Ducky, I think that went very well.
But the reality that is actually most inhabited and concrete is the one that counts—although perhaps by a mere whisper of a degree. And it was Naomi who occupied the observed world after her sister—through gravest ill fortune—went down. In that reality, Charlie Condon’s first exhibition in fact occurred at the Athenaeum Gallery in Collins Street and was organized by Bernard Favenc, an art dealer and patron. Bernard had been generous to Charlie since Charlie had returned to Australia some months before, drawn to Melbourne by the National Gallery Art School. And even though Charlie had not yet been able to build up much of an Australian portfolio—most of the paintings were of the streaky skies of northern France, the rivers and village streets—better-off soldiers, said Bernard, officer types, might like to have on their walls a village, however rendered, where they’d fought or rested. Get on to painting the Western District later, said Bernard Favenc. There were some Australian landscapes in the exhibition, but Charlie was sure that if any sold, it wouldn’t be those.
In Paris, two-and-a-half years after he had lost his arm and had been required to absorb the news of Sally, Charlie had become infatuated with a broad-faced Belgian girl named Estelle who also had ambitions as a painter.
She sat now on a chair on the exhibition floor by the tall upstairs windows and looked sulky—which was to an extent her normal look and was mysteriously part of her allure to Charlie. Tonight she drank sherry with a fixity which might well be nervousness for his sake. She had lived through a Melbourne summer with less complaint than he expected. They were hard up—though he was doing book and magazine illustrations and she had got work in a dress shop. They rented a little house in Coburg. Before Bernard’s guests arrived, she looked unimpressed, as if the brutishness of the place Charlie had brought her to was about to be conclusively revealed.
Luckily the first to arrive was a Russian artist, an émigré named Peliakov who was a member by invitation of the Arts Society of Victoria. Charlie made sure he introduced him to Estelle—in Paris she had always been fascinated by the émigrés, by the fact that a Russian count might be serving drinks at the George V or attending diners stylishly as a waiter. Now Peliakov distracted Estelle for the moment from the question of what she would do here with her own art and whether the barbarians would buy any of Charlie’s. As he watched her, he felt a sudden certainty that she would leave him, perhaps for someone like Peliakov, and it wouldn’t mean as much to him as it should.
He let himself be distracted from grief and hollowness when some fellow artists arrived. They were half broke, doing teaching jobs or cartoons and book illustrations for irregular pay and were keen for the free sherry. They raised by their presence the question of whether Australia could support one artist, let alone a tribe. A young man and his wife, whom Charlie suspected from their faces to be Eastern European, came up to him, very well dressed, and spoke informedly about his paintings. He made sure Estelle met them and was prodigiously grateful to them.
All at once the gallery—which had been sparsely peopled an instant before—seemed crowded. Bernard Favenc now rushed up with a sweat of excitement on his upper lip. You have met the Castans? The most civilized people in Melbourne. They’re Jewish, you see, and they understand these things. They’re deliberately putting together an Australian collection—no other private person is. I really mean a collection, not just a scatter of things for their walls. And they’ve bought both your Western District paintings. You’re in instant favor, my son. You must go home and pray that the Castans live a long and profitable life.
As he spoke he was pumping Charlie’s real, right hand and then he turned away, and Charlie—he later told art historians—felt a great, prickling sense of being empowered and of having an Australian license to paint.
He was jolted by the sight of acute familiarity across the studio by the door. There—her face sleek and exquisite—stood Naomi like a version of lost Sally. She wore a dress of white and black and a fine cloche hat and seemed to be in such fullness of her beauty that it hurt him to see it. She was smiling tentatively in his direction as if he might not recognize her. The sudden power of his loss made the room and all its urgency recede.
Then, beside her, he noticed, stood Kiernan in a brown suit—no gaol pallor there. His face had obviously seen the sun of freedom in the recent summer. Feeling unsteady, he approached them. Naomi’s arms were out. When he embraced her he could not help but realize that he was feeling the same sort of bush-bred, sturdy body he had too infrequently known in Sally. He heard her sob and would have liked to have done the same himself. When she released him, he saw her teary lashes and her smile. He shook Kiernan’s hand then.
Ah, he said, you’re free!
Naomi and Lady Tarlton argued them into it, Ian said. Once there was peace, there was even less sense in keeping us shut up anyhow.
I have a confession to make, said Charlie to Naomi. The sight of her renewed his spasm of loss. I hope it doesn’t offend you. I have a girlfriend here.
Well, of course you have a girl, said Naomi.
I think she understands—unjust as it might be to her—there would never be anyone… Well, you know.
Sally never grasped her own value, said Naomi. And neither did I. Not sufficiently.
They all stood looking at each other, knowing that the most important matters had been broached. Now, said Charlie, I have to forbid you from buying one of these canvasses. Your being here is enough honor.
Dear fellow, said Ian Kiernan, laughing, Naomi does what she wants, didn’t you know?
He had a sudden duty to introduce them to Estelle. Half turning, he called her name across the room. She advanced towards Naomi and Kiernan and Charlie with the remnants of suspicion on her well-made face. The three of them waited for her in unuttered agreement on the incapacity of things to provide the essential Sally.
Acknowledgments
Thanks go abundantly to my indomitable agent Amanda Urban, and to Judith Curr and Peter Borland, for giving the Durance Sisters a genial home.
At the same level of sincerity, I must state my gratitude to my wife, Judy, natural-born editor of first choice and—very handily for this narrative—a former nurse, though in a later era than that dealt with in The Daughters of Mars. My sister-in-law, Jane Keneally, is also a nurse and read the manuscript and gave editorial input.
And my brother, Dr. John Keneally, made a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to child anesthesia and analgesia during the writing of this book, took time in the midst of severe illness to do a very thorough medical and general edit of the manuscript.
Needless to say, no blame for any remaining errors in the manuscript attach to these generous people.
Further Reading
I would like to declare a debt to the following works:
A. G. Butler, The History of the Australian Medical Services in World War I, Volumes 1–3 (Sydney, 1938–42).
Janet Butler, “Nursing Gallipoli: Identity and the Challenge of Experience,” Journal of Australian Studies, Issue 78, 2003.
Nurse Elsie Cook war diaries, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
Stretcher bearer George R. Faulkner war diaries, 1916–17, Mitchell Library, Sydney.
J. M. Gillings and J. Richards (eds.), In All These Lines: the Diary of Sister Elsie Tranter, 1916–19 (Newstead, Tasmania, 2008).