The Infinite Air (7 page)

THERE WAS A DAY WHEN THE SEA WAS AS BLUE
as gentians and warm as a tub of bath water, the sky bleached with spare white light. The sand was toast beneath their feet. They photographed each other, taking it in turns so that everyone got in one of the pictures, the girls and the man posing in crocodile formation on rocks in a bay where they had anchored. The girls’ bathing suits showed their long golden legs and bare backs. In one photograph, Jean sat at the front, hands on her hips as if preparing to dance, the other girls behind her, the two brothers, her father and uncle, at the back. Something was happening behind her, she wasn’t sure what it was, but the air was charged, as if the other girls were aware of something she was not. When the picture was taken, she turned to see her father with his hands still resting on the hips of a girl. He saw that she saw and didn’t move. The girl looked back at her, a smile hovering in the corner of her mouth. Everyone but the girl and her father stood and ran down the beach. Fred lifted his face towards the sun, arching his chest muscles, his penis tilting languidly in his bathing trunks. The girl got up and followed the others. All of this happened in the space of seconds, yet when her friend walked away Jean found herself staring at her father as if she had seen him for the first time. She thought,
he knows this girl better than the rest. It made her shiver in the heat.

An image rose in front of her, seemingly from nowhere, but it was perfectly clear. The family was at the bath house in Rotorua. It was a Sunday night, and the children had gone on ahead to change. She must have forgotten something, a towel perhaps. Or it could have been that her parents had stayed a long time in the tub and she was looking for them. When she returned, her mother had released her breasts from her costume. They floated like two milky cradles in the water, their nipples upturned and rosy. Fred was behind her, his knees gripping her hips, hands caressing her. Then they had seen her. Fred had sworn and the two of them, in some guilty way, had jumped from the water, her mother covering herself as she did so.

As the launch sped over the water on the return journey from the bay, a turbulence of waves rocked the boat from side to side, the girls shouting with laughter, the men more subdued now, looking their age again.

The next time a boating trip was proposed, Jean turned it down.

Fred shrugged, letting his disappointment show. After a while, she thought she must have imagined what she had seen. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Too many scripture lessons. Too many things not understood, half-remembered. Too much already that she would like to forget if she could.

By then it was too late to change her mind. Fred didn’t offer to take the girls sailing again.

CHAPTER 7

THE BEWILDERING CLOUD OF DARKNESS REAPPEARED.
As before, it was like fog, something she couldn’t brush away. She was aware of a spreading silence within herself. At night she wrote lists in a notebook of her defects. She was too fat, her breasts were too large, even though they were barely evident, her hair she described as messy and had it cut short. When Fred next saw her he was aghast, as if she had had an amputation. This disapproval gave her an odd sense of pleasure.

None of it mattered, she said, when the subject of the new school year arose, because she had decided to leave.

‘Did your mother put you up to this?’ Fred asked.

This was more or less what Nellie had asked in reverse order. Had Fred put her up to it? Had he said that he didn’t have enough money to keep her at school, and if so why hadn’t he talked to her about it?

But Jean said, to both of them, no, it wasn’t any of those things, and she didn’t know exactly why. If they would just leave her alone she would get a job as a secretary. Fred asked her then, would she like to go back and stay with Belle.

‘That’s what you’d like, wouldn’t you?’ Jean snapped. ‘Get rid of me, just like the boys.’

‘Don’t tempt me,’ Fred said. ‘After the money I’ve spent.’

‘You know,’ Jean said, ‘you and my mother, that’s all you can think of, isn’t it. You’re as bad as each other.’

‘Have it your way,’ he said, wearying of her. ‘Get a job. Find out what it’s like to earn money.’

There was something appealing about the idea of going back
to Belle, of simply fading into the backwater of Birkdale, of being soothed and fed and reassured. But it occurred to her that now that she was, as she styled herself, an adult old enough to leave school, she might not get away with this. Besides, she sensed in her mother some vulnerability that hadn’t existed before. Her mother’s visits to the races had become more furtive. Perhaps Nellie’s luck had run out. Jean often wondered where John was, if he might ever come home. Her mother said he was learning to be an actor, so she supposed he must be following in her footsteps, but she wished he would
consult
her about this, because there was much that she could tell him about the profession.

Harold had already returned to New Zealand with an Australian wife, a woman called Alma. With the help of Fred’s war pension, they had bought a piece of land up north near some caves. The question of Harold seemed to be settled.

Nellie and Jean moved again, the beginning of a succession of boarding houses, each one a little shabbier than its predecessor. As they moved, the number of their possessions grew steadily smaller, making it easier to up sticks and leave. The tall vases, the rugs and the pictures Jean dimly remembered had been sold long before. The chairs and tables that had once furnished the family homes had gone to Fred’s flat. Nellie did carry clean sets of bed linen in her suitcase, and her own egg-beater, but little more, except for a hat-box. They must keep up appearances, she told Jean. No matter where we live, we must dress as if success is just around the corner. Jean lay in the cramped bedrooms they now inhabited, overcome with the desire to sleep, as in the bad time when she was younger. The triumphs of school days seemed far away. Nellie wanted her to see a doctor but she said that she didn’t need one and would Nellie please
please
please leave her alone. Nellie didn’t, of course. At nights, when she came home from the theatre exhausted, she sat by Jean’s bed, while her daughter pretended to be asleep because, having dozed all day, she couldn’t rest at night.

IN THE SPRING OF 1926, THE DANCER
Anna Pavlova came to town with her company. Nellie queued for five hours in order to buy tickets in the gods at His Majesty’s Theatre for sixpence apiece. Together they watched Pavlova dance her famous Dying Swan role. For an evening it seemed to Jean that it was possible to suspend belief, to enter another world. The words
gossamer
and
fragile as a butterfly
would shimmer through the newspaper reviews.

‘Did you see?’ Jean said, turning to her mother. ‘She
flew
.’ The crowd was stamping and roaring, flowers raining on the stage, a wild dark stain of red roses spreading across the boards. Pavlova came back time and again to take curtain calls. She picked up handfuls of petals and threw them back into the crowd. We love you, the audience shouted. And then they simply chanted, ‘Pavlova, Pavlova, Pav-
lo-va
’; the longing for the magic to stay almost unbearable.

‘You could do that,’ Nellie said, as they pushed their way through the crowded streets, back to their lodgings. ‘Your teacher used to say you were a wonderful dancer.’

‘Oh, Mother,’ Jean said, tired, and suddenly cross. ‘Of course I couldn’t.’

‘Pavlova wasn’t perfect when she began dancing. It took her a long time to find her feet, in a manner of speaking. I’m not going to let it rest there. You enjoyed yourself tonight. I saw that.’

One day soon afterwards, when Nellie left to do what she termed some business, Jean got up and walked to the wharves at the end of Queen Street. She looked at the sea, wondering if it would be such a bad thing after all just to keep walking over the edge of the wharf and let the water wash over her. She thought then that this was some form of madness, that it was not the first time it had happened, and that she must save herself. She shook herself, as if to rid herself of the unnameable dread that had filled every waking moment for months.

As she retraced her steps to the boarding house, Jean looked for signs in the windows, advertising for staff. She came to what she was looking for, a notice for a lady secretary to a gentleman accountant, thirty shillings a week, must have shorthand and typing skills and be well spoken. Nellie was still out when Jean got back to their room. She washed her face and changed her clothes, before setting off to apply for the job. On meeting her, the gentleman accountant threw up his hands and said that he had given up hope of finding the right cultivated sort of young woman. A portly man, he had sleek grey jowls and pale plump fingers. He was eating gingernuts that crunched as he chewed and fell in crumbs on his waistcoat. Her lovely diction was admirable, he declared, waving her in the direction of the plate of biscuits, and the job was hers to start the very next Monday if she wished. He would be happy to give her a week’s pay in advance. After some hesitation, Jean said that that wouldn’t be necessary. She would, she said, like to talk it over with her mother first. All the same, she felt light-headed with relief. The problem seemed solved, like a skein of wool that she had suddenly untangled. It was possible to save herself.

But, as it turned out, Nellie had a new plan. At the Majestic, some nights earlier, she had met a woman who would be the perfect dance teacher for Jean. Her troupe had provided a Russian dance as an opening to the new Rudolph Valentino movie.

Valeska’s interpretation had been dramatic, quite passionate in fact, and Nellie knew she would liven things up for Jean. ‘Darling, you need livening up,’ she interrupted, when Jean began to tell her about the job. ‘I’ve been to see her. Now tomorrow, you’ll go and meet her. I couldn’t face her at the theatre if you didn’t go, not now.’

Valeska, a fair, solid woman, past her own dancing best, wore a fitting dress with black lace sleeves. ‘I danced with Diaghilev’s company in Europe, you know, as of course did Pavlova,’ she said when she and Jean met. ‘Now Pavlova is supreme, there is nobody in the world who can surpass or even touch Pavlova, but you will learn from me to dance as nearly as possible like her. At the same time, you will learn, too, a variety of styles. Fancy dancing of every kind, jazz,
tap and circus dancing, too. You never know what sort of a show you might be called on to perform. Ballroom, too, of course. Young ladies and gentlemen are expected to waltz these days. You will know, of course, a young lady like yourself, how to waltz and foxtrot?’

‘I do know how to waltz, although I’ve never danced with a man,’ Jean said.

‘Ah well, it’s time you did. You can show the young chaps how to lead, before they lead you. And I hear you’re talented on the piano?’

‘People have been very kind in their comments,’ Jean said. Although her words were modest, she was aware of how confident she sounded.

‘A concert pianist in the making, I hear.’

‘So they say.’

‘I see, Miss Batten. And do you say so?’

‘I can play whatever I’m called on to perform.’

‘Excellent. Then you can play as an accompanist to my classes, it’ll save you your tuition fees. You need somewhere to store your piano?’

Jean saw that it had all been arranged. Valeska had not been in business long. A spare piano would be useful and she would be useful to the teacher. Still, she felt anticipation flood through her. The office job looked less attractive than it had. Less famous. She had envied the roses pelting the stage around Pavlova.

Nellie had been busy indeed. As well as Madame Valeska, she had been to see a music teacher named Alice Law, who had also agreed to take Jean as a private pupil. Noted for her talent, she had once taught at Ladies College before studying in England. The music teacher at the college had persuaded her that Jean was a special case, that it would be a tragedy if she were lost to the world of music. The fees Nellie had negotiated were modest.

Nellie won, of course. Jean didn’t take the office job, even though thirty shillings a week might have elevated their existence. Most days, Nellie and Jean lived on milkshakes that Nellie made in the communal kitchens of the houses where they lived, a cup of milk and an egg beaten together, raw fruit that farmers were sending to town
when they had a surplus, a steak dinner twice a week at what Nellie called a ‘greasy spoon’ in Queen Street. It cost them two shillings and sixpence each. Ten shillings a week all up. Real money. The steaks were Jean’s favourite food. ‘When I get rich, I’ll eat rump steak every day,’ Jean said, which meant that Nellie somehow found the money for the treat, although some weeks it was a struggle. ‘Madame will provide you with an extra apple each day,’ Nellie said. ‘You need more fruit in your diet.’

There was no way to argue with her mother. The portly accountant was irritated when Jean turned the job down, then suddenly appeared wistful, his fingers threading and flexing, as if they itched to be otherwise occupied. Jean felt released when she left his office, relieved that her mother had devised an alternative. At least, she told herself, she had done something. It was a start.

In this way, her new life began. Alice Law was said to have once been so beautiful that girls at the college used to swoon and bring her flowers and bonbons. She did have a softly curved mouth that became expressive when she played, but otherwise she was plump with round spectacles and tight finger waves in her hair. In her private city studio, Jean was the centre of her attention, and for a time the music seemed enough. Miss Law said she had ability beyond her years, the very best, not that she wanted to give her students swollen heads, but they did have to believe in themselves.

As for the dancing classes, with Madame Valeska, Nellie said she must work hard and look out for herself: she was there only to dance. She should focus on the classical side of things and not get carried away with fancy dance, which was merely an entertainment for those with nothing better to do. On no account was she to let young men take liberties in the ballroom dancing classes. They would try, she said, it was what young men did. As it happened, they were already seeking Jean out, begging her to partner them. When she obliged, allowing their rubbery hands to clasp her around the waist, she tried to remember to hold them away when their hot breath came too close to her cheek. One kissed her ear beneath her hair, and she
thought that, after all, this was not so bad. Another copied a poem from a book:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
. She liked this even more and put the poem inside her music book.

Nellie found the folded slip of paper and took matters into her own hands. She took Jean to see
Damaged Goods,
a movie which had somehow got past the censors and was causing a scandal and letters to the newspapers. The story concerned a young couple who contracted syphilis when the husband slept with a ‘girl of the streets’ (‘They’re called prostitutes,’ Nellie hissed in Jean’s ear), a fake doctor and miserable deaths for all concerned.