by Anita Heiss
‘You’ve certainly done your homework, haven’t you?’ Emma sounded suitably impressed.
‘If you look over the page, you’ll see a budget and potential funding sources including the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board and the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council. I’ve done some preliminary research in terms of some philanthropic support also,’ I pointed to a table on the page. ‘I’ve budgeted for freight, insurance, catalogues – if we print here of course it would be cheaper and we could use an Indigenous designer.’
I watched Emma speed read the pages. I imagined in her job with all the policy papers, memos, Ministerials, communications, staffing issues and so on she’d be used to reading quickly for the quantity she’d have to get through each day.
‘Libby, this is a fantastic proposal. It has legs. Leave it with me. I have a meeting with the French cultural attaché next week. The French embassy here in Canberra were also part of the process of the Australian commission at Branly, so they should be in the loop also. There’ll be French dignitaries here in Australia in the next couple of weeks, and they’ll be coming through the NAG at some stage.
‘I will put this on the agenda and I’ll send a preliminary email to my counterpart at the musée to sound out how they feel about the concept. The timing is perfect for us, but it needs to be good for the French, too.’ Emma looked at her watch. ‘Now, I’m off to a meeting at the National Library about a proposed joint publication.’
‘A book?’
‘Still in embryonic stages, I’ll let you know when we’ve fleshed it out more.’ Emma grabbed her tan bag from beside her desk and her black suit-jacket off the back of her chair. We walked out of her office together.
‘Thanks, Emma, for your time. And please say hello to the mob over there for me.’
‘It’s not my time, Libby, it’s our time. We’re all working to the same end,’ she smiled. ‘And I’ll say hello for sure.’
I returned to my office, pleased with the way I had presented and Emma’s positive reaction. Now I just had to wait, patiently, and patience was my one major flaw.
The next week the P4P was constantly in the back of my mind, but I was so busy with tours I didn’t even have time to dream about Paris. With ten of the country’s latest innovative and emerging Aboriginal artists about to blow the arts world apart with an Australia-wide tour beginning at the NAG, every one of my waking moments – and some sleeping ones – were taken up with work.
The days in the office were long with both Lauren and I arriving by 7 am and not leaving before seven at night. I worked on contracts for guest speakers and Lauren finalised every detail of the upcoming opening. At least daylight saving meant it was still light when we got home. Managing events in the gallery was stressful but I loved the adrenalin rush, especially on the day of the actual event. Everything was fast paced and I enjoyed checking things off my numerous lists.
I was so focused on the priorities of each day, I hadn’t noticed when Emma was in one of my lectures with the visiting French ambassador and his colleagues. It could only bode well for me though, and I knew it.
‘One day we’ll run this show ourselves,’ Lauren said over a late-night debrief while we were both feeling particularly strong in ourselves.
‘You will definitely be the director of the NAG, Loz, you know that, when Emma finally goes.’
‘Not that we want her to go just yet, of course.’ Lauren was a big fan of Emma’s as well. We both owed a lot to her in terms of our careers and the faith she had placed in us over the years.
‘So, if I become director, what will you be doing? You’ve gone from working on programming exhibitions with me to talking about them, and now you’re doing both all by yourself.’
‘And soon,’ I sighed, ‘I hope to be doing it with the French.’
‘Doing it? Was that pun intended?’
‘I’m ignoring you,’ I smiled. ‘Anyhow, I’m hoping I might move into international relations, maybe, and become an ambassador for the arts or something.’
‘Ambassador for the arts, I like it.’ Lauren nodded her approval.
‘The triple A: the Aboriginal Ambassador for the Arts,’ I said, as I wrote it on Lauren’s whiteboard.
‘I like that even better.’
We toasted each other with cups of organic green tea and got back to work.
Two weeks later, as I stood in the gallery shop at 10 am, I was impressed with our latest catalogue. I picked one up and felt the smooth cover inspired by the design work of a young Aboriginal woman – Margaret Ross – who was now handling most of the gallery publications and managed to highlight each piece of work and its creator brilliantly. I breathed in a sense of achievement, knowing that nearly every step of the process for the exhibition was in Aboriginal hands.
All we needed now were some rich whitefellas to come shopping at our place and commission some of our artists. The reality was, there were few Blackfellas buying at the higher end of the range we carried and many still shopped directly through the visual arts cooperatives around the country. The NAG was targeting a particular clientele and no-one denied it. International dignitaries, government agencies, local politicians all relied on our curatorial knowledge and experience to bring the best we could to the capital.
‘Libby, Emma’s been trying to call you.’ It was Veronica, standing by my side with two coffees in her hand. ‘She’s in her office now, you should call her back asap.’
‘I’m going to Paris!’ I screamed down the phone to Lauren. I’d called her because I was too impatient to wait the three minutes it would take me to walk around to her office. I’d already waited too long since the pitch – twenty-one days and one hour to be exact – for Emma to contact me and give me the good news.
‘I’m on my way over,’ she screamed back. Within minutes she was at my desk, bouncing around like a schoolgirl, just like I had when she got the fellowship to New York.
‘When? How? What did Emma say?’
‘I just spoke to her and it’s a green light and she’s sorting out the details.’ I took a deep breath. I was so excited I was frightened I might do the hyperventilating thing I’d only ever heard about before. ‘Apparently, the meeting she had with the French embassy here went really well; they loved the idea and they got onto it immediately.’ I clapped my hands. ‘I’m going to Paris!’
‘What else did she say?’ Lauren was trying to quell my breathless excitement long enough for me to get my words out. It was as though I was six years old again and had just got my first bike for Christmas.
‘She said the musée were thrilled with the offer because they had an exhibition from Britain locked in but some minister said something negative in the press recently about the French and the political fallout has been ongoing.’
‘Shit!’
‘Shit indeed, but FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC for me because, as it happens, both countries have apparently – and I’m sure aggressively – agreed to pull the exhibition they had locked in for July, and so there’s a gap for their temporary space. They need to fill the void, but save face in the arts scene in Europe and stick it up the Poms.’
‘Of course, and that stick is …’
‘That stick is MINE!’ I couldn’t stop smiling, my jaw was aching, my heart was racing and my head was already making lists of what I needed to do: professionally and personally.
Lauren hugged me. ‘I’m so proud of you and happy for you.’
‘I know, thanks, sis, I’m only doing it because of you, your inspiration and your help. And of course I meant that stick is ours. Not just mine, we never do anything just for ourselves.’
I hugged Lauren back but it was hard to keep still. I wanted to run along the corridors of the NAG screaming. I wanted to grab the microphone at security and blast it over the internal sound system so all the staff and all the visitors knew that Libby Cutmore was going from Moree to the musée and was going to kick some serious French butt. I couldn’t believe my luck and, in our meeting
earlier, Emma had seemed just as pleased as I was that the project would be going ahead.
‘It’s about us putting something into the bucket of goodwill,’ Emma had said. ‘And somewhere down the track we’ll be dipping into it and taking something out.’ I wasn’t sure what she had in mind, but she was very strategic and I knew she’d be calling in the ‘goodwill favour’ sometime in the future; if not from the musée, then from someone else. Or perhaps just having the French take me on with the show was their goodwill in return.
‘We need to celebrate, I’ll call Denise and Caro,’ Lauren was heading towards the door.
‘Can we do it tonight?’
‘Today’s Valentine’s Day!!’ I wasn’t sure if Lauren was shocked that I hadn’t known what day it was or shocked that I’d suggested going out on the major romantic festival of the year. I’d never celebrated Valentine’s Day, not since Andy in Melbourne, and that was nearly a decade ago. As far as I was concerned, my pending trip to Paris and my future career projection into the European arts scene was much more euphoric than any thoughts of Valentine’s Day.
‘No worries.’ I tried not to sound too disappointed. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘Absolutely. I’m so happy for you. I know this is going to be the highlight of your life.’
‘I think you may be right.’
I sat down, caught my breath and focused my brain, knowing my whole world was about to change. I was leaving Canberra, the political capital of Australia, for Paris, the fashion capital of the world. I was going from the NAG to the MQB with my P4P to follow my professional dream of making a contribution to the international arts scene with my own exhibition concept and plan.
I started typing up lists on my computer. I knew if I didn’t get them out of my head, I’d never have peace. I even contacted my counterpart at the MQB, thanks to Emma already making the introductions. By the end of the day, it was all too real.
I went to Trinity Bar early the following night. I couldn’t keep still at home after another agitated day at work, trying to concentrate on my usual tasks and already sorting out the plan for Paris. I sat on the balcony and sipped a Bellini. I imagined doing the same overlooking the Seine at night with Parisian lights reflecting artistically off the river.
As it was, in Dickson I had a 360-degree view of a shopping centre car park. But that was okay with me. It made me think of the suburban landscape of Moree, and my brothers. They played pool at the Imperial Hotel on Friday nights. The last time I played with them, Bazza nearly got in a brawl because I was being stupid, not taking the game seriously enough.
‘It’s not a bloody Olympic event,’ I’d argued, as I shifted the ball slightly to be where I wanted it on the table. One of our opponents went crazy, yelling at me and waving his pool cue, and Bazza went into protective-brother mode. It was on, we were just lucky no punches were thrown. I’d never been back to the pub, not since I was told I was a liability as a pool partner.
I thought about Mum also – how different we were. She was patient, I wanted everything yesterday. I hadn’t told her about Paris yet. Mum and I didn’t talk all that much on the phone, not like other mother-daughter relationships. Lauren went home to Goulburn to see her folks all the time and she often called her mother just to say hello and get the local goss. I’d never really had that.
I was more independent than Lauren and my brothers – three still living at home – and I had been away from Moree for more than ten years already. Geography – and the distance between you and the people you cared about – had a lot to answer for in terms of homesickness.
I planned to call her in the morning though because the Koori grapevine worked fast and she’d never forgive me if she heard it from someone else. I knew she’d be excited, and I wanted the joy of hearing it in her voice.
Mum is like lots of the women in her line-dancing group who meet at the local Moree Services Club. They are content with the simple things. She isn’t a big traveller herself, but she is an Elder representative and attended the World Indigenous Peoples’ Conference on Education in Aotearoa, the Maori name for New Zealand. Mum had been offered a trip to Hawaii for another conference but, ‘Crossing the Tasman was enough overseas for me,’ she said.
The real reason Mum didn’t like to fly was that she preferred to walk around on the train or absorb the scenery on the bus ride while she knitted. She wasn’t allowed to take her knitting needles on planes anymore.
I often wondered how life expectations had changed between Mum’s generation and mine. When did the pace of life become so fast that no-one my age ever had the time to sit on a bus from Moree to Canberra because it took too long? Young people were always on the go: things to do, places to see, people to talk to, cocktails to drink, dresses to buy, French pastries to eat, plane tickets to book. And yet, Mum was happier than anyone I knew, young or old.
Just as I realised how much I would miss Mum even though I hardly saw her, Caro arrived.
‘Congratulations!’ she said, placing a bottle of bubbly on the table.
I was really pleased at that moment to see my friend and got up to hug her.
‘Thanks, sorry about the twenty-five texts yesterday but I was so excited I needed to share.’
‘God, don’t be sorry, I thought you’d take out an ad in the Canberra Times. Actually I think you should. It’s great news, and so deserved. It’s too bad we couldn’t celebrate yesterday because of that “love” day.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘I know, and how monogamy bores me.’ I raised my glass in a toast.
‘What?’ Caro looked shocked. ‘I didn’t think you were seeing anyone, let alone more than one.’
‘It’s a famous quote from French President Sarkozy’s wife, Carla Bruni.’
‘Yes, well it would be, she’s dated everyone including Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton. And wasn’t she even linked to the former French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius?’
‘I’ve definitely heard that she was rumoured to be romantically linked to some high-fliers.’ I was slightly impressed.
‘Only in France could the leader’s wife get away with having such a colourful past and say something like that,’ Caro said, no doubt reminded of her ex’s infidelities. ‘But my favourite quote of hers – I think it was hers – is something like, “love lasts a long time, but burning desire – two to three weeks”.’
‘That’s gold.’ I raised my glass in a toast.
Caro sipped her bubbles, closing her eyes in concentration, then opened them as if the penny had just dropped. ‘Actually, that flippant attitude about sex and relationships is so damned French. That’s how Burnel used to think too. Maybe we’ve got the whole dating thing wrong. Maybe the French have the right idea. They seem happy at least.’
Caro took a longer than normal sip of her champagne. ‘Perhaps you should make it your mantra, Libs. I mean, if it’s good enough for the first lady, then it should be good enough for you too.’
‘Yeah right, I need a love mantra like I need more work.’
‘Actually, Libby, I think you do need some kind of love mantra.’ Caro looked at me seriously, and I knew my confusion was reflected on my face. ‘I know, I know. I don’t say anything when Loz and Denise are going on about romance and the like, and I know you don’t need a fella …’
‘None of us do,’ I said.
‘Of course, I agree, but the reason I don’t say anything is because I’m all bitter and twisted because of Burnel and the fucked-up lawyer I’m seeing on-off. But I do actually believe in love and I want a real relationship, eventually. It’s just that I’m not open to either at the moment.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘And remember, I’ve had plenty more years of disappointing men than you have. I can take a break for a while and regroup. But you, my dear,’ she pointed her glass at me, ‘you’re too young to be bitter. I think you should be more open to the idea of meeting someone, sometime, somewhere. At least more open than you currently appear to be.’
I was stunned.
Caro had always been the one who was practical in love, not mushy or misty-eyed. When I was completely screwed over by men in the recent past, she’d been my drinking tidda, always happy to drown her sorrows with mine. And if she didn’t have any sorrows, she was still happy to get sloshed. I’d always thought we’d shared indifference to men in our lives. It felt weird now realising that perhaps that commonality didn’t exist.
Caro continued, ‘I think for the sake of both of us, while you are away you should at least have some fun.’ She winked at me as if to say, you know what I mean. ‘My mantra for you is: “I’m going to become a magnet for love!”’
‘How much did you drink before you arrived?’ I asked the woman I didn’t recognise sitting in front of me. ‘Who are you?’
I could tell Caro felt uncomfortable at having opened herself up so emotionally to me. I’d never seen her vulnerable before. She immediately changed the subject, which I was thankful for.
‘You should stay in the Marais area – it was hip when I was there last,’ she said.
‘Actually,’ I had already been looking at apartments and had made a list, ‘I emailed this apartment to my counterpart at Quai Branly.’
I pulled a page out of a plastic sleeve from my bag and handed it to Caro.
‘Her name is Canelle and she reckons that the Marais area is more touristy than hip these days – except the part of the Marais that is basically gay.’
Caro looked at the page.
‘I like the look of this apartment too,’ I said, handing her another sheet with a photo and map of where it was located.
Caro studied the pages. ‘Right, well, this one is in the 5th arrondissement which is also touristy.’
‘I kind of like this place in the 20th.’ I handed her a third page. ‘I think they call it the east of Paris between the 11th and 20th. Canelle reckons it’s more up-and-coming.’