After She Left

by Penelope Hanley

  Maureen wasn’t surprised by Jim’s reaction to Whitlam but she didn’t know how to deal with it.

  18

  KEIRA

  March 1973

  Miss Madge Burnside lived in the same tiny two-storey terrace house in The Rocks that she had lived in for more than half a century. Her face and forearms were covered in a network of wrinkles and a faded dusty-pink floral dress hung loose on her skinny frame.

  She offered Keira a glass of water, which Keira accepted. The kitchen was simple and spotlessly clean with a faint trace of lemon in the air. They sat at a smooth pine table.

  ‘Do you mind if I record you, Miss Burnside?’ Keira said.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Miss Burnside in the loud voice of one who is deaf. ‘I won’t allow you to record me.’

  ‘What about photographs?’

  ‘No photographs.’

  She’s not being very cooperative with someone who has to do a photographic essay, thought Keira.

  Miss Burnside said, ‘She was Céitlin O’Mara when I met her.’

  ‘Yes, Deirdre was her second name, but it was the one she usually went by. I’m not sure why you met her as Céitlin.’

  ‘What?’ barked Miss Burnside. Keira repeated herself.

  ‘She lodged at my sister-in-law’s,’ Miss Burnside said, ‘God rest her soul, in Cumberland Street around the corner.’ She stared into the middle distance and said, ‘We are all pilgrims and life is a long, weary walk from Earth to Heaven.’ Her gaze rested on Keira. ‘Or Hell.’

  Keira drank her water and put the glass down with a thud.

  ‘She was a loose woman,’ said Miss Burnside.

  A shock shivered up Keira’s spine. Her mother, so concerned with reputation, would blanch if she heard her own mother described like this.

  Miss Burnside’s glare was boring into her and she shifted on the hard chair. Her own life would look immoral to this woman, even though she had no child. The only reason she didn’t was because of the pill. Keira asked some more questions but Madge Burnside was not forthcoming in her answers. Keira tried digging deeper but Miss Burnside was having none of it.

  ‘This is all a bit of a lark to you, isn’t it?’ Miss Burnside said. ‘Waltzing into people’s homes, asking questions and scribbling down the answers so you can make of them what you want. People are not just walking encyclopedias of your favourite topic of the moment, you know. There are other things in life than your little project.’

  In the intense silence the air felt charged. Keira felt a flush of guilty embarrassment.

  ‘Shall we continue?’

  ‘No. It’s time for my afternoon rest.’

  Keira walked down the street towards Circular Quay and tried to understand why the bizarre interview with this batty old woman had left her feeling bad. Madge Burnside’s moral superiority over ‘loose women’ was not upsetting. That was mere narrow-mindedness.

  But the other charge levelled at her was wounding. At first she resisted thinking about it. But as she walked to the Quay, not registering the busy streets to her right or the harbour on her left, she wondered if she did view people as walking encyclopedias, mere shortcuts to her goal?

  She was walking up George Street when she saw a 433 bus pull up. She could jump on and surprise Alan. He worked at home on Wednesday afternoons and 433s were so rare that it seemed like fate. She paid her fare and settled down the back with her copy of Iris Murdoch’s The Sandcastle for the journey.

  She was so engrossed that she almost missed the stop. After pulling the bell just in time she shoved the paperback into her bag, raced down the aisle and jumped down the step. It was a busy time of day and she waited ages before she could cross the road. Finally she was over the other side, just in time to see Alan get out of his Datsun.

  ‘Alan – hi!’

  ‘Keira!’ There was a sparkle in his blue eyes and he looked as if he couldn’t believe his luck. He kissed her and put an arm around her waist. They walked to the gate and into the house.

  ‘Good day at work?’ she asked.

  ‘Pretty good. How about you?’ They walked up the hessian runner on the stairs and round the corner to the dining room. He dumped his briefcase on the lino and some papers on the table.

  ‘Yeah, okay. I’m interviewing people who knew Deirdre and I’m seeing some more people at five o’clock, just up the road in Rozelle, so I thought I could visit you.’

  ‘Glad you did. Like a drink? I’ve got beer in the fridge.’

  ‘You sit down,’ she said, ‘I’ll get it.’ She pushed him gently towards a chair, feeling his firm skin warm through the fine cotton shirt.

  He sat down, yawned and stretched while she went to the cupboard. ‘Beer glasses down low, remember?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ she said, bending down.

  ‘Has anyone told you you’ve got a lovely bottom?’ he said.

  She laughed. He stood up and took the glasses from her and went into the living room. She put the beers on the coffee table.

  ‘You’re gorgeous. Too gorgeous for words,’ he said. ‘Actions are needed!’ He lunged at her, grabbing a hip in one hand and a thigh in the other. She screamed and they tumbled onto the sofa, wrestling and kissing intermittently until they stopped laughing and were both panting. His hands went everywhere, running up and down her thighs, across her stomach and between her thighs, teasing the edges of her lemon Hip-Nipper knickers. He would push them down a little and she would push his hand away and pull them up again. He ran the tip of his tongue along the rim of her ear. She started unbuttoning his shirt to reveal his smooth golden chest.

  Her hands went into the waistband of his pants and she eased the zipper down and undid the stud at the top.

  He groaned. ‘I’ve got to go back to work soon,’ he said. ‘I’ve got tons to do. I shouldn’t really have come home. Got a report I didn’t finish, due tomorrow, and I left some information I need on my desk.’

  ‘Ohhhhh,’ she said, ‘really? Oh well, just hold me for a while and we’ll have a short talk and that’s all – how was work? How’s teaching?’

  He moved into a sitting position with his arm around her. ‘Let me cool down with some beer,’ he said, sipping some. ‘The students keep me on my toes. Young minds are stimulating. Yeah, it’s going well.’

  ‘That’s good,’ she said, and kissed him.

  ‘Any more of that and you’re in danger.’

  She immediately tried to kiss him again.

  ‘Keira! – Settle down,’ he said and laughed. ‘Now tell me about your work.’

  ‘The interviews were going okay till today.’

  ‘Why? What happened?’

  ‘I talked to this horrid old lady who knew Deirdre when she first came off the boat. My mum did tell me that much – that Lillian, the sister who was a family friend and looked after her at first, died, and Madge, the not nice one, is still here.’

  He squeezed her shoulder. ‘Isn’t that just like life?’

  ‘Yeah. She kind of unsettled me for some reason. She was moralistic and made me feel bad.’ Keira turned towards him and took his hand. She looked down at it and said, ‘Do you think I’m … too focused?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  I’m not the sort of person who uses people, am I?’

  ‘Is that what she said?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘I haven’t seen any evidence of that. I mean, we all do – to some extent, in that we all need each other, but it’s give and take. What specifically was she referring to?’

  ‘Me just waltzing in and treating people like an encyclopedia, using them to get information.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t barge in like that, do you?’

  ‘Well, now I’m not so sure. Do you reckon I’m too focused on getting what I want and not paying attention to anything else?’

  He smiled and held her closer. ‘Keira, don’t worry – I like you just the way you are, with all your focus.’

  She looked up at him. ‘I like
you too, Mister.’

  *

  They finished their beers and Alan drove her to Bellmore Road where the Baileys lived. Eileen Bailey greeted Keira, invited her in and offered her tea.

  ‘Can I take some photos of you, please?’ said Keira, taking out her Nikon.

  ‘Of course,’ said Eileen.

  ‘And do you mind if I record our interview?’

  ‘Go right ahead.’

  Keira stood to take photos of Eileen and her husband from various angles. ‘Relax,’ she said, ‘I don’t want you to pose – just talk and forget about the camera.’

  Eileen plunged right in. ‘Your grandmother,’ she said, ‘suited the Wild name. There was an untamed quality about her. She’d had that extraordinary upbringing on the island.’

  Bert looked up from the racing form and said, ‘Island life was wild in one way but too restricting in another, too traditional. That was why she came to Australia, to break free.’ He sipped his black tea.

  ‘Did you go to their house at Clovelly?’ said Keira.

  ‘Yes, to parties there. Deirdre wasn’t just a painter. The garden was like an outdoor gallery, an exhibition of colour and perfumes, texture and pattern, and constantly changing with the different lights and seasons. And the mosaics she made, inside and out – the hearth in the living room and the steps in front – stunning,’ said Eileen. ‘Deirdre and her modernist friends couldn’t get exhibited in the state gallery but they pursued their art and transformed their homes in the modernist way, making ordinary domestic life beautiful. And eventually their ideas caught on.’

  ‘But that was after the Second World War?’

  ‘Yes. The ideas that had transformed Europe just before the First World War didn’t penetrate Australia, except for artists like Deirdre, till after the Second! We were a tiny band of brothers and sisters – the communists and artists who believed that ordinary life could and should be changed from the prevailing bourgeois stuffy conservativeness.’

  ‘Sorry to be taking up so much of your time,’ said Keira, ‘but did you know Owen Wynter?’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Eileen. ‘We met him. We knew his sister Trisha better. She was a nurse and the Red Cross sent her and some others to Spain in 1937 to help. Owen didn’t go over till the following year.’

  ‘He and Deirdre didn’t want to part, but they both believed in the cause – helping the International Brigade’s fight against fascism,’ said Bert.

  ‘So many of them died,’ said Eileen. ‘Trisha was all right but Owen ended up in prison in Madrid, assumed to be dead.’

  After some more questions, Keira said, ‘Thank you so much for this – it’s a tremendous help. There’s one other thing. I wonder if you two could help me. Geoffrey Pettifer gave me Deirdre’s address book and it’s so old I guess most people might have … moved.’ She was trying to be discreet, considering their advanced age.

  But Bert said cheerfully, ‘Or died.’ He continued, ‘You have it with you? Let’s have a look.’

  Eileen looked through the book with him. Some people had died, almost all had moved, and the name, Olivia Dathcett, on the bit of pink paper, brought some sad memories to mind – she’d married too young and had stabbed her husband and ended up in the asylum.

  ‘Married to Howard Dathcett, it was no wonder,’ said Eileen.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bert, ‘it was when SP gambling was illegal but everybody did it. Howard Dathcett, Jake Phipps and our current Premier all grew rich on providing the opportunities. One-third of the adult population were gambling in these illegal establishments.’

  ‘Do you know what happened to Olivia?’

  ‘No. We lost track of her. Have you checked the phone directory?’

  Keira nodded. ‘She’s not in there.’

  19

  DEIRDRE

  September 1946

  Pettifer’s Gallery stood imposingly on Oxford Street, Paddington. It happened to be next door to one of Jake Phipps’ clubs. If Jake could get hold of it and knock down the adjoining wall between the two magnificent terraces he could create a ‘one-stop shop’ to attract even more customers who wanted to participate in the broad range of services he offered.

  The fact that most of these services were illegal did not bother Jake, who counted most senior men in the law enforcement establishment among his friends. Jake had a knack for being seen in public many miles away whenever anything untoward, like someone’s death, happened at one of his clubs.

  Jake Phipps was a man to be respected. He could buy other pieces of real estate but this piece attracted him not just for its prime location but also the convenience of its basement storage areas, which amounted to a series of tunnels through which certain contacts of his, upstanding pillars of the community as they were, could go in and out without anyone noticing.

  Jake could not see the point of art, let alone modern art. He entered Pettifer’s Gallery on Friday morning when Geoffrey was looking through a series of small Deirdre Wild oils featuring Captain Cook looking strange and incongruous in the bush. Geoffrey looked up from one of the disquieting images at the stocky figure blocking the daylight

  He knew it was his neighbour, and he had a fair idea his neighbour wasn’t as clean cut as he tried to look, but beyond that he knew nothing about Jake Phipps.

  Jake straight out said, ‘When you sell this gallery I’d like to buy it.’

  ‘It’s not for sale, mate.’

  ‘I’d offer an attractive price.’

  ‘I told you once.’ Geoffrey went back to considering in what order this series of paintings should be displayed.

  Jake thrust out his jaw, moved further into the room, and said, ‘Do you know who I am?’

  ‘You’re not an artist, I know that,’ said Geoffrey, wondering if hanging the works in plain chronological order would be best. ‘We deal with artists, people with talent. This is a great location to display some of that talent. We’re not moving.’

  A silence built up between the two men until it felt as if a clap of thunder would burst forth at any second. Geoffrey maintained an insouciant, slightly preoccupied expression.

  At that moment Tamsin Pettifer walked in the door with Deirdre, chatting. They had been to the printers in Darlinghurst and Tamsin was holding a box of invitations.

  ‘We’ve got the –’ began Tamsin and then saw their visitor standing in a hulking attitude in the shadows. Jake looked them up and down in an appraising manner.

  ‘G’day,’ he said, ‘I am –’

  ‘I know who you are,’ said Tamsin.

  ‘I’m here to make an offer to your husband for this site. He says he’s not interested. Maybe you can change his mind,’ said Jake, walking closer to Tamsin and looking down at her.

  ‘My husband, Mr Phipps, is incredibly stubborn,’ said Tamsin, drawing herself up to her full five feet one inch. ‘I can’t seem to recall him ever changing his mind about anything.’

  Jake looked at the painting that Geoffrey was holding and shook his head. ‘Captain Cook looking stupid!’ said Jake. Then he looked up at a cubic nude hanging on the wall and said, ‘What a waste of space! When I have this place I’ll fill it with real nudes, not these travesties. Women don’t look like that!’ He nearly spat with contempt. ‘You people are nuts!’

  And he walked out the door.

  ‘Oh, God – now we’ve made Jake Phipps our enemy!’ said Tamsin. ‘But it’s important to stand up to bullies like him.’

  ‘I totally agree,’ said Deirdre.

  ‘We’ve got too much to do to worry about bullies,’ said Geoffrey. ‘The invitations need to be mailed as soon as possible. How do they look?’

  Deirdre opened the box that Tamsin held. She took out the top one and the three of them perused it.

  ‘Very striking,’ said Geoffrey. ‘You’ve done well, Tamsin.’

  ‘It looks grand – how exciting – thank you, Tamsin,’ said Deirdre. Across the top of the invitation Tamsin had written in copperplate script:

 
; PAINTINGS AND COLLAGES by DEIRDRE WILD

  1930 to 1945

  Underneath this was a black-and-white portrait taken by Olivia Dathcett of Deirdre’s pale, intense face that Deirdre had cut up and reassembled into wedge-shaped pieces. At the bottom of the image the lettering read:

  Pettifer’s Gallery

  3rd to 24th September

  Tamsin went to the desk and quickly put it in a frame. She pinned an invitation on the front door of the gallery and put the framed one on the white wall just inside the front door.

  *

  Opening night was an outstanding success, ‘a succès de scandale, darling,’ as Janet teased Deirdre.

  ‘It’s more than just the controversy of surrealism and, what’s more, by a woman,’ said Geoffrey. ‘These works succeed on their own merit.’

  ‘I know, I know, Geoffrey, I was just joking. What’s your favourite?’

  ‘I have a soft spot for meticulous draftsmanship and the ones with Irish and Australian fauna and flora rendered with great precision are superb. And now I must circulate. You should too, darling,’ he said to Deirdre.

  Deirdre wandered through the gallery, sherry in hand, accepting compliments and answering questions. A lanky young man with a tanned complexion and striking blue eyes was looking at the corner series of collages and saying to his friends, ‘The best of Australian art has a Celtic memory.’

  A small group stood at the end of the Captain Cook series. As Deirdre drifted by, she heard the words ‘bizarre’, ‘intriguing’ and ‘creepy’.

  ‘There you are, Deirdre,’ said Paul King, looming up to her with a notebook and pencil. ‘Could I get a quotation for my piece? I want to know why you didn’t go entirely abstract. Have you got something pithy about that?’

  ‘Total abstraction would not be enough,’ said Deirdre. ‘I need the figurative aspect to explore my feelings. I can’t really tell you why.’

  ‘To explore your feelings about what?’

  Deirdre gestured with her sherry glass. ‘Life, nature and … you know, the physical, sensuous business of living – swimming and loving, children and climbing trees, observing animals, getting to know the Australian landscape and also some of its history.’