Vic, an hour before work, is cycling through the back streets of the city. There is little traffic, even for this time in the early evening. But Vic is not trying to dodge traffic; the fact is he likes these back streets with their old buildings (warehouses, shops, terraces and pubs, many left over from the gold rush days). These back lanes and bluestone buildings return the old city to him and it’s not hard, if you close your eyes, to hear the sounds of old times. For Vic is, at heart, a romantic. An artist even. With an artist’s instincts. But what type of artist? He’s neither a painter nor a writer, and although he has a natural ear for popular song, music does not spring from him. Nor anything else that people call art. So, if he is an artist, what type is he?
It’s a thought that puzzles him as he cycles along Flinders Lane. One that he dwells upon. Although he has never dwelt on such thoughts before, not in any serious way, it suddenly seems to him that there really ought to be an answer to the question and that he should find it. He is, as he pedals across Swanston Street into the shadow of St Paul’s on the other side (and he would never phrase it like this right now or even think of it in these terms until later in life) beginning to engage with the age-old business of serious living. And central to it is finding out the nature of this ‘What?’ An artist without an art is no artist at all. And Vic, for the first time, is seriously dwelling on just what that art might be. As well as dancing to dancehall bands, Vic has also closely watched these bands make their music. And envied them. Envied them, he now realises as his pedals go round and round like his thoughts, because they are — how shall he put it? — expressing themselves. Releasing themselves, even. Yes, they have discovered how to make something of all those thoughts and feelings and impulses that come and go or come and stay, and which can fill whole days and the waking hours of the night. He has watched them all — the guitarists, the pianists, the trumpeters and the singers — and sometimes they look, against all obvious appearances, as though they’re not there at all. That their bodies are on stage but the part of them that makes the music is somewhere else. As though this thing that they’ve found has given them wings and they fly away. Perhaps that is what they’re doing when they’re expressing themselves. The expression releases them and they fly away.
Vic wheels into Russell Street, still contemplating just what it might be that he can call his art. But when he stops at the address on the card in his pocket, these thoughts suddenly seem a fanciful waste of time. He steps off his bicycle and takes in the building in front of him. It is one of those old warehouses that brings back the old city to the likes of Vic, but which is, for the time being, an art gallery. And so, with his awkward rendezvous now upon him, he enters the building.
As Vic makes his way along Flinders Lane to the gallery, Sam leaves his studio with the painting of the old woman and her tent. It is an unwieldy size, too big to be carried under the arm. Besides, even though Ripolin is a fast-drying house paint (favoured, he is told, by Picasso, among others), parts of the painting are not yet dry. So he holds it by the edges, carrying it (facing inwards so that the street doesn’t see it) the short distance to the gallery. As he walks he can smell the paint, and the fact that the paint is still wet is exciting. This is how it should be. A painting is completed, a painting is exhibited, drying as it hangs on the wall, sparkling in all its newness. As new to the painter as it is to those who will view it. An old woman, Miss Carroll, strides across the wet, muddy grass of her lot of land, her arm raised, shooing away her visitors and their prying eyes — the image fresh and bright, the brush only just having left the board. In his pocket is the newspaper photograph that he will paste to the wall beside the painting, so that those who look upon the approaching figure of Miss Carroll, both in photographic form and in the painting, can decide for themselves. Is it a copy or an original? Art or a fake? Life or merely an imitation of an imitation? As he walks, Sam is conscious of not just carrying a painting, a portrait of what we were before we entered these post-war years, but a challenge as well. And what’s more, a challenge that contains more questions than answers, and is happy to play with possibility rather than seek certainty.
For as much as this new world is called post-war, it will still carry, for a long time, the imprint of the sad and violent years. Of things that have long been considered beyond question, and of unquestionable certainties. Of choosing your sides (Left and Right, East and West), which Sam sees in the various alliances of painters and writers in this pressure cooker of a city, the radicals and conservatives, their arguments and the blows they sometimes come to — and all of whom will be at the gallery the next evening. For it will remain, this post-war world, a world of taking sides; of us and them, and nothing, no shades of difference, in between. So Sam is conscious of not just carrying a painting to the gallery but a challenge, a work that slips in between these opposing certainties to where those shades of difference lie. And, even as he carries the painting, he is aware of taking it all seriously and not taking any of it seriously. Of believing it all and believing none of it. And, with these thoughts, he tells himself once again that if a revolution ever came about, anything like the one many of the painters in this town want, then Sam would be one of the first to be lined up against a wall and shot. And this, playfully, leads to a brief contemplation of just who would shoot him, for he knows the types, and can even identify them, those with the disease of fatal purity who would blow his head away with impunity for a greater cause.
In fact, this pressure cooker of a town is still talking about the events of a few years before, even if the talk is less excited and less loud than it was then. Everybody still talks (serious talk and laughing talk) about the ‘affair’ that shook the city, the country and went over the seas. Two poets got together one dull afternoon at the Victoria Barracks, not far from where Sam is now, and armed with the most unlikely of books to help them created poems that were, to them, a joke. And all done that afternoon, or so they said. A laugh. A way of making fun of all those, like Sam, who read the poetry of Eliot and his kind. For the new poetry, this ‘Modernism’ with all its fancy ways, its fancy talk and terms, was, Sam gathers, gobbledygook to these two poets. And dangerous gobbledygook what’s more, because people actually took it seriously. So they thought they’d have a laugh. Catch a few people out, such as the editor of a magazine with whom Sam is friends. With this in mind they dreamt up this poet, wrote his poems (in the gobbledygook modern style), and sent them to the editor with whom Sam is friends, who immediately hailed the work as a major discovery. They even gave this poet a name: Ern Malley (who was conveniently dead). An unlikely name for a poet, Sam muses, but that was all part of the joke too. As was the fact that the manuscript was posted by his sister, Ethel, who confessed to not knowing much about art but thought somebody might be interested. Ern and Ethel.
Sam grins, then bursts into laughter because, well, it is funny. Ern and Ethel. Sam is laughing, not only because he can (that is, he is not the editor who was made to look rather silly in the eyes of many people), but also because he takes all of it seriously and none of it seriously, believes it all and believes none of it. Part of Sam is also telling himself (something he could never say to his editor friend) that, well, you just had to hand it to them. Some stunt. Sam was, in fact, asked to paint the illustrations for the magazine, his friend the editor asking him to do so. And Sam, after thinking it all over, decided not to and said no in the end. Why? He still doesn’t know for sure. Perhaps somewhere in there he smelled a rat. Something wasn’t quite right. Everything was just a bit too convincing or convenient. Like those bodies that are washed up on enemy shores in wartime with all the right information on them, with the enemy’s battle plans sealed in waterproof briefcases. Somebody smells a rat. Too good to be true. In fact, Tess had said exactly this to Sam. Told him that something wasn’t right and cautioned him against having anything to do with it. So, in the end, Sam stepped back at the right moment rather than step in.
Which is why Sam, still continuing along the lane, allows himself a chuckle — because he can. Which is just as well, because this ‘affair’, and it has become an ‘affair’, is now famous, not just in this pressure-cooker town but all over the country and over the seas in other countries. But what Sam cannot really know for certain is that it will not just be famous for a few years, this season’s scandal, but for years into the future when this post-war world into which they are all stepping has spent itself, when the sides that split it are all fallen away and gone, when History has moved on as History will and History does. In that impossibly distant world out there, people will still talk of this ‘affair’ as they do now, not long after the events themselves. And because this is a town that divides easily (in many cases, divisions that are never forgotten and never forgiven and which are taken to the grave), the town is still, as Sam turns into Russell Street, divided over the ‘affair’. Between those who think that those fancy modern types, with their fancy modern gobbledygook they call poetry, have now been shown a thing or two, and those who think (such as the editor of the magazine, who, in many ways, has no choice but to think this) that those two poets, in that afternoon of fun and laughs, and in the guise of a dead poet who never existed, let their conservative hair down, discovered other poetic selves they would never have discovered otherwise, and wrote the best poems of their lives.
Certainly, when Tess, who is waiting for Sam to arrive with his painting, thinks of the ‘affair’, she thinks of those two poets (whose names will never be as well known as the poet they invented) in the same way that she thinks of this miraculous assembly of artists she is about to exhibit to the city. She imagines (a speculation she once shared with Sam lounging in his studio, and which he now recalls) that the next year, or the next, or the next, they will become haunted by the thought that they might just have left their very best behind them one dull afternoon in the Victoria Barracks as the war played itself out. When they were not themselves but somebody else who never existed, but who, nonetheless, would become more famous than they ever will, and whose fame will haunt them for the rest of their lives. At least, this is the way Tess thinks of the ‘affair’, not that either of the two poets (whom she has met) would ever say such a thing, or give any hint that they might have.
The chuckle having subsided, Sam carefully lowers the painting to the footpath at the front of the gallery and pauses before picking it up again and carrying this portrait of what we once were, this challenge (which is a challenge and not a hoax), inside to where a space awaits its arrival.
Inside the gallery, Tess has been waiting. Sam said he would deliver the painting that afternoon and she is waiting because she knows he will. She has watched him work and she knows from watching him that he works fast. He thinks about what he will do before painting, possibly imagines the whole thing before lifting a brush. And this is why he works fast and this is why she is confidently waiting. She has no doubt that any minute he will walk through the door with the painting and the empty space reserved for it on the wall will be filled. Her only regret is the presence of others in the room — two painters and the journalist, George, who writes the reviews. And she likes them all but would rather have the opportunity to talk to Sam alone, which she hasn’t done since they parted. Their paths cross these days and they talk, but it’s not the same talk. Not the talk of two people in love and alone, saying whatever they want. So when Sam arrives she will not be able to say what she wants.
The two painters are contributors to the exhibition and not happy about where their paintings have been placed. They don’t say as much but they eye the prized space where Sam’s painting will hang, and while they don’t talk about favourites or Tess playing favourites, their talk and their manner imply as much. It is, she muses, unavoidable, possibly even good. All this tension. Everybody living so close to one another, everyone’s paths crossing all the time because the city is small as far as cities go and nobody can leave. As much as they want to leave, they’ve had to stay here all these years and see it through. But, unlike the others, Tess does not want this to change. And has never wanted this to change. She, more than any of the others, is in a position to see the talent that has miraculously assembled in this regional city, shut off from the great world by the sad and violent years of the war. They are, she has silently noted time and again, better than they know, and she, more than any of them, can see this. They are too deeply immersed in the moment they are creating to see this, too busy creating and fighting to notice, too preoccupied with wishing themselves elsewhere to see what is happening here. They miss all of this, but she doesn’t. And so, when they complain about where their paintings will be placed, when, without saying as much, they imply favourites and favouritism and look longingly at the space in the gallery reserved for Sam’s painting, it is all part of this moment.
And it is, she has long concluded, one that will never come again: this convergence of people, place and time. A small city, shut off from the world, bickering and squabbling, both petty and grand, but bursting with its moment. They are a small miracle, this assembly of artists to which this room is testament, something that comes along once only, but they are too busy squabbling over whose paintings should go where to realise just what they’ve done.
And when she thinks of many of them, she gives them a name that has an irresistible aptness. She can’t help it. Like Dada or Fauve, it seems only right to her that they have a name. Even if nobody else knows it. Or ever hears it. And the one that comes to her, over and over again, is one of those funny names: Angry Penguins. The name of the magazine that printed the poems that launched the man who never was and created the ‘affair’. An odd name. A goobledygook one. But she likes it. Angry Penguin. Angry Penguins. Bright young things in dinner suits. Children, really. Gifted children, but children. Playing happily one moment, tantrums the next and at one another’s throats. Fins, like arms, flapping frantically. Yes, it fits, she muses, a Mona Lisa smile at the corners of her lips. Something irresistible to it. But as much as the thought appeals to her and irresistible as it may be, she keeps the playful thought to herself. Christenings have their time and place, and this is not it. Time will, in fact, eventually give them this very name, and a mystic smile will once again come to Tess’s lips when it does. But for the moment, they have no name; they are just this miraculous assembly that will not come again.
And this is also why she does not want things to change, even though she knows they will and they must. She would be happy for the moment to never end. Would have been happy, yes, for the war to have gone on, for the walls that the war built around the city to stay up, and for everything to go on, if not forever, then, at least, for a little longer. For there will come a time, she knows, when they have all scattered, when they have all gone their separate ways into the great world, that elsewhere for which they all yearn, when she will want it all back again. But that will soon be impossible. And she, more than any of them, knows full well that this is not just an exhibition but a farewell to a small miracle. And so even as she brings it all together, this farewell, there is excitement and sadness, just as there is at the end of an affair. And, of course, an affair has ended. For an affair, like a small miracle, can only exist for so long.
It is while she is contemplating all of this that she looks about and sees the figure of Sam standing in the doorway of the gallery, a cigarette in his mouth, blue smoke rising to the ceiling, like the matinee actor she sometimes thinks of him as (and she is also aware that part of the resentment directed towards Sam by the others comes from this — that it is the matinee idol looks, not talent, that brings him favoured spaces in galleries). The promised painting is resting against him — shiny, sparkling even, as if the paint is still wet, which it quite possibly is. Then, his one affectation, he impatiently blows smoke into the air in the manner of the European intellectual and steps forward.
Simultaneously the two other painters turn to stare, curiosity and resentment in their eyes, at this figure of whom grand things are spoken and for whom a prominent place has been reserved on the wall. And, as much as they know that the exhibition would not be the same without him, the collective sentiment, like an invisible shrug of the shoulders, is ‘It’s not that good’. And Tess reads this in their eyes as she approaches Sam, accepting it, knowing that it is all part of this moment.
He looks, she notes, like someone whose time has come. Like the famous look just before they become famous. As though their lives have been leading to this point, and the next step will be no surprise to him, as it will be no surprise to anybody else. Certainly not to those, like Tess herself, who have said all along that he will do great things. And it was, she confesses, an adventure to be his eyes and ears for a short time. It was part of their affair, but not as much as Sam may now imagine (fed by the small-town rumours telling him that she is going around saying all of this, that she was his eyes and ears, that he was an untutored talent until she tutored him, a rough diamond she polished just as her Swiss finishing school had polished her). And this is why she wanted Sam to herself today. To say this. To set things right. To say that she fell in love, and that it was as simple and vast as that. So that he won’t go away thinking the wrong things of her and that she has been talking behind his back. For if he goes away remembering her like that, he may always remember her like that. Which would not only be sad but wrong. But it will have to wait. Even though he’s just there, standing in the doorway, on the threshold of great things. But not for long. Soon all that will be left will be the doorways they once stood in, and the memory of them standing there.
So instead of saying the words she wants to say, she says words that anybody could say, nods in greeting, noting that there is distance in his manner, not regret, when he nods back. You were never my eyes, his manner says. My eyes are mine, always were. Here, this is what they see. I don’t need anybody. At least, this is the way she reads it. A painting was promised, a painting has been delivered. This is, his manner says, a transaction. Nothing more. What was, was. And the future, to which I will soon go without you, is just outside that door. But their talk doesn’t say any of this. It is detached, even light. In fact, for some time she simply stands and stares at the painting, noting that her first impressions were right, that the paint has not yet dried and that the brush has only just left the board. It sparkles. It is an event. But, so as not to show any favouritism (for the other three have gathered round), she is reserved in her comments.
‘Good. Now everybody’s here. We can get on with things. Shall we?’
Nothing about the painting itself. And her brief comments he takes as resentment, not reserve, resentment that her eyes were not consulted and that the painting, quite possibly, is a lesser painting because of that. Inwardly, however, she sees immediately that the painting is worthy of the place reserved for it. And the other two painters, on closer inspection, nod in approval. They are, she recognises, like the whole assembly, a mixed lot. The painter beside her calls himself a Marxist and wears a suit (even when he paints, a smock over it), a painter and a party member, no decadent bohemianism for him. The other has a goatee, a glint in his eyes like Toulouse-Lautrec, goes his own way, always has, and won’t be told what to do or say by anybody or anything. And, she knows full well from years of working with him, has (like so many of the others) the capacity to ‘turn’. Without warning. Like so many unexploded bombs, just waiting to go off.
Together, they all carry the painting across the floor and lean it against the wall where it will hang when there is time to hang it. And it is then, as they stand back observing the work, that the door of the gallery opens and a stranger enters.
They stare. As well as carrying a Gladstone bag, he carries an air of unease, uncertainty, of never having been in such a place before, which, in the minds of the others, immediately raises the question of why he is there. He has, they all conclude without as much saying, the look of ‘the people’ about him. And, as much as they might paint ‘the people’, they are ill at ease with them. Don’t even like them much, and are quite sure that, in turn, ‘the people’ don’t like these arty types too much either. And so there is a feeling among Sam and his kind that there is an ‘us’ and a ‘them’. And that it is one of ‘them’ who has just entered the gallery.
It is then that Tess steps forward. It is her gallery, after all. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m looking for somebody called Sam.’
There is no threat in the stranger’s voice and Sam turns from his painting and looks at him, noting as he does that although he is one of ‘them’, there is a certain tribal resemblance. A familiarity that Sam detects immediately, which is why he felt no threat in his voice or manner. In fact, although they don’t know it, Vic and Sam were born in the same year, a month apart, and grew up in the same suburb. It is, in this way, a small city. But it is not just the familiarity, for this stranger gives no hint of hostility or dismissiveness like most people in this city do upon discovering that you’re a painter, looking you up and down as if they are dealing with a petty criminal or a spiv on the street selling dodgy goods at high prices.
‘I’m Sam.’
Vic, awkwardly, produces the card Sam left with Katherine that afternoon and explains that he is there on Miss Carroll’s behalf, that she is his aunt, and that she has asked him to come. He is vaguely apologetic, but not too much. There is a silence and Vic continues, explaining that his aunt has considered Sam’s offer, and, after thinking things over, has changed her mind. That she will sit. For … and here Vic is distinctly awkward (as much to let them know that it’s not his idea as anything else), for a fee. But it is at this point that the small group parts and Vic sees, directly in front of him, the unmistakable figure of Aunt Katherine, striding across the sodden ground of her block of land towards him. And clearly in no mood to be disturbed. And, with this, Vic allows himself a trace of a smile, concluding that this young painter will have realised what he was up against from the moment he met Aunt Katherine, but also conceding that he has caught Katherine, and all her ways, in one go. But as soon as he has formed this thought, he suddenly remembers that he has seen this image before and remembers that it is the newspaper photograph. That this painter has copied it, and not copied it. That it is the same as the photograph but different. And, in the same instant, he comes to the conclusion that he prefers the painting. He also realises that his visit is a waste of time. The painting is done.
Sam smiles, a smile that says it’s too late for all that, and adds in an accent not unlike Vic’s that nobody has any money for fees. That he’s come to the wrong place. But Vic is distracted. He has taken his eyes off the painting of Aunt Katherine and is now looking about at the strange images all around him: back lanes, pick-ups, GIs, marines, Diggers, uniforms and more uniforms, lipstick smiles, trams like roller-coasters about to leave the rails, children in grimy streets, mothers stooped over coppers, brawlers in alleys, grins halfway to becoming sneers, jokes halfway to becoming jests, a hand waving in greeting not far from being a fist. And, immediately, he knows it all, the place, the people and the sad and violent years they have all just lived through. He knows it all, and yet doesn’t. It is the same place but not the same place. For he feels as if he is standing in the middle of a freak-show. And, what’s more, as though the likes of Vic and Paddy Ryan and all the others who gather at the public bar of The Railway and have no idea of the Concept of Too Much could easily be freaks in this show. And he’s not sure if he likes that.
Tess and the others follow his eyes as he glances from wall to wall, trying to gauge what he is thinking, for he is not what they have come to expect in the gallery. He is, yes, one of the people. And although they (including the man in the suit who calls himself a Marxist and paints scenes of everyday working-class struggle) rub shoulders with the people, it is more than likely as subjects, not as viewers in the gallery, for the subjects rarely come to galleries. Along with Sam, George, whose work brings him into contact with all sorts, feels a sense of familiarity with the stranger. May even sense a story. If it wasn’t for the note in his pocket that was passed on to him just a little while ago, a brief one, from the editor of the newspaper, telling him to be in his office at one-thirty the next day. There is, for George, something ominous about the note. It has that look. Short, no nonsense. A sort of summons, really. And it is this, more than the stranger, that is preoccupying him.
Vic looks back at the group, some of those who have created this freak-show, he assumes, and nods. ‘I guessed there’d be no money. Who’s got money?’
‘Money? What’s that?’ the man with the goatee grins, but like the paintings around the hall, it is one of those grins that comes with the hint of a sneer and shows every sign of turning nasty in an instant.
‘What do you do?’ Sam asks, curious, because as well as possessing a tribal resemblance, the stranger also possesses something of what he can only call the unconventional, someone not born for either factory or office.
‘I drive engines. I’m an engine driver.’
And Sam nods, for it is almost rhythmic in its delivery, a touch of poetry in the way he says it, the statement of a free spirit. And a proud one. And as Vic speaks, as Sam informs him that his father was a tram driver, as they all ease into conversation, Vic begins to realise that there is something familiar in the nature of this company. For soon they stop talking to him and are asking this Sam, who has caught Aunt Katherine in one go, what paint he used. What brushes. What preparation. And soon they are all lost in talk of paint, canvas, board, brushes and oil. And more that Vic doesn’t take in because he is asking himself why this is all so familiar. Why he feels as though he’s heard conversations such as this before. Participated, even, in such conversations. But where? And with whom? And it is as he is contemplating all of this, as he is listening to their talk about their different methods and styles, those touches of difference, their various ways that are theirs and theirs alone, or the mystery of how so-and-so gets such-and-such an effect, that he realises he could just as easily be sitting in the drivers’ shed at the railway yards, listening to drivers talking about other drivers, about their styles, about their little tricks and touches (that other drivers notice or hear about), such as the stories of Paddy Ryan, the master of the smooth ride, and the spoon in the metal tea mug beside him in the cabin, whose most minute tinkle tells Paddy that adjustments are required so that the journey returns to one of smooth progress.
It is as he is listening to these painters that he begins to understand that their talk is not so different. That they might not be so different. And it is at this moment, and probably for the first time in his life, that he begins to think about his work, about engine driving, as a sort of, well … art, in ways that are not so different from the ways these painters talk about their work. And, as mad as it first seems, the idea starts to take hold and the familiar feeling he experienced just then listening to their conversation is not such a mystery after all.
An artist without an art is no artist at all. But perhaps, just perhaps, Vic’s art has been there in front of him all the time — he just never saw it. And it is while he is dwelling on this, turning this thought over (which goes from mad to plausible to mad again, even as he thinks it over), while he is turning over this way of looking at what he does every day of his working life in a completely new light, that Tess, sensing his interest in everything around him (and, perhaps, as compensation for the lack of a fee), hands him two invitations for the opening night of the exhibition the next evening. And Vic, distracted by his own thoughts, only vaguely aware of what she is saying, reaches out and takes the invitations, barely realising what they are.
Then he is on the street, standing in front of his bicycle, which he had propped against a lamp-post only ten, fifteen minutes before. And although the bicycle is the same, and the lamp-post and the street, for that matter, the Vic who has walked out of the gallery is a different Vic from the one who walked in. Can it be that when we know something well enough, and perform it as well as we can so that it feels good and makes us feel better than we were before we were doing it, when we’re doing something as perfectly as we can, that we’re doing all we can ask of ourselves? And because of that we’re not just existing or getting by, but living. The trick being, Vic realises, standing at his bicycle and looking around the city, the trick being to find that something. And when and if you do, can it be that it changes you and that you look at things differently, the way Vic is looking at things now so that this business of going to and from work itself is changed? And was it there all the time in front of him, and did he fail to see it because it was just work, after all? Can it be, engine driving, a kind of art? Depending on how you do it and how you throw yourself into it?
As Vic cycles away from the gallery, he touches the invitations in his coat pocket, recalling the talk inside, dwelling once again on that sense of familiarity that accompanied it. And as he pedals towards the North Melbourne Loco yards, the image of Aunt Katherine returns, arm raised as he has so often seen her do, storming across the sodden ground of her block of land, a woman and her tent, caught (like that feeling of taking an engine up a hill in one mighty wallop) in one go.