by JH Fletcher
George Otway made her role clear from the first. With his invalid wife more or less permanently in England, he needed a hostess for the dinner parties and other functions that he gave for those who might be valuable in his business and social life. He took it for granted that his daughter-in-law would do the job. A married woman’s duty was to minister to her husband’s needs and look after his children, but George had never given a damn about Neil’s needs and the child Alice, in common with female children in all wealthy families, had no status at all. There were nursemaids, and later would be governesses, for Alice. As for art…
George had told Marie that he wished to be fair. He had set aside a room at the back of the house where she could indulge her hobby, which would be tolerated provided she discharged her more important responsibilities. Concern for flower arrangements and servants, for oiling the wheels of social life was, after all, a woman’s function, and would be expected to take precedence over games with paints and canvas.
Marie went in fury to her husband, but Neil saw nothing wrong; his own rebellion buried without trace, he never would. ‘You’re his daughter-in-law. Naturally he expects you to play a role.’
‘What you’re saying is I’ve got a role in everybody’s life but my own.’
Nevertheless, she did her best. She smiled and chatted, charming a succession of wealthy men weighed down by ambition, and position, and flesh. She went through the motions of organising the staff, which meant in practice leaving most things to the housekeeper. She disciplined the flowers, arranging them in banks of colour as brilliant as her palette.
The colours made her father-in-law uneasy; George Otway was an apostle of drabness, which was safe.
‘Tone it down a bit.’
Marie took no notice. Colour was a sword that she flourished, defiantly; if he wanted her to do these things, he must take the consequences. George spoke to the housekeeper, who informed Marie that the Master had entrusted her with the flowers.
‘He feels he has placed too great a burden on you.’ And inspected Marie out of the corner of a sly and triumphant eye, contemptuous of the young woman who found the weight of flowers too much for her.
Marie was undefeated; there were other ways to bring colour into their lives. She took to wearing gaudy clothes, especially when guests were present. Under the noses of their hell-fire wives, she flirted, outrageously, with self-important men. Many responded, chuckling like schoolboys, cracking dubious jokes, letting their fingers linger caressingly in Marie’s hand as she bade them a beaming farewell.
George was furious, and helpless. Flowers were one thing, but he could not ask his housekeeper to preside at his dinner table. Nor could he bring himself to complain to his daughter-in-law about her conduct. Instead, he used Neil as his emissary.
‘My father wants you to take it easy.’
Marie was prepared to fight all of them. ‘Take what easy?’
‘The way you flirt with the guests.’
‘He can go to hell.’
‘I don’t like it, either.’
‘Then you can go to hell, too.’
Her laughter took some of the sting from the words, but Neil knew she meant them. He also laughed, putting a good face on things, but underneath was furious. Married life was not turning out as it ought. A wife was expected to be subservient, particularly in matters of sex, where a man had rights and a woman duties. It was the accepted principle, but Marie had never subscribed to it. From the first, she had kept him off balance. She did so now.
‘Come here …’
Caresses, too, could be a weapon.
And later: ‘Get off …’
Until the next time; which they both knew that she, duty or no duty, would choose.
She painted, every day. George Otway resented it. He had no objection to painting, as a hobby, but this was different. His daughter-in-law had no business to disappear into a private world that he could neither understand nor control. Again he had a word with his son.
‘Sort your wife out, for heaven’s sake.’
In that, at least, Neil knew better. She had warned him, even before the wedding: ‘If he tries to stop me, there’ll be trouble.’
Neil was not game to tackle her on that; instead, he complained again about how she behaved at dinner parties. ‘Do you have to make bedroom eyes at everyone?’
She laughed. ‘Only at the men.’ And caressed his cheek. ‘Poor baby. I believe you’re jealous.’
They both knew it was not that. Defiance of convention had become Marie’s only freedom, whereas decorum was an altar before which this new Neil would forever bow. The thought desolated her. What had happened to the man she had married? She knew the answer, even as she asked the question. Starved by his lack of talent, Neil had surrendered to his father’s ruthlessness. There would be no more fireworks in Neil Otway’s life. Nor, Marie was increasingly afraid, in her own.
In two months’ time I shall be thirty years old, Marie told herself. A mature woman. Yet, in terms of art, I am still green — not the fragile and misty green of newly sprouting leaves, but green all the same, without fruit or even the flowers that presage fruit. While, in Paris, Picasso has his exhibition, and his name.
She had to do something. For days she thought about it, then came to a decision. Once again, she went to see her mother.
It was a glorious day. The warm breeze sparked flashes of light from the water. Shaded by parasols, mother and daughter sat outside the once-grand house and admired the city on the far side of the harbour.
‘Once you asked me to come and stay with you.’
Silence from Eugénie, who had no plans to forgive the day when her daughter had snubbed her.
‘It was out of the question, at the time. There was the Exhibition. Other things.’ Marie gave her mother a sincere smile that fooled no-one. ‘I thought perhaps I could come now. If you’re still willing.’
‘And what does your husband have to say about this? Or are you suggesting I invite him, too?’
This, from the woman who had not attended her own daughter’s wedding, who had not contacted her once since she had united herself with the hated Otway clan.
Marie was philosophical; she had expected Eugénie to be difficult.
‘I was thinking, perhaps, two or three days a week? At first. Neil would not be coming.’
‘You have discussed it with him?’
So this was how Eugénie intended to play it: the respectable mother, mindful of her duty not to come between Marie and her husband — whom Eugénie despised and hated, like all the Otways.
‘Not yet.’
‘Then perhaps you should.’
‘If you aren’t willing to have me, there’s nothing to discuss.’
Eugénie opened her eyes as wide as they would go. ‘Why should you not come? I am your mother, after all.’
As always, she was twisting what had been said in order to put her daughter in the wrong. I wonder if I’m making a mistake, Marie thought. But knew that she had to find some way to escape from the cage of respectability in which she was confined. Only so that I can paint more freely, she assured herself. It was a lie; the prospect of being away from the Hunter Valley intoxicated, like a breath of air from the sea.
‘What about Alice?’
‘I’ll bring her with me. If that’s all right with you.’
Again Eugénie gave nothing. ‘If your husband permits.’
‘I will speak to him,’ Marie said. ‘And let you know.’
‘Two days? Each week?’ Neil was displeased, but nervous.
Marie was unconcerned; she saw that he was frightened to stand between her and her art. ‘Two or three.’ All the same, it seemed prudent to coax him. ‘You know how important it is to me. It’s impossible here.’
He did not ask why it was impossible. With his father radiating constant disapproval, he knew.
‘And Alice?’
‘Whatever you think best.’ Marie also knew when to be subservient.
&n
bsp; ‘I think she should stay here.’
‘Very well.’
If she felt a pang, it was at the idea of permitting another person to make such decisions. It had nothing to do with her feelings for the child; she knew already that her maternal instincts were minimal. My paintings are my true children, she thought. One-year-old Alice was simply another human being. To whom, in time, she might hopefully relate. Or not.
She wrote to Eugénie, informing her she would be arriving the following week. She also wrote to Katie, with whom she had lost contact since her marriage. Unlike Eugénie, Katie had come to the wedding, had studied the Otway house with a sardonic eye.
‘You can’t keep away from them, can you?’
‘From what?’
‘Palaces.’
‘I won’t let it interfere with what I want to do.’
‘We’ll see.’
Katie had been unconvinced, but Marie had meant what she said. Now, two years later, she intended to prove it.
She felt more cheerful, although she had a terrible headache, the worst she had ever had. It was a pressure building within her brain; it made her skull creak. She told herself it was only stress. It would go away, now the decision had been made. She was on the move again. Perhaps destiny was not totally beyond reach, after all.
And then …
3
It was a dream. Marie was in a far country, an exotic place of warmth and palm trees clashing their spiked fronds against a limpid sky. She was sitting on a bench, looking out at a dazzling sea. She was at peace; later, she remembered this so clearly. A man came. He had a smiling face, although his body was shrouded in a grey cloak that menaced, silently. He came closer. He leaned over her and the cloak was suddenly black, the smile vulpine. He rested his weight upon her while she stared up at him, panicked yet unable to move or speak, every fibre of her being straining vainly for an escape that would be forever denied her. She felt the rasp of his cloak as he lay with full weight upon her, crushing her. She smelt his body: the odour of meat. She could not breathe. She could not see. She was immersed in a swirling ocean of darkness and terror in which she could feel the movement of his hands, binding her wrists together.
She awoke, drenched and panting. It must be how a fly felt, she told herself, when it was captured by a spider.
Yet it had been only a dream. Over and over she repeated the words, seeking to soothe, to reassure herself. How important that it should have been no more than a dream!
She awoke before plunging back, helplessly, into the dream. Or into a dream. Into:
Terror
Darkness
The infinite loneliness of space in which she would be forever lost.
There were ants running over her face. She rubbed and rubbed, panicking, but could not get rid of them. Inside her head she could hear the flapping of wings. Below her lay a cauldron from which rose darkness like a mist, the beckoning of pallid and insistent hands.
She forced a breath. Another. Pulses thundered in her head. The images faded. Were gone.
Sunlight patterned the wall of the bedroom in which she lay. She wept. She knew that it had been no ordinary dream. I must get advice, she thought. But if I do, they will lock me away. They will drive steel pincers into my eyes. They will pull out my brain on hooks. I cannot do it. But alone, and untreated …
What will happen to me?
4
Later, she managed to convince herself that it had, after all, been no more than a bad dream. Two bad dreams. Her plans went ahead. A month later, she turned her back on the atmosphere of the dark and resentful house and caught the train to the city.
She called on Katie first. Found her at home and, by a miracle, alone. After all the exclamations and laughter and tears; after the hugs and hysteria and the bottle of wine, dragged from some hiding place within the cluttered room; after the clunk of mugs that were all they had to drink from; after the toasts and more laughter, more tears, Katie said, ‘There’s a couple I want you to meet. Brett and Donna Samochin.’
‘What kind of name is that?’
‘A Russian name.’ Katie sounded surprised that Marie had needed to ask. ‘His full name is Brett Pavlovich Samochin.’
‘Brett isn’t a Russian name.’
‘He was born here. His parents gave him an Australian name, so he would be at home in this country.’
‘Makes sense.’
‘Not at all. It means he doesn’t know what he is, Russian or Australian.’
Whichever he was, it seemed that Brett and Donna were married and not simply living together. In Katie’s complicated social life, that had to be one for the record books.
‘He is also an artist,’ Katie said. ‘A painter.’
Marie had never heard of him, but had heard of so few artists. ‘What does he paint?’
‘Social realism.’
Marie was suspicious of isms, and those who laid claim to them. ‘What’s that?’
‘He paints the poor.’
‘So do I.’
‘No. You paint the spirit. Brett paints what the world sees.’
Hence ‘realism’, Marie supposed. She doubted he had much to teach her.
‘Why do you want me to meet them?’
‘Because you will like him. You will get on like a building on fire.’ Katie sensed Marie’s reluctance; it stressed her. Despite so many years in the country, stress could still cause her to slip over the idiom.
‘What will his wife have to say about that, I wonder? Shall I like her, too?’
‘It is possible.’ But shrugged; Katie was uninterested in men’s wives — unless, of course, they were interested in her.
‘Perhaps after I’m settled in,’ Marie said.
‘He’s a friend of Lucien Henry.’
That put a different complexion on things. ‘Maybe you can introduce me, then?’
‘I shall arrange it,’ Katie decreed. ‘You will meet him tonight.’
Marie shook her head. ‘Tonight I’m staying with my mother.’ Katie’s expression changed at once. ‘You do not know how lucky you are, to be able to say that.’
Her own mother had gone off a year after their arrival in Australia, and had never been heard of since. Marie took her friend’s hand. Katie was worse off than herself: not because she was unmarried or because she was adrift, but because, beneath all the gaiety and bravado, her life was ashes.
‘You’ve never heard from her?’
Katie blinked, tried to smile. ‘As well, wouldn’t you say? What would we have to say to each other, after so long?’
‘You’ve no idea where she is?’
A smile gashed her face. ‘Australia?’ And shrugged. ‘I cannot be certain even of that.’
‘Mothers aren’t so special.’ It was all she could think to say, but it wasn’t true and Katie knew it.
‘Your mother is special to you.’
‘She also walked out.’
‘But came back later.’
‘Right. And has been trying to run my life, ever since.’
‘Yet still you intend staying with her.’ Tears, now. Katie cupped Marie’s face gently between her hands. ‘Please don’t go. Please stay with me tonight.’
For a moment Marie was tempted. The comfort of gentleness … But it was too dangerous. Marie would not permit herself to be enslaved, and that could so easily happen if she travelled that road again with this woman, whom she loved.
Loved? The thought shocked her. You love Neil, she told herself. But did she?
Katie’s words: Love comes and goes like the wind, I think.
Marie hoped so much that she was wrong. Only in love was there sure refuge from the hurts and damages of the world. She could not bear to think of being bereft of love, as this woman was bereft. Again she felt drawn by the lodestone of desire; sympathy, too, was dangerous. I am also alone, she thought. Neil is kind and means well. But the gratitude of submission, the safe haven that I want so achingly in my heart … Those I have never found.
> She took a deep breath. Nor would she find them with Katie, she told herself. With no human being could she hope to discover that mixture of domination and submission that was, above all else, what her heart desired. Only in art. And art demanded what all lovers demand: loyalty and faith, the absence of other commitment.
She told herself it was as well. In loving one person she would have to turn her back on the rest, and that could be fatal to her art. She was filled with a devastating sense of loss; it meant that, despite mother, sister, husband, child, she too would always be alone.
Katie’s hands, feather-light, continued to enfold her face; Katie’s eyes continued to look searchingly into her own. Marie could not bring herself to utter the words of rejection; instead, she allowed her silence to do it for her.
Once more Katie sighed; her hands dropped. ‘So …’
A paroxysm of intense sorrow — for Katie, for herself — ripped the fabric of Marie’s mind. She could have wept, but Katie’s smile was as bright as brass.
‘Let me know when you’re free to meet Brett and Donna. I’ll arrange it.’
‘Any day but today.’
‘When do you go back to your palace?’
‘Thursday.’
‘Three days. That is something, I suppose.’ She coughed, a harsh, tearing sound that seemed to rip the lungs from her body. Marie did not like the sound of it. ‘You taking something for that?’
Katie smiled around shuddering breath. ‘An ordinary cold, no more. Two or three days, I shall be fine.’
‘It doesn’t sound like an ordinary cold to me.’
Although it probably was; as always at this time of year, there were a lot of colds about.
Her evening with Eugénie went better than she had dared hope; they had a pleasant chat, without recriminations on either side. Perhaps, after all, it was possible to shed the burdens of the past, although Henry Pearman, it was clear, had not done so. As always, he was rude, dismissive, and Marie saw that he would never change.
‘How do you put up with it?’ she asked her mother.