Autobiography of My Mother (28 page)

My mother was in the studio one day when David appeared; she was instantly smitten. ‘He looks like a Greek god,' she gasped after he left. I think Mum fell in love with David the moment she set eyes on him. Most women did; he was outrageously good-looking and had the most charming manner.

Whenever Doug and I went to Springwood Doug and Norman talked endlessly on nature – mostly Norman talked and Doug listened. They covered art, poetry, music, philosophy and literature. Norman had read almost every book in existence, it seemed, and could discuss them all with equal
volubility. He had favourite topics, such as the lost island of Atlantis, or – more comprehensible to ordinary mortals – the twelve volumes of diaries by Samuel Pepys; a mighty task of reading in itself.

Norman believed passionately in the importance and worth of Doug's poetry. He loved
The Golden Lover
so much that, as soon as he read the manuscript, he was immediately inspired to paint a large watercolour illustrating the play. The painting showed a dark green forest with Tawhai, the beautiful dark Maori girl, and Whana, the phantom golden lover, locked in each other's arms.

Norman's studio out the back was more or less as it is now. There was the lay figure, a silent, jointed figure bound in cloth, usually draped with material, black lace oversewn with scarlet and purple satin roses or silvery moon-coloured chiffon or midnight-blue-spangled net.

A ship model would be on a side table. He always worked on a ship model in any spare time he had. In one of the smaller rooms next to the studio, he kept three or four of these models in various stages of progress, together with materials for their fittings, such as the tiny timbers for the top deck. He fashioned every detail of the models himself, the ropes, the sails, the wheel, the oars.

Norman never relaxed. When he wasn't painting or working on the ship models, he would be writing a novel to take his mind off things or moulding figures to adorn his bookcase. Many years after this he built me a black lacquered cabinet with painted panels and a mermaid's figure on every corner. On one occasion, in an unsuccessful attempt to stop working, he thought he'd take up playing cards. So he made himself up a pack of cards and drew and painted every card in the pack.

The main house at Springwood had been decorated by Rose and was lovely. The front room, where Norman's special oils hung, was quite extraordinary; the walls were covered in hessian with gold leaf over it. The paintings didn't hang on the wall; they were fitted into special grooves.

When Doug and Norman weren't talking, Doug and I went for long walks in the bush around the house and, once with Jane, we climbed down to the waterfall at the bottom of the gully. Norman didn't go with us; a stroll around the garden at the end of the day was about as much outdoor activity as he cared for.

I didn't paint as much as on my first visits there alone, but with walks and talks, our Springwood days sped by fast. At night I entertained Norman and Doug by reading aloud from Dickens, de Maupassant or Conrad. I particularly remember reading them a large book of Conrad's short stories. I enjoyed it, maybe because of the days when Uncle Joe read aloud to us at Clarendon, or maybe those enforced mealtime readings aloud at Kincoppal stood me in good stead.

When Rose came back from America in 1941 Norman continued to live in the back studio but we all ate together in the main house and there was much more activity about the place.

I always took my paintings up for Norman to criticise. He was enormously supportive of my work. He never touched my painting; he didn't need to. Norman's own technique was so clearcut that he just used his work as an example. It was up to me to follow his advice.

Looking at my early paintings is interesting now. I drew very carefully. The colours, such as the blue in a bowl of delphiniums, are practically the same as in later paintings,
but my method is much freer now. You have to be in complete control of your technique before you free yourself.

I always painted flower pieces straight off, with the flowers in front of me. After years of experience I can take home a landscape, put it up and do one from it twice the original size, but flower pieces are different. Flowers have a life of their own.

Flowers aren't static; they move. It's fantastic how some flowers move. Nasturtiums will turn right round to look at the light in a room. Movement in flowers is difficult to paint, but that's the aim. The slightest movement makes the world of difference to a painting.

If we didn't go to Springwood on the weekend, Johnny Maund took us out. Doug was writing, I was busy painting and often Sunday was our only day off. Before Johnny Maund started providing his car we used to explore the coast by bus on Sundays. We took the bus from Wynyard up to Whale Beach and Palm Beach, a long trip, but we did it.

John Maund, the president of the Watercolour Institute, was the solicitor who had saved me from the psychiatric nursing stint. On the weekend he painted watercolours. I think Johnny deeply regretted in his later years that he hadn't devoted his life to art rather than to the law, and he was trying to catch up.

His weekly petrol rations were saved for these painting expeditions. He had a large car which was always very full of passengers: Doug and I (Doug didn't paint, but he was happy to watch or he could go off walking), Isabel MacKenzie and her sister Nance, and John Young from the Macquarie Galleries.

Our trips ranged from Ku-ring-gai Chase to Frenchs Forest and Narrabeen Lakes; anywhere there were trees and
bush. Doug and I were grateful just for fresh air. Besides, the drives were fun, sometimes more fun than the painting. Johnny used to treat us to lunches. Often we ate at a Frenchs Forest restaurant that specialised in delicious Sunday lunches. The owners had a large poultry yard with all sorts of game birds, including pheasants and peacocks. Once they put a clutch of peacock eggs under an old chook. The fowl successfully hatched and mothered them and we would see her wandering round the yard, scratching up tidbits for her flock of young peacocks.

The owners also had a pet cockatoo named Philip. We had to be careful getting out of the car because Philip used to attack everyone. He was such a vicious bird he even reduced a lady friend of Johnny's to tears.

It was late in the day before painting resumed after lunch. We would fill in a few more hours, then head back to the city. Johnny would rustle up dinner for us in his flat. He used to buy steamed chicken from a delicatessen. The nights with Johnny passed as pleasantly as the days.

But one evening didn't go so well. Johnny was doing his duty and entertaining a young American soldier on leave. Johnny was a connoisseur, especially of wines and liqueurs. He served up a dinner with the appropriate accompanying wines, and afterwards produced a bottle of cherry brandy he had been zealously hoarding until it was well matured. The cherry brandy, together with liqueur glasses, was carefully set down on the table.

The American boy was asked if he would care for a liqueur. He promptly helped himself not to a liqueur glass full, but a whole wineglass of Johnny's cherished cherry brandy, and proceeded to down it in one mouthful. We sat back horrified; Johnny looked as if he might explode.

‘I don't know what you call it,' the boy announced, ‘but that's a mighty fine brandy you've got there,' and he helped himself to a second glass.

The cherry brandy that had been saved for years went in one night. Johnny, who was normally the most generous of men, took several weeks to recover his equilibrium.

I must have been getting some painting done on our excursions, or else it was the result of my bus trips with Doug, because when I had four paintings hung in the Royal Art Society's 1940 annual show, there were two landscapes,
Rocks and the Sea
and
Cliffs at Curl Curl
, among them. It was about this time that I first began painting seriously in oils. Or attempting to. I found painting in oils quite hard. I remember fighting one flower piece inch by inch. I found that if you left off painting in oils for even a few weeks you slipped right back in technique. Even just holding the brushes felt awkward.

My birthday came round. I was painting in the studio when Doug arrived with a surprise.

‘I think I've found something you might like for your birthday,' he said. We walked down to the Quay and in the window of the pet shop was a cage of kittens.

‘Which one would you like?' Doug asked.

I was surprised and delighted. My last handsome black cat, Felix, who reigned at Botany Street for so many years, had sadly died a few months before so the prospect of a new kitten was very welcome.

A beautiful silver-grey half chinchilla, only about six inches long, had its tail stuck straight up like a flagpole. ‘That one,' I answered. If you want a kitten, always choose
the one that carries its tail erect; it's the sign of a healthy cat.

We bought the kitten and christened him Silver on the spot. I carried him back to the studio and put him in a box to take up to the Cross in a taxi.

Doug and I were going out to dinner so I thought I would leave the kitten at Doug's flat while we ate. The driver complained all the way, because Silver wouldn't stop yowling. Silver cried so piteously that I couldn't leave him in the flat, so kitten and box were surreptitiously smuggled into the restaurant, and stayed on my lap under the table for the birthday dinner.

After Felix died, my mother vowed she wouldn't have another cat in the place, but fortunately one look at Silver and she melted, which was just as well for me because she looked after him while I was at work.

The first week, Silver cried continuously unless Mum was nursing him. As a consequence, she became extremely attached to him.

With his wonderful silver coat and golden eyes, Silver grew up to be a charming and affectionate cat. His most disarming habit was eating violets. As soon as you put a bowl of violets on the table, Silver would sidle up and delicately but determinedly begin nibbling. When Mum broke her arm, Doug bought her a bunch of snowdrops from a florist at the Cross. She came out in the morning to find snowdrops scattered around the room. Silver had been playing with them.

He was also a great mouser. Jerry Carey borrowed Silver to help get rid of the stable rats. Silver cleaned them up in no time. He brought the bodies back to us and laid them across the doormat. The little silver kitten from the Quay was a most successful birthday present.

Doug often also did theatre reviews for the
Bulletin
, which meant that we had the best seats in the stalls to plays, ballet performances and Tivoli shows. We went to the opening night of the Minerva, the new theatre in Orwell Street in the Cross.

Norman did a mural for the Minerva. It was supposed to go between two pillars of Lalique glass, but the architect's original design was altered, the ceiling had to be lowered and the mural wouldn't fit in the space. Instead of Norman's painting, the foyer was decorated with a photograph of Sydney Harbour; rather a letdown, we thought.

Edwin Styles, an English actor who later went on to have a career in films, was a favourite of ours. His repertoire ranged from comic monologues at the Tivoli to more stylish comedies at the Minerva. We also liked Roy Rene because he was so Australian.

Rene was a very funny man, he could always make us laugh. His humour rested on very simple sketches, but always clearly with a double meaning, accompanied by much winking and smirking. A classic skit was ‘Flo's letter', in which as the character Mo, with suitable innuendo he threatened to read aloud a letter. The comedy was the innuendo, he never actually got round to reading the letter itself. One Saturday I had taken my sketch book with me to the Tivoli as I often did and while the acrobats were warming up the audience I caught a glimpse of Rene lurking in the wings, his shadowy figure almost hidden beside the bright lights of the stage. I made a quick drawing of him waiting there and then painted it the next day.

In 1943 Doug's
Ned Kelly
had its first stage production. May Hollingworth, the head of the Sydney University Dramatic Society, was dedicated to Australian playwriting.
As soon as she saw a copy of
Ned Kelly
, she wanted to put the play on stage. It had already been performed on ABC radio in 1942 but it had been written for the theatre, so now May Hollingworth was offering to put
Ned
on in a theatre.

Doug and I were both very excited. It was a thrill to see actors up on stage saying words he had written, becoming the characters he had created, watching the audience respond. It was performed on Sunday nights in the tiny SUDS clubrooms above a pub at 700 George Street near the Haymarket. An actor called Guy Manton played Ned; I've never forgotten him striding around the stage. May put the play on a second time at the Metropolitan Theatre in 1947, this time with Kevin Brennan as Ned, and he was equally memorable.

In between the two Sydney productions Doila Ribush wrote to Doug, suggesting that he, Doila, should put on the play in Melbourne. Doila was a Russian Jew who had fled to Australia and made his money out of manufacturing chocolates. As a young man, Doila had been keen on acting and the theatre in Russia, but his father, sensing they might soon be leaving their homeland, insisted that he should have a second trade, a means of making money quickly to use in a strange country, so Doila learnt how to make chocolates. Every time he came to see us over the years, Doila brought me wonderful presents of his chocolates, which were extremely rich.