The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper

by Phaedra Patrick

  There was a sudden pleasing sound of scribbling pencils and charcoal and rubbers scrubbing at paper. He stared straight ahead and focused his gaze on a light shade. It was dusty and a maggot wriggled in the lightbulb. Edith was right. He felt quite free, like he was a Neanderthal who had wandered out of his cave and into an art studio, which he supposed was a bit like what had actually happened.

  At one point he thought he saw Adam poke his head around the door but he didn’t want to move and disturb his pose. He was warm from the small electric fire that cast an orange glow on his shins and he allowed his thoughts to drift away, back to the day of the picnic. He relived every single second of that delicious day and he was glad that he had his legs crossed.

  After ten minutes someone shouted out. “Can we have a new pose?”

  Without worrying about his nakedness he stood up and let his arms hang by his sides. He stared straight ahead.

  “Er, can’t you, like, pose or something? You look kind of sad.”

  “Tell me what to do.”

  A young man strode over. He took hold of Arthur’s arms and maneuvered them so that one was outstretched and one was crooked. “Pretend that you’re firing a bow and arrow. I’m creating a piece of body jewelry based on war.”

  “You’re Ben?”

  “Yes. I am.”

  “Just tell me exactly what you want, Ben.”

  These kids were going to create a brilliant piece of jewelry or art with his help. When he had gone, his memory might live on, as a jeweled codpiece or armband, just as Miriam’s memory was doing in the paneled room.

  It was then a thought hit him, and it was a strange one. He realized that he wanted her portrait to stay hanging in that room, even if she was naked. Even if she might not have known when she posed that the work would remain on display for so many years. It was a beautiful piece of art. It wasn’t part of his life but it was part of hers. People should be able to see it.

  “You did good, man,” Ben said at the end of the class. “Do you want to see?”

  Arthur got dressed and followed Ben and Edith around the room. It was strange to see himself depicted in twenty or so different pieces of artwork. He saw his body in charcoal, pastels, as smears, in paint strokes. These young artists hadn’t seen him as an old man. They had viewed him as a model, a warrior, an archer, as something beautiful and useful. He wondered what would happen to the art now. It would no doubt be displayed in portfolios, or proudly on walls. In twenty years from now, when he might no longer be here, his form might still be admired. Tears pricked his eyes. He recognized himself in some and not others. His face looked peaceful, at odds with the wrinkled, tired apparition that greeted him in the mirror each morning.

  “Happy?” Edith said.

  “They’re rather wonderful.”

  “My wife says she’s giving me a second chance.” Adam shuffled back into the room. His face was ashen and his shoulders drooped. “Oh, is the lesson over?” He glanced around the room and then at his watch. “Some good work here, students!” he shouted out.

  Ben and Edith gave him a disdainful stare and walked out.

  “What’s up with those two?” Adam said incredulously. “What’s been going on?”

  “The model didn’t turn up.”

  “But their work. They’ve...” His words tailed away as he saw the subject in their art. “Oh...”

  Arthur straightened his collar. “My name is Arthur Pepper. Now perhaps we can talk about what I came here for. I want to ask you about a gold charm in the shape of a paint palette. It’s engraved with the initials S.Y. I believe they may stand for Sonny Yardley.”

  The college didn’t keep full records of students’ work, Adam explained. But they did keep some sketches and photos from some of the most promising students by year. Arthur said that he was looking for a piece of jewelry created around the mid-’60s and Adam pulled some heavy books off the shelves, opened them and set them in front of him.

  “You should have said that you were here to find a piece of work,” Adam said. “I am so sorry that you had to strip off. This is the second time this has happened. If anyone finds out, then I will be fired. I’ll never get my wife back then. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  Arthur said that he would not. “Why does she keep threatening to go?”

  “Because just look at me. I’m a bloody college lecturer. She’s a lawyer and way out of my league. She can run rings ’round me. Most of the time her work keeps her mind occupied. But she likes to keep me on my toes by threatening to leave. I can’t keep doing this.”

  “It sounds exhausting.”

  “It is. But we both love it. The sex afterward, when we make up, is astounding.”

  “Oh.” Arthur flipped the pages and studied the sketches even more closely.

  “They must have made charms that year,” Adam said. “This year it’s a piece of armor or body jewelry.”

  “Ben told me. My penis may become a nose guard or something.” He said it without thinking and then gave a burst of laughter, that he had said the word penis and that he had stood for over an hour naked for students. It was absurd. Adam gave him a confused stare, which made Arthur laugh even more. A tear ran down his cheek and he wiped it away. His stomach muscles ached as he thought of Ben crafting a piece of brass into the shape of his dangly bits. He used his fingers to blot under his eyes. He was losing it. His life with his wife was a lie.

  “Have you found anything yet?” Adam said. “What date are you at?”

  “Um, 1964. I’m sorry, I just got hysterical for a moment.”

  And then he found it. The next page he turned showed an intricate line drawing. It was of a palette with six blobs of paint and a fine brush. “This is the one.” He took the bracelet from his pocket and laid it out on the paper.

  Adam peered at the page. “Ah, yes, it was Sonny Yardley herself who made it. She’s a wonderful artist. Very inspiring. How wonderful that you have this actual piece.”

  “I believe that Sonny’s been ill, but I want to find out the story behind this charm and how my wife came to own it.”

  “Well, when she’s back I’ll ask her to call you.”

  Arthur walked back over to the painting of his wife. They smiled at each other.

  Adam joined him. “That’s my favorite, too. There’s something about her eyes, isn’t there?”

  Arthur nodded.

  “It’s by Martin Yardley, Sonny’s brother. He only painted for a short time. I’m not sure why.” Adam lowered his voice. “I’ve never told anyone before, but that painting inspired me to become a teacher. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I was at school. I loved art but didn’t think of it as a career. Then we came to visit the college. I remember Sonny. She wore these huge orange trousers and had a headscarf in her hair. You can imagine the sniggers of us fifteen-year-old lads as we looked at these nudie paintings of women. I tried to pretend to be mature but touring a room full of painted breasts was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. I thought how amazing it would be to paint naked women for a living. I used to visit this gallery and look at the brushstrokes, especially on this piece of work.”

  “She’s my wife,” Arthur said quietly, thinking how strange this sounded—standing with a young man admiring this naked portrait.

  “Really? That is so incredible. You must bring her here to see this. Tell her that her painting helped me to paint, and meet lots of lovely young ladies, too. She’ll know Sonny, then?”

  Arthur stared at him. He was about to say sorry but Miriam had passed on, but then he reconsidered. He didn’t want to hear another expression of sorrow for him, for his wife. He didn’t know her. She felt like a stranger to him now. “They were friends once, I think,” he said.

  He said goodbye to Adam and walked out of the college, shielding his eyes ag
ainst the bright light of the afternoon and unsure which direction to head in.

  Bernadette

  WHEN BERNADETTE RANG his doorbell it didn’t seem as loud as usual. It was a subdued brrriiing. Arthur was in the kitchen making a cup of tea. He automatically reached to the cupboard and took out another cup. He still hadn’t managed to have a conversation with her about Nathan’s yearning to bake and about her hospital appointments.

  Before he made his way to the front door he stole a look at his Stunning Scarborough calendar. Tomorrow was his birthday. He had seen the date circled for weeks but hadn’t taken any real notice. He was going to be seventy. It was no cause for celebration—another year closer to his death.

  After his visit to the college he was feeling foolish. He needed his head to be quiet, still. All his thoughts were running riot, like rowdy children, and he wanted them to stop and leave him alone. He had forgotten what it was like to have nothing on his mind other than cleaning and watering Frederica, and he was beginning to miss those days.

  He couldn’t understand how Miriam could be so close to someone as to pose nude for them, and then to never mention that person to him. He racked his brains for if he had ever met anyone called Sonny. Had Miriam ever written letters to her? But he came to the conclusion that this lady was a stranger to him.

  The doorbell rang again. “Yes, yes,” he called out.

  It was a lovely sunny day and yellow light flooded the hallway and the dust motes shone like glitter in the air. He thought of how Miriam loved the sunshine, then dismissed it from his mind. Did she love it? How could he be sure what was right or wrong, what he knew and didn’t know any longer?

  Sonny Yardley was going to be phoning in to work this week to discuss her return and Adam promised to remind her to get in touch with Arthur. He might even find a lead for the last of the charms—the ring and the heart. He just wanted to get this mission over with now, done and dusted.

  “Hello, Arthur.” Bernadette stood on the doorstep.

  “Hello.” He half expected her to stride inside, to inspect his hallway for dust, but she stood very still. He thought of Nathan’s words about the cancer unit appointments. He instinctively avoided eye contact in case she could sense he knew something. “Come on in,” he said.

  She shook her head. “You’re probably busy. I made you this.” She proffered a pie in a paper bag on the flat of her hand. “It’s wimberry.”

  He found himself listening to her tone of voice. Did she sound upset or sad? He decided to make an extraspecial effort with her today. “Ooh, wimberry. How lovely. That’s one of my favorites.”

  “Good. Well, hope you enjoy it.” She made to leave.

  Arthur stared after her. If she went, then he would be alone and he couldn’t trust himself not to get out the wipes and clean his worktops. He also wanted to know that she was okay. “I’m not very busy at all,” he said. “Will you join me?”

  Bernadette remained still but then followed him inside.

  Arthur stole a glance at her. Her eyes had dark circles under them. Her hair was a darker shade of red, almost mahogany. He couldn’t mention the appointments as it would break Nathan’s trust in him. He tried not to think about losing Miriam and how it would feel to lose someone else in his life. He supposed he was at the age now when friends and family started to get older and grow weaker. He felt the same feeling of dread as when Graystock’s tiger had stood over him, a dreadful churning of his stomach.

  But he told himself he was being overdramatic. This might be just a scare, a routine check. He tried to think of something cheery to say. “Nathan said that he enjoys baking, too,” he said lightly as he looked inside the bag at the pie.

  Bernadette gave a distracted, “Yes, he does.”

  Arthur slid the pie onto a baking tray and switched on the oven, choosing a lowish temperature so that it wouldn’t take off. “You don’t need to bring me things any longer, you know. I’m out of the woods now. I’m not going to kill myself or sink into a sea of despair. I’m not a lost cause any longer. I’m doing good.” He turned and beamed, expecting her to do the same, to congratulate him.

  “A lost cause? Is that how you see yourself?” she said crossly.

  Arthur felt his cheeks grow a little pink. “Well, no. I don’t think that. It was something I overheard at the post office. Vera says that you like to look after people who are down on their luck. She calls them your lost causes.”

  Bernadette lifted her chin. “Well, that silly woman has nothing else better to do than to gossip about others,” she snapped. “I’d prefer to spend my time being useful and helping others than to stand around being of no use to anyone.”

  He could see that he’d offended her. She rarely took the hump at anything. “I’m sorry,” he said, his spirits fading. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It was thoughtless of me.”

  “I’m glad you did. And I have never seen you as a lost cause. I saw you as a lovely man who’d lost his wife and who could do with a little looking after. Is that a crime? Is it a crime when I help other people with a little bit of attention? I will not be using that post office again. That Vera can be a cruel woman sometimes.”

  Arthur had never seen Bernadette so flustered. Her smile, which was usually always present, had gone. She was wearing more eyeliner than usual. The thick black lines had cracked and flaked. He didn’t want to think of them as bad signs. “The pie smells good,” he said weakly. “We could eat outside. The weather is fine.”

  “It’s going to break soon.” Bernadette sniffed. “They’ve forecast storms over the next few days. Black clouds and rain.” She stood up and moved over to the cooker, studied what temperature the knob was turned to, then turned it higher. She took hold of the baking tray and opened the oven door. The pie began to slide off the tray. It glided until it hung precariously, half on and half off. They both watched as it wobbled on the edge. Slowly half began to break away. It creaked to a right angle and then dropped to the floor. The pastry smashed, scattering crumbs over the lino. Purple wimberry filling oozed from the half that remained on the tray. Bernadette’s hand trembled. Arthur moved quickly and took the tray from her.

  “Whoopsa daisy,” he said. “You sit down and I’ll clean up this little mess. I’ll get the dustpan and brush.” He fetched it and his back cracked as he bent over. It was then he noticed that Bernadette’s eyes were swimming with tears. “Don’t worry,” he said. “There’s still a good half left. You know, I’ve never actually known what wimberries are.”

  He saw Bernadette bite her cheek. “They’re also called blueberries or bilberries.” Her voice shook. “I used to pick them when I was a girl. My mother could always tell what I’d been up to when I went home with a purple tongue and purple fingers. They tasted so good, fresh from the bush. We used to put them in salt water and all these little worms came wriggling out. I used to wonder when I ate the pie if any of them were still left in there.”

  “They’d have been in the oven,” Arthur said gently.

  “I suppose they’d have burned rather than drowned. Not a good death either way.”

  “I don’t suppose any death is a good one.” This was not a good conversation to be having.

  “No.” She stared out of the window.

  Arthur looked outside, too. Frederica was still sitting happily in the rockery. The fences were still too high. He thought that Bernadette might mention the garden or the weather, but she didn’t. He racked his brain for something to say, especially as she seemed very upset over a broken pie. The only thing they really had in common was food. “When I was in London,” he said. “I ate a sausage sandwich while I sat on the grass. It was greasy, it was covered in ketchup and it had these stringy, brown onions on it. It was the best thing I’d tasted in ages. Apart from your pies, of course. Miriam thought it was the height of bad manners to eat hot food outside in public, especia
lly walking and eating. I felt guilty but a certain sense of freedom, too.”

  Bernadette turned away from the window. “Carl insisted on roast beef every Sunday. He used to have it when he was a kid. I did turkey once and he was so upset. To him I was insulting his family tradition. Beef on a Sunday was a comfort. I was questioning his whole upbringing when I cooked that turkey. When he died I carried on making roast beef in his memory, but I never liked it. Then one day, I couldn’t face it. I made myself a cheddar and pickled onion sandwich instead. I could hardly swallow it because it felt like I was betraying his memory. But the next week I made it again. And it was the best sandwich I’d ever tasted. Now I eat what I want whenever I want it. But I’d never have changed all those roast beef lunches because, although the food wasn’t what I wanted, Carl was the man I wanted to eat it with.”

  They were both silent for a few moments, thinking about their spouses.

  “I’ve got some nice cheddar from the village,” Arthur said. “And I always have pickled onions in. I can make us both a sandwich and we could have your wimberry pie for afters.”

  Bernadette stared at him. He couldn’t read her expression. “You know, this is the first time you’ve ever invited me to eat with you?”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes. It’s very nice of you, Arthur. But I don’t want to take up your time.”

  “You’re not taking up my time. I thought it would be nice to eat lunch together.”

  “It’s a breakthrough that you’re doing this. That you’re thinking about socializing.”