The Portrait

by Iain Pears

  That was part of my plan, of course, the first stage in my scheme to intimidate. Evelyn, I decided, would be so scared of being in such a place that she would look to me, would shrink against me in that hostile, violent place. I would become her protector, and once that was established, all else would be easy.

  It started well, because she dressed in her best for the occasion. Not elegantly, of course, she had no good clothes in that sense. Plain, comfortable garb, almost masculine in style which she rescued from ugliness with a touch of colour or detail—she somehow managed to make an artificial flower in her hair seem charming, a cheap necklace seem stylish. She had a way of putting things together on her body which suggested a sensuality which was the more intriguing for being so carefully hidden. Something she wanted to advertise but was afraid of at the same time. It was what made her so proper and seemingly so mousy, until you got to know her and realised she was nothing of the sort.

  I had not reckoned, of course, on her ability to call on the inherent sense of superiority of the middle-class English female to protect her in hostile territory. She comes from the class of women who made the empire, who can sail through the much more unfriendly waters of a charity bazaar or Park Lane tea party and emerge unscathed. Half a hundred burly French drunks are as nothing to such people; in fact, she blossomed under the challenge. All her natural shyness vanished as she settled into a role she understood all too well. She sat down at her table, and straightaway asked the man next to her—an enormous, scowling Parisian who could have crushed her in one giant paw—if he would be so kind as to stop smoking.

  A silence fell. Someone sniggered, but stopped dead when she fixed him with a steely glance and slightly raised eyebrow. The cigarette was dropped to the floor and crushed out with the heel of a huge boot. The conversation resumed once more and, now that Evelyn had established herself as the hostess of our little table, she held court for the rest of the evening, genteelly receiving compliments and, it seemed, quite enjoying herself. Every five minutes, a fresh glass of wine would be presented to us by our new friends, then the cognac merchants weighed in and a tide of brandy rolled over us, propelled by the irresistible force of amiable sentiment. Her French was much better than mine; I became her companion, tolerated because I was with her, not the other way round.

  The end was inevitable; Evelyn, I discovered, could drink even a stevedore under the table. She came from a long line of heavy drinkers and it seemed to have no effect on her. You remember what it did to me. My plans were in disarray; I was humiliated, exposed as a fraud—and I knew that she saw, and understood, everything. She all but had to carry me out, and when, in my befuddled state, I hurled myself on her, she sidestepped daintily and I fell, heavily, onto the ground. It took me some time to get up again, and when I rolled over I saw her sitting on a stone wall looking at me as though I was a six-year-old who’d just dropped some chocolate on the Wilton.

  Somehow or other she got me back to my lodgings and left me propped up at the door; during the whole evening we’d barely said a word to each other. She’d talked to the warehousemen while I’d slowly descended into a black, drunken depression.

  “Listen, Henry MacAlpine,” she said as she left me. “You cannot take your drink very well. You really shouldn’t try; it doesn’t bring out the best in you.” Then she patted me affectionately on the shoulder and walked off.

  And that was the end of the adventure. You laugh; yes. I laugh myself now, although at the time I found it anything but funny. You, no doubt, would never have allowed such a thing to happen to you. But then you don’t know anything at all about humiliation. You don’t know what it is to have your weaknesses and stupidities dragged out for public view, to be treated gently even though you deserve mockery. There I have the advantage of you; it is something we lowland Scots specialise in. We are ready to be humiliated, almost invite it, and welcome it with relief when it comes. It proves that God is watching us, that daily His judgement continues.

  It didn’t matter that Evelyn was the only person ever to do that to me. Somebody existed in the world who could see through me, and stopped me from believing in my new self totally. As long as I remembered that, I knew that Henry MacAlpine, artist, was nothing more than a piece of fakery, a theatrical production designed merely to sell second-rate pictures to a foolish public.

  What I mean to say here is that I had very good reason to hate Evelyn. Had I done so I could have stood before the Lord (in due course) with my hand on my heart and pleaded self-justification. Twice she wounded me in my amour propre; she humiliated me, pitied me and rejected me, and on all occasions did it with kindness. Wars have started for less reason than that.

  She never did anything of the sort to you. With you she was always distant but polite, too withdrawn and too inexperienced in the ways of the world even to deserve much attention from you.

  So why was it that you hated her, and I did not? That is a mystery, is it not?

  LOOKING BACK from my vantage point by the wide Atlantic, I can see that Evelyn had irritated you from the moment you first cast eyes on her at Julien’s. There was something about her determination, her resolution, that annoyed you. Already she was going her own way, carefully learning what she wanted to learn, not what everyone else was doing. She decided to have a go at lithography, even though it was the lowest of all art forms. Little better than being a grubby printer turning out stock catalogues for department stores, so you thought. You didn’t realise then that the next generation of French painters—your generation, the ones who have made your name for you—would discover it as well, and use it to good effect. Nor did she, of course; she was utterly indifferent to any such information. She merely became fascinated by the possibilities of drawing straight onto a piece of limestone, and wanted to see what could be done with it.

  Being so direct, she took herself off, went to one of those printers you so despised, and sat at his feet for several months as though he had been Rubens himself. He knew things she wanted to learn, and her sense of dignity was so great she felt it no shame to go to mere artisans for instruction. And she learned, by God, better than any of us. Did you respect her the more for it? Of course not. Did I? No; I followed your lead, and forgot how much such people can know, and how much they can teach. I had been one myself, after all; the same people had taught me, too, and taught me well. And in my effort to put all my past behind me, to forget the workshop in Glasgow, I scorned her as much as you did.

  Or was it the lack of gentility and decorum, to think of her with her hands covered in ink, straining to pull the heavy roller over the stone? Shouldn’t such people be in the drawing room? Should such dainty little muscles be used only for pouring tea? Shouldn’t that look of satisfaction come only from hearing a husband make some witty remark? Of course they should! The woman was an aberration, a freak, to desire such things and take pleasure in them. But she did so desire them, and the pleasure was real.

  I remember once she disappeared for a few days; I think maybe I was the only one who noticed; this was a few months after my humiliation at the bouillon in Bercy. Eventually, I went round to her lodgings and persuaded the ogre who owned them to let me go up and see her. She was ill with a flu, and had a terrible bronchitic cough; I thought when I heard her she might be consumptive. But no; it was just a cough, but a bad one, poor dear, made worse by having had no attention at all for several days. She was in a mess, but too proud to ask for help. Perhaps she thought no-one liked her, and didn’t want an appeal for help ignored. Foolish of her; she was liked more than she realised. She made people nervous, of course, but there were some able to conquer such emotions. I can’t say that illness made her more attractive; with some, the onset of frailty and vulnerability makes you want to sweep them up in your arms, cosset them and protect them. Many a woman has snared a husband with a well-timed burst of fainting. Not Evelyn. Weakness made her almost repulsive; her skin turned sallow rather than pale, and she lay curled up like some sort of insect. Take away the move
ment and she had no natural grace; she was awkward, ungainly and uncoordinated unless she was holding a brush or pencil. It seemed the only thing that could bring her alive.

  Anyway, she was crying; I thought it was just the sickness, and I’ve no doubt that did make it worse, but the real reason was that she hadn’t been able to draw or paint since she fell sick. The previous day she had become so desperate she tried to get to the desk by the little window to draw something, anything. “It’s like an addiction,” she said. “I go mad if I can’t use my hands. It’s all I have, the only thing that makes it worthwhile getting out of bed in the morning.”

  Do you understand that? I do, just. I feel it sometimes but not with the intensity of her affliction. It was like breathing for her. Take it away and she began to feel stifled. Neurosis? Hysteria? I’ve no doubt. I’m sure some infection of the uterus was behind it all. Or, if that is out of favour now, some physiological imbalance in her brain. No doubt, nothing that a baby or two wouldn’t have cured. But like a man who drags himself off to some squalid opium hell for his pipe and secretly relishes the prospect as much as he is disgusted by himself, she didn’t want to be cured. She didn’t want the madness taken away from her. It was her most treasured possession. It was what she was, and it made her both magnificent and, as you say, a freak.

  I remember you tried to convert her at one stage, to bring her in as your disciple. If Jesus could put up with Mary Magdalene, it was not beneath you to have a woman or two in your entourage. She should have been more flattered, I grant you. No-one has ever doubted your eye, and you have never put up with fools or the second rate. It gives the lie to your later opinions, you know. She was not to be mere ornament; that has never been your failing. It is part of your egotism that only the best should be allowed to surround you. And you tried to lure Evelyn to your side. I rest my case.

  So you invited her to your soirées in Paris, to meet the people she should really know; not the printers and their assistants, but the men with power and influence. To take tea with Proust, with Oscar Wilde, with Anatole France. With salonnières and novelists and politicians, with other artists, but only those carefully selected. How did you know all these people, anyway? I never figured it out. How did you have the self-confidence to invite them and expect them to show up? You were nothing but a bumptious little Englishman with some skill at conversation. Some connections, but nothing special. Charm, I suppose; you managed to make people think you were a good investment for the future. Of course I was jealous. Why should I not be? It was so easy for you, so hard for me. It wasn’t until I realised that brooding ill-humour had its own appeal that I could stop making myself ridiculous.

  Anyway, into this society of the great, you invited Evelyn, along with some other candidates for patronage. I expected her to be cowed, grateful, a little obviously trying to make a good impression. Giving off all those signs of someone ill at ease—perched on the edge of her chair, nervous of speech either too loud or too soft. Saying little, but listening carefully to every one else. As I did when you invited me.

  Certainly she didn’t say much, but what she did say was to the point. Don’t pretend you don’t remember what she said to Sarah Bernhardt; I know full well it is ingrained in your memory. She announced in a clear voice that the great lady’s opinion on some painting was facile; that perhaps she should look more and opine less. But lèse-majesté, no? Evelyn was there to worship and admire, not to treat these people as equals, and certainly not to criticise them. I can still remember the smooth way you intervened and changed the topic of conversation, showing how capable you were even in awkward situations.

  But I can also remember the look on La Bernhardt’s face: a look of boredom dissipated. Splendid woman, as vain as a peacock but knows how to tell the difference between praise and flattery. She is a professional, after all; her success depends on being able to distinguish the two. She knew she’d been caught out, that the comment was justified. She liked being assaulted by this skinny little girl who tossed her head with a sort of naïve defiance and looked you in the eye as she spoke. It spiced up the dull fare of adulation that was her normal lot. All those gasps of amazement, that delight in whatever she said, the squeaks of appreciation at her slightest utterance. Someone like Evelyn must have been like a glass of cold fresh water after an afternoon drinking undiluted treacle.

  How much did it grieve you when Evelyn was invited to supper and you never were? Don’t pretend; you were furious. I know you too well to pretend otherwise. Even more so when you realised that she was not in the slightest bit gratified by the honour. She went, she ate, she had a “perfectly nice time, thank you.” She was impervious to such things, and so she was impervious to you, as well. She did not want to be around the famous. You in particular had nothing to offer her, except for your skills in society, your politician’s ability to make people do your bidding, so she stopped coming to your little gatherings. It wasn’t meant to be insulting, you know. She did not realise that she had delivered an irreparable insult, had struck at the core of your power. She rejected you even more completely than she rejected me.

  A few friends, the rest enemies. That was your philosophy of life, and Evelyn showed she did not want to be your friend.

  “Surely, a painting works or it doesn’t, no?” That was her response after you had laid out an early version of your theory of art, of modernity, of the artistic engagement with reality and all the rest of it. It was naïve, unsophisticated, but a damning indictment of your whole life’s work, which seeks to make things more complex and obscure, more difficult to understand. To turn a simple pleasure into a mystery. For Evelyn, there was the painting and the viewer; a direct communion. She was an artistic protestant, and had no need of intermediaries, be they critics or priests.

  Her weakness was the crippling self-doubt that afflicted her every step of the way. That is the price of Protestantism and individuality. The constant worry of having to choose between good and bad fades when you cede authority to others. That is probably why I was so eager to bow to your judgement, and why I am such a happy papist. Having to make up your own mind is a terrible burden, and the inevitable cost is massive doubt.

  I didn’t realise it until I had a terrible fight with her one day; you sensed it instinctively, knew where to strike when the moment came. That was well after we all drifted back to London for the new century. I started painting portraits, and desperately began seeking publicity—any publicity—to become known. Any exhibition that would accept my pictures got them in abundance. Any notice in the press was pored over and treasured. I sent picture after picture to the RA, and had most of them turned down. In my clodhopping way, I cultivated those who might be of use to me somehow. I was a desperate man; this was my last throw. Until then I had been able to persuade myself I was still young, still learning. Now I was past thirty and I knew I would not get much better, and I was not sure if Anderson’s fate awaited me. I needed all the help I could get and wasn’t too proud to ask for it. Especially as you encouraged me, and told me it was the only way to succeed.

  Evelyn did none of it. When she finally came back in 1902 she contacted nobody, took lodgings in Clapham and was scarcely ever seen. I didn’t even realise she’d returned until she’d been back nearly a year. I felt quite insulted by that, and thought that she disdained all the little humiliations I put myself to because she could afford to. Her father was a barrister, I remember, and I imagined he supported her. An artistic daughter, how charming! She never mentioned that they disapproved so thoroughly that they gave her not one ha’penny; wouldn’t even talk to her. There is, after all, a difference between painting pictures and being an artist. She freely gave up everything I wanted—house, money, comfort. The only hot food she ever ate was in the cheap working men’s cafés in the area, or unless someone took her out for a free meal. Most of the little money she had she spent on canvasses and paints. But she more or less managed to keep up appearances, proper girl that she was, and was too proud to glory in
her poverty or play the bohemian. It was the way it was; no choice. It took someone who knew her well to realise she had been wearing the same clothes when she arrived in Paris, or to see the exquisite stitching that had repaired a threadbare patch here, or a little hole there. We were travelling in opposite directions, she and I.

  I didn’t know how she did it. I would have withered in similar circumstances. It’s all very well being wedded to your art, but someone has to notice. Someone has to approve, or appreciate, or buy. No-one is so sublimely confident that they can do without any applause, however faint and sporadic. But Evelyn rarely showed her pictures, scarcely ever sold one. I hadn’t seen anything she’d produced for years. She was entirely unknown, forgotten by most of those she knew in Paris, not taken seriously by anyone else. Most people didn’t even know she painted. It didn’t appear to have any effect on her. Indeed, she seemed to thrive on it; around that time I’d noticed a fire in her eyes, a self-confidence that almost seemed like happiness, I had never seen in Paris.

  She didn’t encourage visitors; we met in cafés usually, occasionally in my studio, but after about five years I needed to get hold of her; I’d sold a picture to the Countess of Armagh, and I needed to celebrate with someone as a matter of urgency. I planned to spend some of my fee in advance, and take her for a good meal. She needed the food, and I needed the company; she was one of the few painters I knew who would be able to listen to my bragging without feeling impatient or envious. Besides, I relied on her to bring me back down to earth when the vainglory got wearisome, by asking whether the picture I’d sold was actually worth the money.

  So I took a cab to Clapham—which shows how opulent I was feeling—and arrived on her doorstep. And got a shock: her lodgings were even more mean than Jacky’s. Freezing, bitterly cold. She was out when I arrived, but the landlady was an amiable woman and, as it was even colder outside than in, let me in to wait. The room—on the top floor of a building which smelt strongly of boiled vegetables and floor polish—was tiny and had scarcely any furniture in it, just a grate, a bed, a chair and a table. It was lit—when it was lit—by a remarkably ornate chandelier hanging from a vast iron hook in the middle of the ceiling. Heavens knows how it got there. That was all, apart from the pictures—dozens of them, all stacked against the wall, piles of paper on the one little desk and on the floor, boxes of paints, bottles of solvents. The usual stuff, but an awful lot of it.