Indelible

by Peter Helton

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘A camera could. But humans can only focus on one tiny area at a time, everything else is completely blurred. Where we focus, that is where our attention goes and then our emotions get to work on it, helping us decide what is important and what isn’t. The camera has no idea what is important and what isn’t. Depth of field is a lie. Humans don’t have any. You may stop staring at me now.’

  ‘Thank you, sensei.’

  ‘Sensei?’

  ‘It means “teacher”,’ Hiroshi said with the slightest of bows.

  ‘You don’t have to call me teacher, call me Chris.’

  ‘Does the painting never lie?’

  ‘The painting always lies. That is its function. The truth doesn’t lie in the painting; it lies in the making of the painting. The rest is up to the people who look at paintings. Once your painting is finished it is an honest object, just pigment on canvas, but it is capable of many lies. People want lies. It’s what they look for in a painting.’

  ‘You are a philosopher, sensei.’

  ‘I’ve been called other things, too. I see you have your sketchbook, are you ready to go out there and draw?’

  ‘I am.’ He produced a pencil stub from his jeans pocket as evidence.

  I dived into my bag, pulled out my little landscape sketchbook and grabbed an HB pencil stub off the table. ‘Me too.’

  Outside the weather was beginning to change. It had become overcast and the dark edges to some of the clouds made me glad I was wearing my leather jacket and boots as we ambled across the tufty lawn. ‘We’ll both be drawing in the forest,’ I said. ‘It’ll be interesting to compare our different approaches to painting the same subject.’

  ‘Ah, but I’ll be drawing in a different part of the wood. Very different.’

  ‘You know Summerlee Wood well?’

  ‘Very well. I can tell from your painting that it has its source in that part. Near the old kiln.’ He pointed to the right of Fiddler’s Pond. ‘But my painting originates in there.’ He pointed to the left, where the fringe of wood reached out to embrace the sculpture sheds and Kroog’s cottage, and he struck out in that direction. I walked the other way, remembering precisely the way to my chosen spot; it was along this bit. Or maybe that bit. The faint paths, trampled by generations of student feet, soon petered out and disappeared into the undergrowth. After ten minutes of frequently changing directions and a rising feeling of irritation I did find my spot again. Gratefully I sank down on to one of the fallen limbs of oak and lit a cigarette. Naturally, after five minutes’ rest I regretted not having brought all the painting gear out here. No matter; I would do it tomorrow. Perhaps I could put wheels on that bag. And an engine. I picked an area of my painting on the diagram I had drawn earlier and started drawing.

  Drawing devours time. Once you are engaged in recording what is in front of you with a pencil or a stick of charcoal you start to get pulled into the making of the drawing to such an extent that time simply disappears. Then you look up and think ‘how strange, hours have passed’. Or in this case ‘how strange, I feel like someone is watching me’.

  The feeling had been growing on me until I could not help but halt my pencil in mid-scribble and look around. Summerlee Woods was dense all around me. The trees had grown close together; some of them were covered in ivy and the fallen limbs of the ancient oaks were richly overgrown with mosses. Clumps of fern and brambles meant that I could not see far from my little clearing into the wood. Now I imagined I could hear a rustling sound nearby. What of it? I had told the students to get out and about, so I had to expect a few of them to be in the woods. I returned to my drawing. In my haste to pretend to Hiroshi that I could work in Zen-like simplicity with nothing but paper and one pencil I had omitted to bring a knife for sharpening and was now trying to record fine detail of bark and stone with the bluntest pencil in art history. I looked around for something to use as a sharpener. Never a squirrel around when you need one. The light began to fade down here under the dense canopy. I picked up a shard of broken pot – it was useless. I picked up a stone and used it like sandpaper to sharpen my pencil; it restored a point to it but one so short that it disappeared within two minutes. Useless. A raindrop fell on my drawing. That was it, enough for today. I had got quite a bit done. I stood up.

  A rustling and crackling behind me meant I had definitely disturbed some kind of critter, but when I turned around my view was blocked by the bramble growth and all I saw, or thought I saw, was something shadowy close to the ground. Now the patter of raindrops, slow and heavy, began to drown out the patter of hoof or feet I thought I could hear. After taking a last look at my drawing and comparing it with the area I had concentrated on, I struck out in the general direction of Batcombe House. Several times I stopped to gather up a handful of stones to make a tiny cairn or to lay out fallen branches in the shape of rough arrows to help me find my way more easily to the locus of my painting next time. It was getting dark with cloud and rain now and the sound of the falling drops was all around me, but I still managed to hear it: a cracking sound as from someone treading heavily on a twig. I whirled around and saw it. I wasn’t at all sure what it was I was seeing at first, but then it became clear. It was a human figure, naked, pale in the gloom and with wild hair. The man was moving quickly away from me through the undergrowth. At least I thought it was a man, and before I could decide whether to call out or pursue it the figure was gone, disappeared into the gloom and the rain. A naturist? An amorous student in pursuit of his love object? The wild man of the woods?

  Whatever it was, I would definitely make sure that next time I came out here I’d have my pencil sharpener with me.

  TEN

  ‘Not a chance, hon.’ Annis burrowed deeper under the duvet.

  ‘It’s not fair.’

  Muffled defiance from under the sheets. ‘Don’t care.’

  ‘But it’s your turn.’ I yawned.

  Annis wriggled her head free, holding on to the edge of the duvet for dear life. ‘Not at half six in the morning, it isn’t. I’m a painter; those numbers aren’t on my clock.’ She turned over, taking much of the duvet with her. ‘You want to go detecting at sparrow’s fart, you make your own breakfast. My private eyes are firmly shut.’

  I couldn’t actually remember when I’d last been victorious in one of these squabbles, so I pushed my reluctant carcass out of bed and Neanderthaled towards the shower. Why on earth had I agreed to do surveillance on Susan Byers’ husband? Why, when my tongue had already touched my palate in the forming of a firm ‘no’, had ‘OK then’ come out? Probably for the same reasons that it was my turn to make breakfast again.

  I would keep half an eye on Martin Byers today and hopefully it wouldn’t take long to establish whether or not he was cheating on his pink Southampton spouse. Yesterday I had got extremely wet on my trek from Summerlee Wood to the shelter of Studio One at Batcombe House. Quite possibly all of my students had also been soaked by the sudden rain that had brought with it a definite autumnal air. I was certain the Wild Man of the Woods must have felt it too. Now it looked like more rain. I was hoping that following Martin Byers about wouldn’t mean getting soaked standing at street corners like so much private-eye work does. If I was really lucky, I would be there to see him leave his place covered in lipstick marks with his mistress waving him off as he left for work: case closed. Which reminded me, I needed to take my camera since a quick pencil sketch would presumably not be acceptable as proof of guilt. I dressed quietly and picked up my watch and rings from the bedside table.

  ‘Can I have quince jam with my croissants?’ Annis mumbled through a nest of strawberry hair.

  ‘I thought it was too early for you,’ I protested.

  ‘Well, now that you’ve woken me up, I might as well have breakfast. By the time you’ve made it and brought it upstairs it’ll nearly be breakfast time anyway,’ she elucidated with the kind of impeccable logic that I find impossible to defend against before I’ve had my firs
t coffee. ‘And don’t let the egg go solid again, I hate that.’

  I stuck the kettle on the stove, whizzed some beans in the annoying little coffee mill, and primed the cafetière. There were no croissants, not even in the freezer. This was not a good start. Then an image of Kurt Hufnagel’s kitchen floated before me and I counted my blessings. I soon lost count, in fact. I found bagels in the freezer and cream cheese in the fridge, but no cucumber. Hufnagel would have called it a conspiracy. And he’d have been right. There were plenty of eggs from the happy hens of Ridge Farm, though. I went straight to the Honeysett default setting triggered by any now what? kitchen situation: Scrambled Eggs With Everything. Tim would have been proud of me. Frying pan, olive oil, chopped onion, chopped coriander, as much Indian spice paste as you think your victim can swallow, and slide in the scrambled eggs. Keep it moving round the pan until the bread pops from the toaster and divvy it up. A generous dollop of the inevitable brinjal pickle rounds it off nicely.

  ‘This is boys’ food,’ Annis complained while she shovelled golden forkfuls of it into her mouth. ‘What’s wrong with cornflakes?’

  ‘Cornflakes and brinjal pickle? Are you mad?’

  She stabbed my arm with her fork. It left an orange tattoo. ‘So it’s the old hubby-playing-away-from-home scenario. How tedious for you.’

  ‘Yup. Can’t say my cup runneth over with excitement.’

  ‘Speaking of which, any more coffee?’

  I topped her up. ‘According to Nabokov, infidelity is the most conventional way of breaking with convention.’

  ‘The bloke who wrote Lolita? He should know.’

  ‘Except Mrs Byers says she’s pregnant again, though she’s not showing yet.’

  ‘She told you? Why did she tell you that?’

  I shrugged. People like telling me things. Mostly lies, of course. ‘I don’t know. To make me take the job, I guess. Her husband doesn’t know.’

  Annis handed me her empty plate. ‘Thanks, hon, that was gruesome. Only kidding, it was nice, just a bit spicy for breakfast.’ She let herself flop back on to the pillows. A split second later she sat up again like a demented toy. ‘She told you but not her husband? Did she mention abortion?’

  ‘Obliquely, yes. She thinks she might not have it if it turns out he’s cheating on her. Fair enough, I suppose.’

  ‘Fair enough? Not if you’re the baby, I should think.’

  We were entering difficult terrain here, a possible minefield I was not prepared to enter this early in the morning. ‘Anyway, it’s just a weird feeling she has. It’s not like there’ve been strange phone calls or she’s found unexplained knickers in his laundry. She just feels he’s changing. He might be squeaky clean.’

  ‘Yeah, and I’m a hobbit.’

  ‘What makes you say that? You don’t know the guy.’

  ‘Instinct,’ Annis said firmly.

  ‘A woman’s instinct? Don’t give me that. If women had instinct there wouldn’t be millions of them hanging around with useless men.’

  She widened her eyes at me and her eyebrows rose dangerously. Me and my big mouth. ‘Hey, who just made breakfast?’

  ‘A fiver says he’s cheating on her. No, tell you what, I bet you a whole month of breakfast in bed if he’s kosher.’

  ‘Done,’ I said.

  Rash.

  As I drove into town I was already coming to regret the wager. But surely there had to be plenty of devoted husbands out there working away from home who never looked over their shoulder and who dreamt of nothing so much as to return to the bosom of their families? A month of breakfasts in bed! What were the chances of him not cheating on her? The woman said he was doing things differently. He’d obviously been practising. But was he still?

  Due to my complicated breakfast duties, I was running later than I had planned. Traffic on the London Road was practically at a standstill. I tried to imagine it in the days of the horse and cart, when it had been built, and wondered what had been considered busy then. I was already missing my biking days, when I had been allowed to whizz past stationary traffic in the bus lane. But the first raindrops were coming down and I began to appreciate being warm and dry and being able to listen to the radio. By the time I had found a parking space in Rivers Street it was raining steadily and by the time I had walked to Byers’ address in Circus Mews a familiar private-eye mood had settled on me like a cold mist. The mews was too narrow to sit around in a parked car. I’d have to stand around in a neighbouring doorway while I kept an eye on his.

  This is what most private investigations amount to: standing on street corners and in doorways while your feet get wet or, if you’re lucky, sitting in a warm car with your brain sliding into atrophy while you wait for someone to turn up at an address, leave a house or move a curtain. Then, after endless hours of nothing, a frantic scramble for your camera and click, you’ve missed it.

  I used to hand over grainy 6 x 8 photographs; now increasingly it’s video footage. The pain, I imagine, is the same. And if you think you would never spy on your spouse then they’re probably spying on you: more than fifty per cent of divorces involve a private detective.

  I checked my watch. It was ten to eight, much later than I had hoped to arrive. I lit a cigarette and stood, ostensibly looking down the road but really just keeping his front door in my peripheral vision. After a while that gave me a headache so I turned around and looked up the road for a change. Isn’t the life of a private eye exciting? But then, at seventeen minutes past eight exactly, I got fed up. I shrugged deeper into my leather jacket, splished across the street and rang his bell. I’d do my Jehovah’s Witness impression. No one in their right mind would ask you for proof that you really are a Jehovah’s Witness. Byers’ accommodation was on the first floor. There was no intercom so he’d have to come down or open a window to see who I was. Or preferably his girlfriend telling me he’d gone off to work and no thanks, they were fine for monotheistic religions at the moment.

  Nothing. No answer. I rang again, for the heck of it. And then, just as I was turning away, the door did open and an elderly man let himself out. He was wearing a coat of a colour so depressing that if you had mixed it by accident you would quickly scrape it into the bin with a shudder. He raised his eyebrows, which I took for an invitation. ‘I was looking for Martin.’ I pointed at the bell button. ‘Martin Byers.’

  ‘Oh, he’ll be at work now.’ He pointedly pulled the door shut behind him as he looked me up and down. Long wet hair and ancient leather jackets do not inspire confidence in the elderly.

  ‘Will his girlfriend be at work, too?’ I tried.

  ‘I wouldn’t know, I’m sure. I don’t know that he has a girlfriend.’ He shook his head at my presumptuousness, opened his black umbrella and walked off.

  ‘What time does he normally get in?’ I called after him but he ignored me, just stiffened his gait a little and sped around the corner. I stepped back into the road and looked up at Martin Byers’ window. That gave nothing away either. So far my breakfasts in bed looked safe.

  On my way to Batcombe I swung past Byers’ place of employment. It was housed in a converted warehouse by the river, with plate-glass doors and a steel plaque so tiny you’d have to press your nose against it to decipher the name: Mantis IT Solutions. It looked like the kind of place where a lot of money was being made quietly, almost anonymously. One look at the adjacent car park, however, revealed that, privately at least, one was quite happy to advertise one’s success: sparkling 4x4s, BMW 5 and 7 series and Mercedes, all in the latest colours. Even the few motorcycles here looked new and expensive. I had no idea what car Byers drove – forgot to ask – but I would try and be here when the Mantis factory hooter went. I’d been given a tiny colour passport photo of him to make sure I’d recognize him.

  By the time I arrived at Batcombe House the rain had stopped, though thick grey cloud still hung low over the hillside like a wet floorcloth. While I’d been waiting outside Byers’ place my boots had soaked through; my hair wa
s still wet and breakfast seemed ages ago. I went to the staff room to make myself a coffee.

  The staff room on the ground floor was pleasantly clapped-out, and on colder days usually had a cheering fire going. There was a magazine- and book-covered table with six rickety chairs, a couple of sofas hiding their threadbareness under colourful throws, and a battered sideboard with a tea- and coffee-making facility colloquially known as ‘the kettle’. Everyone was here and the mood was rebellious. Dan, the ceramics tutor, Kroog and Catherine Stott were flounced on the sofas with their mugs, Claire Kilburn was standing by the kettle, waiting for it to boil.

  ‘Morning, Honeysett,’ said Kroog as I steered a course towards the kettle. ‘Hope you’ve got enough cash on you if you’re thinking of making coffee.’

  ‘Cash?’ I said vaguely. I’m usually pretty vague about money.

  ‘Oh yes,’ confirmed Catherine, who didn’t often agree with Kroog. ‘The kettle has been privatized.’

  ‘No more buying tea and coffee from the petty cash,’ Dan explained.

  ‘No more petty cash, full stop,’ said Claire as she poured hot water into her mug. ‘Here.’ She pushed the kettle towards me. ‘You’ll have to fill it again. But better read the new instructions for tea-making first,’ she said, eyes wide in mock astonishment.

  A ‘staff notice’ had appeared above the kettle, printed in a stark totalitarian font. I read:

  STAFF NOTICE

  AS FROM TODAY TEA AND COFFEE

  WILL NO LONGER BE FINANCED BY THE COLLEGE

  VIA PETTY CASH. TEA, COFFEE, SUGAR AND MILK AS WELL AS

  THE ELECTRICITY TO POWER THE KETTLE

  MUST BE PAID FOR.

  THERE IS NOW A CHARGE OF 50 PENCE PER MUG.

  PLEASE BOIL ONLY AS MUCH WATER AS YOU REQUIRE.

  ‘And look,’ Claire said. ‘She took away our Assam tea bags and Rich Columbian Blend and replaced it with supermarket own-brand stuff. The milk is UHT.’