Inheritance (2 page)

Elena

Invercargill, New Zealand, 1990

T
he moment I saw her walk through from the exhibition room towards the gardens I knew it was Jeanie Roper. No shred of doubt. The hair was grey, the face partially obscured by a large knitted scarf, but there she was! My friend resurrected. That unmistakable little frame, occupying so neatly the space around her (so unlike mine!); the same quick way of walking that even a tropical climate had never slowed; the birdlike tilt of her head, looking this way and that as if she might miss something vital. I held my breath to see her stop and examine a possum-fur hat. That delicate, long-fingered touch! I had seen it a hundred times in other places, other times.

She was at the far end of the foyer. It would not be proper, even for a colourful lady like me, to scream or dance in that quiet museum atmosphere, but I couldn’t help raising my voice. ‘Jeanie!’ I called. ‘Jeanie Roper!’

She paused for a moment, then without looking in my direction walked quickly through the tuatara room and out of sight. I suppose it took me less than a minute to walk across the foyer – one doesn’t run in a museum, and my size doesn’t allow me to move quickly these days – but there were only an old man and a child in the room when I reached it.

‘My good friend!’ I called out to the empty air. ‘Jeanie!’

An ancient tuatara gazed at me from behind glass, his swivelling dragon eyes unblinking. The man gathered the child against his raincoat preparing for further mad acts. I smiled, tried to explain, but he shrank back, shaking his head. I don’t think I am usually a frightening woman. Large, certainly, but stately rather than intimidating I would have thought. Perhaps this far south, older folk are not so used to Samoans. More likely he found my distress unsettling. I had given up hope of ever finding my dear Jeanie again, and there she was. Suddenly.

Glass doors gave out onto wintry Victoria Gardens. Pushing through, I stood at the top of the steps, looking right and left. No sign of a distant retreating figure; only the great bare trees. Nearby, straggling rose bushes waited for their winter pruning; sad iris clumps sat in muddy beds. I would have seen her, surely? A light rain fell. The cold air caught in my throat; watered my eyes. If she wished to run away I could not hope to follow her. But did she even see me? Perhaps she didn’t recognise her old friend?

For another few moments I watched the empty park. A brisk young woman with a pushchair and a trotting dog jogged down the path. No one else. Who else would
be mad enough to walk in this weather?

Back inside I sat for a while, close to tears. A kindly attendant touched my shoulder and asked if she could bring me anything. Was my distress so obvious? Jeanie, Jeanie. But surely someone here would know her. As my breathing slowed I began to think. Invercargill is not a big town. On my free day before returning to Wellington I would smoke her out! After all, what possible reason could she have for hiding from me? I tried to persuade myself, you see, that she had simply not recognised me.

She had come from the exhibition room so that was where I started. A display of well-executed watercolours, some of them startlingly original, lined the walls of the small area set aside for local artists. Most of the paintings seemed to be of European inspiration – Spain, perhaps or Italy. Then I recognised a landmark and had to chuckle. I knew that place! The old mill near the camping ground in Florence. Many years ago … but that’s another story. To be honest, for a while I forgot the task at hand, and lost myself in old memories.

A smiling attendant brought me back to the present. I asked her if she had noticed the woman in the dark woollen poncho.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s the third time she’s been in. We haven’t had big crowds to this one.’

‘Do you know her name?’

‘Sorry, no. Not one of our regulars. Should I know her?’

‘No, no. Someone I thought I knew.’ I tried to make light of my anxiety.

We chatted for a while about the paintings. She wanted to know if I thought they were good. Perhaps,
in my splendid full-length leather coat and flamboyant hat, I looked like an authority. But I did like the work. I asked whether the artist was Italian.

Clearly the attendant was ready with gossip. She lowered her voice, leaned forward in a rather conspiratorial manner. ‘Well, she may well be. Evidently she went to Italy in search of a father. Her New Zealand mother was at some Italian festival in Florence, drank too much red wine, enjoyed the company of some handsome young bloods. Afterwards had a very hazy memory of the whole event. Then, too late to do anything about it, discovered she was pregnant. It seems’, the attendant shook her head dismissively, ‘that Francesca has always been brought up to respect her Italian heritage. But after a year of searching and painting she came back with nothing. Except of course paintings. I would have …’

But I had stopped listening. This was altogether too weird. I peered at the name signed with Italianate flair on the painting of the fine old mill standing amid flowering cherry trees beside the river.

‘Francesca Hope,’ said the attendant, directing me towards a small photograph and brief biography.   

I studied the photograph. The attendant, startled by my bark of laughter, came hurrying across.

‘Something wrong?’

I shook my head, still chuckling. Wonderful, wonderful! ‘I want to buy the old mill,’ I said and kissed her on both cheeks, which astonished her even further.

At the information desk I was given Francesca’s address in Dunedin. I was told that I needed to settle with her, as the museum was not able to sell direct.

All the pieces fitted. Jeanie Roper, Florence, the daughter who thought she was Italian. The girl in the photograph – very beautiful, a little serious, perhaps – had dark hair and dark eyes. They could have come from anywhere – the Mediterranean, South America. Ditto the light brown skin. But those broad cheekbones and deep jaw were pure South Pacific. Any expert on Pacific peoples could see it. I could narrow it down to Samoa, and probably highborn.

No one else knew that particular story about Florence. I would like to have believed that the clues had been laid out especially for me to follow, but I was here at the museum by purest chance. Jeanie could not have suspected I would visit. How strange, though. Jeanie need never have hidden from me. I would have kept her secret safe.

We had such fun back then! I still laugh out loud, remembering the show we put on to raise funds for the National Council of Women’s Centre. And how we trapped Tiresa into getting her leg strapped. Jeanie must remember those times too. Surely she laughs still?

I made an excuse at my office: an interesting case in Dunedin, I would be back a day late. Then I rang Francesca. Her words were quick and light – I thought of birds, and smiled. Jeanie had spoken in the same way.

‘You won’t want to come within a mile of my student squat,’ she laughed, ‘and the art school’s chaos too.’ Of course I was curious to see her in both those environments, but this was only a start. We arranged to meet in a small café close to the Polytechnic.

She was already sitting at a window seat when I arrived. Clearly she was expecting someone different. She continued staring out of the window while I stood in the cosy fug, taking my time over removing coat and scarf. She sat very straight-backed, a little tense, perhaps; thinner and paler than her photograph. An enormous purple jersey hung off shoulders which seemed to have no more substance than a coat hanger. But she would be tall when she stood. Unlike her tiny mother. The dark hair needed a wash; it hung limp and long, half obscuring her face. The nose unsettled me. It was decidedly aquiline. I had expected somehow to recognise her. Could I be wrong after all?

‘Francesca Hope?’ I said.

She jumped to her feet, pushing her hair back from her face. A quick nervous gesture. The wide smile and broad face were reassuringly Samoan. ‘Sorry. Sorry I was dreaming. Are you Elena Levamanaia?’

We drank tea and ate carrot cake. I think she was worried about the sale of her work. A large Samoan lady is not your normal art collector; perhaps she saw it that way. We talked about her painting and what she was working on now – fabric design. She was keen to put
Pacific images and colours onto fabric using the latest screen printing techniques.

‘Pacific as in the Pacific Islands?’ I asked.

Francesca smiled. ‘Not really. I don’t know much about that. I need to explore my own feelings. But we are a Pacific nation here aren’t we? I’m talking about sea and sky, clear sharp colours, green landscape.’

And on she went. All a bit derivative, in an earnest, studenty way. I wanted to go deeper; get to know her; not listen to her lecturers’ enthusiasms.

I steered her onto Italy. ‘I’ve been to the place you painted,’ I said. ‘Florence. What took you there?’

She looked at me quickly. An anxious, defensive smile. ‘Oh it was all a bit hopeless I suppose. I wanted to find my father, but without a name, and only a vague description, the whole idea was doomed.’

‘Your mother didn’t know your father’s name?’

Francesca told me the story then: the delegation her mother was part of; the party in an apartment in an old mansion, close to the camping ground; singing around a bonfire in the back yard; the police putting a stop to the carousing; waking up in an empty, but clearly slept in bed with a sick headache. Every detail as I had described to Jeanie one day in Samoa. The only difference was that in my story pregnancy was an unrealised fear.

Francesca told me she’d found a mansion that fitted the description, but the residents were all respectable university tutors. One offered to help, but Francesca suspected his motives and searched alone.

‘It was stupid. Hopeless,’ she said. ‘So I gave up and enjoyed the art.’

‘Your mother went with you?’

She laughed. ‘My mother hasn’t stepped foot outside Southland since I was born. She loves it down here. But she paid for me to go. Said she owed it to me to get to know my father’s country.’

Truly, it beggared belief. How could Jeanie send her daughter on a wild goose chase to experience a culture that was nothing to do with her real parentage? And Jeanie, a stay-at-home? My vibrant, curious friend? This was even more fascinating than I had suspected.

‘What does your mother do?’ I asked.

‘She’s a teacher. I grew up on Stewart Island and we still have a crib there, but now she’s senior mistress in Gore.’

Francesca glanced surreptitiously at her watch. I was boring her with my questions.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘sorry but I’ve got a tutorial. Could we …’

The money. I reassured her by getting out my cheque book and writing out the modest amount. ‘I love the painting. I may be interested in your fabric when you have something for sale.’

She liked that. Clearly money was a problem. ‘We’re not meant to sell our work while we’re students, but we all do if we can get away with it.’

I gave her my card. She read it carefully. ‘You’re a doctor? A medical doctor?’

I liked this serious girl, but she needed loosening up. Fattening up. To be blunt, she damn well needed to embrace her Samoan heritage.

‘More a medical adviser these days,’ I said. ‘I work with the Samoan community here and in the islands.’

‘Here in Dunedin?

‘No, no. In Wellington.’

But her mind was already elsewhere. I gave her a hug – couldn’t help it: Jeanie’s daughter and a child of Samoa! If she was surprised she hid it well. I felt she was responding to something in me. A kinship. She promised to keep in touch about the fabric.