by Lucy Foley
‘But he’s a recluse,’ Charlie said, unhelpfully. ‘He doesn’t even live in the country.’
Agnes nodded. ‘It’s true. No one’s seen much of him since his wife died. It’s driven some of the collectors mad. He’s always been prolific, and I think they imagine that he’s sitting there, producing pieces that no one can get their hands on. He’s never seemed especially interested in money, you see, so I suppose he has no real reason to show them to anyone, if he doesn’t want to.’
‘How should I contact him?’
Agnes sighed. ‘That’s the thing. It won’t be easy. Let me think on it.’
So I went home, trying to convince myself that this was progress. In truth, it was immensely disheartening to have this new lead, yet no apparent way of investigating it further. Agnes, too, had looked rather downcast when I left – though that might have been as much to do with the fact that I was taking the drawing with me.
To make matters worse, the shop was even quieter than usual that week. The weather was terrible – despite it being early summer. The sky was an ominous, lowering steel grey, and the light had a greyish, dirty quality to it, too. It was hardly surprising that people did not feel compelled to think about their cameras.
It also meant that my normal means of distraction – my own photography – was not an option. It was too wet most of the time for me to want to risk getting my camera out. It was old now – and prone to fail. I knew that rainwater could be just the thing to finish it off. I knew, too, that I could easily replace it – Nick would have given me a big discount on anything in the store. Yet I held on to it, stubbornly, for what I suppose were superstitious reasons. This was the camera with which I had taken picture after picture of Mum – and I had convinced myself that it held some final imprint of her inside its compact black body. Besides, it felt right in my hands, as though it had moulded itself to them – or I to it, a strange transmutation.
I needed a new way to distract myself. One day, almost without realizing what I was doing, I took the tube to Green Park, and walked into the Royal Academy. Only when I stood in the foyer, blinking in the bright light that was in such contrast to the mizzling day without, did I understand why I was there. I had come to look at the work of the artist who had suddenly become so uniquely important to me.
I was impressed by what I found. I had peripherally been aware of Stafford’s work – and I think I could, with confidence, have picked out one of his pieces in a room. One of the more recent ones, at least. But here were older works – works that were far darker and more subversive than I would have imagined, as well as those of humour and great serenity. There was a vast range evident here – he favoured charcoal and ink for sketches, and oil for paint – but there were also pastels, watercolours, collages. Perhaps what linked them together was the confidence and fluidity of line, and the emotional punch that almost every work delivered. I couldn’t pinpoint what the New York street scene made me feel, exactly – perhaps because it stirred a complicated mixture of emotions. Pity, for the drunk or homeless men slumped along the sidewalk. A certain excitement, stimulated by the purplish suggestion of twilight, the cleverly rendered pinpoints of light that suggested a new night falling upon the city, charged with possibility for the men and women that strode in their finery past the sorry spectacle of the others. I could not decide if I liked it; it made one uncomfortable. No doubt that was the point – another mark of the artist’s skill.
And the view out across a placid sea – the Mediterranean, I was certain. Viewed one way, it spoke of heavenly solitude. Viewed another, that solitude transformed: became melancholic. Perhaps, after all, it depended on what one made of it, what one brought of oneself to it.
The next day I went to the library and got out a few books about Thomas Stafford. It purported to be an illustrated biography, but the text was disappointingly meagre. The ‘early years’ section was sketchy, and there was only a brief mention of the artist’s time at Oxford University, where he had, apparently, joined a student Art Society. To my frustration I could find nothing about a woman called Célia – nothing about any other women, in fact, until the section on his marriage to a Corsican woman named Elodia. The next book yielded little more. There was, however, one paragraph that gave me pause:
There are thought to be a number of works unaccounted for from the early years, when the artist was still a student at Oxford University. Rumour has it that these are the product of a particularly pivotal time emotionally and creatively in Stafford’s life – but none of these works, if they exist, are in the public domain. The earliest works on record date from the mid-1930s, though it is likely that Stafford was already prolific before this period. At the time of publication, we can only hope that these suspected earliest works may one day surface and shed further light on the creative beginnings of this extraordinary artistic career.
The earliest works on record date from the mid-1930s. Now I could understand why Agnes had been so excited. The drawing I had in my possession was dated 1929 – half a decade before. Yet it wasn’t so much excitement I felt at this realization as something more like dread. Could the absence of these pieces suggest that someone simply didn’t want them to be found?
The spell of bad weather broke, finally, on the Saturday of that week. It was my day off, so I took up my camera and cycled the Thames Path as far as Richmond, but it was a limp, misty day and I knew that the photographs I took would be second rate at best. Frustrated, I made for home.
There was a voicemail blinking on the machine when I got in. I listened – my heartbeat suddenly loud in my ears, almost deafening me. It was Agnes. ‘I may have found a way,’ she said, cryptically.
I called her back.
‘Oh good,’ she said, as soon as she heard my voice. ‘I’ve been waiting by the phone all morning.’ She paused. ‘I shouldn’t do this. It’s completely unprofessional, you understand, but in the circumstances …’ she dropped her voice, conspiratorially. ‘I can get you the address of his sister. She is the founder of a charity that awards art scholarships to offenders: a friend of mine exhibited some of the winners at his gallery, and has given me the details.’ She gave a short, rather wild laugh. ‘I let him believe that I needed to get in touch with her about a new project – no doubt he wouldn’t have given them to me otherwise. So you mustn’t reveal how you came by them if you can help it.’ She read out the address for me. ‘No phone number, so you’ll have to go to her and explain.’
‘Just turn up?’
‘Yes, I think so. She’s your best hope, if you want to get to him directly. If you go via the collector route – and in doing so alert someone else to the fact that you have this piece – you’ll only get tied up in paperwork and financials.’
Here it was, I thought, as I hung up the phone: an end to my impotence, my opportunity to act. But with it the doubt returned. It wasn’t as though I would be helping Mum in any way by following this path. More to the point, would Mum have wanted me to follow it? That one time we had spoken on the subject she had been adamant that she had no interest in her real parents.
Yet the idea of giving up now was inconceivable. I think I was mostly driven by the hope of finding something that would make me feel less alone. For one with no family left to speak of, the prospect of discovering something about this woman – and the shared history she had been a part of – was irresistible.
And so I went to see Stafford’s sister, Mrs Delaney, where she lived in a Victorian building off Upper Street. Such a long wait followed my knock on the door that I began to wonder if no one was at home, but, as I turned to go, it opened.
‘I’m sorry,’ she told me, ‘I’ve been watching a film with my grandchildren, and we had it up rather loud. It took me a while to realize that the sound hadn’t come from the television.’
‘My name’s Kate,’ I told her. ‘I’m here to ask for your help. It’s about a picture—’
‘All right,’ she said, to my amazement, and, just like that, beckoned me through.
&
nbsp; I was so surprised by this easy acceptance that I wavered on the doorstep for several seconds in confusion. I had spent the journey to Islington rehearsing exactly what I would say, thinking of ways to mask Agnes’s part in the process, how precisely to lead up to the main crux of things … only to find it all superfluous.
Mrs Delaney led me straight through to the kitchen at the back of the house. The two grandchildren were apparently watching their film in the sitting room, off the main corridor. Noise and teenage laughter surged over me in a great wave as I entered and involuntarily I steeled myself against it. I had become so used to the silence of the house in Battersea, you see, that it felt almost like an assault.
Mrs Delaney was vital and upright despite her years, with the sort of handsome looks that are improved by age – undiminished, certainly, by the intricate atlas of lines that mapped her skin. The eyes were her most striking feature: blue as a wolf’s, but with a softness to them that was unmistakably kind. Even so, I quailed slightly beneath her gaze. She saw too much, I felt.
‘So,’ she said, ‘how can I help you?’
I had deliberated beforehand as to how much I should tell her, especially as I myself knew so little. ‘I need to get in touch with your brother,’ I started, and then stopped. No – that wasn’t quite how I had planned it. I tried again: ‘I’m trying to find out about someone your brother once knew.’ Mrs Delaney waited, patiently, as I searched for a way to continue.
In the end I simply removed the drawing from my bag. I showed it to her, and saw her give a start when she saw it properly, as she took in the initials in the lower corner. ‘How did you come by this?’ she asked, softly.
‘It’s been in my family for a long time.’ I hoped that would be enough. To my relief she seemed to accept it. She took it from me wordlessly, and the kitchen clock counted out a full two minutes as she studied it. Eventually, slightly unnerved, I spoke into the silence. ‘I’m trying to find out something about her, the woman it depicts.’
‘Well,’ she said, still studying the drawing, as though unable to tear her eyes from it, ‘this is … rather surprising. I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting it to be about my brother’s work. Not many people connect us, because we don’t share the same surname. I had actually thought it would be something to do with Beyond the Canvas – the charity I work for.’ She looked at me then. ‘I imagine that’s how you got my address, though … through someone there?’ It wasn’t spoken as an accusation, but I felt my cheeks grow hot with embarrassment, all the same. I nodded.
‘Anyway,’ she said, waving a hand to show it didn’t matter, ‘however it came about, I do think I see how important this is to you. And my answer is yes.’
‘Excuse me?’ I asked, rather stupidly.
‘I mean to say that yes, I will help you to contact him. That was what you asked, I think?’
‘Oh … well, thank you. I—’
‘You should write to him,’ she told me. ‘And I think you must include this drawing.’
‘No – I can’t.’ It came out more fiercely than I had expected, and it seemed impertinent – it was her brother’s work, after all. I tried to explain: ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘but I couldn’t bear the thought of losing it.’
She nodded. ‘All right, a photocopy then – I forget there are these modern alternatives. But, if I know my brother, it is this drawing that will make him take notice.’
She saw me out. ‘Goodbye then, Kate Darling.’ She gave me a quick smile. ‘Good luck.’
Sitting on the tube on my way back, I thought of what it could mean, having Thomas Stafford’s address. Did I want to follow this thread, not knowing where it might lead? Again, I had that feeling that had been with me since Evie had first unburdened herself – that she might almost unwittingly have been protecting Mum from her own history. I thought of the sight that the girls in the orphanage had described – the woman who had left the baby on the doorstep without a backward glance, without even stopping to ring the doorbell. What sort of person would do that to their child? What if the truth I uncovered was a terrible thing, something that once unleashed could not again be hidden or forgotten?
But then a rebellious voice spoke to me from the edge of thought. It’s up to you, it whispered. You’re the only one left to decide.
By the time I got home I had made my decision. I would write my letter and I would do the closest thing to sending the drawing: photograph it, and send that instead. I took several versions in the kitchen where the light was good, and developed them meticulously in the darkroom. They all came out rather well, but I chose the one in which the expression on her face had been best retained: that wry smile, the slight quirk of the eyebrow.
I tried to keep the note that I would send with it short, to the point, resisting the temptation to steep it in my anxiety and hope.
Dear Mr Stafford,
Please accept my apologies for writing to you directly in this manner, but I obtained your address from your sister, Mrs Delaney, and am hoping you may be able to help me with something very close to my heart. I enclose a photograph of a drawing that I believe may be your own work. It recently came into my possession along with a letter, sent thirty-odd years ago, by a woman claiming to have given birth to my mother. This was addressed to my adoptive grandmother, and signed, simply, ‘Célia’. Célia asked to meet with my mother – a request that was never granted. My mother, the ballerina June Darling, died last year without knowing anything of this.
If the drawing is indeed your own work, perhaps you know something of the woman it depicts? The resemblance to my mother is uncanny and, I have come to believe, speaks for the truth of the letter’s claim. I am desperate to learn of all you might know or remember. I think you may be the only person who can help me, who may be able to tell me anything of who she was.
Yours faithfully,
Kate Darling
I gave the address of the house, and the number. As I fed the envelope into the mouth of the postbox my hands shook.
For a couple of weeks, there was nothing. I was extremely vigilant. My hope – a quiet, desperate hope – was strong within me. Every day, as soon as the post arrived I would hurl myself down the stairs and watch as the letters spilled through the door – catching them, sometimes, before they touched the mat.
Nick knew that something was up: I was listless and distracted at work. Even a trip to the nearby Cadogan Arms for a ‘medicinal’ glass of wine didn’t help. He asked me if there was anything I might want to chat about – he knew about Evie, and probably thought it related to that. I didn’t want to talk. For one thing, I didn’t want to explain that there was anything besides the loss of Evie occupying my thoughts. And I felt a superstition, however foolish, that to speak of it would be to jinx it.
I think it often happens like this. You wait, and hope, until eventually the hoping seems in vain and the thing you wish for begins to seem impossible. You try to forget, to move on. And sometimes, once you have gone through this painful process, by some peculiar alchemy, it happens.
The reply came: just like that. For once, I hadn’t even heard the soft drop of the letters as they hit the floor – I wasn’t even in the house, having gone out to buy milk and the papers. When I returned, there it sat. A small white envelope addressed in an unfamiliar hand, a foreign postage stamp. My fingers were clumsy as I opened it.
Dear Kate (if I may)
Please forgive my delay in replying to you. The post takes an extraordinarily long while to arrive here – the house is rather remote, you see. It has also taken me some time to organize my thoughts sufficiently to sit down and write. I will be honest and tell you now that your letter and photograph have disturbed me somewhat. I never thought I would see that drawing again.
I think you should come to Corsica. Can you spare the time? I feel we have much to discuss, of the sort that can’t be addressed in a mere letter.
Please know that, if you decide to come out, you need not concern yourself about accommodation: yo
u would be my guest here at the Maison du Vent. We aren’t particularly smart, but I’d like to think you would be comfortable.
I hope the enclosed will help. It will, I think, be sufficient to cover the price of a flight to the island. An odd conceit, perhaps, but we do not have a telephone here. So if you are inclined to accept my offer (though I appreciate that it may be difficult to find enough time for a visit) please send word of when you expect to arrive, and we will make sure that someone is there to meet you at the airport.
If you are not bound by a schedule, my advice would be to book a single flight and decide once you are here on when to book the return. I feel that what we have to discuss may take us some time. I await your reply, Kate, and I hope – more than hope – that you will choose to come and visit us as soon as you are able.
Yours truly,
Thomas Stafford
When the cheque fell into my hand I sat down hard on the sofa and stared at it in bewilderment. It was for a thousand pounds.
6
Corsica, August 1986
The heat was heavy, tangible, and the air shimmered above the dry earth through the windows of the arrivals lounge. As I’d stepped from the plane I had experienced an almost instantaneous prickling of sweat on my face and between my shoulder blades. The Corsican sky was exactly as it had appeared on that tube poster: a flawless blue that stretched like a spinnaker to the pale horizon. The scent of the island was everywhere, even inside the airport: herbal, resinous, heady. I thought of the unseasonably sodden London that I had left behind, the metallic smell of wet tarmac, and the lowering monochrome sky. And yet most of me wanted to run back up the steps into the plane’s cabin and beg them to let me return home.
Stafford had explained in his letter that someone would be there to meet me, but hadn’t said whom I should expect. A thin line of waiting taxi drivers and family members straggled along the barrier, and I peered at the signs but couldn’t see my own name anywhere. I realized in that moment that I hadn’t even got a number to call if nobody showed for me. Merely the name of a house, somewhere on the island. The absurdity of the whole situation struck me anew. What if this were all some expensive prank on Stafford’s part, and I was to be left here interminably? It would be less of a stretch of the imagination to believe that than to believe that he, the world-famous artist, had invited me to stay in his house.