We were members of the same extended family but we who slept at Max Fischer’s home the night after my mother’s funeral were all strangers.
I had recently, reluctantly, moved to Sandhey to live with Max Fischer, my half-brother Charles and their housekeeper Monika. Max had thought it unsuitable for me to remain in Ted’s flat, where I had been living, helping him look after my mother in her illness, even though I was a 25 year widow and Ted, a perfectly respectable solicitor and an old family friend, was in his 50s.
Charles and I had never been close, we had lived in the same house when we were very young but that was all. When he was 16 and I was 11 he and Monika, who had been our nanny, went to live with Max. I didn’t see them for years even though we lived only a couple of miles apart. Charles had always done what he wanted to do regardless of how it hurt others and, rightly or wrongly, I blamed him for so much that had gone wrong in my life.
The night before the funeral, in the dark days of January 1972, we had been unexpectedly joined by a motley collection of people who turned out to be my grandparents David and Edith McKennah, a cousin Graham Tyler and Maureen Shelton my step-mother’s sister, none of whom I had knowingly met before.
I was not looking forward to having to talk to any of them as I walked down the stairs to breakfast.
“Ah, Susannah, my dear, come and look at this most beautiful drawing.” My grandfather did not even say ‘good morning’. Wondering why he wanted to talk about art before breakfast I did as he suggested and stood next to him looking at a picture I must have passed hundreds of times over the years. The drawing was of a young man in shirtsleeves with a blue tie sitting in a chair.
“I’ve never noticed it.” I was trying to be polite but, not being really interested, I must have sounded irritable and churlish.
David was not put off by my lack of enthusiasm. “You should have done, it is a very interesting and very valuable drawing. You should look at it and appreciate its unique beauty.”
Reluctantly I did as he asked. “I like the colours.”
“What else do you notice?”
“His right hand is facing away from him, his left hand towards him?” I ventured, hoping I didn’t sound too stupid. My grandfather nodded before continuing. “That was always considered very odd. It is a portrait of an actor called Albert Kiehtreiber.”
“Who painted it?”
“A little known artist called Egon Schiele. He painted this in 1918. His wife had died of influenza and with her his unborn child. Within three days he had joined them. Very sad.”
“Ted’s father had that.” I remembered Ted admitting how he had felt cheated by the fact that his father hadn’t fallen heroically in the Great War, but had simply died of the flu that had swept Europe immediately afterwards.
“He and over 20 million people in Europe.” David seemed lost in thought for a few seconds and I realised he must have been a young adult in those years and perhaps had seen it first hand.
I brought his thoughts back to the pictures. “What was the artist’s name again?”
“Egon Schiele. He was Austrian. He lived in Vienna in the early 20th century and was …”
As was my no doubt annoying but incurable habit I interrupted him. “Like Max?”
But David was patient. “They would have been in the city at the same time but Max would, of course, have been far too young to have known him. When was Max born? 1906?”
“Probably, I don’t know.” I had never thought about Max’s age, in all the years I had known him he had seemed an old man.
“Well he would have been there but a lot younger than the artist set.”
I looked at the picture, “I like it.” and went to turn away towards breakfast but David gently caught my arm. “Stay, just look at it.” and we stood together for a minute or two in silence. I felt a bit uncomfortable and broke the silence with the first comment that came into my head. “It must have been thought very peculiar back then.”
David didn’t seem to mind my lack of artistic appreciation. “Some of his work was considered very modern indeed, in fact he was arrested and imprisoned for pornography. Some of his later works …” As he talked I realised I was concentrating on the rise and fall of his voice as much as on the words. He spoke quietly but with authority. I listened carefully to everything he said and remembered it all, not just because the subject was actually interesting but because he made it sound vital. And he made me feel important, answering my questions slowly and carefully, as if they had merit.
“Do you think Max has any more of his work?” I asked, conscious that I had lived and visited this house many times over the years and David had been here only one day.
“He has another, look over there. Very interesting…” We were just walking over to a darker corner of the hall when a loud voice interrupted us.
“Hey, I need some coffee. Where’s breakfast?”
“Good morning Graham, in the dining room I expect.” David and I had no choice but to follow my cousin and our conversation was ended. But perhaps David had realised what he had set out to achieve.
“Where’s your brother?” Graham asked me pointedly as he sat down in Max’s seat at the head of the table. “And Max isn’t here either. Bloody rude if you ask me.” There was an unpleasant leer in his voice. He had made it obvious the afternoon before that he knew of the rumours about Max’s relationship with Charles. There had always been uninformed gossips in the town implying there was something unnatural about Charles living with an older man, they assumed there must be ‘something to it’. I just thought Charles saw living with Max as a way of not having to earn his own living.
“He had to go out.” I said, giving as little of my emotions away as I could. I had heard Charles’ car drive away about an hour earlier. Despite all our history I felt I had to defend him against Graham’s insinuations, I suppose it was that I disliked the cousin I had only met two days before more than I disliked my half-brother. “He won’t be back before you’ve gone.” I tried to make my voice ooze sophisticated disdain but it didn’t work with Graham.
“Shame, I’d have enjoyed winding up the queer little toe rag.”
Before I could think of a suitable reply Maureen had joined us and slipped me a scrap of paper “Susannah, my dear. You will come to stay with me won’t you? One day you will need somewhere that is not filled with old men,” she looked at David and smiled, “and I may be useful to you. Here is my phone number. When you’re ready you will call me won’t you?”
Maureen had been the only person who had helped me through the afternoon of the funeral when Charles had disappeared leaving me to deal with the many people who had come back to Max’s house to eat his food and drink his wine and take the rare opportunity to observe our family at close hand. I slipped the paper into my pocket with little intention of taking her up on her offer.
Four months later the situation was very different.
Charles didn’t return to Sandhey that day, or the next, and a week later there was a postcard from Cornwall saying he was staying away to have a look at his life. Monika seemed hurt and Max disappointed though the formal, inflexible routines of the household were undisturbed.
Through those early months of 1972 Max never implied I should leave Sandhey and get on with my life. I spent most of my time in my room overlooking the Dee Estuary and Hilbre Islands, with the hills of Wales in the distance, reading romantic novels, meeting Max and Monika only at mealtimes. There was nothing about the books of Georgette Heyer I did not know. Dark, mysteriously rich and powerful men always fell for invariably beautiful yet unsuitable young women; they would charge about Regency England having improbable adventures before finally overcoming all misunderstandings, marrying and living happily ever after. I saw myself in every poor unfortunate, but ultimately successful, heroine and every romantic hero was Carl.
I loved Carl more than anyone and always had. We had been inseparable through our childhood but I hadn’t seen him in the nine years since the day we had been told that we were half brother and sister. All my life since then had been spent waiting for Carl to realise that that didn’t matter, that caring for each other was the most important thing, that sharing a father didn’t mean we couldn’t share our lives. But Carl wasn’t going to come to my rescue and the formality of Max’s household quickly became oppressive. At Easter, more out of curiosity than expectation, I phoned the number Maureen had given me.
“Well, my dear, I live in a small village where not much goes on, but we have a good library and I have plenty of time to spend with you.”
“I would like that.” I hadn’t thought I meant it, the words were spoken more from an ingrained politeness than real expectation.
“Just give me a day’s warning to get your room ready.”
“I’ll let you know.”
Perhaps I was being rude, ringing her and then not making a firm arrangement. Whatever the reason I rang Maureen again a week later.
“Is it still OK?”
“Of course it is dear, but only come when you’re good and ready. How are you getting on with Max and Monika? It must be very difficult.”
During our third telephone conversation in as many weeks Maureen asked me whether I had done anything about going back to university. She knew about my ignominious academic career, how I had scraped a third because of my ridiculous marriage to Joe and the birth of my four children within five years. “It will be too late if you don’t apply soon. You don’t want to lose another year do you sweetie?” I liked Maureen, she asked me about myself, never mentioning my children who I had had nothing to do with since their father’s death and my breakdown.
I admitted I had done nothing, throwing up problems. “It was so easy at school. They just presented you with all the forms. I’ve got no idea what to do now. And how am I going to pay for it? I won’t get another grant.”
“Don’t you worry about that, dear, I’m sure something will turn up.” She sounded cheerful and confident. I began to look forward to our phone calls and fell into the routine of calling her every Sunday evening.
Towards the end of May Max announced that Charles was at last coming home, he had tired of Cornwall. Monika was delighted. “Oh that is wonderful I have missed my Charles so much. When will he be home? I had worried he would miss his birthday dinner. It would have been so wrong for him not to be here, for Mister Ted not to be here for dinner for his birthday. It is an important one. Thirty years. Oh that is wonderful that he will be home.”
I sat listening to Monika’s gushing about my brother feeling the familiar jealousy and anger. Monika had always cared for Charles more than she did for me, even when we had been small children and she was supposed to be looking after both of us. The feelings of resentment welled up as they always had and I knew I could not be in the house when the prodigal son returned. “Would you mind if I wasn’t here?” I asked.
Max appeared to understand. “You seem so much better than you were but living in the same house as your brother may be one step too far. Perhaps you are ready to go back to your children?”
“I am much better Max, thank you but I can’t cope with the children.”
“You must not let them forget you. It is unnatural for a mother.” Monika’s disapproval hurt as she, more than anyone, knew the difficulties of my marriage.
“I can’t. Not until I’ve done something for myself, done what I should have done before I had them.” I ignored the look on Monika’s face and found myself repeating words that Maureen had said when she had been trying to explain my behaviour to me. “I need to get a good degree, do myself justice, and then I will be able to face the years of not being me.”
“You sound so like your mother.” Max’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle. “Alicia always said that she had never had a chance to be what she should have been.”
“Well you understand then. Three, maybe four years, that’s all I need and then I’ll get to know them and I won’t resent them, I’ll be a far better mother when they really need one. They’re too young to miss me.”
“Josie is seven now, Jack will be starting school soon. You will not be there for them? The poor children have no father and no mother. You are a very selfish young woman.” Monika’s accent was more pronounced when she was angry.
“No. I’m not ready for them.” I could be firm when I wanted “I’ve got to do this for me first.”
“You’re absolutely adamant about this Susannah?” Max had known my mother, perhaps he understood me better because of that.
“I am. Absolutely.”
“Then I will give you every help I can.”
Monika stood up and ostentatiously began to clear away the dishes, even though we had not finished, her disapproval made painfully clear.
Max kept silent until she was out of the room and what he said amazed me, reeling off instructions as if reading from a list. “You will go to Maureen, she will be a friend to you as she was to your mother. I will make sure the children are looked after. I will pay your fees and an allowance. You may take the Humber as I have no need of it. In return you will work hard at your studies and when you get your First I will hold a party for you in the garden.”
“You don’t have to do all that.”
“I know I don’t have to, but I shall.” He smiled and I could see that years before he would have been an attractive man. “I shall because of your mother. It is what she would have wanted you to do. It’s what she would have done. Do not let us down. And one more thing Susannah.”
I was surely going to agree with anything Max asked of me.
“In the time it takes you to achieve what you have to achieve you will not come back here, you will not contact us in any way until you have done what you have to do and until you are ready to meet your children and take up your responsibilities.”
That was going to be easy, it would have been exactly what I wanted anyway.
“Agreed. And thank you Max. No wonder my mother loved you.”
Monika returned with the coffee and sat frowning at the end of the table. I wondered what to say as we surely couldn’t talk about our arrangement in front of Monika.
“You know that drawing in the hall?” I ventured.
“Which one is that?” Max was relaxed in his answer “There are several.”
“The Schiele.” He seemed surprised I knew the artist’s name. I had surprised myself by remembering.
“You know Schiele’s work?”
“David was telling me about it, in January, after the funeral. How sad the artist’s life was.”
I was unprepared for the change in him.
He stood up without speaking, wiped his mouth deliberately on his napkin and, having folded and rolled it, placed it carefully in the silver ring and left the room without another word.
“What have I done? What have I said?” I asked Monika.
“You always were a thoughtless little girl.” She said in her clipped, accented voice. “Can you not see that it disturbs him. The mention of that man.”
‘No’ I thought but did not say ‘How can I know if no one ever tells me anything?’ Perhaps there was some history between Max and David that neither had acknowledged in January. I hadn’t been entirely convinced that they had never met before.
So in May 1972 I ran away to Maureen for the first time.