Love's Obsession (14 page)

As the months passed, Jim's plans continued to unravel. When he first returned to Sydney in late 1947, he had moved with Eleanor and Peter into the family home on Manning Street near the university. Eleanor now accepted that their marriage was over, although it took some time before Jim was prepared to broach the subject with his father and stepmother, only doing so after he had ‘filled Hope to the haws with brandy'.
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Jim refused his father's initial advice to simply keep Eve as his mistress. One minute Jim expected he and Eve would live together openly; the next he worried about gossip. Might he lose his job? Divorce in the 1940s was uncommon, scandalous and messy. A man could sue for divorce if his wife committed adultery but until 1923 a wife could only sue on grounds of adultery if she had one additional complaint. Many people fell back on the concept of a failure to restore ‘conjugal rights'. This allowed two people who had agreed on divorce to do so in a reasonably civilised way, although any suggestion of collusion could overturn the decision. For Jim and Eleanor this would be less scandalous than adultery but would delay the divorce.

Most days Jim worked at the university. He needed a place of his own but despaired of finding suitable accommodation either for himself or his massive library. In the end, Jim's stepmother Hope proved both sensible and practical. In October 1947, Jim moved out of Manning Street and Hope helped him move his things to Elizabeth Bay Road until he found a flat. The final break with Eleanor was ‘sheer hell, for Peter Hugh reasons, but it's done and over.
'
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Finally Jim found a house in Edgecliff. A double-storey stone cottage with church windows and a stone porch, the house belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. A Virginia creeper clambered over the walls; magnolias and jacarandas provided shade. Where light filtered through the canopy, someone had planted bananas. The cliff for which the suburb was named rose sharply behind, and an ugly block of flats towered over the house. Jim's cats found hunting grounds there and the senior female cat, Scatty, raised a litter of kittens. He longed for Eve to join him soon. Jim needed her calming influence.

As the time for departure loomed, Eve grew wistful, knowing that with this decision she would lose both her independence and her beloved island. At the last minute her boat was delayed for a fortnight. Another frustration.

I feel completely numb and vacant. After the frantic rush and worry of trying to get everything finished, trying to do all you wanted, packing up till the last minute, all keyed up, and just a little sad at leaving Cyprus (which is looking so lovely now there's been some rain and the first flowers have come out—pretty little narcissus, and carpets of tiny mauve things, like Roman hyacinths), brief good-byes to my relations and then the drive to Limassol—all for nothing! Oh! Darling, don't ever again leave me behind, to suffer like this.
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And a few days later:

I think I understand myself now. For months I've concentrated entirely on trying to do what you wanted, right up to the day I went down to Limassol … I think it must be that, almost subconsciously, I realised that this was the last time I'd ever be myself, and so, although I've thought a lot about you, I've not actively done anything for you. In a few weeks now I'll join you; I'll offer myself to you, body and soul, I shall become a part of you; I myself will cease to exist. Jim, my darling, I know there's so much more I could have been doing for you, and yet I've just not attempted to do anything; can you understand what I'm trying to explain, and forgive me … I wonder, will this really be my last word from Cyprus … Darling, I just don't know what I'm thinking or feeling now—I'm all on edge—worried, excited, sad, everything messed up! I just can't attempt to sort it out, so I'll just say:—sleep peacefully, my own.
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A fortnight later they again drove south. Eve looked back only briefly. At the wharf she said her goodbyes to her father and his driver Hassan. She boarded the Egyptian-registered SS
Misr
with four hundred other passengers, mostly Cypriots migrating to Australia. Like them, she was nervous, but excited about her future and the life and country that lay ahead.

Jim was annoyed when the boat stopped at Fremantle and upset that he was unable to meet her in Melbourne.

I wonder how you like your first glimpse of Australia. Most English hate it—and us. But I want you to like it and settle down happily, for if you still want to marry me this is going to be your home. You'll find the people jarring on you a bit, but remember that everyone is very friendly. They say more or less what they think, and for that reason they are really more genuine that the English … So don't go criticising your new country just on surface details. I grouse about it a lot, or criticise, but at heart I love the place and the people.
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The following day he continued:

I suppose it is really an attack of nerves, It started off with nightmares—in one you sliced off your left fingers with a bread-knife while cutting me a slab of bread; in the other, I found myself in command of troops stationed in a railway junction; the usual thing, a wave of bombers came in low flying dead at us and started to unload … and it was quite obvious that we had had it … I'm sorry, I haven't got myself sorted out. Somehow I've got to get a grip of myself, for this sort of thing is devastating and does nobody any good. Sorry, darling, I've given you a lousy welcome to your new home. Try to forgive me, my Eve. When we separated that day in Limassol I knew that darkness lay ahead, but how bleak and how hard it would be I didn't know …
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Eve flew from Melbourne to Sydney, where Jim waited. They had been separated for nearly six months and longed for this reunion; they were still committed to each other, but fearful of the effects of their decision. Despite warnings they should not live together openly, Eve moved into the house at Edgecliff. In the evenings they sat peacefully on the cane chairs in the front garden, sipping an evening drink and looking across the scrappy lawn toward the harbour. Eve loved this garden. It was their haven.

Few friends in Cyprus knew the precise details of Eve's personal life. Judith Stylianou wrote happily, passing on her best wishes to Jim and Eleanor. Tom Dray worried. He missed his daughter and hoped Eve would tire of this new country. Her English family asked when she planned to come home. Joan du Plat Taylor knew more. Eve and Jim had visited her at Ayios Philon and she felt compromised. She wrote from Cyprus asking what the situation was, as rumours were circulating that Jim and Eleanor had separated, and no one knew for sure.
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As late as Christmas 1949, even Joan assumed that Eve's sojourn was temporary and asked when she would be coming home to Cyprus.
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Although a ‘nomad at heart
'
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she had settled down—but none of her friends thought it would be for long.

Jim thought Eve might find a position in the French Department at Sydney University but Trendall found her work as a technical assistant at the Nicholson Museum, a much needed position, given the overwhelming backlog of material to contend with. Her job was to mend and draw pots and to keep the museum open for students. Sitting at her drawing bench, she would do her work, smiling to students who entered but rarely initiating conversation. She was happy to hover in the background where she was most comfortable, amused that people scarcely noticed her. The work proved exhausting. So many objects at the museum had not been accessioned and most in the storage area needed mending. In his annual report Trendall wrote that she had ‘done excellent work in cleaning and repairing vases and other antiquities, but she has an almost overwhelming task before her, owing to the substantial arrears in this work'. There was little space for working on objects, and storage issues were critical.

Eve didn't take to Sydney, had little interest in cities or the sights and distractions they offered and her living arrangements made for an uneasy social life. After England and Cyprus, Eve may have found Sydney—especially the Sydney of the well-to-do—a parochial backwater—while no one knew how or where to fit her in. Reticent and shy, she remained self-contained and distant. With no other friends, Jim and her museum work became her life.

Sometimes she shopped for relatives and friends in Europe. She never forgot birthdays or Christmas obligations, selecting goods she knew were in short supply. Aunt Ethel was grateful for the marzipan and turkey; her father said he would share his parcel with the aunts.
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‘It was quite amazing to learn what real flour is like, it's so long ago', wrote Hans Helback from Copenhagen, who was fascinated by the way in which the slices of bacon she sent were separated by strips of cellophane.
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Kurt Bittel thanked her for coffee.
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But it was only a momentary escape from work.

In addition to his work at the Nicholson Museum, Jim's job was to lecture in the history department. Almost from the beginning, he and Dale Trendall lobbied for the establishment of a separate Department of Archaeology, finally created in 1948. Dale, as Professor, lectured in classical archaeology and Jim specialised in the Near East. Student numbers were never large. In 1949 twenty-six students studied classical archaeology and forty-two, Near Eastern. To young and eager students Jim was a gifted teacher and an exceptional lecturer. Many adored him and would remember his enthusiasm and passion for his subject decades later. Without notes he perched on a desk at the front of the room, blue eyes alight with the intricate puzzle of pottery typologies and memories of Cyprus. He chain-smoked his way through each lecture, the ground outside the window littered with a scatter of butts, each punctuating the main point in an argument.
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From the start he set impossibly high standards. Winifred Lamb warned against being too ambitious. ‘Be very careful not to confuse students by an accumulation of facts', she cautioned.
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Arne Furumark was amazed at the standards he expected and surprised that students were able to meet them; if the exams Jim had sent him were anything to go by, he was impressed.
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Never fond of armchair archaeologists, Jim insisted that students become familiar with archaeological material and demanded the university produce lantern slides, at some cost. Teaching about things without seeing them was, he thought, both impossible and futile. He insisted that students study geography. Although most would never visit the archaeological sites he mentioned, Jim expected them to understand the role of geography in the history and prehistory of the Near East.

Jim was a gentleman who inspired staff and students not just with his knowledge, but through the force of his personality. The museum was central to this teaching and Jim planned to make it world-class. Students loved the ‘informality and mess of the museum', although its Gothic windows and high ceilings, the gloom and dust, gave students exotic entry to a world utterly alien to their own.
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The students formed an archaeological society and wrote newsletters. Winifred Lamb congratulated him on their work and ambitious enthusiasm. ‘I know no counterpart', she wrote, astonished by his energy, but warned him not to overwork.
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A good lecturer allows students to grow, to develop their own interests and research paths, and up to a point the loose arrangements Jim fostered at the university encouraged this. Students overreached to please him, responding to his infectious enthusiasm. He took them to the centre of things, to a world of scholarship they could scarcely imagine. But Jim was impatient. He didn't suffer fools gladly. Rich and privileged, he could be petulant and imprudent, regularly antagonising those in authority, and stamping with relish on any toes in his way. He could be ‘tricky', took instant dislikes to people, and students and staff learned to be on guard around him.
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He treated his best students as wayward children, bullying them into following his dictates, reluctant to lose control, a puppeteer pulling the strings. Many students danced to his tune only to realise too late they had lost the freedom to move. It was only a matter of time before his approach would end in tears.

Basil Hennessy was an outstanding student. He was solidly built, with a disarming smile and a face distinguished by a liverish splash across the left eye, a birthmark that marked him and gave him the air of a pirate. Basil's father had returned from the First World War broken, gassed at Mont St Quentin. He died when Basil was only seven. At seventeen, Basil joined the navy and, as a returned serviceman, enrolled in an arts degree at Sydney University in the same year that Jim arrived. He was twenty-two to Jim's thirty-four and Jim soon replaced his father as the most important adult male in his life.
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In class Basil sat close to the front and leaned forward, drawn into Jim's stories of exotic places and memorable characters—real and imagined. With personal links to many of the great European archaeologists, Jim was at the height of his powers. Basil was hooked. Over the next ten years he allowed himself to be bullied, cajoled and chastened, goaded and petted. Basil moved in with Jim and Eve at Edgecliff and Jim and Basil became friends and drinking partners, though never on an equal footing. Jim was older, more experienced, wealthy. He dropped names, wore silk shirts with elegant cufflinks, talked of travel and war, and could have anything he wanted. Even people. He told Basil when to visit his mother and berated him when he thought his letters too ‘flowery'.

Within a few years of Jim's arrival, the Nicholson began to sponsor excavations in Cyprus, Jericho and Nimrud. Objects that would never otherwise have reached Australia arrived at the museum and excavated material had the advantage of clear provenance, not always the case with purchases. Sydney University paid £1000 for a group of ivories from Max Mallowan's excavations at Nimrud and £50 for a much less showy horde of Roman coin from Taunton, in Somerset, near where Jim and Eleanor had lived. Both acquisitions—one famous in its lifetime, the other not—are considerably more valuable today, but at the time it was difficult to justify the expense, given the small numbers of archaeology students enrolled at Sydney University. This feverish collecting added to the existing backlog of artefacts. While Jim and Dale Trendall amassed much new material for the Nicholson Museum, there were no resources for dealing with it and not until the early 1960s did anyone seriously try to make sense of it all.