by JH Fletcher
She gave him a bilious smile, nerves showing. ‘How you going?’
He waited.
‘I was passing. Thought I’d drop in and surprise you.’
Sure.
He twisted on his heel, turning big shoulders on Angela’s crap, and went back into the studio. Along the walls the stacked paintings flourished their sombre fire. A momentary loss of light as Angela came in behind him. Cal did not turn but stood with his back to her, waiting.
Like Dave before her, she wandered up and down, glancing at a painting here, touching another there. The light pulsed with their anger; hatred struck like a blow. And, far worse than hatred, self-pity.
Cal parked his backside on a stool and watched her — and them — silently. Thought, no wonder nobody likes them. If someone else had painted them I wouldn’t buy one. I wouldn’t have them as a gift.
Now, looking at them as Angela waddled to and fro, it seemed to him that they had indeed been painted by someone else, that he had neither patience nor connection with them or the man who had painted them. With the realisation came the awareness that he was sick of playing games, that he wanted this whole wretched business behind him, so that he could get on with his life and his art all over again.
He said, ‘New York.’
And watched her shoulders slump.
‘They don’t want them,’ she told the stacked paintings. Then she turned to face him, chin defiant. ‘They say the paintings we sent them aren’t up to the standard of your earlier work. They say they doubt there’s a market for it. At this precise moment in time.’ She mimicked an American accent, shrugging helplessly. ‘You know how they talk.’
So.
David Holt had warned him. He had even had the chance to wonder how he’d feel, being turned down by the Stuyvesant after all the hype, the excitement.
Now he knew. He didn’t give a damn. Rejection gave him the chance to put away all that had happened during the past year. His feelings for Gianetta would remain always, a glory of light and fulfilment in his life, but the manner of her death, the corrosive hatred that had destroyed both himself and everything it touched, was gone.
Yet now he found the habit of anger more enduring than anger itself.
‘We have a contract. In case you’ve forgotten. Or,’ he amended, ‘you told me we had.’
He saw her eyes harden at his tone.
‘You know we have. You’ve got a copy.’
‘So enforce it.’
Her expression said, Don’t be a fool.
‘We could,’ she agreed. ‘At the moment all they’re saying is try again, send us something new, we think you’re on the wrong track here. They’re embarrassed by it. I had Ira Roth himself on the phone. He wanted to take them but said he couldn’t, it wouldn’t be in our interests or theirs. They understand what happened, what you’ve been through. They have every sympathy —’
‘Short of honouring the agreement.’
‘At the moment, the door’s still open. Hold them to the contract and we’ve lost them for good.’
‘So what use is the contract? Or you, either, come to that?’
Angela was sick of him and his mindless petulance. ‘The art world is full of spoiled brats. The way you’ve been since you got back from Europe I’m beginning to think you’re one of them.’ She stalked him across the studio and he saw how angry she was. ‘I’ve made allowances. We all have. We know how bad it’s been for you. But we’ve had enough. You’ve got to move on, Cal. You must.’
‘Let the dead bury their dead?’ A viper smile. ‘And what happens if it’s not so easy to do that?’
‘Then you’re finished. Because what you’re doing now is wrong — wrong for you, wrong for the market. And if you’re not willing to take my word for it, then you’re right, I’m no use to you, either.’
She was blazing; he nodded at her, unsmiling. ‘And that’s telling me.’
‘You’d sooner I lied to you about it?’
No, he would not sooner she lied, knew that she was telling him only what he’d been telling himself for the last two days. Yet to acknowledge it remained hard. In a perverted way, it seemed like a betrayal of Gianetta. Whom he had killed.
Perhaps he could meet her halfway. He gave her a crooked smile. ‘Want a drink?’
It wasn’t much, but enough.
‘Just what I need.’
What they both needed.
Whisky, quickly replenished, unlocked his tongue.
‘I’ve been thinking of taking a trip into the Outback. Do some paintings of the desert. The Flinders Ranges, maybe.’
At once she was interested. ‘Like Sid Nolan?’
‘No.’ He smiled, feeling the creative juices stirring, exultantly. ‘Like Cal Jessop.’
‘Tell me about it.’
He hadn’t thought it through, was not sure he was ready to talk about anything, but had brought the subject up, after all. He had a go, hesitantly.
‘I thought it might make a series to complement “Coastal Sequence”. Sea and Outback. The circle, encompassing, and what it contains.’ So he fumbled, images and ideas as elusive as mist. ‘The other aspect of the continent?’ he hoped.
‘Technically you’ve come a long way since “Coastal Sequence”.’
She was right. But … ‘I don’t see that as a problem. I haven’t thought about it properly. Just a few ideas. Floating.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘Gone off half-cocked. Sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I’m glad to hear about it.’
At last. She did not say it, but he heard it clearly. She would be glad of anything that might bring him out of the cul-de-sac in which he had trapped himself. Two days ago the implied criticism would have angered him but now he felt only relief that he might indeed be coming out of the shadows at last.
The next day he phoned Stella.
‘Heard from Hennie?’
Her laugh mocked his question. ‘Still up at Moomba, I’d say. If you really want to know.’
It was true that he was usually more interested in knowing the coast was clear than anything else. But this time he’d rung for a different reason.
‘I need to get hold of him. I’m thinking of taking a trip into the Outback. I thought, if he’s got any leave coming, he might be interested in ferrying me around.’
‘You saying that really is the only reason you rang? To find out about Hennie?’
Bloody hell.
‘Of course not. But I have to get hold of him, right?’
‘Phone him at the plant. If he’s not there, you can leave a message. He might ring you back. I wouldn’t know; I haven’t tried recently.’
‘Thanks.’
‘It is all you wanted,’ she accused.
Now he was tumbling over his feet, tongue busy with denials. ‘You know very well it’s not.’
Lies and shut eyes, he thought. Knew that the only way to avoid a row was to go along. The last time, he told himself severely. The very last.
For the first time in a year, he had seen what might be light. In the new series of paintings, the company of the girl. He’d better be right; the Venusberg had released Tannhäuser once, would never have done it a second time had he gone back. Cal had only one chance of salvation and Stella, he knew, would never be any part of that.
Yet he went anyway and afterwards …
‘What’s wrong?’
Panting, sweat streaming, he stared down at her, at the body beautiful as damnation.
‘Wrong?’
She laughed, long nails set in his flesh. ‘Come on, lover. Lie to anyone else, but not to me, not now.’
He set his teeth, his mind, his heart. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’
And rode her down the dark path.
Afterwards, they lay side by side, not touching. They were separated by less than an inch, by the infinite distance of their unrelated lives. Beyond the closed curtains, the sea broke in smoking pillars upon the quaking land. Here, from the still corners of the room, Cal was watched by eyes that
he would not acknowledge, a river flowing under green and peaceful trees.
‘Something’s happened to you.’
Stella’s fingers traced paths along his thigh.
‘Nothing’s happened.’
‘Don’t try and fool me!’ Anger sharpened her voice, her fingernails dug deep. ‘When we went south in that boat of yours, you were violent, like a maniac. Mad at yourself; at me, too, maybe. Not that I cared. You were like the storm, sweeping us both away. Now …’
The talons worked their path. Deeper, harder, as he had earlier savaged her flesh, seeking what could not be found. It was unbearable.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t up to expectations.’
Knowing that was not it.
Now the gouging fingers were still. For a minute they lay inert, then withdrew as Stella herself withdrew. He felt her leave him. He should have been relieved; instead, felt only desolation.
He turned, desperately, seeking consolation. For himself; for her too, perhaps. He placed his hand on her breast, he kneaded the sullen flesh. Would have ripped it in his efforts to obliterate the memory of all they had shared through the dark months. Convulsively, she shoved him away.
‘Stop it!’
Now it was his hand that lay still, acknowledging helplessness, but Stella was less ready to forgive.
‘You think you can use me, even in that?’
She had helped him through the darkness. For her own purposes, no doubt, had turned her back on a husband who loved only flight, who should never have married, least of all a sprite of surf and storm. In his absence, she had turned to Cal. In need himself, he had come to her; now — in spirit if not yet in body — was gone again.
He thought he had given nothing in return for what she had given him.
Had used her, indeed.
It was impossible to stay, yet there was guilt even in doing what was right. As always, the woman found the way.
‘I think we’ve come to the end of something …’
‘No …’ But with no force in the denial.
‘I’m not just a quick screw. I thought you knew that.’
‘Of course I know it.’ The words died like dust; protestations of innocence had no place. ‘Shall I see you again?’
‘Sort yourself out. Then we’ll see.’
Cal crossed to the mainland over the bridge that spanned the smoking surf. From the far side he looked back. Stella was standing upon the furthest pinnacle of rock, garlanded by the spray that flashed its rainbow brilliance in the sunlight. Her spread arms embraced the sea that tumbled its massive rollers at her feet. Her back was to Cal, to the land, and the spray burst about her. She had returned to her true love.
His feet groping between slippery rocks, Cal walked away until sea, island, woman, were lost to sight.
Back at the studio he sat on the floor, feeling his paintings, past and future, pulse in the air about him. A sea sprite, spray-drenched, held her arms aloft. Against the green silence of a river, eyes watched beneath a close-fitting cap of dark hair.
Tomorrow, he thought. In the morning I’ll make a start. I shall work, I shall find myself again. I shall be whole.
Until Paris he had trained himself to a ritual of work, iron-hard and resolute. This, too, had gone. He had drifted, his life unboxed, spilling its contents aimlessly. Now he would change that.
Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow the world begins.
In the pale flush of dawn Cal went out of the house. On the cliff top was a granite slab, another at its back, that he called his chair. He sat and stared out at the vast expanse of sea and sky. This I am, he thought, but knew there was more. Visions filled him; red and umber sand, stone polished by the wind, screaming in an oven heat, an emptiness peopled by time. The land itself, eternity at its back, in its face. Beneath the ancient sea it had remained while the mountains were ground into shallow stumps by the aeons’ weight.
We, black and white, are nothing, he thought. Eternity exists in the spaces, the rocks, the boiling wind. It needs nothing more. It needs nothing at all. It is.
This he would paint. He would capture the wind and space, the heat. Eternity. He knew how great a task it was, would accept it not vaingloriously but in humility and fear. This is how the old priests must have felt, he thought, the worshippers of the infinite. No longer; religion is like everything else, tidied into boxes. It has lost touch with the universal, which is true eternity.
I shall try, he thought. More than that is impossible.
One thing more he knew. He could not do it alone.
When he got back to the house, the phone was ringing.
‘Angela.’ The fat voice breathed in his ear. ‘I’m having a little dinner party next Thursday. I wondered if you’d be free?’
So she also believes in my new vision, he thought. Angela’s parties were famous in the art world. It was the first time she had invited him to one for almost a year, since shortly after his return from Paris. Then everything had been as fragile as porcelain. Words and glances had tiptoed around him with dreadful tact, but the invitation, once she had seen the new work emerging from the abyss, had not been repeated. In the way of business, Angela would pay homage to the dead, but once only. The living had a prior claim.
The fact that she had invited him now was a signal. Three days ago, he would have rejected it. Now he did not hesitate.
‘What time?’
An elegant unit, seven floors up, staring at the Gulf — which, in the quality and cost of its embellishments, it attempted to outshine. Most of the guests were equally valuable, at least in their own estimation. Cal as much at home as a limpet on a silk shawl.
He didn’t care. He knew the type of hangers-on that Angela gathered about her. He had nothing in common with them but they were harmless, for the most part, the bray and twitter that passed for conversation no more than a mild irritant. All the same, he was glad Dave Holt was here, or Dexter Holt, as he was known in this company. Dave greeted him with a knowing smile that at first Cal misunderstood.
‘I’ve been hearing things …’
‘Right?’ Thinking, Kathryn.
Wrong.
‘Angela says she hasn’t seen you so enthusiastic about a project for a long time.’
‘All I said was I might go poking around the Outback …’
But he was enthusiastic and did not mind in the least that it showed.
‘Looks as though Rheingold may have helped, eh?’
‘Something like that.’
Certainly the music might have set the mood.
‘When are you going?’
‘Soon.’
‘How are you going to arrange it?’
‘I’ve got a mate. A pilot. He ferries supplies for the Moomba gas plant. He’s been working the Outback for years. Knows every nook and cranny. He’s probably got some leave coming; if he has, I’m hoping he’ll agree to ferry me around.’
Talking about it, Cal found that he was eager to get his eyes and hands around the new project.
‘I also hear you made a hit with my niece.’
Cal brushed it away. ‘We talked. We went for a stroll. That was all.’
Was warm in the knowledge that it had not in the least been all.
Dave laughed, high-pitched. ‘My dear, did I say anything? Do what you like with her, far as I’m concerned. It’s a free world, or so they’re always telling us.’
‘She’s gone back now.’
Dave shrugged. ‘It’s her home. Can’t imagine how she tolerates it, but there you are. Besides, she has a boy there.’
An instant’s absolute silence, freezing the air. Somehow he said, ‘That right?’
The shrill background voices echoed remorselessly.
‘Local doctor. Seems harmless enough. They have an understanding, I hear.’
Angela was calling them to the dinner table but, for a moment, Cal did not move. Far out in the darkness, the lights of a vessel moved steadily across the Gulf while overhead the stars held their breath.
They have an understanding …
‘Tell me about him.’
‘Nothing to tell. I haven’t met him. My sister says he’s a nice boy. Steady. A doctor, as I said. With prospects.’
‘Come along,’ Angela said behind them, ‘or everything will be cold.’
The dining table was long, of glass and brass. Around which we have all set our arse, thought Cal savagely. He looked around at the other diners. Feeding. He could have tipped over the table and everyone around it.
They have an understanding.
There was no reason why Kathryn should have told him; none. Yet in his heart felt betrayed by her silence.
A nice boy. Steady. With prospects.
Any mother’s dream son-in-law. Suddenly it seemed outrageous that he did not even know what this nice boy was called. Dave was seated at the far end of the table. Tough.
‘What’s his name?’
Cal’s raised voice cut the decorous gabble about this and that, about me and me and me. A shocked silence. Everyone present would have acknowledged the theory that true creativity has its own rules but, in practice, things were different. In the silence eyes gathered indignation around them, like a cloak. Which Cal disregarded.
‘Dave, what’s his name?’
‘What’s whose name?’ The blank look of one who truly did not understand. Then his face cleared. ‘I believe … Charles Chivers. Why?’
‘Just curious.’
But knew it was more than that. Charles Chivers. The nice boy. With prospects. Learning his name gave strength.
They have an understanding.
We shall see about that.
Conversation was beginning to patch the silence. The extraordinary interlude, so tasteless, was over.
After dinner Angela sought him out.
‘When are you going into the Outback?’
‘Couple of weeks. Give or take.’
‘Then I probably shan’t see you before I go.’
He did not understand. ‘Go where?’
‘My dear …’ Angela laughed. ‘That’s what this bash is all about. Didn’t I tell you? I’m going away. Three months touring Asia.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘Looking for treasure. Asian art’s flavour of the month. The Americans are in there already. I’m going to see what I can dredge up before it’s too late.’