Stone Angels

by Paula R. C. Readman

  I switched off the radio. The road ahead into London was congested and for once, I was glad as it gave me time to think.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Exhibition

  Stone Angels by Ravencroft

  1972

  “Oh my dear God, James, you must paint more of these. She’s amazing! I want the world to see this as soon as possible. Please tell me you have more of these stashed away?” Basil’s reaction to my painting late last year was more than I could’ve wished for, but his enthusiasm waned for the title ‘Roofscapes.’ It worried me that he might not fully understand my concept, or even what I wanted the paintings to represent.

  “I think ‘Stone Angel’ has a better ring to it than ‘Roofscapes’. I mean the painting isn’t focused on the roofs, is it James?” He looked over his shoulder at me. “Don’t you think so?”

  I shook my head, thrown by the abruptness of his question. “They are trapped between worlds, above us, but not in heaven.” I tried to explain. “I’ve been busy sketching an idea for another one.”

  His brows lifted.

  I paused. Conscious of his excitement feeding into my own, I fought not to say more but a flick of his wrist stopped me.

  “You’re an artist, so I understand your point of view, but from my point of view it’s all about the selling.” He leaned into the painting, scanning every part of it with a critical eye.

  “She’s a stunner. How long do you reckon you’ll need to complete enough for an exhibition?”

  I had tried to add up how long it had taken me to paint them, still regretting the fact I had not found my number ten.

  “I’m sorry,” Basil stammered as he straightened a concerned look on his drawn face. “That’s thoughtless of me. You can’t just chuck paint at a canvas, so forget it, I can wait.” He drained his glass. “Take as long as you need to create more masterpieces. If I may make a suggestion… say in about twelve months from now.”

  I reached for my glass.

  “That’s not written in stone. I just need some sort of timeline to work with so I can start making advanced bookings for the best possible venues as soon as I can.”

  “A major exhibition?” My hands trembled as the needy child raised its head again.

  “Yes, dear boy, of course. Our beauty needs the finest audience we can find to appreciate her true value. She’s outstanding.” He crossed to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a drink without asking. After taking a couple of swallows, he continued. “I might be wrong in saying this, James, but you can’t even compare your work to your mother’s—”

  “What! Do you mean it?” I interrupted him. My legs went beneath me, and I dropped into my father’s chair.

  “Your brushwork is far superior.”

  “Basil—what are you saying? I… don’t know how to… You’ve never… said, or encouraged… me…” My words tumbled over themselves.

  He smiled and poured himself another drink. “Don’t say you’ve misunderstood me all these years. Okay, so I could’ve pushed you as hard as I did Easter, but I didn’t like to. Believe me when I tell you I’ve always known you had it in you. I just had to let it come out naturally.”

  My mouth opened to protest but he raised his hand to silence me.

  “You need to understand, I never wanted to see you destroyed in the same way as your mother. You do see that, don’t you?”

  Basil brought the bottle with him and came and sat on the sofa in front of me.

  I put my head in my hands. What had I done? I glanced towards my painting. Candela wept tears of blood for me in her silent beauty.

  “James, are you all right? You’ve gone very pale.”

  “I’m fine. Just need some air.” I crossed to the French windows and threw them open. “Just a little overwhelmed, I guess.”

  After a light shower of rain, everything in the garden glistened. The grave marker, the stone angel seemed overshadowed by a lingering dark cloud as the sun broke free.

  Basil invaded my thoughts. “Right, let’s not dwell on the past. You get as many paintings done as you can over the next twelve months. All up to this high standard please. Then, give me a call as soon as you’re ready. I’ll sort out everything at my end.”

  He headed towards the front door and I followed. On reaching it, he said, “If you need any money for paints, canvases, brushes, or food, please let me know. Can’t have you starving for your art, can we?”

  I laughed. “The only thing I need is time, and you can’t buy that.”

  A smile played on his lips but there was no humour in his eyes. “No, you can’t. But you can serve time. This business with the missing girls might have me serving time, and that will ruin the both of us.”

  After waving Basil off, I returned to the drawing room and lifted a glass to Candela. Without my angels there would be no paintings, without Basil no exhibition. In twelve months my journey’s end would be in sight and my career would truly begin. But now I needed to fill my time. I could’ve begun working on my tenth angel painting for the exhibition, but that meant I needed a muse. Of course, for that I needed to go hunting and that was far too risky just now.

  So I set to work making sure everything was ready, from paints, brushes and other materials. With a mop and a bucket of hot water, I washed the floor and every corner before climbing a ladder to wash down the walls with detergent. Next was the guest bedroom. I stripped the cot bed and washed the bedding. I washed the floor and walls leaving no trace of my past guests. By the time it was finished, the room smelt of pine, and the cot bed was made up with clean sheets and blankets.

  Over the next few months I worked my way through the rest of the house. Every room was cleaned to Mrs P’s high standard, from soft furnishings to dusting high shelves. I felt exhausted, but strangely exhilarated, and I knew that Mrs P would be proud to see everything shining.

  I was tempted to phone Jenny to ask whether the police had contacted Basil, but as soon as she heard my voice on the phone, she put me straight through to her boss. In the end, I decided, maybe it was a blessing. Even though Basil was enthusiastic about my work, I knew not to trust him. The draw of instant fame for him from the discovery of mother’s vast collection of work would be too much. I decided to use my time to record her paintings and drawings.

  I made a pot of tea and took some biscuits with me up to mother’s studio. Starting with her large desk, and in the order in which she had stored her work, I begun to record everything. Through the camera lens, the hidden meaning within the detailed sketches to some of her larger pieces of works slowly revealed themselves to me. Page by page, sheet by sheet her life slowly unravelled itself as her work became darker and more disturbing.

  Most sketches showed a figure of a naked woman with long black hair. She stood in some pictures with her back to the viewer, whereas in others she crouched. Sometimes she was alone, but in others she was a ghostly figure hovering somewhere in the background. A tale of an abandoned woman losing her grip on sanity.

  As I went to close the last drawer, it stopped short. I tried kicking it, but still it wouldn’t budge. After checking that none of the sketchpads had blocked it and were all lying flat, I pulled the drawer out again. On my knees I peered into the drawer space. Wedged at the back was a screwed-up piece of paper. I used the handle of mother’s longest paintbrush and managed to dislodge it.

  I laid the crumbled paper on the desk and with the side of my hand, I flattened it out. The letter wasn’t one of love, but an end of an affair.

  My darling Jane,

  Dear girl, please, I must end this foolishness. You need to understand there’s no ‘us’. There never was, nor can there ever be! It was wrong and unforgivable on my part. I should never have allowed it to happen. I take the full blame. You are as always sweet and charming, but from now, our relationship is purely a business one.

  I have been nothing but honest with you, Jane. I love my wife dearly and my family mean the world to me. You have your husband and a baby on th
e way, so please think of them.

  I’m returning home soon, so this will be my last contact with you and about the matter in hand. I must reiterate that our relationship has never been anything other than a business one.

  Yours,

  CS

  After reading through it twice I realised mother had betrayed father. The letter, undated gave no clues to when or how mother had received it. No return address anywhere, just the initials CS.

  I folded the letter in half, returning it to the drawer. Just as I was about to shut it, I pulled out the letter again and re-read the line, ‘You have your husband and a baby on the way now, so please think of them’. Had the affair ended because of me? Was I the cause of her depression? Had her lover meant more to her than father and me?

  I tore the letter to pieces and dropped them into the drawer before slamming it shut. I crossed to the drying rack and pulled out a couple of the larger pictures and laid them on her desk.

  Both paintings showed a figure of a woman standing alone. In one, she stood with a cloth cascading in folds from one shoulder to the floor, covering her breasts and waist. Her thick, curly hair crowned her head halo-like giving the painting a religious feel. In the larger of the two pictures, the viewer looked down on her from above. It showed her suspended in the air, nailed to a cross and crucified, her arms outstretched, head lowered.

  Too many thoughts crowded my head as I returned the paintings to their rack. I gathered up the rolls of films and headed to the garage. As I drove to the chemist to develop the films, I thought about father and how hard it must have been on him. Had he forgiven her for her indiscretion?

  After wasting six months pottering around the house, doing nothing but sleeping, cleaning and sketching ideas for my tenth angel, I needed something more to focus on.

  “Hi, Jen. Is Basil available?”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll put you through.”

  “Hello, James. I hope everything is okay.”

  “Are nine paintings enough for the exhibition, Basil?”

  “Nine! That’s brilliant work, James!” he shouted down the phone. “I’m free tomorrow afternoon. I have a client to see in the morning. May I swing by, and take a look, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  In my eagerness to be ready for Basil’s arrival, I brought all nine pictures down to the drawing room. I stood in the doorway trying to decide how to display them to make the best impression. Once I was certain I had them set up right, I went up to my rooftop studio to watch for Basil’s car twist its way down the lane. On opening the door, Basil burst into the hall.

  “What a morning, James!” Basil’s voice was edged with relief. “It’s been unbelievable. I thought I would never get here.” He headed straight for the drawing room before I had a chance to invite him in.

  I followed close on his heels and found him pivoting on the balls of his feet, taking in my collection of angels in one sweep of the room.

  “Oh Lord, they are so beautiful. So dark, James! I’ve never seen anything like these before.”

  I broke open a new bottle and selected two lead crystal glasses, freshly polished and poured us both a drink. Basil was so in awe of the paintings. He didn’t even seem to notice when I pushed the glass into his hand. After taking a couple of sips, he removed the paintings from the sofa and stood them against the legs of the easels before sitting. He reclaimed his drink and leant towards me.

  “The way I see it, James,” he enthused. “If Kasmin Gallery can launch David Hockney to stardom then it can do the same for you. I reckon we can put together an exhibition within three months. I’ve been putting feelers out and the feedback I’ve been receiving is all-good. Your work will be the talk of the town. I just need to hear back from Kas first.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Don’t be too impatient. May I take them with me?” He gestured to the angels. My expression must have spoken volumes because he added, “I’ll take good care of them. They will be under lock and key until the exhibition, James.”

  The tingling started in my legs as my stomach churned. Echoes of mother’s fears flooded me as I watched Basil carefully wrap each of the nine paintings in some old blankets I had found in the coat cupboard. I gave him the cushions stored there, too.

  “Use these for added protection.” I passed them one at a time until he had enough.

  “These are great. Thank you.” He edged the boot with them. “I’m a lot happier to know the paintings are well padded. You never know when an idiot is going to pull out in front of you.” Basil laid the paintings on top of each other with a thin board between them. Once packed, he closed the lid. “I’ll bring the cushions back next time I’m over.”

  With more days to waste while waiting to hear back from Basil boredom drove me to seek solace in my studio. But I found it hard to stay focused. After hours of working and reworking an idea, hunger drove me to raid the kitchen cupboards. I had just put together a cheese and tomato sandwich when the phone rang.

  “Oh James, I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day!”

  “Sorry, Jenny. I locked myself in my studio to stay focused.”

  “I guessed that’s what you would do. Anyway, I’ve something to tell you that will make all your hard work worth it. Forgive me for letting the cat out of the bag, but Mr Hallward has only gone and done it!”

  “Given you a pay rise!” I laughed. “Great news, Jenny. Do we hit the town to celebrate?”

  “Would you, if I asked?”

  I detected an air of caution in her voice. I never wanted Jenny to feel I had betrayed her trust. “I would be more than happy to celebrate your good news.”

  “Thank you. James. I haven’t just got you out of bed?’

  “No. I was just fixing a bite to eat before bed. Basil hasn’t got you working late again, has he?”

  “Of course, but it's okay. I need the money. I’m helping my parents to buy a smaller house somewhere nice in the country.”

  “What about where they live now?”

  “They’re converting it into flats for my brother and me. The extra money comes in handy. But the reason I called—” She paused.

  “Jenny—”

  “I shouldn’t be telling you, but I’m just so excited, James.”

  “What is it?”

  “Promise you’ll act all surprised or whatever it is you do when you hear good news. I’ve just overheard Basil on the phone.”

  “Jen…” I bit into my sandwich as the sound of a door shutting echoed down the receiver moments before Jenny came back on the line.

  “Basil has done it. He got you the top venue for your major exhibition.”

  “That’s brilliant news.”

  “He’s really going to town. A sample of the poster has already arrived. He’s calling it, ‘Stone Angels’ I was under the impression they were called ‘Roofthingys’ or something like that. Urban-scapes. Anyway, he’s almost bouncing off the walls with excitement.”

  “The word you were looking for was ‘Roofscapes,’ Jen.”

  “Roofscapes, I love that! It’s a shame Mr Hallward has changed it. Are you okay with it?”

  “Yes, of course. He wanted to change the title. Never mind, as long as the exhibition goes ahead, I’ll be happy. I’ve only done nine, but Basil feels that’s enough.”

  “Very intriguing. What a shame you haven’t finished the whole series.”

  “It’s just one of those things. I wanted ten to keep the balance.” I pulled the kitchen stool with my foot so I could sit and nibble my sandwich while Jenny chattered on.

  “Is that what you were working on when I called?”

  “Yes, just putting together a few ideas.”

  “Maybe you can use it in the next one. Mr Hallward has been in negotiations with his American partner, Mr Sparks. It sounded as if he’s coming over to see your work for himself. Oh, James, I’m going before I say anything more. I’m just so pleased for you.”

 
“Thanks for letting me know.”

  “I’ll make sure you have the best exhibition ever. I can’t wait to see the pictures. They sound fascinating.”

  “So you’ll be organising it then?”

  “Yes, as always. Basil tells me who to invite, and roughly what he wants while I do all the legwork.” She chuckled. “He’s taking more of an interest, this time, so I won’t feel cheated when he takes all the credit if it goes well. If not, then it’ll be down to me as usual, I guess.”

  “Just like Basil. Have you met Mr Sparks before?”

  “No, not really. He did make a flying visit to Easter’s first exhibition, if you remember, but remained upstairs talking business with the gallery owner. I’ve only spoken to him on the phone. Well, I say spoken, but only in the business sense, not chatty like us. He sounds nice. You know, polite and caring. Gosh, is that the time? I’d better go, otherwise, my parents will worry that something has happened to me. My father gets nervous since those girls vanished.”

  “Jen, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  “Why, because they’re all beautiful white girls?”

  “What are you implying, Jen?”

  She gave a humourless laugh. “I know you’re stuck out in the middle of nowhere without a TV and newspapers. Well, I’ll tell you. Like your paintings, our killer/kidnapper is up to number nine. My father, an avid reader, likes to keep abreast of things, especially local news. He’s always telling me to be extra vigilant at night.”

  “So you should, Jenny. You’re such a smart young lady. None of us would want anything to happen to you.”

  “Thank you.” She sounded a little embarrassed but went on. “I’m sure Mr Hallward will call you soon, so remember to act all surprised, won’t you.”