Mad Meg

by Sally Morrison

  The belief in her own unassailable goodness and the tale of her having been a pioneering teller had the staffs of banks at our mother’s little feet. (Her feet were little because Euphrosyne had wanted it that way and refused to buy her larger shoes after her feet had reached size six.) Our mother wielded her debts in much the same way as she wielded the family table linen, with flair. There was never her equal in sincerity when faced with a bank manager or a credit official in a department store. No high-handed Ninaisms for her, just breeding and tragic indigence. The pastoral acres, the bushfires, the brothers and their drunken replacement – she made the girl with the smallpox in Bleak House look inexperienced.

  I had two thousand dollars in the bank. There it stayed and slowly, slowly grew to three thousand. Property prices were always that bit ahead of me and my yearly income that bit too low to think of being able to buy a house. If the Troika didn’t buy into Mad Meg I’d probably have to get some help from Dadda, or marry someone for a mortgage. I felt dragged down by the thought of marriage and of Eli being the tolerated child from a former relationship. I had visions of his much-loved nature giving way to surliness and the profound discomfort children feel when an outsider moves in on their most important bonds.

  My conversation with Rose Hirsch kept coming back to me. I wondered how she got along with The Brolga. I imagined talking to her and explaining our position about Dadda. He’d never been rich when he lived with us; it was our mother’s earnings we relied on most: to survive without Dadda was truly to survive. We would purge ourselves of him and punish him with our survival. Why should he come off looking like a benevolent fund? He was cruel and we did not want him to feel redeemed. And yet there was Eli, and me at his age, and the thought of a heap of lolly ending up with The Brolga or, worse still, Checkie. All we would have proven was our own stubbornness.

  These considerations joined the circuit of my thoughts, and I began to need something to relieve the monotony. So I saw myself loved by someone as yet unknown. I saw myself, free of torment, painting. I would pot and fret, paint and forget, and I dreamt two futures, love and art.

  FOURTEEN

  Dadda’s Beginnings

  AT THE PARTING of the ways, it was said, Harry Laurington had bestowed on the Hirschs a collection of art and a pair of semidetached houses in lieu of superannuation. Being Harry’s minions hadn’t made them rich, nor had it given them much room, for their houses were minuscule, so minuscule that, up to the time of his death from cancer about a year before I started to visit Rose, Laurent had lived in one and Rose in the other.

  It was a hostile street. The narrow bitumen paths either side of the road were steep or precipitous depending on the direction you were travelling. Being a thoroughfare, it was impossible to park there and hard to cross at any time of day. The dirty, busted-off street trees raised the bitumen as if their roots had been crude tin openers, the sort that make the palms of your hands feel vulnerable. On the Hirschs’ side, the single-fronted Edwardian duplexes staggered up the hill, their serrated roof ridges stacked, each one higher than the last. They had no view of anything whatever except the merciless brick and dull glass of neglected flats opposite. Squat brick fences with tough wire gates in them and plots of vegetation, tiny and wan, kept the houses from the street. It was as if they had turned their backs on life; their windows were blinded, their doors unwelcoming.

  I circled Rose’s house for several days, ashamed of myself for having to put in so much effort when she’d seemed, after all, to be a friend. I kept on saying to myself, She can’t live here, kept thinking, This must be wrong, there’s another street of the same name somewhere else, for when I thought of Rose, it was not of someone who lived in a brick duplex. I thought it more likely she’d live in a turret or a gazebo.

  On Rose’s verandah, if indeed it was her verandah I found myself standing on at last, a dogged white geranium held its single flower out to the sun from an earth-filled crack in the tiles. I rang. Rose called, ‘J’arrive!’ and so I thought she might be expecting someone French and nearly ran away; but when she opened the door, she was effusive and kind and I wondered how I could have thought she was otherwise.

  Rose was short and, in the days of fashionable sun-tanned anaemia, plump and white. Her clothing was several exquisite petticoats worn one on top of another under a dark waistcoat. Done up in black gym boots, her feet pointed straight forward when she walked, like a doll’s. She had a doll-like jauntiness and rubbed the knuckles of her right hand across the flat palm of her left in a vigorous, friendly way. It reminded me of frotting silk and taffeta in childhood, of the warmth my fingers imparted to the cold material, and of the way the material replied with its gritty feel, its warpy, wefty voice.

  She slid her jaw from side to side as she talked, letting her voice slink out as if it were lingerie kept in a delicious little drawer. Speech was an adventure in sound-making for her; she craned forward in flashy-eyed excitement, saying, ‘Is-o-bel, Is-o-bel,’ feeling the shape of my name, like a taste, in her mouth.

  In two rooms off her tiny hall, her dolls sat in darkness; large, small, caucasian, oriental, black, fantastic. There were boys, girls, babies and parents, china dolls with wooden bodies, dolls in bisque with bodies of stuffed cloth. They were wide-eyed and expectant. Speech seemed about to come from the open mouths in their faintly luminescent faces. They seemed intent, interested; they might have had something intelligent to say.

  In the sitting room where the light was on although it was daylight outside, more dolls – on every surface and bookstack, dolls, and Rose’s creatures, antlered, erotic, furred, scaled, bewinged, beringed. They sailed in boats or flew or rocked or went on wheels, and all had Rose’s eyes, dark eyes into which you could not see without first seeing yourself.

  I fingered my tea cup with the forgotten relish of childhood, as when Allegra and I had cleared ourselves a space and spread our play house cloth, set out our tea cups and poured the magic brew, the brew of little women: little women who’d pinched liqueur glasses and imagined we were drinking wine; little women who delved into the lascivious mysteries. Civilised little women. Except when it was just after weddings, and then all hell broke loose: with cellophane and sausages, with wild, wild berries and drawings of Leone and a man, with a beard, dark glasses and a stick. We would skid from impeccable manners to what we thought was pagan debauchery. We’d made a card: Leone with her juicy thighs on one side and the mystery man on the other, and then we imagined what happened when the card was shut and thwocked the sausage till it split and the inferior meat came smearing out of it.

  Rose, incredibly, was in her sixties; in her words she had reached six ten times and was happy to be there. She said if you were a European Jew, six was a sensible age to be, and there was great wisdom in remaining six.

  ‘Some people don’t become six easily,’ she confided. ‘Ze second Mrs Coretti ’as probably been fifty all ’er life. Fifty was written inside ’er like a commandment. Zhou shalt be fifty, Mrs Viva Hallett, Laurington, Coretti; somebody ’as to be, and you are ze one who ’as been picked.’ She made a gesture as if catching a nit in her strong white fingers. ‘But Henri. Henri is different. I don’t know how old Henri is; ’e might be six like me or seven like ’e was when I first met ’im. Zen again ’e might be very old, but I don’t sink so. I sink ’e’s permanently at ze age when young men fall in love.’

  It surprised me greatly that Rose had known Dadda so long. With the exception of Uncle Nicola, whose personality was locked away from us behind his appearance and a language we didn’t speak, we knew of no one who’d known Dadda in childhood, and, though we were inundated with our mother’s family history, we knew virtually nothing about Dadda’s.

  Rose had a double-spouted teapot just like the one Dadda had given me on the day he’d tried to sweet-talk me in the Pantechnicon. Rose had been given hers by Dadda as well, but her tea was broken orange pekoe. We took it black in an assortment of elegant cups and saucers.

  It wa
s obvious just from his art sales and the growing popularity of his work that Dadda was becoming increasingly rich and, as Rose said, Viva hadn’t any money when he and she eloped. Harry had contributed nothing, so it must be Dadda who could afford sable marten for Viva to wear and a new Daimler for her to drive.

  Since his second marriage, Dadda had had to change galleries in both Sydney and Melbourne. He was the darling, now, of the upper middle class. He and Viva swanned around in diplomatic and old money circles, where even Lauringtons extended them a brittle politeness.

  Dadda had told Rose he often felt uncomfortable. To get away from goo and gush, apparently, he had begun to undertake expeditions to map the intrusion of the technological age into remote regions. The sable marten would have no one to see it and comprehend what it meant in the places Dadda was choosing to go, so he was choosing to go alone.

  When Viva was young she had thrown Dadda over for Harry Laurington because Harry had had money and plans, whereas Dadda had been in difficulties. Viva had even said that, married to Harry, she could be of more help to Dadda than she would have been had she married him. But Dadda hadn’t wanted to be helped by Viva and had turned his back on her.

  ‘Your fuzzer never loved Viva, not in my opinion,’ said Rose. ‘Probably ’e loved your muzzer because your muzzer was uncritical and kind.’

  ‘Funny way of showing it. Why did he run off with Viva if he loved our mother?’

  ‘Your muzzer is very stubborn, Isobel. You know zis. And she belongs to ze group of people who don’t understand art and what it demands of artists. She ’as taste, of course, but ze driving force behind your muzzer’s character is not an affinity wis art but a sympathy for people who suffer, for potential artists.

  ‘Your muzzer also suffers because zere are no rewards for kindness zat goes unseen. Your muzzer is afraid to let go of people who ’ave benefited from ’er kindness. It seems a slap in ze face to ’ave sheltered someone when zat person no longer needs shelter. Zere are women who mourn because zeir children ’ave grown up.’

  ‘Tell me actually, Rose. Do you mean that Dadda grew out of our mother? That all the possibilities between them had been exhausted?’

  ‘Yes. Your fuzzer and muzzer came to an impasse. She was a zoroughgoing muzzer and felt unrewarded, because your fuzzer cannot be – ’ow shall I put it? – corrected. Your muzzer ’as a very strong desire to correct things. But people can’t be corrected, zey can only agree to conform, or not agree. Who zey are is written into zem.’

  ‘And he’s a deserter!’

  ‘No. ’Is goal was very different from your muzzer’s. Some artists are little more zan ze brushes zey ’old, but your fuzzer is also a clever man. ’Is lesson is zat ’istory never stops, and yet it ’as its rhythms. Our lives are just footnotes in an unimaginably large story. But for all zis, zough our paths cross and recross, we will never again be who we were or where we were.’

  ‘He used to be affectionate and funny, but now he’s shallow and thick-skinned!’

  ‘No, Isobel, ’e just refuses to alter course, ’e is no one wizzout ’is work.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he had to run away with a piranha.’

  ‘You’re only seeing it from ze place you’re standing, Isobel.’

  ‘Why should I see it from anywhere else?’

  ‘Look, Henri told me your muzzer wanted four sons, but she ’ad two daughters. Ze men never came home from ze war, but ze children started a new kind of life. We all wish that ’istory stopped needing more to ’appen when we came along, because we seem to ourselves to be perfect. We wish we could live forever because of our goodness, our intelligence, our beauty or our strength, but ’istory can only echo.

  ‘We wish our marvellous moments would keep us brilliant all life long, if only to show our children zat we ’ad zose moments, zat we belonged, zat ze people we loved were worth loving and ze sings we believed in were worth our belief. If we were ’appiest at nineteen, we seek what reminds us of zat ’appiness. We want zat story told again. Your muzzer wishes in a naive way. She ’as invested ze past wis more glamour zan it could ’ave ’ad. What she is remembering is ’er own innocence. But innocence can never recur; we can only savour again ze circumstances of our innocence. Viva ’as a hold over your fuzzer because, whatever else she is, she is not naive and she doesn’t require Henri to change.’

  Rose paused and shrugged – her bottom lip, though full and red, drawn straight. She dropped her heavy-lidded eyes. ‘I must tell you about ’ow I met your fuzzer, Isobel,’ she said, looking my way again. ‘In many ways, I know ’im better zan Viva ever could.’

  When Rose talked, she engaged her audience completely. She was intent and intense. A panorama of expression lit her face; she leant over her story and drew it from her breast with her hands, her arms, her spine. Never quickly, always as if she were shaping clay. She made you feel, smell, wear and be in her adventure, her evocations were so strong.

  She began by telling me that when she was twelve, her father had taken her to Milan on a holiday.

  ‘We went by train from ze Gare de Lyon, late at night. I felt excited to be leaving Paris behind, and I imagined zat everysing I could no longer see no longer existed; ze deserted boulevards were all being folded up in two dimensions and disappearing into an encyclopaedia wis gold tops and bottoms on ze pages. It would stay like zat until I came ’ome again and brought it back to life.

  ‘We travelled through France all night and most of ze next day, and towards evening, we started to go zrough the Alps. Never before ’ad I seen mountains. Zey shot up in ze air like a petrified catastrophe.’ Rose made an operatic face. ‘I suppose zey were a petrified catastrophe. And in between zem was a big, fat moon which was mirrored in a long lake.

  ‘Zat night we stayed in Turin in an ’otel where ze wallpaper reminded me of endpapers in books; ze design was always ze same but ze colour changed from room to room: dark red, dark blue, brown. So I imagined now I was entering my own story, separate from ze one I had left in Paris. A story told in a musical language of which I could not understand a word.

  ‘Ze next day we went on to Milan. When we arrived at Milano Centrale, it was ze middle of a hot day. I was so sirsty I wanted a great big bubbling drink I could see advertised in neon lights at a food booth. I did not know who ze man was who ’ad come to pick us up, I wanted so much for ze two-dimensional drink to become zree dimensional. I zought the advertisement said it was radioactive as well as sparkling, so I zought it must be wonderful to drink zis drink; my whole guts would be sparkling! But my Papa and zis man were so busy talking Italian zere was no chance to ask, and I felt maybe I was being punished for shutting my little sisters up in two dimensions and leaving zem behind.

  ‘I kept feeling zis wonderful drink getting furzzer and furzzer away from me, so all ze way in zis car of my Papa’s friend, which smelt rather good to me – I suppose it was ze petrol – I imagined I was dying of TB. And zen, Isobel, I saw somesing astonishing, a castle soaring up out of a moat, and ze drawbridge was down! For a moment I wondered if ze man who was driving ze car was going to take us into zat castle, and I wondered if we were going to meet ze King of Italy!’

  It was the summer of 1924, not quite two years since Mussolini’s march on Rome. The dictatorship had not yet been declared, but elections held in April, giving Mussolini sixty-five per cent of the vote, were known to have been rigged. Rose’s father, an architect, went to Milan to draft a project for a friend of the Coretti family. My grandfather, Emilio Coretti – who was driving the car – and Rose’s father, Lev Katz, knew each other through having attended the same socialist congresses. Both had been minor office holders in their respective parties and, to my surprise, Uncle Nicola was actually quite a prominent socialist, a union secretary.

  I was astonished to learn that my grandfather made shoes. I’d been led by my mother to believe he was a journalist, but the journalism he did was for a socialist magazine, whereas the shoes he made were not just any shoes, but th
e best of all possible shoes, hand-made Milanese.

  The Corettis lived opposite the Sforsa Castle in Piazza Castello. On the ground floor of the house was a fitting room, which Lev Katz had built some years before. It was actually a room within a room that could be made by pushing panels and bookshelves around. It was very clever; two completely different rooms could be made with the rearrangements, either a large sitting room or a hexagonal booth lined with mirrors and shelves that had Emilio Coretti’s customers’ lasts on them. The customers only ever saw the inside of the hexagon.

  Rose asked my grandfather if he made shoes for Mussolini. He said he didn’t, but if he did, he thought he would make explosive boots to make the marching all the more spectacular. The most famous feet my grandfather attended to were those of the poet D’Annunzio, whose florid style was Mussolini’s inspiration. D’Annunzio was bombastic and courageous. He drove the latest cars and flew planes. ‘All part of the pantomime,’ said my grandfather. ‘He couldn’t come to Mussolini’s investiture because he fell off a balcony during a love tryst.’

  My grandmother, Allegra Coretti the First, was perhaps the best shod woman in Europe. Allegra Coretti the Second apparently had the face, but the hair was different. Our grandmother had a Marcel wave. Her hair was short and fair. She was a slim woman, little, like Allegra and me, but whereas our grandfather was dark and very energetic, our grandmother was languid and graceful. She had wonderful clothes. The shoes she was wearing when Rose met her were purple suede with musical staves embroidered in gold onto the tongues. She spoke French very well, and English. She was an opera singer and had to know several languages. She’d fallen in love with English; she said it was the language of love, and spoke it with our father from the time he was a baby – hence his gorgeous, lilting accent.