and relegate it to oblivion. He continued to dump half a dozen books at my feet. Novels, textbooks and journals speckled the floor in a literary massacre. In the face of these killing fields, my resolve collapsed. “Stop it, Jack. You’re ruining my books.” 3

“Who cares? These books are all crap and all that crap’s now in your head.” He snatched the packet of coffee beans and gashed it open with his teeth. Beans scattered around the floor in a desperate bid to escape his fury. Who could blame them? “Geez, Amy, half the world’s starving and you waste your time reading trash.” Jack scooped up the renegade beans and flung them into the grinder. “My literature’s no more trashy than your painting. Art only reflects the world but literature tries to make sense of it, tries to impart some wisdom—” “Wisdom? Don’t make me puke. Books are written by people who pretend to be full of wisdom.” He tossed more beans into the grinder and continued shouting over the whirring motor. “And you know why? So they can inject meaning into their dull meaningless lives.” “If the search for meaning is such a crime, why do you keep looking for it in your dreams?” I shouted, smug with my logical checkmate. Jack didn’t hear me. Or pretended not to. He flip-flopped around the espresso maker, filling thermoses, filling mugs, filling his senses with caffeine highs. The aroma of coffee sent me into cigarette cravings despite my non-smoking status. We’d both chucked the habit back in the eighties when the gods of health and the body beautiful tyrannised us. Here we were in the nineties, ruled by the economic gods, lung clean but bank poor. We were failing this decade as well. Jack stepped around the book debris and handed me a mug of freshly brewed coffee, a labour of love amidst a battlefield of clashing wills and kitchen appliances. “And a coffee for you, my literary one.” “I don’t drink coffee any more, Jack. I’d have thought after twenty years, you’d remember that.” 4

Jack grinned. “Suit yourself.” He grabbed the coffee from my hand, splashing it over my lap. I snatched my dripping book and stormed out. He could rave and rant all he liked, but literary abuse was unforgivable. Jack’s provocation hurled us into the conjugal abyss, the address we’d lived for too long, the marital state I was keen to abandon. Yet inertia and fear kept me curled in my comfort zone, yearning for change but afraid to take the first step. I mopped up the sopping book with paper towelling, resumed my position in the armchair and controlled the urge to strangle Jack. Minutes later, the doorbell rang and Loretta stepped inside with a flutter of eyelashes and jangling earrings. Her arrival was pure relief and took my mind off Jack’s irascibility. Like me, Loretta was a nursing sister only she was moving up the career ladder while I was moving sideways, backwards and eventually out. Trying to move out of hospitals and into a new profession. That was the plan. “How’s things?” she said, dumping her handbag on top of my books and slumping into a chair. “Oh, you know… assignments coming out of my ears and Jack his usual charming self.” Right on cue, Jack’s bluster oozed through the walls as he resumed his flight path around the house. “That husband of yours.” Loretta shook her head and inspected her fingernails, the source of her deep character analysis. “He’s a selfish, egotistical bully.” Her cuticles were insightful. And mention of bully caused Jack’s lumpy dog to bound out from under the table. The white bull terrier, with his pink Roman nose and shocking black patches, waddled up to Loretta. Instead of the usual hearty welcome most guests bestowed on him, she pushed him away with her manicured talons. Rejected in such an offhand way, the dog turned to me and 5

laid his mangled snout on my lap. “Hi, Brick.” He gave me a doleful look as I rubbed his ears. “Is Jack driving you nuts too? Try to ignore him, that’s what I always do.” Brick wagged his tail then flopped to the floor. The lure of sleep was suddenly more pressing than the slings and arrows of human discontent. I could see by the grin on his snout that paradise was here and now in this patch of kitchen sunlight. “Oh, to be a well-loved pet,” Loretta said. “You guys spoil him rotten.” Jack burst into the kitchen and tripped over the dog. “Bloody hell, Brick. Do you have to sleep right in the middle of the room? Amy, have you seen my motorbike jacket?” “It’s hanging in the garage cupboard where it’s been for the last ten or twenty years.” Loretta chuckled but Jack ignored her. “Jesus, Amy, if you just stopped rearranging my life…” His voice trailed off into a distant growl. “Old grumpy doesn’t sound too thrilled about tonight’s fishing trip,” Loretta said. “Jack hasn’t been thrilled about anything since the seventies.” “Danton’s, well, sort of keen.” Loretta’s docile husband was a saint. If Jack was the noisy blustering artist, then Danton was his countertype, the quiet sensitive musician. He was Jack’s closest friend. That meant they saw each other at least twice a year, which was pretty social for Jack. The other member of the boys’ night out was our neighbour, Roland, a loveable bachelor but a domestic disaster. Loretta looked around at our dilapidated house then lowered her voice. “Are you still serious about a divorce?” “Sure. Nothing’s changed.” “Does he know yet?” I shook my head. “We’ll talk about it after his camping trip. I’ve 6

tried, but you know me, I hate confrontation and Jack hates talking.” Loretta sighed, humouring the martyred animal I’d become. Books were my escape, the bottle Jack’s. Our marriage was a tandem journey on the backs of myopia and liver damage. “Never mind. You’re a survivor, honey. I always think of you as the Ayers Rock of Brisbane. Solid and reliable in your no-nonsense shoes.” I looked down at my moth-eaten jumper, dog-hair speckled tracksuit pants and ugg boots. Loretta sat there smooth and sleek like she’d stepped straight out of Vogue Magazine. Not a hair out of place. A fortunate woman blessed with a sober husband. “I’ll make a pot of tea,” I said. “Ha. Your solution to all worldly problems.” A renewed crescendo of curses echoed through the walls. Jack was at it again, hurling grenades of abuse at my lousy housekeeping, launching critical missiles at the world. “Geez, what’s up with him?” Loretta checked her lipstick in a pocket mirror, retouched the imperfections with deft strokes. “He’s just doing what he does best, roaring around the house with his arse on fire,” I said. I filled the teapot then gazed outside. The tepid winter sun dazzled us with warmth as it burst through the withered arms of the frangipani, a naked leafless beauty poised outside the window. “Ever thought of counselling?” Loretta said, snapping the mirror shut. “Waste of time.” I laughed. “Our marriage has reached its useby date. Even counsellors can’t resurrect the dead.” I poured the tea while Loretta eyed the books and texts scattered around the shelves, strewn over the floor. This psychology degree was harder than I’d anticipated, a never-ending stream of assignments, practicals and residentials. One year to go then I’d escape nursing forever. 7

“Popular psychology.” Loretta nudged the pile of paperbacks on the floor. “The last bastion of the desperate.” “You sound just like Jack,” I said. Jack reappeared as if by telepathy. He flopped down onto a chair and glared, his grey eyes piercing my complacency. “Bloody hell, Amy. My down sleeping bag has holes in it. How did that happen?” I felt my cool slipping away and the lava of resentment bubbling to the surface. “It wasn’t me. Go and interrogate the moths and weevils, Brisbane’s insect mafia.” Jack sniggered and grumbled something about mothballs and storing clothes properly. “Face it, Amy, when it comes to domestic order, you’re incompetent.” “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Jack. It’s an overnight camping trip, not a trek up Mount bloody Everest.” My parting words bounced off his wild red hair as he stomped out the door. I refilled the kettle and slammed it on the stove. A door slammed in another part of the house in angry retort. “Don’t take him so seriously, honey.” Loretta laughed, recrossing her smooth stockinged legs, enjoying the show. She waved a book in the air. “This could be Jack’s journey of selfdiscovery. Out with the boys to re-connect with his inner warrior.” The kettle whistled. The dog howled. Loretta screamed. “Oh my God!” She dropped the book and leapt up. “Brick’s having a convulsion.” The dog was sprawled on his back, legs twitching straight up in the air, eyes rolling around his head like a scene from the Exorcist. “That’s just Brick’s inner warrior,” I said. “Relax. He’s dreaming. All dogs do that.” “Our dog doesn’t.” Loretta took another step back. “Really? How about Danton?” “Very funny.” “I’m serious. Jack has wild dreams like that. He howls in his 8

sleep like a dingo.” I loved rattling her composure. “That’s disgusting.” “No, that’s stress. His way of dealing with anxiety.” “A shot of Valium would work a lot better.” Loretta checked her watch. “Hell, look at the time. I better run. Shame I’m on late shift. Without the boys, we could’ve had a girls’ night out.” That would have been fun but not tonight. With Jack’s impending absence and the entire house to myself, I had other plans. Loretta gathered her bags, edged around the quivering canine mass and delivered her usual parting words. “God, that dog is ugly—” “Yeah, yeah, I know, with a face that only a mother could love.” We laughed. Loretta flew off and I gazed at the dog with a sense of loss mixed with nostalgia. Divorcing Jack meant parting with Brick. Jack and his dog were inseparable. Brick’s piggy eyes and crooked grin were the only things that could burst the bubble of Jack’s self-absorption. Where Jack was deadly serious, the dog was a natural clown, adding light relief to Jack’s sombre canvas. Nightfall approached and outside a car horn sounded. Jack barged into the kitchen and collected Brick. “See you tomorrow, Amy.” Jack kissed me on the forehead with uncharacteristic zest. “I promise to catch a giant fish for you.” “Thanks Captain Ahab. But I won’t hold my breath.” Jack, armed with his backpack and clutching the dog leash, reminded me of a schoolboy. Rampaging around the house one minute, excited as a kid the next. I was glad I hadn’t ruined his evening by discussing divorce. That conversation would have to wait. The door slammed shut and the tension dissipated. I opened the windows to air out the smell of dog permeating the house. Brick was forever breaking the rules and sleeping on the bed, 9

imparting the scent of joy and sloth. I fluffed up the doona, brushed off the dog hairs and prepared for the evening ahead. There wasn’t much time. I cooked up a pasta sauce with handfuls of basil and oregano from the garden, a generous splash of wine for added flavour then raced to the shower to doll myself up. I was back fussing about the kitchen when the squeal of a taxi announced Giovanni’s arrival. He was a radiographer at the same hospital where I did relief work. Although we’d had many rendezvous before, it was the first time at my house. I flung the door open and trembled. Giovanni was a living Adonis, a dusky god, whose presence always made my heart miss a couple of beats. He was what they called a hunk and his dazzling smile was orthodontic perfection. His teeth alone could conquer empires and inspire poets. “Hmm, you look good,” I said, drowning in his eyes, feasting my gaze on his flawless olive skin. “Come in, dinner’s ready.” He placed a bottle of red wine in my hands and hovered on the doorstep, peering over my shoulder. “Is your husband still here?” “No, of course not. Come into my boudoir, oh fearless one.” His dignity and seriousness were a challenge. His eyes darted about. “Are you sure he won’t come home?” “Of course I’m sure.”

10

2. Edvard Munch: The Scream Jack Bloody hell, Amy was right. Men are the lunatics of the species. Picture this midnight scene. Three men and a dog, sitting like a packet of frozen peas in an aluminium fishing boat, drinking icecold beer and waiting for suicidal fish to impale themselves on their hooks. “How mad is this?” I blurted out. “Fishing in the middle of winter.” “Fishing is the male excuse for doing nothing,” Danton said in his usual dry manner. Nothing meant drinking piss and talking shit amidst bonechilling, ferocious gusts of wind. I never knew Brisbane winters could be this cold. Hell, I’d rarely spent a night outdoors since my days in the Northern Territory. Tonight was definitely a one-dog night and I was glad Brick was here. I latched onto him like a barnacle and shared his animal heat. Brick was quivering with excitement, peering over the edge of the boat, snapping at invisible foes and yelping at cane toads. A bull terrier is a fighting dog, keen to slay any creature of the night be they cats, toads or Tasmanian tigers. I gave up pretending to fish and curled up into a ball, clutching my shoulders instead of a paintbrush, the fishing line wedged between my knees. My art studio had faded into a warm and distant memory. Jack, we need to talk Amy’s words, loaded with portent, echoed through my head and my stomach churned with acid thoughts. What was it she needed so desperately to tell me? Did she have some incurable disease? I opened another beer and took a long, deep swig, wishing I’d brought along a bottle of whisky. 11

Danton was shivering beside me, rubbing his thighs and clapping his hands, suffering in stoic silence. I felt sorry for him. “Here, latch onto Brick. He’s a portable radiator.” Danton threw an arm around the dog and I grinned. “It’s odd seeing you draped over a dog instead of a piano.” “Impressed by my rugged masculinity, eh?” His frailty made me chuckle. Danton was a delicate reed swaying in the breeze, trying to fit into the rhythm the world dictated. Especially his wife. Bloody Loretta. It beat me how Amy could befriend such a dragon. That stuck-up bitch was always moving the goal posts, setting the standards at godly heights. Slumped beside me, Danton was no god. More like a man crushed by life and shipwrecked on the shore of other people’s expectations. This cold was making me poetic. “Bugger this masculinity caper, I think I’m getting frostbite.” Danton’s voice was now tinged with panic. “Oh, bollocks.” Roland gulped his beer. “You need a bit more fat on you, Danny boy. That’s your problem.” “We can’t all be cheerful gorillas like you,” Danton replied, a meek little monkey next to Roland’s apishness. Roland swigged his beer, scratched his belly and laughed. He was cocooned in unfashionable amounts of hair, most of it sprouting from his face then drooping down into a long shaggy beard. Apes like him never felt the cold. His bollocks were warmed by the strength of his hair-brained schemes. Like fishing, his latest fad. “What idiots we are, getting sucked into this fishing madness,” I said. “Fancy listening to this brain-damaged lunatic.” Roland had suffered a head injury from a motorcycle accident so I was being literal. Happened years ago but soon as anyone mentioned brain damage, Roland rubbed the small bald area on his head, the spot where surgeons patched his skull together with a metal plate. 12

“We’re all damaged goods,” Danton said, rubbing his leg in solidarity. Another disaster story. Danton’s battle with bone cancer eight years ago scared me shitless. I was more shocked than Danton when they amputated his leg. And look at him now. Other than a fake limb and a slight limp, it was like it never happened. A mere brush with death that we never talked about. We huddled together like the three stooges. “You’re right,” I said. “You two are wrecks.” “Ah, lighten up, Jack,” Roland said. “We’re alive, aren’t we?” The moon floated on the mist and cast eerie shadows on the river. Ideas for paintings twirled around my head. “Listen to that symphony,” Danton exclaimed. I closed my eyes and focussed on sounds. Frogs burped, toads belched and crickets click-clacked into my awareness. It was deafening. “What sane fish is going to hang around in this bloody racket?” I said. Roland sighed noisily. “Just chill out and enjoy it.” Danton laughed. “I’m already chilled out.” “Enjoy what?” I said. “The frostbite?” Roland ignored our mutinous rumblings. “Trust me, this is best time for catching buddha fish.” “You computer nerds are blessed with such esoteric knowledge,” Danton said. “Tell us, Rols, how many buddha fish have you ever caught?” “None, actually, but—” “Ha, just as I thought.” I slapped my thigh. “Fishing must be the ultimate triumph of hope over reason. Let’s forget the buddha fish. They’re too elusive. Let’s go for agnostic fish.” I stood up and stretched my legs. “They’re not sure what they believe in. Oh, and I hear nihilist fish worship nothing.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bollocks the lot of you. Have another beer and stop taking the piss out of me.” 13

Danton blurted out, “Speaking of beer, did you know most Australian men have a blood alcohol reading higher than their I.Q?” Danton and I picked up medical one-liners from the hospital grapevine via our wives. Roland swigged his beer and belched. “Yeah, right.” Brick suddenly lunged at an invisible foe. He flopped onto Danton who was too frail to cope with eighty pounds of excitable dog. I grabbed Brick, dragged him off, knocked over my beer and leapt up to avoid the spillage. It was cold enough without wet beer on my trousers. Then bloody Brick tried to slurp up the beer but I kicked him away. A drunk bull terrier was the last thing we needed. The boat stopped rocking and Roland went all chatty. I guess he figured the more we talked, the longer he could fish. He commented on our house — the peeling paint, the rotting verandas, the rusting iron roof, even the death rattle of our car, a vintage Peugeot. Nothing escaped his neighbourly eye. He’d probably noticed the rising damp of our marriage. “Hey Rols, maybe you should try getting a life,” I said. Roland smiled enigmatically and asked me something about Amy but I didn’t’ hear him because Brick was licking my ear. “My wha—?” “I think he’s asking about your wife,” Danton yelled. “You know, that tall lady with the electric hair that wanders around your house.” I wiped my slimy ear. “Yeah, I know her. Nursing Nazi. Drinks tea in the kitchen. Never coffee … lest I forget. Often seen with her nose in a book or a book up her nose.” Roland passed me another beer. “And try not to spill it.” “Yeah, thanks. You want to know the truth? I reckon Amy and I are like ships in the night. It just took us an entire twenty years to manoeuvre past each other without crashing.” 14

“Those are the signs, old boy. You guys are now in the marital stage of hallway sex,” said Roland, eager to impart his knowledge of relationships. “House sex is when you first meet and have passionate sex everywhere. After the passion has died down you have bedroom sex and when you’ve been together forever you have hallway sex.” “And what’s that?” Danton asked. “That’s where you pass each other in the hallway and say fuck you and keep walking.” Our laughter ricocheted off the river. It broke the ice, loosened our joints and warmed us. We were starting to enjoy ourselves, coming to terms with our physical discomfort, tanked up with enough alcohol to crack through our soft, city slicker shells. “Hey, that was excellent, Rols.” Even Amy would get a kick out of that one. “Oh man, no more beer for me,” Danton exclaimed when Roland tossed another can into his lap. “I’ve had it.” “Beer, male social lubricant,” I said, swigging my drink. “That’s what Amy calls it.” “She should talk. I reckon all that tea she drinks must be laced with something,” Roland said. “She and her girlfriends are like a gaggle of chooks when they get together.” Amy’s frivolity and lack of social conscience annoyed me at times. Not that the hundreds of letters I wrote for Amnesty International would alleviate world misery, but Amy didn’t even try. She just laughed and read thousands of books and acted like our lives made no difference anyway. “The personal is the political,” she’d tell me. Whatever that meant. Jack, we need to talk. I brushed her words aside and swigged more beer. Nausea washed over me. “Come on, Roland,” I said. “This is boring. Let’s get the hell out of here before Danton’s good leg drops off with frostbite.” 15

“Ah, speaking of frostbite, how’s the gorgeous Loretta?” Roland said, his delaying tactics obvious. “Oh, definitely hallway sex,” replied Danton, breezily. I stood up for the tenth time and stretched my cramped legs. “Great. Fantastic. Now that we’ve done our male bonding, can we go ashore and light a fire?” “Have one more beer and then—” Danton and I protested in unison. We were far too cold and pickled for any more social lubrication. Roland dropped his fishing line and reluctantly agreed to head for solid land. Brick was getting restless and our bladders were bursting. The outboard motor spluttered, chugged into action and propelled us to shore. The boat gently thumped the riverbank and Roland cut the motor. Brick was so excited by the rustling sounds in the bush that I had to restrain him with one arm. With the other, I helped Roland lift the anchor. Danton stood upright with the rope, woozy from the after effects of too much beer. Without warning, Brick broke free from my grasp and leapt to shore. He knocked Danton off balance. Danton fell out the boat and crashed onto the dog. Roland and I were still on board, clutching the anchor. Without Danton and Brick as counterbalance, the boat capsized and flung us into the river. It all took less than a second. The shock of freezing water sucked out my breath and something metallic smashed into my skull. My head pounded. I gulped in water and thrashed about but the struggle proved too much. I floated out of my body and a thousand violins serenaded my surrender. I’d never experienced music so vibrant, so euphoric. And then it hit me — this was the dream I’d had last night. I desperately wanted to tell Amy but a woman swirled into my face. I yelled out but water filled my mouth, my lungs, my psyche and I knew it was too late. I was drowning. 16

3. Paul Cézanne: Three Bathers Jack The swirling woman dissolved and the violins faded into a tinkle of broken notes. New sounds filled my head and I wondered if I’d died. The dog’s hot breath on my cheek dragged me back to consciousness but I couldn’t move. I heard everything that went on around me but couldn’t speak. “Shit man, I think he’s dead.” Danton’s panicking whine. “Your wife’s a nurse, do that mouth-to-mouth stuff.” The rumble of Roland’s booming commands. I wanted to yell out, tell them I was okay, but I was paralysed. They were poking at my neck, rolling me onto my side. The dog was licking my face and tentacles of cold wormed up my spine. My body was returning from a long dream. Again I tried to speak and finally managed a pathetic gurgle. Danton hugged me so tight I could hardly breathe. “He’s alive.” “Thank bloody Christ.” Roland collapsed onto the ground. I stopped coughing, my chest squeezed tight in Danton’s crushing embrace. “Man, you had us worried,” he said. They were acting so strange. “Bugger me bollocks, man. You bloody well drowned.” Roland was panting like his old Valiant. “Brick pulled you out of the water and we revived you.” They explained what had happened but I was shivering too violently to take in the details. Danton played nurse. He helped me peel off my wet clothes and gave me his jacket. Spasms of anxiety left me helpless and uncoordinated like a baby. He rubbed my arms and legs to stop the trembling. Brick lunged at Roland as he flapped his arms for warmth. Then he rushed to me, licked my face, bounded up to Danton and 17

nudged his muddy trouser legs. “G-G-Good dog, Brick.” I hugged him tight, squeezing out his warmth, too cold to make full sentences. “You better have my shirt, Rols.” Danton peeled off another layer of his dry clothing. Roland ripped his soggy garments off and squeezed into Danton’s shirt, way too small to button up. His arms dangled through sleeves that reached just below his elbows and his huge belly burst through the seams. He looked like Quasimodo. I was chuckling and teeth-chattering at this frightful vision. “Christ, you guys look ridiculous.” Danton stared at us. We were naked from the waist down and dressed in his clothes from the waist up. The three of us clutched our stomachs and laughed hysterically. The dog ran in circles, barking his head off. Bloody hell, we must have looked like a bunch of lunatics. Semi-naked in squelching shoes, we trampled in the moonlight along the river in search of Danton’s ute. It was difficult to spot without torch or lantern. Prickles of lantana tore our exposed legs as we clambered through bush and over rocky outcrops. “Bugger, I lost some good gear,” Roland moaned. “The gear is nothing,” said Danton. “We almost lost Jack.” Suddenly, I remembered my drowning visions. “I saw my mother in the water.” I’d figured out whose face was swimming towards me. “She looks like me.” “Your mother?” Roland wrung out his wet beard. “My biological mother.” “You were hallucinating, man,” Danton said. My childhood was a misery of institutions and foster care, a grey area of my life I didn’t dwell on. I figured my biological parents had abandoned me so I ignored them. It was only fair. But everything was different now. My mother had made the first move to contact me, though it sure was a strange way of doing it. We found the ute and headed toward Danton’s house at 18

Deception Bay, a good ten or twelve kilometres closer than my place at Scarborough. Loretta was on night shift at the hospital and their teenage kids would be out partying, or dealing drugs or whatever kids did these days. While we drove, my knees clunked the rumba and my body twitched a samba. The lurching spasms, nausea and dizziness made me realise something was wrong with my body. Since when did hypothermia lead to dirty dancing? Danton noticed my twitching and as soon as we arrived at his house he herded us into the bathroom and ordered us to thaw out in a hot shower. Meanwhile, he would make coffee and put Brick in the yard. Without arguing Roland and I dashed in like a seminaked pair of lunatics, scuttling through the house, Roland like a bear, me like someone with a neurological disease. We were so cold that we ripped off our clothes and dived into the shower together, shameless and desperate. The relief of that hot water was better than sex. We moaned as heat pounded and massaged our frozen muscles. I was about to make a bad taste joke about Nazis and showers when Brick head butted the door and dived into the shower with us. A minute later the door flung open and Loretta stormed in. She took one look and her jaw dropped. A speechless Loretta was a rare and frightening thing. But the sight of two naked grown men, wallowing in a steamy inferno was probably more frightening. Danton appeared with the tray of coffees. “Loretta! Hi honey. I didn’t think you’d be home. This is a surprise—” “Don’t you hi honey me, you pervert.” Loretta glared at us. “Is this some sort of homosexual orgy?” Before we could defend ourselves Brick wriggled past me, leapt out of the shower and shook himself with joyful abandon, spraying Loretta’s nightgown. “And who let that fucking dog in the house?” she yelled, as though this were the last straw. Loretta hated dogs. 19

Roland stepped out of the shower and exposed his anatomy in all its glory. Wet and bearded and without a shred of selfconsciousness, he looked twice as hairy as normal. “You’ve got to admit, love, at least the dog is clean.” “Bugger off, Roland,” Loretta snapped. Blue in the face, she turned to Danton and slashed and burned with pure vitriol. Bloody hell, she was prickly. As much as I despised the woman, I had to admit she had balls. Even half asleep, she was sharper than a hypodermic needle and very dark. Ink-jet hair and steely eyes to match her black temper. Amy worked with her at the hospital and reckoned Loretta was a woman of frightening ambition. Doctors quaked behind their stethoscopes when Loretta goose-stepped down corridors. “Director of Nursing today, tomorrow the vorld,” Amy would jest, clicking her heels and attempting a German accent. Poor Danton. Sixteen years married to that bitch was an amazing achievement. Brick yelped as Loretta slammed the bathroom door on his tail and I snapped out of my reverie. Loretta stomped away towards the bedroom, tossing sarcasm and innuendo over her shoulder. Danton scrambled after her, placating his marital fuehrer to prevent all out war. It was quite funny in a soap opera sort of way but I was decidedly sozzled by then. They left us alone for what felt like an eternity so Roland grabbed a sheet from the laundry basket and raced away to call a taxi. Scud missiles flying in the bedroom and Roland gone, I was left alone in the bathroom with three coffees, a dog and a pile of wet clothes. By my third cup of coffee, I realised that Danton wasn’t going to find us any dry clothes. Loretta was sinking her claws in and he was fighting for his life. Roland was probably raiding the fridge. I tiptoed down the hall and grabbed Loretta’s fur coat, the only dry clothing I could find. Brick whimpered and sniffed it furiously 20

as though I’d killed the damn animal myself. I couldn’t blame him. Some member of my species had. I was prancing around the hall when a little face appeared in a doorway. Danton’s teenage daughter. She was smiling, unfazed by my odd appearance. Kids see it all on television these days. I didn’t know what to say so I rolled my eyes and shrugged while sounds of warfare echoed from her parents’ bedroom. “Mum’s in a foul mood. She came home early from late shift with one of her migraines.” “Is that so?” “They’ll divorce soon,” she added knowingly, her demeanour sharp and prickly like her mother. This last assertion left me speechless. Danton and Loretta had survived worse times than this so I figured their daughter was being a drama queen. I had no kids myself so I didn’t know how their little brains worked. A horn beeped outside and Roland yelled out. I mumbled something about a taxi and headed for the door, the dripping dog trotting beside me. I was looking forward to getting home, crawling into my own warm bed, nestling up to Amy. Either the ride home was surreal or my brain was spinning out. The taxi driver stared at Roland, a naked mountain draped in a sheet. Then he stared at me, a lanky stick insect in Loretta’s fur coat, my straggly red hair wet and unfashionably long. Beside me was Brick, probably the ugliest dog he’d ever seen. Strangers always recoiled from Brick’s white fur and piggy eyes. But I didn’t care what he thought because my head was pounding and droning like a didgeridoo. The cliché about taxi drivers was true. They were maniacs behind the wheel. Lindsay Percival Calderstone, a name I’d never forget, grinned so hard that his weather-beaten face wrinkled up into a crinkle-cut potato chip. A thousand lines radiated from his eyes to his mouth. He’d have made a great portrait. 21

“Fishing, eh?” Lindsay said, after Roland summed up our evening for him. “Five years ago I was going to retire and spend my days fishing and playing golf, but when I turned fifty, I had a back injury. That sure buggered up my plans.” Just like Amy. Ten years ago, she was going to do it all — work hard, save her money, travel the world. The back injury put an end to that. Now she was studying psychology, a crazy thing to do at her age. “What sort of work were you doing?” Roland asked the taxi driver. “Everything. I was an electrician and handy man. Hell, I knew every trick in the trade.” In a conspiratorial voice and a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, Lindsay told us the story of his life. He ambled on about his wife, his kids, his divorce, the shonky jobs he’d done to beat the system and avoid alimony payments. When Lindsay finished his tale, he lunged at the glove box and gave us his business card. The card was emblazoned with his aristocratic name, followed by: Electrician and Handyman, no job too large or too small. “Or too dishonest,” I mumbled to myself. This guy looked more like a Mafioso hit man. Lindsay hurled the taxi into corners, aimed it like a missile at roundabouts and puffed relentlessly on a cigarette. The taxi filled with smoke. He talked without pausing, pleased we were so interested in his life story. But unbeknown to Lindsay it wasn’t his life story that interested me. I’d developed a sudden intense longing for a cigarette. It must have been the delayed shock of the boating ordeal or the present terror of his driving. “Care for a cigarette?” Lindsay offered, as if by telepathy or the power of negative thinking. “Love one. Thank you,” Roland and I answered in unison, surprising each other. We’d both given up smoking in the eighties 22

but addiction must have been imprinted deep in our brains. The high moral priestess of the reformed nicotine addict was only a hair’s breath away from the whore of temptation. Bloody hell, I was getting all poetic again. Like an adulterer, I succumbed to the cigarette, inhaled deeply and nostalgically then burst into a paroxysm of coughing. It tasted like shit and sent my head into a tailspin. “Is he okay?” Lindsay peered at his rear view mirror. “Ignore him,” said Roland savouring his cigarette. “He had a mighty knock on the head earlier tonight.” I kept smoking and spluttering and each cough made my head explode. I clutched my skull and held it tight. I could have killed for a whisky. “Sure it’s not concussion?” Lindsay said. “He’ll be fine.” Roland took another deep draw of his cigarette. “That guy’s like his dog; he’s got ten or fifteen lives.” Lindsay peered into the mirror again. “Looks like he’s using one of them up right now.” When we arrived, Roland ambled away in a smoky daze leaving me alone with the crazy taxi driver. I told him I’d have to wake up my wife and get her to pay the fare. “That’s okay, man. It’s three in the morning. I’m in no hurry.” I banged on the door. “Amy! Let me in!” There was no response. I pounded harder and more hysterically and thought I heard voices but wasn’t sure because Brick was growling at something in the garden. “Amy! The t-t-taxi’s waiting. I haven’t got a k-k-key or m-mmoney. Let me in!” I leaned against the doorframe and clutched the fur coat tight around my body, rubbed my pounding head to fight off the faintness and nausea. I heard sounds within, voices and shuffling.

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4. Egon Schiele: The Embrace Amy Giovanni and I were wrapped around each other in a hot embrace when a noise woke me in the early morning hours. The front door pounded rhythms in my dream, reefing me into semi-alertness. “Amy! Let me in!” I could swear that was Jack gatecrashing my dreams. Only this voice had a gurgling moist quality, tinged with despair. Again that voice implored and my name rang out. I sat up. This was no dream. “Oh Jesus, Mary and fucking Joseph,” I gasped, revealing the failure of my Catholic education. “Get up, Giovanni. Jack’s home.” Giovanni growled like a grumpy cat then yawned languidly. “You said he wasn’t coming home till tomorrow.” More hysterical pounding on the door. “Amy! The t-t-taxi’s waiting. I haven’t got a k-k-key. Let me in!” Jack’s gruff voice instantly prodded Giovanni to alertness. He leapt up, shivering, indecisive, eyes darting about for escape. Our dreamy tryst was over. “Coming!” I shouted. I fumbled for my glasses, kicked Giovanni’s clothes under the bed and grabbed a towel from the laundry basket. “Wrap this around you. Hide behind the door.” I gave him a shove. I opened the front door to an apparition in a woman’s fur coat. Who the hell was this? Jack burst into garbled explanation and a blast of alcoholic fumes threw me backwards. He pointed at the road and gesticulated, but his teeth chattered like castanets rendering him incoherent. It sounded like “f-f-fish, f-f-fell, f-ffreeze.” Jack was a walking history of disaster so I wasn’t overly shocked at the latest crisis, just irritated. His wiry tattooed 24

exterior, designed to frighten children at the best of times was now frightening me. He looked awful, hovering on the doorstep, writhing and stuttering, his limbs flinging about wildly. He reminded me of those loose-limbed patients in neurology wards, the ones with Huntington’s Chorea. A car horn tooted and I spotted the lit up cab sign. Perfect timing. “Sweetheart, pop into a hot bath and I’ll go and pay the taxi.” I ushered Jack into the bathroom, well away from the scene of my infidelity, past a grumpy man now shivering behind the bedroom door, wrapped in a towel. Once my husband was out of sight in the bathroom, I bustled my disgruntled lover into the waiting taxi and explained my plan to save his arse. I couldn’t believe this was happening. It was worse than a Hollywood movie. “Amy.” Giovanni puckered his eyebrows from the back seat of the taxi. “I am heartbroken and humiliated. Perhaps you can restore my clothes, even if you cannot restore my dignity.” I smiled to myself. As a radiographer, he regularly stripped his patients of their dignity, shoving them into awkward positions for the sake of his x-rays. Ignoring the irony, I ran into the house, checked up on Jack and grabbed Giovanni’s clothes. In my haste I forgot my lover’s shoes which were on Jack’s side of the bed. I ran outside, dumped the bundle onto Giovanni’s lap, gave him a perfunctory kiss, slapped a bill into the taxi driver’s hand and jogged back to the house. The taxi squealed into the night and I relaxed, mission accomplished and disaster averted. A blitz in crisis management. I raced back to the bathroom to make sure Jack hadn’t drowned. “What brings you back so soon?” I shouted over the roar of water tumbling into the bathtub. “I thought you guys were staying overnight, camping and fishing and all that?” Jack was sprawled in the bathtub, moaning with pleasure as 25

the hot water engulfed his reptilian flesh. “I’ve had the wettest and most temperature-impaired night of my life,” he said. When the shivering subsided, he patched together the events of his evening as best he could. I laughed and cried, unsure if this was Shakespearean tragedy or high comedy. Tears rolled down my cheeks and mingled with the foaming sea as the bathtub filled. Above the chlorine fumes emanating from the Brisbane tap water, I discerned a familiar scent. I leaned forward sniffing. “You smell a bit smoky.” Jack tilted his head upwards. “You smell a bit fishy.” I wisely ignored this remark, removed my dressing gown and stepped into the bath to wash away my sins. It was hard to believe that while Jack surrendered to a near-death experience, I had been engaged in a near-love experience, embracing my lover while my husband almost drowned. My affair now seemed tawdry and obscene, but wisdom was so easy with hindsight. I edged close, inspected Jack’s head and discovered tufts of mutilated hair where Brick had latched on and pulled him ashore. I gently touched his wound, the angry lump of flesh that swelled on his forehead. “Is it painful?” “It’s killing me.” I reached over to the medicine cabinet and grabbed some painkillers while he described the joy of drowning. “It was just like the dream I told you about, but with the most haunting music I’ve ever heard. Euphoric.” “What, better than Pink Floyd?” Jack laughed. It didn’t take long for us to lapse into two old hippies, reminiscing about the good old days of the seventies. The languor and bohemia of our early marriage filled us with sticky sentiment. Jack slumped deeper into the tub, hungry for heat, saturated with memories. The piercing wail of the doorbell and strange scuffling noises 26

outside the window cracked that magic moment of intimacy. The furious digging sounds must have been the dog. I’d forgotten all about Brick. But the doorbell? It was three in the morning and the world should have been asleep. Perhaps Giovanni was returning to avenge his Latin pride by challenging Jack to a duel. My heart was pounding. I’d prepared myself for an night of passion, not an Italian melodrama. “Wait here, Jack. I’ll answer it.” It was Danton and I sighed with relief. Loretta’s husband slumped against the doorframe like a homeless puppy. Before we could speak, Brick galloped inside and knocked Danton over. The dog deposited the stinking corpse of a cat right in the middle of the lounge room and waited for our praise. His manic look scared me. This wasn’t normal behaviour, but of course, this wasn’t a normal night — Danton splayed on the floor, a dead cat in the middle of the room and a half-dead husband languishing in the bathtub. Putrescent fumes wafted from the corpse and I screamed at Brick like a fishwife. “Take that bloody cat out of here, this instant.” Brick wasn’t known for his obedience. Oblivious to my commands, he left the cat lying there like a prize exhibition piece and galloped towards the bathroom where he could hear Jack’s tuneless whistling. I ignored the dog and hoisted Danton to his feet. The leg prosthesis, not to mention the alcohol, messed up his balance. Like Jack, he reeked of beer. I suspect they did more drinking than fishing. “Loretta kicked me out.” Danton pointed to his overnight bag at the door. He slumped into the lounge and rubbed his leg. “I suppose she’s already told you that we’re getting divorced.” My mouth dropped open. Loretta divorcing? This was the woman with the perfect life. How odd that over endless pots of tea 27

earlier that day, my friend hadn’t mentioned any marital problems. Just her normal winter of her discontent and career angst. “I thought you were her pillar of strength, her emotional security blanket.” All that envy I’d harboured for nothing. Danton’s news made me forget the dead cat. We drifted into the kitchen to make hot drinks. Danton limped after me. Over the clinking and clanking of mugs we discussed the relationship landmines of marriage and divorce. Never before had we talked like this together. I’d known Loretta for years through the nursing world but hardly knew her husband. Danton was always a gentle presence in the background of my consciousness, another woman’s husband, Jack’s best friend. I walked into the lounge room with the pot of tea and almost died. Jack was standing in the entrance, motionless, his face sickly pale, eyes feverish and glazed, staring with bulging eyes like someone possessed. He was a man in shock, a ghostly transvestite in Loretta’s fur coat. The swelling on his head was fiery and more obvious now. He opened his mouth to speak and incoherent gibberish poured out, something about drowning, babies and bald ladies torturing him with violins. Even as he struggled for words, Jack’s watery gaze was fixed on the corpse. “Jack?” I put the teapot down, aware of the pungent smell of death. “I want to speak to her,” Jack demanded, nodding at the corpse. “You want to speak to the cat?” “I want to speak to my mother.” “This cat’s your mother?” “My real mother.” His voice grew angrier like I was purposely being obtuse. 28

“Your real mother? What the hell are you talking about, Jack? You’re an orphan.” He never spoke like this. All talk of his family or mine was taboo, strictly out of bounds. That was the decision we’d made almost twenty years ago, back when family had power over us. Jack looked down at his feet and started crying. He was wearing Giovanni’s shoes and I froze. Not a word passed between us. He looked up, his wet hair mingled with tears. We stared at each other for an eternity, till the alarm and guilt in my heart softened and the rage and pain in his eyes subsided. It was the longest silent conversation we’d had in years. Then he collapsed. I rushed to his side, felt his pulse and made a lunge for the phone. My heart pounded with dread. Danton’s face blanched. “Is he…dead?”

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5. Russell Drysdale: The Medical Examination Amy Jack wasn’t dead. The ambulance officers had been swift and efficient, applying oxygen and intravenous fluids. To speed up the paperwork, I gave them Jack’s medical history: the hepatitis he’d contracted at an Alice Springs tattoo parlour, his recent concussing thump on the head with a boat anchor and his subsequent near drowning. The sum total of his life was a patchwork of misadventures. For two days and two nights he fought for survival, jagged hours flipping in and out of consciousness. Something was killing him and no one knew what it was. There was no sign of haemorrhage or brain damage. I sat at the hospital bed watching Jack writhe and moan in bouts of semi-consciousness. I stroked his free hand, the one that wasn’t tied down with a drip, and talked a whole lot of gibberish to him. Maybe he could hear me from within the prison of his lockedin world. “Other than these hideous tattoos, you have nice arms, Jack, strong and shapely like a Michelangelo.” His fair skin, mottled with the blemishes of illness, filled me with sadness. “Here we are in a bloody hospital, once again. Just like we met hundreds of years ago. You’re a walking disaster, Jack.” Jack opened his eyes, tensed his neck muscles, sweat poured from his forehead. He looked me in the eye and said “Mum?” then collapsed back into unconsciousness. All this mother business was unsettling. First he called the dead cat his mother and now me, his wife. Anyone would think we women were interchangeable beasts of domesticity in the lives of men. I smoothed his wild red hair and wiped the perspiration off his face. 30

“Blimey, Jack, you’ve never given a toss about family before. You always cursed them for bringing you into the world.” Jack was never one to wallow in sentimental memories of childhood. I envied the way he had no ties or family. Unlike me, he was a man without a family tree, a rootless wildcard who didn’t owe anybody anything. How liberating that must be. I sneaked a look at Jack’s medical charts. His temperature, pulse and blood pressure fluctuated like a wild brumby, liver enzymes way too high, white cell count elevated through the roof. The usual illegible doctors’ squiggles and medical abbreviations but still no diagnosis. “A jolly good fright, that’s all he needs,” I’d told Loretta many times in the past five years. “Shock therapy of the soul to give him a bolt of reality.” Someone must have heard my entreaty and gone overboard. I laughed at my pun. Overworked nurses rushed about the wards, strained but friendly. Stray doctors wandered about, dishevelled and exhausted. This was my world and I blended into my surroundings. I nodded off, slumped by Jack’s bed then awoke with a start when a doctor with bags under his eyes approached. His diagnosis was that rare bacteria from the river had given him septicaemia. He finished his diagnostic update and suppressed a yawn. “The effects of this kind of pollution are unknown—” Pollution. The word had never hit me before. In my idealistic youth I demonstrated against industry polluters, against wood chipping and uranium mining. I was passionate but untouched. Environmental disasters always happened elsewhere, in places like Chernobyl, Bhopal and Three Mile Island, all light years away from a middle-class girl like me. All that was BC. Before Cynicism. A surge of anger constricted my neck. Pollution was no longer something that happened in other places, to other people. It was 31

now killing Jack. The horrors of western civilisation had crept up and grabbed us by the throat. A benign fishing trip had turned into an environmental disaster. The doctor snapped me back to the present. He was rambling on about liver function tests and unidentified pollutants aggravating Jack’s old hepatitis. Blood samples were doing the rounds of the pathology labs and results would trickle in tomorrow. I thanked the doctor and he merged into the rush and frenzy of the corridor. Jack’s unfolding tragedy was just one event of many in the hospital’s serial dramas. I was numb. A cleaning lady stood before me, arms akimbo. “Why don’t you grab yourself a nice cup of tea, love. You look like you could use a cuppa.” A cup of tea, the universal panacea. She was my kind of woman. “Yeah, not a bad idea.” She shuffled about the bed, dusting, spraying, scrubbing away life’s invisible foes then disappeared in a clang of buckets, mops and chemicals. Life went on. By the end of Jack’s third day in hospital, I knew he’d pull through. I shared my relief with Danton whose company was pure solace. Danton touched Jack’s burning forehead and talked as though Jack was listening to every word. Danton had a feminine tenderness that I’d only ever seen in male nurses and gay men. In just two days of crash landing at our house, his thoughtfulness impressed me. Danton was fussing about like an old woman. I knew he was mourning the collapse of his marriage, worried about his kids and now fretting over Jack. We were united by angst. “It’s weird the way he keeps yelling out for his mother,” I said. “It’s so unlike him.” 32

“That’s his latest obsession,” Danton replied, straightening the blankets. “Other than art, of course.” I had a vivid picture of Jack wandering naked around our rambling old Queenslander, talking to the dog, crouching in corners, peering into art books as though sucking out inspiration with mental osmosis. Our huge silent house was often punctuated with Jack’s outbursts. “At least he’s catching up on some bloody sleep,” I said. Jack was envious of my ability to sleep whenever the opportunity arose. Nurses had no choice. He joked about my Doctorate in sleeping. The only way he could switch off was copious amounts of whisky. Machines buzzed and beeped, tubes sighed and suctioned; alien sounds that agitated Danton, familiar sounds that calmed me. “And what about you? What brought you to Queensland?” Danton seemed anxious to block out the hospital noise. “I grew up in Alice Springs.” I waited for the derisive laughter that usually accompanied this admission, but it didn’t come. Alice Springs, smack in the middle of Australia, was cattle country, a rough and racist town with a reputation for rednecks and nomads. It was now a tourist Mecca, a casino town, home of artists and adventurers. I summed up my happy childhood in this isolated town, leapfrogged over my traumatic adolescence and finished my tale with an exposé of the boring, conservative hospital men I’d gone out with. Then along came Jack, a hospital patient and itinerant artist. The wily Jack saw me as a voluptuous wild-haired muse and I liked this image. My cynical humour and bookish manner didn’t scare him off. I was a solid capable nurse, someone with the strength, calmness and intelligence to handle a wildcard like Jack. “My father and stepmother live in a world of prestige and 33

glamour. As you know, there’s nothing glamorous about Jack. For them it was hate at first sight.” Danton chuckled and looked towards Jack, checking for a response. Jack slept and the machines beeped. “He was vibrant and engaging and wild and loveable and … can you hear me, Jack?” I leaned forward and spoke directly to him. “And he was very, very sick.” “He seems to make a habit of this,” Danton said. We stared at Jack. Droplets of sweat speckled his forehead. “You have to realise that my father was the top hospital physician, a well-respected big shot in the medical world. Everyone expected that his daughter deserved the best.” “Jack is the best,” Danton said. I laughed. “Not to my father. He tried to dissuade me from marrying Jack and jeopardising my brilliant career. Anyone would think I was training to be a brain surgeon.” “Ah, the clash of family expectations.” Danton stroked Jack’s hand. “You were looking for love and your father was looking for a medical genius to carry on the family tradition.” A familiar voice boomed into our conversation. “X-ray. Ten minutes.” The radiographer was here to take Jack’s chest x-rays. Giovanni was brisk and efficient, manoeuvring his machine about and ordering staff around. My heart skipped a beat. He smiled when he saw me and threw a withering glance at Danton. Danton and I moved away from the bed to make room for the machine. Two orderlies entered the ward and jumped to attention at Giovanni’s commands. Jack proved difficult to prop up. Semiconscious, his head lolled down limply as his upper body collapsed forward. They slid a flat board behind his slumping spine and propped him up again. The giant portable x-ray machine droned and Jack’s head drooped. 34

Three or four times a day, the x-ray machine rolled in like some extraterrestrial beast and the Intensive Care staff were herded out of the ward. They stampeded into the pan room, laughing at this opportunity for idle chatter. As Danton and I walked past, Giovanni gave me an imperceptible nod of acknowledgement, all dignity and discretion. I watched through the viewing window, curious as to how Giovanni would handle Jack. When the x-ray machine was ready, Jack woke from his delirious underworld. He craned his head forward and stared with bulging eyes at Giovanni, the olive-skinned man perched menacingly before him. Anyone would think Giovanni held a grenade to cause the horrified look on my husband’s face. Jack raised his hand in front of him as if to ward off the evil apparition. Giovanni stomped towards Jack and cursed. The moment Giovanni was close enough, Jack grabbed his shirt lapels and refused to let go, hissing wild threats at the terrified radiographer. Sweat poured from Jack’s swollen forehead, fists clenched with the superhuman strength of a lunatic. Giovanni yelled out in shock and the orderlies came running to his rescue. I was so happy to see Jack regain consciousness that I forgot about Giovanni’s embarrassment. Staff ran to the bed and extricated the young radiographer from the clutches of this lunatic patient, my dear husband. Giovanni stepped back, swallowed his pride and hurriedly took the x-ray with shaking hands. I re-entered the ward as he retreated. “My shoes,” he hissed, his voice harsh and abrupt. “I left my shoes at your house, Amy. Could you give them back?” I looked at this agitated man and mentally reconstructed our tryst four nights ago, complete with images of his muscular physique, stylish lovemaking and my vivid fantasies. There was no denying, he was an attractive man, but at twenty years my junior, we had little in common. 35

“Your shoes? Sure Giovanni.” I was a woman with more pressing issues on my mind than footwear. Giovanni then narrowed his eyes. “Who was that man you were with?” “What man?” “That effeminate man with the curly black hair?” “Oh, you mean Danton?” I crossed my arms, disgruntled. Casual sex didn’t confer him the rights of jealousy, ownership or interrogation. “He’s a close friend of me and my husband.” I nodded at Jack’s inert body. “This man is your husband?” Giovanni did a double take. He heaved his x-ray machine towards the exit. “I’ll, uh, call you some time.” I approached Jack, surprised to see his eyes open and staring at the ceiling. “I heard all that.” Jack winked, conspiratorially. My heart missed a beat. Bugger. Now I was in trouble. This was one way to get that damn divorce. Jack propped up on his one free arm, looked around and whispered, “See that man leaving? With that machine?” I held my breath. “He’s a CIA agent.” I sighed and kissed him on his hot cheek. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Jack.”

36

6. Norman Rockwell: The Critic Jack I could tell by the mechanical sounds and antiseptic smells that I was in hospital but I was too sick to care. At some delirious hour, a bald lady stood next to my bed and rested a cool hand on my forehead. I relaxed and my eyes went into soft focus. Her face was huge. High cheekbones bulged like hills on a bald landscape, a wrinkled lunar eclipse, bringing me messages from another world, possibly the oncology ward where baldness was their logo. I searched frantically for my voice. “Mum?” The words come out dry and scratched. “I’m not your mother.” She had the deep, raspy voice of an exsmoker. “You’ve got to fight—” “Fight, the night, light…” I felt myself drift into a sick and feverish poetry that was beyond my will. “Mum?” The bald lady leaned forward and from the valleys of her mountainous cheekbones, grey eyes drilled into mine with the promise of prophecy. “Jack, listen to me. You’re going to get better—” Jack, we need to talk. “Amy?” Her grey eyes stared and I wanted to touch her, paint her into my reality, keep her here forever. Her face became rubbery and elongated. It swirled with colour and distorted into Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream. I sat forward, reached out to grab her before she dissolved, but exhaustion thrust me into the greyness of semi-consciousness. This renewed hope of my mother’s reassurances cooled my burning skin. That strange stirring music again filled my ears as I drowned in the colourless womb of sleep.

37

The pathology department finally isolated the rare bacterium that was turning me into a delirious, gibbering idiot. Antibiotics were commenced and my condition improved. Intensive Care ejected me into the medical ward where a new gaggle of nurses joked around about the fishing fiasco. I told them about the buddha fish and they dubbed my illness buddha fever. The name struck a chord in wider circles. The media latched on to this new disease and sucked maximum sensation out of it till it lay dead and gasping with overkill. Amy entered the ward and threw a handful of newspapers onto the bed. I was awake and alert, acting nonchalant as though nothing had happened, a mere brush with death. I picked through the papers and read the headlines. “What a hero I’ve become.” Brisbane artist survives deadly buddha fever. This was the sort of publicity I needed to sell paintings. Bull terrier rescues master. “Pity to spoil their delusion — it’s the dog’s fault I’m here in the first place. He’s the one that leapt to shore and knocked Danton over.” I missed Brick more than anyone. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, Jack, some flaky animal group nominated Brick for an animal bravery award.” I swelled with pride at the thought of my dog becoming an Aussie legend, a candidate for the Hall of Fame. My eyes fastened onto another headline, man and dog survive river of death and I skimmed the article. “What’s all this river of death business?” Amy told me about the outraged environmental groups, angry with the government for knowing but ignoring the offending industries. “The almighty dollar rules the waves and waves the rules, once again,” I said. “That doesn’t surprise me.” Apparently, our home telephone was boiling with inquiries and condolences. Hysteria ran high and reporters were in hot pursuit 38

of companies to blame, politicians to interview, businesses to vilify, anything juicy to sell a story. The local council was now on the nose, accused of covering up a chemical leak upstream from our fishing disaster. “You’ve really caused quite a stir, Jack.” My plight had also stirred up an unwanted dose of hospital notoriety. Medical lawyers and other litigation vigilantes, advised the hospital to keep a low profile on my case, at least till they’d worked out the correct political response. I had nothing better to do all day than read the papers, sleep, watch television and study hospital dynamics. This was Amy’s world and I was a stranger in this foreign medical land. For amusement, I’d developed a classification system to demystify the medical hierarchy. Doctors were the sorcerers dishing out diagnoses and cures, nurses flew around the wards like witches, orderlies wandered about like gypsies, and patients were the zombies. The days began to drag and the healthier I felt, the more restless I became. Mistrust of modern medicine ate away at my composure. “Amy, can you get me out of here?” I whispered frantically when she arrived for her daily visit. Amy looked startled, then annoyed. “No Jack, you’re still recovering. It’s not a good idea. You could easily have a relapse.” “Come on, Amy. Be a sport. Look at me, I’m better.” “You’re not better. You’re as stubborn as your dog, Jack.” I stood up to prove my point but my legs wobbled and collapsed under me. Two gypsies hauled me back to bed and a witch sedated me. Damn this fickle body. Amy raised her eyebrows and advised me to wait till I was stronger. I borrowed a walking frame and shuffled down the corridors each day to strengthen my legs. Stooped on this frame like a geriatric, I wandered around the wards, exploring nooks and 39

crannies till I knew the place back to front, every yellow wall. I longed for my studio and missed my dog. Amidst the comings and goings of doctors, nurses and visitors, I had plenty of time to ruminate about life, death, art and the aroma of coffee. Vague memories of my near drowning kept nagging me. Between the knock on the head with the anchor and waking up in hospital, my recollection of that fateful night was a blank. The missing pieces of my life unsettled me. Unfamiliar faces were appearing in my dreams. Snippets of violins and choirs sprang up from nowhere. I described the sounds to Danton, a professional musician. He scratched his head and showered me with piles of compact discs thinking this was his opportunity to educate me. One afternoon, a furtive little man in a crumpled suit weaved around the wards and found his way to my bedside, pretending to be a visitor. He didn’t fool me in my new hyper-alert state. “I assume you’re a journalist,” I said when the man approached. “H-H-How did you know that?” His eyes darted about. “Because you’re not a witch, a sorcerer, a wandering gypsy or a zombie,” I said, eying the man’s unshaven face. “Sit down and I’ll talk to you but if you quote anything out of context or tell any lies, I’ll personally hunt you down, knock your head off and smash your windscreen. Is that clear?” The journalist nodded and took out his notebook with a slight tremble. There was no time to waste. I related all I could remember of the boating accident. “So Jack, you’ve obviously survived a pretty horrendous ordeal. Where do you go from here?” I was silent for a moment then leaned forward to emphasise my words. “I’m going to win the Archibald.” My own words, popping out like that, surprised me. With all 40

this time on my hands, I’d been mulling over the survival of art in a society that worshipped economics instead of beauty. Art had gone through a near death experience, just like me. The prestigious Archibald Art Prize was the artist’s passport into the heart of the system. “The Archibald, eh. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for your work.” The journalist wriggled in his seat. I could see he wasn’t taking my words seriously. To him, I was just another eccentric, a lunatic. “What sort of art work do you do, Jack?” “I’m Australia’s Van Meegeren,” I said. “Are you familiar with this man?” The journalist shook his head and his eye twitched. “Van Meegeren was a Dutch artist who managed to fool the entire art world by painting his own original work in the style of Vermeer. During the war, he scammed millions of dollars from the Germans by selling his paintings as real Vermeers. The art experts thought they were genuine.” “Did he get away with it?” “He would’ve if he’d kept his big mouth shut. After the war, he admitted to the Dutch government what he’d done, but no one believed him. To prove it, he painted a Vermeer right in front of them. They were mind boggled. He made the experts look so foolish that instead of honouring him for his genius, they threw him in prison. He died a month later.” “That’s some story,” said the journalist. “But what’s a Dutch forger have to do with you?” “I’m a modern Van Meegeren. People commission me to paint their portraits in the style they choose.” I explained my talent for imitating the great artists of Europe. So far, I’d perfected the styles of Cézanne, Manet, Van Gogh, and recently Rembrandt. Years ago, I stopped painting original works because I couldn’t sell them and concentrated on commissioned portraits for wealthy Brisbane socialites instead. They paid out 41

large wads of cash in exchange for my immortal brushstrokes. For a few thousand dollars, I transformed their mediocrity into a masterpiece in the style of a bygone era. This technique of quasi-forgery became a burden to me. Each commissioned portrait drained my spirit until inspiration to create anything original ran dry. Half-baked unfinished canvases crouched in the corners of my studio and cracked under the weight of dust. “That sounds great, Jack.” “It’s not great,” I snapped. The guy had missed the point. “It’s unauthentic. I feel like I’m cheating. I know it’s better than chocolate box art but it’s not original, it’s not from the soul. My heart isn’t in it.” The journalist scratched his head. I explained chocolate box, a reference to the kitsch art clichés like pretty flowers, cute animals and galloping horses with their manes flying in the breeze. “It’s the sort of crappy, overseas, mass-produced, talentless stuff that’s flooding the Australian market and sold at cheap twodollar import shops. The rubbish every debt-ridden nation is madly exporting—” The journalist tapped his pen. “Politics aside, how do you feel now?” “I feel more alive today than ever before. Facing death has given life a sharper edge. My days are no longer a black hole of self-doubt. They’ve become a mosaic of possibilities.” A nurse flew into the ward, flicked through my medication chart, handed me a fistful of tablets then flew away. I thanked her, tossed the tablets into the garbage and turned to resume the interview. The journalist was slouched in the chair like the invisible man. I laughed. “Don’t worry about the witches. They don’t care.” The journalist sat up and straightened his suit. 42

“That boating accident was more than a random accident,” I said. The journalist gave me a quizzical look. “It was a musical and artistic experience that revealed the missing fragments of my past.” His pen was perched, as though I was about to reveal the juicy skeletons in my closet, but all I revealed was a bag of bones and a couple of splinters. “Fragments of your past?” “I’m trying to trace my family roots.” I leaned forward and whispered, “I met my mother while I was drowning.” The journalist closed his notebook with trembling hands and stood up. “Well good luck to you, Jack. I hope you win the Archibald and find your family.”

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7. Honoré Daumier: The Three Musicians Jack Danton tossed the newspaper on my bed. The headlines said: Orphan Survives Death and Vows to Win Archibald. I had some explaining to do but Danton brushed it away. Having given many interviews in the past, he knew how journalists exaggerated. Danton deposited another stack of CDs onto my cluttered bedside table. This was the second lot of music he’d brought to help me track down the violins buzzing through my head. Again, I broached the subject of leaving hospital. “You want to leave right now?” Danton’s jaw dropped. “I’m really hanging out for a decent coffee.” “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Jack. Your forehead is swollen like a golf ball and Loretta would kill me—” “Ah yes, she who must be obeyed.” “It’s not a prison, Jack.” “That’s what they said about the boys’ homes.” I waved my arm to brush the topic aside and prodded him for news on the home front. “Loretta still won’t speak to me. My son’s itching to leave home and move in with Roland. Seems like Loretta’s driving him mad. My daughter doesn’t eat any more. Man, you were smart not having kids.” Danton leaned back in the plastic hospital chair and painted life at my house in Scarborough as paradise, a temple of serenity, a childfree realm of orderliness. No screaming marital arguments, no jangle of mobile phones, no constant shattering doorbells, no dramas. “It’s a shame Loretta didn’t kick you out years ago.” Where Loretta was all high voltage neurosis, Amy was calm and rational, cynical and bookish with a keen nose for languages, 44

history and culture. Amy had achieved sainthood in Danton’s eyes. “And Roland was sick as a dog too. Lost a fair bit of weight but we nursed him back to health.” “And speaking of dogs, how’s Brick?” Danton wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about my dog. Apparently, Brick was suffering from a shoe fetish, gathering all the household footwear and depositing them in his kennel. He’d also taken to crawling into bed with Amy and growling if she tried to push him out. “He’s freaking her out.” “He just misses me,” I said. “Your house may be paradise in the day but at night, what a cacophony.” Danton described the fruit bats, yowling tomcats and all the other nocturnal creatures vying for decibels. “Now you know why I’m an insomniac.” “And those explosions. Who could sleep through that?” “Ah, Roland must be at it again.” Our crazy neighbour had an obsession with cats that he shared with Brick. When we first moved there, Roland shot stray cats with his air rifle, straight through the screen door. No cat dared shit in his garden. A nurse appeared and handed me a fistful of tablets, recorded some squiggles in my notes, signed the medication chart then flew off on her broomstick. Again, I tossed the tablets into the bin. When I looked up, the daunting Loretta, officiously starched, towered in the doorway. She’d probably come to interrogate and torture me about my tablet-tossing habit but her eyes were on Danton. “Gulag Commandant is looking for you,” I mumbled to Danton. Loretta marched over, gave me a perfunctory nod then turned to Danton and announced that his mother had been admitted to the Psychiatric Ward. She stood with hands on hips, enjoying Danton’s discomfiture. “She tried to commit suicide, again,” Loretta added 45

triumphantly. Every few months, Danton’s mother, Valerie, escaped the razor wire of the aged care hostel. The hostel staff and social workers called the family together for a meeting to decide what to do with this recalcitrant old woman but all solutions failed. Valerie Kozlowski was destined to assert her individuality and gain a reputation as a troublemaker. “She’s all right.” Gracious in her triumph, Loretta softened when she saw Danton’s stricken face. “She’s only in here overnight, for observation. No big deal.” “What did she do this time?” Danton asked. “Oh, Val’s usual antics — walloped a transport inspector and leapt off a train. Anyway, I’ve got to go. You deal with it, I’ve had enough.” Danton said his mother’s depression was getting worse every year of her widowhood. The hostel was cramped, privacy was scant and staff treated her like a child. This bright intelligent woman was trapped in a deteriorating body, stricken by Parkinson’s Disease. The hostel staff kept assuring Danton that his mother was settling in well, but how little they knew her. She was a gypsy at heart. The hostel was her prison, a modern concentration camp in disguise. “Bring your mother home.” That was Roland’s solution. “It’s not like she’s an invalid.” Danton was tired of explaining the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, a condition that got progressively worse. Her limbs shook, her voice laboured, she fell often. Roland laughed. “Oh, bollocks. I’m like that every Friday and Saturday night after a few drinks. Doesn’t mean I’m ready to be tossed into a bloody nursing home.” Danton would have liked to bring his mother home but Loretta vetoed the idea. She claimed there was enough to worry about with 46

her useless, one-legged husband, two ratty teenage kids and her high-powered job. The last thing she needed was a sick and dependent mother-in-law. “Every time I think of my mother’s early years in a concentration camp and now, stuck in a bleak hostel, I feel so guilty,” Danton said. “You should visit her more, Danton. You’re her only son, you’re lucky to have a family.” “I know. It’s just that we’ve all been so busy.” Danton looked at my bruised arms. “ Life is so unpredictable, you never know when your time’s up.” “You’re right. Let’s go see your mum before she wallops a doctor and escapes again.” “The body’s a curse,” Valerie declared, gripping Danton’s hand. She was still a handsome woman, groomed to perfection and well spoken, each word perfectly enunciated with her heavy Polish accent. “One minute you’re a cultural phenomenon, wildly applauded and revered for your talent. The next minute you’re a geriatric liability.” At the height of Valerie’s operatic career, the whole world worshipped her. The death of her husband and the onset of this debilitating disease left her abandoned in the wasteland of institutional care. “Oh, come on, mum. Don’t be so dramatic,” Danton said. “You’re not a liability.” “Sure I am.” Valerie was blunt. “Institutions punish you for being old and useless. They shove you around with disrespect, hoping, how do you say, hoping you’ll shuffle off your mortal coil. The hostel is desperate for your bed yet full of moral outrage if you want to die with dignity. They force you to live in humiliation.” Valerie laughed at her small adventure, a short train trip to the famous Fortitude Valley near the city centre. 47

“So I wanted a decent coffee,” she said. “Is that a crime?” “I can relate to that.” I grinned. For a woman who’d seen the world, this half hour train expedition into town was trifling. The world was once at her feet, though these days, she fell so often, just about everything was at her feet. “Why didn’t you just tell the staff where you were going?” Danton asked. “Don’t be naïve. No one gets parole that easy. There would be a mile of red tape.” How well I knew the ways of the institution from my childhood. They imposed their power by small humiliations in the name of order, forcing inmates to beg for the little freedoms that everyone else took for granted. “Music. It set me off. José Carreras was singing my favourite Tosca aria.” Good music always filled Valerie with a zest for life, an urge to break out and embrace the world. Good art did that for me. Valerie pulled her rigid face into a contorted smile, turned towards me and clasped her shaky hands to her chest. “True musicians, like my Danton here, have the capacity to feel music in their guts instead of merely hearing it in their heads.” Danton took his mother’s hand and smiled. Mother and son. I felt a pang. Their mutual understanding impressed me. Would I ever find that same connection with my own mother? Amy and I once had that ability to sense each other’s thoughts. “So what happened on the train?” Danton said. “I lost my balance and fell on top of the train inspector.” “Like mother, like son.” Danton tapped his wooden leg. “My lousy balance landed us all in the river and almost killed Jack.” Valerie wanted to know about the boating accident and my artwork and Amy but we didn’t get a chance to talk. A young woman from the pathology department interrupted the 48

conversation to take Valerie’s blood. Well-intentioned staff members were forever prodding and extracting bits and pieces of our bodies for tests. Valerie assured the nurse that she was feeling much better, that more blood tests were unnecessary. The nurse ignored her protests. Valerie threw her bruised arm across the bed with a theatrical flourish. “I’m Polish, invade if you must, everybody else throughout history has.” Danton and I laughed and the young nurse gave a frosty smile and completed her task. “Modern vampires, they steal our blood.” The bruises staining my arms made my tattoos look insignificant. “Speaking of blood, I’ve made a big decision, Val. I’m going to find my mother.” Valerie raised her eyebrows, patted my arm and said it was a wonderful idea. Then her face clouded over and she gazed out the window. She told us how she’d witnessed the Nazis shoot her mother. We sat listening to the background hum of the hospital. “I wasn’t a proper mother to Danton and I regret that. I was never home.” “And why should you stay home?” I said. “You shared your talent with the world.” Valerie shrugged, palms upward in that self-deprecating way. “The world is sad. No one respects the arts any more.” She slumped down into the bed. “And the arts are the only valuable thing that bring joy to humans.” “I agree,” I burst out. “The bloody economy is all anyone cares about these day.” Valerie nodded. A nurse poked her head into the ward and announced the imminent arrival of the doctor. “We better go, mum.” Valerie sat upright and clenched her fists. “Both you boys are good artists. Let your passion live through your work.” “I’ll visit you later,” Danton said with an impatient shrug, like 49

he’d heard all this motherly wisdom before. Back in my ward, I told Danton he was lucky to have such a gifted and wise mother. “She understands art from the gut, not just the intellect.” Danton gave me a strange look, like I’d suddenly started gibbering in Yiddish. He ignored my outburst, plucked a CD from the pile and gave me a brief lesson in musical history. He paused, held up Mozart’s Requiem and recommended I listen to it first. “You’d like it,” he said. I put on the headset, pressed the play button and I practically fainted with excitement when the first bars started. This was the music that had haunted me, my drowning music. “Great. I didn’t know drowning has become such a cultural event.” “Danton.” I grabbed his arm. “Do you reckon you could teach me to play the violin? Not concert standard but enough to play a simple tune?” I had a theory that balancing art and music would heighten my creative powers and improve my art. There was also a tune I’d always wanted to play, but that was just whimsy, my twisted sense of humour that only Amy appreciated. “You’re nuts, Jack.” “I know. So you’ll do it?” Danton reluctantly agreed. Normally he avoided teaching the violin, an instrument that was easily massacred by the inexperienced, but since he was living at my house, what excuse could he find? “I promise, if I prove totally hopeless, we’ll stop.” “Okay, it’s a deal.” He assumed I’d forget all about it the moment I left hospital but I was as pig-headed as my dog. “I’ve never seen you this animated before, Jack. Maybe we should toss you into the river more often.” Danton left as a gaggle of staff approached. 50

A nurse entered the ward accompanied by a doctor, a stout man with a bushy moustache. He ignored me as though I were some inconsequential speck and peered at my medical chart, his head nodding and bouncing, his moustache leaping about his face like a ballerina. I was intrigued. “Your temperature’s down to normal,” he announced to the universe. His moustache leapt from his lip and did a pas de chat. “Ah, jolly good. White cell count is looking much better. Excellent.” He aimed more comments about my blood chemistries to the assisting nurse: my globulin, my erythrocyte sedimentation rate, my haemoglobin and bilirubin. “I didn’t realise I was such a complex mass of chemicals.” They ignored my quip and again I became entranced by the doctor’s moustache as it performed Swan Lake on his face. “ASTs and ALTs are still up. We’ll start a short course of cortisone …” The longer I focussed on people’s faces, on gestures and expressions, the weirder they appeared. I noted the way humans rushed away from their lives, avoided prolonged eye contact, filled the spaces of their days with movement, obsessed over objects and drowned in shallow worries. It bordered on the absurd. I was no different; stuck in my studio, isolated from humanity, obsessed by my battle with artistic authenticity. In the past week, my world had changed dramatically. The accident, the visitors, the music all formed a ragged jumble in my psyche, an abstract Magritte painting. This medieval hospital hierarchy, the eerie glow of fluorescent lights, the constant buzz of equipment, pervasive antiseptic smells, the broken patterns in time and space — all this was throwing me into a reality warp. And in that new dimension, the seeds of creativity were stirring deep in my guts, together with the insipid hospital food. Ideas were crashing around my skull and my mind was a palette of embryonic 51

ideas, pushing to be borne. “Everyone’s so busy,” I told Amy. “I feel like I’m lost in an ant colony.” Amy frowned as I tried to explain the state of my head. She had little understanding of my art and lately she was vague and distant, as though hiding something. Her cold armour had morphed into a fuzzy inattention, an empty smiling politeness. Jack, we need to talk. But we never did. Danton was also preoccupied with the upheavals in his own life and kept giving me strange looks. Both Amy and Danton came and went and left me to my wild imagination and secret cravings and yearnings. I was a portrait artist and faces forever filled my head. Suddenly, the vivid image of a sharp little face bordered by Kandinsky hair crept into my mind — the unmistakeable head of the Spanish art gallery owner, Isabelle. For years she’d encouraged my art just like Valerie, never losing hope or respect. Not only was she a lover of art, she was a purveyor of fine gourmet food and I needed a good dose of that right now. And who knows, she was crazy enough to help me escape this medical prison. No one else would. I phoned her.

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8. Franz Hals: The Laughing Cavalier Amy The pursuit of pleasure enticed Danton into a world that he’d never known in his marriage to Loretta. While Jack was in hospital, Danton and I talked about everything from the esoteric to the mundane. We listened to music — classical and pop, played cards, word games, chess and scrabble. I beat him at scrabble and Danton demolished me at chess. His father, like many European men, was an avid chess player and had taught him well but I was the wordsmith, obsessed by literature, languages, puns and satire. “You’re a true hedonist,” Danton remarked. “Life is short. Might as well fill it with as much fun and enjoyment as possible.” I dished out wisdom while dragging out a saucepan. “What’s Jack think of that?” Danton asked. “He thinks I’m frivolous and petty and unable to see the big picture.” I heated the oil and threw in a handful of popping corns. “But I think we’ve become task and money orientated instead of people orientated. We need to play more and fight less.” “What makes us fight so much?” Danton said, leaning on the door and watching the popcorn ritual. “It seems like people in developed countries have everything but want more. They’re insatiable.” “Heard the old saying? The person who has the most when he dies, wins.” The popcorn started pinging and pounding like automatic weapons in a gun-slinging action movie. We stuffed ourselves with popcorn and laughed at comedies, old Marx Brothers movies, replays of Black Adder, giggling like adolescents. Danton succumbed to the lure of movies and 53

delighted in the power of a medium that could transport him to other worlds. It was pure escapism. The release of laughter was salubrious, losing all sense of self was magic. At the end of a Marx Brother movie, Monkey Business, I turned to my new companion grinning with a mouth full of popcorn. “I think that was a truly powerful Groucho Marxist analysis of the class system.” I peered with mock seriousness over the top of my glasses. “Hmm. I feel it sublimated its power in an attempt at authenticity and sincerity.” Danton put on a pseudo-intellectual voice and paced the room bent forward like Groucho Marx, index finger under his nose in mock moustache and a hand behind his back. “Did you say Groucho Marx? Wasn’t he the famous Bronx philosopher who said that once you’ve learnt to fake sincerity, you’ve got it made?” I scooped more popcorn into my mouth. “Absolutely.” Danton furrowed his brow and contorted his fineboned face. “Sincerity is a form of catharsis that, uh, that—” “That lubricates the popcorn’s inner journey.” We both fell about guffawing like idiots and rolling on the floor. Brick did his own lubricating and licked our faces as we tumbled about, upsetting the popcorn. “Off, you great beast of the wild.” I pulled Brick off Danton who tried to extricate his limb from the dog’s exuberance. Having worked in the amputee wards, I knew that manoeuvring through life with a prosthetic leg was hard work and I sympathised with Danton’s awkwardness. After the intellectual lampooning, Danton and I poured over silly rhymes, absurdities and snippets of poetry. I’d introduced him to the allure of competitions, a marketing gimmick and form of cheap advertising. For me they were light relief from my psychology studies and winning the odd prize spurred the latent gambler in me. 54

“We once won this huge stainless steel fridge that would barely fit into the kitchen. It was a bloody monster that caused us no end of grief the day the warranty ended. Jack and I could hardly move it. We ended up trading it in.” “As usual, the rewards for creativity are dubious.” “True, but it’s the buzz of getting something for nothing. Did Jack ever tell you about that one week holiday in Fiji we won?” Danton remembered it vaguely. “There was a military coup and we were stranded there for weeks. More a nightmare than a holiday.” Danton was chuckling and pushing Brick away at the same time. “But wait, there’s more. In the eighties, we won a set of encyclopaedias that must have decimated an entire rainforest. I gave them to the Op shop. But the best prize we ever won was a laptop. Bloody thing didn’t last long. This Luddite dog sat on it and cracked the screen.” Danton looked impressed by my tragi-comical list of past triumphs. “So, tell me Amy, to what do you owe the secret of your success?” “Unleashing the smart arse lurking within, a dash of artistic flair and a good rhyming dictionary. That’s essential. They’re the backbone and bible of my success.” Whenever possible, I mentioned the sponsors. Corporate grovelling always helped. Our worktable was a collage of paper, artwork, scraps of poetry and one finished entry for the Queen Elizabeth luxury cruise competition. “In twenty-five words or less, tell us why you want to win a cruise on this luxury liner. ” Danton squinted at the tiny writing, deciphering the details of the competition. I read my entry out loud: “Luxury adorns her bow to stern/Glamour bedecks at every turn/Let Neptune cruise the blues away/Launch a millennium/SEAS the day.” “The seize is spelt s-e-a-s. A clever play on words that should 55

convince the judges I’m a literary diva.” Danton read it over and over, nodding his approval at the ocean mythology and ship references. He was beginning to cotton on, so he scribbled his own jingle while I attended to the tea ceremonies. We were both tea connoisseurs; we liked strong, freshly brewed tea leaves, drawn for at least five minutes in a warmed teapot. None of this insipid tea bag rubbish. Poor Jack was a total virgin when it came to tea making. He always failed to get my tea just right. What could I expect from a coffee fundamentalist? When I returned with the teapot, Danton leaned back in his chair, smirking. “Okay, brace yourself. Here’s my entry. Tell me what you think? If I won this cruise I’d leap for joy and shout oh buoy, oh buoy, oh buoy.” Again, we fell about laughing, especially when he told me the spelling of boy. Brick leapt and licked and frolicked till we were all tangled in arms and legs and snouts. The phone ringing in the other room only increased the chaos. I let the answering machine take care of it. I was thoroughly sick of all the journalists and cranks phoning about Jack’s accident and Brick’s heroism. “There’s so much diversity in the world, so many people eking out a living in strange creative ways,” Danton said when I told him about the professional competition junkies who sold their prizes for income. “Some people would say that about you.” Danton was a piano teacher. He shrugged. “I wouldn’t call that creative. It’s mostly boring repetitive work with the rare gifted student to redeem it.” Danton was lucky to be his own boss and work from home. He dwelt in that elite world of classical music that I knew nothing about. I was a Pink Floyd sort of girl myself, still stuck in the seventies pop scene. 56

Jack had told me about Danton’s early career as a concert performer. He’d won a major piano competition when he was eighteen. But anxiety and the trembling hands of performance jitters stopped him dead. Unlike his opera-singing mother, he couldn’t handle the stress. Medication controlled his shaky hands and pounding heart but touring the world doped to the eyeballs took its toll. “I would’ve ended up a drug addict if I’d stayed in the concert circuit.” Danton obtained a teaching degree in Italian and music, his two loves. It was during his university days that he met Jack. Like many an idealist before him, he was disillusioned to discover that schoolteachers had the job from hell. The torture of trying to educate rebellious students rekindled his anxiety and brought him close to a breakdown. The sanest option, though not the most lucrative, was teaching piano from home. “I have to confess, my real love is composing.” “So why don’t you do it?” “The Australian market is too small, opportunities are almost non-existent here.” Danton sipped his tea and gazed through the window at the fading winter light. “I’d probably have to move overseas to do that.” “Where would you go?” “Italy.” Fluent in Italian and in love with their culture, Danton admitted a yearning for Italy, a passion I shared. Danton was such a revelation. This man, who I’d always thought was self-contained and super-confident, was really a bundle of discontent, no different than everyone else. Somehow, that made him more human, more vulnerable and approachable. The echo of Danton’s words bounced around my head as I flicked through newspapers and women’s magazines, searching for travel competitions with an Italian destination. Finally I found 57

one. It was called the Farilla Pasta Cruise Extravaganza. “What do you think of this?” Triumphant, I handed him the magazine. Danton poured over the tiny printed conditions of entry. The perfect prize — two weeks in the Mediterranean, cruising the Aegean Islands of Greece, the Amalfi Coast of Italy, the French Riviera and the Costa Brava in Spain. “A trip to paradise,” he said. “Provided we don’t get bombed by terrorists or die in a plane crash.” “You’re a meek soul at heart, aren’t you?” I’d just glimpsed the negative glue that cemented his friendship with Jack. “I’ll be honest. Travelling scares me,” he said. “My mother was always travelling. And you?” “I loved it — the people, the babble of different languages, the tastes and sounds and smells. It’s a sensory wonderland. You never know what’s around the next corner.” All morning we slaved over this new competition, tweaking the poems and the artwork to perfection. Many brainstorming hours later we completed our entry, a labour of laughs and bountiful tea drinking. Danton retouched the finer details then we dived into the delicate task of wrapping, labelling and preparing it for the final launch. “You and Loretta had money,” I said, cutting strips of cardboard. “Why didn’t you two go overseas and see Italy while it was cheap? Before it cost an arm and a leg?” An unfortunate choice of words but he took it well. He tapped his prosthesis and smiled. “Yes, well, one leg down, one to go.” “Oops, sorry about that.” “No, don’t be silly, I’m used to it.” Danton laughed. “I’m sorry now that we didn’t do more travelling but you know how it is? You always come up with reasons why the time isn’t right.” He hesitated but I spurred him on. “In the early days Loretta was engrossed in her studies and I 58

had a low-paying teaching job so there wasn’t enough money. When Loretta scrambled up the career ladder and scored better paying positions, we didn’t have the time. Finally, when we found a balance between time and money, we had two demanding kids but no energy.” “But the kids grew up, Loretta became the Director of Nursing and you worked for yourself. Plenty of time and money.” Danton tapped his prosthesis. “By then I had one leg, an impending divorce and two voracious teenagers sucking us dry.” Their quiet fourteen-year-old daughter and gregarious seventeen-year-old son seemed well-behaved and intelligent. Certainly not voracious. But Danton revealed their other side, their obsessive shopping sprees and lust for material goods. Money and appearance were all they cared about. So what was new? Danton threw his hands up in mock despair. “Whatever they have, it’s never enough. They want it all, they want the best and they want it now.” “Typically modern kids, eh? At least they’ll be finished school soon and off your hands,” I said. “Ha, you think the end’s in sight when they finish school? Don’t believe it.” Danton stared at a Drysdale print of outback Australia sitting crooked on the wall. “Kids hang around for eternity these days, waiting for their parents to leave. That’s why people buy caravans and travel around Australia. The grey nomads are escaping the kids.” Danton was winding up and bursting out. His monologue stopped abruptly as though some internal censorship had cut in. “How about you, Amy? You guys haven’t travelled since the seventies either. Other than Fiji.” “Don’t remind me. I guess we were young, time was plentiful, our lives were ahead of us. Then one day, we woke up and my back was aching, Jack’s feet were sore and half our lives were behind us.” 59

Despite our comfortable lack of children, we were in the same boat as everyone else, too busy paying off the mortgage and accumulating possessions. Time got away from us. “Either I’m getting old or it’s the media,” I said. “But television has made the world seems smaller and nastier. A seething cauldron of religious violence and political turmoil.” I poured more tea and Danton stirred his methodically, lost in thought. “I sometimes wonder why we’re so obsessed with travelling? Are we nomads by instinct or is it just human curiosity? Maybe it’s deep dissatisfaction with our own lives or an attempt to escape our existential misery.” “Deep stuff.” I held up the finished package “Here’s to misery and escape. What do you think?” Our competition entry was nestled in layers of protective wrapping. I wasn’t taking any chances with this little gem. Danton inspected the bundle and gave me a wry smile. “Do you think the foam, bubble wrap, sheets of cardboard, padded bag and six fragile stickers will be enough?” “Enough to survive Australia Post, civil war and a stampede of wild camels.” Our parcel of hope was ready for posting. “Now for the long wait.” “The World Wide Wait,” Danton said. “That’s what Loretta calls the Internet.” We stared at the parcel exhausted, speechless, almost embarrassed by our proximity. The phone rang and again I ignored it. “Shall I answer it?” Danton stood by the phone, hesitating. “No, don’t bother.” Mobile phones, emails, memos and faxes already dominated our work lives. Surely our homes were sacred. The phone stopped ringing and silence descended. “I wonder how Jack’s getting on?” Danton said scooping up scraps of paper from the floor. 60

“Giving Loretta and the staff a hard time, I bet.” “Did Jack tell you he wants me to teach him the violin?” “You play the violin? So many hidden talents. No, Jack never told me that. He never tells me much these days.” Suddenly we were talking about Jack again, a powerful shadowy presence crouched in the corner of our consciences. “Ever since we saw Fiddler on the Roof he’s loved the violin. ” I sat fidgeting with the parcel, thinking about Jack. As much as I worried about him, I wasn’t looking forward to his return. Danton rested his hand lightly on my shoulder. “Jack’s a survivor. He’ll come good.” He had misinterpreted my silence but his simple gesture was comforting. Danton was a nice guy and my growing attachment to him was disconcerting. I sighed and patted his hand. “Yep, Jack’s a survivor, that’s for sure.” That comforting hand on the shoulder meant nothing. Danton was a platonic touchy feely sort of guy, easy to mistake his warmth for something more. He was still in his late thirties, a mere lad, and I was already forty-five, a middle-aged matron in the eyes of the nursing juniors. “Hey, how about tonight, we walk up to the Scarborough Marina, have a drink and check out this eclipse everyone’s talking about at the hospital,” I suggested. “Aren’t eclipses supposed to have some mythological significance?” Danton took my hand and squeezed it. “Yeah, they make you want to howl at the moon.” He threw his head back and started howling till Brick leapt up and knocked him over.

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9. Honoré Daumier: The Hypochondriac Jack I watched from the second floor window as Isabelle Fernandez, art gallery owner and entrepreneur, ignored the no parking signs and wedged her psychedelic van under a poinciana tree in the hospital car park. A fiery ball of energy with green and pink hair bounced into the ward. Books, vitamins and fruit rolled out of her bag and tumbled onto the blankets. She sprawled out on my bed, ignoring the chair. She was so at ease with her skinny body, so bubbly with enthusiasm that I forgot how little I knew her. “Christ, Jacko. You look like something the dog dragged in. In fact, I think he did.” She roared her enormous infectious laugh, leonine and uninhibited. I smiled at this happy creature rolling around on my bed. For a tiny woman she had the laugh of a giant. I estimated her age as anywhere between late forties and late fifties, kind of withered and gaunt but with the energy of a wild kid. “I heard the entire drama from Danton and speaking of Danton, I understand he’s now living at your house with the ice queen. Wow. If that isn’t a comedy of errors then the Pope ain’t Catholic.” Isabelle made no bones about her dislike of Amy. She once called her a half-dead bookaholic with an intellect the size of a planet and the warmth of a fish. Anyone who didn’t nurture art was an enemy to Isabelle. I pushed the local papers towards her to show her the celebrity I’d become. Isabelle skimmed the articles and laughed at The River of Death melodrama. “I tell you what all this publicity has achieved, and that’s an increase in art sales. To make it big in the art world, you got to be 62

dead, or seen to be dead. Anyway, too long here and you will be dead.” “Dying isn’t quite the career move I had in mind,” I said. “Death is more of a grand finale, don’t you think?” “I’d call it an artistic epilogue of sorts. What you need is a renaissance.” While we talked, Isabelle munched on the fruit she’d brought me, relaxed and splayed out like a Modigliani. “This is the most relaxed I’ve ever seen you,” I commented. Back in Scarborough her regular routine flight path entailed orbits around the gallery selling paintings, managing the gallery coffee lounge, moulding lumps of clay into interesting shapes and arranging exhibitions for starving artists. No one else but Isabelle Fernandez boasted such drive and passion and undiluted energy, other than an excited bull terrier. Isabelle laughed off my observation and continued to chew, grimace, gesticulate and sprout her opinions on art and politics, fame and talent, luck, fate, poverty and parentage. “You know, you’re lucky Amy supports you financially or you’d have starved by now, and lucky she has wealthy parents who you can fall back on in lean times.” Talk of parents made me sit upright and interrupt her monologue. I told her about the drowning ordeal and how I wanted to find my biological mother. Isabelle raised her eyebrows and asked why we didn’t have kids. There was so much she didn’t know about me, like what a crappy childhood I’d had, how much we despised Amy’s folks and my views on overpopulation. Where would I start? “I don’t have kids because I have a dog, that’s enough.” It was a facile answer but there were other things I wanted to talk about. “That’s not quite the same, Jack. Dogs are a bit simple.” “That’s good, I want simplicity.” “I suspect you want more than simplicity. You just want 63

unconditional love.” “Doesn’t everyone?” Isabelle chuckled. “Everyone knows a dog is a child substitute.” “On the contrary. I believe children are dog substitutes.” Again, I was overwhelmed by Isabelle’s enormous bellow as it cracked the yellowing hospital walls. Those sonic booms could have brought down the walls of Jericho. Laughter rattled the drip stands, roused the other patients and woke the dead. Like Brick, the smallest things gave her great amusement. I wiped away tears of mirth to find that lunch had been dumped unceremoniously on my bedside table. The three other patients in the ward pulled themselves upright and ate greedily like starved prisoners-of-war. Isabelle gasped at the plate of unidentified mush that had been slapped before me. “They call that food?” Isabelle was alarmed when I picked up my fork and prodded an amorphous green mass, wobbling beside the grey mashed potato. “This stuff is only fit for a Toxicology Lab.” She whisked my plate away from under my nose and dumped it in the bin before I could protest. I’d never confronted such decisiveness. She thrust an apple into my hand. “Now this is food,” she said. “One hundred percent organic. From Stanthorpe.” I was so hungry I demolished it in half a dozen bites. One thing I did have was a healthy set of teeth. No dentist had filled them with toxic metals. I was amused by Isabelle’s magic tricks, the way she plunged her jangling bracelet-clad arm into her bottomless bag. She poured a spoonful of vitamin C powder into some lemon juice. “Here, drink this. It’ll perk up your immune system and reinforce your defences.” Isabelle’s battle strategy tasted awful but she rejected the whole paradigm of drug therapy. “They merely cover up the warning symptoms. Like smashing the lights on your dashboard.” 64

She then launched into a tirade against multinational pharmaceutical companies, the legalised killers of modern man. She hurled abuse at hospital food, insipid pap designed to slaughter the last vestiges of a patient’s resistance. Gusts of laughter and curses punctuated her ravings. Luckily the other patients were too busy hoeing into their food and killing their immune systems, otherwise Isabelle would have frightened them to death. A parade of hospital staff came under Isabelle’s inquisitorial fire. I was almost cringing with embarrassment when she crossexamined nurses about my treatment, demanding they build up my immune system. They scampered away scratching their heads, no idea what she was talking about. The tired nurses shrugged her off with mumbled excuses and referred her on to the doctors. Doctors sighed with the exhaustion of long hours, difficult patients and sleepless nights. They listened with a composure that hinted of tolerance and good bedside manner though, in reality, it was a calmness borne out of unconscionable fatigue. Isabelle grunted at their replies, commented on their bloodshot eyes, their pale sickly complexions. “Too much junk food, coffee, sugar and dairy,” she whispered to me. Everyone gawked at her vibrancy, her technicolour hair, the pierced ears and eyebrows. She looked like an escapee from the Winston Noble Psychiatric Unit and she didn’t give a toss what anyone thought. As she bubbled away, escape plans brewed in my head, freedom was beckoning. Isabelle studied my pale gaunt face. “You have an uncanny resemblance to Van Gogh, with just a hint of insanity that gives you a twentieth century quality. But those ghastly tattoos on your arms are definitely post-modern.” I laughed at her outer shell, all skin and bone like me but wrapped in pure energy. For years she’d buzzed around the 65

periphery of my life, prodding the artist within, stinging the raw hide of my sloth with her encouragement. “You are a dark Mediterranean elf with the kinetic energy of a thousand gazelles,” I said, lapsing into metaphor and getting all poetic again. Next to her, I was a pale consumptive type, prone to skin cancer, plodding about with the sluggishness of a wily old bull terrier. Hospital workers were more comfortable with my large myopic wife than with this sharp bug-eyed woman who continually challenged them, rattled their brains and released sonic booms of laughter. A nurse interrupted our animated conversation and handed me tablets. She waited for me to swallow them before moving the drug trolley to the next bed. I promised to take them soon. “Sorry, Jack. My instructions are to make sure you are taking them,” said the nurse. Someone had discovered the bin full of medication. “What are they?” I stared at the tablets. “Prednisone.” “Oh, yeah. I’ll take them later, with some food. Thanks, nurse.” I placed the tablets on the bedside table, trying to bluff my way. The doctor with the ballerina moustache soon appeared at my bedside. Non-compliance wasn’t that simple. “Do my blood tests show I have a Prednisone deficiency?” I was all innocence and mockery. The doctor sighed and emphasised the need to settle the liver inflammation with the steroids. His moustache was far less animated today, small pas de chats upon his upper lip instead of arabesques and pirouettes. “As your doctor, I’m urging you to reconsider.” I again refused the medication and reassured the doctor that I felt terrific. How could I tell staff that my bruised and battered body had reached saturation point, was rebelling against the drips, 66

injections, blood tests and medications? The doctor, his standard pep talk exhausted, turned up his palms and shrugged. He pressed his fingers against his eyes and temples as though warding off a migraine and disappeared. “Good for you, Jacko. That medication will kill you. Hell, you can get healthier without that poison. There’s plenty of herbs that’ll clean up your liver better than cortisone. Honestly, I don’t know how anyone survives modern medicine.” Isabelle launched into another anti-establishment rave. She was a walking encyclopaedia of conspiracy theories and health hazards and I was awed by the list of things that could kill us. Modern existence was a death trap. “You make it sound like everyone is half-dead already.” “That’s just the point,” said Isabelle, leaping up. “Everyone is half-dead. They just don’t know it. They go to the doctor with vague symptoms. The doctor gives it a name like chronic fatigue syndrome then prescribes a few drugs to cover it up. He doesn’t cure it. Don’t believe all the shit you hear on the miracle of medical science. That’s garbage. Sickness is spreading faster than we can cure it. We’re dying younger and younger—” “But hang on, the average life span is increasing—” “No way, we’re just dying longer.” Isabelle’s voice grew louder. “They’re keeping people alive whether they like it or not.” I thought about Danton’s mother who would have died years ago without medical intervention. Yet she wanted to die and no one would let her. I wanted to live but the hospital system was unwittingly killing me, or so Isabelle informed me. “You’re right.” I leapt up with uncharacteristic decisiveness. “I’ve had enough medical intervention.” “Then what are you waiting for?” “I’m waiting for a sign.” “You want a sign? I’ll give you a sign.” Isabelle grabbed her diary. “Tonight, there’s going to be a lunar eclipse and if that ain’t 67

a sign then the Pope ain’t Catholic.” The mythological eclipse was as good a sign as any. I grabbed my bag and started packing. “So, you’ll help me get out of here?” “Of course. There’s no love lost between me and these institutions of ill-health.” Isabelle looked pleased, as though it was all her idea. “Don’t know about you, Jack, but I’m starving.” The first thing I wanted was one of her famous coffees I’d heard so much about. Caffeine withdrawal was giving me the symptoms of a cerebral haemorrhage. Isabelle peered around the corridors, bug-eyed and focussed. The sisters’ station was deserted. We sneaked out. Three weeks of hospital life felt like months. In a note I left on my pillow, I thanked staff members, be they sorcerers, witches or gypsies, for their wonderful care and for saving my life. I was taking full responsibility for discharging myself. In the postscript I reminded them of the eclipse that evening. As Director of Nursing, Loretta would be furious and call me an irresponsible twerp. Leaving the hospital without a formal discharge was considered inexcusable, bordering on criminal. She’d be phoning Amy and Danton and calling the Medical Superintendent and acting like it was a federal case but I didn’t care. I was free. Hopefully everybody would be too busy watching the eclipse to notice my disappearance and it would all blow over.

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10. Vincent Van Gogh: Hospital Corridor at Saint-Rémy Amy Loretta phoned me with another staffing dilemma at short notice. I agreed to do a hospital shift in Accident and Emergency that afternoon. I’d be covering for one of the younger nurses who was constantly taking sick leave, bereavement leave, stress leave, maternity leave and appeared to have six grandmothers who died regularly. “Thanks Amy,” Loretta said. “The young ones just aren’t as dedicated as us vintage nurses.” Other than constant back pain, I was rarely sick, so I had little sympathy for work malingerers. Not that I was any saint. In my younger days, whenever I desperately needed time off, a mental health day I called it, I would claim some form of menstrual pain, be it premenstrual, mid-menstrual or postmenstrual. I wasn’t fussy and no one ever questioned the delicate mysteries of women’s plumbing. Then in my early forties, a post-operative patient collapsed on top of me and I injured my back. A lumbar disc prolapse put me off work for over a year. It was the first time in my life I’d experienced such severe pain and it gave me a level of empathy I’d formerly lacked. For months, my life became a tangle of scans, x-rays, diagnostic tests, doctors’ appointments, Workers’ Compensation interviews, rehabilitation paperwork and physiotherapy treatments. I even had to attend a psychological assessment — as if the medical mill wasn’t enough. Added to this was the personal guilt and marital friction brought on by financial stress. It didn’t take me long to learn about the failings of the medical system from both sides. In the end, I opted for retraining as a nurse educator, a job that included training other nurses in safe lifting practices. Recalcitrant young nurses with healthy backs baulked at the new safety 69

procedures and this convinced me that Jack was right, the world was full of idiots hell bent on self-destruction. My new job was only part-time so occasionally I did the odd nursing shift to earn extra cash in order to buy the odd luxury, like food. Today, I was actually looking forward to going to the hospital to chat to Loretta about their divorce. I hadn’t a chance to hear her point of view. The last time we’d talked was the morning of the disastrous fishing trip and sneaky Loretta hadn’t mentioned any marital problems then. Accident and Emergency ward was busy that afternoon. A young child, diagnosed by her local doctor with influenza, was admitted with what turned out to be early streptococcal meningitis. We put her on intravenous antibiotics immediately and saved her life. That was satisfying. The over-burdened hospital system had such a poor reputation with everyone focussing on the failures and ignoring the many successes. Later in my shift, a man in a car accident was rushed into Casualty with multiple fractures. Orderlies were so busy that I wheeled him to the x-ray department myself, hoping the older radiographer was on duty. My heart lurched when I feasted my eyes on the gorgeous contours of Giovanni, poised god-like beside the x-ray machine, wielding his weapon of mass destruction like a gladiator. That man was far too good looking. He sidled up close, puckered his eyebrows and devoured me with his eyes. “Cara mia. Sorry I haven’t phoned earlier.” “Oh, that’s fine.” I’d already assumed our affair would end through the natural process of attrition or death by neglect. “Oh, by the way, did you remember my shoes?” Those damn shoes. “Oh, I’m sorry, Giovanni,” I said. “I’m so forgetful lately. I’ll make a note of it in my diary.” Giovanni bestowed one of his winning smiles and I couldn’t help but reciprocate. Italian men were decidedly charming, but so 70

was Danton in a more mature and cultured manner. Four hours rushed by in a whirr of trolleys, stretchers and bandages before I could grab a dinner break. Dinner at the hospital cafeteria was a time to wind down, chat with colleagues and relieve the aching feet. It wasn’t a time to tantalise the senses with hospital cuisine. Food here was purely a functional affair, a form of refuelling and recharging. It didn’t contribute to happiness, it just prevented death by starvation. Loretta spotted me in the corner and deposited her tray beside me. “Thanks for doing the shift, Amy. I really appreciate it.” Loretta sat down breathlessly. “I see you’re hazarding the casserole. Brave woman.” I sniffed the mound on my plate and wondered whether this was bravery or a death wish. “This is either ersatz chicken or one of those six dead grandmothers.” I gave it a final prod. Loretta laughed and we stealthily approached our meals. “I’ve decided to put the house on the market,” she said, pulling her sandwich apart and inspecting the contents. “I want eighty percent of the proceeds from the house. Danton can have the remainder.” I was shocked but tried not to show it. “Has Danton agreed to this?” “I haven’t told him yet. But if he protests, I’ll get a lawyer. He’s lucky to get anything.” The division didn’t sound equitable to me, but Loretta explained that her greater monetary contribution to the mortgage repayments and house expenses outweighed Danton’s domestic input. “His music teaching brings in a pittance, mere petty cash,” Loretta said. “What about all the shopping, cooking and cleaning?” 71

Loretta peered down her aristocratic nose and gave me a quizzical look. She could see I’d developed a soft spot for her husband. “I keep the family going, not Danton.” She picked at her food like a bird. “Don’t let all that bleeding heart stuff fool you. He’s a sweet, gentle guy, but a loser.” Loretta launched into an inventory of Danton’s faults but her complaints didn’t ring true. “Sorry,” I said. “But it looks to me like you two are incompatible. Nothing to do with winners and losers.” Loretta’s shoulders slumped. “I guess you’re right. He’s not really that bad. I’m just bored out of my brain to be quite honest.” Loretta scraped the butter off her bread. “I have a low boredom threshold, that’s why I keep applying for new jobs. Some call it ambition. I call it the challenge of overcoming mind-numbing mediocrity.” “Have you thought about counselling?” I laughed at the role reversal. It seemed we were having the same conversation as that fateful day in the kitchen. “Of course not. You’re the one who said all the answers were in books.” Great literature and even popular psychology books contained all the wisdom we needed, but the problem was finding the time to read them all, the energy to hack one’s way through the waves of jargon without drowning in what Jack called a sea of psychobabble. “Since you’re the one doing psychology, tell me, how do you know when a relationship is dead?” Loretta nibbled the edge of her sandwich and cast me a challenging look. Being in that relationship death zone myself and having read Freud, the signs were obvious to me. “Sex,” I replied. “You’ll know when love has packed its bag and left home when the sex dwindles in proportion. All those sex aides 72

and porn magazines, they’re all signs of dying love and marital disintegration. When you need to spice up the life of the genitals to make up for the deficiencies of the heart, then you know for sure love is dead.” Loretta laughed. “I can’t imagine any gadget on the market that would spice up my marriage.” The fishing trip had been the catalyst for her break up, the excuse she needed to regain her life. I looked down at the remains of my own marriage, the band of gold biting into my swollen ring finger and a twenty-year habit as emotionally binding as cigarette addiction. Despite our more tempestuous relationship, Jack and I still hadn’t divorced and over the years, we’d slipped to the next stage of marital breakdown, that subtle transition from lovers to friends. A comfortable companionship had survived, despite Jack’s temper tantrums. “Don’t think I’m being soppy but why do I feel so lousy about my divorce, even though I know it’s the right thing?” Loretta pushed her plate aside. “Because it’s the end of an era. A natural attrition of the couples bond, the monogamy contract.” I was beginning to feel like a counsellor. Loretta was silent and thoughtful while I scrambled around with my next metaphor. “We women have to relinquish the safety and security of being life’s passenger and take on the responsibility of being the driver. Being in control of the, uh, the steering wheel of life.” “You know something, Amy?” “What?” “You read too much.” “I know, Jack keeps telling me.” We sat in silence, ticking over these mythical divorces that neither of us had discussed with our spouses. “What about the kids?” I asked. 73

“Quentin can stay with Danton. I can’t handle that boy any more. And Emily can stay with me.” Loretta had her future all mapped out. After discussing the minor details of this arrangement, Loretta asked about Danton’s piano lessons. “Danton’s going to use that old upright piano we have stored in the garage,” I said. “We’ll drag it into the sunroom and he can do his lessons on that. It desperately needs a tune up though. It sounds like a cat with sinusitis.” Loretta laughed. “Don’t bother. It won’t make any difference to his students. They could kill a decent piece of music on any instrument. Wait till he starts bringing students to your house. You’ll soon realise that very few of them are burdened by talent.” The Medical Superintendent spotted Loretta in the cafeteria and sidled over. They chatted in a subdued business-like manner over some petty medical issue. I couldn’t help noticing the intimate quality of their talk, their prolonged eye contact, how Loretta’s sharpness fuzzed at the edges. He even invited her to join some of the other staff members on the roof to watch the eclipse later that evening. While they talked, an uncharitable and fleeting thought passed through my mind, that perhaps Loretta had achieved promotion the old-fashioned way. Morally, I didn’t really care but I was curious. When the Superintendent finally left, I wriggled around the delicate subject of extra-marital affairs. Women were notorious confessors and I’d done my fair share of open-heart revelation so it was time to even the score. But Loretta was guarded and sidestepped the issue leaving me in that sweet and sour zone of ambiguity. “You’re a lot like me, honey,” she said. “Life’s too damn short and we just want to live it to the fullest.” I assumed her answer was affirmative but I couldn’t be sure. 74

Anyway, I had no idea what living life to the fullest actually meant so I dropped the whole issue. Loretta often claimed to be living fully, yet she was chronically discontent. Some hurdle always blocked her pathway to fulfilment. Unlike me, Loretta had ambitious goals and plans for her journey to fulfilment. My life was more haphazard, living day to day, taking wrong career turns, stranded in relationship cul-desacs. “Isn’t it pathetic how we humans view our lives as a meaningful journey, as though we’ve purposely planned it,” I mused. “Well, honey, life is a bit like a journey when you think about it.” Loretta pushed back her sleek black hair. “It starts at birth and ends at death with stopovers for marriage and childbirth.” Not to mention the odd affair. I pushed my food away, stood up and stretched. My back was beginning to ache from the afternoon rush and the plastic unergonomic cafeteria chair. “I better go and visit Jack then get back to work.” “Oh dear.” Loretta looked sheepish. “I meant to tell you, that pig-headed husband of yours discharged himself from hospital already. Some skinny woman with purple hair and a loud voice lured him away after lunch.” “That must be Isabelle, the art gallery owner. She’s a scatterbrained nut.” “Yes, that’s what the nurses said. I tried phoning your house three times. I wanted to give Jack a piece of my mind, but no one answered the phone so I’ve no idea where he disappeared to.” I’d track him down when my shift ended. Isabelle would have swept him off to her gallery, filled him with coffee and prodded him into painting mode. She was a little control freak.

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11. Vincent Van Gogh: Starry Night Jack Escaping that claustrophobic hospital filled me with exhilaration. Freedom was fantastic. Never again would I lock myself away from the world and deprive myself of its wonders. We drove to Isabelle’s place where my spirits and caffeineaddicted cells were revived with the best coffee I’d tasted in decades. This woman made a coffee that could inspire great poetry. No wonder her little café was thriving. “I figure, if you’re going to kill yourself with coffee, you want to do it with the very best,” she said. Isabelle was like Amy, a woman of many theories and opinions. She flapped around the tiny kitchen and presented me with a spread of food that had me salivating. Leftovers never looked so good and her homemade Italian ricotta cheesecake was heavenly. Good to see Isabelle wasn’t a total health freak. Unlike hospital mush, this array of food didn’t originate from long-life packets, designed to survive nuclear wars and last well into the next century. “Ah, food with flavour, texture, consistency,” I exclaimed between mouthfuls. “Paradise of the taste buds.” We discussed the joys of food and eating, each describing memorable taste experiences. Isabelle gave a mouth-watering résumé of her favourite dishes and each description made me hungry, hungrier than I’d been in the past five years. I found myself gobbling her food with the intensity of a half-starved man. I had crumbs on my shirt, cappuccino froth on my upper lip and bolognaise sauce dribbling down my chin. Isabelle laughed at my piggish manners and glowed like a satisfied wife. “Hope you don’t mind me asking, but why aren’t you married, 76

Isabelle?” Isabelle’s eyes bulged. “Don’t talk to me about marriage. Been there, done that, three times.” I glanced at her sparsely furnished bachelor pad, plastered with paintings and sculptures, lined with books, colourful and flamboyant like her clothes and hair. “Tell me about your husbands.” I figured anyone married to this wild woman must have been gifted with enormous amounts of energy or bolstered by a high amphetamine diet. “Husband number one was a crazy Norwegian guy called Eric. We had some pretty wild times in the seventies but after I had my daughter, Eric took off like a frightened rabbit. That’s about the time I went to Art School and got my teaching diploma.” I was still munching and chewing and stuffing myself throughout Isabelle’s marital trek. Digesting food and history at the same time. Her second husband was a dentist, a financial coup at the beginning but then he joined the scientologists and began spending his income on improvement courses. “Call me blind, but I certainly couldn’t see a hundred thousand dollars worth of improvement in him.” Her third husband was a rational sensible history teacher from her family’s hometown of Seville. When his mother committed suicide back in Spain, he reverted to his Catholic faith and pressured her to do the same. Their marriage crumbled under the weight of crucifixes, weekly mass and the paraphernalia of Catholicism. “Religion killed his passion for living. Lovely guy, but full of fears and just too insipid for me.” I pondered the paradox of marriage, how the original passion of relationships often dissolved into a tranquil partnership. But tranquillity to one person was boredom to another. I wiped my face and gave my digestive system a rest. 77

“How about you, Jacko?” I told Isabelle about my first foster family of fanatical bornagain Christians whose dour and punishing rules repelled me. The cold anonymity of the boys’ home was preferable to their selfrighteousness. My second foster family was similar. “Rigid belief systems turn tolerant people into control freaks,” she said. “I shy away from all religions now. And your marriages?” I admitted to one long and stable marriage to Amy, one career path and no formal qualifications. I travelled, did odd jobs till my late twenties, studied art for a year then chucked it in. “You didn’t finish your studies?” “Hell no. The bastions of higher education all but murdered my creativity. How can anything survive under the death sentence of Curriculum Studies and Child Development?” “Oh God, don’t remind me.” Isabelle rolled her eyes. “University anaesthetised my imagination.” The only things that blossomed at university were those strange bedfellows, heavy smoking and excessive drinking. The best thing to come out of my year of study was meeting Danton and his artistic family. His mother encouraged me to visit the galleries of Europe and learn from the masters. Isabelle offered me more food but I was already bursting. I looked around at the tasteful artistic clutter. “You’re set up pretty nicely here.” “Now that I’m free of kids and husbands I can dedicate myself to art and be myself. Ride my motorbike, do whatever I like.” Isabelle ran her hand through her clashing coloured snakes of hair. My tattoos were pretty gross too but not as bad as her hair and that dreaded pierced eyebrow. “Why do you do that stuff to your hair?” Isabelle gave a wry grin. “To shock my conservative daughter. She hates my hair.” “I hate my hair too. Redheads have a hard time in school. I’ve 78

always wanted to shave my hair off totally, free myself from the tyranny of my body.” A fleeting mental glimpse of the bald lady flitted across my mind. Isabelle reached over and touched my hair. Great tufts were missing where Brick had latched onto me that night and my hair was sticking out wilder than Amy’s. I stood up and more crumbs fell from my shirt. “Mind if I have a look in the gallery?” Isabelle was keen to get my opinion on her latest acquisitions from new artists. I paced the gallery and stopped at each painting. My head was spinning. I was seeing the world again with new eyes. Paintings I’d once admired now appeared dull and lifeless, the colours dirty and opaque and lacking sparkle and luminosity. The brush strokes were restrained and fiddly, fussy and overworked, as though the artist had laboured painstakingly over each tiny dab of paint and had lost sight of the big picture. Isabelle was watching me intently, noting my reactions to each painting. We made our way towards my paintings, a few old landscapes and portraits. They leapt from the wall and startled me. It was like looking through a mirror and peering into my soul. I gasped. “Leonardo Da Vinci said that a portrait painter always paints himself. Now I know what he means.” The clarity of my colours and wildness of my technique showed raw vitality. They were good paintings but not great because I was holding something back. They teetered on the edge awaiting a giant leap of faith or a kick in the backside. Isabelle stood beside me, studying my face. She barely reached my shoulder. “Your paintings are good. I’ve been telling you that for years. But you sure ain’t no Picasso in the productivity department.” She told me how Picasso painted three paintings per day. His output was prodigious, bordering on psychotic. I crossed my arms 79

and whistled. “Think about it, Jacko. That’s ninety paintings per month as opposed to your one. Makes you think doesn’t it?” “Yeah, makes me think the guy must be on drugs,” I said. “Do you think Monsieur Picasso is good?” “His early stuff is good. His experimental stuff stinks. I think you’re good but with some effort you could be great.” I smiled. “I’m not bad for an amateur. A bit tame but at least it’s alive.” “You’re a combination of Toulouse-Lautrec, Daumier and Van Gogh.” Isabelle went from painting to painting and complimented me on my crisp clean colours, my sense of balanced composition and my bold sensuous brush strokes. If I unblocked the passion caged within, my talent would soar. “The trouble is, I can’t churn out art on demand, Isabelle. That’s Picasso’s game, not mine. I rather be remembered for twenty great paintings than for one thousand mediocre ones.” “You’re just like Vermeer,” Isabelle said. Vermeer was a Dutch artist who painted thirty-five paintings in his entire life, every one of them brilliant. “Yeah, I can understand that guy. I don’t want to be an art prostitute, selling out for money.” “Don’t worry about that, Jacko. You’d have to be the slowest, laziest prostitute on the block. Whenever you decide to lash out with the full force of your talent, I promise I can handle it.” I looked down at Isabelle whose words carried many meanings. “Just you wait, I’m going to surprise you. Inspiration has struck. Right here.” I tapped my stomach, now replete with food and coffee and cake. Isabelle looked at her watch and reminded me about the eclipse. She led me upstairs, pulled down a ladder and we climbed through the manhole and out onto the roof of the art gallery. This flat area of roof, above a bay window, gave an eagle’s perspective 80

of Brisbane from Scarborough to Redcliffe and way out to Moreton Island, a bare twinkle of distant lights. Nestled together, wrapped in blankets to ward off the winter chill, we awaited the lunar eclipse. Heads extended, we scanned the heavens and giggled like naughty children, perched beyond the reach of daily responsibility. This was the childhood I never had. Like all hyped-up events, the eclipse was an anti-climax, a pimple on the face of cosmic possibilities but I didn’t care. I was a man who had defied death, experienced a glimpse of childhood wonder and the lure of family connections through the appearance of my mother. Fifty years old and this was my first taste of contentment. Another chance at life was beckoning. “It’s magnificent up here.” I gave her hand a squeeze. “You’re damn right. Best spot on the whole peninsula, Jacko.” The white beaches glistened in the moonlight, accompanied by the throb of ocean and hum of fluorescent lights below from the art gallery and café. Behind us in the house where Isabelle lived, a gnarled mango tree towered in the yard and cast lunar shadows on her vegetable patch. Fruit bats flapped around the tree searching for their nightly Bacchanalian feast of mango flesh. A pungent whiff of night jasmine tickled my nostrils till the next seaweed breeze elbowed it aside. The phone rang and it was Amy, about to leave the hospital. She’d heard about my great escape, tracked me down and offered to drive me home. Her timing was good. Exhaustion was overpowering me and I was eager to see Brick. Brick recognised the sound of our old Peugeot and came bursting with welcome. He bounded down the steps, barked till he was hoarse, rampaged around the house and chased his tail with a glee I’d never witnessed before. It was almost midnight and no normal person could sleep through Brick’s exuberance. 81

Danton emerged from the house onto the upstairs veranda and shouted his welcome over Brick’s whirling dervish. His eyes were wide with amazement at the sight of me. Yesterday, I was a prisoner of the hospital system, immobilised by drips and monitors, harassed by gaggles of doctors and nurses hell bent on saving my life even if it killed me. Here I stood, alive, cheerful and strong Inside the house, Brick threw his substantial body onto my lap and licked my face and hands till I was soggy with dog-love. “He seems normal enough now.” I stroked the wriggling, smiling dog, his huge white head dangerously animated. “If you can call this normal, of course.” “That’s because you’re back,” said Amy. “By the way, if you’re missing anything, like your shoes, have a look in his kennel or under the mango tree. Half your stuff is there.” “Brick has a new filing system, eh?” I hugged the dog. It was good to be home. Amy made us all hot drinks and Danton handed me an envelope. It was from his mother, an official application form from the Department of Community Services or DOCS as everyone called it. “Mum says to fill in the form as soon as possible because it’ll take a few weeks to get a reply.” I studied the application. For a small fee the department carried out a preliminary search for one’s birth details and parentage, gathered the information on their various databases and the rest was left to the applicant. I waved the paper in the air. “Do you realise this could change my whole future? Somewhere out there I could have brothers, sisters, cousins, a whole goddamn family of lunatics like me.” “And you could be opening a can of worms too,” said Amy. “I wish I had no family.” I couldn’t stop grinning. Here I was, reunited with my wife, my 82

dog and my best friend. A stint in hospital and now my rambling old house resembled a palace. Perception was a strange beast. “You know Amy, maybe it’s time you faced up to your family and ended the feud.” “What are you talking about? There is no feud. We’ve just mutually agreed to stay out of each other’s lives.” “Isn’t that another way of pushing old hurts under the carpet and avoiding reality?” “Me, avoiding reality?” Amy guffawed. “Hell, you’re the expert at that, Jack.” Danton, witnessing the preliminary thrusts of a domestic battle, squirmed in his seat. As he stood up to leave, I reminded him of the promised violin lessons we’d talked about in hospital. Amy and Danton gave each other an odd look and I sensed a secret bond, a rumbling undercurrent of emotional connection that made me uneasy. “You remember me asking about—” “Yeah, sure Jack.” Since the boating accident and my weeks in hospital, the dynamics had changed but I couldn’t pinpoint the shift, just the gentle undertow of tension. We’d all drifted apart in a time warp of strange events. Danton hovered in the doorway. His awkwardness reminded me of our student days. “Isn’t time a funny thing,” I said. “It only seems like yesterday when we were all studying at uni, drinking too much and protesting about everything, blaming every woe on the fascists—” “We thought everyone was a fascist if he didn’t agree with us.” Danton sat down again. “Our thinking was so black and white when we were young.” Roland walked in. “Talking about the good old days again?” Living next door, he had no chance of sleeping through Brick’s barking and Amy’s rattly car. The glaring lights from our house 83

lured him over. “Yeah, we were remembering how simple our lives used to be,” Danton said. “Ah, they were bloody fantastic times if you ask me.” Roland scratched his stomach. “I could drink like a fish without developing a hangover. I was as thin as you, Jack. In fact, my stomach was concave. Ah, those were the days.” Amy patted Roland’s now-convex stomach. “Until you had your head injury, Jack got hepatitis and Danton got his fake leg.” Amy crash landed us clowns headfirst into reality. “Oh well, you start life in hospital and you end up in hospital,” said Roland. “And shmucks like me make a living working in hospital, taking care of shmucks like you,” Amy replied. Hospitals were Amy’s second home. Everyone in her hometown spent time in hospital at some stage. She’d treated men gored by bulls, horse-riding accidents, farmers impaled on barbed wire fences or stampeded by cattle, and fractured legs from motorbike crashes. It seemed she spent half her life patching up broken men and injured animals. “And you rescued me from hospital, don’t forget that,” I said. Maybe Danton was right, she was a saint in disguise. It was just after midnight and Danton’s seventeen-year-old son, Quentin, walked into the room. He’d just dropped his girlfriend off and was on his way home when he saw the lights on at our house and decided to pop in and see his dad. So much for my quiet evening with Amy and Brick. I should have stayed at Isabelle’s. The entire world was turning up on our doorstep. “Hi, everyone.” Quentin sprawled on a lounge like he owned the place. “Oh, welcome home, Jack. Didn’t think you’d survive mum’s nursing.” I nodded and held firmly onto Brick who was straining to greet 84

Quentin. Brick loved kids but he was too rough and wounded them with his exuberance. “How’s Loretta?” Danton asked. “Mum? Oh, grumpy. Boy, is she furious about you, Jack.” Quentin threw his legs onto the coffee table, leaned towards Brick and scratched his rump. “Honestly, dad, she must be hormonal or something. Every day she nags me about my room being too messy, spending too long on the Internet, not doing enough study. I’m not doing this or I’m doing too much of that. Nag, nag, nag—” “Women!” Roland exclaimed. “Can’t live with them; can’t live without them.” Amy and I had witnessed Quentin’s lifestyle firsthand. The kid was a total slob and his hygiene was abysmal. His room was a Petri dish for bubonic plague. “A rat would have qualms living in your room.” I said. “Aw, come on, Jack. She’s obsessive. Does it really matter if my room’s a bit sloppy? Anyway, why am I always the one who’s in the wrong?” Amy tried to explain about minimum standards of cleanliness and the give and take of housework chores but adolescents were blinkered by narcissism. “You’re right, Amy,” Quentin said, staring at Amy’s chest. “Mum gives and takes all right. She takes the joy right out of life and gives me one hell of a headache.” “Very funny, Quentin,” Amy said. “And stop staring at my tits. It’s rude.” “Next year, when you leave school, you’re welcome to come and live with me,” Roland said. “I promise not to nag you about tidiness and you can stare all you like at my tits.” “Your place?” Quentin laughed. “Very funny, Roland. Where would I find a space in your house? The hallway?” Everyone laughed at the reference to Roland’s pad. His threebedroom house was so cluttered with junk that he slept on a foam 85

mattress in the hall. “Thanks for the offer, Rols,” said Danton. “But he does have a valid point. Your house is seriously cluttered, man. You already lost your wife there back in the eighties.” “Bugger me bollocks. How careless of me.” How strange and surreal to be home again, like a traveller from a foreign land walking into a new fairytale. Another surge of fatigue overwhelmed me. I pushed the dog off my lap and announced I was going to bed. My long journey to hell and back had exhausted me. “Bollocks, Jack. The party’s just begun,” Roland said. “Go on without me. I’m knackered.” In the quiet of the bedroom, I filled out the DOCS form then stretched out on the bed. My head buzzed with hospital imagery, brimmed with ideas for paintings, soared with violin music and new challenges. The heaviness of sickness and depression no longer dragged me down into that deep pit of blackness. Something had allowed me to tap into the universal subconscious and open myself to the flow of life. I felt reborn. That night I dreamt of a bald woman who lifted me gently from a warm vat of honey. Normally I’d blurt it all out to Amy in the morning but I suspected she hated hearing about my dreams. I slept for twelve hours straight, the best sleep I’d had in years. Other than the dog, everyone else slept like shit. Amy told me that Brick had twitched and wailed away the night like a dingo on heat. He was probably dreaming of cats. It wasn’t just the dog that belted out the decibels either. Apparently, I moaned away in my sleep with the monotony of a cardiac monitor. With all that groaning and howling and her back aching from her nursing shift, poor Amy hardly slept a wink. That was a change; me the sleeper and Amy the insomniac. Out in the sunroom Danton told us how he tossed and turned all night, worrying about everything; running out of money, 86

worrying about his kids, his career, his divorce and his house. He was a ball of angst and Amy was nurturing him along, helping him pull through this tough period. Next door, Roland reckoned he lay awake, bathed in the eerie discord of his neighbours’ dreams. “Bugger me bollocks, you’re a noisy lot.” During my long sleep, something flicked the switch in my psyche because I awoke a different person. Like a snake, I’d shed my speckled, sun-damaged skin and found fresh layers beneath, like a clean canvas awaiting life and colour.

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12. Vincent Van Gogh: Chair and Pipe Amy The next few weeks were a circus and our house a hotbed of chaos — certainly not the tranquil asylum Danton once envied. We were all sleeping badly, except for Jack. While he moaned and groaned and snored for a solid eight hours, we tossed and turned and eventually sneaked into the kitchen for midnight snacks or watched late movies and read books to while away the long sleepless nights. I often saw Roland’s light on at inhuman hours so he too was battling with the gods of sleep. Hospital work suddenly gobbled up my daytime hours leaving me little time to complete my two psychology assignments. Work was patchy. No training sessions for weeks then suddenly I was in a mad rush, delivering two sessions a day at various hospitals scattered around the city. I was beginning to know Brisbane back to front, every hill, every traffic black spot, every hospital. Study, research and essay writing gobbled up my evenings. One assignment entailed visiting the Psychiatric Ward over at the Prince Charles Hospital at Chermside and following up a case history. It was a demanding course and I looked forward to the holidays. “Busy, busy, busy,” Jack said, as I rushed past him on one of my many errands. “You need a broomstick.” While running around like a madwoman for work and study, I was also trying to keep my eye on Jack. Despite my persistent urging he refused to return to the hospital for a follow up medical or to undergo more blood tests to check his liver function. “No way. I’m not returning to that place,” Jack declared. “I’ve had enough of the sorcerers and their strange medicine. I’m taking some stuff that Isabelle recommends.” “I see. So you’ve progressed from sorcery to witchery with all 88

the herbal brews and potions, have you?” Jack shrugged. “Can’t be any worse than the stuff at the hospital. Do I look sick?” He grabbed his coffee and disappeared into his studio, stopping at the mailbox on his way. Jack did look healthy, his skin glowed and the lump on head was now the faintest bruise so I figured he’d survive without my pestering. He was now more obsessed with tracking down his mother than with his health. In a moment of weakness, I promised to help him. He was still waiting for information from the Department of Community Services, DOCS. Till then, he had nothing to go on. Twice a day, Jack checked the mailbox and chatted with the postman. Jack’s tenacity surprised me. He didn’t waver in his search for family and he stuck to his violin lessons with Danton. Hours each day, Jack practised his violin in the studio where the squeaks were muted at a sane distance from the ears of the house. For a man who couldn’t read music, Jack was progressing fast. “Who’d have guessed that Jack was so musical?” Danton said. “In all the years I’ve known him, he’s hardly listened to a record or switched on a radio. He wouldn’t know a Bach from a Beatles.” “Sure he does,” I said. “To Jack, Bach is something the dog does, and Offenbach when he tells the dog to shut up. A sort of debacle.” Danton rolled his eyes and groaned. “But you’re right. Jack’s a quick learner,” I said. Jack was a self-educated, street-wise guy who once thought he needed a university degree to be taken seriously. Danton kept reassuring Jack that the most interesting people in history didn’t have degrees. Woody Allen had no formal education and taught himself philosophy, psychology and filmmaking and he was successful. “I think he’s finally got over his obsession about academic qualifications,” Danton said. 89

“Now he’s obsessed with originality and authenticity,” I replied. There was always something on Jack’s plate to obsess over. “I think he’s just tired of churning out commissioned portraits.” Danton looked thoughtful, philosophising over the second pot of tea. “Originality is a big issue amongst artists. I think I’ve finally resigned myself to mediocrity. It’s too damn hard being original. There are just too many people on earth and everything’s been done already. Other than ridiculous stuff like Dadaism or Rap, there’s nothing new. From now on, it’s all eclecticism.” “We humans are bowerbirds, stealing and borrowing bits and pieces from everywhere.” I dragged a pile of dog-eared books across the table and rummaged around for a pen. “It’s all post-modern, deconstructed, reconstituted jargon,” he said. “New language for the same old stuff.” “With literature, if you steal someone’s idea and call it your own, it’s called plagiarism. If you steal scads of ideas, they call it research,” I said. “And that’s what I’m going to do now. Beg, borrow and steal to get this bloody essay finished.” Danton hung around, watching me switch on the computer and organise myself. Working in the kitchen, now the central hub of the house, wasn’t a great idea. I vowed to transfer my study into the spare bedroom. “I have to confess to a bit plagiarism and eclecticism of my own.” Danton paused. “I’ve written a short piece for violin and piano, something that me and Jack can play together one day if he gets good enough and I think he will. It’s old fashioned and classical, pleasing to the ear.” “Congratulations. It’s a about time you started doing what you want, instead of being slave to everyone else,” I said. Danton acted as a buffer to smooth the friction between Jack and me. He also took over most of the shopping and cooking and that suited all of us. We started a kitty system for expenses and our decrepit old home had the frenetic ambience of a seventies share 90

household, a chaotic brew of dogs, kids and visitors coming and going, phones and doorbells ringing. Danton contacted his piano students with his new address. We lugged the old upright piano from the garage to the sunroom, dusted it off, wiped away the cobwebs, chipped off a few hornets nests and with a bit of cursing, we forced the old battleaxe to make music. A few keys didn’t work and the foot pedals had rusted out. Danton sat at the resurrected piano and played what should have been a beautiful tune, but after twenty seconds, he stopped and laughed. “Sounds like vaudeville,” I said. “Hmm, sounds like a family of rats that died performing Wagner,” he said. “But never mind. Luckily, my students are all tone deaf.” Open for business and students came and went at different hours, adding to the general congestion of our busy house. Just as Loretta had warned me, day and night, awful sounds emanated from the sunroom and slowly drove us crazy. The piano room was on Roland’s side, so he was probably going crazy at a faster rate, but who’d notice? Jack didn’t hear much. His art studio was a separate building out the back, buffered by a jungle. Over the years, our untended half-acre garden had evolved into feral parkland, a wildlife sanctuary for fruit bats, possums and various endangered species, a graveyard for cats and possibly the site of the odd human corpse or a lost tribe. Our twenty-year childfree zone had ended and these little animated humans now invaded us. Danton’s kids dropped in after school and on weekends, a gaggle of friends trailed in behind them. “What is it about kids?” Jack complained. “They seem to travel in gangs these days.” The kids enjoyed the ramshackle expanse of our property and 91

discovered in our yard, interesting objects that we didn’t know existed: furniture from another era awaiting to be restored, strange objects the dog dragged in, ancient bicycles from a Mongolian civilisation. I assumed the kids were too old to enjoy playing, but it seemed they were reliving their childhood in the wilderness area of our yard. “This place is so cool,” Emily enthused. Danton’s daughter dusted off a Ming Dynasty treasure in the shape of a chipped vase. “Yeah, just watch out for the Kalahari Bushmen living in the corner and that vicious bougainvillea vine,” I said. “Those thorns are deadly.” Occasionally, Emily brought her dog, a floppy spaniel called Esmeralda, who ran around the house like a greyhound in her quest to avoid Brick. I’d never seen such a small dog move so fast. Fear is great incentive. Danton thrived in the casual living arrangement. “My kids used to feel like strangers. Now I have time to talk with them without all that tension hanging over us.” He continued running around doing errands for them but with less of that old slavish devotion and the kids showed him more respect. He wasn’t the pushover, the loser they’d once labelled him. Occasionally, Danton drove to Deception Bay to talk with Loretta but those visits painted his moods black so he visited less and less. Over the years Loretta and I had developed a strong bond through our work, not to mention life’s random crises. I’d helped her through her father’s death, Danton’s fight with cancer and the many episodes of sick children. “You know, it’s odd that Loretta never mentioned any problems on the home front,” I told Danton. “Most of her complaints were about the stupidity of administration and the idiots that ruled the health system.” Danton had no explanations for the change in Loretta. 92

“I always thought our marriage was going well,” he said. “I pulled my weight around the house, with the kids, made it easy for her to pursue her career and then, bang. It’s like she woke one day and didn’t love me any more. And that was it. Suddenly we were strangers living in the same house.” That was it. Loretta was definitely having an affair. Danton was now going through the soul-searching post mortem stage of the marriage breakdown, wondering who was to blame. “You two are so different, what did you see in each other in the first place?” The instant I asked, I knew the answer. Chemistry. They were both attractive charismatic people. Danton gazed out the window. “We were only twenty or twentyone when we met. I was doing a concert at the hospital Christmas party and Loretta was a student nurse there. I always thought nurses were soft and compassionate, and she thought a concert pianist was so romantic.” They’d fallen in love with illusions. While we were all running around madly, half asleep with fatigue and exhaustion, Jack flourished. Since leaving hospital, he plunged into his artwork with a passion I hadn’t seen for a decade. The dominant themes of his paintings were hospitals, gory images of death and sickness and dark emotions. From abstract to realism, canvases small and large poured out with the urgency and fervour of Jack’s frenzy. He had become the Van Meegeren of the impressionists, mastering their styles with the stamp of his own personality. Isabelle continued to send over commission portrait clients, wealthy patrons who wanted their egos immortalised in the style of a Modigliani, a Van Gogh or a Rembrandt. His increased reputation after the boating accident attracted more commission clients than ever before and diverted him from his true calling. “This is my last commission,” he vowed at the completion of each portrait. “Now I’m going to concentrate on my own work.” 93

I liked to watch Jack at work, but I was far too busy now. Jack routinely sat the client down beside the window on a silky oak chair that he’d rescued from a junk store and lovingly restored. When Isabelle first saw Jack’s chair she was intrigued. “You check out his paintings, Jack. Somewhere in every painting Vermeer ever did, you’ll find that bloody chair.” In honour of these Dutch masterpieces, Jack named his own portrait chair, Vermeer’s chair. Having rescued Jack from the clutches of the medical system, Isabelle and Jack became great friends. Jack’s artistic reemergence, the increased commissions and art sales, delighted her. “Jacko, you’re finally emulating Picasso, his admirable output.” “Looks like your perseverance and encouragement has finally paid off,” I said. Brick lay beneath the chair whenever Jack painted. His clients were intrigued by the dog’s ugliness and his presence always provoked an opinion. Brick wasn’t the type of dog to remain in the background of one’s consciousness for long. Many a cat that ventured into our yard had made that mistake. The doorbell rang for the umpteenth time that day and it was Roland, who often popped over to chat with Danton or Quentin. Big Roland was an avuncular figure in young Quentin’s life and I began to see them together more often. “This house is like Roma Street Station,” Jack complained with each intrusion. Men, dogs and kids had gatecrashed our peaceful life but somehow I was coping and even enjoying the change. I no longer had to contend with Jack alone. Danton and I barely had a chance to get any closer once Jack returned. The chaotic business of life now shielded us from any further intimacy and there was unspoken tension in the air. Jack rushed back from the mailbox, hooting and whistling. He 94

showed me the letter that had finally arrived from the Department of Community Services. Together we poured through it with trepidation. “Your mother’s name is beautiful, Celeste Levine. But I’m not sure about your name. I think I prefer good old Jack McPhee.” Jack was born on March seventh, nineteen fifty-two, at the Royal Brisbane Hospital. They christened him Morris Archie Levine. His mother was seventeen at the time of his birth. That would now make her sixty-seven years old. “Morris and Levine sound Jewish to me but Archie sounds very English. Could be short for Archibald,” I said. Jack’s eyes lit up. Archibald. “The word is haunting me.” “And god knows where Celeste originates from, but it’s very ethereal.” “Archie could be aboriginal,” said Jack. “I might have a black mother and—” “With your red hair and fair skin?” I frowned. The next step was to look up Jack’s mother in the Department of Births, Marriages and Deaths, find out where she was born, who she married and where she lived. Against my resolve, I found myself excited by this new unfolding mystery of Jack’s origins, sucked into the vortex of his enthusiasm. My job was to check information on his mother from the records at the Royal Brisbane Hospital.

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13. Edouard Manet: Bar at the Folies-Bergère Jack The icy tentacles of an unusually cold and eventful Brisbane winter began to thaw. The undercurrents of change stirred with the onset of spring. Artists emerged from hibernation as the floral colours and aromas of nature prodded us into action. Queensland was a playground of contradictions. It was a state full of rednecks, corrupt property developers, dumb peanut farmers and it boasted the worst politics in Australia. Yet it had the best scenery and weather in the country. The beauty struck me more acutely this year than ever before, especially now that winter was ending and my brain had been rearranged by my near-death experience. Spring and the sounds of Amy’s sneezing from the airborne pollen punctured the air. The poinciana leaves glowed bright red and Brisbane gardens awoke to splashes of colour and the reek of jasmine. The frangipani was no longer that naked skeleton posing outside the kitchen; it was now fully clothed in a large leafy dress. It was early morning and I lay in bed, listening to the gaggle of crows, huge black birds that gossiped and quarrelled in the mango tree outside our bedroom window. With the bird symphony of spring in the background, my imagination hitchhiked about my mind until a growling wet snout nudged my cheek and pierced my foggy haze. Brick now woke early. Together we staggered outside, me scratching my hairless chest and the dog yawning with massive jaws. Naked in the garden, I urinated on the red-flowering poinsettia while Brick blessed the purple lasiandra. Splashes of colour textured my morning ritual, cheerful as a Cézanne, subtle as a Monet. I loved the garden and I hated the way people pruned and manicured in regimental fashion, trying to tame the whims of 96

nature. My spirit lightened at the same rate my bladder emptied and it was good. “Ah, the simple pleasures of life, Brick. So mundane and yet so Zen.” Brick knew that dogs were the essence of Zen simplicity. He shot a corner-of-the-eye glance and Mona Lisa smile at me then pissed on the poinsettia, the same spot as me. His over-piss confirmed that all was well in the universe. Dogs were the masters of body language. I sneezed, shook my penis and drifted off into the wasteland of artistic possibilities. Nature alone provided more than enough beauty; humans provided the complexity. “Fertilising the universe I see.” A voice resonated from above. I woke from my reverie, clutching my penis, for a split second believing I had heard the voice of God. “What’s on today’s agenda, Jack?” It was Roland, the god of chaos. Through a small gap in the dense foliage, Roland was viewing the vision splendid of me and Brick, man and dog, naked in our Garden of Eden. He probably wasn’t used to seeing me up and about so early. “Nothing much. Walk the dog, paint a masterpiece.” “You lucky bastard.” Roland grunted, struggling with a tie. “Some of us have to work.” “Work? Is that what you call it? Selling toys to the masses?” “It’s called software, you ignoramus.” “Software, hardware, underwear, toys all the same, Rols. All useless shit in the universal scheme of things.” Roland stuck his beefy head out the window. “Sure thing mate, just like your paintings.” He withdrew into the bowels of his domestic chaos, full of bovine humour and bonhomie as rotund as his name, as tough and shaggy as his beard. Brick barked as Roland’s ancient Valiant roared out the drive in a cloud of toxic smoke and whisked away our neighbour into the 97

land of commerce. Roland was a programmer but he now worked for a computer company selling their ready-made software. Microsoft had out-programmed most of the small independent programmers. Isabelle rang to tell me she’d sold one of my huge original paintings for a large sum. This was my first non-commissioned sale in years and I wondered if this was the turning point of my fortunes. The sad fact was even if I sold a painting each week, I’d never make enough money to live on. The cost of canvases, frames, paintbrushes and the gallery’s commissions gobbled up eighty to ninety percent of the sale money. Other than posthumous fame or winning a prestigious art competition, there weren’t many options open for the average artist to make a decent living. Subsistence was all we could hope for. “I suggest we celebrate and let our hair down,” Isabelle said. “How about a karaoke evening at the Scarborough Hotel?” The owners of this once rough hotel had gentrified it with a radical makeover. I had no idea what Isabelle was talking about with this karaoke stuff but the sway of her voice and boom of her laugh made my heart beat quicker. “Sounds good. Shall I ask my significant other?” “Yeah, whatever.” Isabelle’s tone was neutral. Amy was tapping away on her computer, finishing her assignment and Danton was sprawled in front of the television. They congratulated me on my first significant art sale. “So what’s karaoke?” asked Danton. “I hear it’s all the rage.” “Its derivation is Japanese and it means empty orchestra.” Amy displayed the depths of her bookish knowledge. “They play pre-recorded music with the lyrics on the screen and the audience does the singing. Like a talent quest for closet singers, but without the talent. A couple of whiskies and all those dormant pop stars come scrambling onto the stage to make fools of themselves. Quite awful, really.” 98

Danton was taking his kids to a movie and bowed out gracefully but I knew he wouldn’t venture out — he hated smoky bars and loud music. Amy surprised me by agreeing to come along. It was unlike her to spend an evening at a pub and even more amazing that she’d choose to spend it in Isabelle’s company. Isabelle’s chunky jewellery and silly hair, all part of what Amy termed the desperate search for individuality, annoyed her. She must have mellowed in her middle age. “Why don’t we ask Roland to come along too,” Amy suggested. Roland rarely stepped outside his house. Computer gambling, Internet dating, his huge television and high-tech sound systems kept him housebound and secluded and damn happy. I stood in front of the mirror, trying to flatten the tufts of wild hair that the dog had mauled. It was starting to grow back, but no matter where I parted my hair or how much water or hair tamer I combed in, the renegade tufts bounced up and defied gravity. Vanity would have to take a back seat to anarchy. I wore those soft Italian shoes, still confused as to how such an expensive but utterly comfortable pair of shoes had come to be in my wardrobe. Amy told me the dog dragged them in. They fitted so well, it had to be an act of God. Amy was ready, her frizzy hair as unruly as mine. Dressing up wasn’t her thing. A dab of lipstick and some earrings were her limit but she was comfortable with her body. I gave up my vain attempt at hair taming, poked my head out the window and yelled out to Roland. The pub was over on the beachfront near the gallery, walking distance. “Hey, classy shoes, Jack.” Roland commented, as we walked to the pub to meet up with Isabelle. “Just another something the dog dragged in,” I said. A loose memory wandered about the faulty filing system of my mind and gave me a queasy feeling in my stomach. 99

Pubs rekindled uneasy memories of bloodied fists, drunkards rearranging each other’s faces for imaginary insults that they later couldn’t remember. Pubs were places where nights began with gushing philanthropy and ended in maudlin depression and vomit. Pubs epitomised the rough and mindless life I’d rejected in my quest for art. Tonight I would be revisiting my past. Isabelle was surprised to see Amy and they waltzed around each other cautiously. I grabbed a table while Roland battled the crowds and returned with drinks. A tipsy woman at the next table lurched towards us and launched into a rave about her husband and his midlife crisis, how he ran off with a younger woman then joined a cult. Amy and Isabelle were cool, discouraging the woman lest she cling to us all night with her true confessions. The silly woman got me wondering whether my near drowning was the start of my own midlife crisis. Facing death had woken me from a long sleep. In fact, everyone my age was in the midst of midlife turmoil, except Isabelle. A couple of years older than me, she’d probably gone through it already. She’d survived the marital turmoil of three husbands and now she was single, independent and happy, the only person I knew who had her head together. Loretta was going through a major crisis and a career change. Danton was too nice to upset anyone with his own personal crisis. After all, he was the sacrificial lamb. Amy was preparing to chuck in nursing as soon as she finished her psychology degree. Our lives were in constant flux, a pendulum of tranquillity and turmoil, much like the seasons. Why didn’t I have this calmness, wisdom and insight in my youth when I needed it? Loud hisses and squeaks erupted from the public address system as the karaoke crew tested their equipment. The little pub swelled to bursting point. Fuelled with alcohol and impatient bravado, the crowds were ready to erupt. The decibels were 100

increasing making conversation more difficult and the woman at the next table finally shut up and left us alone. Nothing had changed in the world of pubs. The same coarse and brutish behaviour. I tapped my foot, watching this odd assortment of humanity yelling inane communications above the noise. Mouth to ear shouting. Humans had an insatiable desire to connect and communicate every trite and meaningless bit of shit in their lives. We were such a stupid species. Brick had more poise and depth than this lot. But I couldn’t deny that humanity en masse was exciting and I could see the attraction of crowds. A sense of belonging. We were like one giant idiot’s club. A loud squeal from the microphone shattered the air and a frenzy of cheers and stamping feet drowned out all conversation. The show was about to begin. The hotel was glutted with eager patrons and the karaoke crew kicked the show off at last. The compère explained how karaoke worked, its Japanese origins and their Queensland tour so far. Odd drunken members of the crowd hooted and cheered at inappropriate moments but the karaoke crew handled the larrikin element with panache. As seasoned performers at these alcohol-drenched functions, they bubbled with the effervescence and bonhomie of entrepreneurs. I’d be jovial too if I was making thousands of dollars for one evening of do-it-yourself entertainment. The compère broke the musical ice and sang a song. He then invited audience members to come up on stage and belt out a song of their own. The challenge had been tossed, the ball of madness was rolling and it was all downhill from here. Drunken wannabe superstars staggered on stage while their friends egged them on. They fumbled with the microphone, jammed it too close to their mouths causing ear-splitting howls on the public address system, or they held it too far away like an infected limb, their voices fading into oblivion. All night, the bass kept up a relentless thump that pounded our brains with the seeds 101

of tomorrow’s headaches and future hearing impairment. “When I was young, my biggest fantasy was to be a wah-wah girl in a band,” Isabelle said. She looked particularly small and impish tonight, like Piaff. She squirmed in her seat and confessed the silly desires of youth. “What’s a wah-wah girl?” Amy and I asked. “A bunch of girls in a pop group who sing the background vocals. They dance, toss their hair around and sing the choruses and harmonies.” Isabelle did an imitation for our benefit. “They do the meaningless stuff like do-wa-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-do. No one ever notices the wah-wah girls but they get to sing, dance and tour the world without the pressures that the pop stars have.” I tapped Isabelle on the shoulder. “Well Piaff, tonight’s your night. Since this karaoke stuff was your idea, I think you should get up there and do it.” “Yeah. Couple more drinks and I might just do that.” Isabelle ran her fingers through her hair compulsively, as though winding herself up. The noise was so great, Amy and Roland had given up trying to talk. An obese girl waddled onto the stage then bowled the audience over with her booming voice. If size was any indication of talent, Isabelle should have the squeak of a mouse. I tapped my fingers on the table and enjoyed the show, the passionate warbles and screeches emanating from the stage. Not a lot different to the cacophony of morning crows and magpies. Isabelle leaned towards me and yelled in my ear. “Who’d have believed there’d be so much talent lurking in a pub?” She was getting adequately soused. A young man staggered onto the stage and sang The Beatles’ song All You Need Is Love. This was followed by an off-key young woman belting out Tina Turner’s song What’s Love got to do with it? I grinned, nothing like a bit of lyrical ambivalence. I watched a thin girl gyrate around the stage singing a Kylie 102

Minogue song in a tissue paper voice, flimsy enough to tear. Isabelle couldn’t be any worse than that. As the night went on, I prodded her again, urged her to drag herself onto the stage and fulfil her teenage ambitions. “If I gather the courage to sing—” Isabelle hiccupped. “What are you going to do in return, you red-haired devil?” “How about I dye my hair green?” I yelled back. “How about you shave the whole damn lot off?” Isabelle giggled. “That was your secret fantasy, wasn’t it?” I ran my fingers through my long, untamed hair, untangling the renegade tufts that were growing back in a spiky disregard for convention. Amy was tipsy and supported Isabelle’s challenge. “Totally bald. Hmm. That’s a bit drastic.” I grinned. “For that, you’re going to have to sing too, Amy.” “Me? Blimey, you’re a masochist,” Amy replied. “I may look like Joan bloody Sutherland but I assure you, I haven’t got her voice.” The crowd was now a writhing beast, roaring inanity and puffing smoke into the dense atmosphere. Pounding bass rhythms charged the air with energy. The compère joked, sang, wheedled and encouraged his victims. “Seize your moment of glory,” he shouted to the crowd. “Carpe Diem,” I yelled back. Amy and Isabelle whispered to each other and giggled then Isabelle leapt up and seized my hand, shaking it vigorously in mock business fashion. “It’s a deal, Jacko. Amy and I will sing for your red scalp.” I shook her tiny hand and agreed. Amy leaned over and gave me a hug. She must have been well and truly pissed. Isabelle’s manic laugh boomed out as she weaved her way onto the stage and yelled something into the compère’s ear. She faced the crowd, slightly tipsy, confidently clutching the microphone. Her earrings and skin piercing glinted in the spotlight, her multicoloured hair shimmered. 103

Isabelle sang a Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs song that began, Most people I know, think that I’m crazy. It was slightly off-key but recognisable. Amy and I clapped and cheered. Her singing voice was pleasant and robust like her laugh, her projection and intonation good. Roland hooted and whistled. Isabelle waited for the audience to settle then called on Amy to join her and when Amy leapt up and headed for the stage without any hesitation, I was gobsmacked. I thought Amy would chicken out for sure. “We want to dedicate this last song to Jack McPhee, our talented local artist, sitting over there, who almost died from buddha fever in that polluted river accident you all read about—” A few people whistled and whooped. “—And was saved by his dog.” A woman yelled, “We want Jack, we want Jack …” The crowd of inebriated revellers joined in the hysterical chanting till the compère interrupted and regained control of the riotous assembly. “Would the real Jack McPhee stand up and—” Six months ago, I would have withdrawn into my shell and cringed in horror, aghast at such a public display. I tossed my chair aside and strode onto the stage. If Amy could do it, so could I. Over the whistling and stomping, I thanked the crowds and took a deep theatrical bow to the audience’s delight. The red spotlight turned my hair into a fiery blaze and highlighted the tattoos on my forearms. I must have looked like the reincarnation of a seventies heavy-metal pop star because the crowd was going wild no matter what I said or did. No wonder pop stars had swollen heads. I had no idea what the women were going to sing till the music began. “We dedicate this song to Jack,” Isabelle yelled as the introduction started. The audience, like me, were thrown back to another era, the 104

Vietnam War protests, the anti-war songs of Bob Dylan and the stage play Hair that shocked the world with the first public scene of nudity. Isabelle and Amy began to sing: ‘...gimme a head with hair/ long beautiful hair/shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen/My hair like Jesus wore it/ Hallelujah I adore it/ Hallelujah Mary loved her son/ Why don't my mother love me?/… HAIR…’ They belted out the song with gusto and older members of the audience joined in. Amy had a strong toneless voice but it didn’t matter because Isabelle harmonised the chorus and danced like the proverbial wah-wah girl. Nearly six foot of Amy towered over five feet of Isabelle but soon Amy synchronised her dance movement to co-ordinate with her shorter partner. It almost looked as though they’d rehearsed it. The crowd went crazy. I accompanied the singers with wild dancing, my hair flying in the smoky haze. I hadn’t danced for thirty years but tonight I shed the straitjacket of my bodily inhibitions and let my demons fly away. My body twisted and gyrated, limbs flung about like someone with one of those weird neurological diseases, uncoordinated but free of my body prison. When the song finished, we flopped down on our chairs, our throats parched, elated and exhausted. Amy was laughing and Isabelle was gushing with the joy of having lived her dream, a wahwah girl at last. Rivulets of sweat streamed down my face and saturated my shirt, my wet hair stuck out madly in all directions. Roland refreshed our drinks. I reached over and squeezed Amy and Isabelle’s hands. I hadn’t had this much fun since the seventies. “Girls, oops, I mean women, as of now, consider me a bald man.” After the karaoke evening, the four of us staggered to Isabelle’s house. The two pissed women were the David and Goliath of weaponry, waving around scissors and razors between giggles. “You two are a scary sight.” 105

“Ah, live dangerously,” Amy giggled. There in the middle of the kitchen, Isabelle and Amy shaved off my hair. The smooth hairless dome of my skull accentuated the gauntness of my face and high cheekbones. My skin looked even paler without its russet frame. Isabelle gawked and giggled and rubbed her hands over my head, careful not to cut my raw scalp with her long ebony talons. “Your baldness gives you a manly dignity. Very sexy.” Amy massaged oil onto my bare scalp with a soothing circular motion and I closed my eyes, lapping up the attention of these two illmatched women. The alcohol and excitement had taken its toll and we found we were too exhausted to walk the last fifteen minutes worth home so Amy phoned Lindsay, our personal taxi driver, to rescue us from all this hairy debris. Lindsay arrived with a screech of tires and a halo of smoke, the ubiquitous cigarette dangling from his mouth. He jumped with surprise when he saw me. The cigarette fell out of his mouth. “Holy shit, man. What happened to your hair? Every time I see you, you’re different. Sometimes you have no clothes. Sometimes you have no hair. How’s a man supposed to give up smoking when you keep upsetting the order of the universe?” “You giving up smoking? That’ll be the day,” Amy slurred. Lindsay ignored her and we piled into the cab. “Hey Jack, now that you’re totally bald, you should enter the Archibald.” Lindsay then laughed at his joke. “Big money there. Then you’d be hot property.” “Yeah, like about thirty-five grand richer. Good idea, Lindsay.” With Lindsay’s driving, the trip took about forty-five seconds and he refused any payment. “You know, Jack,” Amy said when we arrived home, “In the years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you dance or let your hair down like this. Hell, let your hair come right off your goddamn 106

head. It’s amazing. What’s happened to you?” I’d been trying to figure out the same thing. “Something must have happened while I was in hospital.” “Nothing to do with that brain transplant you had?” Amy quipped as she clanked around the kitchen trying to brew me a coffee and make a pot of tea at the same time. I laughed and watched Amy fussing around the coffee maker; she still couldn’t get the hang of it. “The whole hospital experience made me shed my old skin—” “You shed your entire scalp, Jack.” I looked at myself in the mirror and examined my baldness from every angle. “I always thought that if my hair fell out, my fears would fall away too.” While Amy clanged around, I stared at my feet, large appendages clad in these mystery shoes, trying to articulate my feelings. Suddenly I had so many mysteries to solve that I almost told Amy about the bald woman who’d visited me in hospital. Now I was unsure if the woman was a figment of my delirium or a harbinger of my present hairless state. “Come along, Morris Archie Levine or whoever you are,” Amy slurred, giving up on the coffee. “Lets go to bed.” That was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

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14. Wladyslaw Slewinski: Woman With Red Hair Jack The fragrance of spring woke me with a sneeze. I blew my nose and listened to the crows belching and ogling on the telephone wires like I did every morning. The new improved bald me slept solidly in huge uninterrupted chunks and the better I slept, the worse Amy slept. Amy tossed and turned all night and dozed off at last with the twinkle of morning light and prologue of bird symphonies. I lay in bed, planning my journey to the Brisbane central business district, the Department of Births, Marriages and Deaths where I would look for more information on my parentage. I now had clues, names to look up, a paper trail to follow. Amy had done a bit of scrounging but nothing turned up and I sensed she was losing interest. “I’m going to town today, but first, I’ll take Brick for a walk,” I said. Amy was too tired to register anything. The dog, draped across her feet, was snoring, his brain full of unconquered cats. Half awake, she pushed the snoring beast off her feet and rolled over with a groan. “Where the hell are my shoes?” I searched high and low for those divine Italian shoes. I had the feet from hell so shoes were a major issue in my life. It took fifty years to find the perfect shoe and I wasn’t going to relinquish them that easily. “Ask the dog,” Amy muttered. The base of the mango tree had become Brick’s black hole of footwear till Amy hid all the shoes in cupboards away from his jaws. The cunning and stealthy dog then transferred his loyalties to other inanimate objects and clothing began to disappear and rematerialise in the kennel, buried in the putrid folds of his blanket. 108

Brick had taken to hoarding just like his neighbour Roland. Amy believed that a dog was only as mad as its owner. If she was right, then it didn’t reflect well on the sanity of our household at the moment. I found my shoes in the garden, cursed the dog, then continued dressing. Amy stirred. “Don’t get up,” I told her. “I’ll bring you a cup of tea when I get back.” Amy grunted, pulled the blanket over her head and resumed her slumber while I prepared for the high moral god of exercise. I strapped on my rollerblades and dragged out the walking frame, the one Amy had nicked from the hospital. Brick opened one eye, recognised the signs and symptoms of outrageous fortune and leapt into action. I loved walking but I suffered from high arches, wide forefeet and old broken toes from my horse riding and droving days. My maimed feet contributed to my characteristic swaggering gait, a gait borne out of pain, not arrogance. Normally, within ten minutes of walking, aching feet stopped me. I would curse the twenty-six bones of misery that made up each size eleven hoof, silently railing against my feet for crimes against humanity. After twenty more minutes of walking, the pain crept past my toes, up my legs and into my spine and I’d be forced to hunch forward and limp like Quasimodo, the most famous of hunchbacks. It wasn’t a good look and it certainly scared all the neighbourhood kids, which was probably a fine thing. At least they left me alone. One day, I was watching some trite American movie and it struck me that everyone in American movies had wheels, be they trucks, motor homes, cars, bikes, skateboards or roller skates. It was the land of drive-in churches, drive-in take-away food, driveaway killings and drive-in funerals. Feet were becoming obsolete and now rollerblades were all the rage. So that was my solution, I would wear rollerblades. It looked 109

easy, at least no harder than roller skates. Amy was horrified and said it was the last thing a man with a bruising problem needed. She was right, of course, but I wasn’t handicapped by logic and reason back then. Shrugging off Amy’s fears, I went ahead and bought myself a used pair of rollerblades from Cash Converters, Brisbane’s notorious pawnbrokers. Amy watched me struggle to don my latest disaster in footwear, these giant rollerblades that brought me up to six foot three, hoisting my centre of gravity way too high for safety. Being a nurse and attuned to potential accidents and disasters, Amy was furious at my foolhardiness though with time, this mellowed into a state of irritation. “Admit it, Amy, those dudes in the movie look pretty cool.” “They look cool. You look like a human sacrifice.” Unfortunately, Amy was right. Poor balance and a total lack of grace added a horizontal indignity to my persona. Every bump, pothole or uneven bit of ground threw me face down. Brick was forever licking my wounds and Amy rolled her eyes in exasperation. I practised on our driveway, wobbling and falling in the comfort of my own home, close to the first aid box. Amy shook her head. “This isn’t exercise, Jack. It’s voluntary euthanasia.” “Criticise all you like, oh ye of little faith.” I was obstinate, a man devoid of dignity as I belly-flopped onto the dog. “I will get the hang of it, eventually.” But I was wrong. Either I was too tall or just too old to learn new tricks. When I came home from hospital after the boating accident, I’d found the solution to my balance problems — the walking frame. I replaced the tiny wheels of the frame with larger wheels to make it faster and more stable and I even attached a pair of bicycle brakes. I finally achieved vertical status by clinging to the walking frame. 110

Now I resembled some mad geriatric renegade. “Hell’s Angel next door and Hell’s Granny here,” Amy said. Donned in my rollerblades and motorbike helmet — this latter addition being my concession to Amy— I attached Brick to the converted walking frame and he pulled me along. The bizarre spectacle was Scarborough’s regular circus show. Locals laughed at the Holy Trinity of man, dog and walking frame as we wobbled along the footpath, accelerating recklessly towards the beach. Everyone loved a free show and I was good entertainment. Eventually I achieved a substandard level of proficiency, enough to give Brick an energetic workout while minimising my foot aggravation. It was great exercise and it helped me maintain my ten-year non-smoking status. In my post-exercise state of euphoria, those days that I came home alive, I celebrated with large quantities of coffee, inhaling its heady aroma, savouring the mellow flavours, pondering the primal link between creativity and substance abuse. At least I didn’t feel like drinking whisky. Brick provided the acceleration and horsepower, the dog power really, and I merely held on for balance, my body bent forward like a skier. We glided past the pub like a vision splendid. With the help of the walking frame, I managed to remain vertical and the only real danger was Brick spotting a cat and tearing off at a tangent. One errant cat combined with Newton’s Laws of Motion was enough to reef me off my feet and catapult me onto my face. Luckily, that didn’t happen too often. This morning Brick and I advanced down the street and along the beachfront at a steady pace. The only difference between today and any other day was that I was now bald and because Amy wasn’t awake to nag me, I wasn’t wearing my helmet. The breeze massaging my raw scalp was glorious. We were rolling along nicely when an elderly lady rushed up and hit me over the head with her umbrella, screaming abuse between swipes. I let go of the walking frame and clutched my 111

naked skull for protection. Then she knocked me off balance with a blow to my neck. The pain was so great that I thought the crazy bitch was going to kill me. On the ground with those damn rollerblades, I couldn’t escape. Another head injury was the last thing I needed. “Nazi bastard! German pig!” she screamed hysterically with a thick European accent as she flung her umbrella wildly. “Shame on you! Murderers!” Brick was still attached to the walking frame when I fell. He saw me on the ground and leapt into the foray, placing himself in front of the thrashing woman, barking and growling above her screams. Her flailing limbs now landed on the dog, the blows thudding harmlessly on his back. But when a sharp edge of umbrella clipped his ear, he saw red and head butted her with selfrighteous indignation. I grabbed the leash and pulled him back, dulling the ferocity of his rage. “Heartless murderers!” She stumbled, then regained her footing. “Killers! You dare show yourself on the street?” The screaming woman and snarling dog attracted a few blearyeyed hotel clients. Stray beachcombers gravitated to the fracas. The growing crowd of onlookers had no idea what was happening, but this didn’t stop them from shouting advice and tossing their opinions into the ring. The rollerblades hindered my mobility and the standoff continued till someone summoned the police. By the time the police arrived, I was still on the ground, yelling. The dog was barking and growling and snapping and head butting. The old lady was swinging her umbrella in frenzied arcs and screaming. The crowd was issuing directions, cheering, hooting, but unable to intervene for fear of the savage dog. “This man, this Nazi criminal, must be punished. Look how his dog attacks me,” she told the police. “He’s a killer, they’re all killers—” “That’s not true,” I yelled. “This lady attacked me while I was 112

walking my dog. He’s just defending me from this lunatic.” The police looked at the frail elderly lady, well into her eighties, then looked at me. It’s true, I did look like a bald, tattooed neoNazi with a vicious bull terrier terrorising a little old lady. The police found me guilty on the spot and reacted with the ponderous weight of the law behind them. “Charge him with genocide,” the old lady screamed, pointing her umbrella at the growling dog whose head was lowered, ready to charge again. The police refused to listen to my explanation. They pushed me around, told me to shut the fuck up and get into the paddy van. By then, my head throbbed, my back was jarred, my shoulder reefed out of its socket and my feet were in hell. Calling the police fascist pigs was a mistake. They resented the pig slur and ordered me into the police wagon, ignoring my protests of innocence. Trouble was, I couldn’t stand on my rollerbladed feet. “Get up,” ordered the younger cop, yanking my sore arm. As they shoved me towards the paddy wagon, I lost my balance again. This produced the same effect as Brick lurching out to ambush a cat. My feet spun out beneath me and I went flying. As I launched into space I grabbed the policeman, an instinctual righting reaction. In that split second, the policeman assumed that I was trying to assault him and he retaliated with a kick to my body that dropped me into the foetal position. Violence directed against me infuriated Brick. He consolidated his eighty pounds of body weight into a missile then hurled himself at the cop’s chest. The ensuing thump winded the cop and knocked him to the ground. The crowd cheered at the boxing ring antics and Brick snarled at the lot of them. “Call your dog off.” The cop, sprawled on the ground, reached for his gun. “Or I’ll shoot.” A couple of drunken onlookers shouted anti-police slogans and 113

claims of animal abuse. “Cool it, Brick.” I held onto the growling mass of dog, both to regain my balance and protect him from bullets. I mistrusted everyone. The other policeman was trying to give my walking frame to the woman but Brick’s lead was still attached and the woman wasn’t interested. The cops were idiots, totally oblivious to the frame’s bicycle tyres. “The walking frame’s mine, not hers.” My protests bounced off police intransigence. I managed to untie the leash from the frame and wrap it around my wrist, keeping Brick attached to me. On rollerbladed feet, I hobbled towards the police wagon and the police pushed me with excessive force. “I’m not resisting,” I yelled. The pain in my back and shoulders were screaming. “You’re both under arrest.” The young cop thrust us into the wagon and Brick snarled like a homicidal maniac. The crowd booed and yelled more abuse at the cops, further provoking them. The young cop tried to extricate Brick from my grasp in order to transfer him to the dog-pound but Brick puffed out his chest and snarled so fiercely that the young cop jumped back and reached for his gun. To prevent a bloodbath, the older cop intervened and allowed us to be incarcerated together. He later told me in my cell that he owned a Staffordshire bull terrier, a similar breed to Brick. Both were glorious by-products of the British Empire. Both obstinate masses of loyalty backed by awesome jaw power. “We’ll sort this out at the station, son.” The older cop locked the doors of the wagon in front of a disappointed crowd. They were hankering for blood but long years in the service told the more experienced cop when to switch to damage control. At the police station, the young cop further inflamed the 114

situation by insisting on handcuffing me before exiting the wagon. This was regulation procedure but I resisted wildly, yelling for a lawyer, screaming out for witnesses and accusing everyone of police brutality. I wanted pedestrians to hear me. The difficulty of handcuffing a man protected by a snarling bull terrier was too much. The older cop took charge and bypassed protocol. When I threatened litigation, the policeman switched on a mini tape recorder and warned me that everything I said would be taken down and used as evidence against me. “Yeah, well, you can shove your evidence up your cloaca for all I care,” I screamed. “Because when I get out, I’ll notify the media that it’s all very well to survive polluted Queensland rivers, but how the hell are we supposed to survive the polluted Queensland Police Force?” While I raved on about police stupidity and corruption, they were still trying to figure out what a cloaca was. “You brainless morons puff yourselves up, hide behind your fancy uniforms, grab innocent people off the street because you’re too fucking useless to find the real criminals.” Once unleashed, my fury was unstoppable. “You’re all nothing but a bunch of lowlife, impotent, corrupt …” During my tirade I received a battering of kicks to shut me up. I couldn’t recollect the exact words I’d screamed but my eloquence had been recorded and I was sore the next day. More bruises spread over my bald head where the woman had thwacked me. Since my bout of hepatitis back in the seventies, I bruised easily. They booked me for obstructing police, obstructing a public thoroughfare, obscene language, assaulting a citizen with a deadly weapon in the form of a bull terrier, resisting arrest, assaulting a policeman and refusing a breathalyser test. I couldn’t remember anyone asking me to do the breathalyser test so that charge surprised me. Backing these eight charges was the crazy woman’s charge of assault. 115

In the cell, Brick added his vocal protests to the charged atmosphere. I continued cursing the police with wild accusations and obscenities and the police refused to allow me my one regulation phone call. They were busily looking up Morris Levine, my birth name, on their criminal database and coming up with zilch. I thought I might as well let them do some of my searches. Then one bright cop flicked through my wallet. “Ah, so your real name is Jack McPhee.” “Well no, actually, my real name is Morris Archie Levine and my adopted name is Jack McPhee,” I replied. Police checked my criminal record and found to their delight that I’d been arrested and charged before. Their smug faces glowed with the aura of exoneration. Hours dragged by and I would have killed for a cup of coffee, even insipid hospital coffee would have staunched my desperation. From within my cell, coffee withdrawal had transformed me into an irritable tornado of bad language and headache. I tried to dissipate the pain by calling out almost continually to nearby staff. Demands for water, analgesia and coffee followed requests for a lawyer and a phone call. “I’ll sue you for animal abuse, unlawful arrest, failing to allow a phone call, failure to provide me with enough blankets, pain relief, coffee deprivation …” I raved on, demand following demand, my head pounding with rage and withdrawal. Between demands I spat out curses and invective, bathed in the filthiest language I could muster from the depths of my rough adolescence. I replaced crudity with erudite comparisons of the Queensland Police and Nazi storm troopers, with anti-Communist McCarthy witch-hunters of the forties. The police had no idea who McCarthy was and probably didn’t care. They only knew that the noisy man in cell two was a pain in the arse. Brick nudged his wet pink nose into me as I trembled with rage and agitation and banged the cell bars and hollered. I was totally 116

off my tree and he thought the whole episode was a hoot. Violence to a bull terrier is icing on the cake. “I’m getting a cerebral haemorrhage,” I screamed, clutching my head. My yelling must have weakened the administration clerk’s resolve. Any more of this pandemonium and he too would haemorrhage from both ears. Five or ten hours later, time was hazy, the clerk tossed a blanket into the cell and handed me a cordless phone. I dialled Amy and begged her to rescue me.

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15. Pablo Picasso: Guernica Amy When Jack didn’t appear after two or three hours I knew something had happened. We’d been through this scenario before. I checked the hospital first, I phoned Isabelle at the gallery and then I panicked, all in that order. Isabelle came over immediately and we wracked our brains out for a solution, phoned around and finally went to the beach and talked to some locals. We heard there’d been some accident or mishap and the police were involved so I assumed it was Jack and he’d been arrested again. When I phoned the local Redcliffe police station, they acted like their prisoners were international clientele requiring strict confidentiality and they wouldn’t divulge the sensitive information of whether Jack was there or not. Bloody hell, what was happening to the world? Anyone would think the drunken inmates at the local lock-up were vital links in our national security. Was this part of the war on terror or just bureaucratic inefficiency? Once again, all we could do was wait. “Patience isn’t a virtue,” I told Isabelle, pacing the floor. “It’s a form of quiet desperation,” Isabelle asked about Jack’s previous arrests. “That’s going back a bit.” I sedated a stray wisp of hair. “The first time was in the eighties during one of those marathon film festivals in Sydney. Some officious little turd in a department store arrested him for urinating in a staff toilet.” Isabelle grinned. “What a bad arse dude.” “In my opinion, he was arrested for having long hair and tattoos, being taller than the security guard and not being apologetic enough.” “Caught in flagrante delicto as they say in legal circles.” 118

Isabelle often tossed in smatterings of Latin. “So what happened?” “Trespassing. Two hundred dollar fine.” I scowled. “It was the most expensive piss he ever had.” The more recent incident was when Jack sat in his car at the beach, gazing at the sunset. Parked too long near a public toilet they said. Police suspected him of dealing drugs or soliciting. They pounced in a full-on raid and Jack thought a gang of thugs had attacked him so he defended himself like a maniac. Without any evidence of criminal activity, the police dropped all charges except obstructing police and obscene language, anything to justify their wrongful arrest in the first place. These disasters seemed to befall both Jack and Brick whenever I was out of town on a seminar or on holidays. The long distance phone call from Brisbane was harbinger of doom. Once Brick had eaten a poisonous cane toad and almost died, another time they arrested Jack for vagrancy. He was walking off his insomnia at two in the morning. Last year, Jack locked himself out of the house and gashed his arm trying to climb through the bathroom window. I was just grateful the cops didn’t come around and charge him with breaking and entering. I was now beginning to worry about leaving Jack alone at any time. “It’s a shame we can’t take out a personal disaster insurance policy for our husbands and dogs,” I said. “Someone once threatened to sue Brick for the disappearance of their cat. I mean, what’s the world coming to when people start suing animals?” “My dad used to say everyone needs an insurance policy against the inherent unfairness and random cruelties of modern life,” said Isabelle. “Wise father.” Jack and I had both been arrested and jailed for three days during the demonstrations to stop the damming of the Franklin, Tasmania’s last wild river. That was one clash with the law that we 119

were proud of. Innocent or not, every arrest was a costly business, a legal wrangle. Jack finally phoned. He’d been arrested just as I’d suspected. I clasped my hands and thanked the heavens that he was alive and then cursed the same heavens for the bad news. “I’ve never met a man who attracted so much bad luck. No wonder his biological mother pushed him out of her life and sent him off for adoption. He’s a bad luck charm.” Bail money was three thousand dollars, a huge sum to come up with on such short notice. I didn’t even have that much spare money in the bank. Roland was likely to have it but he was at work so I phoned him. “Bugger me bollocks. When I got arrested at the Moratorium demo in seventy-one, bail was only three hundred dollars,” said Roland. “Three thousand is a bit steep.” “It’s called inflation, Roland.” “It’s called highway robbery, my dear. Luckily I have more than enough hard dough stashed away and I’ll be home shortly.” That gave me time to collect a few documents for Jack, proof of identity, that sort of thing. “What is it about us women?” I chattered while rifling through the filing cabinet. “We’re always bailing men out of trouble.” “I know it isn’t a women’s world,” said Isabelle. “But it sure ain’t a man’s world either. Poor Jack. Maybe it’s time men and women stopped fighting and joined forces against the real enemies.” I rummaged in my handbag for the house key. “The real enemy in my life is chaos. Where the hell did I put my keys? Christ, Jack complains that I keep moving things and—” I stepped onto the veranda to strip-search Brick’s hideaways. Jack’s pillow and my missing work uniform turned up but no keys. Something would have to be done about that dog. He really was acting out some weird angst. 120

Isabelle picked through the junk on the coffee table as I glanced with despair at the mess. The house had become a hellhole of domestic chaos ever since Brick had rearranged the inanimate objects to his doggy specifications. If it weren’t for Danton’s housekeeping, we’d be in total chaos by now. I sighed. “Lately I’ve been losing stuff, misplacing things. I swear I’m turning into a man sometimes.” The boom of Isabelle’s mirth echoed around the house only to be replaced by the roar of Roland’s faulty exhaust system. Roland grabbed the cash from his hiding place and we jumped into his Valiant and roared up to the police station to bail out Jack and Brick. From within his cell at the back of the police station, Brick must have recognised the sound of Roland’s car. I heard him barking and snapping and I knew he’d be chasing his tail in a frenzy of glee. Roland presented the bail money to the police receptionist but we were too late. Some unknown person, an elderly woman, had paid the bail money and disappeared so Jack was technically a free man. He would be released shortly, as soon as the proper forms had been filled in. “The slow bureaucratic road to freedom,” I said to the clerk who gave me a dirty look. I could see in her eyes that she regarded me as the scum known as humanity. Regulations required everything be in duplicate, triplicate, signed, co-signed and counter-signed. This was worse than hospital paperwork. After much gnashing of teeth and pushing of pens, Jack was finally released. He was too weakened by coffee deficiency to restrain the dog. Brick went berserk. Eight hours in a jail cell was a life sentence to a dog and he now exploded with freedom. The police looked equally relieved to see the back of this wild man and his crazy dog. 121

An enormous white beast came charging down the corridor, a canine meteorite hurtling towards his loved ones. Isabelle hid behind Roland. “Joy hath no fury like the ecstasy of a bull terrier’s welcome,” said Roland massacring Shakespeare the moment before impact. Brick set in motion the domino effect by smashing into Roland, knocking that large mass backwards onto Isabelle and Isabelle landed on me. We all fell to the ground and the excited dog licked our faces to saturation point. Jack looked down at us and laughed. We de-dogged then de-briefed as we walked to the car. Jack told us the sordid events of the morning. “And thanks for paying the bail.” “Don’t thank me,” I yelled, above the roar of the charging Valiant. “Some old lady came and paid it before we even arrived. Roland was going to pay it.” We couldn’t imagine who it was. Danton’s mother wouldn’t have known about his arrest nor rushed to the police station so promptly. That was the only old lady we knew. “Well, that’s a bloody mystery. Anyway, I need a coffee like you wouldn’t believe,” said Jack rubbing his bruised skull. Isabelle commented that Jack looked as though he’d been dragged ten kilometres through the mud behind a wild horse. “Funny you should say that because that’s exactly how I feel,” Jack replied. Danton came home in the early evening to find me, Isabelle and Jack sitting around drinking coffee and discussing Jack’s ordeal and what to do. “Christ Jack, you look a mess.” And with that astute observation he disappeared into the kitchen to make dinner. We agreed that Jack should plead not guilty and fight all the charges but Isabelle pointed out that the odds were against him. The sheer number of charges would be difficult to defend and 122

truth had a habit of keeping a low profile. “Truth and justice are usually murdered by our judicial system,” she said. “It’s a medieval joust — let the games begin and may the best lawyer win.” Jack lifted his shirt and displayed a patch of ripening bruises. Our eyes boggled. This was evidence of Jack as victim rather than perpetrator. Isabelle dived into her enormous bottomless handbag, grabbed a camera and took photos of Jack’s bruises from every angle. Then she made Jack write down everything that happened in as much detail as possible for later reference. Jack wanted to contact Civil Liberties and counter-sue for police brutality and use of undue force. Isabelle reminded him that police had covered themselves with tape recordings of Jack’s swearing and verbal abuse. They could easily cut and edit any evidence that showed themselves in a bad light. “Police would tamper with the evidence?” Jack’s jaw dropped. Isabelle laughed at his naivety. “Police have to cover their arses, you know. You think swearing on the bible will make them tell the truth? They perjure themselves if it’s expedient. It’s part of the job. When my first husband Eric was arrested for dope dealing, they tacked on four extra charges to maximise the penalty — all barefaced lies and fabrications, things he couldn’t possibly have done without being in two places at once.” “But we have such a good case,” Jack said. We now had photos of his bruises, we could get character references and we could gather statements from all the witnesses on the beach. Isabelle reminded him that the witnesses were mostly drunk and the average person hated getting involved in court cases. Jack was confident that a good lawyer could present enough material to win the case and Isabelle laughed. “A good lawyer. That’s an oxymoron. You’d be better off dispensing with lawyers and defending yourself.” 123

“Are you suggesting I don’t bother with lawyers at all?” Isabelle seemed knowledgeable about the law so we sat quietly and let her do the talking. Lawyers would charge him a few thousand dollars in fees, act confident, tell Jack that he had a watertight case, promise the world and then put up a pathetic defence on the day of the hearing. “Here’s the scenario,” said Isabelle. “At the last minute, the lawyer tells the client that the police have overwhelming evidence against him. What does he care if the case is lost? The client has already paid the lawyer’s fees.” We couldn’t imagine a lawyer losing a case without a decent struggle and surely the client’s rights came first. “Client’s rights?” Isabelle laughed. “Lawyers and police prosecutors are drinking buddies. The lawyer gets his cut and the state gets its revenue. It’s a partnership made in economic heaven. Bad luck to the patsy in the middle, the sucker who just paid big money only to get screwed by the system in a courtroom farce.” We listened in awe. When it came to the law, Isabelle was the most cynical person I’d ever met. She was worse than me. “How do you know so much about the law, Isabelle?” I asked. Isabelle confessed that her father was a defence lawyer. He worked for Legal Aid in Northern Queensland, defending Aborigines. “He was a good lawyer and there weren’t many around.” Isabelle’s background surprised us. With her short stature and olive skin, I assumed she’d descended from peasant Spanish stock, not the middle-class bourgeoisie. “Hey Isabelle, could your father defend me?” Jack said. “Out of the question.” “How come?” Jack’s face crumpled. “Because he’s dead. He died in a plane crash over Peru in 1984 on his way to a human rights conference.” Isabelle was like a prodigy or some wild exotic animal. Her 124

sense of social justice came from a father who spent his youth in Spain, fighting Franco. He finally gave up that struggle and emigrated to Australia with his family. As a child growing up in northern Queensland, Isabelle watched her father battle the system in an attempt to protect black people from white man’s punishment. “My father said that no matter how much a white man owns, he’s miserable and never satisfied. He always wants more. Blacks have their dreaming but all whites have are their nightmares.” That evening, Jack was quiet, his spirits dampened. Isabelle suggested we start by getting the old lady who attacked him to drop her charges. Whatever police intervention followed would look like wrongful arrest. “What do you think I should do, Amy?” Jack assumed that my knowledge of criminal psychology would make my opinions and judgements more valid. If Isabelle was an expert on the law, then I must be an expert on crime. “I think we should let Isabelle take charge, she has more insight into the practical workings of the legal system.” When Danton called us in for dinner, Jack had fallen asleep on the lounge curled up with the dog. The two warriors were exhausted from their clash with the Sherman tank of bureaucracy. Brick snuffled happily in his sleep, delighted with those hours of high adventure, although mangling one of the policemen would have rendered it a perfect day. The next morning, Isabelle and I joined forces to find the old woman who attacked Jack and talk her into dropping her charges. The police station seemed the logical place to get the woman’s name but Isabelle shuddered. “Best to stay clear of the cops.” We would get more information on that trusty male grapevine known as the pub. Jack was still in bed, bruised and sore. It was just Isabelle and me. We walked to the beach, side by side, lost in our private 125

thoughts, barely talking. We interviewed everyone from the Scarborough hotel to the bakery. The clues we’d gathered didn’t add up to much. She drank alone, once lived in Paris, was formerly involved in show business, read French newspapers and bought one loaf of bread per week. Isabelle and I stood on the footpath and discussed our options. A hundred metres down the road a taxi pulled up and I recognised Lindsay’s cab. Jack had been using the taxi service so often these days that Lindsay had become part of the scenery. I yelled his name then turned to Isabelle. “Brace yourself. This guy is better than a hairdresser. He knows everything happening in town.” We jogged towards him. “He probably knows the meaning of life. And if he doesn’t, he’d know who does.” Lindsay peered into his rear vision mirror and saw me galloping towards him. He emerged from the cab and stared at Isabelle’s chest. At first I thought he was being rude then I realised she was wearing a black t-shirt with the word SORRY in fluorescent pink lettering across her chest. Words our Prime Minister refused to utter to the stolen generation. “Ah, Amy, the warrior goddess.” Lindsay lit a cigarette and leaned on the taxi roof. “What’s news?” “Jack just got arrested—” I began. “Never a dull moment in your household.” Lindsay heaved and puffed out clouds of smoke. His tanned weather-beaten face crinkled as he sucked in fumes and squinted in the beach glare. “What’d he do this time?” “Some old French lady attacked him with her umbrella.” I told him the story. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this old French lady with the umbrella?” “Sure. She lives over at the caravan park next to the boat marina.” Lindsay paused to suck his cigarette. “Nice old doll but definitely a sandwich short of a picnic. Hop in and I’ll take you there.” 126

Lindsay drove and chattered and smoked incessantly. Isabelle stuck her head out the window to prevent asphyxiation by smoke. At the caravan park, Lindsay introduced us to the caretaker, a wiry man in shorts and thongs with mottled skin from too much sun exposure. His wife was lobster-coloured and curvaceous as a Rubens. She pointed. “Van four. Strange lady. Eighty-nine and full of beans.” The cacophony of voices, televisions and radios rumbled from caravans amidst the hiss of frying food, beer fumes and fishy aromas. We found the van and knocked. The door opened a crack. A wizened head jutted out. Her eyes pierced us with the intensity I associated with heavy amphetamine use or early dementia. The door swung open and her full feral appearance dazzled us. Incongruous shades of lime and scarlet clashed in a sea of disharmony. Even her voice and accent lulled and jarred at the same time. Wisps of hair uncoiled from her scalp and bounced like a trampoline in the breeze. “Come in and tell me why you’re here? Oui, oui. That’s what you’ll do. Come quickly, while no one’s looking.” She ushered us into her cluttered realm. Photos, posters, maps and music scores formed a collage of show biz homage, plastering every square inch of wall and cupboard. Memorabilia jostled for space and screamed for attention. A chessboard sat forlornly in the corner dominated by piles of magazines and travel brochures. Isabelle and I were in a time machine, hurled into another era. “I’ll come straight to the point.” I wriggled in a chair that was too small for gluteal comfort. “Yesterday, you charged my husband with assault.” The woman’s over-plucked eyebrows arched. “Husband?” “A tall, wiry, bald man, in his late forties, walking his dog along the beach. A large white dog—” “Ah oui, oui. I remember that dog. That awful white thing with 127

a black patch over his eye. He attacked me.” Her head jutted in outrage. “The story we heard is that you attacked my husband,” I said. Her jaw dropped. “I attacked your husband? Ah oui, oui. Maybe I did.” The woman was cheered by her sudden lucidity. “I forget things sometimes.” “Could you tell us why you attacked her husband?” Isabelle said. The old lady narrowed her eyes and leaned forward to talk confidentially. “The Nazis think they can hide but we will find every last one of them.” “The Nazis?” I exclaimed. “Sshh.” The old woman looked around in panic. “Did you think Jack was a Nazi?” Isabelle coaxed. “Jack?” The woman shrunk into her chair. “Who’s Jack?” “Jack’s my husband. The bald man who you hit yesterday with your umbrella.” “That man is not Jack,” she yelled. “That is Josef Mengele.” She crashed her hand onto the table and her eyes blazed. “Mengele?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “The Nazi doctor of Auschwitz?” “The Angel of Death.” The woman’s voice was almost a growl. “He doesn’t know it but I’m onto him.” “Now hang on,” I said. “Mengele escaped to Argentina after the war and died somewhere in South America. He was in his seventies or eighties. My husband, Jack is only fifty. So you see, he can’t be Mengele.” “Mengele is an evil and clever man. He has disguises.” “But Jack isn’t in disguise.” I was exasperated. “Jack? Who are you talking about?” The woman shuffled into the kitchenette and put on the kettle. Her missionary zeal had subsided. It was as though her brain couldn’t sustain the hatred for too long before it exhausted itself. 128

“If you don’t know who Jack is then you should drop your charges,” I said. “What charges?” We were getting nowhere fast. The longer we talked to her, the more circular the conversation became, an endless loop that was making me dizzy. It was obvious that this woman had been traumatised by her war experiences and was suffering from dementia. If she miraculously appeared in court, they’d soon realise that she was nuts.

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16. Vincent Van Gogh: Self-Portrait with Shaven Head Amy I was preparing myself for a gruelling visit to the dentist, something I’d been putting off for months, years even. I’d dental flossed and brushed and re-brushed my teeth and just about took off all the enamel in my nervousness. As I was leaving, I noticed a colourful letter poking its nose out the mailbox. My name blazoned across a purple and yellow envelope, almost as lairy as Isabelle’s hair. The insignia in the corner rang a distant bell. I ran inside and tore the envelope open. It was from the Farilla Pasta competition. My mouth fell open, I rubbed my eyes and read it again just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. We’d won first prize — two glorious weeks cruising around the Mediterranean. Our dream had materialised and I felt such a rush of excitement that I crushed the letter against my chest and let out a whoop of joy and danced around the kitchen. Brick barged into the kitchen and leapt into the foray. I grabbed his front paws and we waltzed together around the room, the dog waddling and wagging and panting with glee. Danton would be thrilled out of his brain but what would I tell Jack? It was time to consult the oracle. “Now listen here, Brick. If I go overseas with Danton, do you promise to take care of Jack?” Brick lunged at me and licked my ears which I took as affirmative. “What am I worrying about? He wouldn’t go travelling without you.” The dog was an enthusiastic listener and a splendid drooler. “In fact he hates travel.” With our declining Australian dollar, European travel was expensive. Jack would only return to visit the great art galleries 130

but he’d have to be dragged, kicking and screaming. “The ratio of joy to misery is too low to justify the expense,” he’d say. “Anyway, the best part of travelling is getting home and looking at the photos.” He’d dwell on the irritating tedium of changing money, hunting down affordable accommodation, interminable train and bus trips, expensive car hire, mad European drivers and battling language barriers. A Tower of Babel on all fronts. Ever since he turned political, everything was a global conspiracy. Travel had now become the glamorous façade of capitalism, an extortionary way to feed the system. Danton was worse. He kept listing the possible disasters and dangers — losing your luggage at the airport, terrorist bomb attacks, pickpockets, train crashes, hotel fires, food poisoning. “If I listen to those two and their endless woes, I might as well curl up under a rock with a nice safe book and turn into a fossil,” I said to the dog. “But I won’t. Fear and inertia are our enemy, just like cats, eh Brick? We have to be brave and face the cats.” I had to resist Jack’s depressive interpretation of the world. The osmosis of ideas and moods from one spouse to another is insidious and I often found myself thinking like Jack, or analysing a problem from his perspective. Ironically, Jack needed a holiday more than anyone. In one year he’d almost drowned in a boating accident, survived a lifethreatening ailment, lost his hair, been attacked by a mad woman and wrongfully arrested. And his latest obsession, the family search, had hit a bureaucratic wall. This competition could open new doors and turn a vague yearning into a possibility. Two weeks in Europe would be bliss but we needed at least two months to explore Italy alone. I needed more money but dreaded the thought of increasing my nursing hours. My spine was already suffering from all the relief work. The only wealthy person I knew was my father and 131

there’s no way I’d beg from him and get entangled in that web again. The choice of a travelling partner raged a moral battle in my guts. My heart chose Danton but duty chose Jack. The subject of divorce had remained a moot issue, trembling in the shadows of my cowardice. I could never find the right moment to broach the topic and the longer I delayed, the harder it became. With Jack painting again, life was calmer and the fires had settled. Only a fool would stoke up the embers and risk a new conflagration. Danton and I had settled into a comfortable friendship. He had wonderful characteristics but so did vintage Jack and I was seeing more and more of Jack’s old self. He was drinking less, was much happier within himself and less abrasive with the world. Perhaps I had Isabelle to thank. I stashed the fateful letter in my handbag and braced myself for the dentist, my nemesis. No matter how little he did or how quickly he did it, I returned hundreds of dollars poorer. I vowed to cut out sugar, brush my teeth after every meal and brush up on my Italian. Not that Italian fluency would improve my teeth. The Italian nucleus in my brain was dormant, nestled in my childhood with my Italian grandparents. I returned from the dentist two hours later, numb in the jaw and loaded with shopping. Throughout the hideous sounds of the drilling and suctioning, I stopped myself screaming by focussing on the competition. During that one year in which to use the prize, I’d see how my relationship with Jack panned out. It was lunchtime and Jack was still in his studio. I poked my head in and watched him dancing in front of his easel. He was a swordsman, engrossed in the sweeping brush strokes of manic creation. His painting was aggressive, colourful and looser than his previous artwork. 132

Brick waddled over and licked my hand. Jack smiled then turned back to his canvas. “Bloody dentists.” I rubbed my numb cheek. “Once you visit a dentist, you might as well take out your wallet, extract your money and tear it up. I honestly don’t know how any sane human being would choose to become a dentist.” “Prestige, power, sadism.” Jack kept painting. “Did you know that the Mad Hatters’ Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland is about a bunch of milliners who went mad from using mercury in hat-making?” I said. “No, I didn’t.” “That’s why dentists are mad. It’s all the mercury.” The sounds of a Mozart Sonata being murdered by a student wafted across my consciousness as it went through its final death throes. Must have been another one of Danton’s students torturing some decomposing composer. Brick’s ears swivelled like radar, his nose twitched as intruders entered his realm. Someone was slashing their way to Jack’s retreat, fighting the Morning Glory vine, hitting their head on that one broken limb of the Hills Hoist, the icon of Australian laundry. Ours was now smothered in thorny bougainvillea. “I can hear Isabelle,” Jack said. We listened to her progress as she skirted around our stately but dishevelled home, a rambling highset house that remained proudly unrenovated, unpruned and unloved. I peered out the window and watched her weave her way through the jungle to Jack’s studio out the back, a small makeshift building shaded by an ancient mango tree. It was the thirtieth year that this gigantic tree had failed to produce an edible mango and still it had managed to survive the chainsaw threats of our disappointment. Normally I’d quietly slip away to avoid Isabelle but now I was curious. What did Jack and Isabelle talk about for so many hours 133

every second day? Isabelle greeted me with more enthusiasm than in the old days. The karaoke night had broken down the barriers between us and the fun we’d had together added a new but cautious affection for each other. She was in a flurry of exhaustion from battling with hospital authorities, trying to extract information about Jack’s birth mother. Where I’d given up and left off, Isabelle took over. She threw herself into a chair. The mystery of Jack’s mother was unfolding very slowly through the slings and arrows of amateur sleuthing. “The hospital refused to divulge confidential information about your birth, Jacko. I had to forge your signature and use the Freedom of Information Act to force their hand. What a bloody drama that was. Then to top it off, because hospital records weren’t computerised back in the fifties, staff had to search the records manually. Another drama.” Jack sliced his paintbrush across the canvas. “So what’s new?” Isabelle turned to me. “Your husband weighed seven pounds six ounces when he popped into the world, his birth was uncomplicated and he was adopted out through a branch of the Saint James Anglican Church.” Jack dropped his brush and swivelled around. “Don’t get too excited,” said Isabelle. “The Saint James Anglican Church burnt down in the sixties and all their paper records were destroyed.” “Shit.” Jack sat down heavily. Vermeer’s chair creaked under his weight. “Another glorious dead end. So what have you two dug up?” asked Isabelle with a sigh. Jack had tried to get information from his two sets of foster parents and the boys’ home without much luck. “However, according to the Department of Births, Marriages and Deaths, I’ve discovered my mother wasn’t born here, she didn’t marry here and 134

she hasn’t died here. But she did have me at the Royal Brisbane Hospital.” The elusive Celeste Levine was proving to be a mystery mother. The only possibility was that she was born overseas, emigrated here and then returned. The name Levine was European in origin. There were dozens of Levines in the Brisbane phone book and who knows how many in the rest of Australia. It would take us years to phone them all. “Do you think it’s possible your mother gave the hospital a fictional name when she was admitted?” I asked. Jack scratched the fine spiky hair poking through his scalp. “Writers, musicians and show business people often change their names.” Isabelle steered the subject back to art. “I’m going to Sydney to visit my daughter. While I’m there, I’ll check out the New South Wales Art Gallery and find out about the Archibald.” Jack’s face brightened. The Archibald Prize was a national icon, the holy grail of artists and Jack now seemed determined to give it a shot. The boating accident cracked more than Jack’s skull, it cracked the shell of his stagnation and released the artistic energy that Isabelle had been prodding for years. Contrary to all the sayings, it wasn’t the support of a good woman that finally awoke the titan; it was the thump of a twentyfive kilogram anchor. Like me, Isabelle admired Jack’s latest painting and recognised the artistic drive and hunger bubbling to the surface. “You’re doing some great stuff now, Jacko. We really should have an exhibition of your work. Don’t you think so, Amy?” “Absolutely. He has nothing to lose.” It was eight years since his last exhibition and time to strike again. Isabelle described her plan to use the exhibition as a preArchibald advertising campaign and cash in on Jack’s reputation as the artist that survived the poisoned river. 135

Jack agreed it was a wise business move and the timing was right. The economic climate had hit the art investment scene hard. A punchy exhibition might attract investors back. Isabelle confessed that her gallery was just scraping through and she was barely managing her mortgage repayments. She loved the gallery but economic circumstances often tempted her to sell it and break free from the debt cycle. The entire country was besieged by mass redundancies, corporate collapses and rising unemployment. “Taking out that loan to start the art gallery was like handing over an ovary,” she said. “I’ll never do that again.” We had our age old whinge about banks and debt and the modern religion known as the economy. “Did you know that banking originated from the words bondage and wanking?” I said planting my tongue firmly in my cheek. Isabelle laughed. “And every time a bank announces record profits, it sacks more staff and closes more branches? What kind of logic is that?” “Economic fucking rationalism,” said Jack. Faint atonal thumps of a piano, the sounds of a student gently massacring Liszt, wafted from the sunroom. We gritted our teeth till the slaying stopped then breathed a sigh of relief. “I need a famous Australian person to paint for the Archibald,” Jack said. He’d been racking his brains for someone contemporary and accessible. I suggested Valerie Kozlowski given she was called the modern Nellie Melba. With the exception of Joan Sutherland, opera singers were still low profile in this country. Isabelle jumped up with excitement. “Do a self-portrait. Henry Hanke entered the Archibald with a self-portrait and won. Can’t remember which year. He’d only sold two paintings in his entire life so he wasn’t exactly famous.” “A self-portrait?” Jack rubbed his head. Tiny copper spikes of 136

hair shot out of his baldness giving him the disturbing look of the criminally insane. “Everyone keeps telling me I look like Van Gogh.” “You’re a household name now, Jacko. The newspaper clippings hail you as the famous survivor,” Isabelle said. “Make the most of your fifteen minutes of fame.” When Isabelle left, Jack resumed painting and Brick resumed his slumbers. His snoring added creative grunt. Jack was slapping colour onto his canvas with silent fury and I marvelled at his total concentration. There were dozens of things I should have been doing, assignments I needed to complete, but my jaw was numb, my legs tired, my back hurt and Jack’s dancing paintbrush mesmerised me. He finished, placed the painting in the corner and stepped back to view it from a distance. I joined him. At first I thought it was a portrait of Jack then realised it was a woman. Tall, regal, a wry smile, high cheekbones, piercing grey eyes like Jack’s and totally bald. It was tinged with humour. Light streamed in from a window on the left, bathing the woman in luminescence. The ornate details of the chair imbued it with grandeur. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Jack, but it looks just like a Vermeer with overtones of Toulouse-Lautrec and undertones of Charlie Chaplin.” “Great!” Jack wiped his hands on his trousers. “That’s exactly what I was trying to capture.” Normally, Jack loathed his newly completed paintings. Mistakes leapt off the canvas and compelled him to trash the thing and start again. For once he was satisfied with his achievement. “I think Isabelle’s right. You’re ready for the Archibald.”

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17. Claude Monet: The Luncheon Amy “I’ll make you and Danton lunch.” I left Jack and trudged up to the house. Brick heard the word lunch and followed me. I swear that dog was multilingual. When Lizst’s assassin left, Danton joined me in the kitchen and helped prepare the salad. His next student was due in fifteen minutes and then Jack’s violin lesson was scheduled. While I did a hundred and one things, Danton sliced one cucumber and arranged it on a plate in perfect symmetry. “You’re such a perfectionist,” I said. I should have kept my mouth shut but I felt compelled to tell him about my conversation with Loretta in the hospital cafeteria. Her secret plans for grabbing the lion’s share of the property settlement bothered me. Female solidarity was fraying at the edges. “Eighty percent, is she for real? What blatant greed.” Worse than the greed was the negation of his role in bringing up the kids. Loretta was the new generation woman who wanted it all and viewed children as a hiccup in her career path. The pendulum of feminism had swung the full arc and men were often finding themselves on the receiving end. A taste of their own medicine. Brick’s throaty growl indicated that Danton’s next pupil had arrived early. Danton mumbled a string of curses and exited one door just as Jack appeared in another. The numbness in my jaw made the prospect of chewing unappealing. My back ached from sitting still so long in the dentist’s chair and carrying the heavy groceries. I sipped tea and alternated between sitting and standing, all the while watching Jack eat, tearing through his food in a race to get back to his studio. 138

He ate without looking up, preoccupied by his thoughts and I wondered if he was taking on too much — searching for his mother, fighting bureaucracy, finishing portrait commissions, preparing for an exhibition, facing a court case. “About the court case, I rang my father to see if he could use his influence to get hold of your medical records—” “Can’t we leave your damn family out of our affairs for once?” Jack snapped. His sudden change of mood startled me. “I thought it might help you.” “I don’t need their help. Gives them more reason for looking down their nose at me.” “Christ, Jack, you’re the one who told me I should make peace with my family. What happened to all that happy family stuff?” Jack stabbed at his salad. “Why won’t you let anyone help you?” I persevered. “I do let people help me, just not your family.” I sat down. “Why not?” “Because they’re slow-acting poison. One small foot in the door and they invade our lives, then they have the nerve to disguise it as altruism.” “You’re being paranoid.” I swallowed my annoyance. The argument would soon degenerate into the unresolved, seething resentments of old. “You always see the worst in people.” “And you keep avoiding the truth,” Jack said. “Ah, the truth.” He looked up. “You know what I’m talking about.” Jack was stirring up old history. He was angry with my family, mainly for the way they treated my brother and me. My father played power games with Jack and my stepmother shamelessly flirted with him. “Why don’t you just get over it and move on, Jack?” Jack looked up and glared at me. “Move on. I hate that 139

expression.” He launched into a political rave about the convenience of moving on, of giving offenders amnesty from the devastation they’d caused. You only had to look at Vietnam, Nagasaki, Bhopal and countless other regions plundered by militarily or corporate interests. “Moving on is something I’m not good at.” Jack shovelled in more food, fuelling his hatred of injustice. “People should clean up their messes before moving on. Including your manipulative stepmother. Once we confront her, then we’ll move on.” “She’s harmless, Jack. She’s just a mindless flirt.” “She’s worse than a flirt.” “Not that again. I can’t imagine my stepmother trying to seduce you in that way—” “Oh can’t you just?” “No, I can’t.” Jack looked up from his plate and fixed me with his grey sardonic stare. “ Doesn’t it happen in books? Is it so far fetched or beyond the small nucleus of your imagination that it couldn’t happen in real life?” “Stephanie isn’t the type.” I glared through my spectacles, wondering why Jack homed in ad nauseam on this one event. “She’s a sexual manipulator, Amy. She’s twenty years younger than your father and thinks she’s a sexy young chick who can get what she wants at anyone’s expense.” Jack’s voice was hard. “That’s her problem, not ours.” I knew that my stepmother was no raving feminist, just an insecure, middle-aged woman. Jack had it out of proportion. He’d turned an ancient petty incident into a melodrama, a psychological minefield of deeper significance than it actually was. Time and distance made me more forgiving but not Jack. “You’re still finding excuses for the woman who made your life hell,” he said. 140

The conversation ended abruptly when Danton’s son, Quentin strode into the house looking for his father. Jack glared at him but the boy didn’t notice. Kids never noticed much. They arrived and ensconced themselves into the scenery, rapt in their own agenda. “Hi guys.” Quentin was oblivious to the tension that chilled the room. He turned to Jack. “Found your mother yet?” “No. But thanks for asking.” Jack was curt. “Well consider yourself lucky,” Quentin said. “What’s new with you, Quentin?” I got up to make tea, glad of diversion. “Arguing with your mum again?” “When are we not arguing?” Loretta had been urging her son to study harder but Quentin claimed he was putting in as much brain power as the demands of his social diary would allow. His life revolved around girls and this looming matriculation exam was cramping his style. “I can’t wait for these exams to be over, then I’ll be finished with school forever. Yahoo.” “Good timing,” I said. “Any longer in school and your gonads will take your brain hostage.” “Mum says when the house is sold, I have to move out and live with dad and she won’t pay my allowance any more. How tragic is that?” “Sounds reasonable to me,” I said, refilling the teapot. “She’s been paying your allowance for seventeen years. She’s not a bottomless welfare service for your convenience.” “It’s not fair, but. Dad’s broke and mum’s on a good salary—” “There is a solution. It’s called work,” Danton said, limping into the kitchen at the tail end of the conversation. His son was on again about money. Like mother, like son. Loretta would be on a doctor’s salary one day and she’d still crave more. “You kids always envy the people who have more than you. You never consider yourselves luckier than the ones who have less, the other ninety-nine percent of the planet.” Danton grabbed a 141

bowl of salad. “At least you all own houses.” Quentin’s voice was petulant. “By the time I leave school houses will be unaffordable.” “It’s no use worrying about that now,” I said. “Jack and I bought this house in our thirties. You’re only seventeen.” Fighting against the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa had been the central focus of our lives back then, not the pursuit of wealth. That was today’s soulless obsession. “This house would be worth a mint.” Quentin eyed the original architectural features of our once stately home: wide verandas, high ceilings, ornate latticework and filigree, quaint shutters and louvres and bits of lead lighting above the doorways. Spacious, grandiose and shamefully crumbling with neglect. Quentin didn’t see the beauty of the architecture, the loving care of a bygone era or even the burden of home maintenance, he only saw its monetary value. He was all knowledge and jargon— brick and mortar assets, escalating house prices and capital gain. “You’re beginning to sound like an economist,” Jack said. “You could sell it and make a killing.” Quentin was hopping around the table. “Never have to work again.” “And live in a caravan? Or go west?” I said. Jack gave me a wan look. We used to joke about selling the house, cashing in on the capital gain and buying a cheaper house further west. By the time we bought and sold four or five times, we could retire with enormous wealth and live like kings in the middle of Birdsville. Quentin didn’t notice his father’s silence or Jack’s glare. He hovered over the table, picked at the food and kept talking about money; how much he expected to earn with his first job and how his parents should buy him a car for his eighteenth birthday like his friends. “I’ll help with a deposit for a car and a house, but you have to get a job and learn to save,” Danton said. “I’m not a walking 142

money dispenser.” “At least Roland doesn’t have any money problems.” Quentin threw this in as a challenge to his father. “He earns heaps on the horses.” “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Quentin, get a life,” Jack burst out. Quentin searched the room for moral support, scanned our faces and wondered what he’d said that was so offensive. Jack ignored his hurt look and latched onto the boy with his piercing eyes. He verbalised what we’d all been thinking but were too polite to say. “You kids, the way you eye off the family home like it’s your future inheritance, something you’ve earned just by existing, is appalling. We live here because it’s our home, not an asset or some lucrative investment—” “Yeah, but mum says a house is more than a home—” “Forget what your mother says, learn to think for yourself,” Danton snapped. “I do think for myself. I reckon you baby boomers are the cause of our problems.” Quentin plonked onto the lounge with a look of triumph. He launched into the latest media hype against free education introduced by Whitlam, the eighties real estate grab and the baby boomer-owned companies that now ruled the world. Jack leaned forward. “If you lot weren’t so materialistic, those companies would crash. Your ultimate power is to stop buying the crap that these companies produce.” He paused to let his words sink in. “Admit it, you kids love the crap. You’re just bitter because you haven’t got enough money to buy it all and buy it now and us baby boomers do.” “Well, some of us,” Danton mumbled. Quentin tried to argue his point but the moment words left his mouth and hovered in the air like flimsy tissue paper, Jack slashed them to pieces in a new wave of polemic. 143

“One day, oil will run out, economies will collapse and your generation will perish. You lot have such blind faith in this system of money and technology, you can’t conceive of life without cars, mobile phones, shops, take-away food, computers …” Jack waved his arms around to indicate the junk around us. “You’re shrugging, like I’m talking hypothetical crap, science fiction. Trust me, economic collapse is inevitable. The earth can’t sustain this endless rape and pillage in the name of economic growth. ” Quentin crossed his arms and hunched forward, closing in on himself, no longer taking up half the lounge in that casual expansive way that annoyed Jack. “So if everything collapsed, what would you do?” he asked. “I’d go bush and live on rabbits,” Jack replied. Quentin grimaced. “The baby boomer solution is eat rabbits?” “Yes, rabbits. They’re out there and they’re free.” Jack sighed. “Unlike you guys, us old hippies, us baby boomers, have experienced the simple life. And our parents lived through wars and a major depression. You kids don’t know what hardship is. That’s your trouble,” Jack added. Jack sounded like my grandfather. No doubt our parents also berated us baby boomers for being irresponsible, nonmaterialistic, drug-besotted and undisciplined. I began clearing dishes and piling them in the sink. “Tolerance isn’t one of your strong points, is it, Jack?” Danton commented quietly. He stood up and helped me clean up. Jack shrugged, moved to the couch and threw his long legs onto the coffee table. He was the armchair Ayatollah of the suburbs. Quentin would survive this onslaught. It saddened me that young people were so tuned into artificial entertainment, distanced from the breadth and depth of life, from face-to-face human interaction and from the delightful absurdities of the nonmaterial world. They were like moths, lured then blinded by the 144

surface glitter of material things. Danton stood up and suggested he and Quentin go next door and talk to Roland about cleaning his place up so Quentin could move in. “Yeah, good idea, dad.” Quentin leapt to his feet. He could outargue his mother any time but he felt bruised by Jack. “Mum said she doesn’t care if I move out.” “Really?” Danton stopped and stared at Quentin. “Maybe it’s time I moved out too.” Jack was silent. “After all, three’s a crowd.” “You don’t have to do that, Danton,” I called out from the sink. “There’s plenty of room for all of us in this house, isn’t there Jack?” Jack was tapping his foot and doing that horrible whistle thing, pretending he didn’t hear me. He was folding into that asylum in his head, blocking out the world. Life had changed for everyone since that boating accident. Our house had become a regular train station of piano students, kids, phones and doorbells. I liked it but I wasn’t so sure about Jack. Danton wavered like a refugee, a man exiled from his own land, caught between countries and a citizen of neither. Danton was about to lose his house and his son didn’t know it.

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18. Paul Gauguin: Vision After the Sermon Jack Best friend or not, I was glad when Danton moved next door with Roland. He’d disrupted our house long enough and his kids drove me crazy, the way they came and went, dragged their friends along and barged into my studio uninvited. It reminded me of the coup in Fiji when our tranquil holiday resort turned into a war zone. Uniformed men marched straight into our rooms and acted like they owned the place. The time was ripe for Danton to move on and this time I thought that expression was appropriate. They all acted like my anti-kid outburst was a knife in his back but he’d known me for years, he knew my opinions, he’d listened to my raves before. I was full of sound and fury that didn’t signify much other than my inner frustration with the stupidity of this planet. Trouble with me, I let things build up till they had no choice but to erupt every once in a while. In that way, I was a bit like a dog. If I didn’t bark once in a while, I’d explode. Anyway, Danton was only moving next door. He was homeless. As a sort of peace treaty, I followed them to Roland’s house and Danton appreciated the gesture. Roland chattered away in his hearty confident way and cheered Quentin up. Kids bounced back quickly. We walked from room to room dissecting the history of Roland’s overwhelming junk collection. “Bloody hell, Roland. Ever heard of vacuum cleaners and brooms?” I hadn’t been next door for months but it was obvious Roland had deteriorated. The kitchen was particularly disgusting so I was careful not to touch anything. I sure as hell didn’t want to end up in hospital with cholera. 146

“Phew, smells like a plague of rats died in here. Let’s get out, quick.” The kitchen would require extra elbow grease and a dose of napalm. The first bedroom was a wall-to-wall winery. Each carton of expensive wines represented a woman in his life, a source of erotic and hepatic nostalgia. They reminded me of the good old days when we used to play Canasta and drink gallons of Roland’s wines till the early hours of the morning. The second bedroom contained newspapers, magazines and every betting slip Roland had ever bought — horseracing paraphernalia since 1983, the year he perfected his betting system. Roland spent entire evenings feeding data into a computer. His computer gurgled, crunched and digested this information and several hours later, burped out dozens of trifecta combinations. One of them was usually a winner. The third bedroom contained the detritus of his life — damaged sporting goods from past obsessions, suitcases full of notes from university, motorbike gear, floor to ceiling piles of books and mountains of videos. Roland loved travel documentaries and wild life programs; it saved him the trouble of stepping outside. Quentin had enormous respect for Roland because the bastard knew how to make money. He also knew how to accumulate pathological amounts of garbage in the process. Cleaning up Roland’s house was going to be a mammoth job and we had no idea where to start. We men were experts at accumulating junk but not so clever at cleaning up. “I think we need the ruthless powers of a woman, those strange beings who loved to accumulate wildly but are equally skilled at discarding,” Danton suggested. “You mean those soft round creatures who love to rearrange our lives and redecorate our dog houses?” I asked. “Let’s get Amy to help,” suggested Quentin. “She can practise her psychology on you, Rols, analyse this mess as we go.” 147

Roland mimicked mock affront. “Bugger me bollocks, boy. That’s a dangerous thing you’re suggesting. That woman has theories that would rock the socks off Mister Freud.” “Theories on what?” asked Quentin, looking around for a vacant place to sit. The only space was the one lounge chair with the air rifle perched beside it, or the mattress in the hallway where Roland slept. “Everything, my boy.” He placed an avuncular arm around Quentin’s shoulder. Roland was right about Amy. She had theories on eating habits, diseases, bowels, the art of waiting, houses, renovating, everything. No wonder she wanted to be a psychologist, she couldn’t help herself. A man couldn’t even have a crap without Amy analysing how long he took, what magazine he read. She was a regular Mrs Portnoy in the toilet department. “Do you want to hear her theory about houses representing lovers?” I asked. “No, tell him her hair theories,” Roland said. Amy’s wild frizz was the scourge of her adolescence, an era when all her hippy friends had fashionably long straight hair. Consequently, she took a keen interest in hair and analysed her friends by their hairstyles. “Amy reckons menopausal women choose radical hairstyles to mark their hormonal upheavals. Isabelle’s a classic example, running to the hairdresser every six weeks for a radical fix.” “What about your hair?” Quentin asked. “My hair has no distinct style, it just sticks out in all directions. This supposedly reflects my inner turmoil and unfocussed energy. Spiky hairstyles say keep your distance, dude.” Quentin laughed and patted his cockatoo haircut. “Curly perms are a subconscious desire to swap husbands. A crew cut is a symbolic murder, the army’s way of preparing a person to kill.” 148

“That’s spot on,” Roland said. “Now, take a look at this. Here’s the problem room.” We stood at the threshold of the lounge room, eyed the amorphous piles of clutter and agreed that we should get Amy. The moment she walked into the house and saw the escalation of the junk index, stunned amazement plastered her face. Like me, she hadn’t been here for months. “Jesus, Mary and fucking Joseph,” she said. “What planet do you live on, Roland?” Roland looked sheepish and didn’t bother defending himself. We gazed around us, scratching our heads, agreeing that Amy would orchestrate and we would be her willing slaves. Under General Amy’s command, we disposed of enough newspapers and betting forms to fire up a pulp mill. This was an historical junk enema unseen since Roland’s wife disappeared. The comfort blanket was sliding from Roland’s life. Roland submitted to Amy’s ruthless extermination policy with a sense of loss and excitement. It was akin to exposing the bare flesh of a chin after being bearded for centuries. Roland was taking an existential swan dive onto planet normal. “This isn’t just hoarding.” I gasped for breath as I lugged boxes to the trailer. “This is chronic anal retention.” This community effort put us in a good mood. The puffing and panting of physical exercise and the smart arse jousting cleared the air. Quentin soon realised that this was going to be hard work and disappeared within the hour. “Kids, eh?” Danton was embarrassed. Amy tittered, groaned, clicked her tongue and shrieked at the uncovering of each new transgression. In one room, she found hundreds of old shoes heaped in a cobwebbed corner in states of decay, a hotbed of fungal life forms. “Are you related to Imelda Marcos or what?” “Don’t throw them all out, Amy, I’ll give a few to Brick.” By 149

now, everyone knew the dog’s predilection for foot accoutrements. Amy grinned. “He’s right into Feng Shoe-ey.” From beneath inches of dust, Amy uncovered his ex-wife’s pottery wheel and an old golf bag. “You certainly haven’t had a dull moment in your life,” she said, dragging a metal detector out from behind the door. Four trips to the dump, a bonfire and gallons of sweat completed the great purge. Within one afternoon, Amy had obliterated thirty years of hoarding. The place resembled a normal house instead of a psychotic bachelor’s pad. The good gear was destined for his shed. “A man’s shed is his own personal dog kennel, a room of his own where he can do what he likes.” Amy was all reverence for this sacred male zone. When the job was finished we felt spiritually cleansed. I sank into the newly visible lounge and a tribe of cockroaches scuttled for cover. A pest extermination was high priority. When Amy left, Danton, Roland and I wandered around, awed by the spaces that were once impermeable. Roland discovered some home brew and poured us all a glass. “You should have done this purge years ago,” I said. “Bugger me bollocks, there’s enough room for a sheila.” “Am I to assume that none of your wives and girlfriends were into hallway relationships?” Danton said. Roland was open to relationships in any room of the house but women were as fussy as cats. Creatures with such an evolved set of hidden rules and high standards should live apart. “I agree, Rols. Women should live in the house and men should live in the stable.” I belched. “That’s the only way to achieve a stable relationship.” Our present dilemma was which rooms to put Danton and Quentin now that Roland had reclaimed his house. “I suggest you dump the boy out bush on a cattle station and 150

make him work,” I said. Danton nodded. He was still disappointed in how quickly Quentin had fled. Roland crossed his meaty arms and grinned. “I hear you gave young Quentin a bit of a blast, Jack.” I shrugged it off. “Kids need smartening up. They’re getting soft and stupid.” “Are they ever!” Roland was irate about the huge numbers of pedestrian school crossings that forced him to slow to forty kilometres an hour. “What is it with kids? Are they too stupid to go up to the nearest intersection and cross the road like we used to?” “They’re a protected species. We’re mollycoddling them into a state of passive idiocy,” I said. “All this parental pampering and government legislation will render them too stupid to survive. What do you think Danton, you’re the one with kids?” “Don’t ask me. We’re not parents any more, we’re slaves. We cook, clean, chauffeur the kids around the countryside to all their various sporting events.” We swilled our beers and let out our grievances. We were on a roll and soon diversifying our whinge portfolio. “Packaging gives me the shits,” I said. “And those stupid warnings plastered over everything. Don’t stick your head in this plastic bag or you’ll suffocate. Like we’d drown in a bucket of water if they didn’t put a warning on it.” “Whatever happened to common sense and survival of the fittest?” Roland said. “Do you think the next generation of humans are smart enough to rule the planet without putting a plastic bag over their heads by accident?” I said. Like our parents or grandparents before us, the world had changed dramatically since we were kids, back in the Palaeolithic era. The exponential curve of change was peaking. I wondered if I’d ever find my parents, let alone my grandparents, so we could 151

compare our lives. “Just as well you didn’t have kids,” Danton said. “You two are ruthless.” “You’re right. I have no desire to produce a pampered brat who knows his rights but ignores his responsibilities.” The conversation travelled in endless loops — money, kids, economic rationalism, the growing gap between the rich and poor and then back to money. After two more beers, we stopped bad-mouthing kids and Danton confessed his woes. Newcastle University had accepted Loretta’s application to do the five-year Medical Degree, pending the success of one final interview. Good news for her but not Danton. In a few months time, the course would begin and her nursing income would stop pouring in. Piano teaching didn’t earn enough to make the mortgage repayments. “We have the house on the market but it’s not selling. Waterfront property and no one’s interested.” When we heard about Loretta’s plans for taking eighty percent of the sale we were outraged. Roland urged him to fight for his rightful share but Danton said lawyers were the ones who would end up with the rightful share. “You know what’s wrong with us?” I turned to Danton. “We lack the killer instinct for making money.” On the surface, Danton had done the right things. He’d bought a house with investment potential, a cosy cottage with old world charm in a great location. The new brick veneer housing estate nearby now depressed the value of his house. Divorce forced him to sell just as the housing market was slumping. “Loretta ignores the economy and blames me for not completing the renovations but we’ve already over-capitalised. Our insurance premiums and rates are huge.” “Sabotage the house sale till the market picks up,” I suggested. “Whatever you do, you can’t let her get it all,” Roland harped. 152

An idea suddenly hit me left field. The house was over-insured and that was perfect. Should the house accidentally burn down, they could collect the insurance money and Danton would have a better chance of getting fifty percent, before the lawyers and family court were called in. Roland slapped my back and told me I had a devious mind. Danton threw his hands in the air. “Oh, great idea, guys. Then I can look forward to my future holidays in jail. Any other brilliant ideas? Maybe while I’m at it, I could trash the old car and murder my wife.” “Geez, now you’re talking, boy,” Roland said. “Be realistic, guys. Think of something legal.” “Ah, legal shmegal. Everyone knows that legal methods don’t pay. I bet that taxi driver friend of yours would know how to do it.” Roland opened another beer. Lindsay was the perfect man for the job. He wasn’t just an exelectrician, he was a bent electrician, a strange breed of tradesmen who understood the power and potential of travelling electrons. “And no job is too big or too small.” Roland and I laughed at the quote from Lindsay’s business card. It started as a joke, turned into an option and from an option it fleshed out into a scheme. Against Danton’s half-hearted objections, a viable plan took shape. These were desperate times and his wife was about to fleece him. He was sick of being the sacrificial lamb. “Yeah, it’s about time I acted bold and stood up for my rights,” Danton declared then belched. “Right on,” Roland said, opening another beer for Danton. “Hell, we’re not hurting anyone except the insurance company and they’re all a bunch of thieves,” I added. Roland and I knotted out the details of the job. There wasn’t much time. The incineration had to happen the night Loretta went to Newcastle for her interview. That meant Quentin would have to 153

move into Roland’s house this weekend. We would think of some way to get his daughter Emily out of the house, a sleepover here with the dog, anything. It didn’t matter as long as the house was empty and everyone had an alibi. Lindsay could wire the house for fusion. He confessed that he’d done it before. The charming weatherboard house — original features, investment potential, spectacular views, neat-as-a-pin, a renovator’s delight — would become the charred remains of real estate hype, the ashes of Danton’s broken marriage. Four bottles of beer later, we sorted out the minor bugs and the plan took on a life of its own. Danton warmed to the idea and laughed at his own audacity. He would steel his performancejittered nerves for the aftermath of police questioning. “The kids are going to lose all their possessions,” Danton said. “Good, that’ll be their first Zen lesson in detachment from material things.” Danton nodded. “Yeah, maybe it’ll do them good.” We were totally convinced by our own rhetoric and by four bottles of home brew. Danton ran his hands through his hair, tapped his wooden leg and grinned. I could almost see the inner warrior hatching from that delicate shell. “Poverty and desperation breed crime.” I almost suggested we fine tune our plan with Amy but we didn’t get the opportunity till the ball was already rolling downhill with unstoppable velocity.

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19. Hans Heysen: Approaching Storm Jack Amy was unaware that tonight Lindsay would rewire the fuse box and turn Danton’s house into an inferno. I tagged along with Danton and Loretta to Brisbane Airport. Loretta was flying down to Newcastle for her last interview. We would drop her off then rush back to Danton’s house to collect some gear. We wished Loretta luck though I knew she already had it by the balls. That woman could charm her way out of a snake pit. This was her last chance to get into the Medical Faculty and being the Director of Nursing, she probably knew more than the average doctor already. Loretta was on the path to self-fulfilment and Danton wished her well, hoping this would allay her growing bitterness. She suffered from that same discontentment as the kids; comparing her life to those doing better. Danton had no envy. He considered himself lucky — a wooden leg was the legacy from his skirmish with cancer. We were fortunate not to be born into a war-torn country. If you weren’t a blackfella or a refugee, this was the lucky country. I wouldn’t call it the clever country, the compassionate country or even a halfway bright country, but certainly lucky in climate and geography. We wore our mediocrity like a badge of honour. Danton hugged Loretta with a mixture of compassion and guilt, knowing that the family house would soon be the charred remains of their past and that all of Loretta’s possessions would be destroyed. “What are you getting all sentimental about?” Loretta pulled away from Danton. “I’ll only be gone for two days.” The airport was crowded and we stayed till the plane took off, 155

not out of sentimentality, but just to make sure Loretta was up and away. As her plane soared into a brooding sky, Danton and I headed back to his house at Deception Bay to pick up Emily and the dog. His fifteen-year old daughter was nonchalantly packing her overnight bag when we turned up. Within minutes she was fighting off her father’s benevolence. “Dad, I don’t need all that gear,” Emily said, hands defiantly on her hips. “Well, possum, maybe you should bring a bit extra. Take some of your favourite clothes and books and—” “Geez, dad. It’s only for two nights.” “Well, you may want to stay longer, you never know.” Danton ignored her protests and packed all the spare suitcases with as many of her clothes and books as possible then quietly inspected the rest of the house. Objects took on greater significance when you were about to lose them. I could see Danton hovering over various possessions as though bidding them farewell. “You’re sure acting weird, dad,” Emily said. She was like a wise parent to her fussing old-fashioned father. I looked at her aristocratic profile; she’d make a great portrait. While Emily gathered her bags and rounded up the dog, Danton dumped extraneous household gear into the garden shed. Emily arched her eyebrows. “What are you doing, dad?” “I was thinking about painting the kitchen while your mother’s away, to surprise her.” Most of Danton’s possessions were at my house and Quentin had already moved in with Roland. The documents and valuables were in the fireproof safe and would survive the blaze. We thought it would look more authentic to leave them there. Before leaving, I removed the battery in the smoke detector and substituted a dead one. We didn’t want the neighbours woken up 156

by a screaming smoke detector and the fire brigade arriving too soon. “What’s with all the photo albums?” Emily said. Danton froze so I made some pathetic excuse about Amy and I wanting to look at the seventies photos. Danton drove haphazardly with shaky hands. I tried to engage him in normal conversation but he wasn’t concentrating. Suddenly the dog yelped out the window and Danton jumped in fright. “Watch it, dad. You almost ran off the road.” Emily grabbed the yappy little dog, Esmeralda and restrained her with calming strokes. As we drove the twelve kilometres from Deception Bay to our house in Scarborough, rain began to beat down on the windscreen. I hadn’t noticed the growing brood of clouds. We’d been far too absorbed with our plans. By the time we arrived, sheets of rain were pounding the earth into muddy lakes. Emily clutched her dog and ran. We left everything inside the car except Emily’s overnight bag and made a soggy dash for the house. Danton galloped in more slowly with his distinctive limp. The driving wind scooped up my golf umbrella and turned it inside out. The weather report was the only variable we hadn’t considered in our planning. “First rain of the season.” Amy handed us towels and gazed at the waterlogged gardens below. “Months of dry weather and now it’ll rain forever.” Danton rubbed his curly hair with the towel. We stood on the veranda, mesmerised by the sheets of rain hurtling into the garden like spears. Danton chewed his lip and kept glancing at Amy. “All right if Esmeralda goes inside?” Emily clutched the shivering spaniel and Brick whined in the background. He was ecstatic with Esmeralda’s presence, though the feeling wasn’t mutual. “Now Brick, be nice to her, you big lump.” Brick’s rules of life were simple, his actions transparent. Female dogs inspired a lust that knew no boundaries. He was a 157

dog accustomed to constant rejection. Fornication was lacking in Brick’s life, largely because I couldn’t find a suitable partner for him. Breeding kennels advertised for pedigree studs but once the prospective female dog caught sight of Brick, she retreated in horror. “An amorous romp with Brick is probably as enticing as a date with Mike Tyson,” Amy claimed. Brick fought all male dogs and had no idea why, it was just something hardwired into his alpha male make-up. Conversely, all humans were his gods, me being Zeus, supreme commander of all the deities. Brick had a soft spot for kids, harbingers of violence and mayhem, a great duet. For Brick, tonight’s gathering had all the ingredients of a package deal — a female dog, two kids and five adults. This extended family was bliss to a dog with such highly advanced social sensibilities. Brick pursued Esmeralda into the laundry, past the back rooms and down the stairs. Between the hallway and bedroom a large flash of white followed a diminutive flash of brown. Playful yelps interspersed with growling snaps were barely audible over the pounding rain on the corrugated iron roof. Beneath nature’s furious percussion we ignored the dogs and gathered for a late dinner. Roland and Quentin sprinted across in the rain with bottles of wine tucked under their arms. “What about the photo albums, dad? They’re still in the car.” Emily’s question temporarily stunned us and Danton squirmed in his seat. “Photos?” Amy looked perplexed. I jumped to the rescue. “Oh yeah. I asked Danton to bring over some of the old seventies photos, have a bit of a nostalgia session.” I turned to Emily. “We might as well leave them in the car. It’s too wet outside.” 158

Amy frowned. She hated when I got maudlin and wallowed in the seventies, the glorious days of my youth. After a late dinner, we four adults played Scrabble while Quentin and Emily watched a movie on television. Throughout the game Danton looked distracted, played badly and continually apologised for being so slow. Roland kept peering at the clock. I was a yo-yo, up and down, bringing continuous supplies of munchies. But popcorn, peanuts and corn chips failed to subdue our tension. Amy watched us with a look of acute wariness. “I’m not sure if it’s the weather.” She studied our faces. “But all you guys are acting real strange. Is there something I should know about?” After a half-hearted attempt at denial and normalcy, Danton cracked at midnight. When the movie ended and the kids fell asleep, Danton followed Amy into the kitchen and told her about our house insurance scam. Our plan would come alive at about two in the morning. Lindsay would sneak around the back of his empty house, rewire the electricity box in such a way that as soon as the off peak hot water service cut in, the fuse would short and cause an electrical fire. The pelting rain was now making us all nervous wrecks, wondering if the excessive moisture would destroy our plans. Amy listened, rolled her eyes, threw her hands in the air and burst out with choice expletives about our total stupidity. Not only stupid, but dangerous. She pressed her fingers to her forehead, deep in thought and we felt like a bunch of naughty kids. “You men are the rational sex and this is the best you can come up with?” I squirmed and fidgeted. In my present sober state the plan did look a bit naïve. “Firstly, it’s incredibly dangerous because you’re jeopardising your neighbours. Their house is fairly close to yours. Secondly, in terms of the law, it looks suspicious when a house that’s been up 159

for sale suddenly burns down. You guys are such idiots.” Danton nodded in agreement. He had tried to argue all these points with Roland and me but we had answers for all of his objections. “And thirdly, how well can you trust Lindsay? He could blackmail you later if circumstances changed. But even if he didn’t, he’s a bit of an old gossip. What if got hurt or arrested.” She turned to Danton. “Bloody hell, how could you let idiots like Jack and Roland railroad you into such a stupid plan? I assumed you had more common sense than them.” Danton looked down and fiddled with his prosthesis. “Look, Amy, I know you’re big on legal solutions but try and think laterally. People don’t always succeed by rational means. With corporations, it’s normal practice to—” “That’s all rationalisation, Jack. If everyone did what you’re doing, premiums would go up. So much for your working class solidarity.” “Crap. Whether I scam the system or not, premiums go up. Even when insurance companies boast record profits, premiums go up. When have you ever seen them go down?” Withering under Amy’s disapproval, Danton succumbed. “We should call the whole thing off.” He tried to phone Lindsay but his mobile was switched off. Other than driving over there in this storm, it was too late to stop the madness and all we could do now was wait — wait for the deed to be carried out, wait for the crucial phone call, wait for the aftermath, the verdict and the final death knoll. So that’s what we did. We sat and waited till a spear of lightning lit up our house, the waiting room of the world. The roar of thunder fractured our thoughts. “Don’t look now but I think it’s starting to hail,” Danton said as the pounding on the roof changed into the staccato of cracking bullets. Small hailstones splattered the veranda and pinged against 160

the windows for the next fifteen minutes. Amy suggested everyone stay the night. The cyclonic weather was capable of turning a twenty-metre dash next door into a disaster. Quentin and Emily were already asleep on the floor in front of the television, looking angelic in the eerie gamma flicker of the television. We were getting more anxious by the minute. Danton phoned again but the mobile was still dead. We squirmed and waited for the phone call that should come from Lindsay, the police, the fire department or the lunatic asylum. Danton sipped tea and pretended to read the weekend Courier Mail, his mind drifting off into flights of paranoia. He came out with strange forebodings then raved about Dostoyevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment, as though its full meaning suddenly struck him. “Crime might pay financially but it sure as hell drains you emotionally.” He popped another anti-acid tablet into his mouth. The churning guts of bad conscience or three kilos of popcorn and munchies? Amy stopped scowling and leapt into the discussion on crime in literature. She told us about sociopaths, those with no conscience, no guilt. That psychology course wasn’t totally useless. Rain eased off into a monotonous patter that eventually lulled us to sleep in the lounge room. Each time I awoke, there was gentle snoring and sighs throughout the room. Finally, a feeble light lit up Moreton Island in the early hours of the morning. The odd crow was gargling its morning strangulation song. Suddenly, the phone blasted into the core of my brain. This was the phone call we’d been waiting for. Everyone woke instantly. We stared at the phone in various states of sleepiness and paranoia. No one moved. Amy walked in buttoning her dressing gown and gave a short dismissive laugh at the sight of three panicking men. 161

20. Paul Cézanne: Suicide’s House Amy The phone was ringing monotonously. I wandered into the lounge room and beheld three shell-shocked and gaping men. I grabbed the phone, three pairs of eyes glued to me, ears listening to every word I uttered, waiting for news about the house fire. Their agitation was unbearable to watch but it served them right. Brick and Esmeralda, two frolicking bundles of dog fur, tumbled into the room, drooling and slurping, their tails swishing like pendulums, smiles plastered on their snouts. “Look at these two mischievous devils,” said Jack, relieved by the diversion. The phone glued to one ear, I covered the other ear with my hand and ignored the commotion in the lounge room. They were mucking about with the dogs, shooting intermittent anxious glances in my direction, wondering why I was taking so long, whether I was talking to the police. “And what have you been up to, Casanova?” said Jack rubbing Brick’s ears. “Showing your girlfriend the art of shoe rearrangement?” Emily woke up and gave Brick a disdainful shove. “All last night, he kept jumping on top of Ez and squashing her. He’s a big bully.” Jack laughed. “Come off it. He’s just a poor little Chihuahua trapped in a bull terrier’s body.” The laughter stopped abruptly when I put the phone down. It was impossible to talk with the kids around so I suggested they make pancakes. That catapulted them into the kitchen with the dogs trailing behind. The lounge room atmosphere was heavy with curiosity. “Who was on the phone?” Jack asked. 162

“Lindsay,” I said. Three frozen faces stared at me. “Enough of the suspense. What happened?” Jack’s voice was sharp. I waited a disrespectful amount of time, enjoying their angst. “He didn’t do it.” The room ebbed and flowed with waves of disappointment and relief. Danton threw himself onto the floor with a groan of relief, his arms and legs splayed out in abandonment. Silly men. All that planning and worrying for nothing, just the embarrassment of having chosen the worst night in human history to mix fire and water. “He was phoning from the hospital and he sounded like he was high on painkillers. Anyway, he had an accident, fractured his kneecap quite badly. He said he was sorry he didn’t get the job done but he’d help with the renovations some other time, when the weather was better and he said that he’d had one hell of a night.” “Bugger me bollocks.” Roland was standing at the window. “What a bloody mess out there. Come and have a look.” Lindsay’s kneecap wasn’t the only site of devastation. Across the road, a paperbark tree had fallen across the footpath and a branch of the mango tree had snapped off in the backyard and crushed the barbecue. The street was the site of an unseasonable recipe of shredded flora, diced branches and twisted sheets of corrugated iron roofing. The storm had hit the northern suburbs of Brisbane the hardest. This would have been the perfect night for a house fire after all. Such a disaster camouflaged amongst all the other disasters would have attracted minimum suspicion. The dampness of the morning crept up, yawned and smothered the men with guilt over Lindsay’s bad luck. After breakfast, curiosity won the battle with fatigue and they visited Lindsay in the orthopedic ward to get the unabridged version. Jack was nervous about returning to the hospital and 163

revisiting the scene of his battle with death. I stayed home and worked at my psychology assignment and when the men returned, the tale they related was one of a poorly plotted sit-com, not the daring act of arson they’d so carefully scripted. Despite the storm that had turned into a tempest, Lindsay drove to Danton’s empty house to fulfil the mission. With hail denting and pock marking the duco of Lindsay’s taxi, he bumbled stoically onward, hoping the furious hailstones wouldn’t smash the windscreen. He parked down the road from the house. His first mishap was stumbling in the boggy grass and breaking his torch. He was now forced to strike matches in the rain, a bit like trying to light a cigarette in a blizzard. Along the side of the house where the electricity box was hidden, planks of wood lay on the ground to cover the craters made by the dog. These half-rotten planks were now saturated and slippery with rain, the rest of the yard a mass of lakes and rivers. All the major and minor deities — the gods of wind, rain, hail, untimely breakages and all things slippery — had conspired against him. Between two and three in the morning, just when he thought he had everything under control and the gods had been appeased, the telephone rang inside the house. Lindsay was so startled, he dropped the pliers during a delicate wiring manoeuvre, lunged to retrieve them and lost his balance on the slippery boards. As he fell, his left knee landed on the pliers, smashing his kneecap. The most challenging ordeal of the evening was hopping back to the taxi to phone the ambulance amidst the foaming rapids gushing down the street. “Who the hell would have been ringing the house at three in the goddamn morning?” Danton said, wondering if it was Loretta or his mother. In her elderly decline, Valerie had a habit of phoning at any hour, usually at the onset of a panic attack. Lindsay had no idea except that this importune phone call had changed the quality of his retirement plans. He’d now be fishing 164

and golfing with a buggered knee as well as a gammy back. “If Lindsay had taken out a disability insurance policy instead of a taxi licence, he could have retired by now,” I said. Loretta returned from Newcastle beaming with happiness, totally unaware of the drama she’d left behind. She was buzzing and bragging about overcoming the final interview hurdle. The medical course would start in two months and she would find accommodation in Newcastle as soon as possible and score some part-time nursing work to tide her through. Danton shuffled about in the muddy aftermath of the storm using Loretta’s bout of good humour as an opportunity to negotiate a better separation deal. He urged her to hang onto the house, postpone selling till prices picked up. Loretta, still on a high, brushed it aside as inconsequential to the grander scheme of things and promised to give it some thought. Back at work, Loretta announced her news and handed in her resignation. Somewhere along the hospital grapevine, Loretta discovered that her mother-in-law had gone missing again. Hostel staff had discovered this in the early hours of the morning and hoped Valerie had taken shelter from the storm at Loretta’s house. So that was the phone call that knocked Lindsay off his perch. It was the worst night in history to torch a house and an even worse night for an elderly woman to go walkabout. The safety and rescue teams were busy repairing roofs, houses, fences, cutting away fallen trees, pulling ashore capsized boats, notifying the electricity company of fallen telegraph wires. What was one missing geriatric amidst this sea of chaos? Like thousands of other lost souls, police added Valerie Kozlowski to the list of missing persons. The disappearance of one shaky old lady was not high priority. His mother’s disappearance on the night of the storm was high priority to Danton. “If mum survives this ordeal and turns up 165

alive, I’m not sending her back to that hostel ever again. Bugger Loretta. No one should have to spend their old age isolated from their family. She can move into my home since the bloody place is still there.” The house was half his, unburnt and unsold. His mother might as well live with his family, or what was left of it, since Loretta was leaving anyway. “She’s suffered enough during the war at the hands of the Nazis. She doesn’t need to suffer because of Loretta’s fascist ideas as well.” “Good for you,” Roland applauded. In between my hospital commitments and assignments, I accompanied Danton in the search for his mother, checking the cafés in Fortitude Valley, the art galleries, bookstores, clubs and parks. He was glad of my company and I was glad of an excuse to get out of the house, away from my books. We put the insurance fiasco behind and didn’t mention it again. Jack returned to his art, newly inspired by the imagery of storms, disasters, nature’s fury and human drama, the raw fodder of art. Nothing was sacred to that man. As the art exhibition loomed closer, interruptions became more frequent and he had two paintings left to finish. He was busy at work when I walked into the studio. “I just found out that Esmeralda’s sick,” I said. Jack looked at me blankly. “Esmeralda?” He lurched around the room like Charles Laughton in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I sank into the chair and gave an update on the search for Valerie and news about Loretta and Esmeralda. The listless spaniel was limping, sleeping all day and disinterested in food. Loretta now accused Brick of grievous bodily harm. Jack’s eyes lit up as though suddenly remembering who Esmeralda was. He quickly exonerated Brick from blame. Brick heard his name, wagged his tail and accepted the attention with a 166

wide grin. Sometimes Brick stared at me with a knowing, almost evil look in his eyes and it scared me. I expressed my doubts about Brick’s sanity and the strange way he’d been acting these past few months. Jack assured me that insanity was the normal state of the bull terrier. “Yesterday, he bailed up the Jehovah Witnesses, trapped them between the front gate and the poinciana tree.” Jack brushed my concerns aside with a sweep of his hand. “They deserve it.” “You wouldn’t say that if it was a Greens candidate coming to the door.” “Do you remember that time I went to town to buy art supplies?” Jack reminded me of an incident five years ago. “You always wondered what the hell happened. I just disappeared.” Jack told me about his bout of depression, a state so unbearably painful that for the first time in his life he considered suicide by jumping off the Story Bridge. It was a dark and heavy era and our house was a morgue. Jack’s moody behaviour entrapped me in the web of his misery. I accused him of morbid self-indulgence and pounded at his barricades to let me in but Jack pushed me away. He disappeared for hours, days, weeks at a time, wandering the beaches of Redcliffe or up in the mountains of Maleny. Trapped and miserable, I buried my head in books. I had rediscovered the art of emotional unavailability, a strategy I perfected in my adolescence to use against my stepmother. “You know what stopped me killing myself?” Jack stared through the window at the broken branch of the mango tree. “The dog. Can you believe it? I worried about who would feed him and take him for walks.” I laughed. “This dog has saved your life a few times now.” Jack and I floated on a wave of good will, discussing the storms 167

and hiccups of our long marriage. As if by tacit agreement, neither of us mentioned Danton or Isabelle, the magnetic forces that were loosening our bond, pulling us apart. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him about Giovanni despite the fact he wore Giovanni’s shoes every day. That would devastate him. It was fortunate for me he couldn’t remember much about the night of the boating accident. The horrified look on his face, his tears as he stood there in those shoes, was still etched into my brain. “We had a couple of good years together, didn’t we?” Jack leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. “It’s a shame your family butted in so often in the early days. They always managed to upset our equilibrium, made us feel we weren’t doing well enough.” How conveniently we blamed all our discontents on my family. “Oh, that reminds me, Jack, dad and Stephanie have invited themselves to your art exhibition. And before you chuck a fit, I had nothing to do with it.” Jack’s face darkened. He pressed his lips together and remained silent. I hoped the passing years would have mellowed my parents’ animosity towards Jack and I took this impromptu visit as a positive sign that they were acknowledging his talent. My father was an avid art collector but more for investment than for aesthetic appreciation and Jack despised that.

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21. Edouard Manet: Déjeuner sur l’Herbe Amy Isabelle arrived with her van and transported Jack’s paintings to the gallery for his art exhibition. Six pairs of hands, dozens of opinions and unsolicited free advice accompanied the hanging and pricing of the paintings. The opening was tomorrow. My parents were about to arrive from Alice Springs and we were all edgy. Jack hid behind his blank easel with nothing left to paint, dreading the family reunion. I was dreading it even more, hoping this gathering wouldn’t deteriorate into a verbal boxing match. It would all depend on Jack’s mood and whether Stephanie was in her manic or depressive phase. Jack dragged himself back into the house, peered into the alcohol cupboard then slammed it shut again. I smelled the coffee aromas and relaxed. We heard the taxi door slam, the click of high heels and we braced ourselves. They marched confidently into our lives unaware of our trepidation. “Darlings.” Stephanie exuded a breathless sexiness as she kissed Jack on both cheeks and squeezed his arm. “You still haven’t lost your marvellous physique.” Her penchant for men with well-defined muscles was well known in the family circle and she had my poor dad working out in the gym, torturing his muscles to keep her happy. For a man almost seventy, he looked thinner and more fragile than normal. Stephanie stroked Jack’s tattooed arms. “You’re as sexy as always, Jack.” I smiled with my usual façade of tolerance but my face turned hot with the emotions I couldn’t control. There she was at her old tricks, homing in on the men first, winning them over, enslaving them to her charms. I took deep breaths, determined to remain 169

calm. Jack disengaged from Stephanie’s embrace and went straight up to my father to shake hands. Look the bull in the eye was Jack’s motto. He kept his gaze on my father, avoiding Stephanie’s surgically-enhanced face, ignoring the heavy make-up and tizzied blonde hair. He refused to be controlled and conquered by her charm. While Stephanie greeted everyone with kisses, hugs and exclamations, I spotted Danton’s curly head gliding around the veranda, edging his way in the background to retrieve some sheet music. Stephanie would adore Danton, fresh attractive prey. “Darling Danton,” Stephanie besieged him when introduced. “I’ve heard so much about you.” She laid her scarlet nails on his arm, smiled brightly and drew him into her web. Danton’s limping gait intrigued her and she forced him to relate the story of his cancer, the whole gory tale of the amputation and the leg prosthesis. Stephanie became breathless with excitement and launched into a self-promoting, name-dropping monologue about how she could supply him with the latest lightweight state-of-the-art prosthesis from Europe. “Will that be expensive?” Danton was curious against his will. “Oh, my darling boy, don’t worry your gorgeous little head about the cost,” Stephanie said graciously. Danton was interested but hesitant. He’d damaged the prosthetic leg during the boating accident and his limp was getting worse. He’d have to see a physiotherapist about his leg some time but he kept putting it off and now, as if by magic, here was a live physiotherapist offering her services for free. Her enthusiasm left no room for dissent and her zeal swept him off his feet and tossed him headfirst into dangerous territory. “Charles and I have medical contacts all over the world and it won’t cost you a cent, I promise.” Stephanie kissed him to finalise the transaction and Danton 170

was then able to escape, beholden and embarrassed at the same time. I’d warned him about her but like all flattered men, he didn’t have the strength of character to resist her domination. I was beginning to understand my stepmother’s modus operandi, how she swooped on her prey, never giving them time to think. Sensing her fragile ego, we always gave in to her demands. Stephanie followed us into the kitchen chattering away but never offering any help. She was accustomed to an entourage of housekeepers, cleaners and cooks. While Jack and I did our best to ignore her, Stephanie wandered around the house and filled the air with endless gossip. My father shuffled onto the veranda to read the Brisbane newspaper, ignoring his wife. Soon he would nod off like he always did and hopefully, Stephanie would also run out of steam. Unfortunately, their business class flight left Stephanie perky and refreshed. Out on the veranda, my father was blinking and yawning. Jack scrambled through the jungle into the backyard to repair the storm-damaged barbecue while I cleaned the outdoor table that was spattered with bat droppings and rotting debris from the mango tree. Brick, a party animal at heart, sensed the elevated activity and trotted around, supervising, running up and down the steps to check on everyone. From the veranda, Stephanie watched the activity below in our yard. Only the dog paid her much heed. She clip-clopped in her stilettos down the stairs and joined us. Her pursed lips and the tentative way she touched the utensils betrayed her distaste for our tacky outdoor setting. Before sitting, she dabbed the damp chair with her handkerchief and slapped at the mosquitoes. Likewise, my father, who was prone to digestion problems and infections, had doubts about the hygiene of our dishes and cutlery after discovering we didn’t own a dishwasher. Fear of sicknesses, especially dysentery and cholera, was another of his phobias but 171

he put on a brave face for the sake of peace. Twice he tripped over the dog on his way to the house. Our barbecue spread didn’t impress my father and stepmother but they remained tactful and reserved and I heaved a sigh of relief when lunch was over. Stephanie fussed over Danton, measuring his leg while we cleaned up. In the afternoon, while we all prepared for the exhibition over at Isabelle’s gallery, Stephanie and my father did their own thing— sightseeing at South Bank and shopping in town. Brisbane was a retail Mecca compared to Alice Springs and Stephanie loved a shopping pilgrimage. At dinner that evening, Stephanie took over the conversation and became the self-appointed expert on everything. She expressed her sycophantic opinions on Jack’s artistic talent, she was an expert on Danton’s prosthesis and all the prostheses of the world, and she advised me on how to improve my feminine image with the use of make-up and contact lenses. She declared that Alice Springs, and indeed the entire country, would be vastly improved if my father became the mayor. He was already an influential member of the hospital board and director of a few unethical companies. Wasn’t that enough for her? Everyone listened and laughed politely except Jack who was noticeably distant, his face grim, immune to the charm machine. By the end of lunch, Stephanie had managed to insult everyone and tripped over Brick three times. If only she’d sit still and stop rushing in and out to show us things, the atmosphere would have been calmer. “My god, this dog is such a nuisance,” squealed Stephanie, embarrassed by her public stumble. “Jack, my darling, please control your dog.” Jack stopped chewing momentarily. “What did he do that requires controlling?” “He tripped me,” said Stephanie with a hint of annoyance. 172

“Don’t pretend you didn’t notice.” “There’s two sides to every story,” said Jack flippantly. “From his point of view, you tripped over him.” “More salad anyone?” I interrupted. I knew Jack well enough to detect the early signs of trouble. “Plenty of chops on the barbecue if anyone wants more—” “I’m sorry, but am I missing something here?” Stephanie puffed out her cleavage. My father put his hand lightly on her arm, soothing the smouldering embers. Chewing stopped and everyone waited with suspended breath. “Ignore him Stephanie,” my father said quietly. “I will not ignore him, Charles. He’s making fun of me.” “Come, come, my dear. He’s just egging you on.” “Nothing of the sort,” Jack said. “I’m merely pointing out that Brick’s innocent till proven guilty. Ask any lawyer if I’m not right.” I deposited more chops onto plates and tried to change the subject. Danton watched Jack with fascination. “I think what Jack’s implying is that I talk too much,” Stephanie persisted. The air was thick with tension. “Is that right Jack?” I shot Jack a warning look. “Actually, Stephanie, I wasn’t implying that at all. But now that you’ve mentioned it, you do rabbit on a bit,” said Jack cheerfully. “What do you mean?” “We’ve spent a hell of a lot of this family get-together listening to your opinions. Maybe you need to relax, chill out, do a bit of listening instead of all the talking—” “You’re a rude and blunt chap,” my father cut in quickly before she could retaliate. Under his breath he hissed to me: “I knew it was a mistake to marry that man.” Jack raised his eyebrows. “Too late now, mate. Seems like I’ve already corrupted your daughter.” “Dad, Jack, please, don’t you two start on all that.” 173

My father ignored me and launched into a diatribe on Jack’s coarse character, his lousy earning ability, rough manner, unstable lifestyle, his churlishness and lack of refinement. It wasn’t called for but it was too late, the release valve had blown. “Dad, please,” I begged again, trying to stem the onslaught of insults. Every family reunion ended in acrimony and ulcers. “You’re over-reacting.” “I married Amy, not her family.” Jack bit into a charred lamb chop. He was enjoying himself. “As far as I’m concerned, you two are in no moral position to character-assassinate me.” “What the hell are you talking about?” my father thundered. “Crikey, do I have to spell it out?” “Jack, don’t.” I clutched the barbecue tongs, trying to silence him with a threatening gesture. Stephanie turned to Danton to recruit more allies. “See how obtuse he can be?” “I’m sorry, Stephanie, but I’m not sure if he’s being obtuse or not. Let’s hear what Jack has to say,” said Danton. Danton’s quiet words caused a sudden silence. Jack smiled at Danton and looked towards me for confirmation but I turned away. Family reunions made me feel like a child all over again, powerless and invisible. I might as well stop trying to prevent the inevitable eruption and let nature take its course, as Jack would say. “Charles, you’ve spent the last ten minutes criticising me for ignoring my responsibilities towards your daughter. Looking at your track record, I find this laughable, nay hypocritical even. You ignored your kids during your first marriage and then you dumped them completely when you dived headfirst into your second marriage. You remarried before your first wife was even buried, before your kids had time to grieve or adjust.” Stephanie gasped and Jack turned to her. “And stop acting so offended, Stephanie. You’ve been so busy playing the femme fatale 174

that you seem to forget you had the responsibility of bringing up two teenagers. Playing Lady Muck is all right by me but child neglect is unforgivable.” “This is outrageous.” My father stormed to his feet. “Can’t you see what sort of person he is—?” “Sit down, dad,” I snapped. “Jack’s right. It’s about time you faced the truth.” My father glared. “Truth be damned. This is slanderous, inflammatory nonsense.” “No, it’s not, dad.” I looked down at my plate, gathering courage. “You’ve just been lucky enough to bury your head in the sand. We haven’t had that luxury.” Stephanie tried to pull my father away and make a dignified exit but curiosity overtook his anger. “What are you talking about?” he asked. I rarely spoke out. “Jack and I were glad to leave Alice Springs because everyone in town knew about Stephanie and all the men she played around with. You asked Jack to run your property and he would have loved to do it but she drove us away.” Stephanie let out a sharp gasp and glared at me so I let it all out. Memories of those dismal days washed over me like a wave and dumped me on the shores of this unexpected confession. After the death of my mother, Stephanie moved into our home like a whirlwind. She flaunted her adoration for my brother, a vulnerable and impressionable adolescent. I was a large ungainly girl with no charm or feminine wiles and she despised me. Years later when I brought Jack home to meet my folks, Stephanie gushed all over Jack, making me feel like a gawky novice who had landed Jack in a lucky break. A man had finally fallen in love with me despite my shortcomings. I put a possessive arm around Jack and he squeezed my hand in solidarity. 175

“Mere flirtation. You kids are making a mountain out of a molehill.” My father tossed his serviette onto the table. “I never realised how jealous you kids were when I remarried. I honestly thought you and Troy had more maturity—” “Was it mere flirtation when Stephanie crawled into bed with Jack after his back injury?” I said, staring at Stephanie. “Oh come on, Stephanie. Did you think he wouldn’t tell me?” Jack shot me a look of respect. Together, we’d faced the monster. I turned to my father. “And was it mere flirtation when your new wife made a pass at Troy, while he was still at school? For years I thought he’d imagined it but now I know he wasn’t lying.” Troy was my brother, the one who quickly left home as soon as he finished school. Stephanie was freaking him out while my father was trying to push him into medicine. Stephanie stood up to leave but my father was clutching her hand. “Jack was the first boyfriend I ever had that Stephanie failed to seduce, though by God she tried,” I said, charged up. “Christ dad, your new, sweet, innocent, flirty wife took away ninety percent of my boyfriends just for the hell of it, just to show what a gorgeous hunk of womanhood she was in her thirties and what a clumsy, ugly duckling her young stepdaughter was.” “Jealous nonsense.” Stephanie pulled her arm away and turned to Jack. “Look what you’ve started. Heaven help your real mother should you ever find her, Jack.” With these parting words she ran into the house sobbing, leaving my father sitting in stunned silence, wondering whether he’d witnessed some surreal dramatic farce or a nightmare. As usual, my father found someone to blame. “Now I can see why Jack keeps getting arrested.” My father’s voice was loaded with disdain and he dealt us each a withering glance. Gathering the remaining shreds of his dignity, he hurled his chair back and stormed into the house. 176

The dramatic departure left behind an uncomfortable silence. Brick whimpered. He hated to see a party end. “Do you think we were a bit hard on them?” My heart was chugging like a steam train, driven by guilt and elation. “We were absolutely brutal.” Jack put a comforting arm around me, pleased with the showdown. “But we had to do it sooner or later.” “You were damn good,” enthused Danton. “Real family dynamics, straight out of a textbook. I feel like I’ve been watching a movie …dysfunctional family sits around great Aussie barbie, under tropical mango tree, abusing the crap out of each other.” Jack roared with nervous laughter. Still upset, I disengaged myself and started cleaning up. “I don’t think you should have dived in for the kill like that, Jack.” “I couldn’t help it. Your father spent ten minutes undermining my good character and besides, you didn’t do so badly yourself.” Jack joined me as I gathered dirty dishes. “I thought Jack was pretty restrained,” Danton said. “He missed his calling as a family counsellor.” “That was confrontational therapy, not counselling,” I said. “By the way, does this mean I won’t be getting my new lightweight, super-duper, European leg?” asked Danton in mock despair. “Don’t worry. I’ll guilt trip her into it.” I was determined to railroad Stephanie into keeping her promise. We’d gone to a lot of trouble measuring the leg, making casts of the stump and taking photographs to ensure a good fit. I was about to make coffee when Brick suddenly leapt onto the table and spun around barking and chasing his tail, trying to revitalise the party. “I’m convinced this dog’s mad.” Danton stood well back. He didn’t trust Brick and for once, he sympathised with Stephanie’s fear of the dog. 177

Brick had been showing signs of madness for months, since the boating accident. “We should have him checked out, Jack. He’s weird. You don’t see the half of it, stuck in your studio.” Jack lifted Brick off the table onto his lap. “He’s no madder than your family, Amy.” “That’s what I’m worried about.” Stephanie and my father packed their bags and moved to a motel. They were determined to attend the exhibition tomorrow but no longer felt comfortable in our house, not with my maniac of a husband around. They blamed Jack for the change in my behaviour. My dad would probably fret for a few hours, have an attack of heartburn and then his normal arrogance would reassert itself. That’s how he coped. Stephanie would self-medicate with large doses of retail therapy and bounce back to show us that we couldn’t harm her with our accusations. She’d throw the blame on us. We stepchildren were obviously jealous of her style and personality, jealous of our father’s relationship with her. If we couldn’t tell the difference between affection and seduction, that was our problem, not hers. Jack and I felt unburdened. We’d aired our grievances and let them know our thoughts. It was all about confession and catharsis, spiritual cleansing. I looked at Jack caressing the dog. “Are you sure you want to find your family, Jack?” “You bet,” Jack said. Ironically, it was Jack who told me that people fail to learn from the mistakes of history.

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22. Vincent Van Gogh: Vase With Sunflowers Jack On the morning of my art exhibition opening, it dawned on me that nothing in my life had ever run smoothly. If Isabelle hadn’t shaved my hair off, I would have pulled it out by now. Despite my attempts to emulate the elitism of the art world in all its sophisticated glory, a sense of foreboding crept into my feet and worked its way up to the dome of my prickly scalp. Yet the afternoon began without drama. Isabelle had contacted several critics, even written her own press releases and reviews. She took no chances with media apathy. She hailed me as the Van Gogh of Redcliffe and the media did the same. The portrait section, which we called Vermeer’s Chair, was the highlight. Journalists described it as an eccentric breath of fresh air, a welcome relief from the sophisticated pedantry of art tradition. Sounded good to me. While patrons guzzled wine and munched on hors d’oeuvres, Danton and I played his musical composition. I’d practised ad nauseam till it seeped from my pores. My simple violin score set a haunting backdrop to Danton’s intricate piano melody. Everyone stopped, mesmerised, enchanted. The musical interlude added an ambience of high culture to the atmosphere and had the critics scurrying for their notebooks. Some compared Danton’s work to the famous composer, Eric Satie. “I think that is Eric Satie,” someone whispered. Flamboyant critics descended into metaphor and blathered on about the marriage between art and music. Art collectors and investors had no idea that the violinist was also the artist so Isabelle made a point of dropping this piece of information into their laps. At the far end of the gallery past the thirty paintings, a raised 179

platform displayed my one still life. Loretta’s fur coat draped around my Vermeer’s Chair in the manner of a languid woman. I never did get around to giving that coat back. Beside the chair was a table with a wineglass on its side and a Chardonnay bottle with a huge sunflower poking out and leaning like a drunken sentinel. The sunflower was blatant but the wineglass on its side was a personal salute to the end of my alcoholic days. “Love the symbolism,” said Danton. “Unmistakeably Van Gogh. Very apt since you’re beginning to look like Van Gogh’s demented brother” “Must be the hair,” I said, patting the spikes of regrowth lunging outwards like medieval jousting sticks. The critics were amazed by my mastery of styles from traditional Dutch realism to impressionist French. I even dabbled in the surreal and abstract. It was difficult to categorise my work into safe compartments and tear it apart without criticising the entire history of art. Jack McPhee’s work can only be categorised by his skilful eclecticism and lack of predictability, one critic wrote. Roland and Danton sipped the cheap flagon Chardonnay that we’d transferred to expensive bottles and admired my version of The Scream. Painted in the style of Edvard Munch, it depicted a man drowning, his hair swirling upward as he sank. Beside the canvas Isabelle had written a short explanation of the painting’s origin — the boating accident and my near-death experience. Another wall displayed paintings of an English bull terrier doing a French cancan in the poster style of a Toulouse-Lautrec, the same bold line work and vibrant colours. We expected these to entertain rather than sell. Jack’s faithful dog features in a humorous anthropomorphic mockery, a critic had written. Beside the dancing dog satire, we’d hung another painting of a bull terrier sprawled out on a chaise longue like a woman of leisure. Ornamental drapery and cushions 180

elegantly nestled around the reclining dog, mockingly Matisse, nudishly Modigliani. Jack McPhee has an irreverent penchant for taking the micky out of the serious art masters. As the gallery bulged with patrons, Amy served more cheap wine in the expensive bottles, loosening the inhibitions of art collectors. Isabelle tinkled around the gallery with her dangling earrings, jangling bracelets and pink and blue streaked mane. “Love your hair, Isabelle,” I commented as she whizzed past. “Thanks.” Isabelle radiated enthusiasm and the pungent scent of sandalwood. She wore a bright red dress to remain as visible and accessible as the sun. The hair would have sufficed. The majority of patrons wore slinky black dresses or dark suits with designer ties, hair slicked down with gel or expertly tortured into neatly coiffures. They held their wine glasses just so, with the genteel erection of the little finger. Raised eyebrows and pinched nostrils indicated a cultivated distaste for art but a sharp nose for investment. Amy’s father and stepmother hobnobbed amongst the beautiful people. Stephanie flirted outrageously in her low-cut cocktail dress, thrusting forward her ample cleavage where modest cleavages feared to tread. Men adored her flattery. Their faces twisted into sleazy leers, annoying their smiling wives. Amy’s father was suitably polite to me, disassociated himself from Stephanie and pretended to study the paintings that roared at him from the walls. He bought a two thousand dollar painting at the instigation of some weird Canadian friend of Isabelle, a woman who she often invited to her exhibitions. “That Canadian woman knows as much about art as a bull terrier knows about quadratic equations,” I whispered to Isabelle. “I know.” Isabelle smiled at passing patrons. “She’s an actress and she’s not Canadian, she bungs that on too. We lived in a share house together back in the seventies. Shut up and keep 181

circulating.” Among the art elite was a crowd of locals, gawking at my paintings and shamelessly indulging in free wine. They knew the paintings were the work of that man who rollerbladed around the beach with a bull terrier tied to a walking frame. Their curiosity brimmed as high as their wine glasses. “Half the Scarborough Pub is here,” Amy said with a frown. “It’s gratifying to see how art appreciation is stimulated by free grog.” “They probably have more natural artistic appreciation than those anally retentive city connoisseurs,” I replied. I sidled up to Isabelle’s pseudo-Canadian friend who was pretending to be a high flyer in the Canadian art scene. It was the sort of crazy stuff Isabelle would do. The woman’s strong Canadian accent and articulate banter had one critic intrigued. “Oh absolutely,” shouted the ersatz Canadian woman, mixing the vernacular of the posh and the street. “This exhibition is not only important, it’s absolutely essential. Canadians would claw at the walls and beat up their grandmothers to get to this exhibition. These paintings would be snapped up in a split second, they’re so funky.” The critic looked impressed by the woman’s confidence, his head bobbing up and down in agreement. He queried the two thousand dollar plus price tags, outrageous by Australian standards, especially for an unknown artist. The pricing was also Isabelle’s idea. “Oh my God! You guys are quibbling about two thousand dollars?” She now did a superb imitation of outrage. “For a Jack McPhee, that’s an absolute steal. In Canada, they simply adore Jack. They can’t get enough of him. In the Canadian art world, this man has superstar status. Art groupies would rip his clothes off and sell his jocks for nothing less than ten thousand dollars if we were mad enough to let Jack loose on the public.” 182

The art critic gaped. No one had any idea that I was known in art circles outside the Redcliffe Peninsula, let alone beyond Australian shores. The Canadian woman assured him that my shameful anonymity in Australia was no reflection of my popularity in Canada and she was presently negotiating an exhibition in Vancouver to satisfy my fans and investors. A man could easily get swollen-headed with that sort of hype. No wonder film stars were such egomaniacs. Thanks to the Canadian woman, a favourable review of the art exhibition appeared in the mid-week paper and rave reviews in Saturday’s Courier Mail. They hailed me as the next Brett Whitely, with the heavy influence of French impressionism. Someone wrote that my art was a haiku of the entire art world, which Amy found amusing, being a great lover of haiku poetry. She stuffed the article into her scrapbook next to the clipping Bull Terrier Wins Bravery Award. Isabelle, a splash of red clinking gracefully under the weight of her jewellery and sequins, stepped onto the platform and hushed the crowd. I held my breath, remembering the last time I’d seen Isabelle on stage, bursting with mad songs of the seventies. “I now want to introduce Jack McPhee who has agreed to make a short speech.” Isabelle smiled at the sea of inebriated faces and black designer outfits. I gathered my stray thoughts as I stepped up on the stage, gave a nervous cough and looked at the expectant faces. “If I lived in Holland, I’d be a comfortable man. Art is respected and appreciated by the government and the people of Holland. Art is not appreciated in Australia. Consequently, I’m a pauper. Talented artists in this country starve while small-minded accountants thrive. Like most countries in the world, we’re too caught up in the relentless drive for money. Unrestrained globalisation has resulted in the death of individuality and the homogenisation of culture. As a consequence of economic 183

rationalism, this beautiful planet has become one giant corporation where art can never thrive. However, deep down in our collective psyches, artists, musicians and writers all over the world are resisting the cancerous infiltration of a Big Mac culture.” Isabelle rolled her eyes to indicate that I was jumping onto my high horse and galloping off on tangents. Such polemic might antagonise the sensitivities of the art set. I caught her eye and nodded. “But getting back to art, let me conclude that what is not sold here today and in the next three weeks will be sold at my exhibition in Canada where my art is very popular.” The Canadian actress beamed, all horse teeth and cunning. A gaunt man with drooping shoulders asked if I intended to enter one of my portraits in this year’s Archibald Prize. The Archibald. There it was again, stalking me. “Yes, I’ll be entering this year’s Archibald.” My words startled me. Now there was no turning back. “Your portrait of that bald woman is exquisite.” The gaunt man rubbed his hands together with a writhing motion. After my speech the gaunt man scuttled up to Isabelle and offered eight thousand dollars for the portrait. Isabelle said the offer was too good to refuse. His calculating eyes now rested on my Vermeer’s chair, possibly an antique of great value. The painting sales accelerated. Perhaps it was mention of the Archibald or else, in a perverse way, no one wanted the Canadians to acquire an Australian Jack McPhee without a fight. Inadvertently, I had appealed to the competitive instincts of human nature. “What was the catalyst that set you on the path to becoming an artist?” asked one critic. I thrust my arms forward and displayed my tattoos. “I had these done in Alice Springs.” I tipped my forearms to display the sunflowers and floral designs on one arm and the stylised violinist 184

on the other. “I ended up with hepatitis from infected needles and met my wife-to-be in hospital. As crass as they are, it dragged me into the world of art, not to mention matrimony.” “And have you had any formal training?” “In matrimony, no. In art, yes. I suffered through almost two years of art school and discovered I was allergic to academia. The art galleries in Europe and experience taught me the important things. First, I imitated the great artists then I branched out on my own.” The critics soon left me alone. I was talking to the horsy Canadian actress when I spotted Charles and Stephanie approaching. The few hairs that were on my head prickled. I tried to shrink behind the woman to avoid Amy’s parents. Why spoil my sense of wellbeing with another family altercation? There was plenty of time for that later, like the rest of my life. Amy saw my attempt at invisibility and waylaid her father and stepmother while I sneaked off. Isabelle mingled with the crowd, knowing exactly when to deliver her propaganda and how to lubricate those rusty conversations about investment. “Buying a painting is more than an investment, it’s maintaining a stake in Australia’s heritage and standing up for individuality in the face of mass production.” Isabelle’s theory of selling was to make the customer believe she was bestowing the honour of allowing them to buy a painting. A woman with plastic-looking hair was staring in front of the eight thousand dollar portrait. Where had I seen those high cheekbones and grey eyes? The synapses in my brain went through their usual acrobatic routine. She turned her head, our eyes locked and recognition struck. The bald woman in the painting and the woman facing me were one and the same. She ruffled her hair and smiled, her way of telling me that she was wearing a wig. “You!” I was almost speechless. “You really did visit me in 185

hospital. It wasn’t a dream.” She spoke with a deep raspy voice that I remembered from my hospital delirium. A rush of memories and painful emotions overwhelmed me. “And if you don’t mind me saying, you are looking more like Vincent Van Gogh than Van Gogh himself,” the woman said. “What happened to your long red hair?” I rubbed the red spikes sprouting from my skull and explained how I came to shave my head. The woman laughed and said she was glad I hadn’t joined the growing band of chemotherapy zombies like herself. She touched her wig. “I used to have red hair like yours.” I searched her face for clues. “You said I would find my mother.” “I’m sorry about that. In hospital, you were delirious and I thought you’d mistaken me for your mother,” the woman said. “I was just trying to pacify you. Tell you what you wanted to hear.” My shoulders slumped yet part of me didn’t believe her. Somewhere in the crowd I heard Isabelle’s booming laughter and Stephanie’s flirtatious giggle. A woman in a black cocktail dress teetered over, pressed her nose an inch away from the canvas in a myopic haze as though searching for a missing contact lens. Danton suggested we do another musical duet since the crowds had grown. I agreed and turned around to ask the bald woman’s name but she’d already disappeared into the crowd. I would find her later. A muscular olive-skinned man with pitch-black hair swept back in Elvis Presley style, plonked himself in front of us as we performed our duet. His black eyes were mesmerised by my feet and he continued staring long after the applause subsided. “My name is Giovanni and you’re wearing my shoes.” No introduction or conversational foreplay. What a freak. 186

I looked down at my beautiful Italian shoes. “They’re not your shoes, pal so bugger off.” “They’re my shoes and I want them back.” Giovanni’s voice was louder and more petulant. “What would your shoes be doing on my feet?” I challenged naïvely. Giovanni smiled, his legs wide apart and arms akimbo, determined to break through my obtuseness. “I left them at your house the night I slept with your wife.” A giant hush rippled outwards. My wan superior smile dissolved. That vague disturbing memory obliterated on the night of the boating accident was now re-emerging. The truth was pounding on the doors of my consciousness. I swallowed hard and tested my suspicions. “Why would my wife sleep with a young pup like you?” “Because I’m twenty years younger than you,” Giovanni said, puffing his chest out. “And a better fuck—” “And a bigger goddamn liar.” I clenched my fists and felt the blind heat of rage burning in my head. “If you don’t believe me, ask Amy. While you were out the whole night fishing with your mates, I was fucking with your wife and she loved it—” Giovanni never finished. I stepped off the platform and punched him in the nose. He stumbled and fell backwards. A buzz of excitement exploded. Critics scribbled furiously into their notebooks. Locals clapped. Genteel folk tut-tutted their opinions into wineglasses. No one was sure if this was street theatre, Dada art or reality. Isabelle grabbed a handful of serviettes and pressed them over the young man’s bleeding nose. Amy’s father looked down his own hooked aristocratic nose and suggested we apply ice and remove the bleeding man from the public eye. With a sneer in my direction, he strode off. 187

Amy glared at me. “For Christ’s sake, Jack, can’t you learn to use your head instead of your fists—?” “I did, I punched him in the head—” “You’re a bloody idiot,” she hissed, trying to control her voice. “We have a court case coming up next month because of your foul temper. Why do you always have to ruin everything?” I suddenly felt unburdened. Confronting Amy’s infidelity had liberated me from some hazy, unsettling memory. Violence felt good. Bugger all this psychotherapy and counselling shit, just hit your problems over the head with an umbrella or punch them in the nose. I puffed out my chest. “This idiot was defending your honour—” “Who gives a rat’s arse about my honour?” Amy said. “He’ll probably charge you with assault. Jesus fucking Christ, are all men this thick?” “Of course we are.” I pulled my shoulders back. “That’s our charm. I don’t know what you saw in that clown anyway. Danton’s a better option than that plastic muscle man—” “Mind your own goddamn business,” Amy snapped. “And leave Danton out of this.” “Oh, aren’t we touchy. I bet you think you’ll be happy with Danton because he’s the caring and sensitive type.” I sneered, succumbing to the urge to burst her smug serenity. Danton’s gutlessness would drive her nuts within months. I laughed at the disparity between my Amazonian wife and frail, limping Danton. “You’ll make mincemeat of him, my darling, just like your family has made mincemeat of you.” We were alone in a corner and I was perched on the moral high ground, revelling in the new balance of power. I ridiculed her frivolous world of romance. “Come on Jack, Danton’s just a friend.” Amy looked over her shoulder. “Anyway, I don’t feel guilty. You shut me out five years 188

ago so what did I have to lose?” “Me,” I called ominously as she stomped off. My moral high ground crumbled. She was right. I had built a wall around myself and pushed her away, straight into the arms of lovers. Isabelle arrived at the tail end of my marital spat to find me rubbing my sore fist. I explained what had happened with Giovanni. Isabelle raised her eyebrows and whistled. “The ice queen isn’t as icy as I thought.” The exhibition was panning out to be pure vaudeville. The critics were thrusting their pens into great wallops of hot gossip about the volatile artist slugging his wife’s lover. It was all delicious scandal that Isabelle couldn’t have staged better had she planned it. I sat down abruptly in a wave of dizziness, apologising to Isabelle for the commotion. Isabelle shrugged, taking the universe into her stride. “There’s nothing better for publicity than a bit of scandal, Jacko. I love it.” “And I love you,” I said. The words slipped out. Isabelle pretended she hadn’t heard and nodded at a patron who had caught her eye. “Back in a tick, Jacko. Opportunity knocks. I’ve got to do some wheeling and dealing over with that moustache in the far corner. See that guy over there?” “He’s a doctor.” I watched Isabelle sidle up to the moustache and wondered how I knew that. An image of Swan Lake flitted through my mind for no apparent reason. I rubbed my fist, still recovering. How quickly I’d descended from the cerebral world of art to the physical world of not-sosecret men’s business. I sat, dazed by feelings of liberation and loss, startled by my confession to Isabelle and exhausted from all this socialising. Danton noticed me sitting alone and sat beside me in companionable silence. Giovanni’s revelation must have shocked him as much as me. I stared at my shoes, their origin revealed at last. I remembered 189

discovering them beside my bed, the dead cat on the lounge room floor and a feeling of desolation. Then I’d woken up in hospital a century later, old memories replaced with images of my mother and a bald woman. “Listen, when you saw me in hospital after the boating accident, do you remember a bald lady visiting me there?” “A bald lady? I don’t recall, man.” “Damn. Where’s Amy?” I craned my neck and searched for my wife among the black taffeta crowds of heaving cleavages and bow ties. “I think she’s getting Lindsay to drive home that guy you punched out,” said Danton. “I’ve never seen you so, uh, so physical before. Where did you learn to fight like that?” “It’s all bluff.” In childhood, my fists were the first line of defence against unbearable emotions. In adulthood, I learnt to transfer those emotions into art and everyone compared me to Van Gogh. He must have been one angry dude. My relapse today wasn’t surprising. Sometimes fists spoke a thousand words.

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23. Francisco Goya: The Madhouse Amy After the exhibition I fled the house to avoid Jack. Danton resumed his search for Valerie who was still missing. I joined him. We found his mother’s address book at the hostel, phoned all her friends but got no leads to her whereabouts. The police said they were monitoring the situation which meant they were doing nothing. As usual Danton feared the worst. Our Sunday Italian class helped him forget his woes and allowed me to continue avoiding Jack. The Italian language was slowly coming back, dredged up from my murky ancestry. Danton was practically fluent, Italian being the language of opera and music. The Giovanni revelation posed a new barrier between us and prevented me from telling him about our winning entry in the Farilla Pasta competition. Danton was an old-fashioned sort of guy who probably disapproved of marital infidelity. We pretended nothing had happened and the tension eased off. Thanks to the financial success of Jack’s art exhibition, we were able to make some mortgage repayments and get the Peugeot repaired. The rattling exhaust was hanging by a wire, the radiator leaked and the brakes were spongy. The dings and rust would have to wait. On our return from class, we had barely stepped inside when Lindsay’s taxi pulled up. Jack and Isabelle burst forth, chattering and beaming and reeking of smoke, the latter being Lindsay’s legacy. I brushed aside that niggling annoyance that the sight of Jack and Isabelle together provoked and wondered if Jack felt the same, seeing me with Danton. His angry words during the art exhibition indicated that he still had the capacity for jealousy. To Jack’s 191

credit, he didn’t mention Giovanni’s shoes or my affair again but he was acting different, more light-hearted and carefree as though some burden had been lifted. I was feeling lousier. Brick was out the back slumbering in Jack’s studio. The sound of his master’s voice sent him galloping up to the house where he broke into a frenzied greeting. He charged around the house barking, leaping up onto the kitchen table, chasing his tail, smashing the fruit bowl, sending dishes flying. Our yelling protests dropped him to the floor where he knocked Isabelle over and crashed into Danton. He then tossed shoes about, hurled books, leapt onto Jack’s lap and smothered him with boisterous hysteria. Jack agreed that Brick’s reaction was more than peculiar, it bordered on demented. We treated Danton and Isabelle’s wounds and calmed the dog. We needed a sedative after this impromptu dog cabaret. “There’s a local woman, an animal psychologist, who advertises in the Redcliffe newspaper,” I said. “We should take Brick to see her, find out what’s wrong with him.” “No way,” Jack said. “Why not?” “Because I don’t trust psychologists. They all seem quite mad to me, the blind leading the blind.” I recoiled from the sting of Jack’s loaded statement. Jack never lost any opportunity to hurl abuse at the psychology profession and pride now forced him to veto my suggestion and downgrade Brick’s behaviour to mere nuisance. “Amy’s right, you know. You can’t have a mad dog running around the place.” Isabelle rubbed her bruised arm. “It’s dangerous.” Jack pushed the dog off his lap. “I’ll make coffee.” “Jesus, Jack, it’s not like I’m suggesting a lobotomy,” I called after him. Danton caressed the dog despite being knocked over half a 192

dozen times by the beast and losing a few pairs of shoes. “He’s a loveable rogue. It’d be a shame to have him put down for attacking someone.” “Hopefully, it won’t come to that,” I said. “It’d be nice if Brick’s started hunting cats again. Then Roland would stop shooting off that infernal air rifle every night.” Brick grinned and basked in glory as his name was bantered around the room. He then rolled onto his back and fell asleep with his legs straight up in the air, his rigor mortis pose. From the bowels of the house wafted the strains of a violin, squeaking out a unique rendition of Schubert’s Serenade. I recognised Jack’s playing. I sighed. No wonder the dog was mad — look at his role model. Jack needed a psychologist more than the dog but all hell would break loose if I suggested that. I decided to ignore Jack and bring the dog to that Redcliffe psychologist myself just to satisfy my own curiosity, dispel that niggling fear that the dog had a screw loose. There was no doubt that Brick was getting odder every month. As a nurse I’d seen the result of animals that had gone mad and attacked their owners, mauled kids and turned savage for no reason. Brick opened one eye and gave me a look that sent a chill down my spine. Sometimes I wondered if Brick could read our minds. The way he’d tripped Stephanie at that barbecue seemed less like coincidence and more like a planned act of sabotage. As if Jack had trained him for this mission. I made the appointment but Jack refused to come and Danton was too busy with his piano students. “I’ll go with you. Could be a real hoot,” Isabelle said. The woman psychologist watched Brick sniffing about her messy office. Objects, clothing and toys scattered about the floor. Her bifocals slid along her nose whenever she looked down and when 193

she looked up, her mouth made an upside-down U-shape like some posh aristocrat or snobby academic. A large pointy chin dominated her small face and pointed outwards like an accusation. I wondered if we’d done the right thing in bringing Brick to an animal psychologist. Maybe Jack’s mistrust was well founded. “Dogs are a reflection of our inner self. They fill the gaps in our personality. Dog is God spelt backwards. Dogs are our god-nature. Our Zen nature. They are like children. They live for the now, for the present. What’s his name?” I repeated the dog’s name for the third time. “Brick, eh? Solid name. If your dog could talk, what do you think he’d say?” The woman thrust her chin forward like a schoolmistress. I winced at the verbal assault of her staccato speech. “Pat me. Feed me. Love me. Walk me.” I adopted the same abrupt manner. “Is that all?” She stared at the dog. The dog stared back. “Fuck me,” said Isabelle. I suppressed my laughter. The woman raised her eyebrows. “And who are you?” Isabelle stooped to pat Brick. “I’m a friend of the dog and his owners.” “Please don’t pat the dog while he’s in therapy.” “Sorry.” Isabelle snatched her hand back. “Let me explain something. Dogs are haiku humans. All raw instinct and transparent motive. Where our sense of smell and hearing has deteriorated, the dog has filled the gap. We humans rely on visual acuity even if that sense has failed some of us.” She directed her last remark to me as I cleaned my glasses. “A dog relies on his nose and ears. What happened to his ears?” I explained how Brick’s floppy cauliflower ears were once upright and majestic, before his years of battle with feral cats. The woman nodded and rubbed her sharp expanse of chin. “Which member of the family is he closest to?” she asked. 194

“Probably my husband, Jack.” “Does he spend much time with the dog?” “Plenty. Jack works from home. He’s an artist. The dog spends all day with him.” “An artist, eh? A dog looks up at the world. To him, people look like a William Dobell painting. You would be familiar with his work, no doubt. His people have large bodies and small heads. Feet play a huge part in a dog’s life. He can tell by what shoes you are wearing as to what you will do, how you will act, what impact it will have on his life. A shoe fetish is an important sign of anxiety.” Isabelle and I exchanged meaningful looks. “Have there been any new shoes in your house lately?” “Well, yes. As a matter of fact, there have been.” My heart lurched. Was this woman clairvoyant? “Get rid of these shoes,” said the woman. “That will help balance the disharmony.” Jack had become very attached to Giovanni’s shoes, so attached that he broke the guy’s nose. Jack and his bloody feet. Nothing could justify throwing out the most comfortable shoes my foothandicapped husband had ever worn, all because it upset the dog’s chakras. Now some zany psychologist linked those ill-fated shoes to a deranged dog. Life was panning out to be stranger than fiction. “I’ll get rid of the shoes.” I lied through my teeth. The woman flashed a lopsided smile as though she’d heard this thought. Without warning the woman crawled on the floor like a dog, startling Brick. He watched warily then joined her in a sniffing marathon. Isabelle and I squirmed in our seats and gave each other looks that said who’s madder, the psychologist or the dog? “His curiosity is flat.” The woman challenged me with her stare. “You’re a well-read woman, I can tell. A dog is also an avid reader only he reads through his nose. Olfactory experience stimulates his imagination. Every scent tells a story, replete with plot and 195

characters.” “I believe he’s a great admirer of Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woof.” I should have kept my big mouth shut. A silence descended, the cluttered office pulsed with tension. The psychologist gave me a wry look. I asked meekly, “Do you think he’s sick or neurotic or shows signs of dementia?” The psychologist closed her eyes and smiled like I was the sick neurotic one, not the dog. “People look at animals as extensions of themselves. They project difficult-to-express feelings onto their dogs.” She opened her eyes and stabbed me with her stare. “Or in Hemingway’s case, onto the bull or the great fish.” Her eyes closed again. “And so they unwittingly modify the dog’s mind to their own vanities and insecurities. If he’s sick or neurotic it’s because we are sick and neurotic.” I nodded and vowed to keep my mouth shut. As far as I was concerned, the whole world was sick and neurotic. I erroneously thought that animals were exempt. “I knew a man who rubbed leather conditioner onto his cows to make them waterproof,” said Isabelle. “Now that’s sick.” I smiled at Isabelle, allies in a weird melodrama. I suddenly felt a rush of warmth for this strange little woman, Jack’s new friend. The animal behaviourist ignored this anecdote and turned her gaze to Brick. With chin jutting forward, she watched Brick amble around the room. Ears pulled back, he wagged his tail rapidly or tucked it between his legs. She tapped a tuning fork to see if he responded to middle C but Brick looked up with a poker face, wondering why everyone was acting so weird. The guitar pitch pipe assaulted his ears next and he howled like a werewolf. “Does he respond differently to various forms of music?” asked the woman. “Not that I’ve noticed. Have you, Isabelle?” Isabelle shook her head. I suddenly felt mischievous. “He could quite possibly be into 196

shoe music. You know, Schumann and Schubert.” Isabelle’s laugh boomed out unrestrained and startled the psychologist who twisted her mouth and scribbled something in her notebook. We fell silent again and watched Brick who sat and stared at a wall covered in diplomas and degrees as though he was doubting the psychologist’s credentials. God knows, I was. Brick soon lost interest in human foibles and dragged a stuffed teddy bear across the room. He sat in a corner, closed one eye and pretended to sleep, his head resting on the bear. The woman watched, nodded and scribbled more stuff into a notebook. “So, what do you think?” I asked after a five minutes of her scratching pen. “Firstly, I think your dog is going to be a father. See how he’s protecting the stuffed toys? But more importantly, I suspect your husband is drifting away, maybe he’s having an affair or is about to go on a long trip.” She slapped her pen down with finality. “The dog’s loyalties are divided. He’ll have his own family of pups to contend with and he’s trying to keep your family intact at the same time.” Isabelle’s eyes bulged and my jaw dropped. “How did you conclude that?” I asked. “Feet,” said the woman enigmatically tapping her nose. “His interest in certain items. Patterns. Pitch. A relationship that an owner has with its dog is reflected in the dog’s behaviour, is it not?” Isabelle and I nodded. “But the relationship between the owners conversely refracts a dog’s behaviour.” “So what are you saying?” I was bamboozled by all this reflection and refraction. Sounded like a physics lecture. “Judging by your reaction to my last statement, I’d guess that your marriage is on the rocks. One way or another, neither of you is faithful to the other in spirit or in body. It doesn’t surprise me that your dog is grieving,” said the woman conclusively. “Ask this lady with the pink hair if I am not correct.” 197

Isabelle jumped. This woman wasn’t an animal psychologist, she was a damn witch. “Marriage breakdown is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s almost inevitable, a natural process of attrition. But a dog loves its master and its mistress in different ways. He finds it just as difficult to accept separation and divorce as a child does. Rearranging his owner’s possessions is an attempt to achieve commonality, cohesion, mend the broken pieces.” “Hmm. Well, let’s not beat around the bush,” I said. “What should we do about it?” The woman appreciated my no-nonsense approach. She leaned back, pressed her fingertips together then reeled off a list of recommendations that would help the dog adapt. “I can tell he’s an indoor dog. Put him outside for a few months. Let him rediscover new boundaries and gather his wits. Give him his own space to come to terms with his dog nature. Let him rediscover that he’s a dog and not a four-legged human. Don’t pat him so often. Be a bit more remote so that he doesn’t get so caught up in human affairs and let him concentrate on his own problems.” “How will we know if it’s working?” Isabelle asked. “Once he chases cats from your yard, you’ll know he’s cured.” “He’s going to howl for days,” I said. “Normally he sleeps on the bed with Jack.” “Definitely out. Feed him different meals every day. Break up his old patterns and let him develop new ones.” The woman flicked her notebook, trying to find Isabelle’s name. “You with the pink hair. Take the dog for walks and let him know you’re part of the family now.” The recommendations were practical. We thanked her for a most unusual encounter, paid the fee and left, dazed by the experience and relieved to escape. We drove in silence. Brick curled up on the back seat and 198

yelped himself into dreamland. He had a lot of data to process. I broke the silence, asking Isabelle the question that was hovering in the air. “Are you and Jack lovers?” Isabelle talked rapidly then blurted out, “I’m very fond of Jack. I love his wildness, energy and courage and I adore his artwork.” I was none the wiser. I drove too fast over a speed hump, jammed on the brakes and made a poor job of negotiating a tricky roundabout. Isabelle grabbed the dashboard as the car swung round. My driving was unusually erratic. “What about you, Amy? What’s happening with you and Jack?” Isabelle was discreet enough not to mention Giovanni. “We’ve been together for twenty years, Isabelle.” I was purposely vague. I didn’t tell her about wanting a divorce or how hard it was to switch off a lifetime habit of concern for a man that was driving me nuts. “I know you think I’m the ice queen but you have to realise that while I was working my guts out in hospitals, treating people with serious life and death problems, Jack was obsessing over integrity and authenticity and what I considered self-indulgent arty nonsense. It hardly made me sympathetic.” Brick awoke, poked his snout out the window and growled as the car slowed down to a halt. A long queue of cars sat idling at a pedestrian crossing. Women transporting their children home from school, waited impatiently. “What the hell is happening over there?” I threw open the door and stood up to get a better view. A couple of teenage boys were riding their bicycles back and forth at the crossing, purposely holding up the flow of traffic. No one was bold enough to chase the boys away. One woman honked her horn and the boys swore, spat and made rude gestures at her. “The nerve of those cheeky little bastards.” I rummaged around for my mobile phone to call the police. Isabelle flung off her seatbelt. “Don’t waste your time, we’ll 199

chase those fucking hoodlums off the road ourselves.” Fired up by injustice, Isabelle, all five foot of her, stormed towards the youths. I slipped the leash over Brick’s head and marched up to the crossing to give Isabelle backup support. In her booming voice, Isabelle issued the boys one warning to get off the road to which they responded with foul language and lewd gestures. Their behaviour astounded me but Isabelle was immovable. Round and round they bicycled, laughing and jeering at her. Wasting no time in debate, Isabelle pushed the most obnoxious boy off his bike with a mighty shove. The ringleader landed on his backside with a look of astonishment and humiliation. His mouth was open, watching her lift his bicycle into the air and hurl it into the gutter. I couldn’t believe her strength. Nor could the boy. By now, Brick was snarling and straining at the leash and Isabelle was yelling abuse and hurling bikes. Both Isabelle and the dog were so ferocious that they paralysed the boys with terror. Humiliation and fear sent the boys scuttling to the adjoining park, dragging their crumpled bikes. The women in the cars cheered and honked their horns in solidarity at this moral thrashing, this rage against the bullies. Back in the car, we sat for a few minutes, laughing, breathless with exertion. “For a small person, you’re pretty fearless, Isabelle.” “It’s half bluff. Sometimes you just have to forget your size and age and stand up for your rights.” I started the car. “You and Jack have a lot in common.” We continued the journey home without further incident, chattering to each other with a new sense of mutual respect. By the time we pulled up at the gallery, I’d warmed towards Isabelle. She was more up front and honest than Loretta ever was. A strange sisterly bond was forming, starting from the karaoke night, the art exhibition, this visit to the mad animal psychologist and now the pedestrian crossing incident. 200

Jack was the glue that linked our friendship. “Does Jack ever tell you what he wants?” I asked. “I assume he wants what every artist wants.” Isabelle looked away. “And what’s that?” She hesitated. “Passion, either in his relationship or in his work. Both if you’re lucky. But without it, we artists die.” “Passion?” The central theme of literature, music and art. “But the fire of passion lasts a few years and leaves thirty years of ashes.” “Who cares,” Isabelle said. “If a few years of intense passion settles into a mellow lingering love, that’s fine by me. Hell, we’re only on the planet for a short time. It’s better to experience the agony and ecstasy of the highs than to erect the Great Wall of China just to avoid the lows.” Isabelle wasn’t as thick as she looked. She had a good rational mind and more importantly, she was streetwise and bold. Hopefully these qualities would help Jack win the court case that was looming.

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24. Honoré Daumier: Three Lawyers in Conversation Jack On the day of the court trial, I travelled to hell and back with nervous digestion, a relapse of my hepatitis symptoms, insomnia and depression. My intestinal output was Olympian. Luckily Isabelle had done a bit of snooping and research into the procedural aspects of court cases. Criminal law was a challenge to her and a pain in the guts for me. This was my fourth or fifth confrontation with the law. “You should have married a lawyer, not a nurse,” Isabelle quipped. Isabelle lay the ground rules of my strategy — evoke sympathy with the magistrate and wherever possible cast doubt on police tactics. Everyone, including magistrates, knew that police used undue force, it was their Achilles heel, a small anatomical window of opportunity just waiting for an unguarded moment when the little guy would shoot the arrow. I nodded, clutched my stomach and rushed off to attack the toilet for the sixth time that hour then returned. “Do you think we have enough evidence?” “We don’t need evidence. We need doubt. They’re attacking; we’re defending.” Isabelle kept her voice even while I tapped my foot furiously. For once, she was the calm one and I was the nervous wreck. She’d drummed into me that our aim was to find flaws in police testimony, just the pettiest contradiction over some minor point that would enable us to pounce. I kept nodding and listening. It seemed so straightforward. Innocence wasn’t the issue, it was who could find an inconsistency in the opponent’s testimony and who would make the first mistake and allow the opposition to rush in for the kill. By the seventh visit to the toilet my nervous evacuation was 202

complete. I was now T.S. Eliot’s hollow man, stuck in the wastelands of pre-trial anxiety. All this from a harmless walk on the beach with my dog. “The best part of you is in the sewers of Brisbane.” Amy kissed me and wished us luck. “I’ll be there soon.” Isabelle was dressed conservatively in a suit. A tasteful hat in the royal tradition covered her multi-coloured hair and she wore none of her hippy jewellery or wild make-up. The local op shop had transformed this bikie chick into a respectable businesswoman, certainly not the sort of virago who would leap up on a stage and sing Hair. The prosecutor called his first witness. The older policeman who had arrested me took the stand. In a monotone voice he rattled off a story about how I was on rollerblades with my dog and we were speeding along a pedestrian pathway when we knocked an elderly woman off her walking frame then abused her. When the police arrived on the scene, the dog was attacking the woman and a crowd had gathered. Subsequently, I had used abusive language, assaulted a policeman and resisted arrest. Again, at the police station, I had used obscene language and continued to obstruct the police by refusing to be breathalysed for alcohol content. There were murmurs and pen-scratchings by the magistrate and the court clerk before I was invited to cross-examine the arresting officer. Legal jargon flew about the courtroom and mumbles of your worship and your honour punctuated the many interruptions to pacify the big sour-faced magistrate. I stood up and cleared my throat, hands shaking as I clutched my list of questions. “You have told the court what you think happened before you arrived on the scene. Did you see with your own eyes the defendant, that is myself, physically assaulting the woman?” My voice was husky. Isabelle had coached me to act confident even if I 203

didn’t feel it, to avoid appearing submissive and to emphasise my key words. “Eye-witnesses reported seeing the assault,” replied the policeman, without blinking. “So you yourself didn’t see any signs of physical assault,” I reiterated, tugging on the sleeves of my borrowed suit. “No.” “I see. Could you describe the scene when you actually arrived.” I was gaining confidence. The prosecutor had not interjected for over a minute. The policeman described me swearing on the ground, the woman yelling and shaking her umbrella, the dog snarling and growling, the walking frame capsized and a crowd of people watching the scene. “Doesn’t it seem odd to you that the person charged with assault was actually on the ground? That’s rather an unusual place for an attacker.” I waited for a reply but was met with silence. “And isn’t it equally odd that the person who was allegedly assaulted was standing upright waving an umbrella?” The prosecutor objected and requested that the question be ignored since he had based his assertion on the old woman’s statement. I approached the magistrate and declared that the old woman’s statement wasn’t valid evidence. It was mere opinion and it clashed with mine. Besides she had also refused to testify. I wouldn’t have been arrested in the first place if the police had understood the true nature of the event. Contrary to police conjecture, the woman was actually assaulting me. The magistrate overruled the prosecutor and ordered the policeman to answer. “The defendant was on rollerblades when he ran into the woman and he fell in the process,” answered the policeman. “And knocked over her walking frame—” “Ah yes. The walking frame.” I cut in before the policeman could elaborate. “Would it surprise you to learn that the walking 204

frame belonged to me, the defendant?” “I find that hard to believe.” The policeman smiled evoking a titter of laughter. “The defendant was rushing along the footpath on rollerblades.” I requested permission to show to the policeman Amy’s letter, her requisition of the walking frame from the hospital plus a photo of the adjustments I’d made to it. He then handed the letter to the magistrate. “Furthermore, having shown that the walking frame belonged to me, the defendant, how do you explain my dog being tied to it?” I played my winning trump card. “It wasn’t,” said the policeman. “The dog was unrestrained and out of control.” My heart skipped a beat and I caught my breath. Despite the blatant lie, I regained my calm and carried on my questioning as Isabelle had advised. “Did you at any stage ask the defendant why he was on the ground?” I asked. “Yes, I did,” said the policeman smugly. “He said he had crashed into the woman and fallen over.” Now I was astonished. The overt lies were beginning to throw me off course. Police testimony made the truth look like a fairy tale but I knew that I had to persevere and look for cracks. “That’s interesting because I have no recollection of saying that. Isn’t it also possible that the woman assaulted me with her umbrella and that’s the reason I fell over?” I tried to keep my wording neutral so as not to ask leading questions and give the prosecutor the satisfaction of interjecting. “It’s possible, but highly unlikely.” The policeman chuckled. “She’s in her eighties and you’re a lot younger.” I felt my spirits sink. “So you agree that it is possible.” Even though I’d made him confess, it was unconvincing. I looked at the list of questions Isabelle had drawn up and moved 205

on. “Did the woman have any cuts or bruises and was there any blood at the site of the alleged attack?” “None that I’m aware of,” said the policeman. “So there was no need to call an ambulance or take the alleged assaulted woman in for observation?” I was careful with my words, keeping one eye on the prosecutor. The policeman admitted that the woman seemed fine. “If a fighting dog like a bull terrier had attacked the woman, or a man on rollerblades had crashed into her, wouldn’t you have expected at least some signs of bruising or blood?” I asked. The police prosecutor intervened and I began a new line of questioning. “When you decided to arrest me, can you describe what the onlookers were doing?” “They were loud and disorderly,” said the policeman. “Just like the defendant—” “Please just answer my questions. In regard to the onlookers, could you describe the scene in more detail?” I paced the floor to stifle a sudden urge to punch him . “Over the noise of the defendant yelling and his dog barking and growling, there was a lot of shouting and screaming. Some of the crowd appeared drunk and acting a nuisance—” “Ah, yes. Were those nuisances the so-called eyewitnesses you mentioned earlier? The ones who allegedly saw me assault the woman—?” The prosecutor objected to the inference and I revised my question. “Did the reaction of the onlookers irritate you in any way or make you angry?” With a sinking heart, I worked methodically through Isabelle’s list but felt I was getting nowhere. The policeman acceded that the crowd was obnoxious but that police were trained to handle these situations in a calm and responsible manner. 206

“Is it possible that in the chaos of the moment — the crowd yelling and booing, the woman urging you to arrest me, the dog barking and snarling, the defendant calling you a fascist pig — is it possible that all this was enough to annoy you to the point where you overstepped the boundaries of correct police protocol?” The police prosecutor objected to the use of conjecture and leading the witness and I was forced to reword my question. “We acted properly and correctly.” The policeman crossed his arms and leaned back, smug as anything. I stood like a piece of concrete in the centre of the court room, occasionally walking up close and eyeballing the witness. With a growing sense of doom, I continued asking questions that I hoped would throw doubt on the actions of the police. I even queried police protocol in holding me for eight hours without a lawyer or a phone call. I emphasised the inconsistency of failing to breathalyse both parties. When I exhausted my list of questions, I sat down and the police prosecutor re-examined the arresting officer. He concluded that the police had not used undue force and had acted correctly and properly. By the time he finished, the police looked like bornagain philanthropic social workers. It was now the prosecution’s turn to cross-examine me. The police prosecutor walked jauntily up to the witness box with the confidence of a man who had done this thousands of times before. He leaned menacingly on the stand and mentioned my past two arrests but I quickly turned towards the magistrate as Isabelle had coached me. “Your worship, I object to this line of questioning. It is irrelevant to this case and could unfairly jeopardise my defence.” The magistrate agreed that the prosecution should drop this line of questioning. I breathed a sigh of relief and remained vigilant. The prosecutor repeated questions ad nauseam to trick me into contradicting myself but I remained cool. Isabelle had warned me 207

that no matter how stupid or despicable the question, I should always remain unruffled and to object if the question was too farfetched. “So, after you ran into the woman, did you purposely let go of your dog?” asked the prosecutor. Despite the rapid thumping of my heartbeat, I forced myself to slow down, breath deeply and answer carefully. “Well firstly, I didn’t run into the woman—” I began. “Just answer yes or no,” snapped the prosecutor. I ignored the interjection and continued calmly, fidgeting with my coat sleeves. “After the woman knocked me over, I accidentally lost hold of the walking frame. But my dog was still tied to it.” The questions continued in frustrating loops until the magistrate called for a short recess. I breathed a sigh of relief and Isabelle gave me a hug. We sat outside on the court steps and Amy joined us with a welcome thermos of coffee. “How’s it going?” she asked eagerly. “I’m doing abysmally,” I moaned, clutching the coffee. “Not entirely.” Isabelle looked optimistic. “We’re not doing brilliantly but we can still turn this case around. That police prosecutor is a bit put out because you didn’t lose your cool. He thought this case would be a pushover but you’re holding your own, Jack. Don’t forget, when it’s your turn to call witnesses, that’s when you get your evidence presented — my statement and the photos of your bruises …” While Isabelle explained points of protocol, a woman approached us on the courthouse steps. I looked up and jumped. It was no other than the mystery lady, the bald woman in a wig, popping up again at another crisis point in my life. “I want you to call me to the stand as a witness,” the woman blurted out. We huddled on the steps, mugs suspended halfway to our lips. “I saw the entire incident from my balcony and I’d like to help.” She handed me her statement, the one she’d written on the 208

day of my arrest. I read it aloud and Isabelle was both dumbfounded and elated. Of course I’d present this evidence; this was the miracle witness that every defendant dreamt about. We only had enough time to scribble her name and check her statement again. The finer details of this woman would have to wait till after the trial. Before heading back inside, the woman took me aside and gave me a word of advice. She told me I was innocent and must lighten up, treat it all like a Shakespearean farce, no more significant than a cast of actors strutting around the stage. Shrouded in a renewed cloak of confidence, I called Isabelle to the stand where she testified as to my physical condition when I was released from police custody. Her photographs showed the bruising on my hip and torso where the policeman had kicked me, the swelling on my bald head where the woman had hit me with her umbrella and bruising on my upper arms where I had been dragged to the paddy wagon. Isabelle declared that the photographs were a true and accurate representation of my condition and taken from her camera. The prosecutor walked up to the witness box and smiled at Isabelle Fernandez, art gallery owner of Scarborough. “Do you always have your camera loaded and ready to go?” “Yes. Always,” said Isabelle without any hesitation. “I’m an artist, a sculptor and a photographer.” That ruffled him. “According to the date on these photographs, you took them on the same day as the defendant’s arrest. Is that correct?” “Yes it is,” said Isabelle. “He was locked up for eight hours and I took them that very same evening after he was released.” “Are you trying to tell me that in this short time, the defendant already had bruises? Are you aware that bruises take twenty-four hours to appear?” The prosecutor smiled. “Not with Jack’s skin they don’t. You just have to look at him too hard and he bruises,” Isabelle said. “His hepatitis gave him a 209

platelet deficiency. It’s called thrombocytopenia and it means he bruises real quick.” “Ah, yes, but couldn’t the bruises have been caused by his fall?” The prosecutor eye-balled Isabelle to freak her out. “Not unless he fell onto someone’s foot three times, then landed on his head,” said Isabelle, meeting his gaze with total confidence. Titters of laughter came from the sidelines. “The bruises on his hip are the size and shape of a shoe. Quite a coincidence isn’t it?” “Just answer yes or no, Ms Fernandez.” After presenting the photos, I strutted back to centre stage and called my last witness, the bald lady with the wig. Mrs Rachel Gibson swore on the bible then sat down and composed herself, her eyes twinkling encouragement. “Mrs Gibson, could you tell the court, in your own words, what you saw from the balcony of your home unit?” I began to enjoy myself. I was Perry Mason, homing in for the kill. Rachel Gibson told the court where she lived and what she saw, which confirmed my testimony. When I asked how she remembered it all so clearly she waved a piece of paper, the photocopy of the statement that she’d given me. “I wrote it all down as soon as I saw it,” she said. “My husband was a lawyer. Whenever we saw any breach of justice, he encouraged us to record what we had witnessed as soon as it happened.” The prosecutor instantly knew that Rachel Gibson was a thorn in his side and that he must destroy her credibility. When it was his turn to cross-examine, he questioned her health and her eyesight. “Myopia is not a side effect of leukemia,” said Mrs Gibson coolly. “Loss of hair from chemotherapy and death are the only side effects I know about.” “So you just happened to be sitting on your balcony and 210

witnessed the whole event. Rather coincidental isn’t it Mrs Gibson?” “Not at all. I sit on my balcony every morning. I see the defendant and his dog regularly. He skates along the beachfront with his walking frame and his big white dog tied to it.” There was a subdued hum in the background and whispering between the police prosecutor and the arresting officer. The magistrate hurried them along. “If you saw an innocent man attacked by an elderly woman, why didn’t you go over immediately to help him?” said the prosecutor. “Instead of waiting four months to tell us this rather surprising observation?” “Because I have leukemia. I’m not in the habit of dashing about rescuing people,” said Mrs Gibson patting her wig. “I had no idea such a ridiculous misunderstanding would end up in court.” “Mrs Gibson, without looking, can you remember if the hands of your watch are Roman numerals or normal numbers?” asked the prosecutor trying to cast doubt on her memory and credibility. “Neither,” said Rachel Gibson. “This is a bracelet, not a watch. And my memory is perfectly normal. It was a Monday morning when this incident occurred and I was listening to Radio National, the Health Report to be exact.” The prosecutor paced the floor and pondered the dilemma. He looked up ominously and said “Mrs Gibson, have you discussed this case with anyone else recently?” “Yes.” The prosecutor raised his eyebrows. “The witness has been discussing the case. Could you tell us more Mrs Gibson?” “About fifteen minutes ago, I came forward and offered my evidence to the defence, after all, I did see the entire event. They accepted. Prior to that I discussed it with nobody.” “And did they tell you what to say?” “No, they didn’t,” said Mrs Gibson, smoothing her jacket 211

calmly. “They didn’t need to. I have everything written down here. I told you already, that’s if you remember. My late husband was a lawyer.” She stressed the last word like a threat. Isabelle laughed quietly. Rachel Gibson was a cool customer and the police prosecutor soon realised that he had no chance of ruffling her. The prosecutor declared he had no further use for the witness and Mrs Gibson stepped down and winked at me as she left the courtroom. I summed up my case and the prosecutor did likewise. After a short recess, the magistrate shuffled his papers as though the whole procedure bored him silly and barely opened his mouth to give his verdict. Isabelle listened with every ounce of attention to the magistrate’s mumbling diction. In his muffled concluding speech he admitted that the prosecution had offered typical police evidence and that the defendant handled his case well. “I find the defendant not guilty of assaulting a police officer, not guilty of resisting arrest and not guilty of obstructing police.” I held my breath. Not guilty was all I could hear. “However, I do find the defendant guilty of obscene language, but in view of the unusual circumstances, I’ve handed down a minimum fine of two hundred dollars …” Isabelle ripped off her hat and threw it in the air with a loud yahoo and Amy clapped. It was like the grand finale of a fine performance. A two hundred dollar fine was chicken feed. Now we could all get on with our lives and think about more important and pressing issues like the Archibald Prize for me. It was a giant burden lifted off my shoulders not to mention my guts. “I’m drained, like I just crossed the Nullarbor Desert on rollerblades,” I whispered to Isabelle and Amy. “I know the feeling. Watching you do battle was just as exhausting, like I’d just translated War and Peace into Hindustani,” Amy replied. Isabelle, Amy and I left the courthouse, grinning like idiots, 212

high on success. Winning seven charges out of eight was a fantastic innings considering the odds against me. We knew we wouldn’t have won without the bald woman who appeared from the mist on her white stallion. I looked around for Rachel Gibson to thank her properly but like all the other meetings with the mysterious lady, she’d disappeared straight after giving evidence. I ran my hand over my prickly head and laughed at the way my path kept interweaving in ever-tighter spirals with hers. One day our paths would converge. I had become a gymnast in the world of sleuthing, an irritating gladiator at government departments. For a man who hated sport, I knew how to surf the turbulent waves of bureaucracy like an athlete and eke out information. Now, I would find out more about the mysterious Rachel Gibson, who she was and why she kept popping into my life.

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25. James Whistler: The Artist’s Mother Amy Jack and I lay in bed discussing the shortcomings of the justice system. Like the mad lady who attacked him, causing so much trouble and yet exempt from testifying. How illogical was that? Surely, after five minutes of her anti-Nazi ravings, her dementia would have been apparent and the case thrown out. Whatever happened to the truth? “Mind you, she would have been brilliant at the Nuremberg Trials,” Jack said, pushing the snoring Brick off his legs. “I have to say, Jack, you were fabulous yesterday. Not as fiery as Rumpole, but pretty damn impressive for a beginner.” “Thanks, but I couldn’t have done it without Isabelle.” “Or the bald lady,” I added with a prickle of jealousy. Jack extricated his legs, stood up and peered out the window at another fine day. Brick opened one eye in anticipation. “Off on your rollerblades?” I asked. “No, too sore. I’ll help Isabelle take down the paintings. The exhibition ends today.” “I’ll help you.” At the entrance to Isabelle’s gallery, a tall doddery woman hobbled about suspiciously, pressing her nose to the window. I realised with a shock that it was Valerie who’d been missing for weeks. We embraced and I helped her scuffle to a chair while Isabelle made coffees. “Where in the world have you been, Val? Danton’s been frantic.” “Maleny,” she replied in her monotone voice, her face expressionless. “A dear old friend took me there. They live on a wonderful permaculture community. You’d love it.” 214

“So a friend just kidnapped you and took you hostage for four weeks?” I asked. Valerie winked at Jack. “You could have at least phoned to tell us you were safe.” I marched off to call Danton. Valerie’s excuse was fear of the authorities dragging her back to the hostel. “Remember that huge storm? I ended up staying overnight. One day became two and two days stretched out to four and before you know it …” Valerie looked around and rubbed her knees. “You know Amy, at my age, friends are continually dying off and new friendships are hard to make.” Having worked in nursing homes, I understood the problems of the elderly, their increasing immobility and social isolation. A shrinking world that encompassed a bedside table and a television. A set of dentures and a pair of spectacles were prize possessions. “The social highlights of our lives are funerals and doctor’s visits. Sure, I went for a day and stayed for a month. Is that such a crime?” Valerie turned her palms up. “Not a crime,” I said. “Just inconsiderate—” “Stop being such a control freak, Amy,” Jack blurted out. “Sounds like Val had a ball.” Valerie’s face lit up and she described the joyous laughter of the community. “I felt alive. How could I drag myself back to that drudgery, that humourless institution of endless waiting.” “Waiting for what?” Jack said. “Waiting for relatives to visit, waiting for a shower, waiting for the doctor.” She gave an Olympic sigh. “Waiting to die.” I sighed, softened by her rhetoric. “I will never return to that hostel. I’ve had my taste of independence. All I want is a small apartment in a retirement village.” Valerie reached out. “Come, let me look at Jack’s paintings before you take them down.” 215

Valerie had read a favourable review about Jack’s exhibition and decided to see it for herself. We walked around the gallery together, giggling at his dog paintings. All of them displayed red sold stickers in the corner. “My oh my, Jack, you’ve improved. These are marvellous. So lively.” Isabelle was just placing coffee and sandwiches on the table when Danton arrived in a flurry of hugs and questions and commotion. Unlike me, he was so relieved to see his mother alive that he didn’t admonish her. Jack and Valerie began an animated discussion while Danton held her hand which was touching. We were soon laughing over Valerie’s adventure, our weird living arrangements and the absurdity of life. Valerie looked around. “And where’s Loretta?” “She moved down to Newcastle to start her Medicine degree,” Danton said. He told her about the divorce. Valerie pressed her hands together. “She’s a woman with plenty of ambition and intelligence but not a creative bone in her body. Tone deaf as a tomcat and a voice like a weapon.” There was no love lost between Valerie and Loretta. Danton chattered on with other news from home. “Guess what, Esmeralda is pregnant. That’s the dog, mum.” Isabelle and I gasped. That flaky animal psychologist might have been a nut but she was an astute nut. Brick was a father and Esmeralda didn’t have spinal damage after all, she was pregnant. In the midst of our laughter and talk, Danton blurted out, “Mum, why don’t you move into the house at Deception Bay with us. Loretta’s gone. Emily wants to stay there till the house sells. Quentin is living at Roland’s house.” Valerie gawked at her son’s mobile living arrangements. He’d spread himself thin between the piano room at our house, Roland’s pad and Deception Bay. 216

Val shook her head with amusement. “You’re all a bunch of confused hippies, swapping houses and partners and dogs.” After coffee, we helped Val struggle to her feet again, her joints creaking, her spine clicking like castanets. The gallery walls shimmered with Jack’s paintings, brimming with life, tickling her curiosity. She shuffled over to the paintings of Brick and laughed. “That dog of yours makes me believe in reincarnation. Reminds me of Harpo Marx or Jimmy Durante or what’s that hopeless painter’s name—?” “Adolf Hitler?” said Jack. “Touché.” Valerie approached the Vermeer chair portrait section and was drawn to one lone painting. Her eyes locked onto the portrait of the bald lady, his magnum opus. Sold for eight thousand dollars. “Well, blow me down, that’s Rachel. What in God’s name is she doing on your wall?” Valerie said. “I thought she was over in America.” “You know her?” Jack’s eyes bulged. “Sure I know her. But I haven’t seen her since the fifties or sixties,” said Valerie. “How do you know her, Jack?” “I met her in hospital. She testified at my court case. And she came to my art exhibition too and—” Valerie was as excited as Jack. “She’s a beautiful artist, like you.” Jack sprung into action. He couldn’t put the visit off any longer. “We’re going to see her, right now.” Rachel Gibson was in the phone book and easy to find. Her unit overlooked the beachside park where Jack had his run-in with the mad woman. The humid Brisbane air was saturated with jasmine, seaweed and frangipani scents. We knocked and waited, Jack hopping from foot to foot. Valerie stood with rigid eloquence, dressed in her designer suit, her hair beautifully groomed and her make-up immaculate. This sophisticated woman was forever ready to step 217

onto the stage as Leonora or Tosca. Rachel Gibson, Jack’s mystery woman, opened the door and stood slack-jawed at the sight of Valerie. Jack stood back and let them gawk. For me, this was my first face-to-face meeting with the bald woman. Her clothes were awry, half-buttoned, like someone having just showered and quickly dressed. Her face was the image of Jack’s painting. She patted her wig in place and ushered us into her small home unit. “Lovely place,” I said, admiring the antique furniture, sculptures and paintings. Rachel didn’t hear. She and Valerie hugged and shrieked and spent the next half hour catching up on twenty years or so. Rachel eventually turned to Jack. “There was really no need for you to come around and thank me.” By now, Jack’s attention was focussed on the paintings. He was mesmerised, his eyes wide with admiration and his ears deaf. “I really appreciate what you did for Jack,” I said. “He wouldn’t have won that court case without you.” Rachel shrugged. “It was nothing. Anyone in my position would have done the same. I’ve got the bail money back so all’s square.” “You paid the bail?” Jack found his voice. It wasn’t my parents after all. “Why did you do that?” Her explanation was simple but bizarre. Something you’d least expect in today’s materialistic society. “I paid because I like your art. Helping struggling artists is my mission. Over the years, I’ve followed your progress and kept my eye on the gallery.” Jack stared at this woman whose lopsided wig sat like a badly hung painting. Valerie laughed at Jack’s confusion. “Rachel’s a great patron of the arts, just like her sister.” “My sister is an artist like me only Celeste ended up living in Europe. She said you couldn’t make a decent living in this country so—” 218

Celeste. Jack and I leapt out of our skins when we heard that name. “Celeste who?” Jack jumped to his feet. “Levinsky,” Rachel said stepping back. “Why do you ask?” “Celeste Levinsky?” Jack trembled with excitement. Valerie and Rachel exchanged perplexed looks. “Is that your real name?” “Our maiden name. But I use my married name, Gibson and Celeste anglicised hers to Levine.” We leapt up and cheered. Jack had good reason to be obsessed with the bald woman. She was the link to his past. I giggled at Jack as he scooped Valerie up in his arms then hugged Rachel. “That woman, Celeste Levine, Levinsky, whatever, is my mother.” “Your mother?” Valerie and Rachel cried out. “You bet,” said Jack. “That’s a lovely sentiment, Jack, but why do you think that?” Rachel gave a wan smile. “The McPhees are hardly related to the Levinskys.” “Because my name isn’t really Jack McPhee.” Rachel leaned forward indulgently to humour this crazy artist. “What is your real name then?” “I was christened Morris Archie Levine.” Rachel’s face remained impassive but an imperceptible frown crinkled her forehead. “According to the records, Celeste Levine is my mother,” Jack added. “I didn’t know she’d changed it from Levinsky.” Rachel took a sharp breath in. “Are you playing games with me, Jack?” “I’m deadly serious. I’m Celeste Levine’s son,” said Jack evenly. “I was adopted forty-nine years ago. Says it on my birth certificate.” Rachel’s hand flew to her face. “That makes Rachel your aunt,” Valerie said. “Bugger me, I think you’re right.” Jack grinned. 219

Suddenly, Rachel hugged Jack and wiped the tears from her cheeks. By now we were all curious to hear about Celeste and we listened to Rachel, hanging on to every word. “Celeste was the elegant one, tall and graceful. A bit like you, Jack. She got pregnant too young and she desperately wanted to pursue her art. Women didn’t have the options of motherhood and career in those days. You ask Val how difficult that was.” We sensed that our search was reaching a crescendo with one final question left hovering and we dreaded the answer. Where was she now? “Celeste came back to Australia in the late eighties. She actually tried to find you but gave up and returned to Italy. She’s still there.” Jack gripped the seat and his lower lip quivered, tears welled in his eyes. I put my arm around his shoulders and he released a sob of happiness. Rachel was taken aback. Men of her generation rarely cried, they kept their emotions under lock and key. “I’m sorry,” Jack wiped his face with his tattooed arm and composed himself. “I can’t believe she tried to find me.” “Oh yes, Celeste spent about a year in Australia but that adoption agency burnt down and all their records were destroyed so she couldn’t pursue the matter any further.” Rachel heaved herself off the lounge and rummaged through a cupboard. She retrieved boxes of photos and newspaper clippings, glad she’d kept them all these years. Jack poured through the photos and familiarised himself with his mother’s life, her friends and appearance. The painting of Rachel hanging at his exhibition looked like the young Celeste. No wonder she was staring at it on opening night. “I can see where my hair came from but what about my name?” asked Jack. “Our father’s name was Morris and Archie came from the Archibald Prize. My sister always wanted to have a painting in the 220

Archibald. It was her dream to get just one painting accepted. So calling you Archie was an example of Celia’s humour,” said Rachel. “Celia?” “We called her Celia when she was a girl.” Rachel sighed. “She was itching to travel overseas and trace our ancestors in Lithuania. Our parents migrated to Australia just before the war. Not like poor Val and her parents.” Jack glanced at the pastel portraits and framed photos on the wall. “Are they yours?” “No, they’re Celeste’s. My husband and I were sculptors, like your friend Isabelle.” “I thought you said in court that your husband was a lawyer?” Jack said. “I lied. If they can lie, so can we.” Jack laughed for the first time. “We lived in America for thirty years. Crazy place but we made a nice living there. We wouldn’t have survived in Australia.” The conversation bounced from art survival back to Celeste and her family. Celeste was on holidays at the moment but as soon as she returned, Rachel would contact her and tell her the momentous news. “Celia’s a strange woman.” Rachel was hesitant. “I’m not sure how she’ll react but we’ll see. I’m sure it’ll work out.” Jack was high on the whole family thing and itching to go to Europe to meet them all. He was thirsty for information on his blood connections, his extended family, brothers, sisters, cousins and nieces and nephews. Rachel herself had three children: one had died tragically in his twenties but there was a son living in Canada and a daughter in Italy. “Cousins.” Jack was elated and rolled the word around his tongue. Celeste had one daughter living in France. Rachel thought she 221

had something to do with Médecins Sans Frontiere or human rights activities. A radical ratbag stepsister would sit well with Jack. He turned to me and laughed as though hearing my thought. “You’ll meet them all soon enough. And I’m sure they’ll all hear about you once you make it to the Archibald. You’ll be fulfilling Celia’s dream.” Jack squirmed in his seat. “You seem to know a hell of a lot about me.” Rachel visited the Scarborough Art Gallery regularly, shopped at the local stores, used Lindsay’s taxi service and absorbed the gossip from the various grape vines. “Coffee?” Rachel didn’t wait for our answers. She moved to the kitchen. Steaming mugs of coffee magically appeared and revived us. Too late for Valerie. She’d already fallen asleep on the lounge. Jack told Rachel about his childhood in foster homes and institutions following his unsuccessful adoption. Back then, birth parents lost touch with their babies forever as soon as they were relinquished. Rachel sighed. “Celeste desperately wanted to hang onto you. She was barely seventeen and the ambivalence tore her apart. She broke all the rules by keeping you for six months before giving you up for adoption. Motherhood would have closed the door on her career and the lure of art was too great.” How different Jack’s life would have been if his mother had kept him, taken him with her to Europe, brought him up in Italy, France and Holland where artists flourished. I could picture a young Jack with his flaming hair, drinking coffee in Parisian cafés, discussing art and philosophy with like-minded souls. He would have been a man in his element instead of an oddball, floundering on the edge of a culturally arid society. Rachel’s voice broke into my reverie. “ … And for her own peace of mind, she insisted on baptising you before giving you up. It was her method of saying farewell and she wanted it to be theatrical.” 222

Jack was crossing and uncrossing his legs like a schoolboy. “Theatrical? In what way?” “It was a bit of a comedy really.” Rachel put down her coffee mug. “Celeste had heard a piece of music at the Vienna Opera House and insisted it be played at the baptism. She adored it and felt it was symbolic for this occasion. The preacher was aghast and they argued black and blue but Celeste was in her manic stage. She was pretty crazy and she won, as usual.” “What was the music?” Jack was on the edge of his chair. “Mozart’s Requiem,” Rachel said. Jack swooned and regained his composure while Rachel talked on. “Celeste felt that giving you up was a kind of death experience and she was adamant about playing the Requiem during the baptism. Are you all right Jack? You look pale.” Rachel and I stared at Jack who insisted he was fine and urged her to continue. “Celia put the music on real loud and the preacher was annoyed. The poor man was dipping you in the baptismal bath when you slipped out of his hands. You were covered in ointment for eczema so you were rather slippery and the preacher was jittery. Both Celia and I over-reacted and grabbed you at the same time and we burst out laughing and that annoyed the preacher.” Jack listened eagerly with half-opened mouth. He laughed and cried and told Rachel about the boating accident, how Mozart’s Requiem, the most passionate music he’d ever heard, had filled him with euphoria while he was drowning. The Requiem was not only Jack’s dying music, it was the music that connected his past to his present. At the point of death, his brain had reverted to his baptism almost half a century earlier. “The power of the subconscious mind. That’s astonishing,” I exclaimed. Rachel was also struck by Jack’s story. “Now I understand what you were raving about in hospital, calling for your mother, 223

confusing me and Celia.” I marvelled at their similar features, their high cheekbones and grey piercing eyes. Suddenly it seemed so obvious. “How did you come to visit me in hospital?” Jack had assumed her visit to be part of his delirium. “I was having another dose of chemotherapy at the time and I saw Amy out of uniform, walking into Intensive Care. I discovered she was visiting you. Anyway, the chemo treatment was killing me so I got up and discharged myself, staggered home before anyone could stop me. And they were so angry at me.” They were definitely related. “I did the same thing.” Jack grinned. “Once I felt better, Isabelle helped me escape. She thinks modern medicine ultimately kills you.” Valerie gave a loud unladylike snort and almost fell off the lounge. “I think we better get her home,” I said. Everyone looked hyped up but exhausted. Rachel put her hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I’ll contact Celia. We’ll meet up soon, nephew, and then we should discuss the Archibald.” I’m not sure if it was her mention of the Archibald or calling him nephew but Jack was too choked up to reply.

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26. Turner: Burning of the House of Lords and Commons Amy Emily burst through the door, her youthful charms camouflaged by the dowdiness of her school uniform. “Where’s dad?” she asked, hopping from foot to foot. “In the middle of a piano lesson,” I said. “Why, what’s up?” “Esmeralda’s about to have her pups. Grandma’s with her.” Emily wasn’t confident of Valerie’s midwifery skills. Her poor balance and general dithering made her more likely to fall and squash the pups. As a temporary arrangement, till the house sold, Valerie had moved into Danton’s house with her granddaughter Emily. Motherhood thrust Emily into emotional turmoil. School had just started and she wouldn’t be able to guard the pups. I took her hand. “Come, young Emily. Let me take you to our fearless leader.” Emily giggled and followed me to Jack’s studio. He was the head of canine affairs in this household, I was in charge of mental health, trying to keep everyone sane and co-ordinate our lives around the houses, kids, dogs, study, music students and art. Jack listened to Emily’s dilemma, scratched his head and contemplated the tattoo on his left arm, obviously his source of wisdom. Esmeralda would have her pups here in his studio where he could keep an eye on things and Brick could spend a few days at Emily’s place. “But won’t Brick knock Valerie over?” Emily said. Valerie was as frail as a newborn pup. Her Parkinson’s was getting worse. “Keep him outside for a few days,” Jack said. “He’ll cope.” I jiggled my car keys, lured Brick into the car and drove him to Deception Bay. He loved an excursion but he was peeved when the exchange was made without his consent. 225

Ensconced at Danton’s house, Brick inspected Esmeralda’s empty dog kennel and released a plaintive cry when he discovered that the owner of these enticing female smells was absent. Jack and Emily had whisked the pregnant dog away in a cunning dog swap. To add further grunt to Brick’s disgruntlement, the vanquished dog was forced to live outside. While Brick pressed his nose to the French doors and stared inside, I prepared Valerie’s dinner. She tried to ignore the mournful bull terrier plastered against the glass pane but occasionally she limped outside and reassured him that he was a fine dog and not in any trouble. She sat on the chair and Brick rested his head in her lap, gazed at her with soulful eyes, trying to worm his way inside her heart and hearth. “There’s a good doggy.” Valerie caressed the dog with her shaky hands. Brick’s tail, that expressive windscreen wiper of emotions, flapped from side to side, swiping the midges, mosquitoes and sandflies into new orbits. When Valerie stood up, that same tail swiped her beyond her centre of gravity and she fell. The slightest provocation tripped her these days — a Sunday breeze in Brazil could knock her over in Brisbane on Monday. She was chaos theory in action. I helped Valerie disengage from the dog, drag herself up and return to the recliner chair. “Dinner’s in the oven. It’ll be ready in half an hour.” “Not too much dinner, dear. I feel a little washed-out and queasy today. I’ll have an early night.” “I’ll drive over later and see how you and Brick are faring. You’re still welcome to stay at our house.” Valerie waved me off and the dog watched me leave. He stood outside the French doors, his tail tucked between his legs, ignoring his bowl of food. He was accustomed to ruling the inner sanctum, not shut out like some common beast of burden. I drove back to Scarborough. 226

While Brick was in exile over at Deception Bay, Emily spent the evening with her father at our house, watching her dog give birth to four pups. The experience enthralled her. Four years of dry high school science couldn’t compare to one night of live biology, the drama of life at her feet. Emily sat in the corner of Jack’s studio watching Esmeralda lick the pups. She laughed at their frenzied milk lust and the scramble for their mother’s teats. Weak intermittent yelps broke the silence and Emily giggled over the antics of the pups as they crawled amongst each other like tangled spaghetti. Crunching sounds in the background invaded our puppy vigil. Someone was making a safari to Jack’s studio. We were surprised to see Rachel standing at the door looking bewildered, her first visit here. We welcomed her warmly. Her eyes flitted around and rested on Jack’s unfinished paintings. Emily squealed with delight as one of the pups tumbled onto its back in a greedy lunge at his mother’s teat. Rachel squatted down beside Emily, amused by the antics of the pups. “Jack’s mother loved dogs. Celia had two Great Danes called Hamlet and Macbeth.” “That’s so cool,” said Emily. “Roland calls Great Danes the V8 of the dog world. He says bull terriers are the turbo diesels because they have more bottom end grunt, they run at low revs and they keep delivering torque.” I burst out laughing. Who else but Roland would compare a dog to a car? Emily stroked one of the sleeping pups with her finger. “These three look just like Brick. They’re going to be white and ugly and lovable.” “And famous,” said Rachel. I knew Brick would be feeling anything but famous at the moment. Bull terriers were indoor dogs. To be stuck outside in the sultry night amidst the hum and sting of annoying insects, far from humans, was punishment. 227

“Which reminds me, I better go back and see how Val is. I know it’s only for a night but I don’t like leaving her alone.” As I drove over, I had a mental image of an earlier scene — Valerie reclining in the flickering aura of the television and Brick’s snout pressed mournfully to the glass. That’s not what I found when I arrived. Sirens and flashing lights greeted me. My heart lurched into panic mode. Ambulance, police, fire engines, crowds of nosy neighbours and the smoky remains of a burnt out house. This was a horror movie, not the scene I’d imagined. What had happened? I rushed up to the police and introduced myself and they broke the news. Valerie was dead. Smoke inhalation. My heart beat so fast, I had to sit on the kerb and catch my breath. The fire brigade had been the first to arrive. They found a dog trying to drag an old woman out of her chair, both surrounded by smoke and flames. They saw instantly that the fire had started in the kitchen and spread rapidly through the weatherboard house. Neighbours said they ignored the hysterical barking dog because he’d been howling for hours anyway. Eventually, they looked out their windows and saw crimson flames dancing an Irish jig and smoke billowing from the windows. A fireman told me that it appeared Brick had smashed the French door in an attempt to rescue Valerie. The house was totally gutted and destroyed. I cried as I broke the news to Danton and Emily. The shock of Valerie’s death was tempered by the autopsy report that showed she had died a few hours earlier of a heart attack, about the time her dinner was heating up on the stove. The fire had spread from the stove to the electrical system and snowballed from there. Unfortunately, Jack had removed the battery from the smoke detector and replaced it with the dud on the eve of the insurance fiasco so the smoke detector was mute. It was the hysterical dog 228

that alerted everyone. “Don’t look so guilty, Jack. Even if the smoke detector had activated, Valerie would still have died of a heart attack,” I said later that evening. The firemen were so impressed by Brick’s bravery that they released the story of his heroism to the local newspaper. The tale of his courage and loyalty soon spread to the national papers. Once again Brick became a celebrity, a fire and water hero. He had rescued Jack from the poisonous river and now he had tried to rescue Valerie from the flames of death. Brick wallowed in the attention and lapped up the glory. The violence and trauma gave him a renewed zest for cat eradication and a disinterest in shoe rearrangement. Having done the dog angle to death, the media soon homed in on Danton but he was unco-operative, still in shock over his mother’s death. He was thankful Emily had spent the evening with us and hadn’t been inside the burning house. “That damn house has finally done what it should have done months earlier only this time it’s done the job legitimately,” he said. Loretta flew up from Newcastle, filled in the divorce papers, signed the insurance claim forms and offered Danton her condolences on his mother’s death. “In a way, Danton, it happened for the best,” she said. “Your mother died peacefully and God knows she’s been wanting to die for the longest time. At least she had a few good months. Sooner or later she would have ended up in a nursing home when the Parkinson’s Disease progressed.” “Trust my mother to be so grandiose about it. She was theatrical right to the bitter end.” And trust Loretta to home in on the truth and spit it out like that. As much as we all loved Valerie, it was painful watching her decline and we were secretly relieved she’d found peace at last. 229

Emily moved to Roland’s house to live with her father and her brother. Other than Loretta, the family was united again. The death of her grandmother as well as the loss of her possessions threw her into shock. We all pitched in some money and she soon cheered up when she realised her new wardrobe was far trendier than her old one. Valerie’s funeral was an extravaganza. Musicians of every era crawled out of the woodwork to celebrate the passing of yet another icon. During the wake that followed the funeral, a local theatre group offered Danton a music commission. He accepted. Nearing forty, if he didn’t break into the scene now, he never would. “The bitter and disgruntled people in the world are the ones who delay their passions every year with excuses,” Rachel told him. “I think you’ve made a wise and brave decision.” “Not that brave. Another year of piano teaching and I’ll be a zombie,” Danton said. “Or go as deaf as Beethoven.” By the time we dragged ourselves home we were emotionally exhausted. Like Danton, Jack had also been inspired by the camaraderie at the funeral and wanted to put his energy into his Archibald painting. “I’m going to enter a self-portrait after all, a Van Gogh look alike and I also want to incorporate Brick.” He hadn’t decided how to manage that yet. He was searching for the perfect composition. Meanwhile, he blotted out the world with frenzied brush strokes as he practised capturing his face on canvas. Danton subdued his sadness in a surge of composing and violin playing. While the men were lost in their own worlds, I kept the household running. I was still on university holidays, having finished the third year of my psychology course. One year to go. With time on my hands, I kept one eye on Danton and the other on his children. There were legalities to attend regarding the fire, the 230

kids, the insurance, the funeral, Valerie’s Will, emotions to deal with and living arrangements to consider. Loretta flew back to Newcastle and let Danton contend with it all. She lost a lot of gear in the fire but no longer cared. Emotionally, she’d already left it all behind and moved on. At the last moment, she announced that she still wanted eighty percent of the house insurance money. I hated to admit it but Jack was right. Loretta was a bitch.

A small yelp from the corner of Jack’s studio snapped Brick from his dreaming. He ambled over to take charge of his little family. “Grandma died without seeing the pups,” Emily said. “Yeah, she would have loved the grand dogs,” I said. “Think of it this way, your grandmother died at the same time these pups were born. Thus nature balances itself.” Emily giggled. Esmeralda’s pups romped around the studio, oblivious of the masterpieces around them. Brick was a considerate husband and father. He licked Esmeralda’s ears and suppressed the urge to mount her. We’d chastised him too many times when he sneaked up behind her with dogged perseverance. When he wasn’t drooling after Esmeralda, he was rescuing the pups; pulling them out of boxes of paints, untangling them from turpentine-soaked rags. Jack contacted the bull terrier breeders club to see where we could sell half-bred pups, offspring of the famous Brick. We also put an ad in the paper and emphasised their heroic parentage. After the funeral, a new ritual developed. We began to eat dinners together as though consoling ourselves with food. Isabelle would come over with different desserts each night. Danton and his kids would turn up from next door and he’d often usurp the kitchen. Rachel, who lived alone, turned up at least once a week. She enjoyed a bit of company and Jack was her nephew so it was a 231

family thing. Even housebound Roland couldn’t resist the gathering and turned up with choice bottles of red from his wine stash. The dogs and pups meandered around in constant frolic and progressed from Jack’s studio to the house. We needed eyes in the back of our heads to avoid tripping on them as they tumbled into the kitchen, lured by the luscious smells of cooking. Brick slowed down and became calm and mature in the wake of his fatherly exhaustion. In memory of Danton’s mother, we enhanced our early feasts with opera. Renata Tebaldi sang Vissi d’arte’ over the pasta and during the main course, Joan Sutherland trilled her way through the famous mad scene of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. The high notes sent Brick howling which reminded Danton of his childhood dog, Poochini, a fox terrier that also howled whenever Valerie practised her scales. Sometimes we listened to crackly records of Piaff and Jack made us laugh by appearing at the dinner table in his artist’s smock and beret and bunging on a dreadful French accent. The kids loved it. Roland poured the wine, sniffed the bouquet and made a toast. “To wine, women and song.” He sounded like Groucho Marx. Danton raised his glass to me and Isabelle. “Especially women,” he said as Joan Sutherland reached her crescendo. “And song,” Jack said, slipping Mozart’s Requiem into the CD player. “To the Archibald,” Isabelle said. What a cosy little community we’d become. I knew that within six months our lives would splay out in different directions and that the inevitability of change would burst this warm cohesive bubble, but for the time being, music and food united us. “To all of us,” I said. “And to this moment, to the Zen of here and now.” I had a flitting memory of the animal psychologist but 232

quickly brushed her aside. Our nightly feasts were a madness that overtook us. We took turns choosing music to accompany our ritual dinners and we groaned every time Jack put on Mozart’s Requiem. Danton floated and soared to the strings of Beethoven, Sibelius and Paganini. On Isabelle’s round, the crazed frenzy of the Khatchaturian’s Sabre Dance or Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana shook the house. Her musical taste was as crazy as her hair. Quentin and Emily were into rap music and groups with strange names I’d never heard of. I was still stuck in the seventies and everyone groaned when I put on Pink Floyd or The Beatles. Our spirits were emotionally charged with music and chaos from morning till night. The pups yelped, dogs barked, music blared, the piano tinkled, phones rang, doors slammed with kids coming and going and journalists snooped around. “How quiet and monastic our house used to be back in the dark ages,” I said to Jack. “And how little I appreciated it,” he replied.

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27. Honoré Daumier: The Uprising Amy Summer heat waves culminated in daily electrical storms giving Brisbane a tropical feel. “Global warming,” Jack said. Everyone looked at Jack blankly. Hardly anyone had heard of climate change back then. Storms as ferocious as the one that bungled Danton’s insurance scam kept reminding us of that suspenseful night of folly. Our thoughts then meandered to the unplanned fire that really destroyed his house months later. The air was humid and heavy, the ground sodden and mould thrived in every nook adding a green tinge to life. School kids were back at school and phones went silent. Beaches and shopping malls were deserted and the Redcliffe Peninsula resumed its sleepy pace. Chaos at our house persisted but with less fanfare. There was now time to catch one’s breath. Loretta flew up from Newcastle during a mid-semester break to see Danton and the kids and catch up with old friends. Her bitterness towards Danton had mellowed. Distance and time had helped her recognise Danton’s rare qualities. She acknowledged his lion’s share of the child rearing and his domestic competence. She was happier than I’d ever seen her and this newfound euphoria bestowed her with uncharacteristic generosity in the divorce proceedings. She agreed to a sixty-forty cut of the property settlement in her favour and this time Danton wasn’t going to argue about it. “The sooner she’s out of my life, the better,” he said. They agreed to avoid lawyers, a move that would save them thousands in fees and anguish. Loretta was glowing with philanthropy and I suspected she had a lover in tow, probably some specialist loaded with money. Her 234

new life, free from family responsibilities, suited her. She was obviously devoting her energies to herself and her career. She looked fantastic. My father would have loved a daughter like Loretta. Classy and ambitious. Nothing stood in her way. A medical degree was my idea of hell but the gruelling challenge of endless study thrust Loretta into a state of academic exaltation. Younger students gravitated towards her sleek charm and confidence. Obsessive people were alluring. Perhaps it was the false belief that they had life worked out. “Congratulations on your art exhibition, Jack. I hear it was a great success,” Loretta said, with a casual toss of her sleek hair. Jack nodded, waiting for the critical barbs. “And I hear you won your court case. That’s amazing.” “Well, you know me. I like a good fight.” We waited for the shower of acrimony, the thrust of an offhand stab, a dagger in the back. But Loretta just laughed. This was the woman who Jack likened to a kitchen blender — whizzing around, hacking everyone in her path and slashing her way through life. “She’s quite nice when she’s in a good mood, isn’t she,” Jack commented when Loretta left. “Yeah, but when she’s bad, she’s horrid,” Danton replied. It was another soggy morning and Jack was already in his studio, doodling ideas for paintings. The dog was curled up on his portrait chair, snoring. My back was killing me and Jack offered to do the shopping. I handed him the list and a twinge of pain gripped my spine. I leaned on the back of the chair to catch my breath. Brick sat bolt upright as though he’d just remembered an important engagement. He looked so comical that I laughed and gave the startled dog a pat. 235

Jack looked at me like he’d seen a ghost. “What’s up with you?” I asked. “Don’t move an inch.” He grabbed a fresh canvas and brush. “That’s perfect.” “What are you doing?” “Don’t move.” “Don’t worry. I can’t. My back’s in spasm.” Jack was sketching a rough outline of Brick and me. He’d been looking for a dog and master scene for ages, something original and comical. This was it. “Are you almost done?’ I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be immortalised in art but Jack assured me it would only take five minutes. “You and Brick make a perfect composition.” “Glad to be of service.” With broad brush strokes, Jack captured the bare outline of the dignified dog, alert and proud, facing the world with snout raised high. His mistress draped languidly over the chair, caressing him with a look of total devotion. That part was Jack’s imagination. “I’ll use this to create a full-sized painting for my Archibald entry. Only I’ll turn it into a self-portrait.” “Sounds good, Jack but I have to lie down—” “Don’t you see? This is the stuff of modern mythology. Brick is the eternal hero who fought his enemies through fire and water and I’m the, uh, buggered if I know what I am.” “You’re the purveyor of truth and beauty,” I said. “That’s me. The eternal bullshit artist.” The dog would be the hero of the painting. What a welcome break with the tradition of species chauvinism, the arrogant belief that humans were a superior animal. “What do you think?” he said. “It’s the perfect Archibald entry — a double dose of heroic myth, a touch of comedy and a hidden moral.” 236

“Perfect Jack.” I thought about the Archibald Prize as I hobbled up the steps. This portrait exhibition was held in March every year at the New South Wales Art Gallery. The portrait had to be a noteworthy Australian and painted from real life, not a photo. It had grown from a national competition to an international event and like all things that get too big, the Archibald was beset with scandals, political intrigue and media hype. Within the Archibald there were other prizes to lure artists. Jack talked glowingly about the People’s Choice Award, a prize for the most popular painting. It was awarded by the public through a democratic voting system at the end of the exhibition. “I wonder what happens to all the thousands of paintings that get rejected?” I once asked Jack. “It’s such a waste.” Someone must have heard me because in 1991 they established an exhibition for the best rejected paintings. It had the tongue-incheek French title, the Salon des Refusés. “And don’t forget the Packing Room Prize,” Jack said. “This could only happen in Australia. The workers who unpack and hang the exhibition choose their favourite painting.” Jack was planning to do a self-portrait with dog. He’d earned parochial fame by surviving the Brisbane’s polluted river. Likewise, Brick was up there with the likes of Lassie and Rin Tin Tin, having rescued a bunch of silly humans from drowning and more recently, the house fire. Jack’s exhibition had made headlines in the papers and small ripples spread to greater art circles. Fame of sorts made them both eligible subjects for the Archibald Prize. Bags of groceries lay on kitchen counter. Jack remembered to do the shopping. Hallelujah. I wondered how his portrait was progressing. I went downstairs and out the back to see for myself. Jack was staring at himself in a full-length mirror. A huge 237

canvas was strapped to scaffolding. He stood back and squinted, wielding his brush like a fencing master. The painting began to radiate with the brightness of a Toulouse-Lautrec and the lavish brush strokes of a Van Gogh. The composition was unmistakably a Vermeer. Light streamed through the window onto the domestic scene of dog and master. Of course, Vermeer’s chair was there, the universal constant. Days later, the painting was almost finished. “That’s fantastic, Jack. It looks like the impressionists married the realists and gave birth to comical surrealism. What a spoof.” “Well, you know me.” Jack waved his paintbrush like a conductor’s baton. “I’m an eclectic soul at heart. I’ve had years of practice. A dab of Toulouse-Lautrec, a smattering of Daumier, a pinch of Van Gogh and a dash of Rembrandt, mix in a wallop of Jack McPhee and voilà.” Isabelle arrived to inspect the final opus and while she goggled at the painting, my eyes feasted on her hair. Pink aerial spikes thrust skywards and green tendrils spiralled earthwards, a punkish gamine look. Isabelle herself was a walking canvas. Her bug eyes grew to thyroidal dimensions as she admired Jack’s latest work — man and dog mocking the world of art tradition. When the oil painting was dry, the men laboured for days building an old fashioned over-ornate frame that enhanced the painting tenfold. Now it resembled a real Vermeer. We then packed the completed work in layers of foam and cardboard till the painting was huge and heavy and resembled a monster. “Bugger me bollocks, some like them big.” Roland helped Jack heave the gigantic painting to the house. “In the computer world, everything is getting smaller and smaller. Typical of you crazy artists to move in the wrong direction.”

I accompanied Roland and Jack as they lumbered through the jungle on their artistic trek.

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“And it’s not just the ludicrous size of paintings,” I said. “It’s the content. A blank canvas with a splash of colour in one corner can take up an entire wall. And you should see some of the winning portraits,” I ducked under a thorny bougainvillea tendril. “Artists often take realism to ridiculous extremes. I once saw a painting of a human face that was so magnified, you could see every bloody pore of their nostril.” “Famous nostrils of some celebrity, no doubt,” Roland said. “There are no standards any more,” Jack said, grunting and heaving under the weight of his artwork. “No one cares about balanced composition or clean colours. Beauty is considered old fashioned, passé. Freedom of expression, no matter how ugly and jarring, is the new god.” The interstate couriers collected the painting and we now braced ourselves for the tedium of waiting for the painting to be accepted or rejected. Valerie was right about waiting. We were all subject to the human laws of waiting — waiting for news, waiting for a sign, waiting to win, waiting for births, waiting for death. “Waiting For Godot,” I said, referring to Samuel Becket’s existential novel. “And in my case, Waiting for Lotto,” said Danton. “The ultimate game of hope over reason.” “I’ve called my painting Brick Vermeer,” Jack announced when Rachel appeared. “Great name,” we all agreed. Rachel patted her wig, that nervous habit of hers. “Your mother went through the same agony, Jack. She entered her painting every year, but they never got accepted. Maybe you’ll break the family impasse.” “It’s all a game of chance,” Jack replied, shrugging. The waiting finally ended. Jack received news that his portrait entry, his Brick Vermeer, had been accepted into the Archibald. There was great jubilation in the kitchen, dancing on the tables 239

and chasing of tails. The dog went just as wild. Chaos returned and the phone rang hot. We read every review and article we could lay our hands on that pertained to the Archibald — newspapers, art journals, magazines. We assumed Jack’s painting would cause a ripple of controversy but we didn’t expect a tsunami. The tongue-in-cheek title shocked the critics and the composition — the dog in the foreground and Jack in the background — was deemed irreverent, moral sacrilege. One newspaper review said Jack’s painting was a mythical painting of a hero and his subject; a man and the heroic beast that saved his life. Another paper hailed it as a resurrected Vermeer masterpiece though it was actually closer to a late Van Gogh. Rachel told us that every year, around the time of the Archibald Prize, the media agitated to provoke controversy and create a scandal, something sensational to sink their editorial fangs into. Australia had so few juicy scandals. They phoned and interviewed all the successful Archibald entrants and dug around for dirt. Within days of the announcement, the media phoned for interviews and Isabelle encouraged Jack to go forth and proselytise. “If Jack doesn’t want to do the interviews, I will,” she said. Jack and Isabelle handled five interviews within two days. They introduced everyone to Brick who charmed the pens, cameras and camcorders right out of their hands. More articles appeared, mostly about Brick and his meteoric rise in celebrity. Bull terriers were suddenly all the rage. The Archibald Prize ended up in a battle between Jack’s infamous and comical Brick Vermeer and Adelaide artist Kloe Von Hansen with her portrait of the camel woman, Robyn Davidson. This woman brushed with fame after her two thousand kilometre trek across the desert on a camel from Alice Springs to Western 240

Australia, all alone, except for the intermittent appearance of National Geographic photographers. She then wrote about her experience in her book Tracks. Among the entrants, Jack’s painting was the most controversial. Jack was a relatively unknown artist. In contrast, Kloe Von Hansen was well known for her portraits of women. A journalist for The Weekend Australian found an uncanny similarity in the two contending paintings — both contained animals that played a dominant role. In Kloe Von Hansen’s painting, a couple of spitting camels merged into the background allowing Robyn Davidson to take centre stage. In Jack’s case, he had broken tradition by imbuing his dog with more significance than the languid human behind him. The winning prize rested on the final vote of the Art Gallery Trustees and that announcement was made the next day. The prize went to Kloe Von Hansen. Jack was disappointed but not devastated. He never dreamt that he would get this far in the first place. “Winning or not, just having your painting accepted will boost your art career,” Rachel and Isabelle assured him. “Celia will be so proud.” Jack had finally infiltrated the art world and become a household name. On the day of the announcement, an investor approached with an offer to buy his Vermeer portrait chair. Isabelle and Jack negotiated an extraordinary price and I almost fainted when Jack told me. “My God, Vermeer has become the flavour of the month.” Articles on Vermeer started to appear in the most unlikely places. I even found a tea towel of his famous painting The Milkmaid at a gift store, tacky pictures on t-shirts and even imitation Vermeer chairs. “Poor old Vermeer has turned into a marketing opportunity,” Jack scowled. 241

Having announced the winner of the Archibald, the exhibition was now opened to the public and would be on display for three months. “We need to organise our lives and get ourselves down there,” I said. Brisbane to Sydney was little more than a one-hour flight. We just had to figure out what to do with the dogs, the kids and the pups.

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28. Russell Drysdale: Happy Jack Jack The New South Wales Art Gallery was an ornate building situated in the Domain, expansive parklands in the heart of Sydney. Despite the pain in my feet, we walked around the Domain and admired the harbour views on our way to the Archibald Exhibition. Brick would have loved the Botanical Gardens, so much to fertilise, so many scents to decode. I had to leave him behind in charge of Roland, Rachel, Danton’s kids and the pups, a heavy responsibility for a dog. At the exhibition, in order to remain incognito and avoid journalists, I wore my beret and a Groucho Marx disguise: heavy thick-rimmed spectacles attached to a huge nose and black moustache. Amy found it at a fun store in Brisbane. I looked ridiculous, a total weirdo but Sydney was full of eccentrics so I blended in and soon forgot how ridiculous I looked. “Damn good painting of Robyn Davidson.” For once I had to admit that the winning entry deserved the honour. The enormous painting in bold vermilion drew crowds of admirers. “It really captures the mystique of the Australian desert.” “That’s because it’s on a camel-sized canvas,” said Danton. “Yours is, well, more interesting but on a smaller, dog-sized canvas.” A painting of the federal treasurer took up half a wall and made me queasy. One small moustache and he was Third Reich material. I restrained myself from whipping out a black marker pen and retouching the painting, a dash of art vandalism. With my budding criminal record, I pushed that thought aside. Amy would kill me if I got arrested again. “It’s interesting how we always equate size with quality,” I said, poking my huge Groucho nose into Danton’s face. 243

Despite the insightfulness of my statement, Danton laughed at my masked face. “You have a dirty mind, Jack.” I wiggled my eyebrows and went searching for Isabelle and Amy, wandering through the maze of rooms with their imposing ceilings. Architects must have been grandiose souls back in the days this gallery was built, back when earth’s resources seemed limitless. The cost of heating, lighting and cleaning would be enormous but hell, why should I care, no one else did? Some paintings were awful. Human faces so painfully abstract they resembled amorphous masses of protoplasm. And everywhere, the usual super-realistic close-ups of what Amy called famous nostrils. Others were so boringly realistic that it would have been more expedient to use a camera. I bounced about, reading the spiels on each artist, studying each painting and enjoying the atmosphere and ambience of cultural elitism. Three hours later I was homesick for Brisbane. After viewing the exhibition four times, largely because I was perpetually lost and kept performing endless loops, I caught up with Amy, Isabelle and Danton, huddled together by my painting. Isabelle and Amy gossiped about each Archibald entry like old pals. Funny things women, they hated each other one minute and were best of buddies the next. “I have a confession to make to you all. I miss Brick.” I wiggled my Groucho Marx moustache for their amusement. “Seeing his cute face plastered on the wall of the art gallery makes me all proud and fuzzy.” “From the moustache down, you look like one tough dude but you’re such a softy at heart,” Isabelle said, grinning at my disguise. “I’m knackered and my feet are killing me. Let’s go somewhere and grab a coffee.” Everyone agreed without hesitation. “How the hell do we get out of here?” We searched for an exit sign and stumbled face to face with 244

Amy’s parents. I had no one to hide behind this time, other than a Groucho Marx disguise. Charles and Stephanie stood rigid like very bad paintings. Shock momentarily turned us into mutes. We finally recovered, exchanged the usual pleasantries and tried our best to act normal. Amy’s folks had flown from Alice Springs to Sydney for a medical conference and today was their day of leisure. As connoisseurs of art and culture, they couldn’t miss the annual Archibald exhibition but a huge surprise awaited them. Amy pointed to my painting and their faces blanched. There I was, larger than life, their dreaded son-in-law and that nuisance dog, hanging on the wall to haunt them. Amy obviously hadn’t been in touch with them since my own art exhibition in Brisbane so they had no idea that I’d entered a painting in the Archibald. I ripped off my Groucho disguise, stood beside my painting and glowed like a triumphant Olympian, euphoric at my crowning achievement, this giant mocking painting. Charles and Stephanie stared at me then stared at the painting. They were speechless. Isabelle broke the ice by slipping her arm into that bottomless handbag of hers, whipping out her camera and taking a photo of me. Highly illegal of course. The crowd gawked when they recognised me so I quickly donned my disguise and slipped back into anonymity. “Shouldn’t Brick be here too, soaking up the glory?” Stephanie said, in a slow lithium drawl. I ignored her sarcasm. “The Groucho glasses and moustache didn’t fit him.” “Brick’s a father now, he couldn’t make it,” Amy answered. “We now have four bull terrier-spaniel-cross pups.” “More Brickettes to contend with.” Stephanie was attempting humour though you couldn’t tell by her deadpan face. “Yeah, four more,” Amy said. I could tell by Amy’s eagerness to chatter that she wanted to 245

smooth the upheavals and thaw some of the glacial tension. “Danton’s daughter is keeping one pup and we’re selling the other three for a good price. Brick’s famous now.” Stephanie looked up at Amy. “Famous or not, they’re mongrels, not pedigrees, aren’t they?” “They’re dogs,” Isabelle said. “No one seems to care about that pedigree shit any more,” I said. “Brick’s the Canine Stud of the Year and an Archibald dog now.” I nodded at the Brick Vermeer to emphasise my point. Stephanie and I were locking horns, old patterns that we couldn’t break and the last thing Amy wanted was a verbal punch up at the New South Wales Art Gallery. It would have made great headlines and I’m sure Isabelle would have thought it a hoot. “Stephanie, has anything happened about Danton’s leg?” Amy cut in, skilfully changing the subject. Stephanie disengaged from battle and retreated to her comfort zone. The prosthetic leg had arrived from Europe and she promised to send it to Danton as soon as possible. Danton thanked her profusely. Stephanie was more sedate than I’d ever seen her. No touching and breathless flattery this time, just a polite business transaction. She was most subdued. This must have been the depressive side of her bipolar disorder that Amy talked about. With Stephanie out of danger, Amy’s father dropped his cold shoulder act and became civil. Till now, he hadn’t said a word. He couldn’t bring himself to face Amy or me so he turned to Danton with a bright chirpy face. “And Loretta? How’s she doing with the medical studies? Smart charming woman, your wife.” I hated the way Amy’s father belittled his own daughter by worshipping Loretta. It was blatant and ungracious. “She loves it,” said Danton. “Loves it so much, she’s going out with her Physiology lecturer from the Medical Faculty.” Isabelle and Amy exchanged glances. They obviously knew 246

something I didn’t but then I was always the last to find out what was happening. Brick wasn’t much of a grapevine. “Amy’s psychology studies are going really well too,” Danton added in the same bright tone Amy’s father had adopted. “She’s got Distinctions and High Distinctions in every subject.” Amy was glowing but neither her father nor stepmother jumped in to congratulate her. Bastards were eyeing the exit and getting restless. But the crowds were thick, keeping us locked in a family scrum. I put my arm around Amy’s shoulder and smiled at her parents. “Yes, you must be as proud of her as we are. I always said that every mad family needs a psychologist.” Amy’s folk were so stuck up, I couldn’t help myself. It was blood sport. Amy gently pulled away and gave me a warning look. She could see I didn’t give a damn, that my old demons were about to reassert themselves so she launched into an interesting manoeuvre that took me by surprise. She turned to Danton and spoke to him in perfect Italian. At least it sounded perfect to me. Her father was surprised and must have understood a little but Danton obviously understood every word. They conversed fluently while we all strained our ears to find a familiar word. One word that did stand out was Farilla. Whatever it was she said, Danton looked stunned, his mouth gaping. Under the critical eye of her father and Stephanie’s lacklustre glance, Amy announced in English that she and Danton had won a competition, the prize being a two-week Mediterranean cruise. The news bowled me over too and I wondered why Amy hadn’t told me earlier. Stephanie spoke in a lithium haze of flatness. “How did you win that?” Amy explained the nature of the ‘twenty-five words or less’ 247

genre competition. “Danton composed the musical score and I wrote the verse,” Amy said. I’d seen the entry and it was impressive. A stylised Zorba the Greek danced in the foreground with Placido Domingo singing opera from the side. Behind them were the bars of music that Danton composed that appeared to come out of Placido Domingo’s mouth. “It went like this,” she said. “Eating al dente Italian Farilla/ From Amalfi Coast to Aegean Villa/ Would inspire us to speak the lingo/ Dance like Zorba/ Sing like Domingo” This silly little winning poem broke the ice. Stephanie smiled for the first time, though her eyes remained dull. Amy’s father looked at Amy, quizzically. “Did I hear you say that you and Danton won it?” Amy nodded and Danton looked at me with embarrassment. Now I realised why Amy hadn’t told me earlier. “What about Jack?” her father added. It was obvious that Amy’s father didn’t understand what was happening to our marriage, didn’t understand the new dynamics that had developed between the four of us standing here. Neither did I for that matter. Amy writhed under her father’s gaze, embarrassed by her own conflicting loyalties. For all her faults, Amy was a decent woman, not the strong, indomitable, controlling wife I’d always imagined. Change had crept into our lives and twisted our loyalties and the four of us desperately needed to talk about it but not here in front of her parents. Let them wallow in ignorance. We certainly did. “Well, you see, Charles, that’s the thing,” I said. “We haven’t yet decided who’s going to travel with who. I’m also going to Europe to meet up with my mother and her family. Isabelle wants to visit her relatives in Spain. Danton is an Italian culture freak and Amy is, well, what can we say? Amy is a saint.” 248

“A saint?” Both Charles and Stephanie blurted out together. Amy was blinking rapidly, wondering what I was up to. “Anyone who can put up with me for twenty years has to be a saint. Ipso facto. Hell, I’m amazed she never asked me for a divorce. I certainly pushed her to the edge. And that to me is sainthood, call it what you like.” Amy gave me a startled look. “Here, here,” Danton said. Charles frowned at his daughter then turned to look at Danton who was hovering beside his daughter a little too close. He stared relentlessly, reality dawning on him slowly, realising at last that Amy and Danton might be more than friends. Stephanie was more surprised to see two grown men, me and Danton, fawning over Amy instead of her. Admittedly, we were bunging it on so thick it was almost slapstick. To confuse matters more, Isabelle put her arm around my waist and turned her bug eyes to Amy’s parents. “Amy’s a saint and Jack’s one of the best artists this country has seen in a long time. You must be so proud to have a son-in-law like Jack.” Wow. She was good. Now they looked positively awestruck. Charles suspected the three of us were mocking him but we were so straight-faced and seemingly genuine. He stared at us, or at least the tops of our heads, looking for our halos. First he stared at Amy who looked anything but a saint. Her frizzy hair had sprung away from the bobby pins wilder than usual in the Sydney humidity. He turned to Isabelle, whose hair was so pink it was blinding, and lastly me, who still looked like Van Gogh’s mad brother. “What’s up, dad?” Amy’s father scratched his head. “I was just wondering what has happened to the sacred institution of marriage and …” He took a deep breath as if he were about to launch into a diatribe when he suddenly stopped. “And what in God’s name has happened to 249

everyone’s hair?” We laughed even though he wasn’t joking. “We’ve all had a bad hair year,” Amy said. We descended into a babble of hair analysis like a gaggle of hairdressers at a hair convention. Charles said he was sad to witness a generation of people disintegrating into marital chaos. We baby boomers were splitting up and realigning as though some midlife upheaval had toppled the delicate balance of monogamy. Stephanie mumbled her usual nonsense about this being consistent with the year of the pig. I said it felt more like the year of the pig dog. Amy quickly covered my gaffe by announcing it was the year of the horse which indicated we were all going to travel. “And where is the money coming from?” asked Charles, turning from astrology to reality. “The Australian dollar is doing very poorly.” “I guess no one’s told you,” Isabelle said. “We sold the chair.” “What chair?” Charles asked. “Vermeer’s chair,” Isabelle said, nodding towards my painting. “The one Jack painted in his Archibald entry and in all his exhibition portraits.” “I doubt whether the proceeds of a chair will take you very far in Europe.” Charles crossed his arms and peered down his nose. “Seventy-five thousand dollars goes a long way,” Isabelle replied, looking up his nostrils. Isabelle squeezed my hand and giggled at the stunned mullet look on Charles’ face but Amy was equally shocked. She knew an investor had offered big money but she never dreamed it would eventuate. The score was even. She hadn’t told me about winning the Farilla Competition and I hadn’t told her the total truth about the chair sale. Jack, we need to talk. Amy’s words hit me out of the blue. That was centuries ago. We never did have that talk. Secrets, lies and lousy communication 250

epitomised our marriage. “Who in their right mind would pay seventy-five thousand for a chair?” Stephanie asked five minutes later. “What’s so special about it?” That gaunt creepy art investor who paid eight thousand dollars for my painting of the bald lady, returned after my Archibald entry was accepted and made a bid for the chair. The guy was either a lunatic or a gambler. “The chair cost me twelve dollars back in the seventies,” I said. “Best investment I ever made. Bugger the share market, I’ll get into the chair market.” Even Charles begrudged a smile. “It’s a sad day for the art world when you can make more money selling a chair than you can from selling a painting,” he said. Did I detect just a hint of compassion for us struggling artists? I smiled. “For once, I have to agree with you, Charles.” Three nights in Sydney were like an eternity and I was glad to get back to Brisbane and so was Brick. He welcomed me in his usual whirling dervish but this time he didn’t leap on tables or knock us over. That psychologist had cured him and fatherhood had wearied him. Rachel and Roland were also pleased to see us back. Rachel had kept the busy gallery open and Roland had taken care of the kids and dogs. Because of Amy’s revelation about winning the Farilla Pasta competition, travel was now on the tip of everyone’s mind. Danton was sitting in the lounge room, flicking through a Lonely Planet Guide to Italy and Amy was in the kitchen making popcorn. Isabelle was on her way over so it was a good time for the four of us to sort out our travel plans. As well as the proceeds of my art exhibition and chair sale, 251

there was Danton’s house insurance payout and the inheritance money from Valerie’s death. Between us we had enough money to travel around the planet forever. “I don’t want to travel forever, Jack. I want to use my money to buy a modest house and some land up at Maleny, somewhere near a community of like-minded musos. I’m going to grow my own food and pursue the path I should have taken years ago, musical composition.” “Old hippies never die,” I said. “Good on you.” Danton declined Amy’s offer of travel using the free competition tickets, as though his acceptance would compromise our friendship. “You and Amy should be travelling together, Jack. Not me. You two haven’t had a holiday for years.” I talked the dilemma over with Isabelle, hoping her legal and rational mind would find a better solution. Isabelle thought we should all go to Europe together and whoever was the least prone to seasickness should go on the cruise. “That rules me out,” I said. The near fatal boating accident cured my love of water. Isabelle confessed to being a lousy sea passenger so that solved one dilemma. “A foursome. That is a brilliant idea.” Amy said, walking into the room and scooping popcorn into her mouth. “With four of us, it would be cheaper to hire cars and rent villas and a lot more fun,” Isabelle enthused. “Bugger this backpacking caper, I want a bit of luxury this time around.” We gathered around the coffee table and Brick wedged his snout into the action. “We can all meet my mother and her family in Italy then hop over to Spain and harass Isabelle’s family. Amy and Danton can translate the Italian, just in case my cousins don’t speak English.” We would all bumble along in France with our smattering of high school French. In the land of wine, gourmet food and art, we 252

didn’t give a toss what they thought of us. We could mime and gesticulate and I could always sing my Piaff songs and do my Toulouse Lautrec impression. “We want to blend in, not get deported,” Amy quipped. Besides meeting my family, I looked forward to visiting the great art galleries once again, perhaps for the last time in my life. I was getting too old and doubted that another opportunity would arise. Amy passed around the huge bowl of popcorn and amidst the crunching we continued tossing around ideas. Danton broke his silence and declared he liked the group travel idea. I think what he meant to say was it saved us having to make solid decisions about our relationships of which we were all uncertain. I knew Amy was unclear about Danton, whether her feelings were reciprocated, whether she’d be destroying the good mutual friendships we’d all developed. “So, you’re not moving up to Maleny too?” I asked her. I dreaded losing Amy, the stabilising influence in my life. She was the only person who knew this courageous but crazy outer shell of mine covered a rocky mass of insecurities. Amy saw through me in an instant and shrugged off my question. She turned to Isabelle. “After this trip, what are you going to do, Isabelle? Any major plans?” Amy and I were performing a verbal tap dance, aimed at extracting information and answers from each other indirectly. Sussing each other out. Isabelle’s bug eyes took it all in and she gave us a knowing smile. “Me? Oh, pay off the mortgage to the gallery, live life day by day like I always do. Whatever comes my way, I’m keen to give it a go.” Isabelle, the smallest, skinniest gnome amongst us had the boldest heart. Perhaps the experience of three husbands and an immigrant family background made her more fearless than most. A knock on the door interrupted our gathering and a courier 253

delivered a huge parcel for Danton. The lightweight prosthetic leg had arrived just as Stephanie had promised and it fit perfectly. “Your stepmum may be an emotional fruitcake but she’s a good therapist,” I said admiring Danton’s new leg. “That’s magnanimous of you, Jack,” Amy replied. “This is fantastic. Stephanie’s a genius.” Danton pranced around the lounge room with his brand new limb, a lightweight plastic miracle of modern technology. “I’m ready to take on the world. Like the saying goes, all I needed was the love of one good leg.” “I think you’ll find that it’s the love of one good woman,” Isabelle said yawning and heading for the lounge. Danton glanced coyly at Amy. “Oh, I’ve found that too.” Amy glowed with embarrassment and joy. She was a wordsmith at heart, one who never trusted her feelings or all those invisible signs and vagaries of body language. Danton’s words threw a silent shroud over the room. “I’ll go and make more popcorn and some drinks.” Amy skipped out of the room leaving Danton and me in an uncomfortable lingering silence. A gentle snore came from behind. I looked over my shoulder to see Isabelle curled up on the lounge with Brick, both fast asleep. Isabelle was a woman whose actions spoke louder than words but nothing came as loud as her booming laughter. She had rescued me from many sticky situations and her unrelenting support for my art over the years reminded me of Van Gogh’s loyal brother, Theo. Isabelle’s devotion was nothing short of amazing, given the moody, self-centred arsehole I’d been for the past few years. “Hey Jack, care for a game of tennis?” Danton was still prancing around the room, testing his new leg. “That’s uncharacteristically suicidal of you, man. Scrap the tennis, how about a game of chess?” 254

“And you call me suicidal?” Danton had played chess since the age of five. Chess was the ultimate sign that our friendship had returned to normal. “You must be a masochist, Jack. You know how chess lubricates the aggression nucleus in my brain.” “Aggression nucleus? Toi?” I said with my best high school French. “Surely not. That’s my job.” Amy walked in with drinks, glad to see the two men in her life playing again and relieved that Isabelle and the dog were asleep. There was peace on earth; in the lounge room at any rate. While Danton’s head was down, deep in a chess strategy that would checkmate me in five moves, an electric glance flashed between Amy and me, a look charged with meaning. Amy’s eyes were a book and once upon a time I could read it. Deep in those black orbs I saw the turmoil of our marriage. Those eyes reflected love and occasionally despair, but they now forgave me for being the obstinate, obsessive-compulsive bully that had rampaged her life. I still loved Amy’s learned cynicism, her solid no-nonsense obstinacy. I wondered if it was too late to rebuild the broken bridges that spanned the abyss in our lives or whether it was time to move on. The two of us were large, clumsy, pig-headed and obstinate, more like Clydesdales than fine racehorses like Isabelle and Danton. Four of us travelling together would sort us out. We had three months to organise ourselves and I still hadn’t heard from my mother in Italy. Perfect autumn days flew by and I was attached to my paintbrush one moment and the violin the next. I worked on one particular song that obsessed me. Rachel had finally made contact with my mother and at first she didn’t want to see me. “That’s impossible,” I hurled my paintbrush to the ground. 255

“Fear, embarrassment, shame.” Rachel shrugged. After much cajoling and disappointment, Rachel admitted that my mother was manic-depressive. “She’s unpredictable and likely to change her mind, just you wait and see.” “I haven’t got time for waiting,” I said. “We’ve already got our plane tickets.” I charged into the arena like a raging bull, put my fears aside and wrote a long letter to my mother. I told her about my life, my art, Amy and our vague travel plans. I was honest and open but not brave enough to telephone, fearing I’d break down and make a total fool of myself, dreading the possibility that she wouldn’t like me. Weeks later a letter arrived back. “The deed is done,” I said to Amy. “We’re going to Italy in June to spend summer with my mother.” My mother. It was a new concept for me. I boasted to Danton and phoned Isabelle and Rachel. I wouldn’t shut up about it. The only one I didn’t tell was Brick. Leaving him behind for three months worried me sick. “He’ll cope,” Amy said. “Roland adores him.” By the end of the week, Amy was tired of hearing me brag about my aunt in Scarborough my cousin in Canada, my stepbrother and sister in Europe. She took all this family stuff for granted but it was a new experience for me. “You don’t understand,” I exclaimed. “Suddenly I’m connected with the world.” “I know. The anti-globalisation freak has gone global,” Amy said. “ How ironic.” My extended family linked me with relatives all over the planet. I was borne from a mixed up heritage of clashing nationalities. No wonder I was a potpourri of personality conflicts. The pieces of my life’s jigsaw were almost complete and I was thrilled at discovering a bridge to my past. “But this is different, Amy. This is family.” 256

Amy rolled her eyes. “I’ll take friends over family any day.” It was nearing the perfect month of May where the days basked us in warmth and the nights were crisp enough to attract the elusive buddha fish. I wandered over to Isabelle’s house but she wasn’t home so I climbed up and sat on her roof to wait for her. Rachel was busy running the gallery below as she often did these days. The roof was a great place to practise my violin and today, my idiosyncratic versions of Mozart’s violin concerto wafted around the Scarborough Gallery and into the sea breeze. I was by no means proficient at the classics other than in an embryonic form that would have horrified the musical cognoscenti but that was their problem. If Danton could stand it, so could they. From my roof top eyrie, I was squeaking away on the violin when I saw a battalion of reporters arriving. They had traced me to this gallery. Rachel welcomed them and announced that she was my aunt. She patted the short wisps of red hair that had sprouted from her once bald head and raved to the reporters in an engaging way that had me wondering about my mother. Would she be as gregarious as her sister Rachel? Did I get my moodiness from her manicdepressive genes? Isabelle roared up to the gallery on her motorbike and greeted the reporters. They switched their attention and admiration to Isabelle’s gleaming Ducati. “Pure Italian grunt.” Isabelle stroked her purring bike and introduced herself. “Is Jack McPhee here? We have great news,” shouted one reporter over the engine purr. “He didn’t win the Archibald, if that’s what you’re going to interview him about.” Isabelle pulled off her helmet. “We know that. He’s done something that might prove to be just as advantageous to his career.” 257

“Oh shit! He hasn’t got himself arrested again, has he?” Hell, that woman was beginning to know me well. “No. Nothing like that. But we want to tell him the news firsthand.” Isabelle looked worried. I picked up the violin and continued playing. “So where is he? Where is the great man himself?” demanded one reporter. “We’d like a few photos.” Isabelle put her hand to her ear. “Can you hear those dulcet tones coming from the heavens? Well let me tell you something, that ain’t God.” “Sounds a bit like a violin,” said one reporter. “Well it ain’t no cat being strangled. That’s him alright,” Isabelle said. “He plays the violin to relax. It doesn’t work so well for us, but it sure works for him.” The reporters rushed onto the footpath and looked up. I was sitting cross-legged on the roof with my violin nestled in my chin and Brick curled around my legs. I stopped playing and faced a bombardment of questions and the flash of cameras. “Hey, Van Meegeren.” His familiar voice rattled a sleepy synapse in the back blocks of my memory. “You did it after all. And I thought you were just another mad artist.” It was the reporter who’d visited me in hospital after the boating accident. It felt like a century ago. “Well bugger me,” I exclaimed. “You again. I didn’t think you’d remember me.” “Mr McPhee.” The other journalists were impatient. “How do you feel about winning that award?” “What award?” I shouted. “The People’s Choice Award,” they shouted back. “Who won that?” “You did.” “I won it?” A camera flash blinded me. “Well, I’ll be buggered.” I was mute, too overwhelmed with emotion to answer the next 258

bombardment of questions. Isabelle almost fainted when she heard the news but quickly pulled herself together and took over the interview. The journalists whipped out their pens and tape recorders and she told them that winning the People’s Choice award didn’t surprise her. She bullshitted on about all my wonderful qualities and showed them my other works hanging in her gallery. Bulbs flashed and I assumed they were snapping photos of my paintings. With all this media coverage, my paintings would be in high demand from now on. I heard Isabelle feeding them snippets of my history, the early influences, my art education and enough juicy information to help them write a lively story. “Well, Jack, you said you’d win the Archibald.” The familiar voice again. “You came mighty close. Surprised hell out of me, that’s for sure.” I was still in that state of disbelief. “Are you sure about the People’s Choice Award?” “Sure. When they tallied the numbers, your painting received a staggering twenty-two thousand out of the thirty-one thousand votes,” one reporter shouted. The announcement of the People’s Choice Award came so many months after the Archibald opening that I’d forgotten all about it. From the roof of the gallery where I’d once watched a lunar eclipse and fallen in love with Isabelle, I now discovered that my Brick Vermeer was the most popular painting at the Archibald even though it hadn’t won. I patted the dog in silent wonder. “Jack. Where did you learn to play the violin?” yelled another reporter. “Danton Kozlowski taught me. He’s the best composer in Australia and he’s on his way over right now. Write down his name because you’ll be hearing it a lot from now on.” A free plug wouldn’t hurt. “That’s if he’s not snapped up overseas.” 259

“So where will you go from here, Mr McPhee?” they shouted. “From here? Well, hopefully, not down. That would be fatal both for me and for you,” I shouted back. The journalists chuckled. “And God knows I’ve been down for a long time. No matter how hard I try to escape, I’m destined to be a portrait artist so my next step is entering the Doug Moran Art Competition and maybe a few exhibitions in Canada and Europe. Probably a good holiday overseas to check out art galleries and visit my new family. Guess what? I found my mother—” “Ah, yes. The biological family search,” shouted the reporters who spent most of their lives avoiding mothers and families. Their voices were less enthusiastic. “How did you manage that?” “Purely by accident. It all started out of the blue when some crazy lady attacked me with her umbrella and then the cops arrested me and then the chief witness at my court case turned out to be my aunt and then…” I was beginning to rave. I looked down at the bland faces of the reporters. “It seems like once you give up looking for something, you’re more likely to find it. It’ll hit you over the head.” “That sounds very Zen, Mr McPhee,” rumbled a deep voice with a strong Scottish accent. “Earlier this year after a boating accident, you said to a reporter that you felt you had a purpose in life.” The word whimsically rolled off his tongue. “Have you found it yet?” “Ah, yes. I was quite big on finding purpose and meaning back then.” I laughed at the memory of my former serious self. “I discovered there is no purpose to my life. There’s no big picture, or should I say big painting, to strive for.” The reporters smiled and jotted down the threads of my onthe-spot philosophy. “Life is too random and capricious for that. I reckon it’s the details along the way that are important, the day-to-day little things in life that make up the big picture. Everything else is more or less a grand illusion — the struggle for success and fame is a 260

great diversion but you face the same problems wherever you are.” “Where did you pick up your, uh, wisdom?” I pat Brick’s big calm head. “From my dog.” At that moment, Amy and Danton arrived. They stood outside, intrigued by the scene then looked up at me and waved. “Uh, Mr McPhee. Could you tell us why you’re on the roof with your dog?” came that same deep voice with the strong Scottish accent. “Because my dog is the best friend I ever had. He’s part of my family,” I said. “He’s saved my life many times—” “No, I mean, why are you on the roof?” shouted the Scotsman making the word roof come out like a puff of wind. “Why am I on the roof? I’m up here for my wife, who just arrived, ” I shouted. “Amy, stay where you are. This is for you.” I lifted my violin and played If I were a rich man, the theme song of the movie Fiddler on the Roof. Twenty years ago, inspired by the movie, I swore that one day I would play a fiddle on a roof. Today I fulfilled that promise. When I finished, Amy clapped. She wiped tears from her cheeks and I could see her leaning towards Danton, explaining the history of this song. The reporters scribbled furiously into their notebooks. The headlines of one paper would later read Fiddler on the Roof wins the Archibald People’s Choice Award and variations of this theme. Each reporter was rushing to get an offbeat story and feed it to his newspaper before the others. By next week the story would be old news and my fifteen minutes of fame would have died. High on a rooftop, I looked down on the worldly turmoil below and for the first time in fifty years, I felt good. So this was that mysterious thing called contentment. “Come on up,” I yelled to Amy and Danton. “We’re on our way,” Amy yelled back. Brick heard Amy’s voice and looked down. I wondered how 261

Dobell would have handled this sudden change in perspective and whether Brick was too old to switch from a shoe fetish to a hat fetish, an interesting question to put to that animal psychologist. Amy and Danton appeared at the window and tentatively stepped onto the roof. “I see what you mean by a magic spot.” Amy wiped her spectacles and gawked at the panorama. Isabelle poked her head out the attic window sat beside me. The four of us admired a full view of the Redcliffe Peninsula with its shimmering beaches and speckle of distant islands. We were united by our proximity, at ease with each other and ignored the messy world below. “So, Jacko, do you think you’ll settle down into middle-age complacency now that you’re famous?” Isabelle asked. “Hell no! Are you kidding? There’s too much social injustice to fight.” “But you’ve been touched by fame, Jack. Everyone’s going to expect you to put your energy into art,” Danton said. “Who’s got time to fight?” I’d already thought about how to combine the two. “I’m going to put my energy into art but it’s going to be blatant, ratbag political art. I’m not going to waste my fame and money on crass consumerism. We don’t need a bigger house or a yacht or a fancy car.” “Well, maybe a slightly newer car,” Amy said. “This is my fifteen minutes of fame and I’m going to use it to fight the things that really piss me off.” That list was endless. Political art would be my visual way of showing the real evils of unchecked globalisation and imperialism. A million ideas were racing through my veins like the art junkie I was. I’d harness my paltry bit of fame to barrack for the underdog and I began raving about Amnesty International and human rights and animal rights. 262

Amy yawned, Danton pretended to be fast asleep and Isabelle started laughing with that booming voice of hers. The crescendo of our laughter and hysteria must have stirred the other underdog from his slumber. Brick sat upright as though he’d been listening to my words with every ounce of canine attention. “I’d like to see a world run by artists instead of accountants,” Danton said when I finally shut up. “Or a world run by chefs instead of military chiefs…Ouch…Get out of it…” Isabelle pushed Brick away as he licked her ear then nudged his way between me and Amy. Amy laughed at Brick’s jostling for a central position. “Will you look at this dog? And we were naïve enough to think that nothing would ever come between us.” Brick, his stout white body wedged between me and Amy, grinned from ear to ear in perfect contentment. “Think of him as an eighty pound contraceptive. That’s the real reason Jack and I had no children.” A new round of car doors slammed, shouting echoed from reporters below and cameras flashed. We looked down at the startled reporters and smiled for their photos. Suddenly, Brick threw his head back and emitted an eerie and chilling howl that stopped everyone in their tracks from Scarborough to Redcliffe. It was as though all the angst of the world had been released into the atmosphere with one giant howl. “Now that’s what I call a global scream,” Amy said. “What do you think he’s trying to say?” Isabelle asked, leaning across to rub Brick’s chest. I put down my violin, looked at Isabelle on one side of me, Amy and Danton on the other, the dog in the middle. “I think he’s trying to tell us that this is as good as it gets.”

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Michelle Lopert was born in New York in 1954. Her family migrated to Australia and settled in Sydney. Throughout the 1970s she lived in share houses in Glebe and studied for an Arts Degree. She spent ten years travelling and taking on odd jobs. The oddest was growing watermelons in the Tanami Desert and the most exotic was working as an au pair girl in Paris. In 1986 she gained a Degree in Physiotherapy and worked as a therapist for the next 20 years. With her artist husband and bull terrier, she led a nomadic life living in Tasmania, Adelaide, Alice Springs, Brisbane, Naracoorte, Wauchope, Wagga Wagga and Bonny Hills. Recently retired, she now lives in the rural poets village of Kendall on the Mid-North Coast of NSW with her new partner, Monty. In between gardening, chook whispering and collecting horse manure, Michelle writes articles for the Kendall Chronicle and continues to write fiction. She has won many literary competitions and has numerous short stories published. Her collection of prizewinning stories, Happy Families and Other Delusions was recently published by Ginninderra Press. Vermeer’s Chair is her first novel.

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Thor (2000-2008)

“Hilarious book! I haven’t laughed this much since reading War and Peace.” Dr Ron Lopert “The glittering palaces of Tsarist Russia…the mysterious jungles of the Congo…the vast sweeps of the Mongolian hinterland…a lonely budgie called Arthur…none of these are in this book.” Gillian Oakbrook “A rattling good read…I read it during an earthquake.” Phil Garden (NZ)

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