Sunday book pick: Sexual escapism and familial expectations lock horns in ‘The Children’s Bach’

“The soup was thick. The bread was fresh. The stove’s dry heat reddened their cheeks. The walls curved in around them. Outside the house, which was at the bottom of a neglected street, no cars passed.”

Australian writer Helen Garner’s novel The Children’s Bach opens with no preamble. You walk into a crowded room, barging into a family going about their day. Like most homes, there’s confusion and excitement, a slight nervousness about hurt sentiments and sensitive trespasses. We immediately meet Dexter and his wife Athena, friends, lovers, and content with their married life; their sons Arthur and Billy – Billy has a developmental disorder; the grown-up sisters Elizabeth and Vicki; Elizabeth’s boyfriend Philip and his daughter, Poppy. A sprawling cast of characters that talk over, to, and at one another as their words and thoughts clash to create a cacophony of human communication (and miscommunication).

Garner throws the dialogues and details of this setting at the reader and invites them to make of it what they will. It is certainly a strange “family” and we aren’t told how they’ve come to belong to the same unit, or what they’re even doing in this house. Nothing particularly dramatic has happened nor has there been any emotional outbursts. The air is somewhat sexually charged – we don’t know why unrelated lovers and their children are part of the party, the married careful despite their mundaneness is sexy too. The mystery infuriates and teases and Garner seems to resolutely ignore this elephant in the room.

A unit called family

Once you make peace with this opaqueness, you quickly realise that the novel is not bothered about the “plot” at all, it’s not even about a central character or couple – it suggests that this is life, this is how it may happen to you, and if not, this has happened to someone somewhere in the world and it is worth knowing about.

The novel is set in suburban Melbourne in the early 1980s and you can tell from the outset that theirs is a normal, unhurried life. Despite a child’s disability, the parents do not seem to live in a state of constant anxiety. Their jobs do not make them nervous and they exist in easy comfort which – in this day – is romantic, inspirational even. Dexter considers himself a refined person, and this is evident in the pride he feels as a husband and father. He wants his family to be appreciative of culture too and to enable that – he puts up a photo of Alfred Lord Tennyson and his family and sings orchestral music on his walks with his wife.

An encounter with his old college friend Elizabeth leads to the family opening its arms to welcome Elizabeth’s sister Vicki, Elizabeth’s boyfriend and child, and the confusing patterns of affections and connections, slowly pushes the family towards an unexpected implosion.

Vicki is taken by Athena and begins to imitate her domesticity – she cooks, irons clothes, plays Bach on the home piano. While Elizabeth and her boyfriend Philip dabble in an on-again-off-again relationship, she sees him develop a fancy for Athena. The glamour and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle of this musician stranger – a detachment from life as she knows it – fascinates Athena deeply, and she doesn’t try to resist him.

Until then, a quiet life was an intentional choice. But now, possibilities are finally abound. Life does not have to be so orderly, a middle-aged woman, a mother like her, could go off on her own. Who would stop her anyway? “Perhaps there was a world where people could act on whims, where deeds could detach themselves clearly from all notion of consequences” – how utterly tempting.

Homecoming

In the meantime, Philip has a moral reckoning of his own. These temporary, hollow relationships do not offer much in terms of love or friendship. To each his own – but for how long? It is hard to say if being a “home wrecker” brings about his enlightenment or if it is the weariness of age, but for Philip, it is time to end the show. Through everything, Dexter’s belief in beauty and morals is unwavering. He has faith in his marriage, the temporary bumps notwithstanding. And Athena indeed does come home – and finds it urgently needing her attention. She busies herself by opening the doors and windows, taking out the trash, washing the clothes, swabbing the floor, emptying the fridge. Everything she wanted to escape from, waiting patiently for her return. This is life. Unexciting, exasperating, fragile…but so real. The boredom and order are appreciated. The whistle of the kettle and music emerging from untrained fingers are balms against the rough tides of existence.

Marriage, parenthood and recreation – the unavoidable strands of life that demand constant work and attention. Music doubles up as language for both the timid Athena and the garrulous Philip, and that Garner made this choice is no accident. If Philip’s lifestyle is reflected in his taste in music, the same can be said about Athena who yearns to master the more traditional piano. When she returns home and takes up music again, we know she’s about to enter the second act of her life. She had to do what she did to arrive at this moment. She could have thwarted her desires but what good would it do to her personhood? “Athena will play Bach on the piano…[and she] will toss handfuls of notes high into the sparkling air!” decides Garner. We look on in admiration. We wait for the music to reach us.

The Children’s Bach, Helen Garner, Weidenfeld & Nicolson.