ERICA HAD breakfast alone, a ‘thoughtful breakfast’. Roger Antill had already gone. His breakfast things were in the sink. Off to see his girlfriend in town, was Erica’s thought, without first considering the nearby and distant tasks awaiting the grazier that allow him to get out of the house. Erica wondered how anyone could have such casual unconcern for the condition of their face. (In contrast to his orderly hair.) With a countryman, the radiations of kindliness spread-eagling from the eyes, known as ‘crow’s feet’, are more likely to come from squinting daily into the sun, wind and rain than laughing, let alone smiling all the time. And this Roger’s relaxed manner with women might have to do with not actually caring about them much. Be polite; that was about it.
Like her brother, Lindsey rose early. She could be heard moving about; yet she rarely made an appearance before seven thirty. Sophie was the late riser, a ‘night-person’ often missing breakfast altogether, just coffee.
Erica headed for the woolshed. There it stood, grey iron, shining moisture. And clean cold air smoothed her skin. She turned. Before her was the trouser-khaki dryness stained with trees, with shadows ink spilt, a general elongation, rising and falling to the horizon, where it blurred to mauve, one part lit up by sunlight. The women were in the house soft in their early morning warmth; Mr Roger Antill out and about somewhere would be back for lunch or tea. And she had all morning in the quiet shed to immerse herself in the pages of philosophy. From every direction, even from faraway Sydney, she felt a flow of anticipatory happiness, so unusual, faint yet strong, she stopped everything and opened her mouth to preserve it.
When she pushed open the door to the shed, the draught fluttered some of the pages. Erica went forward and sat at the table where Antill sat, surrounded by papers. This time she noticed more pages cascading from the horsehair sofa. She felt others underfoot and bent down and gathered them up. It was a matter of where to begin. Unless Antill’s philosophical investigations consisted of nothing but lengthy hesitations, or digressions coming to a grinding halt, or scraps, or notes. To stumble across a full-blown, assembled dissertation, complete in its sweep and conclusions, if such a thing was ever possible, would make the journey from Sydney and the time spent well worthwhile. Here it all was – in front of her. As far as Erica was concerned, there was an honourable history of uncompleted philosophical works, not to mention complete U-turns. She could not avoid thinking of her own work.
Antill’s writing was large, plain and tilted, with many additions, crossings out, circles, arrows, asterisks. Ink was added to pencil, and vice versa. It was hard to read. And while the other pages on the shelves were in rectangular piles of different heights, like an architect’s model for a dream city consisting entirely of skyscrapers, these pages half stacked and scattered on the table suggested Antill had been working on them the day he died. They were dog-eared from constant handling, with a splash on one of the pages Erica assumed was tomato sauce.
She went over to the shelves and turned over other pages to see if the writing was any better. These were in blue ink – and had just as many scratched-out lines and altered paragraphs, additions, circles, ‘a real dog’s breakfast’, Roger Antill would say. So far as she could tell the rest were also in ink.
Back in the chair, Erica glanced up at the notes Antill had written to himself and pegged on the length of string, a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir, yes, and priest of nature. Next to it was a quote she didn’t recognise, To Be There and To Wonder. Perhaps it was Antill’s own.
She spread out the pages, and settled down to read his words.
Erica saw in ‘To Be There and To Wonder’ a personal statement. It was experience turned into a proposition, certainly worth consideration, to recognise further, but not now.
She returned to the page.
‘I realised in Germany with R, or even before in my London years, when I avoided all thinking – and following the visit to Amsterdam, where I deliberately placed myself in a philosophical city, I realised after the visit of R, and the unwanted experience of tragedy, it was necessary to –’
Here Erica frowned. Where was the philosophy? Skipping ahead, all she found was the continuing story of his life – evidently Antill believed it to be more important than philosophy – unless he was following Descartes’ momentous example, snowbound in Germany. Or else the hardcore philosophy Erica had been hired to appraise was in the blue-ink pages on the horsehair sofa, the shelves, and even scattered on the floor.
Sophie came into the shed, holding a mug of coffee.
‘I need to talk to you.’
If Erica had turned she would have noticed her friend without make-up, and irregular red patches on her cheeks.
‘Look at this.’ Erica waved an arm which took in the pages on the table, and the rest fluttering on the shelves and floor. ‘It’s going to take many moons before I make the slightest headway.’
‘How long has it gone on for?’
‘What do you mean?’
Sophie put her mug on the table which allowed her to pace backwards and forwards.
‘Do you think I’m blind? Think I’m completely stupid? I saw the way you talked on the telephone. He wanted to talk to you, not me. Just tell me. I’d really like to know. Tell me.’
Erica turned.
‘Of the available men in Sydney, you have to sleep with him. He is my father, in case you’ve forgotten. How long for? Who seduced who?’
‘Since before Christmas,’ Erica murmured.
‘Thank you very much. That’s all I need.’
Sophie had her face turned from Erica, then she looked up at the ceiling.
‘I don’t know why I am talking to you. Do you have any idea what this is going to do to me?’
As Erica went to touch her arm, Sophie reared back, knocking the coffee over. In a fast wave it engulfed the handwritten pages arranged for Erica’s scrutiny.
Erica stood up. ‘Look what you’ve done!’
‘What you’ve done,’ Sophie turned away.
Erica could only stare at the spreading mess.
‘A handkerchief, or something, quick.’
There was nothing handy. Removing her blouse, Sophie threw it on the pages, already saturated pale brown.
Erica tried to soak it up and at the same time pick up sheets to save.
‘This is terrible, I don’t know what to do.’
Most of the pages were ruined.
‘Oh who cares? And anyway what has wonderful “philosophy” done for you?’
‘Sleeping with your strong, rich-with-words, always attentive father for one,’ Erica almost shouted. ‘And what has psychoanalysis, therapy and all the rest of it done for your life? Has it made you a better person?’
Erica felt she had lost control.
‘I’m going to start screaming.’
Already Sophie was asking herself whether the accident was willed. The subconscious is said to be responsible for many such interventions. Outside, in the sunlight, bare-skinned in her skirt without a blouse, like an island woman who had been forced by missionaries into wearing a brassiere, she wondered if and when – and how – she should confront her father. Who seduced who? Then why should it matter – so much? Sophie paused and thought of going back. Helping Erica clean up would too easily be seen as giving support.
A complete and utter disaster: it went directly against her principles, her beliefs.
Erica had a dogged loyalty to fellow-thinkers, whoever they were, whatever the quality.
She had her head down using her fingernails to separate the wet pages and place them on the floor to dry; and as they dried she saw the brown stain had wiped out the urgent additions in Mediterranean blue and the page numbers in ink too. The terrible incident – it was an accident! – had left her feeling wrung out. She still couldn’t believe the suddenness of it. She was going to have dreams about this. A man’s life work ruined; made a mockery of; and in one movement the very reason for her being there, in the solitude of the philosopher’s shed, ruined.
Because Erica had done nothing wrong she could not bear to face the others at lunch. To Lindsey, she would soon have to explain and apologise. As for Sophie, Erica had no idea what she would say to her now – exactly what expression should she keep on her face?
By three o’clock Erica was still in Antill’s chair, surrounded by the damage.
There was the other Antill, Roger, and she heard him come into the shed.
Without turning she said, ‘I’ve had a truly terrible morning. And it began so perfectly.’
Roger stood still surveying the mess which was a country flood in miniature.
Before he could say anything she said, ‘I am sorry. Look at it. Did Sophie tell you?’
‘I haven’t seen the others,’ he said.
‘Ruined. Unreadable. I don’t know what to say.’
‘What about all them?’ He went over to the shelves and turned a few pages. ‘It looks like philosophy to me. How about this? Life is the intruder on thought.’ Roger Antill laughed, a soft, internal, stifled laugh of appreciation. ‘That sounds like my brother. And you could say that’s what’s happened here. What was it – weak coffee?’
Still with his back to her, he flipped over some of the other pages.
‘There’s plenty for you to make an appraisal. Something out of all this could be worth printing into a book.’
‘I haven’t taken a close look over there yet.’
‘Wesley putting his thoughts on paper wrote furiously. He used to sit here with his boiled eggs.’
Roger Antill still had his stockman’s hat on; plus shirt of faded broad-check pattern, blue and black-blue, sleeves rolled up.
‘I’ve lost count of the schooners and cups of tea, vases of Lindsey’s flowers and what-not I’ve made a mess of in my time. Not long ago it was a drum of sheep dip on the front seat of the car. It went everywhere.’
Erica listened. Occasional male kindness came across as different from the kindness of women. It was a practical, offhand kindness. There was always the slightly puffy, rough-skinned slippage of her father’s hand – lasting assumptions held in the palm of a hand.
Walking amongst the drying pages he reached across the table and found one of the few readable ones,
‘Let’s see what Wesley’s got to say.’ His eyes followed a few lines, then cleared his throat.
‘“In Zoellner’s bookshop in Amsterdam, along Rosemarijnsteeg, where I had earlier lost my temper and was forced to leave, I met and became friends with Carl and George Kybybolite – the extravagant, insistent individuality of Americans and their surnames – brothers from Chicago. Their education was formal. They were big men in untidy clothes. Both had loud and confident voices. They were a double-act; each finished the other’s sentences. When they heard my reason for being in Holland, and my background of farming in Australia, it was Carl, the quicker of the two, who called me “the Cartesian bore”.’
‘That’s funny,’ Erica acknowledged. ‘That’s very funny,’ she sparked up. Though she still felt gutted.
‘Not bad,’ Roger turned the page over, ‘I’d like to read more. Wesley did take himself seriously. When he came back, and set himself up here, he had nothing but blank pages, reams of the stuff. Early on he wanted to show me what he had written. I’d take a deep breath, and say to him he had too many ideas running off in every direction, in each sentence. To show what I meant, I’d point to the sheep in the yards: they’re made to go through a narrow space, one at a time, not all at once. “Thanks for that,” my brother said. He was sitting in that same chair looking at me. “I’m going to bear that in mind.”’
Erica moved from the table.
‘What I suggest we do now,’ he almost put his hand on her hip, ‘is, I go and make you a cup of tea. Leave all this. It’s still going to be here tomorrow.’