She had cried when that part of the will had been read. Later she told Maris, “I’ve always loved that furniture but I never told Peter. It wasn’t as if I had to have it. I was just happy to look at it whenever I went to his place. He must have known.”
“Peter was pretty good at reading people,” Maris said. “I’m sure that’s why the gallery was so successful. He had a knack for matching people with the things he knew they’d love.”
“Is that why he gave you his childhood mementos in a trunk?”
“Maybe. He never did something without a reason.”
“Then I’m sure all will be revealed,” said Dinah.
Maris hadn’t examined the contents of the trunk before she left Singapore. She believed Peter’s decision to leave them to her had been deliberate and she would have to figure out why. But for now she wasn’t in a frame of mind to figure anything out. She was beginning to wonder if she really was depressed, as Dinah had suggested. Maybe she should talk to someone. But even the word “psychiatrist” made her uneasy. She knew a shrink would prescribe some kind of drug, and she believed that it would suffocate any creative impulses she might have. I have to find a way to work this out through my art, she thought. Words are not a good way for me to express myself. I never quite say what I mean. But a painting is either right or it’s not. It’s not finished until its meaning is clear. To me, at least, if not to anyone else.
She was looking forward to seeing her mother again. She’ll know what to do, Maris thought. After Maris’s father had left them for both another woman and a completely different life, her mother had been forced to re-invent herself in her mid-thirties. She had married Maris’s father, a California draft dodger, when she was twenty-one years old and they had moved to a hippie commune northwest of Vancouver. There they had raised three children: Maris, her sister Terra, and a brother, Ra. Maris had been thirteen, Terra twelve, and Ra nine when their father left to marry an heiress whose money had been made in automotive parts. Arthur Cousins had so transformed himself after marrying his second wife that he was now a successful businessman and owner of a BMW dealership in the posh Vancouver suburb of Kitsilano.
Sheila Cousins, or “Spirit” as she was called in those days, had been devastated. Arthur’s betrayal had gone way beyond breaking her heart. He had cast aside everything they had believed in and moved into the enemy’s camp. Had he just been playing a role all those years? And if that was the case, why had he loved her? Or had he loved her? Sheila Cousins was Spirit, in her heart and in her soul. She had not been one of those costume hippies who wore gypsy skirts and beads and feathers. She had been a believer. Meeting Arthur, who’d introduced himself as “Freedom Man,” had been pure destiny. She knew they were meant to be together. He’d heard about a hippie commune somewhere on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia.
“Pure Earth,” she’d said. “I know where it is. Near Roberts Creek.”
“Then be my lady and I’ll be your man,” he’d said. “And we’ll live on the land and be free.”
And they had, for nearly fifteen years. They’d cleared land, planted fruit trees and a vegetable garden, and raised goats for milk, butter, and yogurt. There were twelve other people on the commune in the beginning. After six years there were just eight of them left, but by then the children had started coming. The kids had run free, and they had names like Free, Moonbeam, and Meadow. Spirit had named her children for the sea, the earth, and the sun: Maris, Terra, and Ra (who later decided he would rather be Ray). She’d believed, and so had Freedom Man, that children were born filled with truth and goodness, and they should be allowed to grow without the restrictions and rules that society placed on people. They would learn to read when they decided they were ready and they would study what and when they wanted to learn.
Maris’s interest in art had begun early. Both her parents had encouraged her and sometimes she would draw pictures all day. Then she would give them to Terra and Ra to colour. The walls of their house were covered with drawings of animals, trees, flowers, people — anything Maris could see in the sheltered world around her. One day Spirit had taught her about still-life drawing. She had taken one of her own pottery bowls and filled it with fruit. Placing it on the kitchen table, she had added a candle and an open book, and told Maris to draw it. Then she had rearranged the objects, putting the fruit on the table, and the candle in the bowl. Another time she placed a sleeping kitten on the book.
By the age of ten, Maris began to develop a style of her own. But she hadn’t yet started to work in colours, except for red. She loved red and usually included something red in her drawings. They were quite dramatic in their own way, especially after her father gave her a bottle of black ink and some Japanese brushes. The commune operated on the barter system as much as possible, and Freedom Man would drive up the coast in an old pickup truck and trade fresh eggs, chickens, fruit, and vegetables for staples like flour and sugar. At the hardware store in nearby Gibsons, he traded some of Spirit’s pottery for small cans of paint and brushes for Maris. When Freedom Man left a few years later, Spirit started to sell her pottery for cash so she could buy art supplies for Maris. She got a library card and borrowed books on art and art history so that Maris could study and learn from the masters.
By this time, twelve-year-old Terra had developed an interest in pop music and wanted to learn the guitar, and Ra, who was nine, was obsessed with reptiles and spiders, especially the poisonous ones. Spirit refused to accept money from Freedom Man, who was no longer Freedom Man, of course, but Arthur Cousins, businessman, but he opened bank accounts for each of the children and deposited an allowance each month so that they could have some “extras,” as he called them. He was not without a conscience, even though Spirit told him he was a shallow, unscrupulous shit. But he was determined to provide an education for his children, however they wished to get one.
A couple of years after Arthur left, the three kids were still being home-schooled on the commune. Arthur wanted Maris to go to high school, so he drove out to the commune (in his BMW convertible) several times to talk to Spirit about it. He said Maris could come and live with him and Shirley and go to a good school. He would arrange for her to take the entrance exams so she could be admitted to a public school. Spirit said absolutely not. She was adamant that Maris would stay with her on the commune. End of discussion. Fine, said Arthur, she could be bused to Gibsons every day. He knew there was no point arguing with Spirit when she got like this.
Shirley didn’t say anything but she was secretly relieved that Maris would not be coming to live with them. She told Arthur, however, that she was very disappointed. She said that she had been looking forward to having a daughter, but she understood why Spirit did not want to let Maris go. She suggested that Arthur increase the children’s allowances. It was only fair since they were forced to endure such primitive conditions because their mother had custody.
Arthur provided a tutor so that Maris would pass the high school entrance exams and she started school at Lord Stanley Secondary School in September 1978.
December 1923
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Chapter Five
Singapore
December 3, 1923
My Dearest Annabelle,
To say “I miss you” is to put into cheap, inadequate words a longing that surpasses anything I have ever felt. I am here with Sutty and we have settled into the Raffles Hotel and are quite comfortable, except that half of me is missing because you are not here. Sutty says that if I don’t stop moping around like a lovesick old elephant he’s going to turn me into a character in one of his books and have me die a horrible
