Spotted Lily (7 page)

—12—

The funeral was tasteful and small. With the Restonians and Brett and myself, the total number of mourners made less than ten, though many angry tears were shed, especially by Ferdinand. The owner of the Restonia arrived by proxy, in the form of the company lawyer. He sidled up to Brett and tried to engage in small talk, using words like 'cool',  meaning, in the lawyer's case, that he had been taking lessons in acting human from his teenage daughter, but they hadn't worked. Brett ignored him, concentrating instead on the rest of the funeral experience.

As it was, the funeral had been necessarily delayed due to all the messy bureaucratic hang-ups caused by Jim's naughty, naughty death.

Mr Hartshorn and Miss Lily forbore the strain with the patience and good-humour always wished for in the upper strata of society, but so rarely demonstrated.

Thus, the Restonia put itself out, slavishly, to fulfil our every whim (and hopefully, avoid any whim we creative artistic types and our lawyers might entertain, of suing the place for gross negligence, illegal entry, mental pain and suffering, and a range of other reasons such as 'outrageous invasion of our peaceful working environment').

One thing is absolutely certain. If it were not for Brett's intervention (at my instigation), Justin Abernathy as well as his aides would have been finding their meals out of gutters. They
knew
, and had known for years, that to Jim, that gym was a nectar-filled flower to a bee. He had been caught on a gym before, and in a very similar position to the one he achieved when he finally had too much fun for one day, and
ruined
ours.

He had been put on probation after 'the DeGraff incident', when the weight of his muscle-bound body tore a chandelier from the ceiling in the DeGraff's suite—an antique Bohemian chandelier they took with them everywhere for luck. It shattered when it fell, and was a source of continuing stress to Blakely White, the toady lawyer, as the DeGraffs mulled over 1)  the shock of finding a man half-hung and wholly unconscious, when you get back to your suite from an evening conducting Opera, and 2) an even greater worry—the upward-spiralling value of good-luck lost.

So the entire staff at the Restonia was vociferously grateful to us and eloquently horrified at the shock to our beings upon our discovery, waking fresh from slumbers on a lovely mid-day full of promise—Jim's stiff, room-temperature corpse. Our peace was shattered, our creativity sapped, and our persons inconvenienced by the representatives of and tedious formalities of police and legal procedures.

The Restonia, its owners and its friends we never met wanted to get Jim settled and the past forgotten—or if not forgotten, thoroughly forgiven. So with a maximum of privacy and a minimum of red tape, in a relatively short time, which means
eventually
(or if you are obsessive about minor details, two months—which makes, counting on your fingers, a rancid day in January) the last formalities hanging around Jim's death were put to rest, and Jim was declared Free.

He was taken out of the fridge, suitably packaged, and the funeral, at last, began.

Everyone thanked us for our graciousness, even as the mourners shed their tears of anger at the beautiful, wilful boy, lost too early in life.

Some lovely personal statements were read, the most beautiful, by Ferdinand. Then a person no one knew uttered what I guess was the basic service providers' minimum:  two minutes of vaguely ecumenical words ending with a burst of something vaguely musical, signalling that the funeral directors wanted to be left alone.

We left as Jim's coffin went through the crematory gates to be burned to a pile of ash, bone, and little metal bits.

'Too bad,' Justin said, as he glanced back. 'He would have enjoyed this part.'

'Too right,' sniffed Ferdinand, 'Doesn't seem right.' And he broke into fresh tears. 'Keen as mustard he was, just for a bit of excitement.'

—13—

You wonder, do you, about our progress?

It was a busy time. Not only did we cope with all the aforementioned intrusion by red-tapers and the sometimes over-solicitous staff at the Restonia, but Brett and I each had our jobs to do.

I will describe first, how I went.

The problem was, I needed to live up to my name, and I had to learn how. In some ways, it was easy, because the staff at the Restonia, especially Justin, who appointed himself my factotum, sensed my taste for comfort and passion to get rid of the gym (which was taken by the police the next day, anyway) and every bit of the lounge and bedroom taste of the great actor whose death had been prematurely mourned, seeing that he'd turned out to have died, not shockingly inconveniently, but with a level of consideration for others unpractised in his life.

By the end of the first week after Jim's death, the lounge and entrance hall and my room were now harmoniously

1) Carpeted throughout with an under-layer of wall-to-wall sheepskins of my specification, since this was not Justin's expertise: Merino-Corriedale cross, so that I could dig my bare toes into the curls. On top of that, a colourful scattering of  Persian prayer rugs, each, as Justin assured me, with a 'name and provenance'.

2) Arted, at least beginning to be. This would be a work in progress. Real art, I specified—nothing Australian. Justin advised me, and in return, I gave him the responsibility of shopping for and buying, the collection. When he realized that his spending limit was unlimited as long as he paid market value, he was discomposed for a day. An extreme reaction, I thought, but he was a sensitive man.

I expected him to bid for a Renoir in an upcoming Impressionists thing Christie's was doing in London, but he refused. They were landscapes, he said, and he wasn't buying for me just so I could have 'names on the walls'. I didn't know what he was thinking, but thought it better to back off and not show the limit of my education. He bought rapidly, but with much angst. Even though it was our money, he didn't like overbidding—a concept I found surreal when the market price for a piece of canvas with a bit of paint would have bought Tasmania, but that is irrelevant. He didn't want to be seen to be an amateur. And he had a definite vision for the Hartshorn-Lily suite. So, on to the collection, as it grew:

An Ingres bath scene, pre-
Playboy
, but the same airbrushed perfection and naked pubes. You could feel the heat of the women in that room.

A life-size sketch by Titian of two crazed men leering at an obese woman. I would have made Justin take it away, but he would have asked me why.

A sooty black and white photo of a woman, taken from the back. Maybe it was raining, for she has grabbed her skirt and the back of it cups her behind, round as a beachball. Heinrich Kuehn did this in nineteen-ten, Justin said, watching me—which put me in a spot. Was he having me on with this Heinrich, and did nineteen-ten have pertinence? Anyway, a photo isn't art unless your whole collection is photos and you have minimalist furniture. Even I knew this. However, there was something about this picture. I found it hard to look away.

He grunted cryptically, and the next day presented me with another photograph. This one wasn't dated, but looked like it was
fin de siecle
, the
siecle
of cinched waists, Pears soap girls, and Dr. Gustav Jaeger's Sanitary Woollen System, wool corsets that had 'all the advantages of girded loins without the disadvantages'. I learnt about him in primary school as one of the heroes of Australia's golden age, and a man who helped to put food on my grandfather's table (more mutton). But about this. He called it
The Pearl Necklace
, and it was by an American, Frank Eugene (lucky I hadn't told Justin 'no Americans'—the thought hadn't occurred to me). The woman in the photo is fondling a pearl necklace. She wears a white dress with a floppy bow at the side, accentuating the smallness of her waist—the centre of the picture.

My favourite, though, almost lost me Justin. I noticed it in a Christie's catalogue that he left with me, his 'mistake' he rued, never repeated. It was a bastard take-off of Fragonard's
Swing
by an apprentice who never amounted to anything. The bastard take-off wasn't how Christie's described the painting, but that and more surprising obscene expressions were what Justin used, his polka-dot bow tie jumping in shock at each new filthy outburst. The catalogue called it
Summer
, but his most polite title for it was 'The Pretender'. I didn't care. I wanted it because it made me laugh. Besides, I didn't know Fragonard from a meat pie, and this was still art. I was forced to put Justin in his place by informing him icily, 'Christie's doesn't sell meat pies.'

He gritted his teeth and obeyed my instructions, buying the thing through a contact because he didn't want to soil his reputation. At least, that's how he put it to me, and more, such as the fact that he paid too much (relishing this detail), telling me that there was stiff competition from an Indonesian noodle manufacturer and a Nevadan brothel chain tycoon. He had to be lying, but I let him spill his spleen. He was such a snob, but we were good for each other.

 I made him hang
Summer
in the lounge where Brett and I could look at it and I at least, could laugh. Its  carefree country scene was the opposite of real country life. A pink-cheeked lady is high in mid-swing, not on the kind of swing I grew up with (a rope from a gum tree beside what was too often, a dry creek bed) but in the lady's case, a real two-rope swing with a wooden seat, hanging from a leafy oak in an untroubled French countryside, and the breeze and her joy have flipped her skirts up, exposing neatly turned legs and tiny feet clad in blue slippers with small curved heels. Her dress is a frothy white and blue, just like the clouds and sky. Everyone laughs in this work that should have been called
Pastoral Fantasy
, where even the mongrel sheep are adorable.

Then one day Justin brought in a pencil work, "another Bacchanalia"—every naked bod, male and female, sporting the most ideal dimensions bursting with muscle and health. I was examining the work fresh from Justin's hands. Though only in pencil, the people were so
alive
, when a feature caught my eye. There were gum trees in the scene! Not only that, but ... 'What's that bloody koala doing there?'

Justin turned to face me with his eyebrows humped in a
who? me?

'Yes, you,' I said severely.

'What do you think of Rose?'

'I don't have a "Rose" here. There's just this drawing.' I shoved it aside on the chesterfield, and looked around.

Justin explained, 'Rose is the woman in that picture I just gave you.'

I picked it back up and looked. All the women had remarkable similarities.

'Isn't she something!?' he asked.

Justin's taste was showing. I did another take at the paintings on the wall, and back at 'Rose'.

'Rose was his model, Norman Lindsay,' Justin said.

And more, I thought. Unless the artist was chainsawed from the waist down.

Rose was stacked, Rose was firm. Rose was the sort of girl that got tattooed on a million arms. 

'My favourite,' he sighed. Yes, he did sigh. 'A tragic life,' he added irrelevantly.

He never elaborated. Was it Rose or Lindsay? I enjoyed the picture, and he bought another—another Rose. Then he bought lots of Lindsays, not all with Rose in them, though it was hard to tell whether the others were camouflage. Some of the subject matter I would have banned as part of my 'Nothing Australian' mandate. I'd been OD'd on Australiana, growing up in it.

But Justin, not knowing that, bought in his Lindsay-buying frenzy, a study of a parrot. If he had told me before I tore off the wrapping, I would have told him that a parrot is something you shoot before it deafens you with its screech, or chews the wood right off your dunny while you're sitting reading your next bumwipe. But Justin didn't get the lecture because Justin didn't know. And I was lucky he didn't.
The Angry Parrot
had me crying, it was so funny. So that was followed with a series of small cartoons on the horrible tortures children put cats to, and the cats' revenge. And then there were dogs bettered by chooks, and the chooks reminded me of our fearsome rooster, Bolt, who my brother Angus always tried to kick.

Justin took me aback with
The Angry Parrot
. Either he had a great, hidden sense of humour, or he was even more clever.

Lindsay was a great success, so I found and gave Justin a thank you.
Marriage
, which had apparently been rejected for publishing, though it was a beautifully rendered scene of love and human beauty, in a kind of dreamtime cloud. Rose was in it, of course.

Oh, he bought more art, and the only choice he made that I didn't care for was a bunch of  Indian sculptures. I had been through all that at the Higher Light.

What we learned
not
to do was to buy for Brett's taste, after a disastrous experience.

Justin arrived with a package for Brett one morning just after breakfast. Brett was already in his bedroom, working, but I knocked at his door and explained that Justin had a surprise.

He emerged, preoccupied but smiling in his oddly forbearing way.

Justin unwrapped and held out a heavy framed picture.

Brett blanched and then flinched as if holding back a flood of tears.

His fingers made twiddling motions, which I interpreted as a polite way to say, 'Get this fucker out of my sight.' Then he stumbled to his room, almost coming a cropper on the laces of those clumsy boots. I heard the door close as if he were nursing a hangover—and he didn't emerge till dinner, when he only picked at his food, and had one sip.

Justin sold the picture the next week for a profit, but it was a deflating experience for him because the etching was such a thoughtful choice—a study by Albrecht Dürer for his masterpiece (Art History 201)
Knight, Death, and the Devil
. It was a compliment from Justin that Brett's horns looked so good, that Brett looked such a handsome devil that Justin's only worry was—Brett might have another print from this particular etching series. Justin was only catering to the taste of every artist he had served—the taste to surround themselves with images of themselves in favourite rôles.

Brett confused me, too, with his reaction. When I broached it at dinner, he was still too upset for words. 'Unbearable,' was all he said.

Justin tried next what he described as a 'small, lovely, picture of hell' by the great master of its depiction, Hieronymus Bosch, and that was even worse. Much worse. Brett came out of his room by dinnertime that night and sat with me. He watched me eat and I tried to act cheery and eat nonchalantly—not easy, with that woebegone expression fronting me.

When I was spooning up the last of my passion-fruit fool, he asked 'Do you have nostalgia?'

That
took me by surprise. What was there for me to be nostalgic for? 'No,' I said, having nothing else to add.

He shook his head. When I asked what his headshake meant, he said he didn't know he
had
shaken his head.

~

And next we got to the contentious issue of seating. I ordered comfortable seating, and of course, the removal of the futon mountain. That was a short-lived experiment.

Brett didn't like sofas or chairs, or even the experimental recliner chair I ordered for him. He wanted his futon mountain—and no, its squeaky grey rubber didn't bother him at all. So I had it reinstalled, and he was happy again. He was, however, quite firm about me having my own comfort, so I experimented with a variety of chairs and sofas until Justin commandeered the situation, and produced a monumental leather sofa (he taught me that it was properly, a 'chesterfield') smelling of cinnamon and mushrooms. Justin draped Victorian cashmere shawls over it and piled fat, embroidered cushions against each capacious arm. I didn't object, though it took me a while to figure out how to use them right, and
then
I understood why he was so insistent. They were great under my feet or propping up an elbow or stuffed behind my back when I lay in full recline position, as I learned to do when Justin taught me. I don't know what he grew up with, but I grew up with cracked plastic-leather and rusty chrome kitchen chairs being the seating in the house, the concept of reclining being a deathbed activity, if you are lucky. My life in Sydney had not been one of luxury, either, even when I worked in the bank. Somehow, the money never stretched far enough, and the thought of furnishings had been all so suburban, like having kids and a husband and a car.

Justin considered it his responsibility to extend the powers of my imagination beyond that of just a comfy bed. (I
had
always wanted a comfortable, non-lumpy, non-sagging, very off-the-floor bed, something that I had never had, but had dreamed of ever since reading
The Princess and the Pea
.)

He brought me art books and pointed out important works showing what he called, 'the history of women's recline'. I had taken those few art history classes in uni, of course, and gone to museums in Europe, but I had never
seen
. Justin opened my eyes.

Brett was happier sitting on the floor to eat than he was with a table and chairs. So the table-and-chairs experiment lasted only one meal, replaced by the set-up we had before with the addition for me (Brett declined) of plump cushions. It took another employee to whisk this extra furniture in and out at every meal, but what the hell.

My bedroom took on a level of luxury I could not have imagined, till Justin. He had missed his calling, he said, but my unspoken wishes were his siren song.

~

Brett wanted nothing of the decorator touch for him. His bedroom requirements were simple. The staff were never to enter, for any reason. And he wanted no redecorating done for him. He had, Justin and I agreed, ascetic taste and pure discipline, as attested to by his rigorous diet.

~

Speaking of eating, within weeks of our arrival something fishy began cooking in the bowels of the kitchen. It was based on Brett's diet régime—the same meal in three sizes every day, the smallest being breakfast. If you remember, I tried to translate Brett's wishes for that first meal into something a chef could do, but not ever having eaten Steak Tartare, I was wrong with my specifications. Once adjusted to Brett's exacting requirements, the meal for him was: raw heart, chopped roughly, of any beast. No condiments, which meant
nothing
was to be mixed into the mound of meat, or sprinkled upon it. Serve in a bowl, accompanied by a jug of blood, again of any beast—the temperature of meat, liquid, bowl and jug being 37 to 38 degrees centigrade. And nothing else. No little toasts or slices of fragrant warm pumpernickel or coriander leaves or raw eggs, crumbled yolks, caviar. No finely chopped shallot mixed with the meat or even a grind of pepper. Nothing added to the pure food he required for his simple taste. Not even a glass for his drink. Brett liked drinking out of the jug.