The Aunt’s Story

Part one: Meroë

Chapter 1: In the mid-1930s, spinster Theodora Goodman wakes one morning to find her mother, with whom she lives, has died during the night. She summons her sister Fanny, who brings her husband Frank Parrott and their three children for the funeral and the accompanying activities. Theodora is known within her family for being unusual, eccentric, and plain if not ugly, while Fanny and her family are ambitious for the usual things in life. (The two boys enjoy touching Aunty Theo’s light moustache when she sleeps.) The adults discuss the will (there was ,apparently, little to leave), and Fanny assures Theo that it’s right for Theo to receive the bulk of the estate. In her heart, admittedly, Fanny focuses a lot on these small gains and would rather have them herself. Left alone with her niece, Lou, Theo tells her the same old story her niece always enjoys, that of Meroë, the old family estate.

Chapter 2: As a girl growing up with her parents and sister in the final days of the 19th century, Theo was very fond of their broad Australian property. Young Fanny was always focused on marriage, on beauty, on being a proper girl, while Theo was always at odds with what the family wanted. “The piano is not for Theodora”, Mother sighed, “Fanny is the musical one.” Their home help were two working class women, Gertie Stepper and Pearl Brawne, who “understood life”, it was known, even if they often seemed to talk rubbish. Father tells the children that their property name came from “a dead place, in the black country of Ethiopia”. Over the years, Father and Mother Goodman gradually sell the edges of their property, to the dismay of some of their neighbours. But Father does not have a head for business. Intermittently, a Syrian man who sells trinkets passes by. Theo senses something in him, and will sometimes walk with him to the edge of the property, to the dismay of Fanny. She likes her rifle, too, and learning from Father about the animals on the property, including a hawk. One day Pearl Brawne collapses while serving dinner. She is swiftly removed from service, and the girls are aware it is something to do with the property handyman Tom. Theo once caught Pearl and Tom half-naked together in the bush. Either way, Pearl is never spoken of by the adults again. On Theo’s 12th birthday, a large oak tree is struck by lightning and Theo – although several hundred yards away – is thrown to the ground but survives with no injuries. Later that same day, a man visits, saying he is a friend of Father’s. He is a prospector, who used to prospect with Father many years ago. Father – largely spurred on by Mother – refuses to let the man in; he’s not the type they should be associating with. But Theo convinces them to give the man dinner on the closed veranda, so he won’t have to enter the house. Theo and Fanny sit with him, and the man tells them about the old days. Theo walks with him to the edge of the property, and tells him she would go with him if she could. The man sees something in Theo, and tells her that the world will either break a person like her or she will survive in spite of it.

Chapter 3: For highschool, Theo and Fanny go to the boarding school run by the sisters, the Miss Spofforths. There are some familiar girls there, including Grace Parrott from the neighbouring Parrott family, but this school – with its focus on traditional skills such as music and sewing and French – appeals more to some than others. The headmistress, the older Miss Spofforth, is regarded as a superior, ugly, strange woman, but the other teachers are role models for the right kinds of girls. Theo eventually finds one seemingly real friend, Violet Adams, who is an aspiring poet and more self-consciously pretentious than the other girls. She doesn’t quite understand Theo, but they have a similar teenage outlook. All the same, Theo sometimes is glad to get away from her, when her poetry seems feigned and romantic rather than real. When her parents suggest inviting Violet to the property, it does not seem like the right fit. When the girls are home for holidays, young Frank Parrott takes them out for picnics. Eventually Violet leaves the school, but writes to Theo to tell her that she is continuing to read poetry and paint. Before she leaves Spofforths, Theo is called before the headmistress, the “ugly” and “Strange” one. Miss Spofforth has made her own happiness in spite of the world, and recognises that Theo is not the type who may marry or live a traditional life. She wants to tell the girl this, to advise that she will be despised by much of the world but will have the chance to carve our her own space in life. But she cannot do that, and so instead simply wishes the girl the best in the next phase of her life.

Chapter 4: Theo and Fanny return home full-time as young women now, and they’re both happy about it, Fanny because she’s now able to date and be a part of society, and Theo because she feels most “free” here. Mrs Goodman, who reportedly had a European immigrant mother and who cares about European languages and culture, tries to bring them into society in the best way possible. Frank Parrott continues to befriend the girls, but things are different now that they are young adults. Frank is kind and aware of the world, and there is clearly a connection between him and Theo. Perhaps he even could have feelings for her on some level. Theo clearly cares for him. But ultimately she cannot give the right signals, she cannot be the right kind of woman, and Fanny instead clearly portrays herself as a future wife, mother, companion. Ultimately Frank proposes to Fanny. Plans are made for an engagement. During this period, Father Goodman dies one night. Theo has a vision of Meroë crumbling, and cries.

Chapter 5: War comes to Europe. Frank and Fanny marry and settle into their life. Frank helps tie up Father’s estate, which results in the necessary sale of Meroë due to his poor handling of the accounts. Mrs Goodman and Theo have enough to live on, to move to the city and embark on their new life. Theo still writes to Violet Adams, as her only self-described friend. Mrs Goodman reads books, plays card games, and reminisces fondly about Europe. Theo takes a job serving food and drink at a canteen. The tension between the two women often plays itself out, as Mrs Goodman is reliant on her daughter but also feels the need to explain why she has a daughter who is strange, unmarried, unusual. Fanny and Frank buy a property which has a lovely new house and apparently good land (Fanny is not sure about this “because land is just land”, but Frank tells her it will be right for the type of farm work they shall do). Gradually, they have three children, two boys and a girl. Meanwhile, as modernisation comes to Sydney during the 1920s, Theo and Mrs Goodman develop their social circle. A charming solicitor, Mr Huntly Clarkson, a little older than Theo, asks her to dinner. He is a rich widower, and he finds Theo’s personality and interests intriguing, although he is not always sure why this is. He sometimes feels that he is drawn to her in spite of herself. The two gradually become friends, a relationship that develops over years in intermittent spurts. Theo and Huntly develop friendships with married couples of a similar age and appropriate social circle, but they are always outside of this and Theo clings defiantly to her “flatness”. A Greek cellist, Moräitis, is welcomed to Sydney for a week of concerts and dinner parties. One night he is seated next to Theo, where they make a connection between the often lonely and battered Greece of the 1920s and ’30s and the emptiness of Theo’s Australian past. Moräitis tells Theo that her lack of experience, of seeing things, is not necessarily a bad thing, if one knows. Theo is confronted by his ability to see into her, and resists attending his concerts or dinners. But when he puts on one final concert, Theo attends, moved by the zeal of the cellist and perhaps the carnal, passionate relationship to the music, a full-blooded human feeling she has always resisted. Theo goes to visit Fanny and Frank at their property, Audley, where she gradually becomes the Respected Aunt to her niece and nephews. By the early 1930s, life has become deeply established. Huntly finally proposes to Theo, out of love perhaps but also out of a desire to yoke their lives together, and Theo has to reject him. One day at a funfair with Huntly and the other couples, she surprises everyone by winning at a stall where one shoots at ceramic ducks. Mrs Goodman, now old, continues to be dismayed by her daughter whom she thinks has “rejected life”. Theo finds some companionship in her young niece, Lou, who is interested in her stories and has an independent mind. One night, walking home, Theo is stunned to run into her childhood housemaid, Pearl, who is working as a prostitute. Theo buys her a drink in a pub, impressed by how much Pearl has lasted and stayed relatively young. Pearl explains that she had a little boy after leaving service at the Goodmans’, but that he dies. She’s happy, though, with friends and silk gowns and drink. There is no real connection between the women, and Pearl ultimately drifts into the night. Finally, the day comes when Theo wakes to find Mrs Goodman dead in her bed. It is a normal day in Sydney, but something has come to an end.

Chapter 6: Back in the present day, Theo is sitting with Lou in the drawing room of her home, ready for the funeral of her mother. She explains to Lou that she plans to go away. The girl is excited that this will lead to many stories from Aunty Theo, but her aunt thinks otherwise: “there are the people who do not have many stories to tell”. Even with her niece, whom she loves, Theo senses the distance that separates people, and that there is no inherent link from one life to another. She prepares her mind to go away.

Part two: Jardin Exotique

Chapter 7: Theodora Goodman arrives at a hotel in Southern France, the Hotel du Midi. From the moment of arrival there is an ethereal quality to the place, an otherworldliness distinct from Theo’s own Australian past yet also oddly suited to her nature. Theo’s interest is in the “exotic garden” (jardin exotique) which the hotel boasts as part of its appeal. The staff and clientele are from a variety of nationalities, creating a sense that the hotel is a nexus point between cultures, between those who for whatever reason are not well-suited to their native environment. Among them are long-term residents such as the Russian General Sokolnikov and the American couple, the Rapallos (Madame Rapallo is a boisterous, chatty sort while her husband easily fades into the background), as well as a Greek teenager, Katina Pavlou, and her governess, Grigg, and two Jewish French sisters, Marthe and Berthe, who are proud of their social status. The staff include Monsieur Durand, the maid Henriette, and a tight young boy (le petit) who helps to serve. When Theo enters the jardin, she seems to inhabit a dreamlike landscape where she enters into the lives of those around her, traversing between regular conversations with her unfamiliar fellow guests through to conversations inhabiting only her fantasy in which she enters into the role of governess, sister, best friend, agony aunt, and so on. Here, Theo is able to find a place of purpose and a sense of comfort.

Chapter 8: As the day wanders on, Theo continues to drift between fantasy and reality, intervening in the love affairs of a young British man, Weatherby, and a waiflike young German woman, Lieselotte. The people here are all exiles from the real world, and it seems that these are not merely interchanges in her head but actual two-way delusions, in which Sokolnikov can imagine that Theo is his sister, or Mrs Rapallo can bring Theo into her world as a society lady with whom she can share stories of her fabulous daughter, Gloria, married to an Italian Prince. Evening comes in, as Theo dissolves into numerous personalities in her mind, finding places to exist, even if they all seem to end in her playing the role of something rather similar to “aunt”.

Chapter 9: Theo arrives back late to the hotel, where Mademoiselle Berthe tells her that war has broken out in Spain. Lost, Theo wanders the hotel, encountering the figures once more. She enters so fully in her Sokolnikov fantasy that she finds herself in revolution-era Russia, and is then convinced to steal a nautilus brooch from Mrs Rapallo, which Sokolnikov tells her is his. Back in the hotel, this climaxes in the breaking of the nautilus, and a seeming breaking of the aura of fantasy that has been binding the residents together.

Chapter 10: One day, the residents of the hotel head out on a picnic. Katina Pavlou is full of secret worries, and the young man Weatherby finds himself taken with her – to the despair of Lieselotte. Mrs. Rapallo has been boasting of the imminent arrival of her glamorous daughter, Gloria, but it seems that Gloria is continually detained in Rome.

Chapter 11: As time goes on, Theo spends much of her time knitting in the lounge, wondering if she should go. She has been seeking her place, and perhaps this is not the place for her dream life after all. Weatherby seeks her guidance on whether he can really love Katina, or if it is a fantasy. But fantasies are falling apart all over the place. People such as Sokolnikov must now begin to admit that the life they have presented to their fellow residents is not quite as ideal as it seems. On return from a walk with Katina, Theo visits Mrs Rapallo in her room where the American confirms that Gloria doesn’t exist; it has all been a wondrous presentation that has moved her into social circles under, perhaps, a shared illusion. Later, Theo falls asleep in her room and is awoken after dark by Lieselotte. Searching for Weatherby, Lieselotte was carrying an oil lamp. She dropped it (perhaps in a confrontation) and has set the hotel on fire. Weatherby is dead, Lieslotte says, and the hotel is being evacuated. Most people escape, but Mrs Rapallo is consumed by the flames, as is presumably Lieselotte and Weatherby. Katina Pavlou seems missing but manages to survive. The residents and onlookers stand gazing as the hotel burns down, all of them filled with horror but also excitement for the moment when the roof caves in – the best bit, they all agree.

Part three: Holstius

Chapter 12: Theodora resolves to head home, but first finds herself taking the long way. We meet her again on a bus in Middle America, surrounded by cornfields, where all the talk is that Europe is on the brink of a major war. Theo sends letters to Fanny and Frank back in Australia, who are considering ways – in a self-justifying manner – that they can fund Theo’s life when she returns to Australia without having to take her in themselves, for example putting them in a home for women where she can happily share her stories with other single middle-aged women, the loneliest of all human types. Unsure of where she is going, Theo presents a confusing vision to the people of middle America. A handsome man named Jake drives her to a town, where she walks until she finds a house owned by the Johnson family. Warm and hospitable, although somewhat bewildered, the Johnsons take her in for the night. The children find her fascinating, although one child – Zack – tells her that she shouldn’t stay there. He is the quietest child and seems to notice something in her, like all of the noticeably different people she has found before. Impulsively, Theo leaves without telling the Johnson adults, and wanders until she finds an empty and seemingly abandoned lodge. She sets about lighting the fire and cleaning as night draws in. An American gentleman enters, telling her his name is Holstius. He seems familiar to her, like the man to whom they gave dinner when she was a little girl, but she can’t quite place it. Holstius sagely tells her that she has experienced many lives and that she does not have to reconcile herself to normality like most people. He leaves, but she is sure he will be back. After a night’s sleep, Theo wanders by the river and woods near the lodge until Mrs. Johnson shows up. She has been looking for Theo, and is surprised to hear of Holstius since the man who owned the lodge took off many months ago and is believed to be dead. Mrs. Johnson leaves to get help, and Holstius returns for Theo, telling her that the men in white coats will come for her, and that those of us rare individuals who know better about life must sometimes keep it to ourselves. Conformity is easy but those of us who can multiply ourselves can accept a kind of peace. Theo feels this inner peace. Holstius is gone somehow by the time the Johnsons return with a Doctor. Theo is escorted to the car. Mrs Johnson hands Theo her hat, which she had forgotten, but which is of course appropriate for her to wear. As the car takes off, Theo’s hat sits straight, but the rose on it trembles and glitters, as if it has a life of its own.