Olive bit her lip, considering the idea. ‘Well, let’s paint yours first,’ she said. ‘I’ll decide later whether to add mine. It is supposed to be one person. But I’m definitely going to lay gold leaf on the lion’s mane. He will be tame as a pussycat.’
‘Yes, señorita.’
Olive placed her on the chair she usually sat in when Teresa brushed her hair. There was a firmness and surety to Olive’s touch, she was operating in her space of confidence and possibility. ‘You have such solemn eyes,’ Olive told her, as she put her paintbrush to the treated panel. ‘So dark and watchful above your little snub nose. You and Isaac have become as engraved in my mind as a woodcut.’
Olive’s expression grew distracted as she began to draw away from the outer elements of the room and closer to her artistic vision. Teresa was locked out of it, and yet she felt the source of it. She willingly sank into this phantom role, where she could disappear and be anything Olive wanted. She had never felt so invisible, and yet so seen.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollinsPublishers
....................................
16
In the end, Harold returned the first week of June, driving himself back from Malaga airfield. ‘Where is he?’ he called, as soon as he’d parked up the Packard. ‘Where’s my prodigy?’
The women stood on the front step, shielding their eyes from the sun. Harold’s wave was breezy. He’s been with her, Teresa thought, surveying him as he neared the front door. He looked sated, well fed, and yet his grin was a little fixed. He seemed to have the air of a man rolling away from vice and back into the straits of virtue. Maybe he sent her a ticket to Paris. The anonymous woman’s timid German, which had grown fainter in Teresa’s memory, now returned. Harold, bist du es?
Teresa glanced over to Sarah. She had a self-contained look, as if she was conserving her energies, girding herself. Does she know? Teresa thought.
‘Hallo, darling,’ Sarah said. ‘Isaac doesn’t live here, you know.’
Harold stalked forward, depositing two kisses either side of his wife’s face. ‘It’s Isaac now, is it?’ He turned to Olive. ‘You look well, Liv. In fact, you look glorious.’
Olive smiled. ‘Thank you, Papi. So do you.’
Teresa cast down her eyes, hoping Harold wouldn’t see her thoughts. ‘Buenos días, Teresa,’ he said. She looked up. The journey had left him with a day’s stubble. She breathed in the smell of his travel-worn shirt, the possibility of someone else’s perfume mingled on his skin.
‘Buenos días, señor.’
‘Fetch my suitcase, will you.’
She descended the step, feeling folded inside the Schlosses’ life with such a cloying intensity that she could hardly breathe.
THAT NIGHT, TERESA WAITED FOR Isaac outside their cottage, as the shadows lengthened and the cicadas began to build their rasping wall of sound. He appeared at the base of the hill at about seven o’clock, and she was struck by how tired he looked, burdened down by an invisible weight as he moved towards her.
‘He’s back,’ she said, by way of greeting.
Isaac dropped his knapsack on the grass, where it clunked.
‘What’s in there?’ she asked.
‘You’ll see.’ He sank to the earth and lay on his back, his hands enlaced beneath his head.
‘There’s something you should know,’ she said, irritated with his evasion. ‘Olive didn’t tell you, but she sent an extra painting to Paris. Don’t be angry. He’s sold it. I wanted to tell you before Harold did.’ Isaac remained prostrate, and he nodded, patting his jacket pocket, pulling out a box of battered cigarettes. ‘Are you angry, Isa?’
‘No.’
‘I thought you would be. Why aren’t you angry?’
‘Do you want me to be angry? What’s the point? She’s done it. And it doesn’t surprise me.’
‘More money for the cause, I suppose.’
‘Always that.’
‘Isa. I know what’s going on.’
He looked up at her, sharply. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I know what you two do. Apart from the painting stuff. That she’s in love with you.’
A look of relief passed across his face as he lit a cigarette. ‘Olive,’ he said.
‘Are you in love with her?’
Isaac sat up and dragged on his cigarette, hunching his knees as he looked down over the sierra. It was dusk by now, and the bats had started to appear out of the copses at the foot of the valley. The air was warm, the earth still giving off its heat. ‘They’ll leave,’ he said. ‘They won’t last here. They belong in the city. In the salon.’
‘Sarah, yes. Harold, maybe. Not Olive.’
He smiled. ‘They’ve turned you into a romantic.’
‘Rather the opposite. I understand her, that’s all. She won’t leave you. She’ll follow wherever you go.’
‘What makes you so sure of that?’
‘She says she can’t paint without you.’
He laughed. ‘True in one way, perhaps. Well, if she does love me, that doesn’t make any of this all right.’
‘Well, I don’t think she needs you at all.’
‘And that doesn’t surprise me either, Teresa.’
PARIS HAD BEEN A TRIUMPH, Harold said; Isaac Robles was now the pole star in the firmament of Galerie Schloss Paris. The next afternoon, Harold, legs stretched out in the front east room, drinking a glass of fino, told them in no uncertain terms that thanks to Women in the Wheatfield, The Orchard, and Self-Portrait in Green, he and his partners were enjoying a renaissance.
‘People heard through Duchamp that Peggy wants to buy art,’ he said. ‘But I got there first. She’s incredibly excited about the next one, your companion piece to Women in the Wheatfield. She wants a photograph of it in progress, though, if that’s possible. Is it possible, Isaac?’
Olive slugged back another fingerful of sherry. ‘The “companion piece”?’ said Isaac.
‘Am I rushing you?’ said Harold. ‘Tell me if so. We don’t have to send her a photograph if you don’t want that. It’s what’s best for you.’ Isaac nodded. ‘You have a great gift, Isa. Truly. I cannot wait to see your future.’
‘It will not be what any of us expects,’ Isaac replied, staring at Olive. ‘Mr Schloss, I have brought something for you.’
Olive put the sherry glass down and began to rise from her chair, but Isaac reached into his knapsack and withdrew a pistol, the barrel made of shining steel. No one spoke as he weighed it in the flat of his hand.
‘Is that real?’ Sarah asked.
‘Real, señora.’
‘Why on earth have you brought us a gun?’ said Harold, laughing. ‘Bring me a painting, for Christ’s sake.’
Olive sat back, the relief visible on her face. ‘Do you shoot, señor?’ Isaac said.
‘I can. I have.’
‘Can the women shoot?’
‘Of course we can’t,’ said Sarah. ‘Why do you ask? This is terribly dramatic.’
ISAAC HUNG AN OLD FLOUR sack, packed with earth, upon a protruding branch of a cork oak at the end of the garden. One word covered the rough sacking, F A R I N A, and they agreed that the makeshift bullseye was the space between the ‘R’ and the ‘I’. They all trooped past the empty stone fountain and lined up to have a go, and there was almost a carnival atmosphere to their endeavour; the silly swinging sack, the birds scattering out of the oak at the crack of Isaac’s pistol.
Harold hit the last A. Sarah shot into the bark and handed the pistol back to Isaac, saying she would never touch it again. She went to lie on her back in the grass, staring at the sky, her hands resting on her stomach. Isaac shot the middle of the N, and looked sheepish. He handed the pistol to Olive and Teresa watched the intertwining of their hands.
Olive lumbered over to the shooti
ng spot and raised the pistol. She squinted, and pulled on the trigger, releasing the bullet with a gasped shock as the pistol recoiled in her hand.
‘Liv,’ cried her father.
‘I’m fine.’
‘No, you nearly shot the centre.’
Olive looked in surprise towards the sack. ‘Did I?’
Teresa thought it natural that Olive should have such a good eye, a steady hand. ‘Do that again,’ Harold said.
‘No. It was a fluke.’
Sarah lifted her head up to look at the bullet-riddled sack. ‘Liv, you’ve got a hidden talent. Maybe we should enter you in competitions.’
Teresa hurried over to take the pistol from Olive, and Isaac came to check she was reloading it correctly. Teresa brushed him off, setting the pistol perfectly on her own. ‘You bought this with her money, didn’t you?’ she whispered to him.
‘It won’t be the last. It’s a Soviet T33,’ he replied, with a note of admiration.
‘Are you giving this gun to them?’
‘They might need it.’
‘Why? Are you trying to protect them, or put them in danger?’
‘Keep your eye on the target, Tere. And your voice down.’
Teresa wondered where Isaac was finding the means to source Soviet weapons, but part of her didn’t want to know. She concentrated on raising the pistol, her legs apart, her other hand supporting her wrist. Her body was taut, every muscle tensed on her spare frame, the set of her jaw fixed as hard as the stone satyr in the fountain. She inhaled deeply and pulled the trigger. You’re not the only one who shoots rabbits, she thought. The pistol went off and the bullet sailed through the air, hitting precisely through the knot attaching the sack to the branch. To Isaac’s cry of frustration, the entire thing tumbled to the grass. The packed earth spilled everywhere, and the game was ruined.
•
Late that afternoon, Harold said he was driving to Malaga. He wanted to visit a bodega, pick up some new supplies of sherry. Sarah announced that she would accompany him. ‘I need a chemist,’ she said. ‘Then I’d like a coffee on Calle Larios and a walk along the sea.’
Teresa saw Harold’s hesitation, but he said, ‘That’s a good idea, get some air into your lungs. Isaac, would you join us? A man with local knowledge might help when it comes to the sherry.’ But Isaac, who Teresa knew would once have craved a drive in such a powerful car, who had to content himself with a bicycle, did not wish to join them at all. He demurred, politely. ‘Of course,’ said Harold. ‘You’ve got work you want to do.’
Outside the finca, Olive and Isaac waved her parents off. ‘We could take the photograph for Peggy Guggenheim now,’ she said, as their car disappeared. ‘Daddy has a camera in his study.’ Isaac was silent, staring at the swinging gate, gaping open on the path towards the village. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘I was foolish,’ he said.
‘You’re weren’t.’
‘I thought your confidence, your happiness, was out of love for me.’
‘It was. It is.’
‘I do not think so. I think this has always been inside you, waiting to come out. I just happened to be there, at that particular time, in order for you to use me as your canvas.’
‘I love you, Isaac,’ she said. The words landed between them.
‘Your true pleasure is not with me. It is hanging on the walls of the Guggenheim house. How is this going to end, Olive?’ he said. ‘Because it is going to end.’
Olive turned to him, placing a hand on his arm, but he brushed it off. ‘I’ve made you angry,’ she said. ‘But I love you—’
‘You say one more painting. And then there is one more. A green face, one more, one more, one more.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This will be the last. I promise, I swear. I swear on my life.’
He turned to face her squarely. ‘Did you and my sister plan all this from the very beginning?’ he said.
‘Of course not.’
‘She seems very comfortable with the situation now. She sounds like you. Always, she has a plan.’
‘No, there was never a plan, Isaac. This just happened.’
‘Teresa is a survivor. She was the one who put you on the easel, but don’t think she will always put you first.’
‘What are you talking about?’
He laughed, without humour. ‘I am famous in Paris, a city I have never even seen. I paint portraits of my own face I have never even seen. You are stealing me, Olive. I feel like I am becoming invisible, the more visible I become.’ The breath had got stuck in his throat, and he looked embarrassed, his words breaking up. ‘And after all this, you expect me to believe you love me.’
‘I don’t expect anything, Isaac. I never wanted you to feel like this,’ she said. ‘I do love you. I never expected you to love me. I’ve got carried away, I know that. But – I – we’ve – been so successful, I never thought it could be so easy—’
‘It is not easy, Olive. It has never been easy. I cannot, I will not do this any more. And if you send that Guggenheim woman one more picture, then I cannot promise my actions.’
‘What does that mean? Isaac, you’re frightening me.’
‘The painting you are working on – you must destroy it.’
She looked horrified. ‘But I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. Because they’re waiting for it in Paris.’
‘Then you cannot expect me to have anything to do with it.’
‘Isaac, please. Please—’
‘You promised me, Olive. You went behind my back.’
‘And you haven’t touched me for four weeks. Is that the price you’re forcing me to pay, for once in my life doing something brilliant?’
‘And what about the price you are forcing me to pay? No man would put up with a woman who asks so much. A man needs a woman who understands him, who supports him—’
‘Who puts him first?’
‘My absence from you is an exchange you seem more than willing to make, as long as Miss Guggenheim continues to sing your praises.’
‘That’s not true. I miss you.’
‘You do not miss me, Olive. You miss the next chance to send a painting over.’
‘I do miss you. Just come upstairs and see it,’ she pleaded. ‘And then tell me if you still feel the same.’
THE PAINTING WAS THE SAME size as Women in the Wheatfield, and yet it felt bigger. Up in the attic, Isaac stood before it, staggered by its sensuality and power. Even though it was still unfinished, the lion already looked possessed by the sight of the double-headed Rufina. This piece was breathtaking, sinister, revolutionary.
‘Is that you?’ he asked, pointing at the disembodied head. ‘And is that Tere, holding you?’
‘Yes, and yes,’ said Olive. ‘But she’s supposed to be the same person. It’s called Rufina and the Lion. That’s Rufina, before and after the authorities got hold of her.’
Isaac had a faraway expression as he stared at the painting, the riot of colours and gold leaf, the curiously level gazes of Rufina carrying her head; the lion, waiting to take action.
‘Do you like it?’ she asked.
‘It’s wonderful.’
She smiled. ‘Thank you. It happens sometimes. My hand guides my head without much pause to worry or think.’
In that moment, all she wanted was for Isaac to see her as talented and confident – and to love her for it. ‘We’ve done a wonderful thing, Isa,’ she said. ‘The paintings are going to be famous.’ But Isaac kept his focus on Rufina and the Lion. ‘Let’s use the camera,’ she said with a bright voice. ‘Peggy wanted snaps.’
‘Snaps?’
‘Photographs. Of the painting. Isa,’ she said gently, ‘do you really want me to destroy it?’
He looked at the floor, and Olive knew in that moment that she had won this battle, if not the war; for it also felt like a loss. She looked at her half-finished painting. ‘You could fight a lion too, Isaac – if you had to. I know it.’
‘And a lion would run away from you. Do you know how to use the camera?’ he asked, brisk, businesslike.
‘Of course,’ she replied, unnerved, unable to pinpoint what was happening between them. ‘But – I was hoping Teresa would take a photograph of the two of us, together.’
Isaac closed his eyes, as if in pain. ‘Let’s get it done,’ he said. ‘Call her.’
‘I’M A LION,’ TERESA ROARED, putting her free hand up, a pantomime paw as she hovered her finger over the camera button. She’d been taking rather formal pictures for the last half-hour – of the painting, of Isaac next to it, but in this moment, Olive threw back her head in laughter, eyes slightly closed, whilst next to her, Isaac, impervious to his sister’s humour, gazed straight down the lens with a look of such possession on his face that Teresa forgot she was the king of the jungle at all.
Teresa knew then, as she pressed that button and captured them in these poses, that something had broken in this room. And she understood, for the first time, that each of them would always be burdened by the consequences of their decisions, and they could never go back.
WHEN ISAAC WENT TO PICK up the developed film in Malaga a week later, he discovered that in some of the pictures, Teresa had put Olive in the centre of the image, and the painting itself was half-obscured. He thought he looked funereal in every single one. Olive, because she had been moving so much – jumpy no doubt in the face of his acute reluctance that afternoon – was slightly blurred, her mouth ajar, her lips making a silent O of pleasure. The sight of her – her expression of freedom and joy – made his conscience flicker briefly before dying away.
When Harold was shown a photograph of the painting on its own, cropped closely so you couldn’t tell its location, he asked Isaac, ‘Why is the girl carrying a head?’
‘In my mind, it stands for duplicity,’ Isaac replied. ‘Because we are surrounded by lies.’
The Muse Page 22