The Biographer (32 page)

'So they were sisters for the . . . for the first one?' She heard herself speaking
the words distinctly and slowly, as if she were addressing a child. And felt
herself rocking in the open window, backwards and forwards. This had been a
childhood habit, when awaiting a reprimand for some transgression. She straightened
up, her hand on the ledge.

'Younger sisters for Will, yeah.'

Will. She saw him throwing a frisbee on a beach to his younger sisters. She pronounced his name experimentally, tentatively, in her mind.

'They called him William Charles Gordon McNicoll. William for your dad, and Charles for his. Gordon for, well, for you.And for Josie too,of course.But he's always known as Will.'

She looked at Tony. Here was the messenger with the tidings, the repository of the knowledge. His round head with its halo of bright blond hair like stalks of spiky corn was bent now, his hands riffling through the folders in his case. She felt she was seeing him with new eyes. He was not the person she would have chosen, but he was all she had.

'He's all right,Will,is he? Is he in good health?'

The strident questions had emerged, bludgeoned themselves out into the open before
she thought to frame them in any different way.

She stood up again, feeling Tony's gaze on her, and turned to stare out of the window at her cypress, and the valley beyond.The familiar sloping landscape looked like an incomprehensible map, some unknown country spread out before her.The land trembled behind currents of warm air. It seemed to have no connection to her.

Does Tony know why I sound so stilted and strange? Why there is a lump in my throat? Does he have the remotest idea that this is the first conversation on the subject I have ever had with anyone in my life?

'He was doing very fine, Greer, when I last heard.'

She had her back to him and he couldn't see her face. There were small cotton-wool clouds scudding high in the sky. To her horror, she felt tears welling. She squeezed her eyes shut and brushed at them with her clenched fists.

'When you last heard? But how long ago was that?' Now her voice sounded muffled and gravelly to her ears, and foreign, like the voice of another person.

'Not so long. Just before I came here.'

He's speaking to me encouragingly now, comforting me as if I were the child.

'And you – did you actually see him?'

'Sure I did.'

Tony must have got up, she felt his hand resting lightly on her forearm.'And I have a photo to prove it.'

Instead of throwing him off she allowed herself to be guided to the armchair
next to his. He was taking something from his case, one of his manila envelopes.

He hesitated.'Do you want to see it?'

The question was so absurd she had to stop herself from seizing the envelope and tearing the paper to extract the colour photograph, a ten by eight print. Instead she saw her middle-aged hand extend itself as if in slow motion and slide it from his smooth young fingers with their shiny manicured nails.

She lowered her eyes to the photograph in her hand, but at first saw nothing.Her vision was still blurred.Acutely conscious of the presence of the young man next to her, she laid the image on her knee and pressed the cold palms of her hands against her eyelids.

She unfolded her hands slowly, like two doors opening outwards, keeping her thumbs pressed to the corners of her eyes and her head lowered. That way Tony could not see her face when she looked on the likeness of her son for the first time in her life.

What she saw at first was what anyone might see. A lanky youth, dark-haired, wearing jeans. He was standing outside a house with a lacy iron balcony, a house in the style of the inner-city Victorian terraces she remembered.

It was an oddly formal photograph.The young man was not lounging but standing stiffly, as if to attention. His arms, blue shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, were folded in front of him, his feet planted wide apart. He presented the camera with a challenging stare, chin jutting, unsmiling.

She thought, he is like a soldier presenting arms. He is goodlooking, there is
strength and vigour there. A look of Charlie.A dependable face.That is what
anyone might see. This could be any testosterone-fuelled young male. But what
is it that I see? Because I am the single person with the closest possible
relationship to him.

I am his mother
.

'He asked me to take it.'

She hadn't heard. Her head close to the sheet of paper, she was momentarily unaware of anything else. Just this image, with its uncompromising body language. Her son was signalling to her.

Tony waited before saying again,'Will asked me to take the picture.'

She removed her hands from her face and put them in her lap. She thought, I have no defences against what is coming.

'He asked you?'

'For you. He wanted me to bring it here for you.'

Because there was something else, something Tony was not saying. She knew it, from his flickering, evasive eyes and the hawkish stance of the young man in the photograph. She wanted, for a few more precious moments, to be ignorant of it.

'Tell me – about him.'

'He looks a bit like you, Greer, don't you think? The same high-bridged nose. He's a very cool guy. You'd be proud. He's an architect, working on low-cost housing, for Asia mainly.Very socially responsible and politically aware; plans to set up his own outfit in a couple of years.'

There was warmth in his voice, liking. She had a startled memory. A conversation on the lower terrace, when she'd asked Tony if he had ever been in love.

'Is he – I mean, does he have a partner?'

Tony lifted his eyes and turned them on her. A distinct glint of amusement. 'He's engaged to be married, Greer. Lovely girl, too. Rebecca. Long dark hair with red high-lights. Great figure. She's just done her Finals, in architecture like him.They're living together.She was with him.'

He raised his eyebrows and flashed a reminiscent smile. 'Yeah. It was very obvious they were crazy about each other.'

'Really, engaged? Already? Do you have a photograph of Rebecca? When are they getting married?'

She felt dazzled, overwhelmed by the quantity and import of Tony's information. She was unsure how to broach the most pressing subject. From being drained of all response, now she had a thousand nervous, buzzing questions.

'You've got me there. Some time this year, that's for sure.'

'What did he –' She sought to rephrase this.'Tell me the truth about this,Tony.What was Will's attitude –'

She stopped, confronted head-on with her renewed vulnerability.

Tony gave her a sidelong glance but didn't address the unformed question immediately. He swallowed. She saw his Adam's apple bobbing.

'When I met with him his parents were in Shanghai. I hadn't, you know, got around to contacting them yet. So they didn't actually know anything about the biography. I'm talking about Charlie and –'

She tried to put a brake on her impatience.'Charlie and Josie, yes. His parents.Yes, I know.'

Her voice was husky.What was he getting at? He was rummaging in his denim briefcase again. He pulled out another of his dictaphones. It was labelled. How many did he have? He forestalled her objection with a gesture and shook his head.

'There's something I think you need to hear. I feel very bad about this, Greer.' He licked a little bead of sweat from his upper lip.

The foreboding choked in her throat like swirling smog. He switched the recorder on. At first she heard only the piping of birds. The liquid warble of an Australian magpie.And then Tony's noncommittal introduction.

'Interview with William McNicoll, March twenty-one 2006. We're sitting in William's back garden in Rozelle, Sydney –'

A second, energetic young male voice interrupted. 'Hang on, what's the point of this? I can't tell you anything about my father's life before I was born. I wasn't there, right?'

'It's not about your father. Sorry if I didn't make that quite clear on the phone. I'm researching a biography of your mother's partner,Mischa Svoboda.The artist.'

'Then you've obviously stuffed up, mate.You've got the wrong person. My father's name is Charles McNicoll and he's certainly not an artist.'

'He can't even draw recognisable stick figures,Will,can he?'A young woman's light-hearted voice chimed in.

Tony again. 'It's your mother's partner I'm writing about.Your birth mother,Will.Greer Gordon.'

There was a short pause.

'You've got the name right, yes. My actual mother was Greer, Mum's younger sister. But you're on the wrong track, mate: she's dead. I never knew my real mum. She died when I was born.'

Greer said,'Turn it off.'

Tony touched the switch. He avoided looking at her, sucking in his breath.

'I'm more than sorry, Greer. That's what they brought him up on and I swear it never occurred to me.'

'How did he react?' She found herself on her feet and pacing the floor, the photograph tightly under her arm. She felt ill.'No,
give me that
. I want to listen to it by myself.'

She snatched the recorder from Tony's hand.

In her study, she put it on the desk and shut the door. She knew how to operate it, she had watched Tony often enough.There were a few minutes left to run on the tape.

Tony's response.Taken aback.'They might have told you that, but Greer is very much alive. She lives in Italy with the well-known Czech artist Mischa Svoboda.You've probably heard of him? She's a winemaker, herself.'

A short pause and an altered tone.'Oh, jeez. Look, I'm really sorry if this comes as a shock to you,Will. Greer and Mischa have been an item since, well, since before you were born. Since about five months before, right? I just assumed you knew all that. I didn't mean to break it to you like this. I honestly had no idea they'd given you a different story. I guess they figured it was the least hurtful way out of a tricky situation. Least hurtful to you, when you were growing up.'

'What the hell are you talking about?' Slowly, more puzzled than hostile.

'Greer split up with your dad, you see. She'd fallen heavily for this new guy.'

'Are you saying he's my father?'

'No,no,she was already pregnant with you when she met Mischa. She was working in an art gallery, right? He was a pretty wild character, Mischa, back then, but obviously a huge talent, and I guess she didn't feel he'd be accepting of –'

An emphatic interruption:'Another guy's inconvenient brat?'

'Uh. Possibly. Yeah.' An exhaled breath. 'Anyhow, I'm sure she had her reasons. She handed you over to her older sister to look after from day one. I guess they flew you straight from Sydney to Hong Kong, where your dad was by then.'

'A kid would've cramped their style so she donated it to her sister who couldn't have one? Is that what you're saying? And everyone swapped partners? Jesus. Had Dad switched over to Mum before I came along?'

'Well, I haven't met with your mum and dad yet so I can't be specific, but I guess they must've told you pretty much what happened after you were born?'

'They told me a story. Here's how it went.There was a period of grieving. Mum came over to help look after me. Then a year or so later they fell in love.'

'Yeah.Well, I'm sure that's probably pretty accurate: that they lived in the same house but apart for a while, and hooked up later.There's no doubt your dad had been mad about Greer and was pretty devastated when she ran out on him.'

Another pause.Then a long-drawn-out, almost amused groan. 'For Christ's sake. She ditched Dad when she was already pregnant, farmed me out to her sister and wrote me out of her life.Where'd you say she lives?'

'Italy.'

'Whereabouts?'

'In Tuscany.'

An incredulous laugh.'Tuscany,yeah,that'd be right.'

The light, musical voice:'Excuse me, can you turn that off?'

'Shit, is it still on? Yeah, turn the fucking thing off. In fact give me the tape –' There was a scuffling noise. 'No, on second thoughts, don't. Just leave it. Put it all in your book, OK? Verbatim.'

A click, then silence. Greer sat motionless at her desk. The blood had drained from her face.

Tony's voice came back on the tape.

'The poor guy was pretty shattered, finding out cold like that. I tried to tell him more about her, the artists' colony where she lives and so on, but he didn't want to know. He did get me to repeat at what point Greer had met the Czech lover.Too late to get it aborted, was it, he asked me. Pretty much, yeah, she would've been over three months gone, I had to tell him. I suggested he should maybe think about going over there and meeting with her, but he just snorted and said he'd rather go surf with the sharks.

'But he did add, almost throwaway, when I was leaving, that I could take a picture of him outside the house and hand it over so she could see what she'd spawned. In case she had any residue of interest. Not that she'd give a fuck, in all probability, he added. Not a flying fuck.'

Greer went to the back of the house and took the uneven path that sloped down to Mischa's studio.The pugs had emerged from the bushes and they trotted after her, snuffling and panting. Greer knelt to pick one up. She held its tight little body like a warm, pulsating barrel against her face. Only minutes had passed since she first heard her son's recorded voice. She still held his photo in her other hand.

She looked up at the crown of the ruined tower, where it leant into the sky. The high, fretted clouds that had been around earlier in the day were all blown away, but there was a flat heaviness in the air. She put the dog down and pressed her face against the stone. Faint, disembodied sounds of string music came from within, where Mischa was working, and floated down. She listened to a few bars: it was Schoenberg's
Transfigured Night
.

She remembered Mischa's most recent compositions. The two unfinished pictures, each with running figures and strange, empty holes in the canvas. The impression they conveyed, that some crucial piece of information had been left out.The impression of loss.

Greer thought, they are like jigsaws with missing pieces. And then: how could I ever have imagined anything was accidental in Mischa's pictures?

I can't talk to him. Not yet. I am not ready. She turned away and retraced her steps.

She sat with Rollo, side by side on the couch in his studio.

'Well, you must meet each other right away, darling.You need to see him and he needs to see you.'

She had ignored the dictum that he was never to be disturbed when working, save in an emergency. Rollo had seen at once, without being told, that this was one. He had said nothing, but had put down his brush, switched off Wagner and gone to her.

'I can't do that.You've heard the tape.'

'Forget about the tape,' Rollo said briskly. 'That's his initial response. He's just had a great big shock. His world has been turned upside down. He's responding by being aggressive, like a cornered bull. That's a normal, healthy young male response. Now he's had time to get used to the idea, natural curiosity will have asserted itself.'

'This only happened a few weeks ago.'

'Weeks are years when you're young.' She saw Rollo dissecting the photograph, every detail of it, as she had.

'He didn't exist, and now suddenly it's as if someone has waved a magic wand and, abracadabra, he's materialised and he's part of our world. He's very dishy, darling. I can't stop looking at him.'

'But he's not part of our world. I chose Mischa over him. He will never forget that and never forgive it.How could he?'

'In our youth we've all done unspeakable things for love.'

'But this is an unforgiveable thing, isn't it?'

'You didn't know him then. He was a newborn. They have no personality, do they? Babies are just unformed clay. They're like a blank canvas.'

He doesn't get it, she thought. Even Rollo doesn't understand. But I'm not surprised that it's incomprehensible to him. It would be beyond the comprehension of any normal person.

What must it be like for my son?

'I didn't take the trouble to get to know him.' She thought, this is what despair is like.

'Life changes every one of us. If we're lucky enough, we can take advantage of that. Look at you, for example.' Rollo took her hand.'You're not the same personage now as you were twenty-five years ago. Not the same at all.'

She looked at him.
Is that true? Am I not?

'I think I'm the last personage in the world he would want to know anything about, Roly.'

He gave her a small, intimate smile. 'I knew there was something, you know. I just didn't know what it was. It must have been a big, oppressive secret to carry round.' He stroked her hand.'I'm glad you've unloaded it.That has to be a good thing, doesn't it?'

'I avoided it by ignoring it. By making it into something that never happened.You
see, Roly, I haven't been accountable for it.'

'It's important to be accountable, you're quite right.' She had known she wouldn't have to explain this point.

He was still studying the photograph.'It's not too late to take it on, you know.'

'But I think it is. I think it is too late. How can I take it on now, when it's something I should have lived with all my life? I should have acknowledged it instead of burying it like some . . . like some shameful thing I wasn't responsible for. No amount of sackcloth and ashes is going to undo that.'

'I don't mean a hand-wringing kind of penitence, darling.That would be of no use to anybody.There's really only one person you need to be accountable to, other than yourself, of course, and that is –'

She interrupted,'Will.To my son.'She shook her head. 'But I've no right to describe him like that.'

'Whatever has happened, you're still the biological parent.You have the inalienable natural right.'

'No. When I gave him away I surrendered my natural right.'

'But rights are nothing but human constructs, aren't they? Riddled with faults
and holes like their poor, unfortunate creators. They're there to be superseded,
rewritten and improved on. Surrendered,' he glanced sideways, 'and then miraculously
resurrected.'

'Oh, that's the sort of thing I used to think, Roly.That they were just words. And if you repeated words often enough they would lose their meaning.They would cease to exist.'

'Now, let's not get ourselves sidetracked by silly old semantics.Think on this thing.Your son is alive.'Rollo gave her one of his probing, almost intrusive looks.

She took a deep, shuddering breath.
Yes, my son is alive.

'And you are both living in the world. You are both inhabiting our funny, imperfect
world – don't forget those qualifying words, they're very important – and I think, dear heart, to invent any excuse not to meet him and take the first
steps, however
imperfect
and faltering, to acknowledge your accountability would simply compound the
transgressions of a former self.'

Greer thought, he looks exhausted by this speech. I think he managed to deliver it all in one breath.

He gave her a follow-up smile and a little squeeze and added,'Discovering that his mother is a fallible human being won't necessarily destroy him, you know.'

She kissed him on the cheek. His skin was thin and papery. She felt a renewed chill.

'Guy's invited Tony back in the summer.'

He evinced no surprise. 'There you are, I knew His Majesty had a penchant.Well, we both have a bit of a one, let's be honest about it. I'm using the royal "we" here. He and I liked each other, didn't we, so I suppose we have a similar taste in men. But that's naughty, he should have cleared it with you and Mischa first. Do you disapprove, darling?'

She said,'I don't know what to think.'

'If you decide you do, you can supersede Guy. Rewrite the rule book and boot the young Turk out.' He gave a rumbling chuckle.

She went back to Tony. He was in the sitting room, working on his laptop.Writing about her,she had no doubt.He had a bottle of mineral water on the desk, with a decorated tile placed under it.

She was unworried now about what he thought of her. She had no interest in trying to influence that.There were other concerns of greater moment, matters of fact rather than chance or opinion, and these she did have some residual power to influence.

At the sight of her Tony switched off his computer. There was an unfamiliar expression on his face. It was apprehension, she realised. He expected her to be angry as well as upset.

Very quickly, before she could change her mind, she said,'There are some important things I didn't tell you.And incidental details you couldn't have known about. So that you have a more accurate idea of how things were.That is, if you'd like.'

Tony leant forward, his face alight. 'Oh yes, Greer, I would most certainly like.'

She allowed him to turn on the recorder. If he did not have basic, accurate information he would undoubtedly get things skewed.That would be worse.

It was incumbent on her now, wasn't it, to take responsibility? The beans were
spilt, the secrets were out. Most of them. Others remained in her keeping.
She could decide which of these she wished to give away.

'She's changed towards me. Or maybe it's not towards me, but her attitude's different.To questions about the past, to a whole bunch of stuff she'd glossed over before. What it means is we're coming at the whole thing again, from the top.'

Tony replayed a section of the recording he had just made.

'She's showing a different side to me now. Why's that? Because she knows I know, so there's no point pretending any more. But it's not only that. There's something else going on here. It's almost like she's become a collaborator or confidant.'

There was a television in the corner of the room. He switched it on, and watched
a few minutes of an Italian drama series involving groups of students in shared
apartments.Then he spoke slowly to the recorder again, eyes still on the screen.A
couple had gone into a bedroom and were having a strenuous argument while stripping
off their clothes.

He said slowly,'I think what she's decided is, she wants to let me in on the last big secret. She wants me to get what falling in love was like for her. For them. Maybe she even wants Will to get that.Why? Because she knows it's the key thing in their story. Well, I guess it's a key thing in life, period.'

His hand lingered over the switch.'Is love the important thing in itself, or is it what it can do to you? And what it can make you do?'He gave a little laugh and added,'Hey,I can't believe I just said that.Was it really me?'

His mobile phone rang. He fished it out of his jeans pocket.

'Hi.'A pause.'Oh,OK,good.What's that,you are? Oh yeah, sure I can –'

Some time later there was a knock on the front door. He ran down the steps, calling out that it was unlocked. He heard it creak and groan as it was pushed open.

'Hey, so you made it! Let me welcome you to the Castello.'

Mischa answered the telephone.This was a comparatively rare occurrence, as he disliked talking on the phone. Greer had been considering getting one of the new devices, where you could see the person you were talking to on the computer screen. Being so visual, Mischa might quite enjoy that.

He came into the bathroom, where she lay under a cloud of bubbles. He stood over her, brandishing the phone like a weapon.

She hissed, 'I told you I didn't want to talk to anyone. Say I'm asleep.'

'He said wake her up. It's the husband you had a long time ago before me.'He held out a towel.'Dry your hand.'

'It's Charlie?' She was electrified. She took the phone.

Charlie's voice sounded as if he was in the next room. It had not altered a whit.

'Greer? I'm sorry to ring you unannounced like a blast from the past, and probably an unwelcome one at that, but there's something –'

'Quick, tell me, what is it?'

He said calmly, 'It's important but not life-threatening. Everyone's all right. I probably should have called you before, but I've been flat-out. It was a triumph of detection to get your number.' She could hear him deliberating.

'Is it him, Charlie? Is it to do with Will?'

'Well, it is, actually, yes. He's on his way. I strongly suspect he's going to turn up on your doorstep at any moment. Both of them,in fact.Will and his fiancée,Rebecca Levy.'

Her mind had shut down. After a pause he continued, 'We only just found out that they'd gone.They left a day or so ago without telling us, of course. As they do. You've spoken to that biographer by now, I suppose? Devious bastard, isn't he?'

'Yes, he is.'

'You do know what happened to Will?'

She said, 'Yes. I thought he didn't want anything to do with me. I could understand that, completely.'

'Well, no, he didn't. It was all very unfortunate, the way he found out. Cold, like that. He was very angry about being lied to.Angry with us,with you,with the whole box of tricks.'

She interrupted,'Charlie – is he in love?'

'Josie can tell you about all that stuff better than me. Here, I'll put her on.'

As if they had been chatting every week of the last twenty-five years.

'
Josie
?'

They were weeping again, as they had wept before, a long time ago, in Josie's flat overlooking the Flagstaff Gardens.That afternoon Greer had been about to disappear off the face of the earth, for the duration. Hearing Josie's voice again at the end of the telephone from the other side of the world, high and breathless and familiar, the duration seemed very long. In another way, seconds later, it didn't seem that long at all.

Greer and Mischa lay in bed. It was late, but for once Mischa was still wide
awake. Greer could tell his mind was working away at full pelt. She fancied
she could pick up the disturbances in the air.The atmosphere between them was
vibrant with unspoken thoughts.

She thought, this is how we are, Mischa and I. We operate on tangents for much of the time. Our thoughts intersect and veer away.We touch and then we separate and then we touch again.That is how it is.

Eventually she said,'I'm glad about it.The picture,it's a wonderful work. I'm happy that it was saved.'

'It had a good subject,' Mischa said.

'You did work on it again, after all.You finished it. It must have been – it was on that Boxing Day, wasn't it?'

'Yes. On that Boxing Day I worked on it after all. I finished it off.' He turned on his side to look at her, although it was too dark to make out her features. 'It kept me busy while you were out.'

While you were out. She marvelled at that. Out. Such an innocent little word, to carry such a weight of meaning.

'Why did you give it to Marlene? You never liked her.'

His response was unhesitating.'Because she helped you when I couldn't. It was the best thing to do with it.'

'Yes,it was.And I'll make contact with her again.'

She turned this over in her mind.

'If there had been no biography, none of this would be happening, would it? It would still be buried. All of it.' And my son would still be living his life oblivious to my existence.