Invented Lives

by Andrea Goldsmith

  They ate the foreign food, or rather they explored it, and whatever Sylvie’s motives, the adventure — for it was an adventure — turned out to be a success. They tried several types of smoked fish and meats, a couple of salads, and a range of pickled vegetables, all of which Leonard thought tasted much the same. Galina provided a commentary on the food. She began so quietly and hesitantly he feared she was as shy as his son. But soon she was regaling them with stories, not just about the food, but of the life she had left behind: the shops, the queues, the empty shelves, the Russian people’s extraordinary inventiveness when preparing meals with few ingredients. She talked about celebratory food, and identified several items on the platters as belonging to this category, much to Sylvie’s evident delight.

  Galina talked freely in excellent English, but uttered nothing personal: for all she said, she might never have had family or friends. As for her relationship with his son, a relationship so significant she’d crossed the world to be with him, there was nothing in her behaviour to suggest any intimacy between them. Indeed, there was something unreadable about her, and a guardedness too — possibly essential qualities when negotiating the perils of Soviet life, but out of kilter here in relaxed and open Australia. Not that he was in a position to criticise circumspection, he who was such an expert in it.

  It was well after eight when they went into dinner. The Russian food had been so salty that Sylvie brought a jug of water to the table, an American custom she normally deplored. She had cooked a leg of lamb with roasted vegetables, green beans, mint sauce, and her excellent gravy — Australian food to follow the Russian entrée, she said. Galina, he was pleased to see, displayed a healthy appetite, surprising in a girl these days, particularly one with a good figure.

  There was a pleasing bigness about her, a 1950s movie-star type of fullness, and not a trace of the stodgy, pasty Slavic looks he tended to associate with Russian women. This girl had a presence. It was not just her size, but her unusual colouring: the olive skin with almost-black eyes, and the surprise of honey-coloured hair. He liked the way she styled it, soft around the face and caught loosely at the nape with a clasp. She really was an attractive girl.

  He ate his meal, Andrew ate his, Winston ate his, and Sylvie plied the girl with questions, a battery of questions about her impressions of Australia, her decision to emigrate, her family and friends, her future plans. He knew Sylvie was genuinely interested, she was chillingly polite when she was not, but the girl was no more forthcoming now about her personal circumstances than when talking about the Russian food. She needed rescuing.

  He interrupted Sylvie with a request for a second helping, and then turned to his son.

  ‘I ran into your old friend Graham Carter the other day. At my accountant’s.’

  Sylvie was filling his plate with a second serving as large as the first. He caught her eye, gestured that she stop, and turned back to Andrew.

  ‘Odd how people turn out. Graham was such an unusual kid, and now he’s rising up the ladder at Featherstone & Peak.’

  He saw the smile rise to his son’s face at the mention of Graham’s name, then quickly disappear. Perhaps this was not the best of conversation topics, after all.

  ‘Graham was my best friend at school,’ Andrew explained to Galina. After a long pause, he added, ‘Perhaps the best friend I ever had.’ Leonard thought he detected a note of resentment in his son’s tone. ‘What happened to Graham was tragic.’ Andrew turned to Leonard. ‘It’s too bad his father wasn’t as amenable to his artistic ambitions as you were to mine.’

  Amenable was not how Leonard would describe his actions. He’d strenuously opposed Andrew’s choice of career, any concerned father would have done the same. He wanted his son to have a good life, a secure life. In any one generation, there might be one or two artists of renown, while the rest grow bitter, and are forced to confront their failure every day. He didn’t want that for his son.

  Leonard knew his was not a totally disinterested view; after all, if not for his own father he might have pursued his dream of becoming a writer. But with struggles enough for any man, he now believed his father had been right to steer him into business. As he believed he’d been right to try to dissuade Andrew from a career in art. But when he realised Andrew was not going to change his mind — clearly the son was made of stronger stuff than the father — he withdrew from the fight. To this day though, he remained unconvinced of the long-term viability of Andrew’s being an artist. But — and this was crucial — he would never have done as Graham’s father did.

  ‘Graham’s life would make excellent material for a Russian novel,’ Andrew said to Galina. ‘A modern-day Dostoyevskian tragedy.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘Would you like to hear the story?’

  She smiled and nodded, and for the first time Leonard thought he detected a warmth in the way she looked at his son. As for Andrew, he rarely took the floor voluntarily, so perhaps being with Galina gave him confidence.

  ‘Graham and I went to high school together,’ Andrew began. ‘We were both good students with a particular interest in art. The school encouraged us.’

  ‘I remember.’ Leonard heard the sharpness in his voice.

  He and Sylvie, and Graham’s parents too, acknowledged their sons’ artistic abilities, but they praised their sporting and academic achievements as well. Both sets of parents took what they believed to be a balanced approach. So when Graham announced to his parents at the end of his intermediate year that he intended to be an artist, they were not concerned. The boy was young, they said. He had two more years of high school; he’d change his mind. But over the next two years, Graham’s resolve actually strengthened, bolstered by success in student art competitions and his art teacher’s encouragement.

  ‘I could draw, I could paint, I had a talent,’ Andrew said. ‘But compared with Graham, I might have been doodling. Our teacher couldn’t do enough for him. Never had he had such a gifted pupil.’

  ‘You’re being too modest,’ Leonard said, and might have continued, except Andrew silenced him.

  ‘No, I’m being truthful. Graham was exceptional.’ Again, he directed his words to Galina. ‘The textures he achieved were unbelievable. He used brushes and palette knives, he used his hands. He was fascinated by colour, layering colour, heaping colours onto the canvas. His paintings were lush, rhythmic, organic.

  ‘Then one day in our final year it all came to an end. Graham didn’t appear in class. His space had been cleared, his paintings had been removed from the art-room walls.

  ‘He was absent from school the next day, and the one following. At the end of the week, with final exams just a month away, it was announced he wouldn’t be returning to school. Graham was unwell, the teacher said, and would be studying for his exams at home.

  ‘On the Saturday, I went round to his place. It was mid-afternoon and he was still in his pyjamas. He looked a mess, he reeked of neglect — all of him except his hands and nails which were clean of paint. The first time in years.

  ‘Apparently, Graham’s father had shown several of his paintings to a collector, a man who, according to the father, knew about art. The collector assessed the work as good, but not first-rate. Not in the class of Fred Williams or Arthur Boyd. Not in the class of John Percival, whom, the collector said — and it was not meant as a compliment — Graham was clearly trying to emulate. Not good enough, Graham was told by his father. “You’ll never amount to the best,” he said, in a final cruel stroke.’

  Andrew looked very solemn. ‘For all his bravado on canvas, Graham was not a strong character.’

  ‘Or perhaps,’ Leonard suggested, ‘he lacked the necessary drive, the courage too, to be an artist. Talent’s not enough, you know that yourself. Nothing I did or said could dissuade you from your decision. You were driven.’ Leonard shrugged. ‘You still are.’

  Andrew was nodding gently. ‘Who knows what it was with Graham? He wa
s seventeen, and his father ground his heels into his dreams. And now he’s an accountant.’

  There was a brief pause before Leonard added, ‘I can’t say he looked unhappy.’

  ‘Such a life,’ Andrew said, more to himself than anyone else, ‘such a life would extirpate the imagination.’

  The blow struck without warning. It was his son’s arresting utterance — about a life that would not just extinguish the imagination, but bring about a far more violent annihilation. Leonard wanted to leave the table, consult a dictionary, make sure he understood what ‘extirpate’ meant. Although he knew exactly what it meant — he was dissembling even in the privacy of his own mind — what he wanted was to be left alone to think. The words had not been said about him, yet their effect was acutely personal. He was a businessman who had once wanted to be a poet; he was a husband and a father with singular tastes; he was a man who lived every day with secrets. He knew all about a life in which a significant part of the self was stifled, even excised.

  He glanced at Galina. She was the first girl Andrew had ever introduced to them; she might well be Andrew’s first girlfriend. She had left her home and country to be with Andrew; she was more than likely going to marry him. As much as he might want to be alone, Leonard knew it was out of the question. At that moment, Winston met his gaze and gave a barely perceptible nod. It was a gesture of support to Leonard Morrow, father, husband and businessman, and not to Leo Morrow, who had always straddled two worlds.

  Perhaps, in order to live with other people, some essential aspects of the self always need to be extinguished, Leonard was thinking. Desire, ambition, even country, as in the case of Galina and Winston. No one can do everything they want, nor can they have everything they desire. Every choice made is another denied.

  Galina, too, was reflecting on Andrew’s odd utterance. She did not understand this word ‘extirpate’. But Andrew’s artist friend, she understood. It would have been better if this Graham had been born in the Soviet Union: his talent would have been recognised, and he would have been sent to a specialist art academy where his gift would have been nurtured. And no one would have waited until he was seventeen. Fifteen-year-olds, ten-year-olds, seven-year-olds, five-year-olds, if they were truly gifted were put where their gift could blossom. She did not see tragedy in the story of Graham, she saw ignorance and stupidity. Surely it was obvious that when it came to artistic ability, the art teacher had the authority, not the boy’s father nor the father’s art-collecting friend.

  Such a life would extirpate the imagination, Sylvie was thinking, or, as in her own case, force it underground. It was an uncomfortable thought for someone who had no reason to complain about her life. But how else to explain her passion for letters written by strangers? How else to explain her breaking and entering of a few hours back? Others might look at her and see a kind but limited sort of woman, but with a letter in her hand, her imagination was let loose. With a letter in her hand, she was unstoppable.

  She looked around the table; the conversation had lapsed, and everyone seemed absorbed in their own thoughts. She caught Leonard’s eye and gave him a nod. In a rousing voice, he suggested they move to the living room. Once they were settled with coffee and chocolates the talk fired up again. The gunman at the post office was on everyone’s mind, in particular, what might have motivated him.

  ‘Perhaps some people are born bad,’ Winston said.

  ‘Or they hunger for power at any cost.’ This from Galina.

  Sylvie was convinced the gunman’s upbringing shaped his actions. ‘Violence, deprivation — anything but love and acceptance.’ She turned to her son. ‘He looks to be about your age, Andrew. At twenty-seven, you have a career, family, friends, a girlfriend.’ She smiled at Galina. ‘But this man, what does he have? A gun and grievances, and 100-proof anger.’ She shrugged. ‘Ours is not a fair world.’

  ‘It’s certainly not a fair world for those killed by him,’ Andrew said.

  ‘Perhaps he’s just insane,’ Leonard said. At which point Andrew, after glancing at Galina, jumped in to compliment Sylvie on the meal. Galina, too, voiced her appreciation, and Winston added, ‘Hear, hear.’

  Sylvie merely shrugged: she was a housewife, and housewives cooked.

  Leonard leapt to her defence. ‘Don’t underrate yourself,’ he said. ‘You make leadlight windows, you attend adult-education classes, you’re a volunteer driver, you knit and sew, you’re a huge reader, and’ — he looked triumphant — ‘there’s your letter collection. What other housewife collects letters?’

  Not her letters, Sylvie was silently pleading, not in front of this stranger, not in front of Winston. She put a playful hand over Leonard’s mouth, although she was feeling more plundered than playful.

  Leonard shook her off. ‘You should show Galina that Russian letter you’ve never had translated.’

  Galina looked intrigued. ‘You collect letters?’

  Sylvie nodded. She didn’t dare speak.

  ‘Letters written by strangers?’

  Again, Sylvie nodded.

  ‘Show her, darling,’ Leonard said.

  Sylvie heard the pride in his voice, but it was not what she wanted, not when it involved her letter collection. Although to protest would reveal how much the letters mattered, and she had no desire to expose herself any more than had already occurred.

  So it happened that a couple of minutes later, Sylvie was making her way towards her little workroom at the top of the house, with the Russian girl following, to show what had been seen by no one except Leonard, and even with him it was just the occasional interesting acquisition like the Russian letter. And in that instance it was the stamp she had wanted Leonard to see, a stamp depicting happy women picking lemons. It was dated 1951, the year he had moved from Perth to Melbourne, the pivotal year that ultimately led to his meeting her. She couldn’t explain why, but she believed in the happiness of the lemon-pickers and the happenstance of the date, and she wanted to share these with Leonard. Now she wondered if, in fact, 1951 had been a happy time in Russia. The girl would know, but she didn’t want to encourage her.

  There were times she had shown Leonard a letter because of the curious handwriting, or the plush paper, features she knew would interest him, but the power of letters to reach across time and country, the stories they told, and all the lives and possibilities they triggered, these remained hers alone. She shared the twin desires common to all collectors of wanting her collection to be admired, but, at the same time, feeling compelled to protect it — and not just the collection, but the passion of the collector, too, the naked heart after all — from people who would damage it by indifference, or derision, or outright contempt.

  And what would this girl think of her letter collection? This girl from a culture so foreign it was impossible to assume or predict anything, who might well fade out of Andrew’s life before long — although she hoped this wouldn’t be the case. What to think about this stranger now following her up the stairs to the room into which no one but she entered, her own private space from the time she and Leonard had bought this house? In the early days, her use of the room was assumed to be temporary, but miscarriage after miscarriage meant it remained hers. Leonard, too, had his own private retreat in what should have been another child’s bedroom; Sylvie went in there to clean, but did so with eyes averted. Not that she thought Leonard harboured any significant secrets; he was simply not that sort of man.

  Leonard had offered to swap his room for hers, given his was far more comfortable and within the main flow of the house. But that was the crucial factor: in her eyrie she was far removed from the domestic domain, far removed from everyday life. She would climb the creaky stairs to the solitude of her room, and work on her letters — transcribing, cataloguing, or searching for background material. Or she would read, hours every week spent in the pages of books. And sometimes she would just sit, her hands idle, her mind conjuring up
other lives — fully imagined companions, if she so desired — while her own life lay quietly to one side.

  When Andrew was a little boy she had read him Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree books. These stories told of a group of friends who climbed to the top of a magic tree, where they entered fantastic places and had gripping adventures. Mounting the stairs to her room was like climbing her own faraway tree; her letters provided the adventures.

  Perhaps all housewives superimpose dreams on their plain-Jane lives. This was not something Sylvie had ever discussed with her friends, nor would she. They were, like her, living uncomplicated lives with normal happy children, and steady dependable husbands. If they had problems, she assumed they would do as she did and keep them in-house. And just as she used letters to escape domestic drudgery, she expected her friends had their own outlets.

  Her collection had started by accident, perhaps most collections do. She had found her first letter pressed between the pages of a second-hand book she had bought during her third pregnancy. This was her Latin pregnancy: Latin poetry, in translation, to distract her from her hopes and fears. (The first pregnancy was all joy until the miscarriage; the second pregnancy was her Henry James one, with only two of his shorter novels finished before the miscarriage occurred.) She’d enjoyed Latin at school, and Virgil, in particular, seemed the right sort of guide and protector for this new pregnancy. As it happened, the second-hand book that yielded her first letter was not Virgil, but a collection of Propertius’s love poems, a beautiful old book with a spongy maroon leather cover and gold-rimmed pages. The letter marked a poem called ‘Gone’, a short poem that began, ‘The girl I loved has left me.’ Two lines of the poem had been marked in pencil: ‘love’s king of yesterday becomes by fate/Tomorrow’s Fool. That is the way of love.’