The Very Picture of You

by Isabel Wolff

  ‘You look beautiful, Iris.’ I put my phone back in my bag.

  She smiled. ‘Thank you. So now we can start.’

  Iris sat on the sofa, smoothed down her skirt then turned towards me. As I looked at her, I felt the frisson I always feel when I begin a new portrait. We were silent for a while, the brush scraping softly across the canvas as I began to block in the main shapes with an ochre wash.

  After a couple of minutes Iris shifted her position.

  ‘Are you comfortable?’ I asked her, concerned.

  ‘I am – though I confess I feel a little self-conscious.’

  ‘That’s normal,’ I assured her. ‘A portrait sitting’s quite a strange experience – for both parties – because there’s this sudden relationship. I mean, we’ve only just met, but here I am, openly gawping at you: it’s a pretty unnatural first encounter.’

  Iris smiled. ‘I’m sure I’ll soon get used to your … scrutiny. But wouldn’t you rather be painting someone young?’

  ‘No. I prefer painting older people. It’s much more interesting. I love seeing a whole life etched on to a face, with all that experience, and insight.’

  ‘And regret?’ Iris suggested quietly.

  ‘Yes … that’s usually there too. It would be strange if it wasn’t.’

  ‘So … do your sitters ever get upset?’

  My brush stopped. ‘They do – especially the older ones, because as they sit there they’re looking back on their lives. Sometimes people cry.’ I thought of Mike and wondered again what could have happened to make him so unhappy.

  ‘Well, I promise not to cry,’ Iris said.

  I shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter if you do. I’m going to paint you, Iris, in all your humanity, as you are – or as I see you, at least.’

  ‘You have to be perceptive then, to do what you do.’

  ‘That’s true.’ I exhaled. ‘And I couldn’t even try to do this if I didn’t believe that I was. Portrait painters need to be able to detect things about the sitter – to try to work out who that person is.’

  We continued in silence for a few moments.

  ‘And do you ever paint yourself?’

  My brush stopped in mid-stroke. ‘No.’

  Surprise flickered across Iris’s features. ‘I thought portrait artists usually did do self-portraits.’

  You’re Ella Graham now …

  ‘Well … I don’t – at least not for years now.’

  And that’s all there is to it …

  ‘But … I’d love to hear more about your time abroad, Iris. You must have met some remarkable people.’

  ‘I did,’ she said warmly. ‘Well, they weren’t just people, they were personalities. Let me see … Whose names can I drop?’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘We met Tito,’ she began. ‘And Indira Gandhi – I have a photo of Sophia, aged five, sitting on her lap. I also met Nasser – the year before Suez; I danced with him at an embassy ball. In Chile we met Salvador Allende: Ralph and I liked him enormously and were outraged at what the Americans did to help overthrow him, though we could never say so openly. Discretion is a frustrating, if necessary, aspect of diplomatic life.’

  ‘What was your favourite posting?’

  Iris smiled. ‘Iran. We were there in the mid-1970s – it was paradisally beautiful and I have wonderful memories of our time there.’

  ‘But presumably your daughters went to boarding school?’

  She nodded. ‘In Dorset. They weren’t able to join us for every holiday, so that was hard. Their guardian was very good, but we hated being separated from our two girls.’

  There was another silence, broken only by the dull rumble of traffic in Kensington Church Street.

  ‘Iris … I hope you don’t mind my asking you – but the painting in your bedroom …’

  She shifted slightly. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You said it made you feel sad. I can’t help wondering why – as it’s such a happy scene.’

  Iris didn’t at first reply, and for a few moments I wondered whether she wasn’t, in fact, slightly deaf; and I was considering whether to ask her again when she exhaled, painfully. ‘That picture makes me feel sad because there is a sad story attached to it – one I learned a few years after I’d bought it.’ She heaved another deep sigh. ‘Perhaps I’ll tell you …’

  I felt crass suddenly. ‘You don’t have to, Iris – I didn’t mean to pry: I was just surprised by your remark, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s perfectly understandable. It is, on the surface, a happy scene. Two little girls playing in a park …’ She paused, then looked at me intently. ‘I will tell you the story, Ella – because you’re an artist and I believe you’ll understand.’ Understand what, I wondered. What could the sad story behind the painting be? It now occurred to me, with an anxious pang, that the girls might not have survived the war – or perhaps something awful had happened to the nanny. Now I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear the story, but Iris was beginning.

  ‘I bought the painting in May 1960,’ she said. ‘We were in Yugoslavia then – our first posting; but I’d come home with Sophia, who was then three, to have my second child, Mary. There were good hospitals in Belgrade, but I decided to have the baby in London so that my mother could help me. Also, she was widowed by then and I wanted to take the opportunity to spend some time with her; so I went to stay with her for three months.’

  I studied Iris, and drew in the curve of her right cheek.

  ‘My mother’s house was in Bayswater. She’d spent most of her married life in Mayfair but, as I say, my stepfather lost everything after the war.’ I wondered about Iris’s own father. ‘The week before the baby was due I took Sophia out in her pushchair. We had an ice cream in Whiteleys then walked slowly up Westbourne Grove: and I was just passing a small antique shop when I glanced in the window and saw that painting. I remember stopping dead and staring at it: I was completely taken with it – as you have been today. Sophia turned round and squawked at me to go on, so I did. But I couldn’t get the picture out of my mind. So, a few minutes later I turned back and pushed on the door.

  ‘The man who owned the shop told me that the painting had come in the week before. It had been brought in with some other things by a woman who’d found it in her late brother’s attic – she’d been clearing his house. She wasn’t sure who it was by, as it was unsigned, but on the back of the canvas was the year it was painted, 1934. I couldn’t really afford it, but I bought it, and as I carried it back I remember feeling what I can only describe as a kind of relief.

  ‘I showed it to my mother and she looked at it closely, but said nothing. I felt hurt by her lack of enthusiasm, but assumed that it was because she felt I’d been extravagant. I volunteered that it was a lot of money, but added that I’d fallen in love with it and simply “had to have it”. Then I hung it in my room.

  ‘The following week Mary was born, and I stayed with my mother for another two months. She was very helpful, but seemed sad, despite the birth of the new baby; I assumed it was because she knew I’d soon be going back to Yugoslavia with her grandchildren and that it would be a long time before she saw us again.’

  ‘Did you have any siblings?’

  ‘Yes – an older sister, Agnes, who lived in Kent. Anyway, before I went back to Belgrade I put the painting in storage, along with all the other things that Ralph and I had stored.’

  ‘Could you lift your head a little, Iris? I’m just marking out your brow.’ I squinted at her. ‘That’s better. So … what happened then?’

  Iris folded her hands in her lap. ‘In 1963 we returned to London for a two-year stint before our next foreign posting. We were glad to be back, the only sadness being that my mother had died a few months before. I think she knew that she might not see me again, because her later letters to me had been full of sorrow – she said that she hadn’t been a good mother in some critical ways; she said she had so much to regret. I simply thought that the distance between us had made her feel vulnerable; so I wrote back sayi
ng that she’d been a very loving and caring mother, which, in most ways, she had been …’

  Iris brushed a speck off her skirt. ‘Anyway … Ralph and I had returned to our house in Clapham – it had been let while we were away. I remember the day our things came out of storage and Sophia and Mary, who were then six and three, delightedly helping us unpack the crates. For them it was a bit like Christmas. Eventually we came to the china and glass, then to the few pictures we possessed and there, wrapped in some old pages of the Daily Express, was my painting. I was so glad to see it again …’

  Iris paused for a moment then continued.

  ‘This was the first time Ralph had seen it, although I’d talked to him about it. As he looked at it he said that it was clearly very good and added that he’d ask our neighbour, Hugh, who worked at Sotheby’s, to take a look at it. So a few days later Hugh came round, and he said that the reason it was unsigned was because it was probably a model for a larger painting. He was almost sure that it was by Guy Lennox, who had been a successful portraitist in the twenties and thirties. Ralph asked Hugh about its possible value and I remember feeling alarmed because I knew that I could never part with it – especially as I was now mother to two little girls myself. And this made me feel that that was what had first drawn me to the picture; when I was pregnant I was sure that I was going to have another daughter – and I did. Anyway, I was very relieved to hear Hugh say that the picture wouldn’t be worth a huge amount, because Lennox was simply a good figurative artist, painting portraits to commission. And I was about to put the girls to bed when he added that his uncle had known Lennox well; he remembered him saying that Lennox had had a sad life.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Hugh said that he could find out more about him, if I was interested – which I was. So he showed his uncle the painting on a visit to him in Hampshire not long afterwards. When Hugh brought the painting back a month later, he confirmed that it was by Guy Lennox, whose life story he now knew. He told us that he was born in 1900, had fought in the First World War, but had been badly gassed at Passchendaele and was sent back. While recuperating, he’d taught himself to paint, and after the war he went to the Camberwell School of Art – which is where he met Hugh’s uncle. He then decided to specialise in portraits and so in 1922 he went to study portraiture at the Heatherly School of Fine Art in Chelsea. I’m sure you know it.’

  ‘Yes – very well; I used to teach at Heatherly’s.’

  ‘While he was there, Guy fell desperately in love with one of the models – a beautiful girl named Edith Roche. His parents tried to discourage the relationship but in 1924 Guy and Edith were married at the Chelsea Town Hall. In 1927 they had a baby girl, followed fifteen months later by another. By this time Guy was becoming successful, fashionable even. He was much in demand, painting anyone who was “anyone” – literary and political figures, and members of the aristocracy. He became a Royal Academician, and was able to buy a house in Glebe Place with its own studio. His life seemed gilded – until the day he was commissioned to paint a man called Peter Loden …’ Iris fell silent.

  ‘So … who was Peter Loden?’ I asked after a few moments.

  Iris blinked, as if surfacing from some dream. ‘He was an oil trader,’ she replied. ‘He was very rich – he’d laid the first pipeline to Romania. He had a huge house just off Park Lane; it was like something out of the Forsyte Saga,’ she added absently.

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘Thirty-eight – still a bachelor – and quite a ladies’ man. In May 1929 he won a Conservative seat in the general election and, to celebrate, he asked Guy Lennox to paint his portrait. He liked the painting so much that he decided to hold an official unveiling for it. So in the September of that year he held a lavish party, to which he invited tout le monde. He also invited Lennox – and his wife: and when Peter Loden met Edith …’

  ‘Ah …’

  ‘He was absolutely infatuated with her beauty: she was flattered to have the attentions of such a rich and powerful man. Soon everyone knew that Edith Lennox was involved with Peter Loden; worse, Guy had to carry on working, knowing that the society figures he painted were gossiping about his wife.’

  ‘How horrible for him.’

  Iris nodded. ‘It must have been agonising. And it was to have a devastating effect on his life, because within three months Edith had petitioned Guy for divorce. And you’d think that she and Loden had done him enough harm,’ Iris added wearily. ‘But then it all became truly heartbreaking for that poor man because—’

  Iris looked up. The front door was being opened, there was a grunt as it banged shut, then footsteps and there was Sophia, clutching four bulging green carrier bags, her face pink with exertion.

  ‘I’m pooped!’ She smiled at us benignly. ‘I carried this lot back from Ken High Street. Still, the exercise is good for me.’ She nodded at the easel. ‘So how are you two getting along?’

  ‘Oh … fine,’ Iris replied. She glanced at her watch. ‘But you’re early, Sophia. It’s a quarter to four.’

  ‘I know, but I’d got everything you needed – except the Parma ham: there was no Parma ham, Mum – so I thought I’d head back. But don’t let me disturb you. I’ll put all this away.’ She disappeared and now we heard cupboards being opened and banged shut.

  Iris gave me a rueful smile. ‘Well … I think this is a good moment for us to stop.’

  I nodded reluctantly then clipped the canvas into the canvas carrier. ‘So I’ll see you next time, Iris.’ I collapsed the legs of the easel.

  ‘It will have to be after Easter,’ Iris said. ‘I’m staying with my other daughter, Mary, for a week.’ I got my diary out of my bag.

  As we were making a date, Sophia came back. ‘Will you need me to be here again?’ she asked. ‘I can be, if you want.’

  ‘That’s kind, darling,’ Iris replied. ‘But now that Ella and I know each other, we can just carry on from where we’ve left off.’

  I nodded. Sophia handed me my coat and I put it on. ‘I’ve enjoyed the sitting, Iris.’

  ‘I have too,’ she replied. ‘Very much. So until next time …’

  I smiled my goodbye then picked everything up.

  Sophia held the door open for me. ‘Can I give you a hand?’ she asked good-naturedly.

  ‘I’ll be fine, thanks.’ I hitched my canvas bag a little higher on to my shoulder. ‘Bye, Sophia …’

  ‘Bye, Ella.’ The door shut behind me.

  I clanked down in the lift then went out on to Kensington Church Street and hailed a cab. As I sat in the back, my mind was full of Guy Lennox and the beautiful Edith and Peter Loden, and the two little girls, the nanny and the dog: they felt almost as real to me as if I’d known them myself. Soon we were passing Glebe Place and I craned my neck to look down it, wondering which house Lennox had lived in.

  Suddenly the driver’s intercom came on. ‘Did you say Umbria Place, miss?’

  ‘Yes – it’s next to the Gasworks.’

  ‘I know it – we’ll be there in three minutes, if the traffic keeps moving.’

  I rummaged in my bag for my purse. Seeing my phone, I now remembered the unread e-mail from my website. So I went to the inbox and opened it, and as I began to read it the story of Guy Lennox evaporated. A jolt ran down my spine.

  Dear Ella, My name is John Sharp …

  FOUR

  On the morning of Good Friday I prepared for my first sitting with Nate. I got out the canvas, which I’d primed with a cream emulsion base a few days before. I cleaned the brushes and laid them neatly on my work table. I put the oak chair in place and, behind it, the folding screen that I sometimes use as a background. I mixed some burnt sienna with turps to make the thin wash. Then, still with half an hour before Nate was due, I got out my mother’s portrait: I simply wanted to look at it and to think about the e-mail which I’d now read so many times that it was seared on my mind.

  Dear Ella, My name is John Sharp, and I am your father.

  I shook
my head. ‘I’ve got a father, thanks.’ I hope you’ll forgive me for contacting you … ‘Shouldn’t that be for not contacting me?’ I said angrily.

  It must be a bit of a shock. ‘It certainly is!’

  … but I came across an interview with you on The Times website.

  I exhaled, sharply. ‘Just what I’d dreaded.’ I silently cursed the journalist, Hamish Watt.

  There was a link to it from the Western Australian, and when I saw your face I knew at once who you were.

  ‘No,’ I murmured. ‘You have no idea who I am.’

  I recognised in your strong, dark features my own, and your story fitted with the life we shared so many years ago.

  ‘So many,’ I echoed bitterly.

  And though I have no right to say that I feel proud of you, I do … ‘Well, it isn’t mutual …’

  Ella, I’m going to be in London the last week of May.

  Adrenalin scorched through my veins. I went to my desk, picked up my phone and opened the message. I would so much like to meet you …

  ‘Oh God …’

  I’ve always wanted to try and explain –

  ‘Explain what?’ I demanded. ‘That you deserted your wife and child? I don’t need that explaining – I can remember it.’

  Now I looked at my painting of Mum and saw her sitting at the kitchen table in our old flat, crying softly, while I sat next to her, helpless with anxiety and fright. I remembered drawing pictures of my father to cheer her up. And I remembered thinking that if I drew him well – so that it really looked like him – then perhaps, by some magic, he’d come back.

  Ella, I’ve always felt very guilty about what happened.

  ‘About what you did, you mean.’ I’d like to try and make amends … I went to ‘Options’ then to ‘Delete message?’. … if it’s not too late to do so. I hesitated for a few moments, then pressed ‘Yes’. My father’s words vanished.

  With a shaking hand I put my phone away. Drrrrrrrrnnnnnnnng.

  Nate had arrived – exactly on time. I breathed deeply to steady my nerves then walked slowly downstairs and opened the door.