Painted Ladies

by Lynn Bushell

  I stop. I don’t catch Pierre’s answer, if there is one, but because he is half-turned towards me, I hear Édouard mutter.

  ‘She’s got class; no doubt about it. But you see, old fellow, that’s the danger.’

  This is not a conversation that I want to interrupt, but it appears it’s over anyway. Pierre says something else and Édouard prods him with his rolled-up catalogue. ‘All right, you didn’t ask for my advice, but that’s it. Let it run its course. But don’t make any rash moves. Leave yourself with an escape route.’

  ‘It’s too late,’ Pierre says. ‘It’s already done.’

  She’s standing at the entrance looking round the walls as if she’s searching for a friend. And then she sees it. She lets out a little squeal.

  ‘Please, Renée, try and calm down.’ He sees people turning round to look at them.

  ‘It’s not a library, is it? You’re allowed to talk.’

  ‘To talk, yes.’

  ‘Can we have a proper look?’ She takes his arm and drags him over to the painting. Then her eyes move to the painting next to it, of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. She puts her fingers up to touch it. ‘What did Marthe think of me?’

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  She taps her toe against the floorboards. ‘Didn’t she say anything at all?’

  ‘She never comments on the paintings. She accepts that there are things about my work that she’s not qualified to talk about.’

  ‘She didn’t even ask you who I was?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That seems odd.’

  ‘The fact that she’s not curious? She recognises that what happens in a painting isn’t necessarily related to what’s happening outside it.’

  ‘Does she like the way you paint her?’

  ‘It’s not something we’ve discussed.’

  She snaps back, ‘Is there anything you talk about?’

  ‘When you’ve been with somebody for a long time, there are certain things that you no longer need to talk about.’

  ‘Like me?’

  ‘If Marthe has a question, I expect she’ll ask it.’

  ‘There are questions I would like to ask her.’

  ‘What? What would you like to ask her?’

  ‘Well for instance how she feels about us hanging side by side without our clothes on in a public place.’

  ‘How do you feel about it?’

  ‘Cheap.’

  ‘Why would it make you feel cheap?’ He looks round. ‘There must be fifty paintings here with nudes in them.’

  ‘You didn’t have to put us side by side; that’s all I’m saying. It looks . . .’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It looks as if we’re just the same to you. It could be either of us in the painting.’

  ‘That’s not how it is. I could have gone on using Marthe and not bothered bringing you in, if that was the case.’

  ‘Why did you bother bringing me in?’

  He is trying to be patient. ‘When I saw you in the street that day it was as if you were already posing for the pictures that I had in mind. From then on you were indispensable; they couldn’t work without you. Everything that happens in a painting has to be the way it is; it can’t be otherwise.’

  ‘I don’t see.’

  ‘You don’t have to see. Just take my word for it.’ He’s trying tactfully to move her on. She was determined to come here today and having brought her, now he’s keen for them to leave.

  She hangs back. ‘I thought we’d be looking at the other pictures, too.’

  ‘He waves his arm. ‘By all means have a look round.’

  ‘Don’t you want to come as well?’

  ‘I’ve seen it once.’

  He watches as she stands in front of each work for a regulation fifteen seconds before moving on. She stops in front of one of Édouard’s paintings – a concoction of blues, greys and yellows that appear to have been thrown onto the canvas like a handful of pebbles at a window.

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘For a moment I thought it was one of yours.’

  ‘Some critics say they can’t tell us apart.’

  She bends to read the caption. ‘It’s called Madame Vuillard in the Breakfast Room.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So where is she?’

  ‘Madame Vuillard? I expect she’s in there somewhere.’

  ‘I can’t see her.’

  ‘She’s not really what the picture is about, you see. And even if she was there, even if it looked just like her, it would still not be her. Paintings are just dabs of colour on a flat plane. You can call the picture what you like but that’s still what it is.’

  ‘Why call it Madame Vuillard, then?’

  ‘The organisers like to have a title for the catalogue.’

  She scans the picture. ‘Did she pose for it?’

  ‘Yes, I expect so.’

  ‘I’d feel quite put out if I’d done that and then I couldn’t see myself in there when it was finished.’

  ‘Édouard’s mother is an understanding woman. Anyone who lives with Édouard has to be.’

  ‘Édouard? That friend of yours we met outside the Louvre? He lives with his mother?’ She turns back towards the painting. ‘Was he part of that group you belonged to?’

  ‘Édouard was a Nabi, yes.’

  ‘Why would he paint his mother?’

  ‘Maybe for the reason that I go on painting Marthe. We feel freer to express ourselves in situations we know intimately.’

  Renée goes to speak and then thinks better of it. She looks round and catches sight of Roussel’s painting. It’s as if she’s looking at it through a mist. The figure’s ghostly presence pulses through the picture. Caro seems more spookily alive there than she had when she was sitting in the café with her ice creams. ‘Roussel put the painting in the exhibition after all, then?’

  ‘It caused quite a stir. His dealer seems to think it’s an improvement.’ Pierre clears his throat.

  ‘I think so too,’ says Renée.

  She moves on. When she comes to a painting by Roussel of Isabelle at Pont Aven, however, she stands staring at it. Renée can’t help but compare herself to every other woman she encounters. ‘Is that Isabelle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She’s quite beautiful.’

  ‘It’s one thing Roussel’s women have in common. Sadly, by the time he’s finished with them, most of them have lost it.’

  On the 8th of January, Renée moves to the apartment in rue Clapeyron. Place Clichy is five minutes’ walk away with Parc Monceau a quarter of an hour in the opposite direction. In the past she’d sometimes taken tram rides though the more exclusive areas of Paris, but she’d never dreamt that she might live in one.

  The day she moves out of the studio, she entertains Pierre ‘at home.’ They’ve spent the afternoon together in the ‘English’ gardens of Napoleon III, a famous landmark of the area. She’s fed the black swans on the lake and posed before the waterfall for Pierre to sketch her. From the grotto there’s a view across the whole of Paris with the Eiffel Tower on the horizon.

  It’s now seven in the evening. Renée is preparing their first ‘proper’ meal together. She has bought a dinner set from ‘Lafayette’. The serviettes are made from Irish linen and the place mats feature pictures of rare fruits with a metallic sheen on them. Light from the candles in their silver holders flickers back and forth theatrically across their faces, pausing intermittently as if debating whether to go out and plunge them into darkness. Renée feels as if she’s on a stage, but this time it is she who is directing the production.

  Pierre sits back and lets her serve him, complimenting her on everything she puts in front of him. She pictures him in Saint-Germain and for the first time she appreciates how normal people live, with homes that somebody comes back to in the evening. She has even bought pyjamas and a toothbrush, so that Pierre won’t have to bring his own.

  He laughs. ‘You’ve thought of everything.’ He kisses her. ‘Do
you think you’ll be happy here?’

  ‘Of course. How could I not be?’

  They clink glasses: ‘To the future,’ he says.

  The first task she faces when she moves into the flat is how to cover up the walls. She isn’t used to white walls. In the war they covered them with news-sheet. You could read the headlines of the news from 1914 four years later. It was as if there were other people in the room with you. The trouble with white walls is that they make the whole apartment feel as if it’s someone else’s.

  ‘Well, dear, you’ve been busy,’ Pierre says when he comes the next time.

  Renee loops her arm through his and leads him on a guided tour from one room to the next. He takes in the improvements she has made. The knick-knacks that were previously in the studio have now been ranged along the windowsill. The walls are hung with scenes of fresh-faced children wandering in the Alps and photographs of famous film stars.

  He makes little grunting noises of approval that she senses aren’t entirely genuine. She loved the pictures when she saw them in the store but now she wonders if perhaps she should have taken Pierre’s advice on what to buy. She’s cluttering up the apartment in the way she cluttered up the studio. But she can’t help herself. She needs these things to fill the gaps that seem to constantly be opening up inside her.

  Pierre stands looking at the painting she has hung above the mantelpiece, the one he brought with him when they first came to the apartment – a self-portrait ‘so that you’ll have me for company if ever you feel lonely,’ he had said.

  But just as what she’s done inside the flat does not entirely satisfy her need, nor does the portrait.

  She has been there less than three months when her isolation starts to chafe on her. Although the rooms above her and below are occupied, sound never seems to percolate between the floors. She leaves the windows open to let in the sounds from down below, but this is one of those quiet residential areas that are considered so desirable. It’s almost as if the apartment’s sound-proofed. Nothing penetrates it. In the studio, she’d felt a kinship with the objects that surrounded her. They were like children – loved and cherished, even by the light that fell across them. She remembers how the shadows used to creep around the studio like footpads, pocketing the things they came across and leaving something different in their place. A white box might look grey or even black along one edge depending on the angle of the light. If you looked hard at any colour and then looked away, you’d see its opposite. The light in the apartment is too sharp and brittle. It illuminates the objects in its path, but it does not engage with them.

  She had thought, when she moved to Clichy, that she would be going to the studio as usual, but since she’s been in the apartment Pierre has hardly painted her at all. One week when she’s been on her own for three days, she decides to take the tram to Bobigny. She knows that Tonio will be at work and Maman will be by herself. She isn’t there, though. The back-door key is still underneath the mat, where anyone can find it. On the table, there are school books and a smock thrown carelessly across a chair back.

  Renée sees her mother coming up the path. She’s laden down with shopping. ‘It’s you!’ she says, putting down the bags and hugging her. She’s pleased, but Renée sees her eyes already moving nervously around the room. Will Tonio know that she’s been here when he comes home?

  ‘Let’s have tea,’ she says. ‘I’ll fill the kettle.’ Renée hasn’t brought a suitcase, so she knows she won’t be staying. ‘You look pale, dear. Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine. I’ve got my own apartment now, you know.’

  ‘I’d heard,’ she says. She’d normally be desperate to hear about it – what the area was like, what sort of outlook there was from the window, did she have nice neighbours?

  ‘It’s in Clichy. It’s a lovely flat. I wondered if you’d like to come one afternoon and have a look at it. We could have tea and walk down to the square.’

  Her mother strains the tea into her cup and puts the cosy on the teapot, absently.

  ‘You haven’t poured yourself one, Maman.’

  ‘So I haven’t,’ she says. ‘What a goose I am.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’ Renée reaches for the teapot. ‘What about it, Maman? Will you come?’

  Her mother keeps her eyes fixed on the table. ‘I don’t think so, dear. It’s such a long way.’

  ‘It’s not far. I’d meet you off the bus.’

  ‘I need to be here when the girls get back from school. And then there’s Tonio.’

  ‘He needn’t know.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. I meant he expects his dinner to be on the table when he comes home.’

  ‘I do miss you, Maman.’

  ‘Yes, I miss you too. We all do.’ She is scratching with her index finger at the pattern on the tablecloth. It makes a shushing sound against the rough weave of the hessian. She always did that when she had her mind on something.

  ‘Pierre is not a bad man, Maman. You would like him if you knew him better.’

  ‘I thought he was very nice,’ she says. ‘He struck me as a gentleman.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘I think you know that, dear. The way you’re living isn’t right. It’s not what God intended.’

  ‘It’s more complicated than you think. Things aren’t that simple.’

  ‘No, I dare say. We shall have to hope that God appreciates that.’

  What’s it got to do with God? she wants to shout. Why should God bother if I’m living in a flat in Clichy with my lover? And in any case, I’m not. I’m living there alone.

  ‘I can’t persuade you then? You won’t come?’

  ‘I don’t think so. It would only cause an upset.’

  ‘What about me coming here? Is that all right?’

  ‘Of course. We’d love to see you . . . every now and then. The morning is the best time. Then you can get back to Paris while it’s still light.’

  When she goes, she tries to give her mother twenty francs. ‘You can buy something for the girls.’

  ‘You’re very kind, dear, but no thank you. Keep your money, I expect there’s lots you need.’

  ‘There isn’t. I’ve got everything I need. Why won’t you take it?’

  She holds out the twenty francs. Her mother cups her hand round Renée’s, gently pushing it away from her.

  ‘You’re sure about that, are you, dear?’

  She’s walking down the rue de Ménilmontant when she catches sight of Marguerite. She’s walking in the opposite direction with her head down. Renée, when she walks, sees everything. She likes the sense of life unravelling before her eyes. But Marguerite sees only what is in her head already.

  Renée turns and follows her. The shoes she has just bought are bouncing up and down against her thigh, as if they too are going for a walk. These days she can buy anything she wants. Before, when she was shopping she could only stare in at the windows, coveting the things she saw. She wonders why it doesn’t cheer her up to buy things when she used to think it would make all the difference to her happiness if she could only have that hat, that shirt, that pair of stockings.

  Marguerite is elbowing her way through the arcade, her drab blue gabardine occasionally swallowed up, then re-appearing further down. She goes into a café. It’s not far from the apartment that they used to share. These days whenever Renée’s wandering the streets, she always seems to end up in the same arrondissement. When she was living here, she couldn’t wait to get away. The area seemed drab, the population pale and starved of light. It throbs with life now. People say hello to her. In Clichy no one speaks to anyone.

  A young girl sitting at a corner table gets up. Marguerite is threading her way down the room. They kiss each other on the cheek. The waiter brings a pot of coffee to the table.

  Renée crosses over so the girl is in her line of sight. She’s in her early twenties and she wears a shabby-looking dress under her coat. She has a moon-like face and an expression that is vacant but ex
pectant. Suddenly she laughs, a brittle little laugh like breaking glass.

  It’s Marguerite who pays the bill. They leave the café arm in arm and walk along the pavement. There’s a light rain in the air. They cross the road and turn into a side street. Renée wishes fleetingly that she were on her way back to the flat, the night ahead filled with the promise of companionship; what sort seems immaterial. The only thing that counts is not to be alone.

  The streets are suddenly deserted. They are in the residential quarter. Renée falls back. Marguerite and her companion disappear under the archway leading to the courtyard. Minutes later, Renée sees a light go on in the apartment.

  She returns to Belleville three days later at a time when she knows Marguerite will be at work. The door is on the latch, but Renée rings the bell before she lets herself in. Opening the door, she feels the difference straightaway. There is a strange coat hanging on the hall stand, with a felt hat looped over the peg. She jumps – it looks like someone standing there.

  The drapes she bought to cover the settee have been replaced by flowered chintzes. In the bedroom, blankets have been roughly pulled into position on the bed. A shirt that doesn’t look like Marguerite’s is slung over a chair and she can see a sandal poking out from underneath it.

  There’s a sound behind her. Renée turns. The girl is standing in the doorway with her arms crossed.

  ‘I suppose you’re Renée,’ she says. She seems unsurprised. ‘I’d gone to take the rubbish down. That’s why the door was left unlocked.’ Her sleeves are rolled up. Renée glances at her arms to see if there are any bruises there.

  ‘Has Margo mentioned me?’

  ‘She said you lived here for a bit, but you kept going off, so in the end she threw you out.’

  ‘That isn’t how it happened.’

  The girl shrugs.

  ‘I came to get some things I left behind . . . drapes, cushion covers.’