Motherland

by William Nicholson

  There are moments as he works when he feels so near to capturing this simple truth that all he needs to do is let his brush go free. The thing is there before him. Rather than painting it into existence he is uncovering it, his brush the instrument of exposure. At such times his excitement is so intense that he loses all awareness of time and place, and works on long into the evening.

  ‘You know something,’ says Armitage, pausing to look. ‘That’s not as bad as your usual stuff.’

  Larry stands back to see for himself.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s not there yet.’

  ‘Of course it’s not there!’ exclaims Armitage. ‘It’s never there! But it’s not bad. And take it from me, not bad is as good as it gets.’

  Larry has grown to like Tony Armitage very much, for all his startling outbursts and lack of personal hygiene. He has painted a head and shoulders of Nell that is to Larry’s mind quite extraordinary. Somehow he has managed to capture both her directness and her evasiveness. Nell of course hates the portrait.

  The more Larry now looks at his St Giles, the less he likes it. But at this point Bill Coldstream appears.

  ‘Just the men I wanted to see,’ he says.

  He stands still for a moment, examining Larry’s picture.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Good. Do you know the Leicester Galleries?’

  ‘Of course,’ says Larry. ‘I saw the John Piper show there.’

  ‘They’re putting together a summer show. Artists of Promise and so on. Phillips has asked me to suggest some of our people. I’d like to put you and Armitage up for it.’

  Larry is speechless. Armitage takes it in his stride.

  ‘How long have we got?’

  ‘They want to open in early July,’ says Coldstream. ‘So the selection will have to be done by the end of April, I should think.’

  With this he departs.

  ‘That’s one in the eye for Fairlie,’ says Armitage.

  ‘I had no idea,’ says Larry.

  He means he had no idea their teacher rated him so highly.

  ‘I told you you were good.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. You said I wasn’t bad.’

  ‘What you need, Larry,’ says Armitage, ‘is faith in yourself.’

  ‘Any idea where I’m to get it?’

  ‘The great thing you have to keep in mind,’ says Armitage, ‘is that everyone else is clueless. They’re all stumbling about in the dark. They’ve no idea what’s good and what isn’t. They’re waiting to be told. So all you have to do is tell them, loudly and often.’

  Larry sighs.

  ‘Not my style, I’m afraid.’

  *

  Larry tells Nell the news that evening. She throws her arms round him and kisses him.

  ‘I knew it! You’re going to be famous!’

  Nell no longer works as a life model at the school. She’s got herself a job as receptionist to an art dealer in Cork Street. Julius Weingard, according to Nell, is both queer and crooked, but by her account so is everyone else. She tells Larry hair-raising stories of how Weingard cheats his clients. Everyone knows, she says, it’s just how the art world works. No one believes in any artist’s actual worth, only in reputation and the degree to which that can be converted into sales.

  ‘I shall make Julius come to your show,’ Nell says. ‘Maybe he’ll decide to take you on. He’ll tell you to use brighter colours, darling. Everyone is tired of khaki.’

  Nell continues to fascinate Larry, but their relationship is not simple. They sleep together but they don’t live together. Nell has her own digs, which Larry has never entered. She is often away, carrying out assignments for Weingard, or visiting friends about whom she tells him nothing. This other life, which she keeps from him with a teasing secrecy, should trouble him, and occasionally does. But the truth is that much of the time it suits him.

  Larry’s feelings for Nell are forever catching him by surprise. The volatility of their relationship both disturbs and excites him. When she’s away he can build up a longing for her that almost paralyses him. But when she’s been with him for a few days, he begins to withdraw into himself, and want to be alone.

  ‘You’re getting so middle-aged, Lawrence,’ she tells him. ‘You should let yourself go more.’

  He knows she’s right, and he loves her for being a true Bohemian, a free spirit, a wild creature. But then there are the moments when he catches a glimpse of the other side of this freedom, and sees in her a lost child. Her youth and her powerful attractiveness disguise this inner core of fear, but every now and again it breaks through. Once, after making love, she began to cry.

  ‘Nell! What is it?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. You don’t want to know.’

  ‘Yes, I do. Tell me.’

  ‘You’ll say I’m just being silly. I am being silly.’

  ‘No, tell me.’

  ‘Sometimes I think I’ll never be married and have children.’

  ‘Of course you will. We’ll be married tomorrow if you like. We’ll have hundreds of children.’

  ‘Oh, Lawrence, you are sweet. Maybe one day. I’m still only twenty.’

  Then just as he’s beginning to think they should get a flat together somewhere, she’ll disappear for days on end. On her return she gives him no real answers to his questions about where she’s been. She holds fiercely to her right to live her own life in her own way.

  ‘Don’t try to tie me down, Lawrence. That’s what my father did. It drives me crazy.’

  And yet she can erupt with sudden explosions of jealousy. Once after a party where he talked with another girl, she turns on him in fury.

  ‘Don’t ever do that to me again! I don’t care what you do and who you do it with, but don’t do it while I’m in the same room.’

  ‘What have I done?’

  ‘And don’t gape at me like you don’t know exactly what I’m talking about. I’m not a complete idiot.’

  ‘Nell, this is all some fantasy of yours.’

  ‘I’m not asking for fidelity. I’m asking you to show me some respect in public.’

  ‘All I was doing was talking to her. Am I not to talk to other girls?’

  ‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Have it your own way. Call it what you like.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Nell. It’s not as if you don’t talk to other men. Do I ever ask you not to talk to other men?’

  ‘If you don’t want me to go out with other men, Lawrence, all you have to do is say so.’

  ‘I don’t want to lock you up. You know I don’t.’

  ‘So what do you want, Lawrence?’

  ‘I want us to trust each other.’

  He tells himself her behaviour has no consistency, but at a deeper unacknowledged level he knows well enough what she’s asking of him. She wants unconditional love. She wants to be told that he will be her lover and her protector and her friend for ever, however badly she behaves. There are times when his own need is strong in him and he wants to make all the promises in the world; but an instinctive caution in him prevents him from saying the words. So long as she’s wild and free and desired by other men she’s all that he wants. But the closer they come to each other the more clearly he sees her fragility and neediness, and in self-protection he pulls back once more.

  He tries to understand what’s happening to him, and why he swings so wildly between extremes. Is it just sex? Is it as simple as that? She takes it for granted that he wants and needs sex, and makes herself readily available to him, and for this alone he adores her. But it’s not just sex. After a few days without her what haunts him is not just her naked body and the gratifications it brings, but her teasing laughter, her unpredictable turns of phrase, the vitality with which she floods his life. It’s Nell who takes him swimming at night in Hampstead pond, or who goes out on an impulse to get crumpets to toast on the gas fire. It’s Nell who knows the all-night cab-drivers’ hut by Albert Bridge where a cup of tea can be had in the small hours. How can he not love her for the adventur
e she makes of his life? It seems to him then that this must be the fundamental shape of love, this cycle of craving and satiety and withdrawal.

  Unless somewhere there’s another kind of love, where you and your lover want never to be parted.

  At such times he thinks of Kitty. He allows these thoughts with shame, knowing they’re foolish. After all, what does he really know of Kitty? He’s spent a few hours in her company, nothing more. It would be ridiculous to claim to be in love with her. Worse than ridiculous, it would condemn him to a life of loneliness. She’s married to a man she loves, who is also his own best friend. Why then does it persist, this secret conviction? Sometimes, when he’s alone, he feels a kind of terror at the thought of Kitty. What if it’s given to every man to fall in love truly only once, and he has fallen for a girl he can never have?

  ‘You know your trouble, Lawrence?’ Nell tells him. ‘You’ve got this thing about being good, but really you want to be bad.’

  What does it mean, to be bad? It means to pursue your own desires at the expense of other people’s. It means to live according to your own will, not the will of God. It means the pursuit of selfishness.

  If I were to be bad, what would I do? I would paint, and I would love Kitty. That’s all I want in life. And what value is that to others?

  At such times he prays the prayer of Père de Caussade.

  ‘Lord have pity on me. With you all things are possible.’

  *

  On the day of the private view Larry stands silent, smoking ceaselessly, white-faced, in the back of the room in which his three paintings hang. All three now seem to him to be lifeless and without merit. The guests move through the rooms exclaiming over the varied works, never pausing long over his paintings. No red spots appear beneath them to indicate a sale. Bill Coldstream is here, talking with his old Euston Road crowd. Leonard Fairlie is here, and while not being directly rude about Larry’s work he makes it all too clear that he is unimpressed with the show.

  ‘Of course it’s a commercial show,’ he says. ‘One shouldn’t be surprised. It’s all about opening wallets. These days the kind of people who can afford to buy want to be reassured that the old world is with them still, in all its bourgeois glory. One has to expect to have one’s mouth stuffed with bonbons.’

  Tony Armitage is present, being one of the ‘artists of promise’. He is as nervous as Larry, but shows it in a different way.

  ‘Don’t you hate the shits who come to these private views?’ he growls. ‘They wouldn’t know real art if it was stuck up their bums with a poker.’

  Despite this, Armitage’s striking portraits are among the first to achieve the coveted red spot. Larry moves away, unable to bear the sight of his own unloved works. He sees Nell come in with her employer Julius Weingard, and another man who is small and prosperous and in his forties, if not older. He has his arm looped through Nell’s in a proprietorial way, and is smiling at her as they go by. Two well-dressed middle-aged women pass near him, one saying to the other, ‘Why are English artists so dreary compared to the French?’

  This is hell, thinks Larry to himself. The glory of having been selected is all forgotten. He feels only the humiliation of looking on as his works are ignored. His distress is not wounded vanity. He has no conviction that his works deserve more attention. It’s the gap between what he felt as he painted them and what he feels seeing them now that is so unbearable. These three all gave him such joy in the making. He can recall the heart-stopping excitement of realising the work was going to emerge at last, whole, living and harmonious, from the marks and daubs that went into their making. Impossible to describe to someone who hasn’t attempted it. There’s a magic to it, like being present at the birth of new life. And now these perfect creations, these gifts of wonder, are dying before his eyes. They hang on crowded walls, denied the love and attention which alone caused them to shine, revealed as commonplace efforts by a painter of no more than average ability.

  ‘Larry!’

  He looks round. There stands Kitty, her eyes bright, her pale face lit up by a smile.

  ‘I’m so proud of you!’

  She takes him in her arms for a warm hug.

  ‘Kitty!’ he exclaims. ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’

  ‘Of course I’ve come. Your first exhibition! The others are still in front of your paintings, bathed in reflected glory. And I’ve come to find you.’

  ‘Oh, Kitty. I just hate it here.’

  ‘Do you, darling?’

  Her eyes at once fill with sympathy, gazing at him intently, wanting to understand.

  ‘It’s all too much,’ he says. ‘Too many works. Too many people. I feel like an impostor. Any minute now someone’s going to tap me on the shoulder and say, I’m afraid there’s been a mistake, please take down your miserable daubs and leave.’

  ‘Oh, Larry. How silly you are.’

  But her eyes show she feels for him.

  ‘No one will buy them, Kitty. I’m sure of that.’

  ‘Louisa has George under orders to buy one,’ says Kitty.

  ‘Are George and Louisa here?’

  ‘Of course. We want to take you out to dinner afterwards. Can you come? Or will you be going off with your smart art crowd?’

  ‘I haven’t got a smart art crowd. I’d far rather be with you.’

  ‘Your paintings are wonderful, Larry. Really. I mean it.’

  ‘Oh, Kitty.’

  He doesn’t care if she means it, he feels so grateful that she wants him to be happy. Now that she’s here, before him, everything is transformed. He could stand in this corner for ever, gazing at her, filled with the sweet sensation of how much he loves her. It seems to him that she understands this, because she too stands there, saying nothing.

  When he speaks again it’s as if they’ve moved into a different and private space.

  ‘How are you, Kitty?’

  ‘Same as ever,’ she says. ‘Only older.’

  ‘How is it with Ed?’

  ‘Same as ever.’

  Then he hears his name hallooed across the room, and Louisa is heading for him, with George in tow.

  ‘Larry, you genius!’ Louisa cries. ‘We’re all so excited! We know a real live famous artist!’

  ‘Hello, Louisa.’

  ‘We love your work. George loves your work. He’s going to buy the big one with all the roofs. Go on, George. Go and tell them you’re buying it.’

  George shambles away to do as he’s told. Ed now joins them.

  ‘Larry, you old bastard,’ he says.

  His eyes glow with friendly warmth as he pumps Larry’s hand. His face has grown even thinner.

  ‘Hello, Ed,’ says Larry.

  ‘Next time you have a do, why don’t you lay on some wine? You’ll sell a whole lot more pictures. We’re offering a very decent white right now. Between you and me it’s made of peasants’ pee, but only peasants who’ve drunk the best Grand Cru.’

  Larry is taken unawares by just how pleased he is to be surrounded by his old friends.

  ‘This is very decent of you all, I must say,’ he says. ‘Coming all this way.’

  Nell comes over, bringing Julius Weingard. Larry makes introductions all round.

  ‘Julius thinks he may have a buyer for you,’ says Nell to Larry.

  ‘No promises,’ says Weingard. ‘But this is a collector who likes to encourage new talent.’

  ‘New talent is so much cheaper, isn’t it?’ says Louisa.

  ‘That is so,’ says Weingard with a smile.

  ‘Lawrence darling,’ says Nell, ‘did you know you’ve sold one already?’

  ‘That would be my husband,’ says Louisa. ‘He likes to encourage new talent too.’

  Weingard at once produces his card.

  ‘Send your husband to me,’ he says. ‘This is a circus.’ He glances round in contempt. ‘In Cork Street we are more civilised.’

  He gives an old-fashioned bow and leaves the group of friends.

  ‘Wha
t a repellent little man,’ says Louisa.

  ‘Louisa!’ says Kitty, with a glance at Nell. ‘Behave yourself.’

  ‘He is a bit creepy,’ says Nell, ‘but he’s terrifically good at what he does, and he knows everybody.’

  Ed is looking at Nell with interest.

  ‘So you’re a friend of Larry’s,’ he says.

  ‘A sort of a friend,’ says Nell, glancing at Larry.

  At once they all realise that she sleeps with Larry.

  ‘Why don’t you join us?’ says Kitty. ‘We’re taking Larry out to dinner to celebrate. We’ve booked a table at Wilton’s.’

  George has a car outside, but they can’t all fit in. Larry says he’d rather walk anyway, and Kitty says she would too, so in the end they all walk.

  Larry walks with Ed. They fall at once into the real conversation that’s only possible between old friends.

  ‘She’s interesting,’ Ed says. ‘Is she a serious proposition?’

  ‘Maybe,’ says Larry. Then realising Nell is not far behind, walking with Kitty, he says, ‘How’s the wine trade coming along?’

  ‘Slow,’ says Ed. ‘The English seem to think drinking wine is like committing adultery, something you do rarely and abroad. What I really like is all the driving down empty roads in France.’

  ‘Haven’t you had enough of being away from home?’

  ‘I’ve had enough of just about everything, if you really want to know. Do you ever get that feeling that nothing tastes of anything any more? Nothing excites you. Nothing hurts you.’

  ‘Not good, Ed.’

  ‘Sometimes I think what I need is another war.’

  Outside the restaurant Nell says she won’t come in with them after all. She has made other arrangements. She gives Larry a quick almost shy kiss as she goes, saying, ‘Nice friends.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t she join us?’ says Ed.

  ‘Nell’s like that,’ says Larry. ‘She likes to go her own way.’

  Dinner turns out to be rather grand.

  ‘Have whatever you want,’ Louisa says. ‘George is paying.’