A Woman of Courage Read online

  He talked her into going out with him. Katie told him to watch it, that Jennifer’s mother was both rich and famous.

  ‘Real estate. Shopping malls,’ Katie said. ‘They say she owns half of WA.’

  ‘Good on her.’

  Martin couldn’t care less about the rich woman unless she wanted to pay him a fat fortune for his paintings, but more and more he was coming to care for the rich woman’s daughter. In no time, or so it seemed, he was in love.

  He tried to do the impossible, to paint love as an ecstatic revelation of golden and scarlet light with snow angels filling every corner of the canvas in a blaze of glory.

  ‘That is the future!’ He shouted the words into the crimson air, the sun-blazing marvel of being. ‘That is going to be our life!’

  He went to see Jennifer, panting with the excitement of sharing, of being one, and the ceiling fell in on him.

  SARA

  1

  Sara never woke by inches. The alarm roused her at six o’clock and by ten past she was in her tracksuit and ready to go. Half an hour’s brisk jog, a shower and a breakfast of plain yogurt, an apple, a slice of wholegrain bread and coffee. As always, she planned to be shiny clean and at least halfway dressed before the conference call with her executive producer at Channel 12. This was scheduled for seven-thirty, as it was every morning, and gave her just enough time to glance at the news headlines first and wonder once again why Mother was so determined to have dinner with her two daughters tonight. At the Seven Stars too. That would cost her an arm and a leg and Hilary, with more than enough money to buy the restaurant and everyone in it, was not given to throwing her money about for no reason.

  As she put on her make-up Sara thought that Mother had always been an enigma. Hilary had always seemed so strong, so remote, even a bit like God when Sara was little. Like God you seldom saw her but knew she was there, powerful and all-knowing. It made you feel safe and warm. It never occurred to you that you were living in a cocoon, that the real world was not the world you knew of big houses, big cars and smiling servants, but you learnt. You discovered clouds could come out of a clear sky, that life could be a challenge, at times even frightening. You had to come to terms with that.

  Her sister had never handled it well. Sara was thankful, looking back, that strangers had never stopped to say how pretty she was. That had happened to Jennifer and she had never got over it.

  Sara still remembered how Jennifer had clung to Martin Gulliver as though she had never wanted to give him up, doing so only when Davis Lander’s ring was safely on her finger – all because she decided in the end that a conventional husband was safer than an impoverished artist. How was she to have known that after years of striving Martin’s talent would eventually be recognised? The breakthrough had occurred only twelve months back but from what she’d heard his reputation was growing fast. You could still pick up a Gulliver at a reasonable price but it seemed collectors were beginning to take notice. Jennifer must regret not having stuck to her man, in the best traditions of the romances she had liked to read.

  Sara, by contrast, had been in her mid-twenties before she’d felt the need for a serious attachment. She’d had the hots for any number of boys but none had worn well. She’d gone along with all the courtship rituals: had listened wide-eyed to their big talk, had cavorted like a dervish to the crack-a-bang riot of the latest club, had permitted herself to be fumbled in the back seats of cars, but somehow it had all seemed so futile. She was a young woman with a young woman’s body and it was that that interested them, not the person who was Sara. Natural enough, she supposed, but she resented it all the same, and being her mother’s daughter hadn’t helped. Everyone knew Hilary was stinking rich and it had put Sara on her guard, suspecting the boys who came on to her of being the gold diggers that some no doubt were. It made the whole business unreal. She was not offended by the exploring hands but it was almost as though it was not happening at all or at least not to her.

  Then out of nowhere her world had changed. What a change that had been.

  Well, she thought as she finished her make-up, those days were past. Sad, perhaps, but inevitable; looking back, it was easy to see that now. She told herself it was no longer important. What mattered was the future; only that. She ran down the stairs of her Paddington house, eager to face the day.

  The phone rang.

  2

  Millie Dawlish was a sharp-nosed thrusting woman in her early forties who approached her professional life like a Cossack cutting down serfs. Those to be interviewed were either the enemy to be interrogated, humiliated and hopefully destroyed by Channel 12’s ace interviewer, or ratings winners to be massaged for the titillation of the masses. Sara might be the boss’s daughter but Millie was self-assertion on steroids and if Sara failed to meet her requirements Millie would be looking for a replacement.

  ‘Confrontation equals good television,’ she had said. ‘That’s what the punters want and that’s what they’re going to get. I’ll be looking for lots of blood on the floor by the time you’ve finished.’

  ‘What about the truth?’ Sara had said.

  Millie’s sharp eyes scoured Sara’s face. ‘I hope you and I are not going to have problems,’ she said.

  Sara hoped so, too. It was a good job and until now she had enjoyed it but her reservations about Millie Dawlish were huge. Aggro for its own sake was often counter-productive.

  They spent the best part of an hour talking about what they were going to do on the show that evening: an interview with a government backbencher who might or might not have been involved in sex with a minor; another with a Professor Wilkins who had gone online to claim that a recent series of inter-ethnic rapes was excusable, given the racial vilification tolerated by the authorities; there would be a report on two famous sporting figures who might have taken bribes.

  ‘Juicy stuff tonight,’ Millie said. ‘Be sure you make the most of it, OK?’

  ‘That professor is a nutcase,’ Sara said.

  ‘We know that, sweetie, but he’s a handy stick to beat the government with so be sure you give him a soft landing. We tell the punters that racial vilification created the problem: see if you can dig out some old footage to support that scenario. Let Wilkins get his views out.’

  ‘And the pollie and the fourteen-year-old?’

  Even over the phone Sara sensed Millie’s assassin grin. ‘We crucify him.’

  Sara wasn’t happy about it. She supposed she would have to go along but wasn’t happy about that, either. At Nuremberg several of the top Nazis had claimed they had disliked Hitler’s policies but had gone along because he’d been the boss. The parallel made her uneasy. If she obeyed Millie’s instructions and destroyed a politician on what was no more than hearsay, in what way would she be different from those men? Different in degree, maybe, but in principle identical. Yet if she didn’t she might be kissing her career goodbye, because Mother had made it plain from the day she acquired Channel 12 that she had no intention of protecting Sara simply because she was her daughter.

  ‘I won’t get in your way,’ Hilary had said, ‘but I’m not going to push you either.’

  Now Sara asked herself whether she was a coward or simply pragmatic. And didn’t like the answer.

  ‘I’m not sure about the sports guys,’ Millie said. ‘There’s no percentage in giving sports heroes a hard time.’

  ‘We’re saying it’s OK if they take bribes?’

  ‘Ratings are what matter. Whether they did what people are saying is beside the point.’

  But not, apparently, for the politician.

  Fifteen minutes later Sara was just about to leave when the phone rang again. Nothing unusual in that; some mornings Millie was on to her three or four times before she got out the door. She sighed and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’

  It was not Millie. It was Willa from the studio front office.

  ‘Somebody’s just phoned for you. An outside call.’

  ‘
Can’t it wait till I get in?’

  ‘He says he has to go out and wondered if you could ring him back. In fact he asked for your home number but I wouldn’t give it to him.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘He said his name was Emil Broussard.’

  And the world, suddenly, was still.

  ‘Emil Broussard?’ Her voice sounded strange. Small wonder.

  ‘That’s what he said. Would that be the Emil Broussard?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it would.’

  Emil Broussard back in Australia and wanting her to ring him? Wanting her… Dear God.

  3

  After university, which she left with first-class honours in both journalism and English literature, Sara got a job as a research assistant with Channel 12’s Sydney studios.

  She worked hard, grabbed every opportunity that came her way and eventually was given her own show, the weekly arts programme that was the market leader in its field. To begin with it was a provisional arrangement but Sara proved popular with the viewers and had soon carved a permanent niche for herself. In addition, with the network’s permission, she had a regular column in two magazines and one newspaper. Everyone in the television world knew that Sara Brand had a stellar career in front of her.

  In 1997, at the age of twenty-six, she interviewed Emil Broussard, the fifty-three-year-old Frenchman whose status as a top novelist was matched only by his reputation as an accomplished womaniser, gambler and drinker. He had long been one of Sara’s literary favourites.

  Sara had done her homework. There was no doubt Emil Broussard was an exceptional man. A reading of his novels, these days written in English and later translated by him into French and German, showed that his command of all three languages was second to none.

  She had discovered other interesting facts about him. He disliked publicity, gave few interviews and accepted no awards, although rumour said many had been offered. She thought all these things were admirable yet her first impression of him, standing in the entrance to the interview room, looking around and taking his time about it, was not good. More front than Myers, she thought. Then he looked across the room at her and smiled and something went ping inside her.

  Sara was well practised in looking at the people she was about to interview. Emil Broussard was a tall man of powerful build with dark and penetrating eyes, the whites unblemished: surprising, if he drank as people said. He was clean-shaven, his still-dark hair clipped close to the scalp. His hands were those of a navvy rather than an artist but with clean nails neatly cut. He was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt that fitted him perfectly, charcoal grey tailored pants and polished black moccasins.

  She stood up to greet him, holding out her hand. She gave him her best professional smile but underneath her nerves were jumping. She had interviewed many people during her time with Channel 12 – painters, writers, two arts ministers – but this was the big one. Ever since university she had thought of Emil Broussard as a being set aside from the normal run of talented writers. She knew whole sections of his work by heart.

  She knew her lack of objectivity might be a problem. She could have got someone to stand in for her but the arts programme was hers. Broussard was the plum in the pudding and no one else was going to gobble him up. The interview wouldn’t be easy – like having a chat with God – but she would handle it somehow.

  She had taken a lot of trouble over her preparation. She had read the text of other interviews he had given. Most had been predictable, dealing with his books and his place in the pantheon of international writers. Some had tried to delve into his private life, that scrapyard of women, booze and unsettled debts, but Sara didn’t care about that. The man wrote like an angel; as far as she was concerned that was all that mattered. As to the man behind the writer… She doubted she’d be able to find out much about him but would give it a go.

  4

  The interview was over. It hadn’t gone too badly. As she feared, she hadn’t been able to get much out of him but at least she’d achieved a small success when she mentioned his Breton background. Then his voice had caught fire.

  ‘I am a child of Brittany. Its landscape and traditions are entirely different from France. They are bred into my body and my blood,’ he said. ‘If you wish to seek the source of my creativity, do not look at Paris. Look at the menhirs outside Camaret sur Mer. That is where the words come from and the emotions that create them. They are engraved in the stone.’

  Now the cameras and microphones were switched off. The crew left. Sara offered Emil the customary drink. He accepted, as was also the custom. They sat and drank together, this famous man seeming to have plenty of time to chat. He smiled at her and she knew he was seeing not the television personality who had interviewed him but the woman. That thought affected her powerfully and his smile made her aware of herself.

  Sara had always prided herself on being immune to hero worship. She had been born with a determined streak, what Hilary called a doer. It was a quality that had stood her well in her chosen profession – determined people were not easily wowed – but Emil Broussard had always been out of a different box. Now she felt her body responding to the dark eyes, the smile and pleasantly modulated voice with no more than a hint of a French accent.

  ‘I have to congratulate you on your interview,’ he said. ‘When will it be shown?’

  ‘Sunday week. Our regular arts programme.’

  ‘I see from the internet that you are also a writer,’ he said.

  So he too had done his homework. She laughed. ‘Having a couple of newspaper columns hardly makes me a writer.’

  ‘Words convey emotions and ideas. It is they who make a writer. I have read some of your work,’ he said. ‘I would say your columns qualify you admirably as a writer.’

  Sara had never expected praise from this man. She shook her head, as close to tongue-tied as made no difference.

  ‘What are your plans?’ he said.

  From anyone else she might have resented the question but Emil could ask what he liked. ‘Carry on as I am, I suppose.’

  ‘Will that teach you much about life? About the human heart?’

  ‘As much as I need to know.’

  ‘There is no limit to what we need to know,’ he said.

  She would not look at him. She was on a slippery slope and knew it but even with her face lowered she could feel the weight of his eyes, against which she briefly fought a losing battle.

  You are not a romantic teen, she told herself furiously. She feared she was losing control of the situation. She needed to put an end to it but could think of nothing to say. I am my own woman, she said in her heart. I do nothing I do not wish to do. I will not look at him. To look at him would be dangerous.

  Yet even as she thought it her eyes rose. She looked into his. She saw that they were black, with untold depths. Into which she felt herself falling.

  Nothing I do not wish to do, she repeated to herself. But that was the point.

  ‘I have the feeling there were other questions you wished to ask,’ he said.

  She avoided a direct answer. ‘Time is always a problem,’ she said.

  ‘All the more important that we should waste as little of it as we can. Which is why I too have a question to ask you.’

  Her heart thumped.

  ‘Do you have any leave owing to you?’

  ‘I shall have. Once we’ve finished recording the present series.’

  ‘When is that?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘I would like to think you could spare a couple of weeks, in that case.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘I have a house on Hideaway Island in the far north of Queensland. At night I lie in bed and listen to the waves breaking below the window.’

  Sara thought the beating of her heart might suffocate her.

  ‘When you’re free, come north and I’ll show you. There are eagles. If we’re lucky we may even see an osprey. And you’ll have time to ask the questions you didn’t ask
in the interview.’

  Nothing I do not wish to do, she told herself for the third time. It was madness even to think of going on holiday with a man of his reputation. A guest on her show. But also the greatest of living writers.

  ‘No commitments,’ he said, and smiled.

  That was nonsense. Go and she would be committed.

  ‘I am stifling here,’ he said. ‘The air is used up. Don’t you feel it?’

  She had not noticed but now felt it strongly.

  ‘Let us walk,’ he said.

  She was startled. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be going to a reception?’

  ‘They won’t miss me.’

  He was saying he didn’t care if they did. She envied such freedom.

  ‘Ideas lose their power indoors,’ he told her. ‘I think we could both do with fresh air.’

  He stood and waited until she stood too.

  Come north with me, he had said. If we’re lucky we may even see an osprey.

  I have a good job, she thought. Well paid and responsible. It has taken me four years to get where I am. It would be madness to risk losing that. He said come for two weeks but if I go north who can say when I shall come back?

  Yet when he turned away she went with him. They walked out of the interview room and down the escalator to the lobby. Beyond the glass doors the traffic was racing along Macquarie Street.

  They went into the street. After the warmth of the Cavendish the evening air was like ice, but she could see that Emil was not a man to give ground to the weather. He squared his shoulders and walked into the bitter wind blowing down the bustling street and she went with him. They passed St Stephens Church. Lights were burning in the parliament building. A belch of diesel as a truck roared past; a taxi blew its horn; there was a hint of sleet in the bitter wind.

  ‘It is warm on my island,’ Emil said. ‘Very peaceful. At this time of year it is heaven. Most of the time I wear only shorts.’

  She was shivering, her dress doing little to keep out the cold. A trickle of icy water ran between her breasts. She was filled with longing for the warmth and peace of the tropics.