by Helen Trinca
At the funeral, Madeleine’s coffin was placed in the main aisle. Someone brought a wreath but was asked to remove it, in accordance with Madeleine’s wish that there be no flowers. There was no music either, even though Madeleine loved hymns. It was as if she did not want her mourners to be comforted by music. Florence Heller and Ron Storer had asked for inclusions in the service but the requests were declined.8
A priest from the church read Psalm 39:>
I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me.
And Psalm 90:
Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Then Susannah read from St Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians:
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
The body was taken to Kensal Green Crematorium, accompanied by several mourners.9 Madeleine had specified her body be donated for medical use but none of her organs were suitable for transplant.10
Later, Bruce Beresford and Nicole Richardson went with Susannah Godman to Colville Gardens. Susannah had shouldered the burden of arrangements after Madeleine’s death and, with Jane’s help, had cleared the flat. The question of what to do with Madeleine’s photographs and the biographical material weighed heavily on Susannah.11 She gave Nicole the photo albums, the Little Brown Book and a little wooden jewellery box with the initials MSJ carved on the lid. Inside the box were some inexpensive necklaces and other jewellery. Bruce admired a print on the wall—a sketch of the Sydney Conservatorium, where Madeleine had gone for piano lessons in the 1950s. When they looked behind it, there was a post-it note saying that Madeleine wanted him to have it.
Christopher Potter wrote a long obituary in the Independent. He had been commissioned to do a small piece and had wondered where he would find enough information. Madeleine had been so private, so discreet about her past. But he found there was a great deal to say about his author:
Language and a questioning faith are the two poles of St John’s created world, as may also have been true of her domestic world…Beneath the sly and witty veneer of her writing, she explores questions that are basically theological: we must do the right thing, but how can we tell what the right thing is? This question is at the heart of all her novels…She lived by a strict moral code, the rules of which were only truly clear to herself.12
Control and the desire for anonymity, he wrote, were her typical characteristics. Potter enjoyed researching the obituary and felt, like Alex Hill, that Madeleine had set him a test—follow the clues and see what you can find.13 Florence Heller typed a summary of the funeral and sent it to Antony Minchin. In Sydney, Annabel organised the wake for Madeleine’s Sydney friends and family at the London Tavern in Paddington. Only a handful of people attended—Antony and Eliza Minchin, Annabel and her two daughters Cecilia and Angela and Pamela St John’s daughter Jane.
Chris Tillam was there. It had been forty years since he had seen Antony and Annabel, at his wedding in Clifton Gardens, and almost as long since Madeleine had left him in New York. He had had no contact with Madeleine since the unhappy phone call in 1976 when she had told him he owed her money. He had read The Women in Black, but not the ‘London novels’. But he was intrigued by Madeleine’s repeated theme of infidelity and betrayal.
Chris expected to see Colette at the wake and was disappointed when she was not there. Neither were Madeleine’s half-brothers; nor Val, who had been upset to see Ted described as ‘cold’ in the Herald obituary.
There was still no closure for Val. She wrote to Florence and included a copy of the 1998 HQ magazine article that had caused such trouble. She wanted information from her sister-in-law. Florence replied, referring to the difficulties that Val faced in taking Madeleine and Colette as stepdaughters only a year after their mother’s death:
I am very sorry you are going through a bad time following Madeleine’s death. I suppose it is inevitable that one mulls things over after a death in the family, especially when there are differences, and I trust things will fall into place…I think it is important to set the record as straight as possible about those early days, now shrouded in the mists of time. Thinking about it makes one conscious once again of the terribly difficult situation you encountered when you married Ted.14
Val wrote again, mentioning Sylvette’s multiple attempts at suicide and Ted’s devastation after her death. ‘I’m sorry to have dumped all this on you but I think it is important for you to have the facts. It is a relief to me to have put it away and I am no longer mulling over it. This letter is the last of it.’15
Madeleine’s death stirred memories for Chris, too. Shortly after her funeral, he wrote a piece about his former wife and posted it as a tribute on the internet. It was a brief, beautifully written account of their days in California and the east coast of the US in the 1960s. The piece was tinged with his regret, and included a passage in which he addressed Madeleine directly:
We were a match, we had made of each other a refuge in the shadows of the ruins of two families. We each brought our demons, and in the confined and fragile spaces of our marriage, you gave yours free rein.16
Jane Holdsworth took Madeleine’s ashes home to Putney, and Susannah took the biographical material to her flat at Brixton. Later, when she moved permanently to Suffolk, Susannah took Madeleine’s papers with her and stashed them in the attic.17
In Sydney, Valerie St John agonised over the letters to Ted from Madeleine that she still held. She talked to her sons and then destroyed them. After all, that was what her stepdaughter had specified in her will.18
Jane Holdsworth worried about what to do with Madeleine’s ashes. Then one summer she and her partner decided to take them to France. They scattered some in Paris and some near Amiens, not far from the country house where Madeleine had spent a splendid weekend some years before at the wedding of Robert and Georgina McPherson.19
Madeleine St John, the Australian writer who had lived a lifetime in London grieving her French mother, was at rest, in the land that Sylvette had left seventy years before.
NOTES
ABBREVIATIONS
MSJ Madeleine St John
CSJ Colette St John Lippincott
TSJ Ted St John (Edward)
VSJ Val St John (Valerie Winslow)
CT Chris Tillam
JT Joan Tillam
HT Helen Trinca
FH Florence Heller (St John)
FB Felicity Baker
JMcC Judith McCue
Chapter 1: A WAR BABY
1 Madeleine St John, interview, recorded by Judith McCue, London, 23–29 March 2004 (MSJ Tapes, March 2004).
2 Ibid.
3 Her birth certificate registered Madeleine as Mireille. On 16 July 1963, when Madeleine was twenty-one, her father wrote a note: ‘To Whom it May Concern, to certify that my daughter…is identical with the child, particulars of whose birth on the 12th November, 1941, was registered under the name Mireille St John.’
4 Edward (Ted) St John (TSJ) recorded by Veronica Keraitis, for the Oral History Project, National Library of Australia (TRC830), 29–30 September 1980.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 FB, interview with HT, 16 October 2011.
8 Edward St John recorded by Vivienne Rae-Ellis for the Oral History Project, National Library of Australia (TRC4900/70), 5–7 July 1983.
9 Ibid.
10 Roland St John in Memories at Sunset, completed in 1991 and published by his son Nigel St John in 1994.
11 FH, interview with HT, 31 March 2011.
12 TSJ, Oral History Project, 1983.
13 Marriage certificate of Yancu Meer Cargher and Feica Avram, 30 September 1916.
&nb
sp; 14 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
15 Ibid.
16 Medical records of Sylvette St John, Broughton Hall Psychiatric Clinic, 16 June 1954.
17 Passenger List—Incoming Passengers, S.S. Orama, 29 August 1929, NSW State Archives; Passenger Arrivals Index, National Archives of Australia.
18 Passenger List—Incoming Passengers, Cephee, 8 June 1934, NSW State Archives.
19 Sydney Morning Herald, 9 September 1936, p. 13.
20 Ron Storer, email to HT, 13 April 2011.
21 Sylvette Cargier, ‘Girl Students in Paris’, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 June 1937, p. 2.
22 FH, interview with HT, 31 March 2011.
23 Ria Murch (Counsell), interview with HT, 6 November 2012.
24 Gloria Skinner (Clarton), interview with HT, 9 April 2011.
25 TSJ, letter to Sylvette St John, 27 November 1939.
26 Certificate of Registration of Alien, of Feiga Cargher, 30 September 1939. Change of abode, registered 4 June 1940.
Chapter 2: ‘PICKLED IN LOVE’
1 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
2 Lorna Harvey, interview with HT, 19 October 2011.
3 Henriette Pile, interview with HT, 1 August 2012.
4 John Minchin, letter to Margaret Minchin (St John), 1942.
5 Margaret Minchin (St John), letter to John Minchin, 27 May 1942.
6 Margaret Minchin (St John), letter to John Minchin, May 1942.
7 Ibid.
8 Margaret Whitlam, interview with HT, 15 June 2011.
9 TSJ, Oral History Project, 1980.
10 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
11 Courier-Mail, 31 March 1937, p. 9.
12 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
13 FB, interview with HT, 29 September 2011.
14 FH, letter to VSJ, 6 August 2006
15 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
16 ‘Donald Friend: Merioola and Friends’, a paper delivered by Christine France at a conference at the National Library of Australia, 23–24 February 2001.
17 TSJ, Oral History Project, 1980.
18 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
19 Ibid.
20 FB, interview with HT, 29 September 2011.
21 Margaret Whitlam, interview with HT, 15 June 2011.
22 CSJ, interview with HT, 15 July 2012.
23 MSJ report card, Edgeworth school, November 1948.
24 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
Chapter 3: SYLVETTE ’S DESPAIR
1 Ingrid Wilkins (Relf), interview with HT, August 2011.
2 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
3 Medical records of Sylvette St John, Broughton Hall Psychiatric Clinic, 16 June 1954.
4 Jonette McDonnell (Jarvis), interview with HT, 26 June 2011.
5 Margaret Whitlam, interview with HT, 21 October 2011.
6 Lorna Harvey, interview with HT, 30 August 2011.
7 CSJ, interview with HT, 22 September 2012.
8 Medical records of Sylvette St John, Broughton Hall Psychiatric Clinic, 16 June 1954.
9 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 FH, letter to VSJ, 6 August 2006.
13 VSJ, letter to FH, 4 September 2006.
14 Tina Micklethwait (Date), interview with HT, 13 June 2011.
15 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
16 CSJ, interview with HT, 17 June 2012.
17 Antony Harvey, interview with HT, 6 September 2011.
18 TSJ, evidence at coroner’s inquest, 27 October 1954.
19 FH, interview with HT, 21 March 2011.
20 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
21 CSJ, interview with HT, 23 July 2012.
22 Medical records of Sylvette St John, Broughton Hall Psychiatric Clinic, 16 June 1954.
23 VSJ, letter to FH, 4 September 2006.
24 Medical records of Sylvette St John, Reception House, Darlinghurst, 15 March 1953.
25 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Medical records of Sylvette St John, Reception House, Darlinghurst, 1953.
Chapter 4: A MOTHER LOST
1 Details of the life of Margaret Michaelis are from an article first published in World of Antiques and Art, Edition 68, by Helen Ennis, associate professor at the Australian National University School of Art. Ennis has also published a biography, Margaret Michaelis: Love, loss and photography, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2005.
2 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
3 CSJ, interview with HT, 23 July 2012.
4 Medical records of Sylvette St John, Broughton Hall Psychiatric Clinic, 16 June 1954. The comments were recorded during an interview with TSJ.
5 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
6 CSJ, interview with HT, 15 July 2012.
7 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Medical records of Sylvette St John, Reception House, Darlinghurst, 15 March 1953.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
16 CSJ, interview with HT, 23 July 2012.
17 Medical records of Sylvette St John, Broughton Hall Psychiatric Clinic, 16 June 1954.
18 Ibid.
19 Margaret Whitlam, interview with HT, 15 June 2011.
20 CSJ, interview with HT, 23 July 2012.
21 CSJ, interview with HT, 22 September 2012.
22 Deslys Hunter (Moody), interview with HT, 17 August 2012.
23 Medical records of Sylvette St John, Broughton Hall Psychiatric Clinic, 16 June 1954.
24 Ibid.
25 Dr Marie Illingworth, statutory declaration reported in ‘Mental Health Charges Sent to Minister’, in Sydney Morning Herald, 24 November 1954, p. 1.
26 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
27 Catherineian, 1954.
28 Henriette Pile, interview with HT, 1 August 2012.
29 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
30 CSJ, interview with HT, 22 September 2012.
31 TSJ, evidence at coroner’s inquest, 27 October 1954.
32 Henriette Pile, interview with HT, 1 August 2012.
33 Friedel Souhami, evidence at Coroner’s inquest, 27 October 1954.
34 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
35 Tina Micklethwait (Date), interview with HT, 13 June 2011.
36 Dr J. F. N. Thomas, letter, 13 August 1954, lodged in evidence at the coroner’s inquest, 27 October 1954.
37 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
38 CSJ, interview with HT, 15 July 2012.
39 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
40 Ibid.
41 FB, interview with HT, 29 September 2011.
42 ‘Medical report upon the examination of the dead body’, signed by Dr Stratford Sheldon, 14 August 1954, and lodged in evidence at the coroner’s inquest, 27 October 1954.
43 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
44 Henriette Pile, interview with HT, 1 August 2012.
45 FH, interview with HT, 31 March 2012.
46 CSJ, interview with HT, 24 November 2012.
47 Felicity Baker disputes this account. In her account MSJ did not hear of the family’s belief that Sylvette had suicided until FB mentioned it around 1972. FB, email to HT, 14 June 2012.
48 Finding by City Coroner, Mr Frank Leonard McNamara, 27 October 1954.
49 Dr Marie Illingworth, statutory declaration reported in ‘Mental Health Charges Sent to Minister’, in Sydney Morning Herald, 24 November 1954, p. 1.
50 FB, interview with HT, 29 September 2011.
51 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
52 CSJ, interview with HT, 22 September 2012.
Chapter 5: FLOWER GIRLS FOR A STEPMOTHER
1 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
2 Deslys Hunter (Moody), interview with HT, 17 August 2012.
3 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
4 VSJ, letter to FH, 4 September 2006.
5 TSJ, Oral History Project, 1980.
6 Ibid.
7 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
8 CSJ, inter
view with HT, 15 July 2012.
9 Ibid.
10 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 CSJ, interview with HT, 22 September 2012.
15 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
16 Deslys Hunter (Moody), interview with HT, 17 August 2012.
17 CSJ, interview with HT, 22 September 2012.
18 VSJ, letter to FH, 4 September 2006.
19 CSJ, interview with HT, 22 September 2012.
20 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
21 Diana (Didy) Harvey, interview with HT, 26 August 2011.
22 Antony Harvey, interview with HT, 6 September 2011.
23 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
24 Ibid.
25 Margaret Whitlam, interview with HT, 21 October 2011.
26 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
27 VSJ, letter to FH, 4 September 2006.
28 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
29 CSJ, interview with HT, 22 September 2012.
30 Deslys Hunter (Moody), interview with HT, 17 August 2012.
31 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
32 CSJ, interview with HT, 23 July 2012.
33 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
34 CSJ, interview with HT, 15 July 2012.
35 TSJ, Oral History Project, 1983.
36 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
39 Queenwood Gazette, November 1957.
40 Ibid.
41 Queenwood Gazette, November 1958.
42 Former classmate, interview with HT, 2011.
43 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
44 Susie Osmaston (Manion), interview with HT, 14 April 2011.
45 MSJ, letter to Susie Osmaston (Manion), 24 October 1997.
46 MSJ Tapes, March 2004.
47 FH, interview with HT, 12 May 2011.
48 MSJ Tapes, 2004.
49 FB email to HT, 4 January 2013.
50 TSJ Oral History Project, 1983.