They finish their drinks, they order more drinks. Talk of old times gives way to talk of what they are doing now. And there is, for Art, a surprising ease to it all. And what might have been an awkward occasion is becoming an enjoyable, even rewarding, one. To the degree that he forgets about the square, the larger than usual crowds for this time of year and the festival itself. He is vaguely aware of acquaintances passing by and aware of them waving and of waving back. But all the while, Art and his old friend (and he is now thinking of him as an old friend, as apart from the distant one he was when he was walking down into the town) are talking about their work and what they are doing now, not what they did thirty years ago.
And the more they talk, the more oblivious they become of their surroundings, and all those people out there. Then Art becomes dimly aware of a presence. A figure hovering nearby. The feeling of being watched, at first a fleeting one, becomes insistent. And it is just when Sam finishes what he is saying that Art looks round in the direction of this hovering figure and sees a middle-aged woman step up to their table.
She doesn’t greet them and she doesn’t introduce herself; she simply exclaims: ‘You’re Australian!’
And Art’s heart sinks and he notices that Sam instinctively looks away. The conversation and all those matters of work and art have been interrupted. And, what is more, there is a distinct sense of intrusion. And presumption. As if merely being from the same country is sufficient reason to intrude upon somebody else’s time and talk. And privacy. And, with no desire to prolong this moment, they both tacitly resolve to say nothing. For in saying nothing they cannot possibly add to the conversation, it will quickly end and they can get back to where they were. And so they let her talk, and stare dumbly either across the square or back at her, clearly waiting for her to finish.
She has, Art imagines, a familiar look. A look that carries with it what he can only call a sort of insularity. The very thing they strove to get away from all those years ago. And she seems to be travelling in some sort of package tour, for her companions are waving from across the square and she waves back. And it is then that she looks at Sam and announces that they’ve met, and Sam turns his gaze back from the square and examines her face with no sign of recognition. They met, she adds, more or less. Well, not really. And the two men now look impatient, for there seems to be no reason for this intrusion. They have much to discuss and years to catch up on. And she is in the way. The glow is leaving the sky, the hills become a darker, shady green. They are losing time.
She talks, and neither of them is listening with any great attention and both are resigned to letting her talk run its course until she sees sense and goes back to wherever she came from. And it is when they have almost ceased to listen at all that they register — and it is a delayed response — the words ‘woman’ and ‘tent’. And it is at this point that the expression on Sam’s face transforms. There is not so much recognition in his eyes as understanding. And Art knows exactly why. They had, among all the things they were talking about, talked of this not long before. For Sam had painted an old woman just before they all left their city and went out into the great world. An old woman who lived in a tent out on the fringes of the city. Countryside that must surely now be a suburb. And he never sold that painting, but kept it with him. For there was something about the old woman and her tent, hovering there on the canvas between one world and another, that some deep instinct in him told him not to part with. It has been returned after the tour of Sydney and Melbourne and is now stacked against a wall in his studio in Kent with his other paintings. It is, he’d only just remarked to Art, a sort of touchstone. And he looks at it regularly, as a way of judging the distance between then and now, of there and here. A sort of reference point. And now, as if summoned up by their talk, this woman appears, approaches their table and pronounces the words ‘woman’ and ‘tent’ in such a way that leaves no doubt that she knew both the woman and her tent.
And suddenly both Sam and Art are standing and inviting this woman to sit at their table. There is a spare chair, they say, for her. But she says no, and Art can see in her eyes that she imagines she has intruded upon them and stayed long enough. Worse than intruded, she has transgressed. They are one world; she is another. And we don’t mix, do we? Our types. Except when the accident of a grey-haired old woman and her tent brings us together, and our paths cross. However briefly. And this is clearly what the woman means when she says they have met — more or less. And as much as they insist she stay and join them, for there is clearly much to discuss and much to ask about the old woman, she backs away. I’ve intruded. I won’t do that again. And as they continue to gesture at the vacant chair, she continues to retreat. We must all know our places, the action and the look on her face say as she continues to draw away. But not before offering up the very information they had been puzzling over. The old woman, whose name was Katherine (of course, Sam’s nod seems to say, how could I forget), died in that tent not long after Sam painted her. Died and lay in her tent for three days before anybody found her. And there is sadness, Art notes, in this fate, but a fitting sadness. She hovered between two worlds, that old woman, but she was never destined to pass from one (what was) into the other (what they have all become, this post-war world). For she was that moment between the two worlds, one of those discernible intervals when history pauses, before gathering itself and moving on.
And just as she is about to turn and leave, she asks Sam if he recalls meeting Katherine, for they say now that the painting was all taken from the newspaper photograph that so embarrassed the old woman’s sisters and family. And Sam nods emphatically. He did meet her. Of course he did. Twice.
‘Yes,’ she adds, ‘you don’t forget meeting Katherine. Frightening, wasn’t she?’
Sam laughs, as does Art, and it is clear they want to talk more. But the woman, whom they had silently defined as the very thing they sought to leave all those years ago, slips from them and retreats into the twilit square — for at some point during the encounter, the glow went from the sky and the hills turned black. And they watch, hands quite possibly still pointing to the vacant seat, as she merges with the crowd and joins her travelling companions.
And so, the woman gone — and they never caught her name — they sit once more and attempt to resume their conversation, but neither can recall the point at which they left it. There is a vacant chair beside them that will remain vacant, and a space in the conversation that will remain a space.
As Art sits down at the table, he concentrates on the woman now on the other side of the square with her travelling companions. Just anybody. The very thing they fled. But he feels a curious sense of connection to her. She is tugging at him, or so it seems. Look at me, look at me properly. I am your subject, this tugging figure seems to say. Almost apologetically. And I wish, oh I wish I could be more interesting. But I’m just me, aren’t I? And I can only be just me. The thing you fled. A disappointment. Poor you. All the world has such subjects, doesn’t it? Grand and exotic. From grand and exotic places. And such names: Karenina, Bovary, d’Urberville. But perhaps, if you look closely, you might find something more. Something that you didn’t know was there. Something that I didn’t know was there.
But, Art notes, when they invited the subject to sit with them, the subject declined. The subject would not sit, and the subject declined their offer, just as it had defied easy definition. Now she is gone, leaving a space at the table that wasn’t there before, and a look in both men’s eyes that seems to say, now, where were we?
Every morning now, with autumn quickly slipping into winter, Art lights a fire in the studio, which is cold and smells damp like a cave until the fire warms it and takes away the damp smell. He has worked all morning in this world that he disappears into each day, the lost domain of his birthplace that he is reconstructing, brick by brick, building by building, street by street. And all morning his mind has been moving between then and now, from those streets and buildings he left years before t
o the woman at the table the previous evening, and back again. The woman being both someone he met just yesterday and, at the same time, one of those nameless faces that walk the streets that he spends every day resurrecting. For it is almost as though she has stepped out of one of his paintings, stepped out of one of those anonymous peak-hour crowds, either going to or coming from work, and entered his studio, offering the nagging observation, ‘No, no, you haven’t got me right, have you?’ And it is a disturbing, disruptive thought, for it undercuts the very confidence required to finish the task he has set himself. Almost as though she is wandering about with him, looking over his shoulder — and rarely approvingly. A self-confessed disappointment who is, in turn, disappointed at his failure to look more closely. And why should he care? After all, she is one of those from whom he fled. But he does care.
It is while he is contemplating this question, and in a slightly annoyed manner, that he sees the figure of Sam appear at his studio window, tapping on the glass.
The studio door opens onto the road that winds down into the town, a winding, dirt road that the tourist buses never take. And so when Art opens the door, Sam steps straight in off the road and into the warmth of the studio. They greet each other and Sam goes to the fire, puts down a large bundle wrapped in newspaper, which he has carried under his arm, and warms his hands.
He takes his coat off and rubs his hands vigorously. And when the cold has melted from his fingers, for the day has a wintry bite, he looks around at the studio, at the paintings stacked against all four walls, then turns to Art as if to say, well, let’s have a look at them.
And as much as Art knows that a painting has got to be seen sooner or later — in the same way that a book is meant to be read — he resists, for a moment, the instruction in his old friend’s eyes. But his old friend has travelled a long way — not just over land, but time — and who knows when he will be back. He deserves, at least, this much.
And as they stroll around the stone studio, Art selects which of the canvases he will put on display, then stands back and observes Sam’s responses. The process takes about an hour — for Art and Sam have long agreed that an hour in a painter’s studio or an art gallery is all the mind can accommodate. After that the viewer is not seeing, only looking. And Sam’s responses range from staring intently at scenes to nodding or smiling at a familiar building or pub, sometimes remarking on forgetting all about such and such or so and so until the painting brought it back. And when he is finished and they have exhausted their hour, he looks at Art and nods. It is a knowing nod, a thoughtful one, but, above all, it is a nod of approval. And it is followed by the simple observation, ‘They’re good ’uns.’ And he nods again. ‘Good ’uns.’
Sam, Art knows full well, is not one given to grand statements about the work of fellow artists or his own. We leave that, it has always been tacitly acknowledged, to others. And so that slow, thoughtful nod of approval and those few simple words matter, and Art nods back as the two old friends return to the fire.
All talk of paintings ceases, which Art is happy with, and when they reach the fire Sam looks down at the bundle wrapped in newspaper that he carried with him.
‘I’ve got a surprise,’ he says, then instructs Art to pull up a chair by the fire and close his eyes.
Art is reluctant — closing his eyes is too close to being blind, which, he has always been convinced, would mean the end of living. But the generosity of his friend’s nod and those few words of approval are still fresh and, once again, he concedes that he owes him at least this much. So he sits. And he closes his eyes.
The room becomes sound: Sam unwrapping the bundle. Rustling and snapping sounds, over and again — and, eventually, the crackling of flames. For he knows from the sudden burst of warmth that something has just been placed on the fire and that flames and, no doubt, sparks are leaping into the air.
And then the first wafts of scent reach him, strong and unmistakeable, and gathering in potency as Art continues to breathe in the scent coming from the fire. And from the moment the scent reaches him — still keeping his eyes closed, for he is suddenly discovering the power of smell — the scene in his mind, his mental picture of the room, changes. From studio to landscape; from the closed and internal to the infinitely open. Trees, hills, dusty roads, yellow grass, pale blue skies and a dazzlingly bright, unrelenting sun all appear before him. The places they went in their youth, the countryside they escaped to on those days when the sun sent you to the brink of murder and the only course left was to get out to the country or the sea. The smell summoned it all up. All back, all there with such a heady immediacy that he could now almost be sitting again in that countryside he left all those years ago. For he knows, still without opening his eyes, that Sam has just placed the leaves and tender shoots of a gum tree on the fire. And the rustle he heard was the dried leaves, and the snapping sound the breaking of twigs — and the landscape, the countryside that immediately appeared to him, has been conjured up by the magic of the eucalypt.
Sam is not the first to bring the scent of the bush with him to Art’s studio. One of those visiting academics had brought the scented leaves with him once. It is a sort of ritual offering to some. Which, in the past, Art has always thought of as a clichéd one, too. Like the offering of a jar of Vegemite. But not this time. Perhaps because the offering comes from Sam, one of that tight circle of artists from their home city, one of the select society of those who were there, and thereby possessing all the credentials required to get away with an offering such as this, the offering of a cliché. Perhaps because the time is now right: that he is now at the age where such things matter, whereas earlier in his life he would have sneered at such an offering. But not today.
For it is not simply the immediacy of the scene that hits him — and the impact of the scent is as powerful as being physically hit, or so it seems to Art at this moment — but something else. Something unexpected. For with the scent and the scenes that it conjurs up comes an aching tenderness for the place, that he could never have imagined having. For, like the summer stink of vomit in pubs with tiled walls (which were hosed down at closing time) and the wide un-peopled city streets upon which the sun beat down on summer days, the countryside, too (bare, dusty, spindly gum trees and half-dead shrubs), was part of the thing he couldn’t wait to leave. It was always an unattractive countryside to Art. Even alien. But here he is being moved by it, even possessive of it. Responding to it with a sense of ownership that only those who were there could possibly assume. And he realises there and then, with a sudden jolt as he finally opens his eyes, that what the smell has unlocked is something that he never felt himself capable of; something that he had, and with relief, assumed he would never feel: nostalgia.
Sam’s face is smiling. A big, open smile that says, yes, I know, you don’t have to say a word. The room is smoky and the smell of the gum fills Art’s lungs and he is floating. As if inhaling some sweet drug that brings with it the unmistakeable ache of nostalgia: the very nostalgia that he swore was never within him to feel now conjured up (albeit with the faint, residual feeling of succumbing to a cliché) by the gum leaves.
Soon afterwards he is watching Sam walk back into the town along the dirt road. From time to time Sam turns and waves, and Art waves back. Then Sam follows a bend in the road and disappears, and Art turns back to his studio door, taking in the village opposite as he does. Did Amerigo Vespucci, after the thrill of setting out, after the thrill of adventure had faded, succumb — on the long journey to the New World — to the drug of nostalgia? Did he long for these green, rolling hills and those long summer evenings that pour gold and vermilion twilight over the land? Did he ever look out over the rolling waves and see these hills instead? And were there times when he wished he’d never left home?
Nostalgia. They’ll tell you — all the dictionaries and all the books — that it’s a longing for home. Or the past. But Art, with the scent of the gum leaves still in his nostrils, has had time to think about this and
he’s not so sure it’s either of them. It is true that from the moment he inhaled the scent of the leaves he was filled with a longing that he could only call nostalgia. But for what? Had he really discovered a longing for the place the leaves brought with them — or something else?
The smell of the leaves conjured up a place and a time, and with that came an aching desire he chose to call nostalgia. But what if that wasn’t it? Or, rather, what if the feeling needs to be redefined? And is nostalgia not so much a longing for a place or a time as a longing for youth itself? Home merely the place where youth is lived. The place where it is played out, and where, on that inevitable day of departure, it is left. All destined to be consigned to the distant past. Until somebody uncorks the magic potion that brings it all back.
He knows, and he has told himself this often enough, that if he were to go back he would not find the place he’d left. It would not be there. His city, his place, his home, existed once upon a time. And that time will not return. So how could nostalgia be a longing for home, when going back to that place called home would neither ease the ache nor satisfy the longing? That place which was home lives in another time. To go back to the place as it is now — and he is not seriously contemplating it anyway — would achieve nothing. He would merely be a stranger in a strange place. For there is no place to go back to. No, the longing is for the place as it was, the time that was, when they were younger and older, older and younger than they knew. A longing for that lyrical age of youth that never comes again.
And just as well, Art tells himself, as he enters his studio, just as well there’s nothing to go back to. Because he can’t go back anyway. You may not be able to go back into the past or to a place that doesn’t exist any more, but you can re-create it. And this is exactly what Art has been doing all these years. Art has been re-creating that sunken city. So that if it were ever to be rebuilt as it was, it could all be done from his paintings. And if someone were ever to ask, ‘What was it like?’, they would only need to walk through these paintings to know. But, and Art knows this full well, the whole enterprise sits on mythic memories — not fact. And the success or otherwise of the whole pursuit relies on preserving those mythic memories. To go back to what now exists, he is convinced, would destroy them.
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