The Biographer

by Virginia Duigan

  I'd only just got the cheese & biscuits & wine put out when the GP started arriving.All the usuals,but a few extra VIPs.Verity's obviously been putting the screws on around town.There was a distinct buzz. I was run off my feet putting red stickers on.

  The Aboriginal girl went first, then there were a couple of photo finishes that almost turned nasty. Jane C. & Stephen S. both wanted the dero, & the charcoal drawing of the woman in an apron doing the vacuuming had two others after it. I told V. she should've charged more.She said,'Next time we'll double the prices.'

  He was quite low-key, relatively well behaved. Maybe Verity had had a quiet word. She steered him round the bigwigs & the silver-spoon brigade.You could see people thinking, wow, a real live Bohemian artist! The genuine article – grotty & eccentric, none of your modern, suave art-school product.They were lapping it up.

  He came over to me at one point, to get his glass filled. He leant over & shouted (it was v. noisy),'I would like to offer you dinner tonight.'

  I must have looked flabbergasted, & he immediately said: 'You are alive, so you probably eat food? It would be a pity to waste that nice white suit.And now I have lots of money.'

  I said,'Thanks, but I'm not wasting the suit so you needn't worry.'I was meeting C.at Mietta's.As I said that I realised it sounded quite ungracious.Then something made me add,'It's cream, by the way. Not white.'

  He made a series of silly faces & yelled,'Oh, really? You don't say! Is it CREAM? I am SO SORRY for my STUPID mistake!' He was trying (unsuccessfully) to do an exaggerated English accent. I realised he was actually quite drunk.

  He went off to eat with Verity afterwards.

  Why did I say that? But his invitation was pretty damn ungraciously expressed too.What did he expect?

  C. goes to the NZ conference tomorrow, for 3 days.

  His overreaction was ridiculous. Childish.

  She picked up the diary and went inside, into their bedroom, a cool, sparsely furnished space that squared off one corner of the house. The windows on the two outer walls were flung wide open. If you stood at the door and looked through the gap of the far window, the room seemed to extend into the sky. Zoom further in, as if through the lens of a hand-held camera, and the panoramic vastness of the landscape swung into view.

  On the right-hand wall the windows had a different function: to illuminate the domestic arena. Across the drive and a swathe of lawn dotted with daisies and yellow celandines – the piazza area they called the parade ground – sat Rollo and Guy's house. It was clearly visible now, its cloak of Virginia creeper still a wintry tracery of branches, and the vine leaves on the pergolas tightly furled. Soon the creeper and the vines would be out, concealing the house behind an impenetrable green wall of foliage.

  Normally she loved this airy bedroom, with its contrasting outlooks. She thought of it as giving a physical voice to the two halves of her existence, the outer and the inner life. Her mind's eye, the imaginative play of the mind, was as crowded and colourful as a kaleidoscope.There were times when she wondered if she was more occupied with the world of the mind than with what people called real life.

  But in recent weeks the imminence of the biographer's arrival had achieved a kind of upheaval. It was as if her private horizons were no longer unrestricted. They had contracted into a small claustrophobic space, rather like a safe house. She had begun to think of herself as living under a house arrest of the mind.

  Beyond the perimeter of her mental safe house lay a cordoned-off area, a dark no-man's land ringed by shadows. It was an ominous and forbidden place, and yet time and again she would find herself drawn towards it.There was a pattern to this apparently unconscious process. It was always the same. She would find herself out there, stealing towards that dangerous forbidden boundary, creeping up on it.When it dawned on her she recoiled and drew back. Both moves, the cautious advance, the shocked retreat, were like reflex actions, each as involuntary as the other.

  The zone that lay beyond the perimeter was not empty. She knew there were things out there. She sensed, but could not grasp, their amorphous shapes.

  Always, the bedroom had a calming effect. The walls revealed the fugitive presence, both physical and ethereal, of previous generations. Unlike the rest of the house, which was mostly plastered and hung with pictures, she and Mischa had left these walls untouched. They were flecked with spectral tints of pigment, these walls that had once been menaced by brambles and worn away by wind and rain. For four desolate decades the house had lain uninhabited, abandoned to the elements, before Mischa and Greer arrived to live in it. Like the other two main houses it had once been divided up and occupied by two or three families.

  It was Rollo and Guy more than thirty years earlier who had stumbled across the Castello: a medieval hamlet with chapel and watchtower in a state of extreme dereliction. The cluster of buildings on an isolated hilltop had been abandoned for at least twenty years, since the inhabitants of the day, a small community of sharecroppers, were left destitute by their landlord. He was known in the district as the wicked count. These days some less feckless descendants of the wicked count still lived in the grand villa further up the hill and were cordial friends of Rollo and Guy.

  The farmers had all dispersed to cities and villages in search of work. Local lore had it that some of them had gone to Australia and ended up in Melbourne, Greer's home town.An example,she thought,of the random circularity of destiny.

  Patches of cracked stucco still lay on the bedroom walls, floating like clouds.To Greer,the grainy surfaces,with their layers upon layers, hinted at other lives. The remnants of paint and wash were small testimonies, modest but eloquent, bequeathed to posterity. She speculated often with Rollo about those who had left them. She liked to think of herself and Mischa as the natural descendants of these unknown forbears.

  They may be unknown and mysterious, she thought, but I am not unaware of them. We are their posterity and they are not forgotten. She sensed that in some visceral way this ancient house was aware that it had been rescued from rack and ruin and was grateful. Her predecessors, she was certain, had responded to it just as she did. She felt imagined presences at times. She had never once felt lonely in this room, or this house.

  She saw now that the stippled smudges of ochre were fragments of autobiography. A human version of spoor, the track or scent of an animal.What inadvertent traces would she and Mischa leave behind? Even if it were only a subtle shift in atmosphere, they would leave their spoor. Proof that the terracotta roof and these limestone walls had once sheltered this woman and this man, the successors and inheritors of all those who had gone before.

  The house is not mute. Our ancestors may be unnamed but they are not entirely anonymous, Greer thought.There are certain facts about them that I know, certain important truths.They too had their human failings.They were capable of particular things, deeds in their lives that they regretted, which caused them shame; deeds to which this house has borne patient witness. It sustained them in times of joy and passion, anguish and loss. Through infidelities, betrayals and remorse. This house sustained them throughout their lives, and after centuries it is still here, an unprejudiced observer, accepting everything, judging nothing. I find this knowledge strangely comforting.

  On her left next to the door was a gold-framed drawing in red chalk, the head and bare shoulders of a man. Signed with a flourish, with a pair of ornate initials, two capital Gs interlocked by curlicues, and a date in the bottom right-hand corner. Her own initials, and a date she knew by heart.

  She considered the drawing critically, as if she were Antony the invader coming upon it with no preconceived ideas. It showed a man who looked the age she knew he was at the time: nearing the end of his fortieth year. A strong, square face, fleshy and lived-in, shadowed with heavy stubble. Long straggling hair, almost shoulder length, piercing deep-set eyes, and a complicated expression full of challenge and triumph.

  It was, she decided, both a good likeness and a successful rendering of a sensuou
s and virile man. But it was neither an objective portrait nor a dispassionate one. It shouted disclosure. In the bold, suggestive strokes of the chalk a perceptive onlooker might recognise the feelings, the full-on complicity of the artist.

  On the wall opposite, next to the window, the chalk man was reflected in an old octagonal mirror whose carved wooden frame had been painted, like the bedroom walls, layer upon layer. Greer stood next to the drawing and positioned her face close to his. She examined the two reflected images.

  The new portrait was in colour, but looked slightly overexposed. It showed a middle-aged woman, faded blonde hair pinned up untidily, no make-up. Full lips, which matched those of the man next to her. A sensual mouth, unquestionably. Long, narrow nose, pale blue eyes.

  She couldn't read the expression in the eyes or the face. It wasn't that it was an enigmatic face, exactly. It was hard to read because it did not give much away.And although it was so familiar, the face, after all, whose every detail she knew, every blemish, there was a sense in which it remained a mystery, even to her.Would it suggest to the onlooker that it was the face of a woman with secrets?

  The man and the woman, side by side. How did they go together? Did they fit? The woman looked older than the man, which was not surprising since he was still young and radiated vigour. But he was fixed at a point of historical time, and she, existing in real time, had aged twenty-five years. How would a biographer read them as a couple? He would see that this man was anything but secretive. His emotions were there for the asking, ready to jump out of his skin.

  Sunday 9th July

  He was in for less than half an hour this morning. Only 5 left unsold by 6 o'clock. He looked in bad shape.

  We ignored each other.

  3

  From the kitchen terrace, scanning across the valley floor Greer could just make out a moving speck. It was a car, coming from the north. She watched as it crawled along the curving road, sliding in and out of sight as it dipped below the scrub of ilex trees, hawthorn and poplars. Could it be Antony? He'd said late afternoon, well after yardarm time, and it was only just after midday.

  Besides, he might not be coming today at all. Greer handled the computer, Mischa being useless with any kind of technology, and she had accidentally erased the email. It might have said tomorrow, or even the day after.Then she saw another car trailing behind, and another. She turned her back on the view.This was absurd. It must be the beginning of the tourist season, if indeed it ever came to an end. She had better things to do than watch the road, than wait for the arrival of an unknown visitor.A person whose impending arrival was unwelcome. Whose arrival, she faced up to it, filled her with dread.

  Mischa appeared to have no such qualms. Guy was right: he had been full of ebullience since the emails stepped up and the biographer's arrival became imminent. But there was an edge to this sustained, almost bombastic, good humour. Mischa had used it to deflect all attempts to broach the subject, by Greer or anyone else, almost as if the biography were some whimsical construct, a poem by Edward Lear or an unsuitable joke. In any case, Greer had found the subject well nigh impossible to broach. From its very first mention the biography had assumed the loaded status of a taboo topic between them.

  Mischa had not referred to Antony Corbino's introductory letter for some time. And had he in fact been the first to mention it? Greer couldn't even be certain of that, not entirely. Her first inkling that a biography was on the cards may well have been a concerned remark from one of Mischa's dealers. It was so unlike Mischa to agree to such a thing she could only conclude that he must have been diverted, briefly, by some notion of seeing himself silhouetted on a canvas, pictured through the prism of another's eyes. She suspected he would rapidly lose patience with the interviewing process. He had never much liked talking about himself.

  It was always likely that Mischa would be the target of a biographer, sooner or later. Greer knew this perfectly well, but until recently the idea had been simply that – a vague possibility that might never eventuate. She felt angry now, and principally with herself.Why had she been so passive? Her attitude had been like that of a passenger on an aircraft, suspended in limbo between two points and unable to influence the outcome.

  Not that Mischa was susceptible either to other people's opinions or for the most part to persuasion, whether gentle or robust. She firmly believed that in all his life he had probably never once asked of anyone: what do you think I should do? He always knew what he wanted to do, and whether he should or should not be doing it didn't come into it.

  Greer knew that she could, on occasion, and if she put her mind to it, divert him from his chosen course and get him to do what she wanted. She knew she might have had a good chance of success if she had come right out and spoken her mind. If she'd said: this biography is a very bad idea. It would only get in the way of your work. It's not too late to withdraw your permission.Then he might have said: if you really want me to, Mrs Smith, I will. Fuck it, let him waste some other bugger's time. And that might have been the end of it.

  But I couldn't say that, she thought. It would be like sabotage. A biography is a natural outcome of a successful career. It's inevitable. If not this one there would be others, and behind Mischa's back and mine, which might very well be worse. Besides, Rollo would think I was mad.And mean-spirited. Rollo would be bemused to know, she felt sure, how much she valued his good opinion.

  Greer and Guy were the winemakers, working through changing seasons and in all weathers. They saw themselves as extracting treasure from the stony soil, and saw each other nearly every day; their friendship – jokey, rooted in practicalities – thrived on it.Yet it was with Rollo that she felt she had the more organic relationship. She found it hard to believe she had not known him all her life. Rollo was like a close sibling. In her imagination she positioned him as a much older fraternal twin. Mischa, on the other hand, was nothing like her sibling or her platonic, jokey friend.

  She was unprepared for the thought that arrived without warning: these are the only men in my life.

  The first letter had arrived nearly three years ago, soon after the appearance of an article on Mischa's recent work in the journal Artnews.The writer of the article and the follow-up letter was an up-and-coming young art critic from Los Angeles named Antony Corbino. The article was a well-written, perceptive piece and Mischa approved of it.

  Corbino's letter introduced himself, presented his credentials and declared his wish to become Mischa's first biographer. He wanted primarily, he said, to focus on Mischa's career path, his place in the annals of contemporary art, rather than what he called the banal personal detail. He asked for Mischa's permission to go ahead. Mischa had written straight back, without consulting his dealers in London or New York, and without a word to Greer. He'd only mentioned it to her in passing, days later. He had given the project his blessing and then put it aside.

  Antony Corbino had kept in regular contact with Mischa by letter or telephone during the next couple of years, and sometimes via Greer by email. Mischa enjoyed these little communications, which were pithy and rather witty. They were mainly concerned with the location and provenance of particular paintings, and reconstructing Mischa's meandering route over several years from Prague to Melbourne. And then trying to pin down the sequence of Mischa and Greer's wanderings, post-Australia, pre-Italy.

  There was ongoing light banter over inconsistencies in printed biographical details. Arty in-jokes abounded. In addition,Antony had set up a website with an email address and posted updates on articles and references to Mischa's work in publications around the world. It had all been straightforward enough and, Greer had to admit, in her role as aide-mémoire and fact-checker, completely unthreatening. Mischa was happy – he felt that he and Tony, as he was already calling him, had a good rapport. He was chuffed, as Guy said, and it seemed almost churlish to cast a pall over his pleasure.

  From below the terrace she heard her name called. It was Guy, with the three Welsh wine buyers who h
ad been staying in the guest cottage for the last couple of days. She ran down the kitchen steps to say goodbye.The men were clients of several years' standing, a convivial, blasphemous trio.There had been a dinner, a very rowdy dinner the night before, with Guy and Greer presiding over the table, a virtual couple for the evening.

  The men loaded suitcases into their boot. Guy was about to take them up the road to a friend's vineyard for a farewell lunch. They pressed her to change her mind and join them. Leave the artsy critic to fart around. He'd get lost on the way, anyhow. And she already knew what he'd be like: a poncy bugger, like all of his ilk. They kissed her warmly. Singing wine bores like themselves were more amusing in their fashion, weren't they?

  Oh, loads more laughs, she smiled. 'And in the normal way I would. But I think I should stick around, just in case he inflicts himself on us . . .' She didn't add, I'd give a great deal, you know, if only this were in the normal way.

  She had been part of the business for so long now it was hard to recall the time before it.When she and Mischa first arrived Guy was already in the process of establishing himself as a winemaker. From the start he had put much stock into building personal relationships with his buyers and suppliers. He liked to dispense hospitality, and one night he'd roped in Greer as his date and social hostess. The evening had been a success, and she found it surprisingly congenial. It had quickly settled into a habit during the buying season.

  When Guy was laid low with bronchial flu one November, Greer had found a way through an administrative labyrinth of red tape that had entangled him for months. Guy put this triumph down to three factors: her appalling Italian, incomprehensible accent and entirely bogus air of feminine helplessness. She had, he said, achieved a mathematical first by transforming three negatives into a positive. Whatever, it disarmed the men he needed to rubber stamp his future and he began to make use of it on a semi-regular basis.