Painting Death

by Tim Parks

  ‘Then Ehud went forth through the porch, and shut the doors of the parlour upon him, and locked them. When he was gone out, the king’s servants came; and when they saw that, behold, the doors of the parlour were locked, they said, Surely he covereth his feet in his summer chamber.’

  Covereth his feet? What was that about? Morris was already yearning to stick Eglon in Google and see if there were any paintings.

  ‘And they tarried till they were ashamed: and, behold, the king opened not the doors of the parlour; therefore they took a key, and opened them: and, behold, their lord was fallen down dead on the earth.’

  Two ‘beholds’ in one sentence was pretty poor, Morris thought. Still, it was an exciting moment.

  ‘And Ehud escaped while they tarried, and passed beyond the quarries, and escaped unto Seirath.’

  Don Lorenzo stopped, a puzzled look on his face.

  ‘Yes, Padre?’ Morris asked. When they were in Bible-reading mode he liked to call the man Padre.

  ‘I was just wondering about the quarries,’ Don Lorenzo said. ‘I mean, what kind of things they would have been quarrying.’

  ‘Oh right,’ Morris agreed. ‘I wonder.’ After a moment’s silence, listening to the slight rattle of Antonella’s indrawn breath, he asked: ‘What do you make of a story like that, Padre? I mean, why is it included in our Bible? What does it teach us?’

  Don Lorenzo knew the answer. This passage was in all the commentaries, he said. ‘Ehud is left-handed. That enables him to hide his dagger on the right thigh where no one would look for it, rather than the left, which was the norm and would have been checked. The moral is that every person, however different and unconventional, has some special gift to offer to the community.’

  ‘Of course,’ Morris agreed. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

  Chapter Seven

  AS SOON AS THE news appeared in the Arena, Morris phoned King Eglon, as Dottor Volpi had now become in his mind, to apologise. He had been chatting to the journalist, an old friend, over drinks and had imagined the conversation was in confidence. It was so irritating the way the press assumed they could turn every casual natter into headline news. With such big photos! When Volpi expressed his wrath in no uncertain terms, Morris agreed that it would be only wise to send a denial at once for immediate and obligatory publication. He would do it himself, this minute. Closing the call he wished Volpi a happy Christmas. ‘Are you going away, Dottore?’ ‘Tomorrow, to my sister’s in Potenzuolo,’ Volpi told him. ‘How I envy you!’ Morris enthused. ‘Do give my love to the sunny south.’

  ‘And let the dirt come out,’ he muttered slipping the iPhone back in his pocket. His screensaver now was an 1881 woodcut by Ford Madox Brown for Dalziel’s illustrated Bible, showing the avenger Ehud with right hand raised, apparently to reinforce some preacherly point he was making, while his left reached under fancifully antique clothing for the dagger hidden on his right thigh (a cubit was an impressive twenty inches, Morris had discovered). The doomed King Eglon, meantime, was fabulously oriental, black-bearded, bare-breasted and brashly bovine on a tubular throne that looked strangely like the National Health wheelchair Morris’s father had been decomposing on for the last couple of years in an old people’s home by Willesden Junction. How perceptive of Madox Brown, Morris felt, to have seen that preparations for murder might be covered by a pious flourish. Something to bear in mind.

  With that little duty out of the way, Morris’s own Christmas proceeded pleasantly enough, though it was precisely at these festive occasions that it could prove hectic trying to satisfy both wife and mistress, not to mention the painted Massimina who became extremely demanding around religious festivals, another sure sign that she really was an independent entity and not just a voice in his head.

  ‘I was pregnant, Mo,’ she reminded him when he went to light the candles in The Art Room on Christmas Eve. ‘Remember? It would have been a boy.’

  Morris remembered. ‘Not a Christmas baby, though, Mimi.’

  ‘Well, it was hardly an immaculate conception!’ Her laugh was a distant tinkle. Then after a moment’s thoughtful calculation: ‘More like April. A Taurus.’

  ‘Right,’ Morris acknowledged. ‘A boy, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How can you know?’

  ‘There are things we know here that you can’t.’

  A draught in the room made the flame-light from the chandeliers tremble over all the lush and ghastly canvases. Tonight Morris had brought up a bottle of port. He poured two glasses on the table in the centre of the room and walked over to clink them beneath Lippi’s portrait. Her face was very alive. Her upper lip puckered and trembled.

  ‘It’s a shame,’ he said, ‘I bet the boy would have been a million times smarter than Mauro.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that, Mo. I wasn’t exactly the brains of the family, was I? Cheers.’

  Mimi took a sip and smiled slyly, cuddling her divine child a little more warmly than usual, Morris thought. Curious that the immaculate conception could have come after losing their child like that. He shut his eyes a moment to enjoy the caress of her voice on his ears and the excellent Old Tawny on his palate.

  ‘Definitely better-looking, though,’ she picked up brightly. That red hair Mauro has really puzzles me.’

  Morris was silent.

  ‘You can go now, caro,’ she told him in a whisper. ‘I know you’ve got other people to see.’

  This sort of generous consideration, so unusual in a woman, only made it even more regrettable that Massimina had met the end she had. Not to mention the loss of that potentially gratifying son. Released from duty, Morris downed both glasses and hurried to take presents to Samira and Tarik: a case of Trevisan Amarone Reserve for the festivities, North Face gloves for Tarik and a charming seal-fur hat for Sammy. The seal fur was rather running against his vegetarian principles, but at least he hadn’t ingested the creature.

  What surprised Morris most at the flat in San Zeno was that the Moslem brother and sister had set up a Christmas tree almost as big as the Duckworths’ and with an impressive pile of gaily wrapped packages under its branches. He felt vaguely envious, both of their easy eclecticism and cosy intimacy. ‘I do wish I could be here with you,’ he enthused unwisely. I’m always playing benefactor, he thought, without ever really putting my feet up. Kissing him at the door as he hurried off, Samira looked her older lover in the eyes.

  ‘Why don’t you make this the year you leave home?’ she said huskily.

  Morris was taken aback.

  ‘Become somebody new and serious,’ she said. ‘Give up your double life. Let’s live together.’

  He tried to smile it off. ‘Is this the same girl,’ he asked, ‘who told me she was only my lover for a month or two?’

  ‘I’m giving you a chance of something better,’ the Arab girl told him. There was an affectionate tension in her voice. ‘But you’d better decide soon. I won’t wait forever.’

  ‘After the show at Castelvecchio,’ Morris said instinctively. ‘Let’s put on a fantastic exhibition, then I’ll do the deed.’

  To which Samira replied very coolly, ‘I love you.’

  Morris felt confused. It was some time since he had heard those words on the lips of a beautiful woman. Was it a positive development, or not?

  In Via Oberdan the family’s handsome Christmas tree stood five cubits high between the fireplace and the sofa in the old salotto. A tad overdressed by Duckworth standards, Morris felt. On the first day of Christmas, roots intact in a terra-cotta pot, the tree still had something of the freshness and mystery of northern mountain slopes as the parents and two children shared out their twelve presents, each to all and all to each, after a heavy lunch of nut roast, tiramisu and Trevisan Cabernet. On the seventh day, New Year’s Eve, victim of the cat’s incorrigible fascination with tinsel and the funereal absence of light and air in casa Duckworth, the poor pine had few needles left to usher in a year it would evidently not be seeing out, wh
ile come Epiphany, which Morris dedicated naturally enough to Massimina, to the point of burning a little frankincense in The Art Room and buying myrrh soap and gold earrings, the sad spruce was no more than a wire skeleton, as grotesque in its baubles and fairy lights as a desiccated corpse in a wedding dress. Sic transit, etc. All the same there was no way, Morris was adamant, that the tree could be removed from the salotto until the Twelfth Night was through.

  ‘Maddalena is wasting half her time hoovering up the needles,’ Antonella protested.

  It was not time wasted, Morris told her rather sharply. Anyway, what else did a maid have to do? It brought bad luck to take out a Christmas tree before the end of the twelfth day of Christmas.

  ‘What is it with you and tradition, Papà?’ his daughter challenged him.

  Massimina was sitting on the floor, her back against the sofa sketching with one hand and texting with the other.

  ‘Mass Sunday morning, Bible-reading Wednesday evening, natale con i tuoi, pasqua con chi vuoi, cappuccino at eight, aperitivo at six. Loosen up, Papà. You live in a prison! Be free.’

  ‘Rules are beautiful,’ Morris told her curtly. ‘Somebody studying art should appreciate that.’

  It irritated him that his daughter sat in a tight skirt with her knees up and knickers plumply exposed; but if he pointed this out, he would be accused of voyeurism. What she was drawing was the nth dreamy fantasy of some manga superwoman in militaristic décolleté. It was depressing. The girl seemed to take no interest in life as it really was. Fleetingly he imagined a portrait of his mistress accurately drawn by his daughter. How exciting it would be to mix everything up. Hadn’t Samira also bade him to be free?

  ‘You should thank your lucky stars you have such a conservative father,’ Antonella rounded on the girl. Half her college friends were from broken families, dividing time and loyalties between feckless parents who thought only of their own immediate gratification. ‘Everything your father and I have put together has been for your and Mauro’s future,’ she reminded their daughter.

  It was at times like this that Morris felt most satisfied with his choice of wife. Dull she might be, but Antonella always gave her husband the comforting feeling that he was doing the right thing. Massimina, however, wasn’t listening; she was smirking over another text message. It was quite disturbing, Morris observed then, how the girl was able to go on drawing with her right hand while texting with her left. That kind of capacity, he remarked later to his wife in bed, to operate in two worlds at once testified to a split personality. The right hand didn’t know what the left was up to.

  ‘Mauro is so much more straightforward,’ Antonella agreed.

  ‘You mean he has trouble walking and chewing gum?’ Morris couldn’t resist.

  ‘Don’t be cruel!’

  ‘I gave them nice presents.’

  ‘You did,’ she agreed: a camcorder for Massimina and an iPad for Mauro. Then she added: ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you, Morris, that Mousie did whatever he did in Brescia to impress his father?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Morris sat up. His wife’s reference to ‘his father’ almost made it seem as though that man might not be Morris. ‘Why would I be impressed by my son joining a gang of thugs to attack a policeman?’

  ‘He wants you to acknowledge that he exists, and that he has personality and courage to act. You heard the way he spoke to Don Lorenzo. About pride and identity.’

  ‘It sounded like Northern League talk to me,’ Morris said. ‘I hoped he’d develop some pride in going to one of the world’s best schools, and instead he attaches his affections to a group of racist hooligans.’

  There was a long silence before his wife said quietly, ‘I’m glad he’s home, Morris. But he’s not a boy for school or university. He reminds me a little of Massimina that way. I mean my sister.’

  Morris lay very still.

  ‘It was a terrible mistake Mamma made pushing Mimi at school when she wasn’t cut out for it. I often feel that was one of the reasons for what happened. She must have got into bad company.’

  Morris couldn’t trust himself to say anything. Antonella sighed.

  ‘Don’t you think sometimes Mauro looks a bit like Mimi, Morris? The round, full face and fleshy arms.’

  Was she mad? Mimi had been the gentlest, most graceful creature on earth. Their son was an oaf.

  ‘Morris, I think the right thing for you to do would be to take Mousie into the company. Prepare him for running it.’

  ‘What! He’s only seventeen, for Christ’s sake. He’s not ready for work.’

  Antonella was silent. Then she said very deliberately: ‘You’re wrong, Morris. I think Mauro would flower if you gave him responsibility. It would keep him out of trouble. You have no idea how much he seeks your approval.’

  How did it happen, Morris wondered, that people always surprised him with their absurd requests? This was beyond ridiculous.

  ‘Remember, the business isn’t yours, or mine for that matter. It’s a family affair going back generations. It will pass to Mauro.’

  ‘And Massimina?’

  ‘She wouldn’t want it, Morris. You know that. She’s more like you, more . . . artistic.’

  ‘But I’ve run it for years!’ he protested.

  ‘You’ve run the company wonderfully,’ she assured him. ‘But I’ve always felt that it’s been, well, against the grain, hasn’t it? You didn’t really want to run a company. And you’ve always been transforming it into something it wasn’t before, pushing it here and there, as if you were afraid you might get bored. I’ve always felt that.’ She hesitated, ‘Look at this strange art show you suddenly want to put on. I mean, I don’t like the subject at all, it’s so macabre, but I see you need to do something new. Like the time you tried to write a novel. And to make a film. You’ve lost interest in the business as such.’

  ‘No, I have not,’ Morris said flatly. For some reason he felt like a little boy put on the spot. And he didn’t want to be reminded of past fiascos. This show was in a completely different league from that awful novel.

  ‘Don’t be upset, amore. It’s not a crime to have ambitions. And it can’t be much fun digging foundations for a silly primary school that only a handful of children will ever go to, and all for free.’

  ‘Who told you about that?’ Morris was alarmed.

  ‘Don Lorenzo was singing your praises,’ Antonella said. ‘It seemed Cardinal Rusconi thanked him for suggesting your name. He has a nephew in Sant’Anna, a local councillor. You know everyone’s so worried about mixing with the Moslems.’

  ‘I try to do my part,’ Morris said virtuously, ‘especially where the Church is concerned.’

  Suddenly he felt quite moved by these observations his wife had made, by the thought that she had been watching him and thinking about him. So often it seemed the world paid no attention at all.

  ‘If you draw Mauro in, it will give you more time for the things you care about.’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Otherwise . . .’

  ‘What?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘I sometimes fear you’ll get so bored with the business you’ll, well, throw it away, somehow.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ Morris propped himself on an elbow.

  Again his wife sighed heavily. They were speaking of course, as always, with Christ Crucified and his virgin mother as their witnesses.

  ‘I don’t know, I just get the feeling that you’re not an ordinary sort of man, Morris. You won’t be content to leave things as they are.’ She hesitated. ‘That’s partly why I married you, I suppose. Because you’re special.’

  She sighed deeply.

  ‘Anto,’ Morris breathed in the darkness of the Twelfth Night, settling on his back again. ‘Anto, Anto Anto.’

  There were moments when it would have been wonderful to have shared the whole truth with her. She could have offered such useful advice.

  Chapter Eight

  AS OF 6 JANUARY Morris began a se
ries of visits to the churches Samira had earmarked for him. Sometimes he took the Arab girl, or, if she was at work, his son, or his daughter, or even on one occasion Tarik. He liked to be accompanied, possibly chauffeured, by someone much younger than himself and despite the fact that these were very different people, with different intellects, backgrounds and attitudes, nevertheless in a way, for Morris, these four youngsters, boys and girls, were all the same person. Despite a little petulance and muscle-flexing from time to time, they accepted that he called the tune. He had the Alfa Romeo. He had the track record. Above all, he had a project, knew what he was doing and why, whereas they were still unformed, unclear about their lives, unsure what fate would bring them. Morris loved this. He felt paternal, protective, munificent. He liked to think he was teaching them, not just about art, or about dealing with people—for there is no stranger race of men than parish priests—but about the whole ethos of purposefulness, of making a life for oneself, pushing on undeterred, however unpromising this or that immediate result might be, whatever obstacle might get in your way. Deep down every artist was a teacher, Morris thought. And the only way to lead was by example, not explanation.

  ‘I believe,’ he told a stout little man in his forties, ‘you have a martyrdom of San Bartolomeo in your church.’

  On his doorstep, the priest blinked. He was wearing contact lenses, Morris guessed. In one puffy hand he held a cheap Nokia and in the other an espresso pot.

  ‘Come in, come in.’

  Morris introduced himself and his son. He had Mauro with him today. The house was an ugly modern construction with roll-down plastic shutters and cheap black tiles somehow evoking the contrasting spirits of mass production and mausoleum. There was a cold, biscuity, old-sock staleness to the air that somehow went together with the priest’s shiny cassock and a poorly executed Christ above an ancient television. In the centre of the room a low table was a cubit deep in loosely stacked newspapers, including, on top, today’s Gazzetta dello Sport, which Mauro immediately picked up.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to take any more of your time than was necessary,’ Morris deferred.