by Ella Carey
Rebecca bit her lip. She placed her teacup back down on the table in front of her. “I can see that,” she said quietly. Because she did understand. To lose one’s child to people who thought your entire lifestyle was abhorrent would be unimaginable.
But what was the answer to all this? To expect Edward to give up his beliefs, beliefs that had been formed in the fields of a long and bloody war, beliefs that reflected the need for change, the need to rebuild a better world, how could that possibly be something any mother could ask? It was asking him to be a false version of himself. It was asking him to go backward and it was as difficult as asking Celia to change her own views on the way life should be lived.
The situation was impossible.
Rebecca stood up, clenched and unclenched her hands. Any pretense of sitting politely seemed to have escaped her now. “Mrs. Russell,” she said to the woman, who was clearly in distress. “I do see how you feel, but to be honest, as a woman, all I can tell you is that my feelings for Edward run so deep that it would be impossible for me to walk away from him. He is not only the man I love, but a true and trusted friend who has been there for me. All I want is for him to be happy.”
Celia’s expression was set. “His happiness and the happiness of my family are the key, Rebecca. Think about it. Were he to marry you, could you promise me that he would not go off and do something similar to Sunday and John Reed? Can you not see how detrimental that would be to everything this family has worked so hard to achieve, to our reputation, our standing? It would be a scandal that would be unfair to his sister, to myself, to his brother and his father. The modernists have been implicated as deviants. In court, no less. Oh, maybe he would live that way for a while, but can’t you see, eventually he would want to return to the life he’s always known. I wouldn’t want to take a man away from his family if it were me. I’m not sure how you could even consider it, to be honest.”
“But I don’t care about the things that matter to you.” Rebecca’s words were low and raw. “You see, what I believe in is love, Mrs. Russell, because, in the end, isn’t that all that matters?”
Celia started fumbling, as if she were reaching for a pocket or a handkerchief or some such thing.
Rebecca could not stop the wave of sympathy that tore through her heart. “Mrs. Russell . . .” she said.
But the older woman held up a hand. “Love,” she said, “dies when certain things kick in. But family, tradition, hard work, being a woman who, if she has any intelligence at all, can stand behind a man and keep a family going through . . . all sorts of ills, that is what constitutes strength. Character. Edith has it. Please, will you just understand.”
And with that, Celia stood up.
Rebecca moved aside as the woman almost ran out of the room, her face reddened and blotched. Rebecca realized, stunned, that Celia was about to burst into tears.
A week later, Rebecca sat in her room at the Russells’ beach house on South Australia’s coast. She’d made a phone call to the restaurant in Melbourne to arrange a little more leave and her classes did not resume for another week at the Gallery School. She’d kept attending them, even while she lived at Gino’s, because her uncle had given her the opportunity, but she found herself enjoying her own creative explorations more and more now that she was away from Mrs. Swift.
Celia’s decision to move the family to the beach for a period had given Edward’s mother the distraction, Rebecca thought, that the older woman clearly needed. Things had been tense between them since their discussion about Edward. Conversations had been brief and unsure. Rebecca fought the whirl of her own emotions—love for Edward, bewildering confusion toward his mother, and if she were honest, a sort of primal need to impress Celia, mixed with a real abhorrence for her cynical approach to marriage.
The beach house was at least a change of scene. Rebecca was beginning to see how hothoused one could become when stuck out in the country with only family in attendance.
She had to ask herself: could she stand such a life?
The beach house was long and low and built of thick, white-painted local stone. It was surrounded with wide verandas and a sloping lawn that looked over the beach. A wild island sat out in the bay opposite the house with great granite boulders on one side. Rebecca was drawn toward the untamed beauty of the island and often found herself gazing at it from the beach, watching the sea crash against the windswept cliffs on the island’s rocky shores.
There had been parties on the beach with other young people, while Celia and the older generation sat about on deck chairs sipping champagne and watching, with beady eyes. Rebecca felt that her every move was being scrutinized, and she knew she was the subject of the older generation’s gossip.
Escape became, once again, her preferred option. Escape, of course, had been how Rebecca had always dealt with Mrs. Swift. Rebecca was hardly unused to taking such a path in her life, so it seemed natural to run away and paint. It was just what she did.
If Edward went out fishing with his father, Rebecca would ensure she was away from the other women in the house. She’d take the opportunity to pick up her sketching materials and pull the family’s wooden rowboat from the beach, rowing out to draw on the island in the bay. She favored sitting on a granite boulder on the island’s wild side, one that overlooked the treacherous, roiling sea that thundered on the jagged rocks below. Rebecca was thrilled by the waves that crashed and exploded into a million tiny white shards before becoming foam flecks on the rocks, rocks that were remnants of the ancient volcano that existed thousands of years earlier on the far edge of the bay. Sometimes Edward came with her to her sacred spot with his notebook. He would sit on one of the benches that lined the treacherous path around the island’s edge and write while she worked.
But today, Edward had gone fishing with a group of young men, having taken the family’s little yacht out, hoping to catch the succulent King George whiting that was the local catch around here. He had kissed her on the cheek before flying off to the beach.
Rebecca could see why Celia had brought him here.
Rebecca had her sketching materials ready in a leather pouch that Edward had bought for her in Melbourne. As Rebecca stepped down to the garden, she stopped. Someone was on the veranda behind her. She turned, having to shade her eyes to focus on the older woman standing at the screen door.
“One of my friends here had a daughter who was keen on art when she was younger,” Celia said. Her voice was a little shaky. It was the first time they’d been alone since that day of tea and candor.
Celia stared out, still, at the bay that shone like a pane of polished glass. “She gave it up. Entirely. She could not keep it up and be the mother her children needed her to be.”
Rebecca drew in a breath.
“Wouldn’t you rather spend time with Vicky and the other girls? There is a group of them coming over today. They are going to sew in the sitting room.”
Rebecca pressed her lips together. Sitting in a room bending over needlework? Rebecca’s mind filled with the wilds of the sea.
“Edith is . . . going tomorrow,” Celia said.
Rebecca looked up, sharp. Was Edith giving up? Edward was being hopelessly attentive to Rebecca. If Rebecca were Edith, she would have left days ago . . .
“Thank you, but I will stick to my plans,” Rebecca said. And at that moment, she decided one thing. There was no point being in conflict with Edward’s mother. Rebecca would operate this way: she would make her own decisions and would not allow herself to be pushed around or made to feel guilty for loving Edward so much.
But Celia, clearly, wasn’t done. “Rebecca . . .” Celia fidgeted now, still not looking at Rebecca, but gazing out to the sea as if she were talking to some distant person out there. “People are saying you live more in a world of your own than in the real world. I’m just warning you. You don’t want to become an outcast.”
Rebecca jolted a little at the word. Was there real concern in her voice? She stood, holding the satchel
that contained her sketching things.
“I do need to go and work, Mrs. Russell,” she said. “I have to send some pictures to . . . the Contemporary Art Society in Melbourne.” Mentioning Sunday would be a disaster. “I thank you for your concern.” But as she made her way down the veranda steps, the garden seemed to sway and spin about as if it danced to its own strange tune.
And then she turned back to the woman who still stood there. A woman, Rebecca thought, who looked a little helpless.
“Don’t worry,” Rebecca said. “I’m not strange. I simply like to draw.”
A frown spread across Celia’s features. She patted at something imaginary on her dress. “Oh my dear,” she said.
Rebecca smiled slightly before feeling instinctively for Sunday’s latest letter, snug in her pocket.
Heide
Dearest Rebecca,
I have shown your work to other members of the CAS and we all agree (please do not get a big head, my darling) that you show a remarkable talent, that your career could be strong. Please keep sending me work while you are at Victor Harbor with the Russells, and we will organize this exhibition. It is exciting, is it not?
And what I find wonderful is that you, like me, have found such solace, such a partner in Edward as I have in John. I cannot tell you how much John has altered my life. I know you have had trials in your past, my dear. But what I believe in, Rebecca, is love.
You know, a while back, I saw a group of men in a black car driving through Melbourne. They looked so severe and serious and wealthy. And I thought, what a horrible group of men they looked to be! Well, you see, they were my uncles.
We cannot choose our families, and equally we cannot blame ourselves if they blame us for wanting to strike out; it is our prerogative to be true to ourselves. Don’t get caught up by things that you do not value, Rebecca, because, in many ways, I sense in you a younger version of myself, sensitive, wanting some sort of faith in people—I wonder if you have always put on a hard, frightfully bright act. The one solace I have, even though our backgrounds are so vastly different, is that you won’t make an unfortunate marriage, as I did with my first. I married a charlatan, a man who was all pretense. You will never do that.
You have what you need within you to succeed. It’s all there. And you have Edward, someone who believes in you.
You have everything, Rebecca.
Keep painting!!
À bientôt, my darling girl,
Sun.
Rebecca knew things were changing and she sensed a change in herself. Even a few weeks ago, would she have stood up to Celia as she had done lately? No, she would have put on an act as she always used to with her mother, would have pretended everything was fine when it was not. Edward was giving her renewed strength, she knew that, but she was also finding it on her own.
Rebecca made her way along the path that wound through the bracken and bushes to the beach. The sea was pearled and clear. Rebecca moved down to the rowboat, slipping her leather sandals off and closing her eyes at the first sting of cold sea water against her sand-tickled feet.
She pushed the boat out until it floated in the shallows, then climbed in, picking up her oars and placing the paper bag that she had filled with apples and chocolate and ham sandwiches on the seat next to her.
The work that she was doing here was the antithesis of the controlled, tedious sketches that she was required to undertake at the Gallery School. Apart from the fact that she was in love, meeting Edward had come at exactly the right time for her art.
Perhaps she did need to have faith that things would work out.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Rome, 1987
Tess glared at the endless, aqua spirals of water that glistened into the Trevi Fountain. James was the last person she wanted to be with right now. He’d walked her out of the restaurant after they’d said goodbye to Edward, staying quiet beside her until, finally, she’d come to a standstill right here. The fact was, her career was going backward. And she saw James as the cause of the whole disastrous landslide.
She slumped down on one of the stone benches overlooking the fountain. The piazza was quiet. Only a few tourists lingered. Mostly young lovers, Tess thought irritably. It wasn’t fair. She’d worked so hard for years. She was thirty-four. Being the daughter of a property developer who spent nine months of the year in Florida hardly gave her anything like the society connections that James enjoyed.
So, had she been doomed from the start? Was it inevitable that when someone like James came along Tess’s career would be pushed aside so he could move in and take over? Tess always ended up with the inevitability of the glass ceiling, no matter how many other excuses she searched out. Because the glass ceiling was a certainty. The glass ceiling was a sure bet—and it seemed that social privilege and being male still held sway, no matter how hard people tried to stand up to those powers.
James stood next to her, one foot resting on the bench.
“Talk to me, Tess,” he said.
Tess felt a wave of tingles on the back of her neck. “I’ll just watch the fountain.”
He sat down next to her.
Instinctively, Tess moved a little farther away from him along the bench.
“I have no doubt you can still make a success of this. You have a fantastic reputation.”
Tess rolled her eyes. “Yes, as the dumped editor of Alec Burgess.”
James folded his arms.
“I’m going to talk to Edward again,” she said, turning back to the lit-up buildings that surrounded the square. “I’m going to try, once more, to see if he’ll go public.”
James shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“What?”
“You spoke well in there, but he’s not going to budge. And the book will be fine without his going public, Tess. Just fine.”
“Yes, but that’s the point, James. I don’t want it to be just fine. I can’t afford to be just fine, James. Too many women settle for that in their careers. Don’t you see how hard it is?”
When James spoke, his voice was low. “But why does it have to be the fast track with Edward? In my experience working with literary authors, with authors who write authentically, you’ve got to be in it for the long haul. I have no doubt you’ll get him to where he needs to be, but one step at a time.”
Tess stared at the water.
“You’re on some sort of mission here. And I don’t know why.”
“James.”
“Leon has given you an amazing opportunity. To work with Edward. Most editors would jump at that chance because he’s unique and real. He tells an intriguing, original story. But you want to haul in publicity. It’s a bit . . .” He looked up at the sky.
“What?” Tess barked the word.
“Tacky.”
“Tacky?”
“I think so.”
“How so? How is wanting to promote an author tacky?” And pictures of his parents’ charming, understated apartment flew into her head . . . along with images of her own parents’ home in Florida. All white. Marble everywhere. Leather, new shining leather, tons of it. New money. No contacts in the Establishment. Was that how he viewed her? Tacky?
“Tess,” he said, leaning forward and speaking close in her ear. “What is it that you’re competing against?”
Tess’s words were low and firm. “What you don’t quite understand, given your privileged, bookish background . . .” She looked up at him, but he was waiting, even nodded her on.
“What you fail to understand is what it’s like growing up not fitting in with your family at all. Try the stunning older sister, the one who now edits a gossip magazine, and my brother, who earns a six-figure salary as a Realtor, selling houses to folks just like your parents, not that he’d ever fit into your world on his own terms. And I certainly don’t fit in with it . . .” Her words trailed off and she pressed her lips together.
James fought with a smile and failed. “Well, thank goodness. What a breath
of fresh air you are. I just don’t know why you worry about it.”
Tess couldn’t hold back the cynical laugh that escaped from her lips.
“No, I’m serious,” he said. His voice was low.
“Are you?” Tess asked. “Let’s see. I have . . .” She started counting with her fingers, as if ticking off a list of things to do, “a tiny studio in the Village, which is not big enough to swing a parakeet in. I’ve lost my one stellar author, the person my parents always mentioned whenever they introduced me to someone they were trying to impress. Quite frankly, I don’t fit in. Anywhere. So you see, James, I am possibly . . . screwed. No matter how hard I try, it’s family or the glass ceiling that stops me. It’s hopeless.”
“Oh.” James’s tone was light. He trailed his hand into the fountain.
“That’s disgusting,” Tess said. She was up for a fight, and he was messing with the water fountain? “You’ll get typhoid.”
He laughed, flicked a bit of water at her. “Nope. It’s Roman. The water of life. It’s all you need.”
Tess rolled her eyes at him.
“Okay,” he said. “But you’ve got an interesting job. And you like to read books. I’m sorry, Tess, but I just don’t see the problem. Because, to me, that sounds pretty great, to be honest. Why are you trying to be something different from yourself?”
Tess stared at him a moment.
He tilted his head to one side.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she muttered. “Couldn’t possibly understand.”
He leaned forward. He looked so earnest that Tess cracked a smile. “It’s very simple, you see.” He reached out, his hand trailing over her cheek. “You’re perfect as you are. You’ll sort Edward out, I know it. But just give him some time. And do it the way you want to do it, not the way you think you should do it.”