by JH Fletcher
‘Horace Ingersoll?’
‘He’s just bought it. I think he’s still here.’ Martha she might have expected, but Horace … She didn’t stop to consider what it might mean, but went back into the hall to look for him. He was at the far end of the room, looking up at the painting she had done of his house amid the bruised but resilient bush.
She stopped at his side.
He glanced sideways, seemingly unsurprised to see her. ‘I often wondered what you were thinking when you lived at home.’
‘And now you do?’ Partly to tease him, partly because she really did want to know his feelings: his coming here, so unexpectedly, had shown her how little she really knew about this man. He had raised her when she had not been his child; he had tried to bend her to his beliefs, although with nothing like the pressure to which Neil had been subjected by his father; he had warned her he would turn his back if she defied him, and had. Yet he was here now. After all the years of not knowing, she found she did indeed want to discover this man who seemed far more than the ragbag of superficial prejudices that, until now, had been the totality of her awareness of him.
He stared at her, eyes curious beneath thatch-like brows, and it occurred to her that he, too, might be looking at her for the first time.
‘Anywhere we can get a cup of coffee?’
‘I might be able to find us some tea.’
It was as rough as rats: a couple of mugs, tea like boot polish.
‘I never expected to see you here,’ Marie said, and sipped the awful tea.
‘I didn’t expect it myself. But that article in the paper —’
‘I hope it didn’t make things awkward for you.’
‘Not your fault. The bloke who wrote it will live to regret it, though; the owner of the paper’s a mate of mine. One word from me … If you’d let me know, I could have fixed up a couple of favourable reviews for you.’ He swilled tea, noisily. ‘This is bloody awful. You living with young Otway?’ The question as abrupt as a howitzer shell.
She looked at him straight. ‘Yes.’
‘Decent young chap. Weak, mind. Not surprising, father like he’s got. Met him, have you?’
‘No.’
‘I suppose not. Ruthless bastard. He was the one put the boot into Henry Pearman, you know. Would have had him out in the street, but the house is in your mother’s name, so he couldn’t. I daresay you knew that.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘Because that young turd who wrote the article said I’d been wise to stay away. Teach him a thing or two, eh? I’ve got a photographer coming. Publicity never comes amiss: not for you or me, either. Do you mind?’
‘Why should I mind?’
‘Might put some people off. Not everybody loves me, you know.’
‘Won’t your friends think it strange?’
‘For me to be here? At my daughter’s art show? That’ll be the day. Politicians aren’t savages, you know. Well, not all of them.’
She could not remember his calling her daughter before. ‘Which picture did you buy?’ She had been so surprised to find him here that she had forgotten to check.
‘This one. Puts me in my place, doesn’t it?’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Art’s not my scene. Never has been. But don’t think I’m an idiot.’
‘I don’t.’ She was no longer sure what she thought, but certainly not that. ‘Is Martha not with you?’
‘She’s at home. Got a bit of a cold. Nothing serious.’
The photographer came and took pictures of Horace and Marie, side by side, staring straight-faced at the camera.
‘Thank you,’ Marie said as Horace left.
‘For what? It’s not hard to find a place to hang another picture.’
She returned to the hall, went to stare once again at the portrait of his house that Horace had bought. It was interesting that he had done such a thing, but that had not been why she’d thanked him. She had done that because, despite everything, he had been there.
Back at the apartment, she told Neil about their meeting.
‘What did he want?’
‘To show that bloke on the newspaper that he couldn’t be bullied.’ And explained.
‘He bought a picture? That’s something, I suppose.’
‘More than I expected.’
‘Pity he didn’t suggest giving you back your allowance.’
‘I don’t mind about that. I’m just pleased that he turned up.’
* * *
In the end the show had gone better than she’d feared. It had also been less successful than she’d hoped in terms of sales, although Harris continued to insist that it had been a triumph.
‘Publicity,’ he said. ‘That’s the key. What we need now is for you to do something to reinforce your reputation.’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘Something to make people sit up and take notice. Something controversial.’
She told Katie what Harris had said. ‘It makes sense. Although I haven’t the slightest idea what I can do.’
‘I know,’ Katie said. And told her.
Marie stared at her. ‘I couldn’t do that!’
‘Why not?’
‘There’d be a riot!’
‘That’s what you want, isn’t it? To stir people up?’
The idea was huge, frightening. Where is my life leading me? she wondered.
‘I’ll think about it.’
Yet, in her heart, Marie knew that there was nothing to think about. Whatever she might feel about Katie’s suggestion, the demands of her career would always come first. If it would help her to become known, she would do it, whatever the cost. No, she did not need to think. She had decided.
PART VIII
THE HARROWING OF HELL
J’aime la majesté des souffrances humaines (I love the majesty of human suffering)
— Alfred de Vigny (La Maison du Berger)
Alan
Especially in the early years of a career that proved so eventful and outstanding, there were bound to be many incidents that could be seen as dividing points between what had gone before and what was to come later. Marie herself always felt that the Day of the Eagle, as she described it in later life, was the first major breakpoint in her existence, but the significance of that day and the crazy climb up the rock face was of a spiritual nature — important to her, no doubt but, in terms of her career, unremarkable.
The first sales of her work were important, too, as they are to any artist. The one-man show at the Sydney Tech was a major step forward, yet this, too, could hardly be said to mark a breakthrough; for all Harris’s hopeful yelps about publicity, Marie was still more or less unknown, forced to live at subsistence level, her career going nowhere.
The triptych changed all that and, in doing so, changed her life. Nothing was ever the same again. It was these paintings, without doubt the most controversial of all Australian work completed around the turn of the century and for many years afterwards, that did it. They made her and, as she insisted over and over again in later life, they destroyed her. They certainly made her intensely aware of commercial considerations, something that she said should not be the concern of a serious artist, but why should she not have obtained financial benefit from her work?
In a sense, she was right on both counts, because the Marie Desmoulins of the post-triptych years was a different woman — and artist — from the one who had gone before.
Polite society was aghast. Many hostesses who prided themselves on their love of art, provided it was the right sort of art, closed their doors to her. There were letters in the press, indignation among those hopeful of being involved in the new government that was scheduled to come into being in 1901. There was thunder in the pulpits.
The Archbishop of Gumeracha, no less, declared Marie Desmoulins and all her works anathema. He warned that the fiery lake awaited those ungodly souls who attended the Exhibition where the three-fold portrait was the sole exhibit. ‘Those
who feast their eyes upon the works of this disciple of the devil will surely perish.’
Not a man for pulling his punches, the old Archbishop.
Nowadays it is impossible to imagine what all the fuss was about. Paintings of nude women had been the currency of the art world for centuries. Here you had three paintings depicting various aspects of the same woman. None of them was in the least pornographic; today they would warrant scarcely a second glance.
So why was the triptych so controversial?
For several reasons. Firstly, the paintings, all using Marie’s most brilliant palette, are set in high-arched frames. Marie intended they should resemble stained-glass windows, or an altar piece in a Gothic church, and they do.
The second reason the Archbishop, with those who thought like him — if ‘thinking’ is the right word — hated the triptych was the way Marie had placed the model within the frames. Anyone looking at them can see it at once, yet it is almost impossible to define why it is so. Perhaps it is the slope of the model’s back, the way her arms and head are inclined, as though to contemplate the heavens, that remind the observer irresistibly of the Virgin.
Take that step and the figures themselves, as observed by eyes grown old in the nineteenth century, represent nothing less than sacrilege. For whoever heard of a nude Virgin, or indeed a Virgin who was a real woman, with all the fleshly attributes of a woman? No-one; in a figure that for centuries had been more a theological concept than a human being, such an idea was unthinkable, and unacceptable.
Moreover, in an age where artists could be prosecuted for obscenity if they depicted body hair on their models, the studies themselves were unpleasantly frank.
Finally, there was the question of the model herself. The triptych consisted of three views: from the back, from the side and — the one giving the greatest offence — from the front. Although the painting depicted the model’s pubic hair, it did not show her face, which was obscured, utterly, behind a raised arm yet, somehow, there was no doubt who it was. It was the artist, disciple of the devil, Marie Desmoulins herself.
Portraits of the artist were also commonplace — masters from van Eyk to Picasso had recorded their likenesses for posterity — but none of them had dared anything like this. None of them had been a woman, to start with, and, while a painting of a professional model might have been acceptable, for a female artist to depict herself in the nude was outrageous.
So there you had it: obscenity, sacrilege and what the world believed was a voyeuristic self-portrait. Marie never confirmed or denied it, even to me: that is one question to which Giles Kingdon would get no answer, even if I were willing to answer the rest.
By the end of Marie’s life, of course, the identity of the model didn’t matter, but always she liked to tease, and this was one of her most enduring efforts. Perhaps Neil Otway might have known; in those days he knew Marie’s body better than anyone else, after all, and — for all his lack of talent — he had an artist’s eye. But Neil has been dead these many years, as are Katie Vanning, Horace, Martha, Eugénie and Marie herself: all of them gone into the dark. There is no-one to tell us whether the body in the paintings is Marie’s or not, although I have always believed it was. I certainly hope so; it would have been a perfect choice for someone who would spend the rest of her life challenging the world and its self-righteous judgements. It wasthe first up-thrust finger of outright defiance in a succession of such gestures that raised her to the heights and, ultimately, brought her to darkness.
It is interesting but not surprising that, in thinking so much about the woman who has always been so close to me, despite knowing her only in her old age, I have found myself delving more and more deeply into who she was, trying to discover the bedrock upon which all else was based.
Perhaps because Marie delved so deeply into life herself, she was careful to guard herself from the scrutiny of others. No-one knew her, I think. The world saw only the face she permitted it to see. So there is no way of knowing how she felt about the outcry over the triptych, although there are signposts to that, too.
One part of her would have been delighted. Harris had asked her to produce something sensational and she had done it. What’s more, it had paid off, in full measure. It created huge interest in her work; Harris increased prices threefold without putting a dent in the demand. There were articles about her art, and herself. Some praised her, some vilified her, but publicity was publicity, as Harris had said, and she had become a public face. In no time, demand for her work was outstripping supply.
All this was highly satisfactory, but there was another aspect of the controversy that was less pleasing. Criticism continued. Marie received letters, some praising her, but the majority vile, sewerlike. There were death threats. A woman spotted her in the street and pursued her, spewing abuse, calling her the anti-Christ.
She received a supportive, but troubled, letter from Martha. From Aline and Eugénie she heard nothing.
In later years, Marie always claimed that the trauma had washed off her, but it was at this time that she did a painting unlike anything she had done before or was to do again: a modern reworking of the medieval Harrowing of Hell, a frightening picture of evil emerging, death-clawed, out of blackness.
Neil didn’t say much but, at a time when Marie was in desperate need of light, the stain of his unhappiness leaked over every day.
She needed the reassurance of Neil’s emotional and physical support. She had to know that he was standing beside her in this, in everything, but could not be sure. She pursued him nightly, voracious in her demands, yet still he escaped her. Not in all respects: physically, she was able to master him. She had asked herself once whether it was possible to ravish a man; now she discovered that it was. Yet, even as they embraced, she knew that he was holding her with the diffidence of a stranger who was unsure what exactly he had in his arms.
Unlike Neil, Katie was triumphant. She had a new lover, a man thirty years older than herself, and claimed to be blissfully happy. She seemed so, yet she said the same whenever a new man or woman entered her life. This time, for her sake, Marie hoped that she was right.
Katie wanted her to come and party with them, to celebrate success and damn the ones who condemned her, but Marie would not. From the day it had happened, two years before, she had believed in the profound significance of the climb she had made to inspect the eagle’s nest. Now the memory returned, of a moment no longer triumphant but of terrifying vertigo. More than ever she needed to work, because, after the furore over the triptych, she was convinced that it was work alone that would keep her from falling headlong down that plunging wall of her memory, where lay ruin and leering voices, crying to her out of darkness.
Marie
1
I ‘can’t,’ she told her friend, rejecting her invitation. ‘I’m sorry.’
Katie nodded impassively, as though she had expected nothing else. ‘Neil being a help, is he?’
‘He does the best he can.’
Which said a lot, if not in words.
‘Just make sure he doesn’t give you a kid.’
‘Why not?’
‘If that happens, you’ll be a prisoner forever. A prisoner of the kid, of Neil, of life. Of yourself, even. What of your career, then?’
Eugénie had said the same. No doubt it was good advice — a child would certainly make life more complicated — but, good or bad, it was already too late. Marie was pregnant.
She said nothing, determined to keep it to herself as long as she could, but knew she would have to tell Neil eventually. She did so on a morning of cool autumn sunlight, a day so calm that it formed a peaceful plateau between all that had happened and the turmoil that she knew was still to come.
She had not been sure how Neil would take it, but he was delighted.
‘This’ll bring the old man round.’
She was put out by his response; she had not given his father a thought. ‘What’s he got to do with it?’
But Neil ha
d never been happy to be at war with his family and was anxious to make things right. Now that he knew he would never be a first-rate artist, the bohemian life had lost its charm. The child would mean marriage and a continuation of the Otway line. His father would be won over; reconciliation and respectability beckoned.
Marie did not find the prospect pleasing. She remembered, only too clearly, what had happened to Aline, who had been far more talented than Neil and who had come, too late, to regret what she had lost.
No, she thought. At all costs, I don’t want that.
Yet the Turmoil of the Triptych, as she called it, had made a profound, if only temporary, impact on her. She had stood up for herself for so long; now she was tired of doing so. Some fundamental essence had drained out of her. Marriage or no marriage, it made no difference to her. She would not permit her life to change. So there was no reason to oppose it, if it meant so much to Neil.
‘If that’s what you want.’
Neil trailed off to see his dad who, secretly appalled by the prospect of his only son marrying such a notorious woman, was mollified by the thought that now, at last, Neil would be back under his full control. He gave his blessing, Horace and Martha got gussied up and journeyed to the Hunter Valley, where the marriage was celebrated before a priest brave enough to ignore the vitriolic strictures of the Archbishop of Gumeracha.
Man and wife, the Otways went for a short honeymoon up the New South Wales coast. Marie took her easel and paints, and spent most of the two weeks as she did every day of her life: at work.
2
Within months, there had been a number of changes in Marie’s life: a new child, a new husband, a new century, a new beginning. Mindful of Aline’s example, she had been determined that none of them would influence how she lived, yet soon realised, all too clearly, that her notions of independence and freedom had been nonsense. It was impossible to be both married and free.