The Larnachs (19 page)

‘What?’

‘You and me. Just being here.’

‘We are special,’ she said. ‘Life’s special.’

After such freedom I find it more difficult to accept the façade we must maintain when there are three of us. Despite Conny and Father being legally husband and wife, more and more it seems unnatural to me, and I’m almost rigid sometimes with the effort to restrain myself in his presence. His constant assumption of superior knowledge and entitlement, his lack of sensitivity, awareness even, to those things of greatest importance to Conny, his increasing conservatism, even his appearance as an old man, though I know that’s no fault of his.

I still have love for Father, remember his generosity and affection to me over many years. I’m the favourite son who often took his part when Donny, Colleen or Alice rebelled against him. But now it’s hard to see him as anything but an obstacle to my happiness with Conny and I’m determined he won’t drag down Conny’s life with his own.

Queensland is a huge colony, unspoilt and with some areas still virtually unknown. Father and I have taken trips well out of Brisbane, but I haven’t enjoyed them as much as I surmised, and not just because Conny wasn’t with us. The heat is terrible. I thought it
might be good for the aches and pains of my old injury, but it isn’t. Even on horseback I’m uncomfortable, and think fondly of riding my own Tarquin on the tracks of the Otago peninsula in the bracing air, or trotting the buggy into Dunedin.

Last month all three of us went to Caboolture by train to see the sugar cane and cotton on the flats. Father talked with people there on behalf of Wellington business friends, but wasn’t impressed by what he was told. We had planned to stay the night, but the heat was unpleasant, even though it’s not the hottest time of the year, so we returned on the same day, with Conny fretful and bored as night fell. The distances are immense: God knows what lies in the great heart of Australia.

I think often of the time Conny and I had in the bungalow. I did some longish walks along the ridges and Conny came with me on a shorter one along the creek. The bush was quite open, the bird noise so much louder and more discordant than at home. Each place has its own chorus, doesn’t it? The soft call of doves and harsher derision of crows are Brambletye so clearly for me, and at The Camp the swishing flight of heavy wood pigeons, and the clear, pure notes of tuis and bellbirds. The garish colours of the birds and sunsets, and the bursts of mocking laughter from the kookaburras, are the strange fairground of it all at Kirri.

Ewert Noakes said that farther north there are sea-going crocodiles bigger than canoes, whole beaches covered with giant turtles, and lizards that run on their hind legs and attack horses. He knew a prospector who went far up the coast, close to Townsville, with a partner, and in the night a crocodile came from the river to
the tent and dragged out his friend to the water. In the darkness he could hear the croc turning over and over, and for a while the shouts of the man, but there was nothing he could do. Conny won’t go near the water after hearing the story. Camels, too, Noakes said. People use them in the desert. Surely they must have been brought here from Arab lands. I think Noakes something of a gabber, and he’s a little hairy round the fetlocks, as cousin James would say.

Father says it’s a very different country from the Victoria he knows, and he doesn’t take much to it. If it wasn’t for the heat, and Conny being all that really matters to me, I’d spend more time out of Brisbane. But a few hours with Conny alone are worth more than several days’ travel in new country. At Kirri, and the times free in Brisbane, I’ve realised what it is to be completely happy, and focused on the present. Almost all my life, wherever I’ve been, some other place, time, some other company, has seemed to offer more. In the St Leonard’s dormitories, or the Top Field there, in the closed shop of Dunedin business chums, or the casual acquaintance of fellow bachelors, on the fringe of those more important people enjoying my father’s hospitality, I longed for some place and some person dear to me alone.

Conny doesn’t like to talk about our lovemaking, though she’s usually eager in her response. I think she feels the pleasure of intimacy is cheapened when expressed in words. Maybe there’s suppressed guilt as well. After we are spent, she likes to lie quietly, sometimes with her eyes closed, and when she does speak, often it’ll be of music, or something of her day, perhaps some observation of a friend.

Last night I had a dream of school — the first for some time to drag me back there. It was as much a suppressed recollection as a dream, but all too long ago to be sure now, and maybe the slight eroticism of it has been released by my time with Conny here in Queensland. Not much to it really, just Shillitoe’s mother taking him and me to the cake shop on the esplanade of St Leonard’s on Sea. Shillitoe was an unpopular junior in my house who attached himself to me in my last term, because, although equally unpopular, I was a senior. I imagine his mother thought the treat might buy whatever protection I could provide. I was aware she was a young mother, anxious for even my approval. When she leant over the table with cake her bosom pressed on my shoulder. In the dream I felt, even through her street clothes, the soft give of her flesh, and was aware of the downy hair at the nape of her neck, the fragrance she wore, and I woke aroused.

I’ve grown up with companions who think that sex is something women possess, and somehow you have to get it from them. Conny’s revealed to me the wonder of lovemaking as a mutual gift. At the best of times with Conny I feel we are in a kind of trance, our actions quite open and deliberate as in the slow movement of one of her favourite symphonies, and quite as inevitable. All else falls away.

I
am now riding the tiger. Since our return from Queensland late last year, Dougie is insistent that he will not be parted from me for any length of time. He was distraught when William and I came up to Wellington for the ’98 parliamentary sessions, and says that a way must be found for us to be together. Our time in Brisbane, so precious, may now become the reason that everything topples into chaos. I have always known that risk, but have taken it for the sake of love and fulfilment. Now I am fairly caught in the conflicting obligations to William, Dougie and myself. Dougie and William argue increasingly, and Dougie’s erratic moods before we parted must arouse suspicion. Both he and I returned from Queensland with a terrible cough, and even that was an unwelcome indication to others of our closeness, though perhaps I am overly sensitive to the situation and no one else thought anything of it.

William has asked me nothing directly, and made no open accusation to Dougie, but increasingly he criticises him before me, as if daring me to take his part. I have tried to be especially supportive of William, even dutiful, not from guilt, but because I don’t wish to bring on the heartache and scandal that separation in these circumstances entails. He has become more distant, rather than demanding, and his health problems continue. He has persistent catarrh and hacks phlegm in a most unpleasant manner. After New Year he had another long bout of influenza, and has lost weight and energy. His pride, I think, prevents him from facing the situation the three of us are in, and the fear too, of what confrontation may reveal. His formality is interrupted by outbursts of anger at trivial things.

A few days ago a bird flew into his study while he was at Parliament, and he returned to find his chair and desk soiled, and the bird in fluttering agitation. He scolded Molly until she was in tears, yet had previously insisted that the room be kept aired, and when I intervened, he said he would express himself as he saw fit within his own home. ‘She was just doing what she thought right,’ I said.

‘Don’t get me started on what a woman considers right,’ he said. ‘I might have truth to say that you’ll regret.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ I said.

‘You heard me.’ It was as if he had slapped my face, and for a moment everything was unnaturally still. The customary small noises of the household and the street must have continued, but I was unaware of them. William’s face was a confused study of
defiance and anguish, but Molly was still standing with us, and neither of us took it further. ‘It’s all right, Molly,’ he said, striving for control. ‘I’m damnably tired from the chamber. The imbecilic clamour is becoming unbearable for me,’ and he went out abruptly. Molly scurried away, embarrassed at the brief animosity between master and mistress, and I was left, sickened, in the darkening study.

On Saturday evening the Seddons and Wards came for dinner. It was the first time for weeks that William has had any inclination for company. I spent a good deal of time beforehand with Cook to ensure the right dishes, and that they were served on time. The premier takes his food seriously, and in considerable quantity. He once mentioned to me that a lukewarm dish could spoil a meal for him. Mrs Charteris lent me her Bridget, who is something of a wizard with pastry. I think he was pleased with all that was put before him: at least he said so, but William ate little and with no comment, and for once made little attempt to compete with his old friend in reminiscence or anecdote. It made me sad, although I could not show it. I have never had any intention to do him harm, only exercised the right to happiness myself. And surely William’s state of mind is not entirely on my account. His financial affairs continue precarious; his health is failing, as is his political ambition.

Richard Seddon is not completely immune to the years himself. His beard is now grey and strangely at odds with the colour of his hair. Louisa has told me privately that he has a heart condition, yet continues to work long hours. If he would agree to get rid of the incompetents among his ministers, the load would be lessened,
but he is suspicious of talent and has entrenched loyalty towards old supporters. Unlike William, however, he continues to feel much satisfaction in his life, and is undisputed as leader despite his notorious pomp and verbosity. But he can play to the ordinary people as a larger version of themselves, and they love him for it. Among them he is known as King Dick, and the papers and cartoonists make play with it.

As usual, after the meal I went to the piano and the others gathered to sing. Theresa Ward has a pleasant contralto voice, without the exaggerated vibrato that so many women singers affect. Seddon was enthusiastically loud, quite overpowering the other two men in one of his favourites, ‘Bringing in the Sheaves’. He is not especially religious, but the tune delights him. Later, when he and I talked a little apart from the rest, he asked me how William had been feeling. He and other friends were worried about him, he said. It was on the tip of my tongue to say that a knighthood would make all fair, but thankfully I did not. Seddon said William didn’t appear himself, was unusually subdued in the House and often sat quite through a full meeting of the Parliamentary Goldfields Committee, or other formal duties, without saying a word.

‘I tried to persuade him to have a full medical examination with Dr Langley in Dunedin,’ I said. ‘But you know how stubborn he can be.’

‘There’s something not right,’ said Seddon. ‘He mustn’t neglect himself. These aren’t easy times for any man of enterprise, but he has an admirable Scottish endurance. Why not ask Thomas Cahill to give him a good checking over?’

‘It’s not always a good thing to have your best friend as your doctor, and I doubt Dr Langley would see it as professional etiquette. Thomas finds William resistant in any discussion of his health.’

‘To hell with etiquette,’ he said. ‘What’s best for him is all that matters.’

William came over with a decanter. ‘We agree you need to take more care of yourself,’ I said. I was aware as the two men stood close, how much smaller William was. The discrepancy seemed greater than in the past.

‘Another jaunt to Queensland, do you think?’ he said. ‘More long nights and heat?’ Was there some special meaning intended in that, or is my anxiety now colouring everything we say? His gaze slid from mine, the droop of his moustache gave that small, characteristic puff, and with one hand he smoothed what thin hair remained on his head.

‘Politics exacts a cost from us all,’ said Seddon. ‘A day in
government
is more demanding than two on the diggings, eh?’

‘But we were young then,’ said William.

‘You, me and Julius. Who would have thought that we’d be together here so many years later, and that each of us would have done considerable things for our new country? Damn, but it’s a story, old friend.’

When William and the premier reminisce it sometimes seems that the political leadership of New Zealand was decided on the goldfields of Victoria. They are entitled to satisfaction in what talent and energy has brought them, but the element of self-congratulation becomes more obvious each time the tales are heard, and Dougie
and I know them almost as well as our own lives. Eventually Seddon began on some other mutual acquaintance who had turned up after many years looking for favours. Normally William would enter fully into such memories, and with sufficient humorous exaggeration to hold his own against his friend, but the bounce and confidence he had when I first met him have gone.

Now he is quick to take offence, impatient and dismissive of others, subject to moods of abstraction or sudden anger. At my suggestion he had asked Basil Sievwright’s daughter, Ella, to paint a portrait of him, and sent her a photograph to aid her accomplishment of it. Ella is a fine girl, if a little flighty, and with a definite talent that William Hodgkins and I have encouraged. She is studying at London’s Slade School of Art, and her father receives good reports of her there. But William was dismayed by the portrait, which arrived yesterday. He claimed it showed him an old man, said he didn’t want it hung, and was reluctant to pay for it. My defence of the painting on the basis of Ella’s skill made him cross, and despite my best efforts I could not dissuade him from expressing his disappointment in a letter to her. In his own wounded vanity he cared little for Ella’s feelings. I will, however, write to her myself, offering the excuse of his poor health and the cares of business and political life.

Thomas Hocken has decided that he will leave his great
collection
of books and papers to Dunedin. I thought William would be interested to talk about the decision, but he made a brusque reply that Thomas was no doubt wise, because families do not value what is bequeathed to them, and that he would have been better to husband his money earlier in life.

The outward semblance of our lives is often false. My near neighbour Charlotte Charteris was openly admiring and curious that the premier had dined with us, a not unusual occurrence, and the Wards too, who are considered among the best society to be had. The Honourable William Larnach CMG and his wife entertaining the highest in the land. Yet even as she and I talked of it, I felt the emptiness of the evening, the shadow play between husband and wife when real affection is absent. There had seemed a sardonic mockery in the gaslight gleam on the best silverware, the white and yellow flowers given by Annie and Mrs Dallow, the finest claret and champagne from the cellar, the jewels that we three ladies wore, campaign medals from our marriages. I had rather been with Dougie at The Camp, talking of some innocent triviality, while our eyes and hearts met with quite another message. Knowing the truth of my own situation increasingly makes me suspect sham in the carapace that others present. How urgently we work to create an appearance to impress our fellows, while suffering a desperation at the heart of things.

Yet I felt a sad envy of Joseph and Theresa — both younger than the rest of us, he handsome, dapper and charming, and she tall and beautiful. I like her, but in her presence I am aware of my own lack of height. None of that matters, of course: the real cause of my envy is the happiness of their marriage. Neither of them speaks of it, yet it is evident in their easy comradeship, their unaffected smiles and the consideration they show each other.

Towards the end of our evening William and Seddon had a disagreement over the latter’s appointment of Harold Beauchamp
to the board of the ailing Bank of New Zealand. William felt that he was being supplanted as Seddon’s adviser by Beauchamp, who is connected to the premier by marriage and is also a personal friend. William had known Harold’s father on the Ararat goldfields, thought him feckless, and considers Harold himself presumptuous. The exchange was smoothed over before Seddon left, but the hackles of both men had been raised. I think Seddon drew back a little because of his concern for William’s state of mind.

Thomas Cahill came yesterday afternoon. The wind was so strong that a gust caught the door as Molly was admitting him and it broke a wall mirror, one of the few remaining possessions of Father’s first wife, and a gift to me from Mother. ‘Ah, seven years bad luck I’m afraid, Conny,’ said Thomas, when I came through after Molly’s shriek. William was not yet back, and we talked of Alfred Hill’s violin concert and the
Sydney Bulletin
that Thomas always passes on to us. He has recently given a public talk on Irish poet Thomas Davis, and was keen for me to read him. All of this would normally have my full concentration, but most of the time now I am anxious and apprehensive.

I cannot tell if Thomas knows about Dougie and me, if William has said anything of us, but I told him I was concerned for William’s health and disposition. ‘I’ve asked him several times to come to me for examination but he keeps putting it off,’ he said.

‘Insist on it as a physician as well as friend,’ I said. ‘He’s in the dumps most of the time and I can’t seem to rouse him. Something’s amiss. You know him best of all his friends. He needs you more than ever now — needs reassurance from both of us.’

‘Money’s the bugbear, I think. Money, money, how it holds so many in thrall. Worry if without it, worry to get it, worry about losing it,’ he said, and then more firmly, as if making the resolution an impulse, ‘I’ll talk to him this evening when he comes. I was going to urge him again anyway.’

‘He’s sick in some way, but won’t speak of it,’ I said.

‘You’re right. I’ll tackle him again. Something appears to have run down, doesn’t it? Does he sleep soundly?’

‘No. All snores and gasps that wake him up.’

‘And you too, I imagine,’ he said. ‘You need to look after yourself as well.’ I could have told him I lie awake each night longer than William.

‘I don’t know how best to help him,’ I said, aware of Thomas’s steady gaze.

‘Stand by him as you do, I’m sure. That’s best. That’s what he wants from you.’

What Thomas’s urging might draw from William, who knows. Maybe he will say things to his old friend that he cannot bring himself to say to me. Surely anything, though, is better than the sad tension that is between us. I am doing my best to support William in what ways I can. Rather than spending time in the shops, or with teacup chatter, as so many wives do, or with my music that is my real pleasure and centre, I have more regularly attended the parliamentary debates, sitting in the small gallery reserved for ministers’ wives. He likes me to be there, and it is a public affirmation that I accept my role as wife.

Unspoken between us, I think, is the knowledge that Dougie
holds the threat of public calamity. William and I want at all costs to avoid that, even if part of that cost is a sterility at the core of our marriage. Dougie wishes to defy everything and everyone else, in a gamble for our personal happiness. He doesn’t realise that love alone cannot provide all that is necessary.

When in the private gallery I spend more time reading, or with my own thoughts, than listening to the members, or talking to other wives. Most parliamentary speeches are undistinguished, and many tedious. Richard Seddon and his chief backers make the decisions in Cabinet and at private meetings well away from the floor of the House and the sessions there are often just customary exchanges, as dogs yap at each other in passing. William has never been especially noted for oratory in Parliament; he speaks seldom now. John McKenzie is rough but direct. Seddon’s speech in the House has grafted and false flourishes, but on the hustings he exhibits a plebeian forcefulness and element of theatre. Timaru’s William Hall-Jones, minister of justice and public works, is one I pay attention to, and not merely because he supports women’s rights. Such an excellent, concise speaker, and he avoids the personal attacks so often indulged in by others. Seddon considers him the best administrator in the present Cabinet. Alfred says he would have made an excellent judge had he entered the legal profession.