Autobiography of My Mother (37 page)

My mother and Norman continued letter-writing throughout the 1940s. Mum wrote to Norman twice on her honeymoon; she sent him descriptions of life at the Cross when she and Dad lived at Crick Avenue; she wrote all through her pregnancy, virtually to the minute I was born. (One of these letters, in which she says she feels too embarrassed by her girth to go to dinner at Aaron's, is decorated with a funny sketch of her with a swollen stomach.) After my birth Norman wrote to Mum saying Rose suggested when she came out of hospital she bring the baby to Springwood to recover in comfort with them. Later on Mum sent Norman accounts of the ‘little puss', which included a description of how I would pat the ladies on the lacquered screen he'd painted for the studio, and talk to them.

If all this sounds weird, I should point out that in the twenty odd years (admittedly I was very young in the beginning) I knew Norman and visited Springwood I never noticed the slightest strain, or any overtones of sexual tension, between Norman, my mother and my father. Nor, for that matter, was our interaction with Rose awkward, not that she was there for many of those years. Due to ill-health she departed from Springwood in 1956 and went to live with Jane and her family. Although he and Rose remained in close communication with varying degrees of friendliness, Norman thereafter lived at Springwood with a succession of cats for company.

My mother and he exchanged letters until his death in 1969. Right at the end, as well as the short note of goodbye to both my parents, he wrote a much longer letter consoling my mother for his ‘eminent departure'.

‘I know how you feel about me,' the letter concludes, ‘because it's the way I feel about you and I say again, you are the only one on earth I regret parting with, even briefly [obviously an exaggeration but nevertheless a heartfelt avowal]. With all my love, dear Margaret, Norman.'
⁴²

Reading through the letters of Mum, Norman and Dad, what I have found most surprising (apart for their extraordinary capacity for letter-writing on top of everything else they did) and most moving is the depth of affection both men clearly felt for Mum. She was so loved by both of them. It's overwhelming, really.

One afternoon in the midst of writing this, two male king parrots with glowing red heads and breasts came right up to the front windows of the house and stared in at me. The female accompanying them sat unconcernedly a little way off in the magnolia tree. The thought occurred to me that they were Norman and Dad reincarnated, giving me the once over. At least the female didn't seem to care what I was up to, I consoled myself. King parrots are, of course, often seen around houses. But the fiercely red male pair did have a very intent gaze.

Why did my mother keep the affair so secret? Possibly first and foremost out of concern for my father, to whom she was profoundly attached. It was, after all, with him she lived so much of the life she reported in her letters to Norman. Perhaps it was also out of respect for, or fear of, Rose. Perhaps
Norman insisted on the secrecy. It may have been the most convenient and tactful thing for all concerned (including relatives – Catholic and otherwise). Perhaps over the years, as her friendship with Norman deepened, it did actually slip her mind. It is sometimes easier to forget that you've slept with someone than dwell on the sexual indiscretions or passions of youth.

Perhaps she dealt with it as she did with her age. My mother, in fact, was four years older than my father. But over the years she started giving her birth date as 1913, the same as his.
⁴³
By the time my father died he was convinced that she was younger than he was; or so she and I joked. After his death she reverted to her correct years.

In the end, you come away thinking if my mother succeeded in being close to two such creative men as Norman and my father – and my father did have his difficult moments – and was a muse to them as well as continuing undistracted, for the most part, with her own painting, it's all the more kudos for her.

What does it matter, anyway? As Jane Lindsay concluded in her letter to me: ‘It's all in the past & not really anyone's business.' That's true, except for who they were. To know tells us something more about who that was, about their work and the way the world is as far as love, affection and infidelity are concerned. There is always curiosity, too, about affairs of the heart – consummated or unconsummated – and theirs was very definitely an affair of the heart, as well as of the intellect.

At which point I might leave that young woman – my mother – who gazes so enigmatically through a mist of gauze at the unknown, in peace.

I would like to particularly thank Lin Bloomfield, not only for sharing her extraordinary Lindsay expertise with me but also for her humour and enthusiasm, both in connection with this book and also a number of other projects over the last ten years. I would also like to thank Helen, Catherine and Andrew Glad for allowing Jane Lindsay (Glad) and Norman Lindsay's copyright material to be included, and for giving their permission to reproduce Norman Lindsay's painting
The Party
.

As well I would like to gratefully acknowledge the painstaking work of Ruth O'Dwyer in tracing the descendants of Patrick and Margaret Maloney, now published in book form for all of us.

Thanks must go to Warwick Hirst, acting curator of Manuscripts Original Materials, the State Library of New South Wales; also to Jennifer Broomhead, Intellectual Property and Copyright Librarian, Original Materials; Louise Anemaat, Original Materials; and all the staff of the Mitchell Library; Julie Price in the Rare Books and Special Collections Library at the University of Sydney; Jane Bloomfield of Odana Editions; Gloria Carlos, assistant archivist at Yass and District Historical Society; Zeny Edwards, Steven
Miller and the staff of the Research Library at the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Barbara Mobbs; Kieran Shaughnessy at the Galway County Library in Ireland; and Guy Tranter, Document Archives, Australian Broadcasting Commission.

I should also like to acknowledge the contributions of Janna Bruce, Doreen Hubble and Rita Lee, all now deceased, to the original edition of this book; also Jacqueline Kent, who edited it.

The photographs used in the original edition are now held in the State Library of New South Wales with the Stewart family collection of photos relating to Douglas Stewart, Margaret Coen and Norman Lindsay: PXD 744, vol. 6. Photos used in this edition are from there and also the private collection of Meg Stewart. The photographs of Margaret Coen and Douglas Stewart with Fang, Margaret Coen as an older woman and Douglas Stewart at work are by Michael Elton. The photograph of Margaret Coen and Meg Stewart in the garden at St Ives is by Lorna Rose.
Portrait of Douglas Stewart
and
Douglas Stewart Reading on Observatory Hill
, both by Margaret Coen, are from the State Library of New South Wales. Copyright of all Margaret Coen paintings is held by Meg Stewart.

My thanks to Catherine Hill of Random House for editing this revised edition; also to Pippa Masson of Curtis Brown, my agent; and most especially to Carol Davidson of Random House for being such a fan of
Autobiography of My Mother
over the years.

Finally, finally, thank you to my mother.

Books

Lin Bloomfield,
Norman Lindsay: Impulse to Draw
, Bay Books, Sydney and London, 1984

Lin Bloomfield,
The Complete Etchings of Norman Lindsay
, Odana Editions, Sydney, 1998, and Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 1998

Lin Bloomfield,
Norman Lindsay Oil Paintings
:
1889–1969
, Odana Editions, Bungendore, 2006

Lin Bloomfield,
Norman Lindsay Watercolours: 1897–1969
, Odana Editions, Bungendore, 2003

Paul Hetherington (ed.),
The Diaries of Donald Friend: Volume 2
, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2002 Jane Lindsay,
Portrait of Pa: Norman Lindsay at Springwood
, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1973

Norman Lindsay,
My Mask
, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1970

Norman Lindsay,
Redheap
, Faber & Faber, London, 1930

Rose Lindsay (ed. Lin Bloomfield),
A Model Wife
, Odana Editions, Bungendore, 2001

Kenneth Mackenzie,
The Moonlit Doorway
, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1944

Alan Susan and Emily McCulloch,
The New McCulloch's Encyclopaedia of Australian Art
, The Miegunyah Press,
Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne, 2006

Joanna Mendelssohn,
Letters & Liars: Norman Lindsay and the Lindsay Family
, Angus & Robertson, HarperCollins, Sydney, 1996

Cheryl Mongan and Richard Reid, ‘
We have not forgotten': Yass & Districts War
,
1914–1918
, Milltown Research & Publications, Yass, 1998

Ria Murch,
Arthur Murch: an Artist's Life
,
1902–1989
, Ruskin Rowe Press, Sydney, 1997

Ruth O'Dwyer,
The Descendants of Patrick and Margaret Maloney
, Ruth O'Dwyer, Sydney, 2005

Philip Parsons (ed. with Victoria Chance),
Companion to Theatre in Australia
, Currency Press, Sydney, 1995

Rachel Power,
Alison Rehfisch
, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2002

Pam Ray (ed.),
Monumental Inscriptions: Yass Cemetery and St Clement's Churchyard
, Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra, 1996

Douglas Stewart,
Norman Lindsay: a Personal Memoir
, Thomas Nelson, Australia, 1975

Douglas Stewart,
Writers of the
Bulletin, 1977 Boyer Lectures, Australian Broadcasting Commission, Sydney, 2001

Meg Stewart,
Margaret Coen: A Passion for Painting
, State Library of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1997

various,
Howard Hinton: Patron of Art
, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1951

Thesis

Benjamin James Taaffe,
Douglas Stewart: Poet
,
Editor
,
Man of Letters
,
Volumes 1 and 2
, a thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of English, University of Sydney, February, 1995

Article

Ross Latham, ‘Fulfilling a Promise',
Memento
, Winter 2006, issue 31

Manuscripts

Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney:

University of Sydney, Rare Books and Special Collections Library, Kenneth Mackenzie Papers, box ½

Catalogues

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Research Library and Archive: catalogues for Australian Watercolour Institute; Royal Art Society of New South Wales; Society of Artists

Online resources

Art Gallery of New South Wales Research Library, database for Art Prizes:
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/lib/prizes_database

Australian National University, Australian Dictionary of Biography online edition:
www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/

National Library of Australia, Australian Performing Arts (PROMPT) Collection:
www.nla.gov.au/collect/prompt.html