When George has gone and while Sam is cycling north to Miss Carroll’s tent, Tess is alone in her gallery and reflecting on the subject of fun. How it comes to play, then goes. Or did once. But doesn’t come to play any more. And how strange it is to have forgotten what fun felt like. Until you turn a page and a reproduction of an old painting, a small town, a farm in the distance, brings it back. Fun. Or, in this case, a day of fun. It slips away without your knowing and then the memory of it comes back, and you say, ‘Yes, that was what fun felt like.’
Where were they? She and Sam. Where did they escape to that day? What was the name of that place with the English-sounding name? It is one of those idle moments when she ought to be working. But her mind is wandering, travelling back to those days, not so long ago, when she and Sam discovered each other, and, together, rediscovered fun. And she doesn’t take fun lightly. We have it and we lose it. And, like falling in love, fun does not come often. Often as not, the two come together. And in the midst of it we stop for a moment and reflect on it. Which is what Tess is doing now.
The artists she mixes with, most of them, don’t much reflect upon or think much of fun. They imply fun is light. Not to be taken seriously. Frivolous. An indulgence. Nobody writes about fun, she muses, but they ought to. Tess knows that one of her nicknames is The Contessa. Never spoken to her, of course, but word filters back. And as she dwells on the notion of fun she playfully adopts the noble demeanour of a Contessa reflecting. She decides it suits her, even amuses her, and suddenly she is mindful of those pre French Revolution paintings. The idle rich young women, girls really, playing on swings in dazzling costumes, all frills and fun, cavorting in the late-afternoon light, the shadows of terrible events closing in on them, even as they play, at the edges of the scene. But they don’t see them. And even here, where fun is taken seriously, there is that element of disapproval. That they ought not to be having so much of it. That the shadows of a wronged world and the terrible events they bring with them will soon sweep away this twilight indulgence. And yes, Tess knows, and has always known, that these are the idle, rich young women whose fun came at the cost of a wronged world. But at the same time her heart will always go out to these young women on their swings, reflecting, quite possibly, in the midst of it all, upon the sheer frivolity of the moment. And possibly even saying inwardly, ‘This is fun.’ She will always acknowledge that the price of their fun was the misery of others, but her heart, and her loyalty, will always go out to the girls on the swings.
Throughout the sad and violent years the verdict on fun has been that it is a light indulgence. That the time requires not the lightness of fun but the heaviness of the Age. For all the wonder of their achievement, she muses, there is no depiction, no hint even, of fun in the miraculous assembly of paintings around her in the gallery, which she will soon exhibit. For this is the verdict of the artists with whom she mixes. This is the verdict of the Age. Fun is light. Art is heavy.
And just as her heart will always go out to the girls on swings, it will always be open to the fun that does not come often and that should be welcomed into the heart when it does.
Where was that town that the reproduction in the book reminded her of? What was it called? No matter. She and Sam had run away for the day. Cycled away, really. Like school children impulsively declaring a public holiday. She from her duties at the gallery, he from his work. They’d run away for the day. And that was fun in itself. But even though he’d left behind his studio, he still had his paints and brushes. He always had them. And when they wandered the paddocks and came upon an old milking shed, she’d called, ‘Look at that.’
‘Look at what?’ he’d laughed.
‘That,’ and she’d pointed. ‘Don’t you see it?’
And he’d stared hard at the makeshift construction of rotted wood and rusted corrugated iron and said, ‘Yes, I do. Now I see it.’
‘But you didn’t before?’
‘No.’
‘Then, I shall be your eyes.’
‘Yes,’ he’d said, ‘you shall be my eyes.’
He’d captured the scene quickly, for he always worked quickly. He worked, in fact, with what she could only call ‘attack’. A musical term, really. And although she is no musician, she knows ‘attack’ when she sees and hears it. She had once been given sheet music by her piano teacher and halfway through the piece he had told her to ‘attack’, but as much as she tried, and she tried again and again, she simply did not have ‘attack’ in her. And that was when she decided she would never make art, but that she knew it when she saw and heard it. She didn’t have ‘attack’ in her but she saw that Sam did. And she marvelled as she watched the scene materialise.
They roamed over paddocks and fields for the remainder of the afternoon, she his eyes, he the hand that held the brush. They saw no one else the whole day. Not one other human being. It was their world. A wide world. Even, she fancied, their first world. Just them, the paddocks, trees and the odd rabbit poking its head up. Everything was new again. The tea they drank, the sandwiches they devoured as if they had never tasted bread, the old, old land that they walked through and looked upon. All new again. Yes, that was what fun brought with it: the lightness that the Age spurned, and a world made new.
When they finally returned that day it was with a kitbag full of sketches. They pored over them, talking about them, quickly, excitedly. A picture of fun. But there were shadows at the edges of the scene that they failed to notice that day. For the war would soon end, and everybody would scatter. And once again, seated in her gallery and staring through the windows, she is contemplating the girls on their swings, players at playtime, oblivious of the shadows at the edges of their framed lives. And her heart goes out to them.