It was Mr McPherson the minister who came round the corner, black from hat to elastic-sided boots. He carried a shopping bag. He stopped beside them. There was a smell of mothballs off him.
‘Good day, Mrs Maxwell,’ he said, showing yellow teeth. ‘I trust that you have given up sinful ways and have now returned to the flock of the godly.’ Then he walked on, with a curious swagger.
‘What sinful ways?’ asked Nell, laughing.
‘They all think that because I’m staying with Angus I must be sleeping with him. Probably you think it too.’
‘Not me. You said you invited yourself. I know what Angus thinks of pushy ladies. Though, mind you, I am interested to find out what your relationship with him is. Now what are we going to do? Shall we go for a drink before we go out to this place Ardnave. Though it’d have to be tea or coffee or orange juice for me. I’m on the wagon. I used to be a fat slob, to tell the truth. So I’m trying to lose weight. I’m wearing a girdle to hold in my guts and it’s murder.’
‘I think we should go straight out to Ardnave after I’ve done some shopping. I’ve to pick up two canisters of gas. There’s no electricity at Ardnave.’
‘I think I should take a bottle to Angus. They make whisky here, don’t they? A bottle of the local stuff then. Any suggestions?’
‘I never drink whisky myself but they say Flodday Mist is the best.’
13
Never had his brain seethed with so many ideas, never had his hand shown such swift skill. This painting was going to be the biggest in size and the most ambitious in theme. The canvas covered a whole wall. He would have to stand on steps to paint the sky. In the past his problem had been to conceive a painting as an organic whole and not a number of sections which, however well executed, remained inertly separate. It was going to be very different with ‘Taurus’, as he provisionally called it. In his imagination it was already complete and perfect to the last violet. Often before the beauty and originality of the vision in his mind had come out in paint as dull and conventional. Not this time. It wasn’t spurious second sight like Janet’s but artistic instinct which whispered to him that this painting would be a masterpiece. He would have joined the immortals. It behoved him therefore to think kindly of all those not similarly exalted, such as Janet and Nell.
He did not, however, devote much thought to them that morning. He was too engrossed in his work. One of his sketches of Charlie particularly pleased him. It was of the big bull sniffing the air deliciously in the mysterious act of gauging whether the cow beside him was ready for conception. All the magic of creation was contained in those sniffs. To that drawing he added a face as like Douglas’s as he could make it. The result astonished him. It was the first of many surprises that this painting would give him, its creator. Some uncanny force was guiding his hand. At the centre would be the man-bull, emanating mysteries of its own. Had not the ancient Cretans adorned their statues of the goddess Artemis with garlands of bulls’ testicles, carved in marble?
He did not notice the arrival of the car nor the women’s voices outside.
A banging on the door jolted him back to his ordinary senses. A woman’s voice behind it shouted: ‘What kind of welcome’s this, you rude bugger?’
Annoyance at being interrupted was swept out of his mind by benignity that embraced not only Nell and Janet, nuisances though they were, but everyone, including their absurd husbands.
He did not merely shake Nell’s hand or give her a chaste kiss on the cheek, but threw his arms about her and kissed her on the mouth passionately, to her own amusement and Janet’s indignation.
What cheek, said Janet’s Free Kirk face, sending me to the airport to tell this woman that I was your wife so that she would go away and not bother you, and now here you are kissing her as if she was your long-lost love.
His artist’s mind, never more alert, took note, and also of Nell’s sudden tears.
Poor Nell was not to know that he had not really kissed her but rather whatever goddess it was that inspired painters.
‘I ought to warn you, Angus,’ she said, ‘before you get any ideas. I’ve just sent a cable to Bruce telling him to expect me home some time next week. So I’ll only be here for a few days.’
‘That’s splendid, Nell. I mean about you and Bruce. Nothing would make me happier than to know that you and he were reconciled again.’
Nell laughed. ‘Liar.’
She kept reminding Janet of someone. She soon discovered who when she saw how Nell, simply by being there, took all the magic out of things. She had done it with the sheep’s skull and the mask of the demon, and now in the living-room she was doing it with the dragon on the ceiling and Buddha. Douglas too would have dismissed them all as grotesque objects in bad taste.
‘I see you brought Bud back with you,’ said Nell. ‘God knows why. He’s never brought you blessings, has he? But then, how could he, considering how you got him.’ She turned to Janet. ‘It was pinched from a temple somewhere in Indonesia. I used to tell him it would bring bad luck, not good.’
Janet remembered her presentiment about that room. She did not mention it, just as she had not mentioned the coming of Fidelia. Nell was too crude an unbeliever.
Meanwhile, need to get back to his painting had been mounting in Angus unbearably. ‘I hope you don’t mind, ladies, but there’s something I must see to. Janet, would you please make Nell at home? I should be free for lunch in about an hour. We’ll have a long talk then, Nell.’
‘Aren’t you going to help carry her cases upstairs?’ asked Janet, crossly.
‘We can manage ourselves,’ said Nell. ‘Go and add a daub or two, Angus. We’ll be delighted to see you at lunch. We bought some prime Scotch steak and a bottle of the local beverage, Flodday Mist. You’ll have to drink it all yourself. I’m on the wagon. Not even wine or beer. I don’t eat like a pig any more. I’m trying to make myself beautiful again. But not for you, sport.’
‘You were always beautiful for me, Nell.’
‘Bullshit.’
Upstairs in her room Nell took off her girdle. It was a difficult and, to Janet, immodest operation. Stripped to bra and knickers, she sat on the bed and, with groans, rolled down the tight elastic inch by inch. Slowly her stomach escaped, white and flabby and marked with the pattern of the girdle. It was not a pretty sight, especially as tufts of red hair were also exposed. ‘Thank Christ for that,’ she said, as she lay back on the bed, puffing and panting with relief.
Janet was finding Nell too much for her. She could put up with her bad language and lack of modesty, but not her lack of reverence. Buddha might be a heathen god, but millions of people believed in him, so he ought not to have been called Bud, as if he was a taxi-driver.
‘I could do with a fag,’ said Nell, ‘but I’ve given them up too. A bloody paragon, that’s me. Sit down and tell me why you ran away from your man.’
Janet sat on the only chair. She saw in the dressing-table mirror that she had her lips pursed in a way that Mr McPherson would have approved. She tried to smile. ‘He hit me,’ she said.
‘I hope you hit him back.’
‘I did.’
‘Good on you. Was it the first time or did he make a habit of it?’
‘It was the first time.’
‘Tell me about it. It always helps to spill it out.’
‘I went to Skye to visit my parents.’
‘Skye? That’s a famous island, isn’t it? There’s a song about it. Bruce used to sing it. His grandparents were Scotch, you know.’
‘I came home a day before I was expected. I found him and a woman practising putting on the sitting-room carpet.’
‘Well, where was the harm in that?’
‘They had no clothes on.’
Nell laughed. ‘Maybe it was a heat wave. It’s unlikely, I admit, but maybe that was all they were doing, practising putting. He’s a keen golfer, you said.’
‘They looked guilty.’
‘I bet.’
‘He ha
d the cheek to blame me for coming home a day too soon. So I picked up a putter and hit him.’
‘Well done. Did you hit her too?’
‘No. I didn’t care about her. I don’t think she was the first.’
‘If you hit him hard enough she might be the last. So you decided to come to Flodday and let him stew for a while?’
‘Yes. My cousin’s wife owns a hotel here.’
‘If you’ll pardon me saying so, Janet, you’re giving me the impression that sex is a very serious matter to you.’
‘So it is. So it should be.’
‘Sure. But it should be fun too, you know.’
‘Fun? Isn’t it supposed to be a kind of sacrament?’
‘Hell, yes, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.’
‘If it’s not a sacrament, then it’s just a thing that animals do.’
‘Well, what’s wrong with that? Animals take it very seriously. For them it’s more of a sacrament than it is for us. It has to be. It can’t be anything else. Nature sees to that. Continuation of the species. You didn’t say if you had any kids yourself’
‘Not yet. Douglas doesn’t want any till he’s thirty.’
‘You mean, while his handicap is still low. When will he be thirty?’
‘This November.’
Nell laughed at what she evidently considered Scotch caution. ‘I’ve got two. Bruce junior, he’s twenty-two. Madge is nineteen. I love them but they’ve given me some sore hearts. Drugs and sex. To be fair, maybe I’ve not shown them a very good example. It’s going to be different when I get back. Would you like to see some photographs? Pass me that handbag, please.’
Janet fetched the handbag and Nell took from it some photographs.
There was one of her daughter, a red-haired freckled girl with a stubborn jaw, very like her mother. One of her son, longhaired, with a shy friendly grin. One of the whole family when the children were small, with Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background.
‘Here’s one you might find disgusting,’ said Nell. ‘Me, I think it’s beautiful. I took it with a Polaroid on our honeymoon.’
It was of her husband Bruce, stark-naked, striking a pose to show off his muscles. His private parts were not concealed.
Janet was in a quandary. She did find the photograph disgusting but she had often wished that she had one of Douglas in the same state.
‘He took one of me,’ said Nell. ‘I was worth looking at then in the buff. I didn’t have this.’ She slapped her stomach. ‘Mind you, he’s put on a lot of weight himself since.’
‘Why didn’t he come with you?’ asked Janet.
‘Hell, I was running away from him. I made the excuse that I wanted to see my sister Elsie.
‘Did he mind you going?’
‘What do you think? He was glad to get rid of me. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the time I go home next week he’d started proceedings for a divorce.’
‘Would you agree to a divorce?’
‘I’d have to, wouldn’t I? What’s the good of living with a man who doesn’t want you? Well, shall we go down and give our host his lunch? To tell the truth, I’m hungry myself. I don’t eat enough nowadays, trying to lose weight.’
‘All right. I’ll go and get things started while you get dressed.’
As Janet passed Angus’s bedroom, she saw to it that the door was closed. She didn’t want Nell to see the painting of Fidelia, at least not yet. She was beginning to resent Nell’s presence there, not for her own sake but for Fidelia’s.
14
Though Janet did most of the cooking, and of the serving too, the two others, eagerly reminiscing about Basah, paid her as little heed as they would have done if she had been a waitress. Not usually patient under slights, she bided her time.
They were discussing ‘the dirty little crook’.
‘What happened to him?’ asked Nell. ‘I heard he’s been kicked out himself’
‘Nobody really knew. Politics were very secret there as well as corrupt. But whether he was kicked out or left of his own accord, he certainly took his ill-gotten riches with him. So he’s probably in Barbados or some such sybaritic spot, living in a five-star hotel with a golf course handy.’
‘Yes, he was fond of golf, wasn’t he?’
‘I believe those who played with the Tun had to let him win.’
‘Bruce would never have done that. Golf was a religion to him. It still is. He was a bit of a randy goat, the Tun I mean. He liked white women best. I could tell you stories. I bet in that five-star hotel he’s got a bevy of them.’
While they chatted, Janet attended to them in silence. It cost her a great effort. She did not mind Angus so much, it was his house after all, but the gall of Nell, a newcomer, made her choke. She felt sympathy for Bruce. No doubt he had made golf his religion because his wife had failed him. But could that not be said about Douglas and her? She shuddered, but the others did not notice.
For over an hour they went on discussing people Janet had never heard of. It was the height of rudeness.
It came to a sudden end when Angus jumped to his feet and rushed out, bound not for the bathroom upstairs, as Nell facetiously suggested, but for his studio.
‘So that’s how genius strikes?’ said Nell. ‘Like diarrhoea.’ She laughed coarsely.
Janet collected the dishes to carry them into the kitchen.
‘I’ll wash,’ she said. ‘You can dry.’
‘I’m not much of a housewife,’ said Nell, getting up. ‘I usually let the dishes pile up. Bruce didn’t like it.’
She was wearing green Bermuda shorts and looked ridiculous. Without the girdle her stomach stuck out.
They were in the kitchen when they heard the tooting of a motor horn. Janet looked out of the window and saw the red mail van.
She hurried out. The postman looked disappointed when he saw that she was wearing Western dress. Like all Kildonan by this time, he had heard that another woman, an Australian by her accent, had joined McAllister’s menage. He had hoped to be able to take back a report to the public bar that evening.
‘Anything for me?’ called Nell. ‘Elsie said she would send anything on.’
Janet sat down in the living-room, with the letter in her hand. ‘No. Just one for Angus. It’s got a foreign stamp. A bird in a tree with red flowers.’
Nell come in from the kitchen, with a towel in her hand. ‘Hibiscus,’ she said. ‘That’s a Basah stamp. Who still writes to him from there?’
‘We’ll soon find out,’ said Janet, and she tore open the envelope.
Nell was shocked. ‘What the hell are you doing? That’s Angus’s letter. It’s private. Did he say you could open his letters?’
‘I have my reasons.’Janet meant that it might be from Fidelia.
‘Reasons? What are you talking about? I said you were a nosy bitch like me, but you’re worse than I ever was. Even I wouldn’t open Bruce’s letters. I’ve a good mind to go and tell Angus.’
‘It’s from someone called Patel, a lawyer.’
‘I know him. An Indian, black as coal, a creep, always grinning. If you kicked him in the teeth he’d still go on grinning. Nobody trusted him. What the hell’s he writing to Angus for?’
‘Do you really want to know? Shall I read it out?’
‘All right, since you’ve opened it. But I’m going to tell Angus I had nothing to do with it.’
‘Please yourself
Janet then read it out.
‘Dear Mr McAllister,
‘I write on behalf of my client, Mrs Fidelia Gomez. It is most probable that she has embarked on a course of action, advised against by myself, which could emerge to her detriment and could implicate your worthy self. For some time I have been negotiating on her behalf, without avail, I regret to say. A lawyer representing Mr Gomez of Manila arrived in Basah with two court orders, one issued in the Philippines and the other in Malaysia, awarding him custody of the child Letitia Gomez. We appealed against these iniquitous orders, without success
. As you know, this is a Moslem country, where women do not enjoy the same rights as in my own native land or in yours. All was done that could legally be done. In the end I had no alternative but to advise Mrs Gomez to surrender the child. Yesterday I learned that she had quitted Basah, en route to Singapore and, it could well be, to the UK. She often spoke of you as someone in that country who would vouch for her. Sir, it is evidently her intention to plead with you to help her flout the law. Common humanity will persuade you to do so, common sense and my sincere advice counsel otherwise. The unfortunate lady is in effect a fugitive from justice. Her husband is a wealthy man able to afford skilful and cunning lawyers. You could find yourself under threat of prosecution if you were to allow pity to guide you. If she appears on your doorstep, you must urge her to return forthwith to Basah with the child. We would then continue the fight. I have already had a visit from the lawyer acting for Mr Gomez. He more or less accused me of collusion in her flight and demanded that I inform him of her present whereabouts. I told him nothing, but there are in this town numerous sources, former acquaintances of yours, who, it seems, were only too willing to sell him the relevant information.
‘When you were in Basah, sir, our paths did not cross. It may interest you to know that I once bought a painting done by you. It is the head of a Dusun woman wearing a blue-and-pink headdress. It adorns my home and is much admired. May I offer you my best wishes?
Yours sincerely
P.V. Patel.’
There was silence in the living-room. Outside oystercatchers flew past, piping shrilly. A sheep bleated.
‘Well, I’ve got to say it,’ said Nell. ‘She’d have a damned nerve coming here. We’re sorry for her, sure, but why should she bother Angus with her troubles?’
‘He told her that if she ever needed help she should come to him.’
‘She should have had the savvy to know he didn’t mean it. How could he mean it? He had his life to lead here, she had hers to lead there. Everybody makes promises of that kind. They don’t expect to be held to them. This kid, how old is she?’
Poor Angus Page 8