The Gallery of Vanished Husbands: A Novel (37 page)

George Montague

Juliet re-folded the letter and lay back against the pillows. The portrait had been reframed and now hung opposite her bed, and the two Juliets, one nine, one seventy-eight, watched one another. George hadn’t said sorry. She’d read the letter several times when it first arrived just to check. Sometimes she almost thought he had, but he hadn’t, not once. But then if he hadn’t gone, if he hadn’t stolen the painting, her other life would never have happened. She would have lived quietly in this house and one day surrendered and learned how to make strudel and
knishes
and joined some committee to help with the
shul
flowers and lived through her children and then her grandchildren and her solace would be snippets of gossip and news.

‘I’m not grateful to you, George,’ she said aloud, not wanting him to misunderstand this realisation. ‘You were a shit. And I spent a lifetime keeping secrets because of you, and so did your children. That, as well as the painting, I can’t forgive.’

A breeze fluttered the curtain and outside a song thrush began to sing.

‘The thing is, George, you didn’t marry me. It was only pretend. Vera was your wife, not me. I’m not your widow, living or dead, I never was. It doesn’t matter to me. Not now. But it will to others.’

Juliet thought of her respectable daughter, so concerned with the world’s good opinion.

‘You made our children illegitimate,
mamzerim.
The rabbis say that the stain will last seven generations and I don’t think poor Frieda would like that at all. I shouldn’t imagine Leonard would be too fussed, but all the same. The easiest secrets to keep are the ones you know nothing about.’

She reached into her bedside table and fumbled among the spectacle cases and packets of tissues for a small silver cigarette lighter, engraved in curling letters with
Max Langford, War Artiste Extraordinaire, from your pals.
It was nearly out of paraffin and she had to flick it three times before the flint caught. Doing her best not to singe her fingers, she let George’s letter burn, fragments of paper falling onto the counterpane in a flurry of grey snow. It made rather a mess and she supposed that later she ought to wash the sheets but now she was so very tired. She threw back the covers, scattering ash. ‘Really I must get up. I’d very much like to see Leonard’s portrait.’ Until now she’d avoided looking at it, declaring at the end of each day, ‘I’ll wait until it’s finished, darling. I’m sure it’s wonderful.’ Both of them were equally and privately anxious that she like it and quietly relieved that the moment was delayed. But, Juliet decided, it was getting quite absurd – this morning she would look at the painting.

‘It ought to be my last portrait. The final piece in the collection. It’s only fitting. Once Leonard’s quite finished, I’ll tell him.’

She yawned and slid back against the pillows. The street was quiet now, the half hour of stillness before the fleet of cars returned from the school run. There was only the chatter of the birds and the rustle of the larch tree. She could almost imagine that she was lying in a cottage bedroom listening to the sighs of a dark wood. Juliet closed her eyes. There was still time for a few moments’ sleep before the honk of the taxi.

© Ross Collins

Before my husband David and I got married, we upheld a long-standing Jewish tradition and visited the grave of his grandmother Rosie and invited her to our wedding. One dreich afternoon we went to the cemetery in Glasgow on one of those bone-damp December days when rain surrenders to dusk shortly after lunch. The idea was that Rosie would then join us in spirit under the chuppah. No one wants to risk offending a Jewish grandmother.

Rosie was particularly special. In 1948 her husband disappeared. He left her with no money and two small children, but Rosie was determined to provide a better life for her family – no mean feat for a single mother in the Gorbals. She started a popular hair salon, Rosie’s, and her son was the first in the family to go to university.

But Rosie and her husband never divorced and she remained an
aguna
until his death. On the day he died, Rosie’s daughter-in-law, Maureen, called round to pick her up and take her to work. She discovered Rosie sitting at the kitchen table in her hat and coat drinking a small glass of sherry at half past nine in the morning. Maureen suggested that perhaps Rosie ought to take the day off work – an almost unheard of event. Rosie agreed that it would be best. Despite all he had done, the knowledge of his passing still perturbed her.

Suffering from cancer, she’d stayed alive through sheer force of will in order to witness David’s
bar mitzvah
. While I never met Rosie, the stories itched away at me, and I decided to write about a woman inspired by her. Juliet Montague is a fictional creation, but I hope she possesses a dash of Rosie Solomons.

Margot Landau (later Shields),
Emil W. Herz, Oil on Canvas, 1921

This portrait is of my grandmother when she was nine years old. It was painted in Berlin, where she grew up, by an uncle who was a struggling artist. When he got into difficulties the family would commission a painting. I loved this portrait when I was young—and the fact that my grandmother was a child in the painting. After she died my grandfather remarried, but his second wife was terribly jealous of her and this portrait arrived at our house in the middle of the night for safekeeping.

Untitled,
Tibor Jankay, Oil on Canvas, 1979

The painting is a full-size sketch for a more elaborately coloured piece. The shading was achieved by a special technique with a lithography press using pieces of scrap industrial metal and paint. The figures are done by traditional brush technique. The theme of embracing lovers surrounded by nature (birds, flowers) is one that runs through Jankay’s work. This painting is reproduced with the kind permission of Jeff Rona, the nephew of Jankay, who told me stories about his uncle and allowed me to incorporate them within the novel.

Carol, Joanna and Natasha,
Sue Ryder, Oil on Canvas, 1997

This portrait is of my sister, my mother and me. My sister is on night duty as a junior doctor and isn’t thrilled about having her portrait painted. My mother is trying to keep the peace. I’m seventeen and determined to wear a very short skirt—my father persuaded the painter to add an extra couple of inches, and you can still see the line. He failed to get me to lower my hemlines in real life, but managed it on canvas.

Thanks to my editors Tara Singh and Pamela Dorman for their patience and enthusiasm and to the fantastic team at Plume for championing my books – I know how lucky I am to have you. And thank you to the amazing independent booksellers who pressed
The House at Tyneford
into the hands of readers – I’m so grateful to you all. As ever, a big thank-you to agent Stan for his enthusiasm and good humour in the face of authorial neediness.

Heartfelt gratitude to my expert readers: painter Charlie Baird, Kelly Ross of my favourite bijoux gallery, the Art Stable in Child Okeford, and Leah Lipsey. Any remaining errors are entirely my own.

Huge thanks to Jeff Rona (again) for telling me the stories of his uncle, Tibor Jankay, and permitting me to fictionalise him here. I’m indebted to Bluma Goldstein and her book on the plight of the
aguna
,
Enforced Marginality: Jewish Narratives on Abandoned Wives
, which first introduced me to the ‘Gallery of Vanished Husbands.’

Last thanks go to my collaborator, co-conspirator, and co-
parent, David. I couldn’t do any of this without you.