The Painter

by Deirdre Quiery

  It was enough to send the trembling from my hands into my body as a wave. I felt nauseous. I wanted to vomit again, but my stomach was empty as I hadn’t eaten since the dinner I shared with Ishmael. Something wanted to cast itself out from my body. The way the violent demon-possessed men whom Jesus met requested to be cast into the bodies of pigs.

  I didn’t want to go downstairs and into the garden to see if there was anyone there. I was afraid. Instead, I opened the window in the bedroom, pushed my head outside and squinted into the floodlit garden to see who might have entered it or perhaps have left. I felt demons twist and howl within me. There was no-one to set me free. I did not deserve to be set free.

  Thursday 5th October 2017

  Gabriela arrived to cook and clean the next day. She asked where Ishmael was. I told her that he had gone away for a while. I didn’t know for how long. She didn’t have her hair in a bun – instead it looked unwashed and dishevelled, falling onto her shoulders in a rather fuzzy way rather than wavy. I noticed for the first time that it was flecked with grey. She wasn’t wearing make-up that day. I couldn’t bear to see her like that. It wasn’t that she had returned to the Gabriela of before but rather she had rapidly aged and disintegrated for some unknown reason. I asked her to take a few weeks holiday as I had nothing much planned other than to paint for my exhibitions in Madrid and Tokyo.

  How had she allowed herself to look so abandoned? It was as if that she knew that Ishmael was dead and that she couldn’t be bothered to make herself look beautiful anymore. And I had not forgotten that I had my suspicions that she worked with Ishmael to drug me.

  Gabriela was talking to me while I was caught in these thoughts. We were in the kitchen where the night before she served dinner. Her words fell easily like raindrops on my head, making no sense, a vibration shaking a world into twilight. I sat at the oak table and scratched its surface of unpolished wood with my fingernails. Ishmael will be hiding now in the moon which has disappeared. I imagine that he is sleeping and will see me again later this evening.

  Instead sunlight dropped onto the kitchen red tiled floor. There was a shadow from a plane tree shimmering across the floor. I concentrated on the dancing light and shadow. I sniffed at the air like a retriever who scents a prey close by. There was a roasted smell coming from a bag which I thought contained freshly baked croissants. Gabriela sat beside me at the table, opened the bag and offered me a pain au raisin rather than a croissant. I was shocked at how my body flooded with pleasure at the pain au raisin which I much preferred to a croissant. What addictions to pleasure was I capable of? She pressed the button on the Nespresso machine to make coffee. It gurgled. The burnt coffee bean smell wafted towards me and again horrifies me with its scented beauty of early mornings and nothingness. I attempt to make sense of her words. I listen, concentrating fiercely on what she is saying.

  “When should I come back? Where is Ishmael? I need to see him.”

  She thumps the cup of coffee in front of me. She doesn’t place it as she normally does on a saucer. I hear it rumble on the table – quivering as if it might tumble and spill. I hold it still with my hands – cradling it without looking at her. I have quickly got used to doing that – not looking at anyone – dead or alive.

  I skirted around her questions pushing money into an outstretched hand. She could read my mind but not perfectly, I hoped.

  “I’ll give you a ring and let you know when to come back. As for Ishmael, I don’t know where he is. Maybe he has returned home.”

  She looked at the money, glanced away and asked, “Home? Where is home for Ishmael? I thought it was here.”

  I raised my hands into the air. “That’s for him to decide – not for me.”

  She counted the notes in her hand. “That’s too much. That means it’s at least two months before you want me to return.”

  I shook my head. “It’s OK. Take it. If I need more time alone – I will still pay you. I’ll call you if there is any news from Ishmael or if you need to come back.”

  I watched the space over her upper lip turn completely white – like a white moustache. “You said ‘if’ I need to come back; are you telling me there is the possibility that you do not want me here? If not, why not? What have I done to you that you would dismiss me?”

  I was shocked at her directness and also what I considered to be her impertinence. Who did she think she was talking to? I felt a familiar flame of anger burn in my stomach. This level of disrespect made me think that I should grab the money back from her, immediately dismiss her and change the locks on the door so that I could be sure I would never see her again.

  She continued in a gentler tone of voice, ignoring her last question to me. I also chose to ignore it. That moment of empty space between us allowed her to ask a completely different question. “How do we know that Ishmael doesn’t need help? He’s a fragile, sensitive person. We need to find him. Perhaps he has had some kind of mental breakdown. That can happen to people can’t it?”

  That convinced me that for reasons as yet unknown to me that she had a deep and intimate relationship with Ishmael. What would she know about Ishmael’s mental state of health unless they had cosied up together on the sofa and chatted when I was not around? I had thought of her as dangerous and now I was convinced that they both betrayed me. She was not only dangerous but treacherous. They had a secret life, one that was deliberately hidden from me. That is the only way that they could have deepened their relationship. There had to be a betrayal of some kind from them both.

  I hadn’t thought before that a lie could both be beautiful and hold an essence of truth. In the past I saw the world as black and white – even though I, as the Painter, use vibrant colours. Since Ishmael’s murder hours ago, the world is clear and not clear. The blackness and whiteness of the world – or I should say of my mind – are only a canvas for splashes of colour I flick onto life like Jackson Pollock.

  I looked fearlessly into Gabriela’s eyes. I saw a beauty in the depths of their murky darkness. There was also a smell from her which had a perfume of wisdom. She hated me but she would stay with me as my housekeeper as long as I wanted her. So, there were lies already seeded between us. Within a lie there is a lingering cowardice. Cowardice is never beautiful to me, no matter how well it is driven from an inner truth. Cowardice disgusts me. I replied.

  “I don’t think that Ishmael is insane or in need of our help. He will return.”

  She pushed the money into a small purse which bulged as she attempted to zip it. She looked at me with a twisted mouth, which I interpreted as evidence of a deep-seated hatred for me as she turned her head away looking at the door. “We will see.” She walked briskly towards the kitchen door and, before leaving, turned around and asked, “When did you make that sculpture? It wasn’t here yesterday.”

  I walked towards her. The thought came into my head that I might need to kill her. She seemed to imply that there was something suspicious about the sculpture. I dismissed that thought. Had I not done enough damage in murdering Ishmael? I had to learn not to act out every thought that came into my head.

  I opened the door for her to leave. “Ishmael and I had been working on it for quite some time in the Studio. It was finished a week ago. It was Ishmael’s idea that we assemble it in the garden last night. Maybe he wanted to see how it looked before he went away for a while.”

  She turned on her heel, walked through the door, stopped, grabbed the door handle and slammed the door behind her. She didn’t jump onto her motorbike immediately. Instead, she walked towards the front door where she would find Persephone, the sculpture and the fountain. I walked into the sitting room and looked out of the window. She walked quickly to the fountain and stared at the water. What was she doing?

  She walked back to the house and knocked on the front door. I ran to open it.

  “Yes? What’s the matter?”

  She pointed at the fountain. “Where is the second arrow – the lead tipped one?”

  She
didn’t come into the house. I stood in the doorway. “That’s observant of you. You know Ishmael has been constantly improving the garden. He didn’t like the energetic vibe coming from the lead tipped arrow. He asked if he could think about how he could turn it into another sculpture. He must have taken it away with him. I can’t wait to see what he will do. You know that he is gifted with creative ideas. I think he will want to turn it into a sculpture of a snail which he will place in the labyrinth.”

  She gave me a cold stare. She didn’t believe me. I had to think about what that meant for both of us.

  7

  PABLO PICASSO

  “If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes.”

  Friday 6th October 2017

  After Gabriela left, I felt that I needed to walk, to place my feet on the ground and know myself rooted in the earth. Although it was warm and sunny, I imagined that the weather would change but maybe that was only guilt freezing around my heart. I wrapped a navy-blue scarf around my neck over the top of my white shirt. I knew that it looked odd – everyone I passed wore sandals and shorts.

  I hurried along the Calle de la Luna, heading towards Barranc. It’s a climb towards L’Ofre and Lake Cuber which I knew well. There is something about mountains. They are sacred places. They do their best to take you into the Universe. They give you space to think. I wanted to think about Ishmael. When I think about him – it is almost as if he is not dead. Although I planned to think about Ishmael, my thoughts turned, as they normally did, to thoughts about me. I had been given so much in life – health, talent, a beautiful island to live on, a world to explore and a mother who only wanted me to see the errors of my ways to allow me to live the life that I was born to live.

  I am not in a good place; my talent is not real but rather is a deceit. I will have no friends when the murder of Ishmael is known in the world. Life is stripping me bare. Not life – I have done it to myself.

  It is two years since Ishmael arrived here. Those two years seem like one long summer. Spring, autumn and winter never seemed to be born during those two years. There was only summer with its parching heat, occasional storms and possibilities. I have always loved summer. Other seasons seemed to be either a preparation for or a saying goodbye to summer. Summer was vibrant, passionate, filled with fiestas, music and life.

  In climbing the Barranc the day after his murder, I was reminded of Ishmael’s love for the uncultivated creativity of Nature.

  In the Torrent to my left yellow flowers burst open surrounded by bamboo shoots with feathery purple tops choked in a multitude of foliage. Is Nature taunting me with life which will not be extinguished? Life will continue without Ishmael. I listened to the news before I left the house as if I expected to hear about Ishmael’s murder. No there were only bizarre reports of a pregnant woman who had been murdered in a submarine by a wealthy oligarch who denied his guilt. I was aware that my reaction to the story was one of revulsion – especially of the disclosure that after he killed her, he cut off her head and threw it into the sea. I imagined that, in a desperate attempt to escape her fate, she would have run around the confined quarters of the submarine which drifted in the depths of an inky black sea, before he caught up with her, held her by the arms and murdered her. It reminded me of Ishmael’s desperate attempts to escape from me. In burying him in a sculpture, I am no better than that oligarch. The disgust I have for him is no different from the disgust I have for myself.

  I looked at L’Ofre, that distant triangular mountain that I have climbed more than a hundred times in my life. Today there are dark rain clouds collapsing over its summit. They are falling as clouds of rain rather than drops, thumping on the top of L’Ofre as if to waken it up and make it move. I smelled rosemary and thyme which reminded me of Ishmael’s herb garden. I imagined him bending over with a pair of scissors, cutting thyme and rosemary for a Saturday lunch of lamb, slow roasted in the oven. Everything beautiful reminds me of Ishmael.

  Today, I crossed the first bridge on the way up Barranc. The rocks were a stormy grey and smooth. There was no water in the canyon. The rain had cleared, and the sky opened its heart to the emptiness of the Universe. The air temperature is benign. I walked quickly as if I had somewhere to go.

  There was nowhere to go. I wanted to get out of the valley – to leave the garden and the sculpture within which I have entombed Ishmael. I walked past the Plaza de Jean Dausset who won the Nobel Prize for something to do with cells, genetics and immunology. There is something to do with our genetics that fascinates me and also what happens in our bodies unconsciously; what drives us to do what we do, do we even know?

  I was told by mother that my great grandfather Josep – a painter and writer – died in World War I. As Spain was neutral during the war, he joined the French Foreign Legion – the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Marching Regiment of Africa. He submitted regular columns to ‘Iberia’ the magazine designed to recruit support for the Foreign Legion in Spain. Before he died on 25th April 1915 in the landing at Kum Kale, he succeeded in persuading 2,000 Spaniards to join the Foreign Legion.

  In spite of my Great Grandfather’s courage, which I admired in giving his life for a cause he believed in, I don’t want to know who my ancestors are. I don’t want to feel them creeping within my body like woodworm, poking their little heads out to see the world through my eyes. I know that they are within me and they will make themselves known to me whether I like it or not, but I will not pay attention to them. They say that human beings need attention. If babies don’t receive it, they will die even if they are given ample nutrition. I can control the influence of my ancestors on me by ignoring them.

  My feet trampled the earth in a statement of being here. I looked to my right. The valley overflowing with violet iridescent trumpets settling into heart shaped blue leaves like butterflies. The mountains to my right stretching above the valley were in shadow. The olive terraces below were bathed in sunshine. Some of the olive trees were scraggly like an unkempt haircut. Others glistened as if coated in silver, but it was only the residue of this morning’s rain. A plane tree quivered to my left. The sun had lost the intensity of summer fierceness.

  My head buzzed with disjointed words and half sentences. I can’t imagine what my life will be now without Ishmael. A part of me wants to pretend that I had never met him. I want to stop thinking about him. Another part of me yearns for him – to be with him.

  Memories of my childish reaction of jealousy and anger with him fade, replaced with a heavy greyness in my head an aching desire in my body for the phone to ring to hear him say, as he had said once before, that I am loveable.

  If he talked to me in a gentle voice, laughing at me – that would be enough. I didn’t need to hear the words ‘I forgive you’. They were unnecessary. I didn’t believe either that I needed to make an apology for what I had done. I knew that Ishmael’s love was so great, so vast that even in death; he knew the depths of my remorse. Can there be forgiveness for me without an apology? Most people would say ‘no’, but I am not so sure.

  In climbing Barranc, I attempted to escape into birdsong. There were two or maybe three birds chittering away to one another – or maybe they were singing to themselves. I sat on a low wall and heard the tramp of hikers approaching, their sticks clicking against the cobbled path. I looked at the cracks between the rocks on which I sat where baby cacti burst through the fissures of the mottled, blotched stone to my left. I wondered not about Ishmael but about the cacti. Why were they here at all if no-one saw them? That brought me back to Ishmael. Even if I had taken his life, had I not given him life for a short while total attention? Was that not love? In the last two years no-one as far as I knew had contacted him. He refused to have a mobile phone. No-one rang him on the fixed line.

  Last night as I couldn’t sleep, I lay in bed with the window open. I watched the mountains in the distance – dark black knife edges against an indigo sky.

  Friday 6th October 2017

  Three days after
the death of Ishmael. I went into his bedroom and opened the drawers where his clothes were stacked in neat little bundles whereas I threw my clothes which were not ironed into a drawer and then slammed it shut to hide them.

  Ishmael ironed his underpants and socks. He colour-coded them with pinks on the bottom, then blues and finally whites. He had socks to match the colour of his shirts. I removed a pair of his underpants. They looked new. Maybe he had never worn them – Gant – multicoloured with trees like an Amazon jungle. He didn’t seem to know where to place them within his stack of coloured underpants with their mixed orange, green and blue designs. He folded them delicately on top of his socks. There was something about their pristine condition that made me hold them against my face and cry into them. They contained the stainless purity of Ishmael’s soul.

  Then I went into the garden and made a circular bench to fit around the sculpture. I hammered the wood into place. I couldn’t bring myself to think of the state of Ishmael’s body inside. It must be disintegrating like the fresh figs I had placed in a bowl and had forgotten about a few days after Ishmael’s ‘disappearance’. That’s how I liked to reframe it now. He’s disappeared. If anyone asks me, I will tell them that I don’t know why or where he has gone. That’s partly true – where has he gone? His spirit I mean. The body is in that sculpture, suppurating.

  Everywhere in the garden, I see abundance – figs, olives, carob pods toasted black lie on the ground, some trampled into the soil. They will not be eaten; many will not even be seen. There is a mystery in life seeding itself into the earth, promising some future growth.

  In comparison, what value do my paintings have? They stimulate a moment of interest and then pass into the hands of art collectors whose intention is to make money from my efforts without any appreciation of the source of inspiration from which they have emerged. Why should I criticise these collectors for something I am guilty of myself? I have lost contact with the source of my inspiration.