Homesickness (12 page)

A new side to Violet emerged as they settled at ten in the minibus. It had been laid on by one of the genealogical societies.

Violet sat next to Garry Atlas but took no notice of him.

‘The stars,' she turned, ‘the stars say this is an auspicious day for travel.'

‘Thank God for that,' Hofmann murmured.

‘Is anyone here a Libra?' Violet went on.

‘Don't tell me!' Borelli put his hand over his eyes, ‘Not stars, please.'

Sasha breathed into North's ear, ‘Violet's quite batty. She's into astrology as well as this other business.'

‘I'm always fetching Kiwis, bloody Aussies and Maple-leafs,' the driver spoke up. He had a hoarse voice. The last year had seen a boom; from the colonial backblocks folk wanted to know their origins, and test the old soil. They came in droves. Life would make better sense after tracing the roots; not only place, county and such: but had forebears sprung from the thighs of convicts or vice-admirals? Among the genealogical societies were warring factions and international advertising campaigns, though it was generally conceded Lady Pamela Hunt-Gibbons was the most reliable. Her leaflets were passed around, printed on lemon dunny paper.

*
PEDIGREES COMPILED AND SCRIVENED

*
COATS OF ARMS RESEARCHED AND PAINTED

*
FAMILY TREES

*
TOUPEES

It is, I imagine, impossible to gauge the exact number of people who, in this age of increased leisure opportunities, have discovered the fascination of tracing their family history, but clearly the number is increasing at an astonishing rate! Not many other intellectual pursuits whip up such enthusiasm, which so easily gives a sense of achievement, and joy at sharing one's knowledge! An added pleasure is the meeting of others of similar temperament but of different background, of making friends outside one's own occupational group or even—let us say it—social class, of experiencing the pleasure of communication and exchange of ideas. But I am being read here by the converted…

Green leaves, grass, pale green water, long weeds in the streams, and if they'd squatted down, moss on the undersides of posts and stones. That of the trees: a bright shimmering green. It caused them repeatedly to exclaim and point, though not all. It was so soft on the eyes, the colour of slow holidays. As they passed, apples fell off trees. To complete the picture Lady Pamela's cottage appeared at the end of a lane. It was thatched.

‘This is a corker,' said Doug, really pleased. ‘This is something to write home about.'

It could have been straight off a calendar or a postcard,

‘Chrysanthemums there,' Mrs Cathcart pointed with her chin.

Already Kaddok had jumped out and began moving in the garden, treading on the odd flowerbed, to find the best angle. And Violet who had tiptoed ahead to find Lady Pamela instead found herself lost in the maze of waist-high lavender hedges which always steered her away from the mullioned windows. Here was the topiary art at its finest. When viewed from above, the precisely cut hedges actually formed the exceedingly complicated coat-of-arms and motto (
Nosce te
) of Lady Pamela's family; though Violet on the ground wasn't to know. After laughing at herself she began blushing. With the others watching she realised how confused she must have looked.

‘This way. Come along. Is that you Violet Hopper?' a woman called.

In a room with low oak rafters they found a white-haired lady seated before an easel. Camel hair brushes and a jar of grey water were at her elbow. Against the window stood a rack of Derwent pencils, complete, like coloured organ pipes. She wore nylon sleeves over her cardigan and being a lady she didn't turn or stop painting as they crowded in. This was an experience. Cream antimacassars on all the armchairs; and Gerald examined the porcelain on the walls, English plates, English dogs and cups mainly, though all of a very high quality, and a group of early steel engravings of tall African and New Zealand waterfalls. Piles of manila folders tied with pink ribbons lay on the floor, as in a solicitor's office. Over the fireplace
Wills and Their Whereabouts
(the 4th edition) and
Wills and Where to Find Them
were separated by
Cooper's Creek
and the Everyman's
The Origin of Species
. She blew her nose.

‘Pamela Hunt-Gibbons. How d'you do? Sit down. Don't all stand around.'

Squinting at her picture she rattled the brush in a jar.

Doug cleared his throat. ‘Do you get any leaks with the thatch?'

Lady Pamela appeared not to hear. Again she rattled the brush which allowed some of them to glance around at the ceiling. She painted nothing but waterfalls; had, what, for the last thirty-something years. Stacks leaned behind the sofa, watercolours. Never having been out of England, she had not seen a major waterfall, relied on hearsay and imagination, and as the latter grew weaker took to rendering substitutes. Merely the same thing, she said to herself, but on a smaller scale. She persisted, the last vorticist. Rainwater overflowing from a gutter, water swirling down a bath hole, the brief turmoil of a lavatory flush were some of her subjects. The large stomach testified to her years spent at the easel. She had blue eyes and untidy white hair. And her nose which was red and thin kept leaking (
Self-Portrait with Two Waterfalls
), but she seemed decent enough. She wasn't stuck-up.

‘I loathe ponds and stagnation of any kind. The clash of the sperm and the ovum is like the spin of the earth. Feel it now. It's kept us all going. I am seventy-six. Fit as a fiddle. There's nothing stagnant about Natural Selection or the way roots of trees surge through the soil like fingers. It's my greatest regret I have never stood outdoors in a monsoon. That must be an electrical experience. I am told steps and alleyways and rocks become one gushing torrent.' She dabbed at her nose with a tissue. ‘And the intermingling of molecules. Who is Borelli here, James Borelli?'

Leaning against the mantelpiece: he raised his walking stick. She must have seen its shadow on the walls.

‘Bor-elli,' she repeated. ‘I am afraid you are the odd man out. I could find nothing on you after an awfully long search. Seems your people never set foot on our island.'

‘Flying visits,' Borelli smiled.' ‘We come from far away.'

‘Italians,' Mrs Cathcart whispered.

‘He's all right,' Doug said.

‘I think it was grain elevators, passenger lifts, feather merchants. In that order. Rise then a crash. A great catch for the Australian migration boom.' He bowed slightly.

‘Haw-haw'—Garry Atlas.

It was an indication of how accustomed to each other they had become that they allowed, even enjoyed, the others to hear their past. They waited quietly as Lady Pamela selected another brush.

Atlas: ‘Scots, originally. They were glassblowers of Glasgow. In 1726 David Edward courted and married a Bartholomew of Edinburgh—above him, so to speak. They were small distillers.' Atlas grinned and looked around. ‘In 1790 Clarence Atlas was shipped out to Van Diemen's Land.' They all laughed with Garry. ‘For manslaughter,' Lady Pamela went on. ‘After Tasmania, I suppose you know the rest. You have a rough past.'

The Cathcarts were a common enough name from the Renfrew's district and the River Cart. ‘As the second syllable implies: cleaners, washers. Which is perhaps why you chose the occupation of Customs Officer. Your people scarcely left that county. Many are still there today; yet here you are. I suppose you have red hands.'

Doug nodded gravely.

‘I am doing this alphabetically and I'm summarising. I have typed sheets for each of you. You can take them home. I'm told some like to frame them.'

People had often looked twice at Hofmann's smooth lips which were strange, and his complexion. Now it was explained.

‘Your English extraction began with the German invasion and plunder of
A.D.
400. One awful mix-up then. Which makes it extremely difficult for us. By the early sixteenth century you had intermingled to such an extent the name had almost expired. I thought I was tracing a ghost. But several of your Hofmanns were found hiding in London: Golders Green traders. Some went to America. I almost lost you again. But the males were apparently determined. The strain survived. One on the Isle of Wight married and migrated to Australia prior to the Great War, just like that. We don't know why. Two children. One of course is your great-grandfather Walter. A broken line, but surviving. Do you have any children yet?' Hofmann shook his head. ‘Louisa, your side,' she said over her shoulder, ‘were Hollisters from Middlesex.'

‘Goodness!' Louisa giggled.

‘Do you know what Hollister means?' Borelli frowned.

‘Tell me!'

‘I don't think so,' said Borelli, catching her husband's eye.

‘Violet,' said the lady raising her voice, ‘knows hers. Don't you dear? Violet and I have corresponded.'

‘No, tell us,' they shouted. ‘We want to hear.'

A small ballet leap from Violet made them begin clapping.

‘Leaper, dancer. Court musicians. Welsh and part-French—that was the “Butcher” side.' More laughter. She curtsied. ‘One Hopper died in the Battle of Waterloo—perhaps speared by a Butcher? I am also related to the captain of a wool clipper. Some Hoppers have achieved fame, I believe, in America.' Violet held her chin high and switched to a Cockney accent. ‘I think now I'm the only Hopper left treading the boards.'

Lady Pamela gave a laugh like water running over bricks. ‘And don't forget, Violet, your great-great-grandmother.'

‘Molly was a suffragette. She was in the clink several times.'

‘A suffragette?' Garry repeated.

‘Yeah, watch it, ocker,' Sasha called out.

‘So, Violet, how many silly husbands have you gone through?'

‘Oh it's about four. So far.'

‘She has life!' said Lady Pamela firmly, while Mrs Cathcart drew in deep through her nostrils.

Kaddok, Leon. From a line of heavy Swedes (Vikings in horned helmets?), stubborn nomadic tribe. Survivors somehow of the Battle of Hastings. Subsequently turned to the land, the Church and the Work Ethic before one, Eric, became entangled in the Wheelwrights—daughters of long flaxen hair. Leon was the name given to their second. The boy grew to love the spoked wheels, flanges and artificial thunder of the period: went on to invent that humidifier with the thermostat soon used by all the Midlands cotton mills, the only Kaddok (so far) to make a name. In the cotton world he was world famous. This Leon married in the nick of time Anne, nee Bewley (Bewley: ‘beautiful place', Durham). Then middle-aged he quickly lost his fortune in some other venture in North America. In 1874, he suicided. His only son married an Eastman, returned to England (Lancs.) in his twenties. And it was their son who went first to humid Calcutta, then landed in Melbourne, the year of Federation. Through the generations the Kaddoks were wracked with late marriages and ateknia: produced slender threads like loose cotton. With the remaining Kaddoks childless the name would return to darkness, and Leon Kaddok was busy taking many photographs.

The others listened quietly as the story and its prospective dead end unfolded. Kaddok showed no concern seated in one of the armchairs, looking straight ahead. Only Gwen on the floral arm fidgeted and had her mouth open, which attracted attention. In the silence Lady Pamela went in close to the painting, almost touching it with her nose. She then spat on her handkerchief and rubbed at a spot with her little finger.

‘Phillip-Spenser-North.'

‘Doctor,' Sasha put in.

‘Realah? Oh that is interesting. Atavism is a mystery and yet perfectly understandable. His is a distinguished name in land reform, science, medicine and so forth. The strain is extremely well defined. Harks way back—clean as a whistle. You are a descendant of the Earl of Guilford. Quite a few Norths eventually are, but usually they are collateral. I knew your great-uncle, Edmund—'

A murmur of respect and surprise spread, forcing North to scratch his neck. Tilting his big head Gerald looked at him afresh.

Gurgle-flush, the laugh of a London landlady as Lady Pamela remembered: ‘Edmund was a gentleman, but quite mad! The things I could tell you about that man!'

She put her brush down and for the first time turned around.

She certainly had blue eyes, startlingly blue. Tributaries ran down from them, a type of erosion more commonly found in white skin transferred to the tropics, among old India hands, and another channel or sluice had formed below her nose. It was a small face: lids, cheeks and chin had sagged but combined in their intensity, visually to counterbalance the rising stomach.

She had her eyes fixed on Gerald Whitehead.

‘I can tell you're a North! I have a snapshot of old Edmund on a pony somewhere, if you're interested. Most of the family served in the colonies, you know, but came back here to distinguish themselves.'

A rattle of crockery interrupted these opinions and all turned in their seats, except her, as an elderly man, coatless, but wearing a Guard's tie, wheeled in a tray-mobile. Cheery chap.