‘There’s good art and there’s bad art,’ Mr Parish continued. ‘That’s the end of it. Figurative art is art of the human condition, that’s why it speaks to me. But there’s no reason I won’t, one day, be moved by a Pollock or de Kooning. Then again, my wife achieves the same thing with her bloody icky-bana. Anyone who can do a bit of flower arrangement is uttering a prayer of sorts. Don’t you think, Rosa?

‘Mrs Parish makes a beautiful flower arrangement,’ said Rosa soberly. (She felt an urge to defend her sex. There were no women artists in the Antipodeans exhibition, and Mrs Parish’s flower arrangements were beautiful.)

‘My problem …’ continued Mr Parish, ‘is that non-figurative artwork makes the ordinary viewer feel stupid.’ He considered a moment, ‘It’s undemocratic, in fact. That is my objection. It is undemocratic.’

Papa had never had a conversation like this before. Now he felt his inadequacies, the terrible gaps in his education, his country stupidness.

‘Abstraction,’ nodded Rosa, ‘is just decoration. It is an American fashion and will pass.’

This then was their uniting theme, Rosa and Mr Parish. Papa couldn’t otherwise make sense of their connection. Although he wasn’t quite clear what abstraction amounted to, he understood that on this point they were allies.

In the end, Rosa had the better reason to resent the abstractionists. She was an immigrant female artist in postwar Australia. She would not be exhibited alongside the men. Not the big men nor the small. She would have to make an entirely new category for herself. But Papa would let her paint a mural of the Dolomites on the southernmost wall of 123. Soon. They would talk of it in weeks to come, in fact. And it would prove a drawcard for the restaurant.

In the meantime, when she went home that evening, Rosa selected six art history books from her shelves and brought them in a string-bound package to 123 the next morning. Papa eagerly untied the string.

THE DOLOMITES

So Papa became an art student of Rosa Ferros and James Reginald Parish. James Parish even gave Papa a John Perceval work on paper. The work was sketchy, unfinished-looking—he didn’t really understand it—but it was the first artwork Papa had ever owned, apart from a poster of Popeye.

Papa put it on the wall at 123 and stepped back to check if it was straight. He wasn’t entirely happy. ‘Makes the wall look bigger and barer. Being on its own like that.’

‘Well,’ said Rosa, watching him, ‘work hard, become rich, buy more.’

Papa squinted. It wasn’t a big drawing.

‘Or buy my unsold works on paper: then you have wallpaper, floor to ceiling!’

‘Would be good to have more colour,’ Papa said.

‘Shame Parish didn’t give you a Perceval in oil, huh? One of them big waterside colourful ones.’

‘Colour,’ said Papa. He thought of Van Gogh. Everyone knew Van Gogh: his madness, his tragedy, his colour.