Silver Wattle (44 page)

Uncle Ota had told me about the new studio. Australasian Films were not intending to produce Australian films; rather they wanted to make American-style films in Australia where costs were cheaper. They had employed an American director, Norman Dawn, to head the production of
For the Term of His Natural Life
. The story was based on a classic Australian novel but the stars were American and the production sounded as if it were going to be a Hollywood extravaganza. The budget was a staggering forty thousand pounds. As for Australasian Films suddenly investing in the local industry, perhaps that had something to do with the fact that the Combine and American film interests in Australia were about to be investigated.

‘Aren’t you worried about the Royal Commission, Freddy?’ I asked. ‘They are going to call you and other American distributors to answer for your practices.’

‘Ah,’ said Freddy, ‘but I supported one of this country’s finest directors. And I helped her uncle keep local cinemas in Australian hands. I even protected him from getting blacklisted when he screened Australian films in preference to American ones.’

‘Yes, darling,’ I said, ‘but that was on the sly. That’s not what Galaxy Pictures did and certainly not what you were sent here to do. You were encouraged to shut the local industry down to leave it open to American products. Who are you going to represent when they call you before the Commission? Hollywood or Southern Pictures?’

‘I’ll decide on the day depending which way the wind is blowing,’ said Freddy, downing the last dregs of his milk and placing his glass on the table. Then, seeing the look of disdain on my face, he laughed and added, ‘If
The Emerald Valley
turns out the way I expect, I won’t be working for Galaxy Pictures. I’ll be working for you.’

The previous week, Freddy and I had seen the McDonagh Sisters’ picture
Those Who Love
. The story had been beautifully characterised, acted and plotted. Those clever Australian sisters had made the film for less than one thousand pounds and it had been sold into Britain. The budget for
The Emerald Valley
was ten thousand pounds, an amount most Australian directors could only dream of.

I kissed Freddy’s cheek. I did not have an excuse for not making the best film possible. I should be more like my husband, I thought, and not let depressing talk about the local industry get to me.

Klara and Robert returned from their honeymoon at Hepburn Springs in the middle of December. Klara was showing a bump and had put on weight around her face.

‘It was the pancakes we ate for breakfast each morning,’ she said, pushing back her cloud of dark hair and running her palms over her belly.

‘I think you’re having twins,’ said Ranjana, working with me to let out Klara’s yellow dress for her graduation performance, which was to take place at the end of the week. Klara was too pale for someone who had just returned from a spa resort. She also had a persistent cough.

‘It’s just a tickle in the back of my throat,’ she assured me.

She promised me she would see the Swan family’s physician as soon as her concert was out of the way. ‘It was Doctor Fitzgerald who confirmed my pregnancy,’ she told me. ‘He is very kind and capable.’

The week of Klara’s graduation concert, I was plagued by disturbing dreams. Emilie was in them. Sometimes she was leaning over my bed and in other dreams she was in the music room in our house in Prague. It seemed as if she wanted to say something to me, but I was afraid to hear what it was and made myself disappear from the dreams before she could speak. But then, the night before the concert, I saw a restless ocean that I knew was the sea between me and Prague. I woke with a start. Dreams of bodies of water were bad luck. They foreshadowed death.

I entered the Conservatorium’s concert hall along with the Rose and Swan families and Freddy, Hugh and Esther, and imagined how proud Mother would have been at this moment. Despite being so far from the musical culture of Europe, Klara had applied herself and was graduating from music school. It was ambitious for her and her class orchestra to have chosen Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 5 for their graduation piece. It was grand in scale and nature. But their rehearsals in the past week, despite Klara having been away, had been flawless. My only concern was how peaked Klara looked when I had helped her dress for the evening. The head of the school, Alfred Steel, put her pallor down to nerves when he saw her, but I worried that it was her pregnancy. Madame Henri, the school’s French teacher, who was sitting in the wings with the purpose of soothing flustered nerves, told Klara to lie down in the dressing room and rest before her performance.

‘You can sit here in the wings when she plays,’ she said to me.

While a quartet played Mozart’s String Quartet in G Major, I looked around at the audience and studied their faces. Everyone was enraptured. The Handel solos that followed were note perfect and so sublimely performed that my toes tingled. But all the while I clenched and unclenched my hands waiting for Klara. If she could make it through this performance, then she would be able to rest at home until the baby was born.

When Klara’s part in the program drew near, I slipped out of our row and crept to the wings as Madame Henri had suggested. Klara was there, waiting with the orchestra. I was pleased to see that the colour had returned to her face and there was no sign of her cough. I was also satisfied that my skilful draping of the fabric across her belly hid the fact that she was pregnant.

Klara had told me that any performance nerves she experienced disappeared the moment her hands touched the keyboard, so I almost jumped for joy when she played her cadenzas in the first movement vibrantly and passionately. The notes she produced on the piano sparkled with energy. The orchestra was well matched to her and the clarity of the flutes and oboes made me think of an ice palace in a wintry kingdom. I could see in my mind the light sparkling from the icicles and feel the stillness of the chilly air.

The shift to the lyrical second movement brought soothing and tender music to my ears. I peered through the curtains at Klara who always managed to astound me with her ability to contrast the dramatic and the calm. I dropped the curtain again and closed my eyes.

There was no break between the second and third movements and I almost pinched myself in anticipation of the majestic ending. Then I noticed a blurring of the notes. It was so slight that I only picked it up because I had heard Klara rehearse the piece so many times. I opened my eyes again and peered through the curtain. Klara had picked up her mistake and was playing the movement as flawlessly as before. But I was startled to see her bathed in perspiration. She had a damp patch in the small of her back and the wisps of hair about her ears were wet. Klara was one of those cool-fleshed individuals who rarely perspired, unlike me who became flushed at the drop of a hat. Was she becoming fatigued? Had she lost her nerve? Despite her dishevelled appearance, Klara completed her quiet ‘conversation’ with the timpani before the orchestra rejoined with her for the stirring conclusion.

When Klara lifted her hands from the keyboard the audience could not hold back their enthusiasm. They jumped to their feet to give her an ovation. Klara returned their adoration by standing up and performing a slight curtsey.

She turned to me and I gasped. Her face was grey. My God, I thought. She’s going to faint.

Klara staggered to the wings before she swooned. I caught her in my arms. She was much taller than me and it took all my strength not to topple over. I helped her to a chair. Madame Henri was quickly by our side. ‘I’ll get some water,’ she said.

I brushed Klara’s hair from her face. The audience was still clapping, waiting for her to reappear on stage.

‘Klara,’ I said, holding her close to me. ‘What is it?’

She turned to me and the terror I saw in her eyes chilled me.

‘Is it the baby?’ I asked, placing my hand on her stomach.

Klara shook her head. ‘I saw him. He was sitting in the audience.’

‘Who?’ I asked.

Klara’s pale lips trembled. It was a struggle for her to speak and her voice came out as a whisper. ‘Milosh.’

T
he morning after the concert, Robert, his mother and sister, Freddy and I sat in the drawing room of the Swan residence waiting for Doctor Fitzgerald to arrive to examine Klara. Uncle Ota, Ranjana, Hugh and Esther waited at Watsons Bay for the doctor’s prognosis. While Klara slept upstairs, Robert tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair and I tried to sort my thoughts. It was nearly six years since Klara and I had seen Milosh. Klara had told me it had been only her determination not to show she recognised him that kept her performing under his gaze. But had she really seen him—or had she imagined him? I had not found him in the audience when I looked around, and Klara had been under enormous strain. I remembered Philip instructing Ranjana to make Klara’s life as tranquil as possible after her time at Broughton Hall. I prayed that Klara was not suffering a relapse and that her tired mind had simply been mistaken. The other alternative—that Milosh had come all the way to Australia—was too horrifying to contemplate.

Doctor Fitzgerald arrived in the manner of a country practitioner. We heard the ‘clop’ of horse’s hooves and rushed out the front door to greet the black-clad doctor who was driving a horse and buggy.

‘Good morning,’ he said, alighting from the carriage and pulling a leather case from the seat. From the mass of silver hair that sprang from his head when he lifted his hat, I put the doctor’s age to be around sixty. But he was solidly built and his pale skin was smooth.

Doctor Fitzgerald greeted Klara with a smile when he and I entered her room but she returned his salutation coolly. I was surprised because she had spoken highly of the doctor before.

Doctor Fitzgerald waited a moment then cleared his throat. ‘You’ve not been well, Mrs Swan,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

Klara raised her eyebrows and turned to me. Her pupils were dilated and I could see the veins under her skin. She did not look like herself. I glanced to the doctor. Perhaps my worst fears were realised: the condition that had sent her to Broughton Hall had returned. Had she not once been convinced she had seen Milosh on the ship that had brought us to Sydney?

Doctor Fitzgerald checked Klara’s pulse and temperature. I sat in a chair by the window, listening to his requests for her to breathe deeply and to cough into a cloth. I tried to read between the lines to understand what he was thinking, but his manner was jolly and professional although I could see in his eyes there was something wrong.

My fears mounted when afterwards Doctor Fitzgerald requested to speak to me and Robert in the drawing room. ‘Mrs Swan’s pregnancy seems to be progressing normally but she is nervous about something,’ he said. ‘What worries me most, however, is that cough. Has she had it long?’

I told him I had only noticed Klara’s coughing fits recently.

Doctor Fitzgerald nodded. ‘A skin test may or may not be an indication,’ he said. ‘And she’s not coughing up blood—but it could be consumptive.’

It was the second shock I’d had in less than twenty-four hours. I sank into a chair. Consumption? It was the wasting disease that had killed Lottie Lyell.

I turned to Robert, who was deathly pale, then back to Doctor Fitzgerald. ‘Is my sister going to die?’ I asked.

Doctor Fitzgerald pursed his lips. ‘I believe whatever is ailing her hasn’t quite taken hold yet. It might improve with rest, fresh air and good food.’

‘But most consumptives die, don’t they?’ said Robert, clutching the back of a chair. ‘And the baby…?’

Doctor Fitzgerald shook his head. ‘Some patients have a mild case throughout their life, while a small number are cured spontaneously. I believe your wife and child are safe for now—as long as Mrs Swan experiences no upheavals or upsets.’

No upheavals or upsets? I thought.
She thinks she’s seen Milosh!

Robert’s hands trembled while he watched Doctor Fitzgerald write out a care regimen for Klara. After the doctor had left, we informed the others about the nature of Klara’s illness. Later, Freddy and I sat on the veranda watching the sky darken and threaten rain. Was Klara going to die? Was she going to lose her baby? With these questions on my mind, I could almost forget her claim to have seen Milosh.

Uncle Ota wrote to Doctor Holub asking if he knew Milosh’s whereabouts. During the anxious time while we waited for a reply, the women of Klara’s old and new families banded together to nurse her back to health. Christmas and other engagements were forgotten while Ranjana, Mrs Swan, Mary, Esther and I went about our tasks. We opened and closed windows to allow Klara the benefits of fresh air without giving her a chill; ran steam baths; supervised meals; performed body rubs; and ordered the household staff to change and boil the linen daily. Klara’s illness had one disguised blessing: it brought us together. Mrs Swan and Ranjana became close friends. I would often find them drinking tea together on the veranda and sharing stories of India. Esther and I formed a bond with Mary, who proved to be a good organiser. She wrote a schedule so that Klara always had someone with her.

It was with relief that we received Doctor Holub’s response to our enquiry:

Pan Dolezal has moved to Vienna with his wife. I employed a contact to check that he was in Austria on the date you mentioned. Indeed he was, so the person paní Swan saw could not have been her stepfather…

‘Thank God for that,’ I said, when I had finished reading the letter. Doctor Holub had confirmed what I had suspected: Klara’s ill health and nervous state had fooled her to believe she had seen Milosh.

‘At least now I can stop living in fear of Milosh hiding in every nook and cranny and devote myself to seeing Klara get better,’ I told Robert.

I went to Klara’s room to tell her the reassuring news. While I climbed the stairs I thought about how I would express it to her. I wanted to explain that her mistake could have been made by anyone who was not feeling well and to avoid any hint that her mind was unsound.