The Pupil

by Caro Fraser

  As the minutes ticked by, Leo stood in the darkness of his bedroom, his fists clenched. There had been a time, years ago, when the loss of such a love might have broken his heart. Now he merely felt robbed of pride.

  He heard the purr of the taxi in the mews outside, and went back into the living room. Anthony was sitting on the sofa, gazing ahead of him, rubbing his temples with his hands. He jumped up when he became aware of Leo.

  ‘Your taxi’s here.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Anthony, looking at him anxiously, miserably. But Leo could not help him. One tender word, one kind touch, and he would be lost. He should have known better. He smiled firmly at Anthony and picked his jacket up, held it for a moment, then handed it to the young man.

  He followed Anthony downstairs to the door, and out into the chilly night air. As Anthony got into the cab, Leo leant in at the front window and handed a ten-pound note to the driver. Anthony wanted to stop him, but it was too late. He pulled down the window and looked at Leo. But he was standing in the shadows and Anthony could not see his face.

  ‘Thank you for dinner,’ he said to the shadows.

  ‘Not at all,’ came the reply.

  ‘Where to, mate?’ asked the cabbie, eyeing him curiously in the mirror.

  Lying back in the darkness of the taxi on the way to Chay’s Islington squat, Anthony felt hot tears behind his eyelids. He tried to force his mind away from the events of the evening, but his thoughts kept returning to that shadowed room, and to Leo’s compelling, warm touch and voice. He had never heard words of love spoken so simply and starkly before. Not even Julia had touched his heart as Leo had done. He had never felt such pure affection for another man and in that brittle moment it had been shattered. For an instant, Anthony recognised the burden that Leo had to carry. There could be no resolution of his feelings if his love were not returned in kind. If rejected, as Anthony had rejected him, that which remained unspoken between them must remain so for ever, and as for those words which had been spoken, it must be as though they had never been said. All the affection and intimacy which, he now realised, he had so hopelessly misunderstood, had vanished like mist. It was he, Anthony, who had been rejected – not as a lover, as he had rejected Leo, but as a friend.

  The bitter torment of his thoughts continued until at last they reached his father’s flat. The taxi halted and Anthony got out, glancing at the metre. Eleven pounds thirty. He felt in his pocket and produced two pound coins, which he handed to the driver. When the driver called goodnight, Anthony said nothing; he did not hear him. He mounted the dark stairway to Chay’s flat, fished out his key, unlocked the door, and went in. As he stood in the dark hallway, he suddenly wondered why he had come. There was no light, no electricity. The flat was cold, even colder than the night outside. The few pieces of furniture, rugs, lamps, and the now precious canvases, lay dumped in a cheerless heap on the floorboards, where he had left them after evacuating them from Bridget’s.

  Anthony groaned and leant against the wall. The brandy and the events of the past hour had given him a raging headache. His mood of aching melancholy was gradually giving way to vague nausea and genuine misery. Like a child who has received a bruising shock, he now wanted only to sleep. He deeply desired oblivion from the vivid thoughts of Leo. He waited, shivering, for his eyes to accustom themselves to the gloom, then he walked over to the mound of objects at the end of the room. He disentangled Chay’s shabby futon and a duvet; it felt damp with the chill. Nevertheless, he wrapped it around himself and sat in the middle of the bed, as though waiting for something, someone. He thought fleetingly of Leo, of the green dressing gown, of his warm grasp – fleetingly only, for his mind shied instinctively away from the memory of their kiss. To obliterate the very night, Anthony lay down and pulled the slippery edge of the duvet over his head. It smelt faintly of joss sticks, a smell that Anthony had long associated with his father. For a moment the thought of him, surprisingly, gave Anthony a little stab of mournfulness. He wondered in whose gullible eyes, on the other side of the world, at 6 p.m. California time, Chay was currently recreating himself.

  It is all a search for a mirror image, he thought, this quest for love. He thought again, in spite of himself, of his confession of love to Leo. The moment had expanded itself, he remembered, as he had searched the older man’s face, as though seeking a reflection of his own heart. But it had not been there. After a long time spent lying in the cold, utterly silent half-darkness, Anthony finally fell asleep, his innocence folded around him as tightly as Chay’s duvet.

  In Mayfair, Leo lay in his warm, quiet bedroom, wide awake, watching the green ciphers on his bedside clock, tracing in his memory the contours of Anthony’s white throat, faintly pulsing, and his sleeping face as the guitar notes had trembled in the air.

  When he awoke the next morning, a mild hangover and the desolation of his surroundings combined to make Anthony feel wretched. The sunshine outside and the happy hum of Islington on a Saturday morning exacerbated his sense of loneliness. He felt worse from having slept in his clothes. He uncrumpled himself from the folds of the duvet and wandered into the grimy little bathroom. He splashed his face with cold water, realised there was no towel, and gazed at himself in the mirror. He was vaguely surprised to see his face gazing back at him in its normal way, not haggard with despair or pale from misery. Cheered, he counted out his money and, locking the flat behind him, made his way to the nearest McDonald’s for breakfast. He bought a copy of Today on the way, and by the time he had finished his Egg McMuffin and coffee, felt better. Seen in the broad light of day, the events of the previous evening seemed less dramatic and even faintly pathetic. Or at any rate, the perspective had shifted enough for Anthony to persuade himself to see them that way. He tried to dismiss it all from his mind, only reflecting with momentary disquiet that Leo would not, after last night, be especially keen to see Anthony stay on at Caper Court indefinitely. Still, that was just something he would have to live with.

  In fact, as he shaved that morning after a particularly bad night’s sleep – eating out late in expensive restaurants was beginning to disagree with his digestion – Leo was reflecting that, as things had turned out, he would not have to make any particular endeavour to ensure that Edward became the next tenant. Had events been otherwise, it would naturally not have done for his lover to occupy the same set of chambers as himself. As it was, let Anthony do as he deserved. He finished shaving and took some more Milk of Magnesia to ease the vague pain near his heart.

  Returning to the flat, Anthony bundled up the duvet and pushed Chay’s futon back into a corner. Then he dragged out the canvases stacked in a heap on the floor. He turned one over, half-expecting, after Jocasta’s telephone call, the light of genius to shine forth as he gazed on it. But no – he was looking at Chay’s familiar and rather depressing daubs. This one was especially unrevealing. It consisted of a series of crimson rectangles which faded in perspective into a welling pool of what looked like yellow ochre, edged with dirty white. He turned it on its side; the effect was distinctly better, he thought. Given a suitably enigmatic title, no doubt it could hang with quite as much honesty as any other piece of modern art on the walls of a New York gallery. Sighing, he examined the rest of the canvases. They were all abstracts, except for one which seemed to be a particularly ugly representation of a nude woman, whom Anthony thought he recognised as a long-gone lover. He didn’t really think, surveying the picture, that any woman could possibly have breasts like that. He put it to one side. The rest he stacked gently against a wall. Then he stood back, thought for a moment, and fetched a rug from the heap of furniture and draped it carefully over the pictures. There might, he reflected, be hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of rather bad painting leaning against that wall.

  Amused by his morning’s doings, he locked up and went out into the morning sunshine.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘Guess what?’ he announced to his mother, on arriving home. She was sitting cross-legged
on a large moth-eaten Indian cushion, marking exercise books to the background of an Open University programme. She had grown her dark hair longer recently, Anthony noticed, and now it fell in a shining curtain over one half of her face as she bent over her work. She was wearing only a loose cotton robe, new from a Japanese shop in Kensington, and it struck Anthony that she looked rather pretty, younger than her thirty-nine years. She didn’t look up when he came in.

  ‘What? I wish you would tell me when you’re going to be out all night. I still get worried, you know.’ She knew better than to ask where he had been. He volunteered little information, normally, regarding his activities. He had told her, to her unspoken relief, of the demise of Bridget, and had mentioned Julia once or twice. She knew that it was unlikely that Anthony would bring Julia home to meet her.

  Anthony flopped into an armchair. His hangover, although now receding, had left a hollow vibration in his nervous system; he felt jangled and tired.

  ‘Sorry. I forgot. The fact is, I spent the night at Dad’s.’

  She looked up, tucking her hair behind her ears. ‘Why? I thought he was in America?’

  ‘He is,’ said Anthony, and then told her about Jocasta’s phone call and Chay’s new-found fame as an abstract artist in the eager-to-be-pleased world of the West Coast. She laughed, as he had known she would.

  ‘My God,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘He does land on his feet. I remember when I first met him he was convinced that the modern art world was a complete con. He used to say that anyone, no matter how talentless, could become famous if they knew how to market a thing properly.’

  ‘I wonder if he still thinks that?’ mused Anthony.

  ‘I doubt it.’ Judith uncrossed her legs and stood up, tightening the belt of her robe as she went into the kitchen. ‘I suspect he’s grown less cynical over the years. I think he always seriously thought he was a good artist. Coffee?’

  Anthony followed her into the kitchen and began to rummage in the fridge for some cheese. ‘No thanks.’ He pulled out the remains of a lump of Cheddar, looked at it, and put it back. ‘Anyway, I went over last night to see what there was at the flat – pictures, I mean. His girlfriend said now was the time to root out his stuff and jump on the bandwagon. Well,’ he added, peering into the biscuit tin, ‘she didn’t put it quite like that. But that was the general idea. So I had a look round. I’d forgotten they’d turned his electricity off, so I slept there and had a look round this morning.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And there are about six or seven canvases that look like the usual thing you see in modern art galleries. Pretty bloody, if you ask me.’

  Judith smiled as she carried her coffee back into the living room. ‘Funnily enough,’ she said, settling herself back onto her cushion, ‘I’ve still got a whole collection of his drawings and things. Things he used to do when I first met him.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘I wonder if they’re worth anything now.’

  ‘Not in the long run, I shouldn’t imagine,’ replied Anthony. ‘As for the present, I wouldn’t say he’s exactly found worldwide fame. Just a little bit of a cult following amongst the art-lovers of California, from what I can gather. I wouldn’t imagine they’d be of any interest to anyone over here. Anyway,’ he added, stretching, ‘it’s paintings they want.’ He wanted to change the subject; the matter of Len’s money was on his mind. Seven days had turned into six.

  ‘I think I’ll have a look through them later, at any rate,’ mused Judith, resuming her marking. Anthony picked up the paper and flicked through it for a moment or two.

  ‘Mum?’ he said. ‘I was wondering …’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Could you let me have an advance on my scholarship money? Say, a hundred or so?’

  ‘What for?’ she asked, without looking up. This sounded hopeful to Anthony, but she added before he could reply, ‘You know I can’t give you that much in one go.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, well, not to worry.’

  ‘What did you want it for?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. A new suit. I thought my old one was getting a bit shabby.’

  ‘Well, if you will go around sleeping in it.’ She paused. ‘Are you going out tonight?’

  ‘No – that is, I don’t know. Why?’ His mother went a little pink, and then bent her head over the books.

  ‘I’m having someone over to dinner. He’s a new teacher at school. Teaches art.’

  ‘Oh.’ Anthony was surprised, but pleased. ‘Oh, well, in that case I probably am.’ She looked up, and they smiled at one another. No wonder she’s looking rather nice these days, he thought. ‘You can show him Chay’s drawings and get a professional opinion, then, can’t you?’

  After a dreary weekend, one in which only his severe lack of money prevented him from ringing Julia, Anthony arrived at chambers on Monday morning to find some mail waiting on his desk. This was unprecedented. It was a magazine, sent airmail from the States. He undid the wrapper and stared at it. It was called Metropolis, and apparently cost $4.80. Bemused, he gazed at the cover picture of a steel spiral, and then the words ‘Chay Cross – The Primal Moment Arrives’ caught his eye. He laughed out loud and flipped through the pages until he came to the article on his father. It was long and extremely difficult to read, due largely to the impenetrability of the language, but Anthony gathered that its tone was complimentary.

  Chay Cross has questioned and deconstructed styles from past art, in the process making art which is the indispensable coda to a modern art collection. His work, utilising shimmering, seductive presences whose brilliant blues, yellows and reds enhance a ripe and often erotic allure, has a disembodying effect, plain statement giving way to conundrum and material certainty replaced by an awareness of the unknown. Of his own art, and of the neo-Modernist movement which he espouses, Cross says that it is ‘the product of a tradition that seems to demand, paradoxically, its own rejection or denial’. This debut show from the London-based artist betrays profound religious influences, as expressed in the meditative use of muted colour, contrasted with the primordial force of rich splashes of forms reminiscent of fruit, breasts, and mountains. The effect is one of skill beyond craft, of the subject as a self-discovered, self-manifesting entity. Best expressed in Cross’s own words, the intention is ‘to arrive at a state where the painting just is. The best works are the ones that leave me out, so that there’s more space for the viewer to respond.’ This is a startling first showing from an artist whose works offer an impregnable solidity giving way to an ethereal alternative, and who could develop into an outstanding, severe and refined abstract painter.

  There was more, much more, on these lines. Turning the page, Anthony was confronted by colour reproductions of Chay’s work. They all looked largely like the ones at the squat, although cleaner and more colourful. Beneath the pictures were little one-line legends: ‘Combines subversive wit with melancholy power’; ‘A wonderfully adroit manipulation of enticing images’. Anthony stared at them, read the lines over, and wondered whether he lacked the insight of these critics. Then he sighed, gave up, and turned back to the text. Its tone was unquestionably one of excited awe. He flipped through the pages, wondering whether Jocasta had sent a note with the magazine about the London gallery. Then he realised that this must have been mailed before she had spoken to him. Smiling, he tucked the magazine into his briefcase, intending to show it to his mother that evening.

  As he did so, he heard voices on the landing outside. The door opened, and Michael came in with Leo. Anthony felt his pulse surge. Leo glanced calmly, almost unseeingly, at Anthony as he carried on talking to Michael. It seemed to Anthony as though some sudden force had whirled into the calm of his mind. He closed his briefcase with shaking hands, and glanced quickly up as though to drink in, in one swift draught, the vivid charm of Leo’s form and face, the masculine grace of his hands as he set some papers down on Michael’s desk, the loose ease with which he settled into a chair as he talked. His very presence seemed to charge the air. Anthony was
reminded suddenly of his emotions at seeing Julia for the first time in a long time, that evening that they had first gone out together. Then, as now, the air surrounding the beloved object seemed to possess some special luminosity. This, in no more than the merest brush of a glance. He pulled some papers from the drawer of his desk, murmuring an apparently abstracted ‘Good morning’ to both men, then gazed down unseeingly at the printed page before him. His heart beat heavily, as though it must be heard. Blindly, Anthony contemplated the confusion of his own emotions. He had thought, on Saturday morning, in the chill and fret of the desolate squat and his own hangover, that there would be no more intensity of feeling – that the thread, which had been vibrating unseen between them, had snapped, the tension lost. He had buried whatever emotion he had felt beneath the grey domesticity of the weekend, setting Leo and Friday evening away from himself, refusing to contemplate either. It had been false, he knew, damnably false. He realised, with appalled certainty, that whatever painful, powerful attraction had grown within him for this man was there still. By his own hand, he had sought, on Friday night, to wrench it out of existence, deny it life. He had only succeeded, he saw, in destroying the green, living part, while the root remained. He longed to – but could not – look at Leo again. He stared instead at his work, mechanically turning one unread page after the other.

  Things were little better for Leo, despite his demeanour. He had caught up with Michael on his way from the car park, had idly engaged him in some spurious conversation concerning a case they had between them, hoping to prolong it as far as Michael’s room, where he knew Anthony would probably already be. He had felt, in spite of himself, a mounting sense of hope and faint excitement as they had climbed the stairs. His mouth was a little dry as they entered the room. He could do no more than cast the briefest, most aloof of glances at Anthony, feeling as he did so, scanning the dark, familiar features for the clearest of seconds, a sharp stab of love. So he was lost, after all. There was to be no mastery, no ability, with maturity, to set his heart aside and ignore his love.