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Sue’s only real regret in a long and happy life was that Johnsy never did see the Bay of Naples. They had talked about going so many times….
* * * * *
At first money was short and there was no way they could afford it. They were both, after all, aspiring artists, a notably pecunious profession. Had they been successful artists that would have been different, but that happy circumstance was several years in the future when they first began dreaming of taking ship for Europe to tour the great art galleries and – metaphorically – sit at the feet of past masters to learn all the secrets of great painting.
They started saving in 1910, had almost saved their fares (third class), had even picked up a sailing schedule from the local shipping office when disaster struck the Titanic. Johnsy declared she would not risk a watery grave. In vain did Sue point out that Titanic was a White Star vessel while they were planning to sail with Cunard and in fact had intended to embark on the Carpathia which had rescued the passengers from the ill-fated luxury liner. Johnsy was adamant.
Instead, Sue and Johnsy summered at Woodstock that year, taking classes with the Art Students League, which Johnsy maintained provided a sounder grounding in life-drawing than any trip to Europe could ever provide. (Except they never drew from life, just a seemingly endless supply of plaster of paris casts – but Sue kept this observation to herself.) There was no question Johnsy’s technique, never her strong point before, improved significantly by taking the classes which continued that winter after they returned to the little apartment they shared in Greenwich Village.
Sue continued to earn her keep through illustrations for newspaper advertisements or to accompany short stories in women’s magazines; but Johnsy began to make a name for herself painting every day scenes around the Village. She shared a show in a little gallery off 3rd Street with three other young artists. They celebrated with a bottle of wine the night it opened; and commiserated with another bottle two weeks later when the exhibition closed (only two of her paintings had sold).
Nonetheless, it paid for their train tickets and new frocks when the pair took the train to Augusta that autumn to attend the wedding of Sue’s younger brother Henry.
“Chocolate-box pretty with not much behind the ears,” was Johnsy’s somewhat scathing description of the bride on the train on their way back. Sue had to allow the truth of this; but Henry clearly was besotted and she expected the girl would fit in nicely with the other naval wives at Portsmouth, who no doubt would take her under their wing.
A polite correspondence was established and within a few months Sue was informed that Charlotte was pregnant with their first child. This announcement was followed one month later with the sad news of a miscarriage. Reportedly Charlotte was feeling very low, so Sue spent several weeks in Portsmouth in the spring. She had thought to spend her days slightly bored with womanly gossip while attending tea parties but found to her surprise the gossip centred not on fashion and recipes but the war in Europe.
“Can’t you see we are bound to be drawn in!” exclaimed one middle-aged Captain’s wife.
“I thought Wilson had kept us out,” Sue said, feeling somewhat bewildered.
“For now, yes,” proclaimed another Naval wife, “but that won’t last – nor should it! The Germans are sinking our ships with their submarines and we simply cannot let that continue. American merchants' interests need to be protected.”
Sue was not politically minded, having never developed any interest in women’s suffrage, and she had no understanding about international business. She was an artist. Ask her about the merits of cerulean blue versus sky blue and she could wax lyrical; but the controversy about America’s position in relation to the European War had largely passed her by. However, on a naval base there was no escape from politics. It dawned on her that if (When! Not if! announced another naval wife) her country went to war her brother Henry would likely go with it.
Within weeks they were at war. Charlotte wrote that Henry was initially excited to be transferred to a dreadnought but disappointed when he had to watch his old destroyer depart for convoy duty while his own ship was just sent to Virginia. Clearly though Charlotte was relieved he had a safe posting; loving wife that she was, she followed him and rented a small house near the naval base. Her deep disappointment shone through the stilted patriotic clichés she wrote when the battleship he served on was posted to Scapa Flow in December. “You would have thought the Admirals knew better than to send the men away from their families and loved ones so close to Christmas.”
“I told you she was a featherbrain,” remarked Johnsy when Sue read this out.
Another letter two weeks later announced Charlotte’s delight that she was expecting again; she explained she had thought she might be when she last wrote but not wanted to say in case it proved to be false hope.
Over the next few months Charlotte’s dutiful monthly letters kept Sue informed of the progress of her pregnancy; but the real focus of Sue’s attention rested on Johnsy’s second gallery exhibition. The first had not been a commercial success; but it had nonetheless caught the eye of the owner of a somewhat larger galley on Green Street. One year on she had produced enough canvasses for her own show, which opened to critical acclaim in March. Enough sold this time to break even; but the connections Johnsy made were more important. At one point Sue felt almost jealous, Johnsy quoted Wilhelmina Weber Furlong so much. But there was no real cause to worry: Wilhelmina was clearly devoted to her husband. While Sue continued to fulfil more pedestrian contracts producing pretty pen and ink drawings for magazines that paid the bills, she watched while Johnsy’s artistry flourished under the tutelage of the Furlongs and her style blossomed into something striking and unique. Her reputation for avant-garde art began to be reflected in her dress. When she cut her hair short, Sue bought her a brilliantly patterned silk scarf that Johnsy took to wearing as a turban when she painted.
“Why the leaf?” Sue asked one day, pointing to a yellow-green heart with brownish stem that curled in the bottom left corner of Johnsy’s latest canvas, so newly finished it still rested on her easel to dry.
“To remember Behrman,” came the quiet reply.
The next week they took a trip to Salem Fields in Brooklyn to visit his grave.
“I meant to bring flowers,” Johnsy said, “but I forgot.”
“Do Jews put flowers on graves?” Sue asked. Looking round she could see no other cut flowers on specific graves though there were flowerbeds. “Maybe not,” Sue said. “Besides, I never even knew Mr Behrman was Jewish until I went to his funeral. I don’t think he can have been very devout.”
She walked to a nearby monument that had ivy twined round a pillar and broke off one vine.
“There,” she said, as she bent to dig the cut end into the ground in front of the simple stone marker that contained just the name and the year Georg Behrman had died. “I think he’d prefer that to tulips or roses, anyway.”
They stopped for coffee and cake on their way back, reminiscing about their old neighbour: his irascibility, love of gin, and, inevitably, the self-sacrifice of his ivy leaf masterpiece. Once home Johnsy made a beeline for a fresh canvas to begin a new landscape, all greens and golds and full of ivy leaves.
Several months later Sue was summoned to Virginia for her sister-in-law’s lying in, intending to stay just two weeks. One month later, Charlotte decently buried, she returned with her baby nephew in a Moses basket. She had him christened Charles Henry at St Mark’s.
“Very traditional, but you’ve missed your chance,” Johnsy kidded. “While your brother’s away you could have called this little boy anything: Marmaduke or Poindexter, or Ivan the Terrible!”
Sue gave her a pained look but took note of the way Johnsy cuddled the little boy, and rocked him to sleep.
“Don’t get too attached,” she warned. “This war cannot last forever and Henry will be back to claim him.”
“A man! What can he know about taking care of a baby,” Johnsy bent her head and kissed the little boy’s forehead.
“I’m just saying….” Sue had to remind herself over and over in the next few months to heed her own warning.
Now Sue was the dutiful one, writing Henry every two weeks to tell him about his son, including little sketches of the child so he could see how he grew. When a stray kitten adopted the household, she drew pictures of the two snuggled together in the cradle.
The armistice brought bittersweet joy; the war to end all wars was finally over. No longer would the newspapers contain accounts of battles that sounded like bloodbaths. But Sue and Johnsy were keenly aware Henry would be home soon, and young Charles would go to his father.
Sue booked an appointment with a photographer so the three could have their picture taken together; and Johnsy presented her with a silver frame for it. Their flat was crowded with the baby’s belongings; Sue began the task of sorting through and disposing of things he had outgrown, saving just one or two in a memory box she decorated with her own drawings. But the letter she expected from Henry telling her when to expect him never arrived; instead a boy on a bicycle brought a black edged telegram.
“But it can’t be!” she protested as she answered the door. “The war is over!” However, no matter how great a dreadnought the USS New York was, its armour had afforded her brother Henry no protection against the Spanish Flu.
One would have thought securing legal guardianship of young Charles would be quite straightforward. Charlotte had had no siblings and her widowed mother was in a nursing home; most days she barely remembered her own name and was clearly unable to take on the responsibility of raising her grandson. Sue’s own parents had died before the war and now her only brother was gone. There really was no one else in the family who could offer this baby a home. But the Court proceedings rumbled on for nigh on a year, straining Sue’s patience to its outer limits. Many nights Johnsy cuddled her close in her arms, murmuring reassurance. Her constant support was all that made the wait bearable.
“Were there any other relative who could take this child, there would be no question he would not remain with a single woman,” pontificated the Judge. “And it is only the evidence that you clearly lead a respectable life, without gentleman callers, even if your chaperone and companion is somewhat bohemian, which persuades me to endorse this.”
Sue gritted her teeth and smiled politely at the pompous man who looked down on her from the bench. For Charles’ sake she would endure any amount of lecturing from the old fuddy-duddy. Just as long as he made the decision she wanted.
Legalities finally over they fled New York, settling in Portland, Maine, where Sue had grown up. The money bequeathed from Henry to his son paid for a frame house. Sue painted ponies and dragons on the walls of young Charles’ room; the third bedroom became Johnsy’s studio. Sue continued to sketch but now added words to pictures of a little boy, telling simple stories of his adventures with his cat, and (as he grew up) tales of his exploits exploring the countryside with his mischievous puppy Scrap. She would never be the great artist Johnsy was; but Sue had discovered where her own talents really lay, and her series of children’s picture books sold well.
The days passed contentedly into weeks, months, and years, until eventually Charles finished university and moved to New York in pursuit of his own dreams. He visited from time to time, particularly at Christmas, and when America found itself once more embroiled in war in 1941, patriotically joined up only to find to his disgust (and his Aunties’ relief) that his banking experience made him eminently suited to work in the quartermaster’s office, so that he never saw shot fired. His war, like the previous one his father had joined 25 years before, eventually ran down. In due course he returned to banking, with a pretty young wife he had met in that quartermaster’s office; and they settled into a brownstone in Brooklyn and had a son and two daughters. Nowadays Aunties Sue and Johnsy visited them at Christmas rather than the other way around.
“Shall we finally take that holiday, Sudie dear?” asked Johnsy one sunny summer day as she lazed in a hammock strung between two trees in the back garden.
“What holiday was that, dearest?”
“To Europe, of course – to see Naples the way we once planned.”
“Isn’t Europe still in a mess?” asked Sue.
“Surely not now,” countered Johnsy, “it is 1957 after all.”
“Hmmm…I suppose we could visit Charles and then take a ship from New York.”
“We could take an airplane from Idlewild.”
It was pure impulse that led them to their old neighbourhood one week before their flight, that took them past Washington Square and down the street where a squat three story brick building still stood. They knocked on the door of their old apartment and explained their history. The current occupant, a weedy looking young man with straggly beard and paint under his fingernails let them in. It did not take long to look around and Sue was thanking him nicely and saying a polite goodbye when Johnsy exclaimed, “But where is it?!”
“What?” asked the young man.
“The house across the yard – the wall with the leaf.” She was white as a sheet and staring out the window as if she spied a ghost.
“They just finished knocking that down today.”
* * * * *
And so here was Sue – in Naples, in the fine hotel room they had booked with the view across the bay. Johnsy was, of course, with her, in an urn safely and discretely tucked into her luggage, and in her heart. But she would not be seeing the view.