New World Fairy Tales

by Cassandra Parkin

  ‘Blue,’ she said, her voice loving. ‘Don’t be silly. Of course you’ll —’

  A pause.

  ‘You need quiet. In the mountains, it’ll come.’

  Another pause.

  ‘The studio’s yours as long as you need it. I’ll drive you up myself. And, darling . . .’

  Amaranth had a habit of sleeping with the artists whose work she sold; it helped ensure their loyalty and keep her percentages high. But Blue was the first I’d heard her call darling. Of course, he was by far the most talented, and also the most saleable, despite the dizzying prices she put on his work. Everything he sent sold within weeks — everything except that one piece, Ancestral, that hung in the window. I’d noticed we’d received nothing new from him in months.

  I sometimes got to work half an hour early so I could spend time looking at that painting.

  Okay, stop, stop, stop. Don’t tell me you’re all right; you’re cold and you’re cramped. Stand up. Don’t be ridiculous, I’ve seen it already. Stretch your legs. Now your arms. Flex your toes. And your fingers. Better? Good. There’s a blanket behind the screen. Wrap up and I’ll make coffee.

  Don’t look so panicked. I’ve started this interview and I’ll certainly finish it. And don’t apologise, either. Artists can become the most hideous monsters if we’re not kept in check. We become obsessed with our work, convinced it matters so much to get every detail right, forgetting there’s a world out there that got along fine all this time without our shapes, our colours, our textures. We shut ourselves away in our high towers and think we’ve found sanctuary. But there’s a fine line between sanctuary and prison.

  The memory of the first time I saw him.

  I drove my father’s old Hilux as high as I could, then hiked the rest, following a map I’d furtively scribbled in Amaranth’s office. My goal was an X called Studio, three miles from the truck. Inside my clothes I was warm; outside my clothes, my face and hands tasted the coming winter. I was almost certainly one of only two people within a twenty-mile radius.

  Nobody answered when I knocked, but I went in anyway. The door opened onto the living room. To the left was a lean-to kitchen, the sink piled high with plates, and a bathroom with the smell of damp coiling out. Two more doors — one to the right, one on the back wall — were closed. On the table, a sandwich lay curling and dead beside a mug of water. By the sofa, a mound of blankets looked like a shucked snakeskin. The huge wood stove was unlit. It was very cold.

  I heard a man’s voice, his accent softly Irish. He sounded on the verge of panic.

  ‘Amaranth, I’m sorry, okay? I’ll be ready for the Holiday exhibition, I just —’

  ‘It’s not Amaranth,’ I said.

  There was a pause, then the door on the back wall opened and a man stood there. He was the same height as me. He had grey eyes and clear white skin. His brown hair curled wildly around his head and spilled onto his shoulders in Cavalier ringlets.

  He was beautiful.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. He looked terrified.

  ‘Hello,’ I said gently.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name’s Cornelia.’ I found I was irritated by the way he was staring at me. ‘I work for Amaranth. She’s gone to Goose Creek on business. I came to see if you’re all right.’

  ‘That means she’s gone to see Simeon Nadiki,’ he said savagely. ‘Is she sleeping with him, do you think?’

  I knew she was, but didn’t see why I should tell him.

  ‘How on earth would I know?’

  ‘You work for her —’

  ‘That doesn’t mean I know who she’s fucking in her spare time.’ I stopped myself from putting my hand to my mouth; I’d never said the word fucking out loud in my life before.

  He was still staring at me.

  ‘Have you always been so tall?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I was slightly shorter the day I was born. Have you always been so rude?’

  ‘No,’ he said instantly. ‘I was slightly more civilised before I committed to a major new exhibition by Christmas. Sorry. I haven’t spoken to anyone but Amaranth for —’ He looked around helplessly. ‘I’m sorry it’s so cold. I can’t get the fire to stay lit, I can’t get the cooker to work. It wasn’t so bad in the summer, but —’

  I looked around. He was ravishing, but clueless; left to himself, it was more than possible he’d either freeze or starve before the spring came.

  ‘What does Amaranth eat?’

  ‘She brings food with her,’ he said, looking vague. ‘Smoked salmon, brie, champagne — you know the stuff she likes. I don’t mind, I’m not interested in food, I just wish I could —’ He thumped the doorframe in frustration. ‘If I could just work! You can’t imagine —’

  Through the doorway was a huge white space.

  ‘Can I see?’ I asked.

  ‘No you bloody well can’t.’

  ‘Fine. Then I’ll leave you to it.’ He glared at me defiantly. ‘I wanted to make sure you’re all right. I’ve done that. Now I’m going.’

  ‘Okay.’ He looked humble. ‘I’ll make you a sandwich first if you like.’

  It was the way he caved in so completely that changed my mind. Beauty generally excuses its possessors from learning humility. The unexpected combination was disarming.

  Are you hungry, by the way?

  Of course it’s good; I made it myself. Home-made bread is always better. It makes me laugh when people talk about the slow food revolution. We’re just rediscovering what our ancestors always knew. But that’s the job of every generation; to re-invent what our parents told us, and imagine ourselves pioneers.

  The rest of that afternoon. The first thing I did was get the fire going. He’d tried, but he clearly didn’t have the faintest idea; he’d just piled logs onto screws of newsprint and put a match to it. The bread was stale, but there was flour and butter and yeast in the pantry, so I mixed and kneaded and left the dough to prove while I split logs, my braid falling over my shoulder with every swing of the axe. I checked the gas cylinder and found, as I’d expected, that it was full but not connected properly, got the stove working, then put the bread in the oven. I went through the ancient freezer and found a few pounds of dubious ground beef, something shrivelled and pale that could have been a chicken portion, and a lot of frost. Whenever I looked up, he was watching me. I was unused to being observed, and glared at him. He didn’t seem to mind.

  ‘Were you actually planning on surviving this winter?’ I asked as we ate warm bread and canned soup at the table. He’d shed layers as the room warmed up; I could see now he was far too thin for his height.

  There’s tinned stuff in the larder. I don’t mind cold food. Besides, if I can’t paint, it doesn’t matter.’ I looked at him incredulously. ‘Okay, to you that sounds ridiculous. But if I can’t deliver what I promised . . .’

  I found him absurd, but he was so guileless that it was hard to mock him openly.

  ‘Amaranth made me, you see. There are thousands of artists, most better than me. But she chose me. And she’s so beautiful. God, she’s beautiful . . .’

  And she gets her pound of flesh, I thought, looking at the fine bones of his hand and wrist. There’s hardly a picking left on you.

  Memories of that winter.

  Hiking up the trail through crisp frost, plants crunching beneath my boots. I had four rabbits slung around my neck — a bit thin and stringy, but left to hang and stewed slowly, they’d be all right. I’d fixed a wire cage against the cabin wall so they could hang in peace.

  Blue was at the table, feverishly scribbling with a thick pencil. He covered the sketch with another sheet when I came in. There had been no dirty plates since I showed him how the water-heater worked and explained to him I was nobody’s unpaid skivvy.

  His smile was lovely. He’d gained a little weight, which he’d badly nee
ded. He looked tired, but purposeful.

  The door to the bedroom was ajar and I could see the huge, wrought-iron bed that almost filled it. The blankets on the sofa, where he usually slept, were folded where I’d left them.

  Of course, I knew she visited him. In fact, I made a point of listening in to her phone calls to make sure we wouldn’t meet. I wasn’t jealous, how could I be? The idea of rivalry was absurd. But still, I shut that door as soon as I got the opportunity.

  Another day, another memory: making pastry. It was hard work — I’d forgotten to take the butter out of the pantry, and the rubbing-in made my hands ache. My hair was full of static electricity and strands escaped my braid and hung about my face. When I pushed them away, I got pastry in my hair.

  I laid a pale pastry lid over fragrant stew and crimped the edge, then used the trimmings to make a running rabbit for decoration.

  ‘That’s pretty,’ said Blue, glancing over. He was beside me making bread. I’d insisted he learn the basics at least, and he’d been surprisingly happy to learn. I felt his breath against my cheek.

  ‘I’ll give it to Amaranth,’ I said. ‘She’ll sell it for nine hundred dollars, plus sales tax.’

  ‘Is that what she sells my stuff for?’ he asked.

  I snorted.

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘Not that much? Oh, well. Maybe one day.’ He was trying to be casual, but it didn’t quite come off. I was surprised.

  ‘You do know how much she charges, right?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I’ve never really bothered. As long as people are buying.’

  I thought about the painting in the window. She could have sold it dozens of times over, but she insisted it wasn’t for sale. The last customer to enquire had offered forty thousand dollars.

  Making sure Blue Ryan didn’t freeze, starve or burn to death was taking up enough of my time as it was. I couldn’t be responsible for his self-esteem into the bargain.

  ‘Better to sell ten things for a dollar than nothing for ten,’ I told him instead. ‘That dough’s ready.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘It goes silky. Feel.’

  Together, we caressed the dough. The feel of his skin against mine made me cross. Our hands looked alike, broad and muscled, but mine was rougher, the skin darker, the nails ragged, the skin scratched where I’d scrubbed impatiently with a stiff wire brush to get dried dirt out from the cracks.

  A walk through the woods, me leading, Blue following. He was the most inept woodsman I’d ever seen, tripping on everything except the things he crashed into. When we reached the top of the ridge, he was sweating.

  ‘Have you ever actually left the cabin?’ I asked him. ‘How can you paint a mountain you never see?’

  ‘I do go out,’ he said, then grinned. ‘Just, you know, not very successfully. I sprained my ankle last summer putting my foot down a rabbit hole. Took hours to get back. But I remember everything I see.’

  Side by side, we looked at the view. I picked twigs and leaves out of my braid. From the corner of my eye I could see his long, lean thighs encased in denim. I tried hard not to look.

  ‘Why do you sleep on the sofa?’ I asked him suddenly.

  To my surprise, he blushed, that pale Irish skin turning crimson. When he raised a hand to hide it, even his palms were red.

  ‘Me and Amaranth —’ he was stammering. ‘She’s shared that bed — you know, with — there was a guy before me — she had a forge put in for him, he must have been special — and before that was a girl, a sculptor —’

  A girl? This was a part of Amaranth I hadn’t seen. His hands were trembling. I wanted to ask, Do you mind that she sleeps with other people? I wanted to ask, Have you slept with anyone else? I wanted to ask, Why do you let her treat you that way? It was like picking a scab; it hurts, but you can’t not do it.

  ‘How did you meet her?’ I demanded.

  ‘I was at college in Dublin. We had to paint something from our childhoods. Well, my mammy had this vegetable garden, grew a special kind of lettuce she was crazy about. She said she almost lived off it when she was expecting me. I did a study of it, called Salad. I look back at it now . . . but I was pleased at the time. It got into the exhibition. Amaranth saw it, and . . .’ he shrugged. ‘My mam wasn’t pleased, I was only nineteen. But my da said they had to let me go.’

  ‘And are you — are you in love with her?’

  ‘Am I — oh, God Almighty . . .’ He turned away from me. ‘Don’t ask me that, okay? Please, Cornelia, just — don’t.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  The memory of the day it happened.

  The cabin was empty when I arrived. Blue’s boots and jacket were missing. I remembered the rabbit hole and the sprained ankle and hoped he hadn’t been gone too long. If he was lost, he’d be easy enough to track. The day we’d climbed the ridge, he’d left a trail like a blindfolded Minotaur.

  The door to the studio was ajar. I hesitated for about a quarter of a second.

  The studio was the entire other half of the cabin, one huge white-painted room with a glass roof. Canvases stood with their faces to the wall. An easel in the centre was covered with a sheet. A stool, at the wrong height to be comfortable if it was upright, lay on its side on the floor. A small table, also the wrong height, spilled paints and brushes onto the floor.

  But I was distracted by the coke-burning forge that squatted on a deep brick hearth, ugly and functional, its wide mouth hungry. An oxy-acetylene torch leaned against its blackened side. An anvil and vice were built into the floor, surrounded with slate tiles. A cloth bag held a collection of tools.

  I looked at the forge. The forge looked back.

  I slung the coke hod over my shoulder and went to the shed. I filled it and went back inside, flinging my dusty braid out of the way. I built the fire and fed it patiently. The heat scorched my face.

  Back in the shed, I found riches undreamed of. Long, straight poles that begged to be curved and coiled, scraps and oddments with forms half-visible, awaiting someone with the strength and vision to wrest them out, flat sheets that could be beaten and shaped into — into —

  I didn’t even realise I was running until I got back inside and found I was panting. It didn’t occur to me to put on gloves, I was in too much of a hurry, but I found a pair of goggles and jammed them on.

  The lessons of my father and my mother; the ordered direction of physical effort, and the making of beauty.

  The next few hours are something of a blur.

  May I touch your hands? I want to feel the shape of them.

  You’re absolutely sure? Thank you.

  This memory is filled with the scent of burning hair. It was the torch that did it; I’d forgotten how careful you have to be. My braid strayed into its path; there was a bright flare and the smell of burning keratin. I slapped it hastily out and swore under my breath.

  From just behind me, Blue said, ‘Cornelia, what are you doing?’

  I turned around and nearly took him out with the torch; he jumped backwards just in time.

  ‘What does it look like?’ I demanded, feeling as if he’d caught me in my bath.

  ‘No,’ he said, very gently. He took the torch from me and laid it on the floor before I could kill him with it. ‘I mean, what are you doing? Why are you coming up here, baking bread, chopping wood, cooking, washing up — keeping an idiot like me alive — when you could be doing — this?’

  We looked at the object taking shape beneath my hands. It was a chair with a table attached, built for an artist — for the artist who, I’d noticed months before, was exactly the same height as me. The heavy base would keep the seat steady, unlike the stool which fell over as soon as he forgot himself and moved. Sinuous coils of iron made a stable but flexible pillar, something to absorb his restle
ss energy. The seat curved down at the front and up at the back, so he could lean forward to paint and backwards to examine. The table, also mounted on iron coils, and on the left because he was, like me, left-handed, had a lip all around to stop things rolling off. I’d cut a hole where a cup would later stand to keep brushes in. I planned to make some removable ridged trays, so the paints could lie without confusion, and picked up without needing to scrabble. But first I had formed a leaping rabbit from scraps and bits and fragments, a touch of whimsy to remind me of the day we made bread and rabbit pie in the chilly kitchen, and I was welding it to the back of the chair when Blue came in and caught me.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked. I craved one of the white sheets to cover my work.

  ‘This is what you should be doing for real, it’s incredible —’

  ‘Don’t touch it!’ I yelled, too late. He winced and put his fingers in his mouth.

  ‘Idiot,’ I said.

  ‘Says the woman who was setting fire to her hair when I came in.’

  I inspected the end of my braid. It was half a foot shorter, fused and crisp.

  ‘Why do you have it so long anyway?’ he asked.

  ‘Because —’

  I couldn’t bring myself to say it. He knew me as a brisk, efficient workhorse, sexless as a fencepost. I didn’t want him to see that, inside my head, I was also a woman.

  ‘It annoys you all the time,’ he said. ‘It gets in your way when you do anything. I’m amazed you haven’t taken it off with the wood-axe before now.’

  I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound absurd. I glared at him instead, but it didn’t seem to work.

  ‘Why don’t you let me cut it for you?’ he asked. ‘Cornelia, will you let me cut your hair?’

  With your permission, I’m going to touch your head and face now.

  Close your eyes, please.

  He tied a black ribbon around the top of my braid, at the base of my skull. Just — there. I thought about the hours of work, combing and conditioning and waiting for it to dry. I felt the weight fall away as the scissors sheared through.