In search of lost love As a teenager, Barry Humphries painted Melbourne street scenes with a French beauty. Seventy years on, he tracked her down
CHRISTIE’S IMAGES / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
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ot long after I had fastened my seat belt, I heard the voice of our non-binary executive in-flight hospitality technician exhorting us to ‘have a read’ of the air-safety card in the pocket of the seat in front of us. In my case, it was in a receptacle bedside me. When I heard the usage have a read of, I felt, with a kind of rapture, that I was already in Sydney. To most Australians, the sound of an Australian voice on an aeroplane is infinitely reassuring. I was once on a flight to Singapore when, halfway through an excellent Turkish soap opera, things got very bumpy and the hostie, in a tremulous voice, told us to adopt the brace position. I struggled, unsuccessfully, to make my life flash before me, and resigned myself to the unthinkable. An ashenfaced officer burst out of the flight deck and ripped up a section of carpet in the aisle next to me. Opening a trap door, he disappeared into the belly of the plane. By then, the aircraft seemed to be struggling and the Pacific looked very close. A baby was crying and so, silently, were we. After ten minutes’ tinkering, the man emerged with a cheeky smile. Soon we all heard the captain’s voice: ‘Relax, boys and girls – all good. We’ve fixed the bastard.’ Somehow this reprieve would not have sounded so welcome in any other language or dialect. Going back to Melbourne is always a bit depressing, even when you are fully vaccinated and excited by the prospect of seeing your family and friends. Perhaps all home towns are like that when you return to them: a few too many ghosts
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of childhood, school, adolescent anguish and past loves. When I was about 17, I used to go out painting with a gorgeous girl. I have always been a very good artist and I still like painting en plein air. Mimi was French – a rarity in the city of my youth – and she looked like a beautiful midinette out of a story by Colette. She wore a ribbon of black velvet around her ivory neck and her hair à la garçonne, with a short muslin dress and biblical sandals. A thumbprint of lip rouge enhanced her pout. She resembled a drawing by Domergue. We would set up our easels in suburban streets and paint whatever looked vaguely picturesque, imagining we were in Montmartre. They were blithe, carefree days, and I was proud to be seen in the company of such an exotic beauty. We lost touch as I became engrossed in the extracurricular life of the university, and then the theatre, which has since been my principal amusement. Now, in Melbourne, I suddenly thought of Mimi. Could she still be alive? I am at a stage in my life when too many old friends have decided to retire. Sometimes permanently. Mimi, however, was younger than me, and probably healthier. I knew someone who knew someone who was acquainted with someone who
I searched her face for a trace of the Mimi I once knew. Not a glimmer
