Spirit of Progress (11 page)

A
t first Katherine only notices the blazing glare of a puddle not far from the tent, the pale blue sky and the cold, bright afternoon sun. Then she sees it. At first, because her eyes are still adjusting to the glare of the sun, it is just a form. A figure on the other side of the road. But now she sees clearly. It’s not Mr Skinner or just somebody wandering by. It’s the young painter. Who wanted her to sit still long enough so that he could paint her, and whom she had told in no uncertain terms to go away.

He is now there, in front of her, on the other side of the road, on Mr Skinner’s property. Back again. And it’s not just the fact that he is there that makes it such an intrusion but the fact that he is so obviously drawing her tent — which she told him not to. He barely seems to notice her (a cheek as well as an intrusion), then, to top it all off, as she steps from the tent and starts walking towards him, he drops the sheet of paper he’s working on, picks up another, and as clear as the cold, bright sun lights
the day he starts sketching her as she walks towards him, her left arm raised in protest (just as it is in the newspaper photograph, a favourite gesture of hers), and he stays sketching, barely looking up, until she is standing quite near, both of them separated only by the dirt road in between them.

Then, extraordinarily, he smiles. Smiles! As if this sort of thing happens every day, which it might to this young man but it doesn’t to Katherine. And the smile, rather than soothe her (as it is no doubt intended to do) angers her more. Katherine watches that silly smile fade as she glares at him over the divide of the dirt road. Katherine has not so much walked to where she is as stomped. And, without pausing for breath, she calls out to the young intruder, for, easel or no easel, that’s all he is, ‘That’s Mr Skinner’s property you’re on there. It’s private.’

Sam, who stops sketching and lowers his hand holding the charcoal, is about to reply. About to explain himself. But she goes on.

‘Mr Skinner won’t like this. That’s his farm. You’re trespassing.’

And, again, Sam is on the point of replying, when she continues. ‘So you might as well pack up all of this and go, before Mr Skinner sees you.’ He can load everything, she continues, back on that fancy bicycle of his (for Sam does, indeed, own a racer from his racing days) and get back to where he came from. And here she points up towards the end of the street that leads back to the main road that runs alongside the railway line and the flour mill, and into the city.

Her arm is raised (again just like the photograph, her expression just like the photograph — and part of Sam is beginning to wonder if he really needs to be here at all) and her finger is indicating the direction of his leaving, when Sam finally speaks. ‘I’ve got Mr Skinner’s permission.’

Katherine’s arm is still pointing up the road but her eyes lose their glare and take on a deeply puzzled look. She is not simply surprised by this simple statement, she is stunned by it. Stunned into silence. And the deeply puzzled look stays on her face as she eyes the young man, taking in his words, looking from him to Skinner’s farm, to Mr Skinner himself (whom she now notices trudging across his paddock towards them), not believing the young painter, convinced that he is lying and about to be found out, for the very thought of Mr Skinner giving permission to this young painter to intrude upon other people’s lives is contrary to everything she has concluded about him.

‘Well,’ she says, indicating the approaching Skinner, ‘we’ll soon see about that.’

With this Sam turns, sees the angular construction of Skinner approaching, and waves. Katherine watches, inwardly commenting to the young man that that won’t do him much good, when she sees Mr Skinner wave back. Furthermore, the wave is accompanied by a smile. Katherine’s arm, which at this point is still indicating the direction of the young man’s departure, drops to her side and she watches, wide-eyed, as Skinner arrives.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Carroll.’ Skinner is all smiles and goodwill. ‘You’ve met the young gentleman who is here to paint the farm, I see.’

Katherine, watching the two men nod to each other in greeting (a greeting that suggests they have met before and that the young man does have Mr Skinner’s permission to be there), calls out from her property. ‘I have, Mr Skinner. And I’m not happy about it. He’s just a nosy parker with a paint brush. And, by the way, Mr Skinner, he’s not painting your farm, he’s painting me.’

It is at this point that Skinner’s eyes move to the large piece of butcher’s paper pinned to the easel and sees that, indeed, the young painter is not sketching the farm at all but Miss Carroll and her tent. And he can also see from other pieces of paper pinned to a folder at his feet that all of the sketches are of Miss Carroll and her tent. Not one is of the farm that will disappear when Skinner does and which he was foolish enough to imagine might be recorded by this young painter and possibly hang in the galleries of the country. For all to see. A record of Skinner’s farm and Skinner’s days. They are all of Miss Carroll and her tent.

And it is then that Skinner turns from the sketches and looks to Katherine, whose stare (which he immediately takes to be an accusing one) and whose anger are now directed at Skinner, not the young man. But more than mere anger there is the accusation of betrayal in those eyes. And for betrayal, Skinner suspects, in the mind of Miss Carroll, there is no forgiving. However accidental. For the look also says, quite clearly, that he, Mr Skinner, has allowed this young man to intrude upon her privacy. Upon her life, which she has always kept to herself. He has, he knows, blundered.

Skinner looks back to Sam and tells him to leave. It is, Sam notes, an order. But it is not delivered with anger. Far from it, it is almost sad. I gave you permission in good faith, Skinner’s tone says, and you have deceived me. No doubt you think me a quaint old codger. And it is true, I have acted with the trust of a quaint old codger. But you must leave now. Gather your things. You have stayed long enough, young man.

And Sam does exactly what Skinner directs him to do, not because of any threat in Skinner’s voice, for there isn’t any, but because he knows he has stayed long enough and taken advantage of Mr Skinner’s good faith. And he could explain that he did so in good faith himself. That far from seeing both him and Miss Carroll as quaint old things, he is drawn to them. And his intention, all along, was to preserve an image, still shimmering with life before fading altogether, of what we once were. Before this new world, into which the likes of Sam are stepping, renders them History — faded photographs and unreliable memoirs. Myth. No, in his painting you will feel the cold inland wind, smell the burning twigs and see the bright expanse of blue sky that is there above them (although not in the newspaper’s photograph) forever humming with Life as it is now. He could say all of this but he doesn’t. Instead he folds his easel without speaking, straps it to his back, puts his paper, charcoal and paints into his pack, wheels his bicycle up the dirt road and waves, as he did that first time he saw Skinner, only this time the wave is not returned. Soon, he is cycling away, in the direction that Katherine had so clearly indicated only five minutes before.

But Katherine’s arm is still at her side where it dropped. There they are, Mr Skinner and Miss Carroll. They stare at each other across the dirt road that divides their properties. No more than ten or fifteen feet apart. Katherine (vaguely aware of the receding figure of the young man along the street), is contemplating Mr Skinner. She can hear the words of apology he is now offering and which she is taking in and not taking in. How could she, she is asking herself, how could she have got it so wrong? No, not wrong. How, and she is searching for the right phrase, which is why she is both taking in and not taking in Mr Skinner’s words, how could she have gone … what? … so dreamy, at her age? She allowed some silly dream into her life and now look what’s happened. And it’s not the honesty of Mr Skinner she doubts. For he is, unquestionably, an honest man who has been taken in by a smooth-talking type. But something has happened and she is now looking at Mr Skinner in a new light. For what has gone is the dreaminess and the trust that comes with that dreaminess. And perhaps it’s all for the best. This is what happens when you trust someone else. They don’t mean to but they let you down. If they can let you down like this, they will let you down again. Perhaps she is better off alone, after all. She has always lived alone, without allowing company into her life, because that’s the way she was born to live. Better not to put your trust in company, only yourself. That way the world can’t let you down, even if it doesn’t mean to. And besides, there would surely have come a time when company wanted to go one way and she the other. And she knows full well that in such a
circumstance she would go her own way, as she has always done. And is it possible, she now wonders, that the ungainly frame of Mr Skinner comes with the honest flaws of ready smiles and waves that the likes of the young man will always take advantage of, and to allow that ungainly form of comfort into your life is to allow those honest flaws into it as well? All of which just leads to complications, and that’s another thing she doesn’t want.

So it has been an instructive day, but instruction is over. And if the afternoon’s events have taught her anything it is this: that she is not simply too old to trust in the company of others — she was always too old. Skinner is no longer speaking and Katherine has heard little of what he said. Katherine turns back to her block of land to build the fire for which she left the warmth of the tent in the first place, contemplating as she goes the ungainly contraption of Mr Skinner, and his offer of bread and jam and cream she had looked forward to, like a young girl, a dreamy young girl on a date. Which is a surprising thought for Katherine to entertain because she has never been on a date.

I
t is late afternoon and Aunt Katherine has been sitting in their kitchen, the clock tells Rita and Vic, for almost an hour. When she first appeared at the front door it had seemed to Rita that the vision of Aunt Katherine striding out of the photograph in the newspaper, up the hallway and into their lives, had come true. She affects you like that, Rita is thinking. Larger than life, or, at least, larger than most of the lives she knows. She can’t say that she knows too much about History (even if she has lived through days that have contained more than enough of what people call History), but this woman, who unnerves her, is, in Rita’s mind, a sort of walking History. And so when she knocked on the door and strode up the hallway, with the briefest of greetings, it was History paying a visit. And it didn’t matter that it was Rita’s house, she entered the way History (war, depression, more war) usually does. Just barging in. No apologies. A sort of force. Yes, that’s what she is. Like the wind or a thunderclap.

And, of course, she has come for a reason. Aunt Katherine rarely pays a visit unless there is a reason to do so. And there is a reason this afternoon. A request, actually. But a request, it seems to Rita, that assumes no doubt as to the nature of the answer. A request that never even contemplated an unfavourable response. The answer was always going to be ‘yes’. And this is precisely what Vic has said. Although his face tells Rita that he would rather be doing just about anything other than what he has been asked to do.

Vic’s mother and her sisters, they are the only family he has ever known. They are, Rita knows, what stood between him and the world, for a child is no match for the world on its own. His mother and these sisters, they are what made the world smaller, made the world child-sized, while he was growing. They were his support and are now his burden, the hand he held and wouldn’t let go, and the hand that held his and which now won’t let go. The answer was never in doubt. And Rita knows it was not presumption on Aunt Katherine’s part that led her to announce her request as though the answer was never in doubt, but her understanding of all this. For when Rita opened the door and Aunt Katherine strode up the hallway, it was not History that Vic saw coming towards him but Family.

She has gone for months, Katherine explained, without talking to anybody much (which is perfectly fine by her; most of what people call conversation is a waste of breath anyway), but in the last two days there has been one visit after another. The newspaper, the photographer (she did
not mention the visit of Mr Skinner) and now this painter. One of those nosy types who won’t go away. Even when you tell them. And Katherine had nodded at them, firmly, indicating that the telling had been plain, and Rita can well imagine the scene. In the end this painter, this nosy type, did go but not before leaving behind a sort of card. And it is this card that Vic is currently holding, for it contains the address of an art gallery and a telephone number. The young painter, it seems, had asked to paint Katherine. Asked her to sit for him. And, of course, she had told him he was a nosy type and that he should mind his own business. But when she went back to the tent and sat and mulled over everything, the thought crossed her mind that there might just be some money in this. That these people might just offer a fee to paint the likes of Katherine, and after the photograph, the article and the attentions of the painter, Katherine is beginning to see herself as the others do, a little bit of History perfectly entitled to put her hand out. And, after all, she is paying off her block of land. And if all you’ve got to do is sit there and be painted, so be it.

This is the request. That Vic go to wherever this place is and make inquiries on her behalf. She can’t go herself. She’s already thrown this painter off her land, twice. And told him to make tracks. Twice. But somebody else, inquiring on her behalf, that’s different. The kitchen is now silent, the talking is done, and Vic is staring at the address on the card. The telephone, of course, is out of the question. Nobody has a telephone and he’s not going to waste money on a call. So he is staring at the address.
It is in the city and he will have to leave early for work so that he has time to ride his bicycle there first and return to the yards before starting the evening shift.

It is easy enough. Not much further than his work. But, all the same, awkward. Vic is not someone to use the word ‘awkward’ all that often. It’s a bit English for his liking, all a bit stiff upper lip. The sort of thing that the English say when a bomb drops through the roof or someone dies — oh dear, that’s awkward. But the fact is this
is
awkward. Who does he talk to? What does he say? Is there any money in this? And, of course, there won’t be because nobody has any, least of all these painter types. Katherine doesn’t seem to realise this. But he can’t tell Katherine that because, when it mattered and whenever she was back from her wanderings around the country, she was one of those who made the world child-sized while he was growing into it. So, as awkward as the whole business is going to be, he will go. He will ask awkward questions. Then he will go to work.

Aunt Katherine declines the offer of another cup of tea. The afternoon light is fading, it is winter after all, the days are short, and she must be back before dark. And so she rises, leaving the card with Vic, and strides back up the hallway. History returning to its lair, to its tent, or wherever History goes and rests in between paying visits.

And when she is gone, with the briefest of farewells, Vic shakes his head and turns back down the hall, preparing for an early departure. It is, both he and Rita agree, a pointless journey, a waste of time. But which will be done, all the same. And so, an hour before he really
needs to, Vic packs his Gladstone bag — food, soap and swabs, and places it between the handlebars as he mounts the bicycle. Rita watches his hunched frame as he cycles slowly up the street towards his rendezvous with an awkward situation.

Her duck steps take her back into the house and she is aware of her weight for the first time since opening the door to Aunt Katherine. And she is contemplating the possibility, as she closes the door, that History, when it pays its calls, can be a welcome distraction as well as a disruption. Depending, and here she is mindful of Vic hunched in concentration as he cycles away, on who you are and where you’re standing when it passes through.