The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt

by Tracy Farr

  I stepped behind the aetherphone, felt it attune to the presence of my body. I played the Prelude from Bach’s first suite for cello, me alone, music filling all the spaces of the theatre, up to the red and golden height of it, to the honeycomb ceiling, through all the spaces, the arches and columns, into the arc of the back of every carved nymph on every fluted column, right on up to the gods.

  *

  Uncle Valentine sent me telegrams of congratulations, and bursts of flowers filled the house in Mosman. For a time, even in those early years of the financial depression, my fame grew; I drew increasingly bigger crowds, appreciative audiences. I rode on a wave of fame, in my adopted city of Sydney and beyond, travelled the eastern seaboard performing my music. I recorded my favourite pieces for gramophone, and these were popular throughout Australia and abroad; there was talk of touring to Europe, to America. While the Professor remained my mentor, continually improving his aetherphone design, replacing the instrument I played when his design improved enough to warrant it, he was soon drawn to chase bigger markets. Trix, Madame Petrova and I waved him off at the wharf on the day he left for America, to settle in New York City. His machines sold well overseas; the music gained in popularity. Madame Petrova’s influence on me faded, as she no longer played to accompany me in concert; I would still visit her, perhaps once a month, but to sit in her dark studio and drink vodka with her, rather than to play.

  But there came a limit to my fame. Or rather, it trickled away as quickly as it had flooded in. There was work, there were dates planned; and then, suddenly, nothing. I still played every day – played to the room, played to the light, played into the air – but not to an audience that paid. And so there came a day when we sat at the kitchen table in Royalist Road, facing each other, I with a telegram in my hand, Trix with a letter in hers. My telegram confirmed the cancellation of my American tour, on which I would have played at Carnegie Hall – Financial crisis makes tour unfeasible. Cancel all dates. The letter Trix held in her hand offered her a position teaching art in the city of Dunedin, in the south of New Zealand, where she had been born, and from where she had escaped twenty years before.

  It took us little more than a week to pack our belongings into tea-chests and trunks in preparation for travel. We emptied our rooms in the Mosman house, jammed years of living into wooden crates, until all that was left was a mattress on the floor in Trix’s room where we slept for the weeks remaining until our departure. Not that we slept much; we partied through those last weeks in Sydney with the musicians, the artists, the patrons, the writers of our circle; we played all night at the Buzz Room and the bars, until there was no one left to say goodbye to, no one left awake.

  It was in those wild weeks before we left Sydney that they opened the bridge to traffic, and the two halves of the city were truly joined. We were two of those million people, Trix and I, who lined the shores and bays and headlands of the city that day. We stood on the northern lip of the bridge, pushed and jostled by the crowd, and pushing and jostling ourselves, although all was good-natured, in anticipation and delight. A man near us blew a trumpet; another answered, more distant, and another, and another, away across the span of the bridge, as if trumpets pinned it in place along its length. Flags waved, and hats; people held flowers, and bottles of beer. There was a sharp report as of gunshot, then we all joined in the cheer that surged at us across the bridge, across the harbour, folding in wave upon wave of sound. Beatrix held my hand, kissed my cheek, and we stumbled then regained our footing as we walked, in the crowd, across the bridge to the golden city on the southern shore.

  COTTESLOE

  1991

  Mo, and Caro and Jonno, tra-la

  PLAYED BACK

  A small padded envelope has arrived in the mail. I open it, and a cassette in a case slides out onto the table. I peer into the envelope, looking for a note, but there is only a small card tucked inside the cover of the cassette; one of Terence’s business cards with a note scribbled on the back which may or may not read: Enjoy! T. The cassette is labelled, again in Terence’s scratchy hand, an only slightly more legible Transformer – Sampler.

  I’ve been staring at this tape for half the day. It’s on the kitchen table, on top of its padded envelope, Terence’s card with its jaunty note next to it. I’ve worked around it, you might say, all day. I’m nervous about listening to the tape, hearing myself played back, juxtaposed between the youngsters, hearing the crowd’s response. Will it match my memory of it? Did I dream the whole damned thing?

  It’s dark now. I’ve eaten a light meal, drunk a glass of wine, eaten cheese with a crisp green pear; washed my meagre dishes.

  I sit at the table, contemplate the damned tape.

  ‘Well,’ I say aloud. ‘Well, then.’

  I pick up the tape from the table, walk to the front room, slot it into the empty tape deck and press play, turning my back on the machine and moving to sit in my lounge chair, my listening chair.

  The clean hiss of the leader tape gives way to the roars and shouts and percussions of the crowd, sounding as big and loud as I remember – bigger and louder, if anything. There is the sound of instruments tuning, just briefly – distonic, discordant – then an electronic whine over and above it all kicks in, cranks up and overcomes all sound, screeching, reaching high and ramping to a bright white heavenly, unearthly, hellish scream of beauty. As it reaches its peak – the peak that I can hear with these old ears – the crowd noise is mixed down and I hear Terence’s voice-over.

  You are about to be a part of the experience that is Transformer. People – Prepare. To Be. Trans. Formed!

  Beats fade up over the crowd noise, rise and peak. I crank the volume knob on my stereo so that the house shakes and shudders with the noise of it. This is glorious, glorious. I nestle into my chair, my feet on the ottoman, my knees curled slightly to the side. Terence – I presume it is Terence who has mixed this – has done an extraordinary job; piece flows into piece, song into song, the crowd noise is up in the mix just enough, just often enough, to catch the feeling of the live performance, of the size of the crowd. There’s even somehow the essence in there of an outside performance; not that I can quite hear cicadas, nothing as obvious as that. But the sonic feel of it is there, remarkably, and listening to it I can tell that this is not a recording that could have been made inside a building; it is not limited by walls.

  Side one finishes, and the tape clicks off. I sit for a minute or two, smiling, absorbing what I’ve heard, before I get out of my chair, turn the tape over, press play again. I will be on this side. Steroidalab, Lena Gaunt, then Gristmonger will play out the tape, as we played out the festival that night. I return to my chair. I listen, waiting to hear myself, not afraid any more, not caring; not when the rest of the music is this good, when the sound is this good, when the mix makes it this good.

  I hear Terence’s voice announce me, say my name, say words about me; I hear the crowd. I can feel the feel of the trousers I wore, the swish and glide of them as I walked on stage, like walking on air, carried on stage by the sound of the crowd.

  I listen to myself play. The sound of me playing fills the room, as I sit, listening, playing nothing. How remarkable it is to listen to oneself; what a privilege. I look down at my hands on my lap; the fingers are flexing and twitching, moving to play the notes I hear. My shoulders are taut; not tense, but taut, ready, in the playing position. God, it felt good to play that show. And, in this recording that the angel Terence has sent unto me, I have the evidence that it was good; I sounded good. Piss-take be damned; there was no piss taken, no mistake made.

  *

  I celebrate my self-discovery in the usual way, even though it is, as they say, a school night. Nothing much for this old dog to learn though, tomorrow or any day. I revel in the familiarity of the preparation, the anticipation, the regimen; I toke in hard, then lean back in my chair and wallow in well-earned self-congratulation, my body flooding with warmth and light and well-being.

  LENA
(UNDERSTOOD)

  The filmmaker will bring her camera crew again tomorrow. I say crew, but really it’s just Mo, the woman called Caroline who operates the camera and tweaks the lights, and a very beautiful young man named Jonathan who operates the sound-recording gear. They call each other Caro, and Jonno, and Mo. My own given name is so long unused that I almost forget it; everyone who used it is long dead now. I hear it – Helena, Helena, Helena. An aspiration fronting the name I use, Lena – an aspiration, the sound of a breath fogging glasses to clean them; of a laugh contained in the throat.

  The name I use – I choose – is missing that breath. Or it is understood, parenthesised like the subject in a parsed sentence: You (understood). Lena is Helena (understood).

  But I am distracted; it must be the junk.

  Mo (and Caro and Jonno, tra-la) will film me tomorrow. She brought them both to meet me yesterday – just briefly, to chat over coffee. They were all on their best behaviour, as if meeting the Queen. Caroline has been here before, with Mo, but tomorrow will be the first time the three of them – the four of us – will work together. It will be a sounding out, a metaphorical walking around each other, a sniffing of bottoms. Yes, were we dogs we would sniff each other’s arse. Perhaps one of us would attempt to hump the other, establish herself as dominant. Perhaps one of us would roll over, submissive, on our back, pale belly exposed, paws pathetic.

  But dogs we are not, we Bitches of Art, so we will do it human-style: smiling, tentative, eager to please, polite; yet each standing our ground, apart.

  We film in the front room, the music room. They bring lights, to penetrate the dark, and a different camera, larger, noisier. I think I hear them calling it Harry.

  ‘Not Harry; Arri,’ Mo tells me. ‘The camera, it’s an Arriflex. Sixteen mill, that’s the film size, sixteen millimetres. The Hi8 was just video. This is the real deal.’

  It is busier with three of them, with noisy Arri, with more complex lights and microphones. I sit in the kitchen, apart from them, and let them get on with it. I can hear them even from here. They are noisier than the two women together were; instructions fly across the room, no longer in lowered voices.

  The filmmaker comes to find me. She wants me to play my theremin for them, wants to film that. Why not? They move me around – a light touch on the arm, a hand directing me to move just a little – stage-managing me. Caro uses a Polaroid, spitting out tongues glossy with image. She plucks them from the camera and waves them in the air, peering at them, wrinkling her nose, showing them to Mo before tweaking the position of the light, the camera, the theremin, the old lady.

  I set up the machine, and then I play for them. I start with some scales, some trills, improvise a little to check the sound. Then – without meaning to, although I feel my body as it does so – I straighten my spine, hold my head high, relax my shoulders, and start playing. Bach. The first cello suite, in G major. So beautiful. I forget they are there, lose myself in the music like the cliché that I am.

  They film me in my chair, in the kitchen, everywhere. She doesn’t interview me, today. Mo (with Jonno, and Caro, tra-la) mills about me all day, has me make coffee, stand in my kitchen – just so, with the light like that – then stand by my front door. Static shots, she calls them. Flavour. Atmosphere.

  ‘You’re good at being still,’ the filmmaker tells me, lifting her head from the viewfinder of the camera.

  I am the stillness at the centre of things, the focus of their attention, their reason for being here, and yet separate from them. I am their subject, and yet somehow not here. Lena (understood).

  They are busy at the end of the day, carefully coiling leads, packing equipment. At a sign from the filmmaker, the three of them huddle together briefly, speaking quietly, nodding, making plans. Caro and Jonno make their goodbyes, then disappear to heft their kit to the car.

  The filmmaker gathers up the remaining gear-bag and her big shoulder bag, balancing them to hang one from each shoulder. I walk her to the door. We make a time for our next session, a week away. She wants to work a little on the footage she has, she says, think about what’s still needed.

  ‘Give you a bit of breathing space.’

  ‘Time to work on my improvised life?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she laughs. ‘See you!’

  Coffee cups and water glasses are scattered around the house, the day’s detritus. I ferry the dirty dishes to the kitchen sink. I wash them, dry them, put them away, thinking on the day and its busy-ness, its activity punctuated by stretches of quiet. The filmmaker looked wan, today. Pale, behind the lights. At one stage she disappeared to the bathroom. She took her voluminous bag. She was some time. She came back – refreshed – but she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  I wonder; I wonder: does she use? Wouldn’t that be the damnedest thing.

  DUNEDIN

  1932–1937

  Grey stone, and damp

  TOMAHAWK ROAD

  Sydney never had a cold like Dunedin’s. Trix’s position teaching at the School of Art took us to the small, dark southern city, all grey stone and grey clouds when we arrived that winter. Trix loved the low light, the very southernness of it. Of course, it was coming home for her; she’d been born in Dunedin, then a thriving place of industry and gold and frozen sheep; nearly half a century since, her parents long-dead, Trix came back for its art and learning. But for me, there was nothing but damp chill, huddled in layers of woollens that first winter, in the big, damp house in Tomahawk Road, out past South Dunedin, that we moved into during our first week there.

  The outgoing teacher who Trix would replace at the school had offered her the lease on the house he and his wife and their tribe of children had lived in for six years. We took it, eager to settle somewhere, anywhere. He told us the neighbours wouldn’t complain about rowdy parties; the house turned out to have a view across Dunedin’s cemetery, to the wild empty ocean. We didn’t mind; we could live freely there, the two of us in that solitary house, out of sight of the conservative eyes and minds of the good grey Presbyterian people of Dunedin. We moved our belongings into the house on a Friday morning while the wind off the ocean blew across the cemetery and howled like the waking dead. Two men and a truck deposited our trunks, cases and tea-chests on the south-facing verandah, where they chilled in the bitter wind until we were ready to move them inside. We walked in through the front door, down a narrow hallway. Doors opened off to each side into old-fashioned rooms, generously sized but with mean little Victorian windows, heavily draped against the weather. The darkness of the rooms was immense, tangible, solid. I flicked on the electric light switch, then opened the curtains in the first room we entered, to let in light – but the dim overhead bulb and the pale winter light through the window failed to penetrate the dark. We stepped backwards from the room, and closed the door on it. The hallway zigzagged, and we opened another door into a big kitchen that spanned the back of the house. The pale sun eked into it through north-facing, pale-curtained windows that let in the wind, too.

  The previous tenants had left a linoleum-covered table and three wooden chairs in the kitchen. I pulled one of the chairs out and collapsed onto it. Trix put her hand on my shoulder, and bent down to kiss the top of my head.

  ‘All right, doll?’ she asked.

  I nodded, smiled at her, patted her hand with my hand, and wondered how I might survive this chill southern place.

  *

  Trix slotted into life at the art school easily enough. After the move from Sydney, she was re-energised, enthusiastic about everything – the students, the other teachers, the facilities, the generosity of the La Trobe Scheme that had brought her there, the whole idea of learning and teaching. There weren’t a lot of students, but at least a few of them had something, she said, some spark. She relished the freedom the position gave her to paint, to work, even after being warned, within her first week at the school, that she would have to rein in her more modern ideas in front of the classes she taught. Dunedin was, she was reminded, an upright
and deeply conservative city. Even that failed to dim her delight.

  ‘Time for the quiet life after Sydney, eh, doll.’

  She taught classical skills at the art school, perspective, figure drawing, landscape, portraiture; made contained sketches and demure water colours with the students. She saved her own art for home, working long into every evening in the room that soon came to smell like Trix, permeated with turpentine and cigarette smoke.

  She’d leave for the school early each morning, wearing a voluminous separated skirt – Trousers, Mrs Carmichael, are as entirely inappropriate for a female teacher as for our female students, she had been warned on her first day teaching – clipped in at the ankles, safe from spokes and chain. Satchel over her shoulder, she cycled her big black bicycle into the Octagon then walked it up the steepness of Stuart Street to King Edward Technical College, where the art school was housed.

  I’d still be in bed when she left, curled around a no-longer-hot water bottle. My first weeks were taken up with unpacking our things, making a home in the house on Tomahawk Road, but I soon completed this task. I found myself in the role of stay-at-home wife, a role to which I was unaccustomed.

  But eventually, like Trix, I too settled into a routine. Mine revolved around the house, the landscape surrounding the house; a private routine, a private life, to balance Trix’s public one. When the rain held off, I’d walk to the shops in South Dunedin. The air was cold, even on sunny days in the winter. People walked with heads down, eyes following the movement of their feet, staring at their toes. I bought meat from the butcher, vegetables from the greengrocer, and cooked great warming stews for us to eat by the fire. I bought beer from the pub in South Dunedin; on occasion they had wine, and sometimes it was drinkable.