Sunday morning I woke with my sheet in a bundle on the floor. I got up and turned to the page of the book where William had a session with the phrenologist to see if it matched the dream and found this:
‘The organ of amativeness lies here beneath the occipital bone, and as it is highly pronounced, indicates proficiency in the art of love.’
My failure with Nicole Parker last year and romantic drought ever since confirmed my lack of proficiency in the art of love, but Dr Eisler’s encouraging words about the possibility of love in the not-too-distant future produced a tiny bit of hope in me.
I was also burning with curiosity to discover if Bert’s ceramic head had been made by Eisler. I showered, dressed and walked out the door before Dad could stop me. Then I skated down to Bert’s house and rapped on the flyscreen door.
‘Hold your horses!’ he yelled, then had a coughing fit followed by a round of hoicking, spitting and toilet-flushing. ‘Just clearing out the lungs – or whatever’s left of ’em.’ Eventually his hunched form manifested behind the mesh. ‘If you’re collecting for crippled kiddies, you’re plum out of luck. I’m poor and crippled myself.’
‘Bert, it’s Lincoln from up the hill.’
‘Come in, Lincoln from up the hill, but mind where you tread.’ He led me down a hallway ravined by a vast assortment of treasures and junk. There was a glass cabinet filled with doll parts, a huge wooden letter B marquee light with empty sockets and a globe with America dented and burnt, as if struck by a meteorite.
Sitting on the kitchen table was a gleaming gold water-heating device replete with taps and spouts, and a teapot perched on top that could’ve been nicked from the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Beside it was a rag and a bottle of Silvo® polish.
‘What’s that?’ I said.
‘A Russian samovar. Set you back two grand.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ I said, then remembered I’d read about a samovar just yesterday.
‘Don’t expect me to fire it up. It’s teabag or nothing.’ He filled a chipped green ceramic kettle with water then plugged it in and turned it on.
‘Where did you get all your stuff?’
‘Auctions, dealers, deceased estates. Inherited some of it. Nothing off the back of a truck.’
‘The samovar?’
‘You’d have to ask Ruby. She had a yarn about every piece, and if she didn’t know where it came from she’d get creative. Loved the samovar, would never sell it. Had it heating all day in winter – made tea for the customers.’
‘Where did you meet Ruby?’
‘I was a grease monkey at the Ampol garage. Worked on Jack Monodora’s Lincoln Continental – most beautiful automobile in the entire world, it was. One day he asked me to be his personal driver and mechanic. Had nine cars to look after.’
The boiling kettle’s whistling interrupted him. Bert yanked the plug from the socket and continued the story without making a move to brew the tea.
‘Monodora ran the Continental Lounge up at the Cross. Fancy place it was, too. Nothing like the sleazy shitholes that popped up like toadstools afterwards. No strippers – none of that funny business. It was a swish supper club with a band and floorshow. Served liquor after hours – mind you, all them places did. Made a killing.’
‘Did Ruby perform there?’
‘You’re a smart one. I’m working the bar one night when the chitter-chatter dies and a vision of loveliness appears on stage. Shimmering emerald gown and long gloves, hair like Veronica Lake’s peekaboo, only red. She starts singing her first number and I swear she’s eyeballing me. Every Joe in the joint is thinking the same, but I’m the only mug daft enough to do anything about it. Can’t buy her a drink because they’re on the house for the artiste. So I pay her a compliment – tell her she’d have made Billie Holiday proud.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘She was a famous jazz singer.’ Upstairs a clock chimed the hour, then another clock and another and another, until there must’ve been at least twenty sounding simultaneously. ‘Here’s some free advice for you. Never chase someone you don’t count yourself worthy of. The jealousy will do your head in.’ He paused. ‘Now, follow me. It’s time to visit Jack Tar.’
He led me further down the hallway to a door with a gold-lettered sign above that said DINING CAR. Inside was a row of retracted green leather seats facing a puppet theatre. Suspended from wooden crosses were three marionette puppets: a sea monster, a mermaid and a buck-toothed sailor in a little moth-eaten blue suit.
‘Sit down. The show’s about to start.’
I pulled down a seat and it released a musty odour. Bert sat on the other end of the row and stared at the puppets. With nobody pulling the strings, they hung limp. But then Bert narrated the action as if he was watching a performance. ‘Jack Tar, face like a smashed crab, lured to the island by the beautiful mermaid’s song. Falls head over heels in love and marries her. And then the jealous bastard stops her singing to the other lonely sailors. Thinks they’re all pirates. Catches one stealing a glance and knocks the guy’s teeth out. He loses all his mates, turns into a monster and frightens the mermaid away forever after.’ Bert exploded with mad hoots of laughter and applause then said, ‘The ending always gets me.’
‘Nothing happened.’
‘Of course it did. A long time ago.’ He turned and fixed me with his good eye. ‘May I enquire as to the purpose of your visitation?’
‘I was wondering if I could have another look at the phrenology bust you showed me on Wednesday? I dreamt about it last night. Dr Eisler told me that amativeness means the ability to show romantic love.’
‘Eisler? Wouldn’t know him from Adam.’
‘His name was written on the chest, and I wanted to see if it matches yours.’
‘Sorry, no can do. Last night I got up and pissed a kidney stone. Hurt like the buggery. On me way back, I knocked the head off its stand. Smashed into a hundred pieces.’
‘What time was it?’
‘Who’s watching the clock when they’re pissin’ blood?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Three-fifteen.’ The same time it smashed in my dream.
Walking home, I speculated on whether Bert had actually ever seen that puppet show. Was he pulling my leg or trying to tell me something – or was he just completely mad? Maybe his mind’s eye had developed more acutely to compensate for the real one that he’d lost.
As soon as I got back to the apartment, I resumed reading My One Redeeming Affliction in search of some answers to the increasing number of questions troubling my mind.
One fine February morning, a year after her father’s wedding, Esther left the family home forever. Sitting on her suitcase at Woolloomooloo Wharf nursing a carpetbag filled with picnic supplies, she awaited her new husband’s arrival on the Phantom. The day before, William had married Esther in the Registry Office with no relatives present, her father having forbidden all family members from involvement with the couple. Arthur and Samuel had promised to watch her departure this morning through binoculars from the ridge of Fernleigh’s steeply gabled roof. As the Phantom pulled in, she turned to wave to the boys but couldn’t make them out, her vision flooded with tears as the deckhand called, ‘All aboard!’
The guilt and doubt Esther felt about leaving was mitigated by William’s long embrace, a great relief after the scarce opportunity they’d had to be alone during their secret courtship. Halfway between the heads of the harbour, a blustery nor'-easter whipped off Esther’s hat, lifting it high into the sky then dashing it directly before the threshing paddlewheel. Released from pins, her hair flicked about like a magnificent chestnut tail and whipped forward over her face. Instead of racing inside to fix it, she abandoned all hope of regaining decorum and laughed. Her decision to surrender to the natural elements by remaining outside with William was rewarded by a most wondrous spectacle – a pod of dolphins breached at the ship’s bow and escorted them all the way to Manly.
Directly opposite the narrow wooden jetty, Henry Gilbert Smith’s Pier Hotel gleamed like a white castle. The couple’s room was situated next to the central turret, commanding glorious views of the harbour in front and bushland behind. After unpacking, they strolled down the Corso to the oceanfront and claimed a rare patch of new grass beneath a baby Norfolk pine. They feasted on cold cuts, Scotch eggs and fancy buns, watching the blue Pacific deliver her evenly spaced waves to the shore. Afterwards, they climbed Constitutional Hill to the camera obscura, an octagonal tower with no windows – the only light entering through a tiny hole. With a combination of lenses and mirrors, the surrounding landscape was projected onto a round table in the centre.
How strange to stand inside a dark chamber to view a mere reflection of the world outside. And yet the remoteness somehow offered a compelling new perspective of the location. Esther wrote later that day that for years she’d been locked in her own tower, observing life remotely, and in seeking to escape her father’s restrictions she’d only subjected herself to the endless demands of Madame Zora instead. She wrote, ‘Now, to my great relief, I’ve been rescued from miserable isolation and have finally tasted what it means to be truly alive. Could it be possible that this sense of elation is the responsibility of another? I would caution myself against attributing all of my new-found happiness to William – and yet it seems so. I am through with testing the waters. Casting all vestments aside, I shall let the waves crash over me, dive deep and yield myself to the rhythm of the sea.’ Of course, she meant this in a strictly figurative sense, as public bathing was banned between six in the morning and eight at night.
On Monday, the couple headed north for Belgoolar by coach. The journey took a full day, as they stopped numerous times to swap passengers and twice to swap horses. Though the ride was hot and bumpy, the views were spectacular, with successive headlands revealing the golden crescents and turquoise waters that lay between. Whenever the road wove inland, the ocean’s crash and settle remained in earshot. They crossed swampy mangrove flats and wooded hills, bidding farewell to their fellow travellers as they disembarked, until late in the afternoon when they sat alone with their driver.
He negotiated the final serpentine descent with consummate skill, keeping the horses well away from the road’s crumbling edge. At last reaching the final bend he cried, ‘Here’s your bonny wee castle!’ Perched on a grassy knoll and surrounded by palms, the weatherboard cottage featured a balcony facing the sea. After helping William offload the luggage, the driver let the horses slake their thirst, then drove them back up the hill before it swallowed the sun.
Days of blissful indolence, bushwalking and swimming unclothed as nature intended lulled Esther into imagining residing there permanently by the sea. Free now from obligation to her family or Madame Zora, she dreamt of returning to her first love – illustrating birds and other small creatures. Belgoolar’s wildlife was magnificently diverse. Or perhaps William could open a fine-dining establishment in Manly? Heaven knew it was in dire need of one.
The weather remained fine until Friday, when the humidity rose dramatically, and late in the afternoon a storm front approached from the south-west – roiling clouds, dark and foreboding, being drawn up into the form of an enormous wave.
The couple observed the spectacle from the veranda – the lightning flashing white and purple over turbulent seas, until the clouds burst and the rain drove them indoors. Shortly after retiring for an early night, they heard a dog barking outside the cottage. Unable to remain in bed while the frightened creature was suffering beneath the storm, Esther went out and unlatched the little wooden gate at the bottom of the steps, allowing the chocolate-brown labrador up onto the veranda. William was annoyed at her indulgence, insisting that the dog would’ve found his way home soon enough if she’d ignored him. The veranda’s protection was inadequate anyway, and the dog began barking again, so Esther let him into the cottage, placing a flatiron against the front door to keep it open.
My parents had their first heated argument that night. The dog had begun scratching at the bedroom door, desperate for the reassurance of company. My father refused to allow him in. My mother surrendered to my father, but was unable to adequately muffle her ears with her pillow against the poor creature’s whimpering, which continued well into the night.
The next morning, the skies were still overcast and the atmosphere still humid. My mother’s intuition told her that I had been conceived. But the brown labrador had disappeared. Decades later, in one of her rare lapses into irrational and superstitious musing, she expressed concern that the dog’s presence that night, or her emotional response to his yelping, had somehow caused my affliction.
The return coach ride was hotter and bumpier than the trip out, and the couple were grateful to finally reach Manly and board the Phantom, as crowded as it was. Halfway across the harbour, my mother mentioned that she’d had a whimsical notion of residing somewhere far from the bustling city. My father initially dismissed the possibility, citing his need to be close to the restaurant. But further on, as the ferry passed the handsome villas on Kurrabeena Point at Mosman, he assured her that a pleasing compromise could be reached. Nine months later, I was born at Ambleside, the property closest to the water in Mosman, with the most beautiful grounds.