by Ella Carey
Celia tugged on the bellpull, clutching it so hard that it swung to and fro.
“Where is Dennison?” she croaked. “You are hungry, Edward. Clearly not thinking straight.”
Dennison appeared, adjusting his formal suit jacket and standing to attention.
“Dinner, please,” Celia said, as if his very appearance was a reprieve from the gods.
The servant nodded, unquestioning, no expression on his face, and turned back around. Edward held his hand to his mouth. How long were servants going to accept being nothing but trained monkeys, when they had just returned from saving the entire darned nation from Hitler?
“It’s not going to last, Mother,” Edward said. “We have to show more compassion. And we have to change things at Haslemere. We’ve got to move with the times.”
“I said, enough, Edward.” Angus strode out to the formal dining room.
Even Vicky was silenced.
Edward stepped out into the cavernous entrance hall, glaring through the doorway at the sight of the polished dining table with its setting at one end for four.
“We will change the topic of conversation,” Angus announced. And the slur in his words from the several clarets he had knocked back already was ignored, as usual, by all of them, while the thought of Robert, out at some godforsaken pub, lurched into Edward’s heart. Goodness knew what was going to become of them all.
Edward went out into the garden after dinner, which was a strained meal. Polite conversation, seen as a balm by the upper classes, didn’t seem to work anymore. Robert appeared during pudding and started a rattling conversation about horse racing with his father.
Celia and Vicky seemed relieved at the sight of their inebriated son and brother—did they regard him as a protector of their way of life? The idea was a joke.
Cigar smoke drifted out to the garden while the sound of balls hitting each other from the billiards room resounded in the evening air. This was punctuated with the clink of brandy glasses. Avoidance. It never worked, not at all. If there was one thing Edward had learned during the war, it was that one could not stick one’s head below water and ignore the forces of change that constantly swept through the world.
Edward made his way up and down the raked-gravel pathways, trying to focus on the crunch of his feet on the path. His grandmother’s fastidiously researched Mediterranean plantings twinkled in the glow from the lights in the living room. She’d brought back exotic species from Italy, Greece, and Spain during the nineteenth century. The twentieth century had smashed his grandparents’ carefully cultivated world apart, and yet the visual reminders were still here. It was people who had changed. And politics. Edward lit a cigarette and paced. When the phone rang, its peal caused him to jump.
Vicky called out in her shrill tones. “It’s some girl on the phone, Edward. Someone called Rebecca.” Her last sentence was muttered. But Edward sensed that even Vicky had had enough. The conversation had teetered dangerously close to collapse this evening, and it seemed as if everyone wanted to take a step back. He stamped out his cigarette and went inside.
“Rebecca?” Edward picked up the phone from the mahogany table in the hallway. It was odd how Edward had grown up surrounded by such things, never questioning them, never realizing or appreciating that some poor soul had probably been paid a pittance to create them. A vase of flowers sat next to the phone as if bright and determined. Edward realized that his voice had come out harsher than he intended. He closed his eyes. Rebecca. He couldn’t express how relieved he was that she’d called.
“Edward,” she said. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t apologize.” He growled the words.
There was a silence, then a shuffling sound.
Edward felt his senses prick up.
“I’m going to hide under the house in the cellar,” she said. Urgent. Desperate.
“What?”
Her voice dropped. “It’s Mrs. Swift,” Rebecca said. “She ripped up my drawings. I could only save three. I’m sorry, I just . . . need to get away right now, and I wasn’t sure who to call, and . . .”
“Don’t move.” Edward felt his chest thump. He reached for his car keys. “I’m coming now. Sit tight.”
“You don’t have to do this.” But her voice was almost too small to hear.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“I’ll come out as soon as I hear your car. Thank you.”
“Good,” he said, and hung up. He strode toward the front door without telling anyone he was going out.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
New York, 1987
Tess laid the notepaper down on the table next to her empty coffee cup. The thin pages were covered with Edward’s slanting handwriting, his words flowing with hardly a correction, barely a letter crossed out. Since receiving Edward’s first installment, Tess hadn’t wanted to read typed-up copies. She didn’t want mere transcripts of Edward’s real work. She’d requested that the originals be sent straight to her when they arrived from Rome. She rested her chin in her hand and looked out the window of Caffè Reggio to the street outside.
Nico moved across to sit down next to her. Tess sensed that he’d been waiting for her to finish reading. She smiled at her friend.
“How are things, Tess?” he asked, tucking a cloth into the pocket of his white apron.
“Well,” she said, “I have a new author who is based in Rome.”
She swiped a look at Nico under her eyelashes, noticing the way his eyes crinkled into a smile.
“Roma? I told you it was all meant to be.”
Tess tilted her head to one side.
“Fate,” Nico pronounced. “Or Italy. Whichever way you want to put it.”
“Your faith is stronger than mine, Nico.”
“I saw the expression on your face while you were reading this work.” He rested an olive-skinned finger on the page. “You were absorbed. So.”
Tess let out a small laugh. “He seems a very difficult writer.”
Nico watched her, his eyes steady. And waited.
“He won’t stick to deadlines, and he insists on sending me handwritten work.” Tess tidied up Edward’s papers.
Nico chuckled. “That’s good.”
“No, it’s not.”
“He’s Italian!” Nico threw his hands in the air. “No Italian would stick to deadlines or rules. They are not important!”
Tess leaned back in her seat. “Nico . . .” but she was smiling. She waited a beat. “Not Italian. Australian.”
“Next best thing. Laid back.”
Tess grinned. “He lives in Rome. He’s moved there.”
“People move to Italy for only one reason, Tess.”
Tess raised a brow.
“And that is to connect with life, to set their priorities straight. We all do it at some stage in our lives, but Italy is the best place for it. I would bet that’s what your author friend is doing in Rome.”
“Well, Nico, I concede you could be right there.”
Nico moved to stand up. “I’ll get in trouble if I sit here with you.” He grinned, his face still boyish in spite of all the years.
Tess reached for Edward’s manuscript, but still a sense of doubt prickled at her mind.
“Is there anything else bothering you?” Nico asked.
Tess tucked the pages in the folder where she kept Edward’s notes and placed it in her briefcase. Her fingers alighted on the cool leather cover of Edward’s book of poetry.
“I need to get this book to sell. I suggested we change the setting of the book to the US rather than Australia.”
Nico shook his head and tutted.
“Nico, I know what I’m doing. But the writer refused. And that got me wondering about why he was so defensive about the setting.”
“It is only natural. He is proud of his country . . .”
“No, that’s not it.” She had to come clean with the thought that had been burning in her mind since she’d started reading the book. “I’m con
vinced his work is autobiographical. I think that’s why he’s so protective of the book.”
Nico stayed quiet.
“Which leads me to another idea. The author needs to raise his profile. I want to market the book as a true story.”
“What makes you think it’s based on the truth?”
Tess shrugged. “Everything in it. But you know what?”
He shook his head at the same time she did.
“I’m going to find out. And when I do—”
“Treat him with respect,” Nico said.
Tess stood up. “I’ll treat him with respect,” she said. “I always do. I’m very loyal, Nico, but you know that. The true-story angle could make all the difference. I think I might just have hit on a way to make this thing sell.”
“But will he like it?”
“I’ll convince him. Watch me.”
Tess walked out of the café. There was still time to catch the library, if she was fast. She’d needed space from the office this afternoon, so after a meeting in which James had been extolled for his work with Alec Burgess, Tess had decided to read Edward’s manuscript in the café.
But now she needed some answers and fast. It was clear, Tess thought, as she strode to the subway, making her way through the teeming crowds to the escalators, that Edward was based on Edward Russell. But one question bothered her. Had he really been in love with a Rebecca Swift?
Tess was used to the vagaries of writers and the varying levels of autobiographical material in their work. She knew that when it came to some of her clients, writing about their pasts was subconscious, veiled in an assortment of cloaks. But this book, she suspected, was different. She suspected that Edward wanted to revisit his past. And he felt compelled to write about it. But why?
She was going to have to confront Edward with her thoughts soon. There was nothing wrong with nurturing her authors, but she was also a businesswoman. She needed to sell copies, and she needed to have Edward on the same page.
An hour later, Tess sat in the Rose Reading Room with a selection of books on Australian art on the table in front of her. In here, she always had to force herself not to become distracted by the still beauty of her surroundings. The frescoed ceiling and rows of tall arched windows lent an air of timelessness to the quiet space. She’d taken to coming here sometimes for a sense of peace, and now, the fact that it was going to be the place where she might find the answers she needed about Edward seemed fitting, somehow.
She reached for the book that she had found on 1940s art in Australia. Its cardboard cover showed a black-and-white photograph of a striking woman lying on a beach. As she turned the pages, her eyes drank in the photographs. There was a Sidney Nolan painting of Ned Kelly, the great Australian bushranger’s yellow eyes angled off to one side. And a picture of Joy Hester, painted by her husband, Albert Tucker. Joy’s blond hair was curled, and she had a troubled expression on her face. Tess drank in image after image, the distorted, modernist human shapes all making sense to her—surreal representations of people, reminiscent of Picasso’s, all odd angles with images of bleak cities in the backgrounds, dark industrial landscapes.
But no matter how hard she looked and no matter how intrigued she was by the postwar art, there was no mention anywhere of a Rebecca Swift.
Tess picked up the next book, a pictorial history of Heide, John and Sunday Reed’s home. The vast vegetable garden; the mist hanging over the Yarra River at the bottom of the garden; the library, lined with dark wooden shelves that were stacked with books; Sunday Reed, John Reed, Sidney Nolan, and Joy Hester sitting around the fireplace having afternoon tea—all the images were completely absorbing. Tess didn’t notice that the shadows were lengthening across the vaulted room as the afternoon drifted toward evening.
Instead, Tess read on, fascinated with Sunday and John Reed. Indeed they had supported artists and they had lived in a communal way with their circle of friends. As Edward wrote, invitations to visit them at Heide were a big deal—so there was still some sense of underlying formality in their approach. They refused to be called patrons, and their relationships with the artists they supported were fascinating and complex, as was their relationship with each other. Tess drank in photos of the Yarra River in summer, where Sunday and Sidney used to go and bathe beyond the willows when they were lovers. She was moved by the photos of Sunday and John, together, looking into each other’s eyes. It was clear that John was Sunday’s true love, the man whom she adored in the end, even after her passionate, turbulent affair with Sidney Nolan ended. The human dramas intrigued Tess as much as the art.
Sunday’s love affair with Sidney ended abruptly when he left her in the summer of 1947, seeming to realize that she’d never leave John. Sunday, devastated, took Sidney’s Ned Kelly paintings to Europe in an attempt to win back her lover, but it was not successful—they never reconciled. Sunday wrote that she felt that the blood was draining from her life when Sidney married John Reed’s younger sister, Cynthia, in 1948. Sunday then remained faithful to John until his death, which was followed by hers at Heide in 1981.
Tess placed that book to the side, her thoughts and feelings aswirl with the complexity of it all. Even among the most bohemian spirits a sense of betrayal could still run deep. Was it truly possible to live freely as they had supposedly done? Or did humanity and passion and possessiveness get in the way?
Tess picked up the last book in her stack. She pushed on, intent to find Rebecca, sure that there must have at least been someone who inspired her character, if nothing else. The way Edward wrote about her was too real, too vivid. And if she were honest, Tess wanted Rebecca to have existed. She, too, had fallen under the spell of the girl with the swinging dark hair.
This book was smaller, a paperback. It dealt with Melbourne artists in the 1940s, in particular. If there was nothing here, she’d have to trawl through newspapers next.
But as she scanned the pages of the little book, taking in the now familiar images, Tess forced herself not to get waylaid by peripheral stories, but to home in on Rebecca Swift. At the beginning of chapter three, she halted. Read the opening three times. Glanced at the clock. Ten minutes until closing time.
Tess stood up and made her way as swiftly as possible to the nearest library desk, resisting the urge to run.
“Do you mind if I photocopy this page?” she asked the woman in front of her, memories of Edward’s encounter with the phone operator with the butter-yellow cardigan reeling into her head. Except the woman she stared at wore putrid pea green.
Five minutes. A warning bell rang through the library, loud enough to stir anyone from the deepest concentration.
“I’m sorry,” the woman explained to Tess, “but the photocopiers are closed now.”
Tess clutched the little book. She couldn’t borrow it. It was a reserve book. She mulled over the problem as the woman walked away. And looked at the paragraph again. Just one paragraph. In a book about postwar art in Melbourne, Rebecca Swift was acknowledged as an unrecognized, talented artist who died tragically when she slipped from a rock on an island off the South Australian coast. There had only been one showing of her work in the winter of 1946 with the Contemporary Art Society in Melbourne, whose members were seen as an avant-garde, anti-establishment, and renegade lot. Their exhibitions were even described as degenerate by newspapers at the time—their work was too confronting, too honest, too raw, a shock to the Establishment artists and their circles at the time. Rebecca’s paintings and drawings remained in the collection of Sunday and John Reed at Heide.
Rebecca’s work, the author claimed, was also very likely overlooked in the 1940s after her death because she was a woman. Rebecca’s relationship with the biographer and lecturer Edward Russell and her connection with his famous family was acknowledged in the book. Rebecca’s death was viewed as a tragedy, a mysterious tragedy. But that was it. Nothing more. There were no photos of the girl in the red beret. Tess made her way toward the exit and placed the book on the counter in fro
nt of the librarian with great care. She thanked the woman and did not stare at her green cardigan. She walked out into the bustle that was New York City.
Tess needed to have Edward acknowledge Rebecca as a fact.
As she stood on the sidewalk on Forty-Second Street, Tess was hit all of a sudden with the sounds of the city. The noise and the constant movement were almost overwhelming after the hush in the library, too much after she’d been picturing another time, another place, where there was a cottage and a quiet riverbank set among gum trees, where every emotion had sweltered while the embers of Sunday and John’s love for each other had remained strong. The great love affair between a woman who loved art and the young artist she’d supported from the start of his career until he left her hit Tess . . . and she thought that Sunday had lived her life to the fullest.
Tess made her way down to the subway. She would contact Edward and be straight with him, or she would regret it. She would call him now, while the Heide story grabbed at her heart. Tess told herself sternly that it was not a case of getting in too deep. It was business and she was a businesswoman. That was all. She simply had to convince Edward to view his work as a business proposition too.
Should be an easy task . . .
CHAPTER TWELVE
Melbourne, 1946
Rebecca appeared on the footpath as soon as Edward pulled up in front of her house. He frowned in worry at the sight of her. Her face was alabaster in the glare of his headlights. One hand was up at her left cheek. Edward reached across to open the passenger door of the Aston Martin. Rebecca climbed in as if each movement were a delicate operation. And faced straight ahead.
Edward reached out, his hand barely brushing hers as it rested on the seat between them.
“Darling . . .” The word fell from his lips as naturally as anything in the world.