Spirit of Progress Read online

  When George has gone and while Sam is cycling north to Miss Carroll’s tent, Tess is alone in her gallery and reflecting on the subject of fun. How it comes to play, then goes. Or did once. But doesn’t come to play any more. And how strange it is to have forgotten what fun felt like. Until you turn a page and a reproduction of an old painting, a small town, a farm in the distance, brings it back. Fun. Or, in this case, a day of fun. It slips away without your knowing and then the memory of it comes back, and you say, ‘Yes, that was what fun felt like.’

  Where were they? She and Sam. Where did they escape to that day? What was the name of that place with the English-sounding name? It is one of those idle moments when she ought to be working. But her mind is wandering, travelling back to those days, not so long ago, when she and Sam discovered each other, and, together, rediscovered fun. And she doesn’t take fun lightly. We have it and we lose it. And, like falling in love, fun does not come often. Often as not, the two come together. And in the midst of it we stop for a moment and reflect on it. Which is what Tess is doing now.

  The artists she mixes with, most of them, don’t much reflect upon or think much of fun. They imply fun is light. Not to be taken seriously. Frivolous. An indulgence. Nobody writes about fun, she muses, but they ought to. Tess knows that one of her nicknames is The Contessa. Never spoken to her, of course, but word filters back. And as she dwells on the notion of fun she playfully adopts the noble demeanour of a Contessa reflecting. She decides it suits her, even amuses her, and suddenly she is mindful of those pre French Revolution paintings. The idle rich young women, girls really, playing on swings in dazzling costumes, all frills and fun, cavorting in the late-afternoon light, the shadows of terrible events closing in on them, even as they play, at the edges of the scene. But they don’t see them. And even here, where fun is taken seriously, there is that element of disapproval. That they ought not to be having so much of it. That the shadows of a wronged world and the terrible events they bring with them will soon sweep away this twilight indulgence. And yes, Tess knows, and has always known, that these are the idle, rich young women whose fun came at the cost of a wronged world. But at the same time her heart will always go out to these young women on their swings, reflecting, quite possibly, in the midst of it all, upon the sheer frivolity of the moment. And possibly even saying inwardly, ‘This is fun.’ She will always acknowledge that the price of their fun was the misery of others, but her heart, and her loyalty, will always go out to the girls on the swings.

  Throughout the sad and violent years the verdict on fun has been that it is a light indulgence. That the time requires not the lightness of fun but the heaviness of the Age. For all the wonder of their achievement, she muses, there is no depiction, no hint even, of fun in the miraculous assembly of paintings around her in the gallery, which she will soon exhibit. For this is the verdict of the artists with whom she mixes. This is the verdict of the Age. Fun is light. Art is heavy.

  And just as her heart will always go out to the girls on swings, it will always be open to the fun that does not come often and that should be welcomed into the heart when it does.

  Where was that town that the reproduction in the book reminded her of? What was it called? No matter. She and Sam had run away for the day. Cycled away, really. Like school children impulsively declaring a public holiday. She from her duties at the gallery, he from his work. They’d run away for the day. And that was fun in itself. But even though he’d left behind his studio, he still had his paints and brushes. He always had them. And when they wandered the paddocks and came upon an old milking shed, she’d called, ‘Look at that.’

  ‘Look at what?’ he’d laughed.

  ‘That,’ and she’d pointed. ‘Don’t you see it?’

  And he’d stared hard at the makeshift construction of rotted wood and rusted corrugated iron and said, ‘Yes, I do. Now I see it.’

  ‘But you didn’t before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then, I shall be your eyes.’

  ‘Yes,’ he’d said, ‘you shall be my eyes.’

  He’d captured the scene quickly, for he always worked quickly. He worked, in fact, with what she could only call ‘attack’. A musical term, really. And although she is no musician, she knows ‘attack’ when she sees and hears it. She had once been given sheet music by her piano teacher and halfway through the piece he had told her to ‘attack’, but as much as she tried, and she tried again and again, she simply did not have ‘attack’ in her. And that was when she decided she would never make art, but that she knew it when she saw and heard it. She didn’t have ‘attack’ in her but she saw that Sam did. And she marvelled as she watched the scene materialise.

  They roamed over paddocks and fields for the remainder of the afternoon, she his eyes, he the hand that held the brush. They saw no one else the whole day. Not one other human being. It was their world. A wide world. Even, she fancied, their first world. Just them, the paddocks, trees and the odd rabbit poking its head up. Everything was new again. The tea they drank, the sandwiches they devoured as if they had never tasted bread, the old, old land that they walked through and looked upon. All new again. Yes, that was what fun brought with it: the lightness that the Age spurned, and a world made new.

  When they finally returned that day it was with a kitbag full of sketches. They pored over them, talking about them, quickly, excitedly. A picture of fun. But there were shadows at the edges of the scene that they failed to notice that day. For the war would soon end, and everybody would scatter. And once again, seated in her gallery and staring through the windows, she is contemplating the girls on their swings, players at playtime, oblivious of the shadows at the edges of their framed lives. And her heart goes out to them.

  18.

  En Plein Air

  So, what to do? Sam is, at heart, a Romantic, and he mentally capitalises the word as he contemplates it. He is one of those who have always gone to the source. Wherever it might be: the countryside where bushrangers once rode, the western desert with its dust and bones, the city’s back alleys and amusement parks. He’s always gone to the source and worked from Life. And again he capitalises the word. But what to do when you can’t go to the source? What to do when Life won’t co-operate?

  Sam sits in his studio. It is mid-morning and already he has cycled to the old woman’s tent and back. Most of the day is still in front of him. But what to do with it. He is impatient. Fidgety. He has until tomorrow evening, when the exhibition opens, to produce a painting. And although he has complete confidence in his capacity to produce work quickly (he once completed three paintings in a day), the time when he must produce something is near. And while a part of him contemplates doing just anything, something to fill a space on a wall, he can’t. Not Sam. And although he could have given her an old painting (for the exhibition is a retrospective) he wants to exhibit something new, a statement of independence. Something created free of Tess. Besides, the idea of this old woman has entered his head and he can’t get her out. She is now part of his imagined world, or rather, she embodies a way of living in the world that was once us but isn’t us any more. The old woman is the last vestige of fact, before fact becomes myth. Waiting there to be caught on the threshold of change.

  The newspaper article with the photograph is open on the kitchen table. Given the way events have unfolded and with the hours dwindling rapidly away, he could, he now tells himself, simply paint the portrait from the photograph. And from memory; he has, after all, met her now. Why not? Who would know? But even as the thought passes through his mind, he dismisses it. Who would know? He would. He works from Life. He always has. He is one of those who go to the source. There is, he has always argued, no substitute for the thing itself. The photograph in front of him is not Life. The photograph is merely a copy of Life. And if he was to paint from the photograph, it would merely be a copy of a copy. And that, for Sam, won’t do. At least, at the moment, it won’t.

  So, what to do when Life won’t co-operate?
It is then that he remembers the pigeon-toed figure with the lost air about him, whom he presumed to be the farmer, whom he waved to as he cycled away and thought a friendly old codger. His paddocks overlooked the old woman’s tent, did they not? He is wary of sketching the old woman from the roadside; she is too unpredictable. But he might, he suspects, be more secure behind the farmer’s fence. And given the old woman’s ways, it’s unlikely they know each other. Or have even talked. Yes, from behind the farmer’s fence he could capture the scene. Capture the old woman. Freeze her in time. Turn fact into myth. Her and the land upon which her tent sits, the trees in the background (was that really a golf course or is his memory playing tricks on him?) and all the incidentals he didn’t take in during their all-too-brief exchange. And the colours. Photographs don’t give you that. And you can’t paint without the actual colours in front of you. At least Sam can’t. From the farmer’s paddock he could see the shades of the grass, the colour of the trees, the sky, the old tent and the old woman herself. That and the smell of the cow paddocks, and the feel of the cold inland wind. Yes, that was painting. En plein air. That’s what they call it. And this is why Sam is a Romantic, capitalised — at heart. For if a painting is to continue beyond the frame, the painter must know what exists beyond it. It is that extra knowledge that never gets into the painting that, nonetheless, may very well make the painting.

  Convinced of this, he knows there is only one thing to do. Go back to the source. Even if it means going back without Life’s co-operation. So he rises from the table, gathers his sketchpad, pencils, brushes and a small, portable tin of paints, and puts them all back into his pack. And, for the second time that morning (his legs tired and out of training) sets out for the eight or nine-mile ride to that small community of farms, scattered houses and shops, the old woman’s tent — and the farmer’s paddock, behind the fence of which he hopes to catch the scene and bring back in his sketchbook the colours, the smells and the sensations that constitute the life of the place.

  He cycles to the edge of the city, to where it gives way to the country. But no fanciful thoughts occupy his mind this time. Instead he is rehearsing what he will tell the farmer. And so his lines are ready when he arrives; he leans his bicycle against the farmer’s fence and walks towards the house.

  He is an odd, angular construction, this farmer who introduces himself as Skinner. He had told Sam his first name a moment before, but Skinner is all Sam remembers. This is partly because he was distracted by the thought that this farmer is an odd construction. And construction is the word that immediately comes to mind. Like someone made from building blocks or the left-over pieces of several Meccano sets. And the way he leans to one side, like tall people are apt to stoop when talking to someone. That, and the slightly pigeon-toed walk. He is, yes, an odd construction. No way round it. And from the moment Sam first saw him, he saw him as a painting too. A portrait, like the old woman, of things past. And this is why he was distracted when Skinner introduced himself and simply didn’t take in his first name. Sam is also well aware of George’s theory of extinct names and names that have extinction written into them, for George explained his theory at length the previous evening when he was giving Sam directions. So, for all of these reasons, the name Skinner sticks and Sam has completely missed the rest.

  Yes, Skinner says, he remembers Sam from that morning: the bicycle, the wave. He is, says Sam, a painter. Skinner nods, and, Sam notes, there is shrewdness in his eyes as he nods. More than just shrewdness — slightly amused intelligence. Irony, even. Whether it is the amused detachment that comes from reading or a lifetime of watching the Sams of this world come and go, he doesn’t know. But Skinner is no longer just a friendly old codger. He is now affable but observant, and he nods again as Sam adds that he would like to paint his farm: the paddocks and the cows out there, he indicates casually, in the direction of the old woman’s tent.

  Skinner, mindful of the fact that his farm will one day, sooner or later, be gone, bulldozed from the landscape as though it never existed, immediately recognises this as an opportunity to have the fact recorded that it did once exist. To be recorded, he muses, by this young painter whose confident manner gives every impression that he is going places and whose work may one day hang in the galleries of the country: Skinner’s farm along with them. And it is for this reason that Skinner nods again, granting the painter permission to set up wherever he chooses. Other farmers might treat this as an intrusion, might look upon the young painter as a nuisance. Bound to get in the way at some time or other. And at completely the wrong time. But not Skinner.

  And so, with the farmer’s permission, Sam takes his pack and strolls from the front of the house where they have been standing and out through the gate at which George had observed Skinner the morning before. The gate at which, George had mused, we will all stand eventually. And Skinner watches Sam as he strolls out through the cow paddock and drops his pack on the ground at the far end of it, before he returns to his farm duties, to the dairy, to the churning of the butter, the same butter he has made all his life, even when his parents were alive because that was his job. As he strolls back to the shed he remembers the child’s pride he felt in delivering the butter to the family table, the table at which only he sits now, on the farm that will soon be bulldozed from the landscape, but not just yet, not until its image can be captured and frozen by the timely entrance of this young painter standing at the far end of the cow paddock.

  For if the family line is to finish with Skinner, as it surely will, and if the monument of the farm is to be wiped from the land, there must be something that survives it all. Something that will pass into this new world and which will alert some casual observer one distant day that here a family called Skinner lived and worked and died.

  19.

  Affection

  The weight of what she carries is with her every day. But right now, for once, it is not the roundness of her belly that occupies Rita’s thoughts as she sits in the kitchen mechanically stringing beans, barely aware of the process. No, it is not the roundness that occupies her midday thoughts. It is the night before. She was slumped in her chair, listless, enough energy for a quack if not a duck walk, when she felt herself rising from her chair. Suddenly felt Vic’s arms around her. And her first reaction was, what’s this? Vic’s arms had not been around her for a long time, not like that, and she was struggling to remember when the last time was — the last time Vic’s arms encircled her, and the last time she felt joined to that half of something else that makes your half feel whole, the way, she notes, these things ought to be. Halves meet halves and become whole. That’s how it should be, and that’s how it was once. But when Vic’s arms encircled her the night before, she did not feel that sense of one half meeting another half. At first it was … unfamiliar. So unfamiliar that she asked, what’s this? And with this question came the impulse to push him away, as you would the unwanted advances of just anybody. But this was not an advance and Vic was not just anybody. It was, the realisation slowly dawned on her, an act of affection. And so, in response to the question she posed herself — ‘What’s this?’ — she slowly, silently, spoke the word: ‘affection’, welcoming back something into her life that had not been there for too long.

  Over their four years of marriage Rita has learnt much about Vic. About his nature. In fact, in those four years she has learnt all she needs to know about his nature. The rest of their years, she muses, will simply bring more of the same. The rooms in which they will live and in which the events of their lives will be enacted will change. Their faces will change. Their bodies will grow old. But, and at this particular moment she is sure of this, what she has learnt of Vic’s nature over the last four years will not change.

  And one of the things she has learnt about Vic (who has just left for the shops) is that he is a man of appetites. Of course, everybody has appetites. Rita has appetites, and the child when it is born will have appetites. But Vic is a man of appetites. That is different from
having appetites. You only have to watch, thinks Rita (and this sometimes annoys her, even disgusts her, and sometimes pleases her, depending on the night and depending on Vic), you only have to watch him eat his meal, the way he gathers it all into him, all of it, everything on the plate. You only have to see that to know that Vic is a man of appetites and that appetites are large in Vic’s life. Larger than they are in Rita’s, or most people she knows, for that matter. And, being a man of appetites, his appetites need satisfying. There is something basic about Vic. That for all the smart things he says, the books he’s read (and he is a reader), his way with words, with music and dancing, for all of this, for all the things that told her when she first met him that his mind was different from most people’s she’d known, for all this there is something as basic as appetites about him.

  And this is why, when she asked herself ‘What’s this?’, her first impulse was to push him away. But it was the way he put his arms around her that changed her mind. As if he’d remembered something, some afternoon, some night, from those days when they first met, and, in remembering that afternoon or night, also retrieved a feeling that had been carelessly lost, and in retrieving that feeling he retrieved those days when they first met, in which words of love were spoken, often and recklessly.

  And so when his arms encircled her, the act brought with it a hint of those days. Back again for a moment. This is why, in response to the question, ‘What’s this?’, she answered ‘Affection’. For affection is not an appetite. An appetite requires satisfying. If you’re hungry, you eat. If you’re thirsty, you drink. These are appetites. Just as the child that will soon be born was, she knows, the result of appetite satisfying itself one hot Saturday night the previous summer. But last night was different. And again she can only say it was the way Vic’s arms encircled her that told her this. Affection, she likes to think, is something given to you, an offering, a gift that, unlike an appetite, doesn’t require satisfaction and doesn’t ask for it. And because it is asking for nothing, because it is given, this spontaneous act of affection comes with something else that she chooses to call love. And love is not an appetite, not to Rita. Love doesn’t satisfy itself like hunger or thirst and then forget about itself until the next appetite arises. No, these appetites are passing things. They come and they go. But love is not a passing thing. Not to Rita.