Benny got home from dinner at Odette’s house with her mind full of thoughts. She pulled her car into the bricked driveway and sat for a moment, overwhelmed. Light was spilling out the windows next door—from Cora and Fred’s house—and Benny saw their door was open. She could hear the faint sound of a television and some kitchen noises; someone was washing up. Benny felt glad they were there, Cora and Fred. Though she didn’t care much for Cora Franks, she was comforted nonetheless by her proximity.
Benny got out of the car and went inside the green cottage, switching the lamps on in the living room and the kitchen. The house was still, and she turned on the radio and changed into her bed shirt, half listening to R.E.M. Then she lay on the couch, where her quilt and pillow were from the night before, and she thought long, confused thoughts about all the things Odette had told her over dinner, and what it meant about her mother, Vivian Moon.
Her mother had lived here—in Cedar Valley.
Here in this house.
And Benny didn’t know why this was so surprising to her, but it was, it had blown her right over.
Odette had said, ‘Look, Benny, why don’t we sit down and eat, and just start from the beginning.’
So they had sat down at the table to eat, and Odette explained how she had come to be friends with Vivian Moon, and Benny listened with every inch of herself, while acting in a way she thought was very casual, trying to hide the intensity of her interest.
Odette Fisher had met Vivian Moon not in Sydney, as Benny had always assumed, but in Greece, in 1965.
Odette had a thirst for travel back then, and she had been abroad for seven months by the time she arrived in Athens. Indonesia, India, London, the major cities of Europe—Odette was enamoured with exoticism and newness. She just wanted to see everything she could see.
From Athens she took a ferry to Hydra with her boyfriend at the time, a young man who fancied himself a philosopher. They arrived at a wharf in a horseshoe bay and Odette fell in love with the houses that went up the slope of the hill. There was clear blue water in the bay and the village was home to several western artists. It was meant to be a weekend visit, but Odette stayed for two years.
‘And then, one day, there was your mother,’ she said to Benny. ‘I’d been living there maybe six months. And Vivian arrived with a man. We met them at a restaurant one night and Vivian and I got talking—I was so glad to meet another Australian. I guess we just didn’t stop talking.’
Odette looked at Benny with such composure then, like she always did, but Benny thought she could sense something like sadness underneath.
Vivian and Odette became instant friends. They would walk up the steep hill to Odette’s white house with a bag of fresh sardines. They would cook and drink and swim in the bay.
‘She was exquisite,’ said Odette. ‘Charming, smart, intense. I just loved her right away. And at that stage, I was a bit lonely, I suppose. I was very fond of the island, but I was beginning to tire of the philosopher. That’s him in the picture over there on the wall. Vivian took that picture.’
Odette pointed, and Benny looked up at the picture she had seen earlier. Young Odette and a shirtless man, leaning up against a white wall. He was a good-looking man, in a cap and wooden beads. It was only then that Benny noticed the shadow that slanted out across the bottom of the image: the shadow of the photographer, her mother.
Vivian was younger than Odette, but that never mattered. It was almost as if it were the other way around, because Odette looked up to her so, and marvelled at her intellect. Vivian would recommend books and Odette would read them. They would talk about their families, their boyfriends, their aspirations and ideas. Vivian’s boyfriend at the time was a Jewish poet who Odette found deliberately obtuse, but she liked him all the same. They would all hang around together, often, and had lively dinners that went long into the night.
Odette was so saddened when Vivian left a few months later to follow the poet back to London, but she’d said she’d stay in touch, and Odette was so pleased when she did. Her letters arrived frequently from all over Europe. And when Odette returned to Australia, and then moved to Cedar Valley, the letters continued on.
The women would enter into long discussions over several missives, often philosophical in nature, and always stimulating. Vivian Moon had such a rousing, restless nature. She loved to be perplexed. She loved to have some conundrum in need of solving.
‘What happened to the poet?’ asked Benny.
‘Vivian’s poet? Oh, who knows. I can’t even remember his name. But she never had any trouble finding men to fall in love with her …’
Perhaps it was the slight crease of surprise on Benny’s face that made Odette stop speaking then and become suddenly reticent. She rubbed at the back of her neck as if there was an ache there, and she looked across at Benny thoughtfully.
‘I don’t know, Benny. This is difficult because I don’t know how much I should tell you about her. I lay awake last night wondering which bits to leave out! You see—I’m just not sure what she would want you to know.’
Odette picked up her water glass and took a sip. They were sitting opposite each other—plates in front of them, a delicious meal—and yet Benny had hardly eaten, such was her concentration on Odette’s recollections of Vivian Moon.
‘I guess I feel torn,’ said Odette. ‘Because here you are—you’re an adult and you’re asking. Benny, I can see how much you want to know about her. And you have every right to know. But she was my dearest friend. I mean, for a long time I considered her my dearest friend. And now, I don’t know. I don’t know if “dearest” is the right word. It’s probably more accurate to say that my friendship with Vivian was the most intense friendship I’ve ever had. Although sometimes, I’m not quite sure what to think about a lot of it.’
Benny didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. She took a bite of bread and chewed slowly. ‘You don’t want to betray your friendship,’ she said finally.
‘No, I don’t,’ said Odette, leaning back in her chair. ‘But it’s more than that. It’s that, if she were alive, and you came here asking about her past … Well, I don’t think I’d tell you. I’d say it wasn’t my business to say. You know? So I lie awake and wonder: why does that change just because she’s died? I don’t know—does it change?’
Odette sighed and took a sip of her wine, and Benny said that, of course, she understood. Nothing needed to change, and Odette needn’t continue if she didn’t feel comfortable about it. And, inwardly, she felt the gorgeous flash of Vivian—just a shadow in an old photograph—and she was enveloped in her own desperation for her. For her mother. How tactile it was, the way Benny longed to be near her; just to be present while Vivian went about her daily activities. Benny would have given anything for something so simple: to have sat on a bed and watched her mother getting ready for the day.
But this rush of longing didn’t last and, in an instant, Benny felt something else sharply. Perhaps it was anger—or shame—and Benny felt it bitterly, towards herself. Her eyes went to the table then, thinking of how she was acting, so prying and undignified, rifling through boxes for any little scrap of Vivian and putting Odette in such an awkward position. Why couldn’t she erect a boundary around Vivian Moon, a stony wall, and just go on with her life?
The record had stopped and Odette rose from her chair quite abruptly, and Bessel followed her over to the record player. Soon some piano music sounded, and Odette went to a side table, took something from one of the two large drawers, and came back to the table.
‘Here,’ she said, and she handed Benny a small wad of photographs with a little nod.
Benny was not expecting that.
She took them and held them in her hand, and for a moment she couldn’t bring herself to look at them.
Benny owned several photos of Vivian, she’d had them for years, and she could look at them with a necessary kind of detachment. Photos of Vivian with Odette; an image of her at the foot of a bush trail; Vivian standing by a counter in a shop; and the one in the silver frame that Benny kept on her bedside table. But photos Benny hadn’t seen before? Well, she had no idea what Vivian would look like in them. What would she be wearing? What would be the content of her expression? How much would the pictures disturb her?
So Benny held the photographs for a few moments, and then she looked—of course she looked—and with a mix of relief and disappointment, she saw that the photo on the top of the pile was not of Vivian at all.
It was of Benny.
She flipped through the pictures. There must have been ten or fifteen of them, and they were all of Benny. Benny as a newborn. Benny sitting up, in a singlet and a nappy. And they went on from there chronologically. Benny’s kindergarten picture; one of her painting in the garden at Rozelle; Benny in a tent that Frank had put up in her bedroom; Benny in her high school uniform.
Odette was watching her from the other side of the table, her expression was something Benny had not seen before. It was distress.
‘She sent me those,’ said Odette. ‘Vivian left Cedar Valley to go back to Frank, and then she fell pregnant with you. She would send me pictures as you grew, with letters that got shorter and shorter. I’d write back, of course. Her return address was always a post office box in Sydney. I tried to arrange a visit—to see Vivian and to meet you—but, I don’t know, there was always some excuse. And eventually the letters stopped. The last one I got was eight years ago. I never quite understood it. I guess I always wondered if I’d done something to upset her, but in the end I decided that life just goes on, you know. I thought she was probably too busy being a mother.’
Benny sat, gripping the photos in her hand. They were all familiar to her. Frank Miller had taken most of them. Her grandmother, Irene, had taken a few. All of them—or copies of them—were in albums or drawers at Frank’s house in Rozelle. He had the kindergarten one in a frame in the living room.
•
Later, lying on the couch in the cottage, Benny turned the evening over in her mind, and she didn’t know what to make of any of it.
Long after dark she got up, switched off the kitchen radio, dragged the quilt and pillow back to the bedroom, and lay on what she now knew to be Vivian Moon’s old bed.
She looked over, just quickly, at Vivian—at her mother—smiling in the photo on the bedside table. Then she picked up the frame and turned it face down, and it made a sharp sound against the wood.
It took Benny a long while to fall sleep.
She stared at the ceiling, but there was no noise from the python, and so she listened to Odette’s voice in her head instead. She replayed in her mind what Odette had said to her while Benny was sitting, aghast, holding the photographs. ‘Benny, I can see how much you need to understand it all.’ Did Odette say this with pity? She had looked at Odette across the table, searching the woman’s face for any indication, but she couldn’t tell. Then she had looked down at a photo of herself as a child: such a leavable child.
Benny Miller did not want pity. She did not want to be any kind of imposition. She just wanted to recall exactly what Odette Fisher had said at the dinner table, while Benny sat straight in her chair, absorbing the words like sun into her skin.
‘I don’t blame you, Benny. If I were you, I’d be doing exactly the same thing. I’d be driving off to look for someone who knew everything I needed to know. I’d be asking every question I could think of. Don’t go thinking it’s wrong to have those feelings. It’s so natural, Benny. Do you understand? You’re so natural.’