The Larnachs Read online

  ‘Outwardly everything must remain just the same, Dougie,’ she said. ‘I must trust you in that. We can’t do just as we like — everything could so easily come to ruin. People will never understand how we need each other’s love and support. They’ll see only sordidness and deceit, and get enjoyment from it, because their own lives are so narrow.’

  ‘I’d like to publish an account of last night in the paper,’ I said, ‘and dine out on every man’s envy.’

  ‘Be serious.’ She reached out and gently squeezed the lobe of my ear.

  ‘I can’t. Not enough blood has returned to my head.’

  ‘Oh, stop being such a proud boy.’

  ‘And lucky — how lucky.’

  ‘If we can trust each other, then we’re both lucky.’

  Before the drive ended I did become serious, and tried to persuade her that the best thing was a clean break, for the two of us to get out of the colony and be together in a new place and life, but she was adamant. ‘You promised me,’ she said, and I had.

  Father wasn’t in a good mood. His business had gone poorly and he had a cold. His short temper made it easier for me to pretend nothing had changed. And what had changed for him? He was as ever master of The Camp, and Conny too loyal, and too aware of the consequences, to give any hint of what existed between us. So we three came back out along the road of the peninsula, just as we had so often in the past, with the glinting sea and the gulls, with the bush and few roughly cleared slopes, with the occasional dray driver or horseman raising his whip to Father. He blaring his nose into a handkerchief and complaining all the way about the recalcitrance of the Timaru harbourmaster; Conny working to cheer him by talking of the newly arrived conservatory plants sent out from Brambletye by ailing Uncle Donald and the additional furniture for the ballroom. What she and I share is something quite set apart from other people, and the ordinary round. Something few are lucky enough to experience, and none is fit to judge.

  Now that Conny and I are lovers, I have no sexual escapades elsewhere. We haven’t talked of it, but I know she expects me to be faithful, even in the strange circumstances in which we find ourselves. I manage it easily enough, for I truly love her in all respects. The most difficult thing has been to accustom Robert and Hugo to my changed ways without being able to explain myself. It’s not that I’ve ever been a determined, or successful, seducer. Since Ellen I’ve had no serious interest in any woman apart from Conny, and there will be no more nights like the one last year that followed Mark Twain’s address at the town hall.

  Robert, Ted Reid and I were part of that large and disappointed audience. The American’s humour was less in evidence than we expected, and there was too much of the ‘great moral sermon’ that he promised he would one day write. I gather he had come this far from the United States to recoup his finances after business failure at home. Robert said he did at least have a damn good moustache and head of hair. I don’t think we were the only unenthusiastic listeners. I read later that Twain was heckled in Timaru, and that in Wanganui he was accosted by a madman who claimed the author was to be assassinated. People expected an endless string of jokes, I suppose. He did meet the Hockens privately, however, and both of them were impressed. They said he wasn’t well during his tour, which surely affected his public performances.

  As we left the hall, Robert met a woman who worked in a shipping office in his building. Clara Fairburn, who was tall and thin, laughed and talked easily. Robert told me later that she was of some significance in the firm and had bookkeeping skills unusual in a woman. Her companion was better looking, with a nipped-in waist and blonde hair in a bun, but I’ve forgotten her name. Afterwards the five of us went to the Piccadilly Rooms. Everywhere I go in this town, I’m likely recognised by someone, but at the Piccadilly there’s more privacy than in most places, and more latitude too.

  We had drinks together in the Bower Room, talked of Twain and his comments about the stingy Scots. He must have someone doing a little homework about the different places on his itinerary. While Robert and Ted competed for the attentions of the fair-haired girl, Clara talked to me. She had seen Conny at meetings and at the Dunedin Orchestral Society and admired her support for women’s rights. She asked me what it was like inside The Camp, whether Conny had made many changes since becoming mistress. I had a feeling she was angling for an invitation to visit. She and her widowed mother, with whom she lived, liked to imagine the interiors of the big houses. Everything I said caused her to laugh: maybe it was a habit formed from a wish to be obliging, but I found it offputting. Had she been pretty my response may well have been different. Conny has pointed out to me how susceptible men are to appearances, and I have responded that, for women, wealth and social position in a man are almost as strong an attraction.

  Robert and Ted, still in a friendly and animated rivalry, escorted Clara’s pretty friend home. I haven’t their quick conversational flow and easy graces. I took Clara to her house in a cab drawn by a half-lame horse; that led to an exchange with the driver that I would have persisted in had I been alone. The place was close to The Exchange, easy walking distance for a man, and afterwards I did indeed walk back to the club. Clara and I stood under a small overhang at the back door of the cottage. ‘You could come in, but Mother mightn’t be in bed,’ Clara said. We stood close, in a half embrace, but hadn’t even kissed when she said, ‘You can hug me if you like.’ Even now, recalling it, I experience a little start at the unexpected directness. And I did feel her, more because the opportunity was there, than from any special attraction. She was thin, and through those thick, tight clothes there was little yielding to my touch. It was difficult to see her face, but I felt she knew her body was a disappointment — to herself, perhaps, as well as to a man — and that was an embarrassment for both of us. I thought of her mother sitting in the kitchen, or lying in a flannel nightdress in her bed, as we pushed against one another at the door.

  ‘I have to go,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe we can see each other again,’ she said. ‘It was fun, wasn’t it, at the Piccadilly.’ She had an uncertain, almost desperate, forwardness, and hadn’t laughed once since we’d reached her home. I had no intention of seeing her again: already I was regretting having come so close. How sudden the change had been from the talkative and laughing companion, to a thin, longing woman in the dark asking to be felt. It was sad somehow, strangely disturbing, and I knew I’d taken advantage of her.

  Like so much of my experience with women before Conny, it had as much discomfort and unease as it had pleasure. What a relief and satisfaction it is to be at one with Conny — in conversation, in lovemaking, in companionable silence. Explanation is rarely required. Nothing is taboo between us. She has even asked me about sexual attraction between men, wondering if it were true, and I told her frankly what I knew, including the name of a man she saw often and admired. ‘How strange and difficult to imagine,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t change the things I like about him.’ I told her that some women, too, preferred their own sex — for sex, but she didn’t believe it, and said that supposition has been made by men because women are closer and more demonstrative in their intimate friendships.

  Conny looks out for me, in a way no woman has since Mother. When we’re apart, I often think of her, imagine her in her pursuits for a morning, or an afternoon, hope that things go well and that she will have pleasure in telling me of them. I see her writing her elegant invitations to our dinner guests, deciding with Miss Falloon on the courses for such occasions, going out each morning with a gardener to decide what flowers will be cut, laying out her dresses and instructing the seamstress concerning their alteration. Above all in my mind’s eye I see her at the grand piano, and hear the music drifting, or briskly pacing, through the rooms of The Camp and escaping outside.

  I know I live in her thoughts, too, because I have constant proofs, small in themselves, but telling in accumulation. There was heavy rain on Friday, as is often the Dunedin way. Rain is money for farmers
, but unpleasant to be working in, and usually the cold comes with it. Conny must have been watching for me from one of the windows, because when I came back from the stables after midday, she was waiting with a thick half-towel and dried my hair and the back of my neck. She had told one of the girls to get me a mug of hot, sweet tea. ‘Don’t go out this afternoon,’ she said. ‘Stay inside with us, or work in the telephone office.’

  And when we’re in company she catches my eye in pleasant complicity, draws off the most persistent of buttonholing bores, enlivens the occasion with her private asides, all without people having the slightest idea that our relationship is anything other than as presented. Afterwards, alone, we revisit the most diverting impressions, as if turning the pages of a photograph album. Remember when Mrs —, and, what about the slip from Mr —, she’ll say, and bring it all to life again.

  Everything is complete between us — except that she is married to someone else.

  Seven

  The last year has not been an easy one, but Dougie’s love has been unwavering. Despite his obligations at The Camp, he came up several times to Wellington during the months William and I were there. He would have come more, regardless of the cost and wearisome travel, except for my remonstrance that it might occasion general gossip, and arouse suspicion in William. And the visits provide so little time for us to be alone. We did, on his last trip, have a wonderful meal at the Trocadero restaurant, which I consider Wellington’s best. William was to be with us, but had stomach pains, so Dougie and I went together. What talk and laughter we had, while maintaining a family appearance and showing nothing of our true feelings to the world.

  Also we went together to a chamber concert presented by Maughan Barnett, not so long ago appointed organist at St John’s. Wellington is crowded with music teachers, and the newspapers full of their solicitations and extravagant claims. Unfortunately, most are both poor practitioners and inadequate teachers, yet they gather in coteries to flatter and support each other and their students. Many are little more than housewives looking to make pin money from the ever-present demand as every socially aspiring family scrapes together the funds to ensure their daughters have the right genteel accomplishments to bring to the marriage market.

  Barnett, although he cannot be much more than thirty, is one of the few with true talents as a player, composer and teacher, and he has formed an excellent musical society here. I adore his piano playing, and if my life was more tranquil would myself seek lessons from him, for I am never satisfied with my own performances. He is originally from England, where he was briefly appointed to St Mary Magdalen at St Leonard’s on Sea. What wry delight Dougie took in that, especially as Barnett’s health collapsed while he was there: the reason he is with us now. ‘You see what sort of a place it is,’ Dougie exclaimed. ‘Only broken men escape St Leonard’s.’ The composer played some of his own pieces — ‘Serenade’, ‘Chanson Sans Paroles’, ‘Valse’ and ‘Albumblatt’. The first was especially affecting, and as we listened, Dougie and I clasped hands beneath his street coat, which lay between us.

  There are few opportunities for lovemaking in Wellington: the house is so much smaller, the servants are always about, the neighbours are close. Callers are frequent, and even when William is away little can be ventured. To have proximity without release goads Dougie into a strange tension, although he tries to restrain himself for my sake, and says just to be with me, even in company, is pleasure for him.

  At the end of the parliamentary session, Dougie also joined us for several days in Christchurch: William and I were travelling south and Dougie was up on estate business. We were the guests of William’s acquaintance, Joseph Palmer, at Woodford House. Mr Palmer was once the chief officer of the Union Bank and he and William have had many dealings over the years. William says he is a very clever man, and one who sails close to the wind. His wife, Emily, is the daughter of Sir James Fisher of South Australia. Woodford House, which has forty rooms and stands in extensive, well-kept grounds, is very much at the centre of Christchurch society, and during our five days there we enjoyed a garden party, tennis games, a musical afternoon with pipers and even a pony race in which several women, including me, took part.

  The chief subject among the women seemed to be the scandal surrounding a certain Arthur Worthington and his Temple of Truth. I gather that he was an American, a religious charlatan and multiple bigamist, who had built up a substantial following, and personal fortune, by promoting promiscuity under the guise of universal love. Emily said that last year he entered yet another illegal marriage, with a girl of fifteen, fell into debt and final disrepute, and just a few months ago fled Christchurch to Australia. The fierce interest that respectable women take in such sexual imbroglios makes me wonder if the cause is a lack of physical satisfaction in their own lives.

  I like Emily, and there was a novelty to mixing with an almost entirely fresh set of people in Christchurch, but a greater pleasure was having some time with Dougie among folk who saw nothing at all unusual in the three of us together, or Dougie and I without his father. The Palmers put a gig at our disposal and we went into the city. How regular and even Christchurch is, and what foresight the city fathers have shown in the provision of that fine Hagley Park. Donald attended Christ’s College, but Dougie and William neither know the city well nor have much affection for it. As we came back to Woodford, Dougie drove down a track behind a disused brickworks and halted the horse there. We sat close and kissed and marvelled at how much flat land stretched away before the mountains in the distance. Canterbury’s landscape is so entirely unlike that of Otago and Wellington. Dougie would have done more, but it was too dangerous, and too undignified.

  At such times I think any risk and sacrifice would be worthwhile if it enabled us to be together, but perhaps our feelings would then subside into the humdrum practice of couples accustomed to each other’s company. How much of the intensity Dougie and I experience arises from the brief focus of time we have alone?

  I was at least able to come south nearly four months ago for Dougie’s birthday on August 27th. I made no pretence to William that there was any pressing reason for a return to The Camp other than to ensure Dougie had family with him on his special day. William would have travelled himself had parliamentary duties permitted, but of the others only Gladys bothered to be present for her brother’s celebration. The weather during the steamer trip was foul, and I was quite unsteady for a day afterwards, yet all was worth it to see dear Dougie’s face when I arrived. During the long buggy ride home we seldom stopped talking and laughing, despite the cold, and any silences welled with unspoken pleasure in our being together.

  During the ride I gave Dougie his gift: oblong silver cufflinks set with bright blue stones the jeweller told me came from northern India. Dougie said they were the finest he had ever seen, that he would never wear any others, and kissed me. All was as it should be when lovers come together once again after being parted.

  He wore the cufflinks the next night at the dinner to mark his birthday, happy among his own friends such as Robert, Hugo and Ted, and some we held in common such as the Hockens and Morleys. And afterwards, instead of the men going into the library, or the billiard room, we all went to the large music room that I had ensured was warm and welcoming. Robert had prevailed on Jane to create a surprise: he called her in to tell tales of Dougie’s childhood in order to embarrass him and entertain us. Standing there in her apron, she spoke with considerable seriousness and seemed surprised by the laughter created by almost everything she said.

  When she was released, Dougie wanted me to play, and I did, all of us joining in to sing, first to wish him a happy birthday, and then on to other songs with great volume, but little melody.

  Dougie stood close to me, resting his hand on my shoulder until he caught my eye. But much later I denied him nothing when he came to me, despite the full house, quietly opening the bedroom door and slipping in beside me with a sigh of satisfaction. It was a birthday night as I knew
he wished it, and so did I. Hail rattled on the windows, the wind swirled among the jutting chimneys and around the small turret above the tower, and Dougie and I lay in each other’s arms, warm and loved. He had brought the blue ribbon that had tied his birthday present, and he looped it about my neck, saying I was the gift he valued above all. When I woke he was gone as I knew he would be, creeping back before dawn to his own room, but the silk ribbon was still around my neck, and his soft words still with me. ‘Nothing else matters, thank God,’ he whispered. ‘Nothing in the world matters except us.’

  When William first returned to Parliament, I looked forward to the sessions — my city, my friends and family around me, the political life quite familiar. The cultural life is more various, too, and visiting performers are common. At The Camp I am in the Larnach world, and have felt sometimes almost under siege by William’s daughters in the flesh, and by the shades of his former wives. Although Colleen and Alice seldom visit, they have their spies at The Camp and in town.

  Dougie has changed my feelings towards Otago. We are so happy when we are together, and Dunedin and the peninsula are the only places where it is fully natural for that to be so. Even my sister Annie’s long and special affection does not compensate for Dougie’s absence, and now I cannot share with her what has become the central part of my life. So with inner eagerness I came back with William as he prepared for the December election campaign, and we planned another Christmas and the festivities of the ’97 New Year.

  This time I spent little of the campaign on the hustings with William. His manner at the meetings has become increasingly aggressive and dismissive, and there is not the pleasure in the visits to Naseby and Lawrence that I felt over two years ago. His absences provide the opportunity for Dougie and me to share our lives: not just the matching of our bodies, but the talks and walks, the buggy rides and entertainment of friends. I know Dougie would go all out and make a break with family and society so that we could be always together, but he fails to realise the full consequence of that: the terrible blow it would be to William and my family, the smirking satisfaction of Donald and his sisters, the loss of position and resources that would undermine our love in the end, and lead to rancour and disappointment.