The Muse

by Jessie Burton

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  ....................................

  17

  Olive continued to paint Rufina and the Lion throughout the rest of June and into July. Harold’s telephone began to ring again in his study, every two or three days, and he would close the door on them in order to answer it, his voice hushed and incomprehensible. When he’d been in Paris, he said, the news from Vienna had not been good. Businesses were closing, crimes going unpunished; but not even smashed shop windows were as frightening as the political rhetoric being hurled from one side to the other. Jews were coming in from Germany for shelter, but he wondered how long their luck would last.

  He told his family that he would focus on the Paris gallery, trying to work out the logistics of getting his artworks out of Vienna before the business suffered. Peggy Guggenheim was going to open her gallery in London, and he was hoping he might be able to transfer some of his stock to her there. In Vienna, he told them, Jewish friends were selling their art for knock-­down prices to raise capital to pay for train fares, lodgings, food, new lives beyond the borders of Austria. ­People who had prided themselves on varied, intelligent and abundant collections of old masters and new were forced to accept prices they would have baulked at twelve months earlier.

  Harold was unsurprisingly gloomy, only perking up when there was talk of the next work by Isaac Robles. Isaac Robles had become his raison d’être, two fingers to the nationalistic narrowness peddled in every paper; his colourful child, his man with a vision, his delight and defiance. ‘Paint, Isa,’ he said one night, drunk. ‘God knows we need you to paint.’

  It was odd to think such tempests were happening all around Europe, for Arazuelo seemed relatively peaceful. Sarah continued with her walks out; by now there was a mountain of artichokes in the kitchen. They would never be able to consume them against the pace that Sarah was coming home with them, and Teresa regarded them with a sense of foreboding. She noticed how Sarah’s freckles had appeared over the bridge of her nose, from the punishing July sunshine; she had lost some of her brittle elegance, she seemed somewhat more grounded in her surroundings. At night, when Teresa and Olive could hear the Packard’s engine as Harold trundled it down the slope and through the gates towards Malaga, Sarah seemed serene about Harold’s leave-­taking. She slept in late, and complained of headaches, rising with enough time for her husband to have made his way back home in the dawn, as if he’d never left.

  Olive no longer commented on her father’s disappearing acts. Teresa wondered whether she was using it as a deeper motive, duping her father as he was duping her. Perhaps Olive’s pursuit was not one of success, but of an enemy’s humiliation. Teresa wasn’t exactly sure of this – for Olive seemed to be most animated and herself when simply painting, day and night, to finish Rufina and the Lion.

  JULY WAS A GOOD MONTH in Arazuelo, and Olive drank it in; the smell of sage fields and rosemary, lizards making their way like small secrets out of the walls, jerky and neurotic in motion, ever wary of predators in the sky. But when they stilled themselves to bask, how poised they were, such pragmatists of nature, soaking up the heat of the sun.

  It was a time of long evening shadows, the raw rasp of crickets filling the hot night. The fields were now the shades of parsley, lime and apple. Wildflowers; spattered reds and royal purples, canary-­yellow petals moving in the breeze. And when the wind got up, salt tasted on the air. No sound of the sea – but listen, and you could hear the articulated joints of a beetle, trundling through the corn root.

  From the hills came the dull music of bells as the goats overtook these smaller sounds descending the scree through the gauze of heat. Bees, drowsing on the fat flower heads, farmers’ voices calling, birdsong arpeggios spritzing from the trees. A summer’s day will make so many sounds, when you yourself remain completely silent. And Olive plunged her own sadness under, succumbing to this aural pleasure.

  •

  They didn’t see it coming. Of course they didn’t. Who wants to look out for trouble, every single day? You turn away, as long as you can. Even the government didn’t see it coming. Perhaps, when the locals recalled how no one had ever been brought to justice over Adrián the factory boy, or when they considered those red ribbons tied to the trees, or the shot statue of the Madonna, they would use the benefit of hindsight, and say, Ah yes; the writing was on the wall.

  The Schlosses were too wrapped up in their own internal battles to realize was going on north in Madrid, what was going to surge up towards them from Morocco. They were not paying attention when on the twelfth of July in Madrid four Falangists shot dead the socialist lieutenant of the Republican Assault Guard. In retaliation, his friends assassinated the country’s monarchist deputy, a prominent right-­winger. Life in Spain, and life in the finca, was on the cusp of being broken apart. A flood of recriminations, ambitions and long-­buried resentments would turn into a full-­blown civil war. But at the same time, in those early days, it didn’t seem this way at all.

  Sarah and Olive heard it on the radio first. On the eighteenth of July, four generals, out of the eighteen that ran the national army, rebelled against their left-­wing government and taken over their garrisons. The Prime Minister, frightened of revolution and mass unrest, ordered all civil governors not to distribute arms to the workers’ organizations, who would inevitably want to resist potential armed rule, and then he resigned that night.

  Isaac came racing up to the finca. Harold was out – in Malaga, of course. ‘Get the pistol,’ he was calling, and they had spilled out of the house on hearing him.

  Later, Teresa would think about the Schloss women’s conflicting expressions, as they heard Isaac’s voice from the bottom of the slope. Olive looked relieved, believing that Isaac clearly still cared about her – so much so that he had run all the way because some silly soldiers were throwing their weight around – and had come to check that she was all right. And Teresa remembered Sarah’s smile of pleasure, her steady hand as she poured him a glass of water.

  Seville was the nearest city to Arazuelo to fall to the army rebels. Its conquering general was a man called Queipo de Llano, who used the radio at ten o’clock that night to broadcast his intentions. Isaac and the three women sat listening in Harold’s study, the fear they felt mirrored in each other’s faces as Queipo de Llano’s haranguing crackled through the speaker:

  ‘­People of Seville: to arms!’ he bellowed. ‘The Fatherland is in danger and in order to save it a few men of courage, a few generals, have assumed the responsibility of placing ourselves at the forefront of a Movement of National Salvation that is triumphing everywhere. The Army of Africa hastens to cross to Spain to join in the task of crushing that unworthy Government that had taken upon itself to destroy Spain in order to convert it into a colony of Moscow.’

  ‘A colony of Moscow?’ uttered Sarah. ‘What the hell is he talking about?’

  ‘Shut up!’ hissed Olive.

  ‘All the troops of Andalusia, with whom I have communicated by telephone, obey my orders and are now in the streets . . . all the authorities of Seville, and all who sympathize with them and with the so-­called Government in Madrid, are under arrest and at my disposal.’

  ‘Isaac,’ Olive whispered. ‘He’s talking about you. Isaac, you have to run.’

  He looked up at her, and she saw the hollows under his eyes. ‘Run? I am not going anywhere,’ he said. ‘You think I am going to hide from a man like him? You think because Queipo de Llano has telephoned some ­people they will do as he says? We have already mobilized. We will fight back. They did not succeed in Madrid or Barcelona, and they will not succeed here.’

  ‘­People of Seville!’ the general bawled on. ‘The die is cast and decided in our favour, and it is useless for the rabble to resist and produce that racket of shouts and gunshots you hear everywhere. Troops of Legionnaires and Moroccans are now en r
oute to Seville, and as soon as they arrive, those troublemakers will be hunted down like vermin. Long live Spain!’

  ‘Isaac,’ Olive said, her voice rising in panic. ‘They’ve got troops, and weapons. Trained soldiers. What would men like that do to you?’

  They could hear the sound of Harold’s motor car, fast and loud, crashing up the hill. A car door slammed. ‘Are you there, are you there? Have you heard?’ he shouted through the hallway.

  Teresa pulled away from the desk, stumbling along the unlit corridor, bashing into the walls as she fought her way through the kitchen and onto the veranda, as far away as possible from everybody else. She ran down into the darkness of the orchard and felt the bile come, her body retching the words she could not find to spell out the terror inside – that this was it, the wave was here, the land would be ripped, her brother would be taken, and Olive – Olive would leave. She kept shaking her head, willing herself to get a grip, that she’d got this far – but in her heart she could hear the soldiers’ footsteps, stomping jackboots along dark routes, thump thump thump, butt of a gun, split head; no place to hide.

  ‘Tere? Tere!’ It was Olive, calling for her. ‘Tere, don’t be scared. Where are you?’

  But this was how she would end, Teresa knew. Here, on her knees, in the dark, in the company of those Spanish wolves.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

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  ....................................

  PART IV

  The Swallowed Century

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  ....................................

  November 1967

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  ....................................

  XII

  When the telephone rang in the hallway two days after I was locked out of Quick’s house, I ran downstairs, still in my dressing gown, to pick it up. When I heard the person on the line say, ‘Wham now, Delly?’ I was so glad, I nearly cried. It wasn’t Quick I wanted, nor Lawrie. Her voice was permission to live.

  ‘Cynth!’

  ‘You still alive, girl?’

  ‘Just about.’

  ‘I – I free today. You wanna meet?’

  IT HAD BEEN JUST OVER two months. I saw her before she saw me. Cynthia was immaculate as ever, leaning on one of the lions in Trafalgar Square, wearing a thick sheepskin coat which I’d never seen before, and a new pair of denim flared trousers. She looked . . . cool. She’d let her hair out of its French plait, and it was cut in a new shape; the beginning of a rounded Afro. I felt frumpy in comparison, in my thick tights and sensible heels, my woollen scarf and hat clamped round my ears like something out of a Blyton book. But still. A cold November morning in London; you do not mess.

  My heart surged at how wonderful Cynth was. The realization of how far I’d travelled alone swamped me, as I saw her face, my friend, my oldest friend. Cynth caught my eye as I moved towards her, her arms wide open like a flightless bird trying to flap her wings.

  ‘I sorry, Cynth,’ I said. ‘So sorry. I was dotish, I was mess up—­’

  ‘Hey, Delly,’ she said. ‘Me marry and lef you. I sorry too. What me thinking?’ But there was a twinkle in her eye. ‘I miss you real bad, girl.’

  ‘Me too. Me too. Me too.’

  Her face broke open in a smile, and we turned shy. My emotion left me embarrassed – how I, a grown woman, could be so childish, so effervescent. My heart thumped in my ribs to be near her; I was giddy with her, my giddiness exacerbated by the fact she seemed to feel the same. We walked down under Admiralty Arch and into St James’s Park, finding a bench to sit. ‘Sherbets,’ Cynth said, opening her handbag, proffering me a paper sack of sweets. ‘You thin, Delly. What goin’ on?’

  ‘Pinin’ for you,’ I said, mocking myself, trying to show I still had grit. When she laughed aloud, the sound almost hurt. How good it always was to make her laugh.

  ‘Nah, come now,’ she said. ‘You not eat?’

  SO I TOLD CYNTH EVERYTHING – about meeting Lawrie after the wedding, and our dates after that – the mother he lost and the painting she left – and how Quick’s attraction to the artwork seemed mingled with repulsion. I told her how the name ‘Isaac Robles’ came up, Edmund Reede convinced that this was a long-­lost artwork by a forgotten genius, and how Quick was more doubtful about this, until her declaration last night that actually, the painting was nothing to do with Isaac Robles at all.

  Cynth was much more interested in Lawrie, how it was going, and was it serious – but I tried to keep the focus on the conundrum of Quick, rather than of my own heart. ‘The worse of it, Cynth,’ I said, ‘is that she dyin’.’

  ‘Dyin’?’

  ‘Cancer. She tell me late stage. They didn’t catch. Pancreatic.’

  ‘Poor woman,’ said Cynth. ‘She sound scare about it, invitin’ you round. Why she worrying about paintings when she gon’ dead?’

  ‘That’s what bothering me. Because listen to this; she running out of time on something, I sure of it.’

  ‘What you sayin’?’

  ‘Reede find out that the person who first sell Lawrie’s painting in 1936 is an art dealer called Harold Schloss,’ I said. ‘The thing is, I find a letter in Quick’s house addressed to Olive Schloss, inviting her to study at the Slade School of Art.’

  ‘Delly, were you snoopin’ round a dyin’ woman house?’

  I tutted. ‘No! It there in her telephone book she tell me to fetch. But listen – Quick also have telegram address to Harold Schloss, date of July of 1936.’

  ‘What, just lyin’ there in her telephone book, thirty year later?’

  ‘I know. I know. But – it like Quick want me to find it. It like she lef’ it out, because she dyin’ and don’t want the truth to die with her.’

  ‘Delly . . .’

  ‘Quick too interest in where Lawrie get the painting from. And then she tell me last night it isn’t Isaac Robles who paint it. Olive Schloss is key to this, I’m sure.’

  ‘But who this Olive Schloss?’

  I exhaled, and my breath made condensation in the air. ‘That be the question, Cynthia. That is it. Clearly a body who could paint, otherwise they wouldn’t have been offered the Slade. Someone probably relate to Harold Schloss.’

  ‘His wife?’

  ‘Maybe. But if you going art school, you usually younger, a student.’

  ‘His daughter, then?’

  ‘That’s what I think. Olive Schloss was Harold Schloss’s daughter. And at the Skelton, there an old photograph of a man and woman standing by Lawrie’s painting. On the back someone written “O and I”. That stands for Olive and Isaac. Quick say Isaac Robles didn’t paint the pictures. Then who did, and how she know? I don’t think Quick who she say she is.’

  ‘Delly . . .’

  ‘It always bother me, how she never have any paintings on her wall. Why’s that? And the thing is, Quick go funny when I ask her about Olive Schloss. Shut door on me, lock me out. But it like she want me to know, to get closer to the truth of it, and at the same time – she can’t bear it.’

  Cynthia appeared to be thinking, staring at the ducks gliding across the pond before us. Beyond the trees, the spindly brown turrets of Westminster poked up into the air. ‘I always thought Marjorie Quick was a funny name,’ she said.

  We sat in silence for a moment. I loved my friend for believing, for not saying I was mad, for accompanying me as I moved to and fro over my narrative. It gave me permission to entertain seriously the possibility that Quick might once have gone by another name, lived another life, a life she was desperately trying to remember – and to tell me – before it was too late. I couldn’t imagine the pain of seeing someone else take credit for your work, whilst you languished forever unnoticed, uncelebrated, kn
owing death was so near.

  ‘The English mad,’ said Cynth. ‘So you goin’ to ask her about all this commesse?’

  ‘But what me goin’ to say?’ One couldn’t exactly confront Quick, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted the woman I knew to vanish further under scrutiny. I felt that if I could show her my support, this might coax her out of the corner, but I wasn’t sure of the best way to go about it. ‘Me think she keeping secrets for a reason,’ I added.

  ‘Shoe shop was never like this,’ Cynth sighed. ‘You put a shoe on woman foot and that be it.’

  We laughed. ‘No, that is true,’ I said. ‘But you know what else? Quick help me publish a short story, so me in her debt.’

  Cynth only heard the bit she wanted to hear, and her eyes lit up. ‘Oh now, published! Oh, that is good. What it called?’

  ‘ “The Toeless Woman”. Remember that woman who come in and have those blocks of feet?’

  ‘Oh, my God. Yes. I got to read this.’

  Tingling with pleasure at her excitement, I told her it was in October’s London Review, but that if she liked I could send her a copy, I could send her ten. I told her how it had all unfolded, Quick sending the story personally to the magazine.

  ‘I think she like me,’ I said. ‘I think she trust me. I just don’t know exactly what she trustin’ me with.’

  Cynth nudged me. ‘It take some white lady to get you to do it, eh, not me?’ I started to protest that I’d had no idea what Quick was planning, but Cynth put her hands up. ‘I jokin’, I jokin’,’ she said. ‘I just glad. It about time.’

  ‘How’s Sam?’ I asked, wanting to change the subject away from me, suddenly nervous that Cynth was going to read the dramatization of our joint life in that story about the toeless woman.

  ‘He good. He very good.’ She looked shy. ‘There somethin’ I want to tell you, Dell. I want to tell you first. I havin’ a baby.’