Stone Heart

by Des Ekin

  ‘There he is,’ he whispered with satisfaction. ‘Do you recognise him?’

  His face was half hidden by a forest of heads and half a dozen obscuring pillars, but Tara could just about make out his features.

  Oh yes. There was no doubt about it at all.

  That was the man, all right.

  In the very last place you’d expect to find him.

  ‘S’il vous plait, monsieur?’ said Andres.

  ‘Ouay?’ The accent was rough, guttural, working-class Paris. He stood on the steps outside the church, a pale and ascetic figure dressed entirely in black and carrying something wrapped in dark cloth.

  ‘This is Ms Tara Ross, a close friend of Mr Fergal Kennedy.’ Andres was speaking in English now. His voice was soft, but his eyes never left the other man’s.

  ‘I know who Ms Ross is.’ His pale eyes turned towards her.

  ‘We would like to talk to you,’ insisted Andres. ‘About the late Mrs Ann Kennedy.’

  ‘Ann Kennedy.’ He said it slowly, as though the words were something holy, like the four words he had said over and over again to communicants in the church.

  ‘Yes. Ann Kennedy. The woman you once loved.’

  The old man glanced around as though looking for a means of escape, then shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands in a Gallic gesture of submission.

  ‘It is as you say,’ admitted the artist Michael de Blaca. ‘But not as you might think. You had better come with me.’

  They followed de Blaca to his ground-floor studio in one of the most expensive quarters of Montmartre. No artist would starve in a garret here any more, thought Tara. At the very worst one would be forced to cut back on the pressed duck and truffles, or cancel the champagne, because the bank was about to foreclose on one’s astronomical mortgage.

  The artist led them into a side street that was almost hidden behind the huge security fence of an embassy building. ‘No one gets in or out here without being captured on video,’ said de Blaca. ‘Just warning you.’

  He didn’t smile.

  The tiny cul-de-sac held only half a dozen buildings. It was a natural suntrap and the warm, motionless summer air was heavy with the smell of laurel, lavender and climbing roses.

  ‘Here we are,’ announced de Blaca, leading them through a stone archway and punching a security code in a keypad beside a hefty door flanked by individual bells and nameplates. Tara noticed a doctor, a dentist and an advertising agency executive. Finally, de Blaca fished out a complex-looking key and used it to open the main door and another door in the vestibule.

  ‘Welcome to Bohemia,’ he said.

  Tara knew exactly what to expect. Primed by dozens of movies and books, she knew precisely what an artist’s studio in Montmartre ought to look like. There would be bare, paint-splashed wooden floorboards, rough-hewn tables and chairs, and newly-painted canvasses stacked against each other in an untidy heap. A half-finished bottle of marc on the table, and perhaps a pouting model half-asleep on the unmade bed.

  That was how it was in the Hollywood script; unfortunately, reality turned out to be different. De Blaca’s studio was as austere as a priest’s study. The living room was tiled in black and white, and heavily furnished with Edwardian armchairs and a chest of drawers in age-old, unforgiving mahogany. A small Arabic rug was the only concession to comfort. In the corner was a bookcase holding an encyclopaedia; on the walls a line drawing of a street scene. There was no TV, no video, no telephone. Every surface was clean, and every polishable one was gleaming with a deep, well-tended shine.

  They passed through an equally sparse dining-room and Tara caught a glimpse of a bare, functional galley-kitchen. Finally de Blaca opened a pair of wide French windows and gestured at them to follow him into a small garden dominated by a shady, scented cedar.

  ‘Something to drink?’ he offered, sitting them at a beechwood garden table beneath the tree. ‘Mineral water? Fresh orange? I’m afraid there is no wine or beer. I have been teetotal for some considerable time, and you must understand that I was not expecting guests.’

  He went back into the house and re-emerged with a chilled bottle of Badoit mineral water, a pain, and several varieties of cheese on a wooden board.

  ‘Help yourselves,’ he instructed. ‘There’s brie, camembert, some blue from Provence and a goat’s cheese from Normandy which I think you’ll find interesting.’

  ‘You have a beautiful studio,’ said Tara, making small talk as she spread some brie.

  He looked at her and frowned, as though she had said something controversial that required him to think long and hard before replying.

  ‘Beautiful?’ he said at last.

  ‘I mean, it’s a fine apartment in a very scenic location. You must be very happy here.’

  Again the frown and the long pause. He had removed his heavy black jacket. He wore a black polo-necked sweater which contrasted with his pale face and white hair and emphasised his priest-like appearance. He was an ascetic, a monk, a creature of the dark catacombs, out of place in the shimmering sunshine.

  ‘Happy?’ he said.

  Tara felt a spasm of irritation. She was familiar with this bizarre conversational game. It was easy to play. You questioned simple statements, analysed words, demanded definitions. It had nothing to do with clarity of meaning. It had everything to do with demeaning your opponent and demonstrating your own superior intelligence. She busied herself with choosing another portion of cheese and didn’t respond.

  ‘I like the beauty of austerity,’ de Blaca said after a while. ‘Happy? That’s not an adjective I’ve used in relation to myself for a long, long time.’

  Tara glanced up at him and quickly looked away. He hadn’t said it in a tone that invited consolation, human sympathy or even further inquiry. It was a simple statement of fact.

  She tried the friendly small talk approach one more time. ‘I didn’t notice any paintings,’ she said. ‘Are you working on any at the moment?’

  ‘Paintings?’ said de Blaca, knitting his brow.

  Oh God, thought Tara. Here we go again.

  ‘It’s not surprising that you didn’t notice any paintings,’ de Blaca said, ‘since I haven’t painted any for the past twenty-seven years.’

  ‘You have to forgive Tara,’ Andres butted in quickly. ‘She has not studied your work as closely as I have, Mr de Blaca. I have long been an admirer of your talent, hidden as it has been.’

  ‘Hidden?’

  Your turn, thought Tara. Serves you right for being so patronising.

  ‘I mean,’ said Andres, ‘that while your work has been appreciated by some of the best critics, it has not earned you the sort of financial success enjoyed by your less talented contemporaries. The sort of success you deserve.’

  De Blaca looked cynically amused.

  ‘Van Gogh sold only one work in his lifetime,’ he said. ‘The difference between Van Gogh and me is that he didn’t care. I do. I would love my sculptures to be purchased by rich people. I don’t mind if they are philistines in the Chase Manhattan Bank or the Kawasaki Futures Corporation. Critics be damned. Cheques is what I want.’

  ‘You prefer sculpting to painting these days?’ Tara was just curious.

  But it was Andres who answered. ‘Tara, Mr de Blaca is famous in artistic circles as the man who changed his medium from painting to sculpture in the course of twenty-four hours. It was one of the most sudden and dramatic shifts of direction in the history of modern art. You said’ – he turned back to de Blaca – ‘that something happened on that day that was to change the course of your life forever, and that it prompted an entire change of medium. But until this day, you have never revealed what it was.’

  ‘No. I never have.’

  There was an awkward silence. Disappointment registered clearly on Andres’s face. De Blaca was obviously in no mood to divulge any secrets.

  Tara also felt a flicker of impatience. What had happened that day? What momentous event had been powerful enough to change t
he course of this man’s entire career?

  ‘So I began sculpting that day, and I have never stopped,’ de Blaca continued at last. ‘My passion for stone has never diminished. Only a few hours ago I began planning my latest project. It is a series of fantastical sculptures based loosely upon mediaeval gargoyles found in Dublin. They are said to depict the seven ages of Man. I apologise’ – he looked directly at Tara – ‘the seven ages of Person.’

  He continued to stare at her with blank, spiritless eyes. Tara began to dislike him intensely.

  ‘Where do you work?’ Andres asked, looking around him. ‘Obviously you’re not sculpting here.’

  De Blaca finally released Tara from his stare.

  ‘This is my city home,’ he said. ‘My workshop is in Brittany, out in the far west Atlantic coast. I work there for two months at a time, then I come here for a month’s rest, and so on in a regular rhythm throughout the year.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Would you like to see it?’

  For a moment, Tara thought he was offering to take them there, and mentally formulated a polite refusal. But he vanished into the house again, and returned with a leather-bound photo album.

  De Blaca sat down more heavily this time, and panted as he recovered from the effort of his short journey. Tara realised that he was not a healthy man.

  The first photograph showed a panoramic view of a Breton skyline, with an ancient stone barn in the centre. The barn itself had been renovated and was unremarkable. What was remarkable was its surroundings. It stood on the fringe of a vast forest of prehistoric standing stones. There were hundreds of them, stretching to the horizon. Most of them were single rocks placed upright in the earth, but there were also a number of dolmens – groups of two or three vertical stones with a slab placed horizontally on top.

  ‘I’ve heard of this place, but I’ve never seen it before,’ said Tara. ‘It reminds me of the dolmens in the Burren, near my home in Clare. But I’ve never seen so many stones together in one place.’

  ‘It must have been a place of great spiritual importance to the ancients,’ Andres mused.

  ‘As it is to me,’ said de Blaca. ‘I find it a vast reserve of power, a huge battery of creative energy.’

  He turned the page to reveal a photo of a very old wooden farm-gate with a carved sign that read: LA MAISON DES PIERRES FOLLES.

  ‘House of the Mad Stones,’ said Tara, translating it literally. ‘The dolmens, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes. It was the name of a farm that existed nearby, in the last century. It has long gone, but I find the name apt in view of my profession – and my reputation among the local community.’

  The next page revealed an interior views of the barn. It was a spacious workshop with wooden benches and stone sculptures in varying degrees of completion.

  But the fourth page came as a surprise. It showed two attractive young women flanking de Blaca as they all posed in his workshop.

  In the next picture, one of the girls was shown hard at work polishing a sculpture. She was blonde, possibly Scandinavian, and she was wearing a pair of scuffed dungarees with no top underneath, the loose bib revealing a lot of her formidable frontage as she bent forward and concentrated on her labours.

  The fifth photo showed the second girl, who must have been American. She was a small, plumpish brunette and she was flashing her perfect teeth at the camera as she sat up in a rumpled double-bed, clutching a duvet loosely around her naked body and raising a glass of red wine in a toast.

  ‘My girls,’ said de Blaca, proudly. ‘Helga and Ronnie. Helga is from Scandinavia and Ronnie is from San Francisco. They share my house, they share my work, and they share my bed.’

  He explained that they were art students who were learning the technique of sculpting. They were always there. This year it was Helga and Ronnie; last year it was Su Lin and Yvette; next year it would be someone else. Sometimes, he complained, it was impossible to get rid of them. There could be five or six girls in the house at a time.

  ‘The beauty of austerity,’ said Andres, straight-faced.

  ‘Austerity?’ repeated Michael de Blaca.

  Tara wasn’t listening to any of this. She was leafing her way through the album – more interiors, more works-in-progress, more shots of smiling girls in varying stages of undress.

  It was all becoming very predictable…until she reached the final page.

  This page, the one on the inside of the back cover, was entirely devoted to one photograph. It was a black-and-white studio portrait of a young Ann Kennedy, and, across it, a shaky hand had written: ‘Ann. May you rest in peace.’

  Tara felt de Blaca’s eyes on her. She looked up and met his stare without flinching.

  ‘I think,’ he said at last, ‘it’s time I told the truth about myself and Ann.’

  ‘I think,’ said Tara evenly, ‘that that would be a good idea.’

  De Blaca was quiet now, still staring at Ann’s portrait as though it were the key that would unlock the door to his past, that would change history and make everything all right again.

  ‘My dear God,’ he said at last. ‘She was so beautiful.’

  Tara thought she saw a shimmer, only a shimmer, of wet tears in his eye. But she couldn’t be sure.

  ‘She was certainly very pretty,’ she agreed.

  ‘What the hell do you know?’ he exploded. ‘Pretty? What sort of a word is that? Helga is pretty. Ronnie is pretty. This chap here’ – he gestured rudely at Andres – ‘might even find you pretty, God love his wit. But Ann was downright, twenty-four-carat, goddam beautiful.’ He slammed his hand down hard on the table to emphasise the last two words. ‘She had a face like a young nun’s and a body like Salome’s. Everything about her was understated sensuality – the way she moved, the way she talked, everything. Pretty? For God’s sake! Have you any idea, any conception, of how it felt to be alone in that house with her? Have you the remotest notion?’

  The unexpected outburst left his two visitors lost for words. Andres was the first to speak. ‘When did you realise you had fallen in love with her?’ he asked gently.

  ‘You’re missing the point. Yes, yes, I was obviously in love, but more than that. I wanted her more than I wanted my life, more than I wanted to breathe and – this was the intolerable part – more than I wanted to paint. I tried to work but I couldn’t. Canvas after bloody canvas, all ruined, all useless. Nothing came to any good. Nothing worked out right. Something had to be done.’

  He took a long draught of Badoit, almost as though the water would be enough to quench some inner flame.

  ‘And was this feeling reciprocated?’ asked Tara quietly.

  ‘I believed it was.’

  ‘Did she say so?’

  ‘Damn it!’ De Blaca’s flat hand slapped the table again. ‘She couldn’t say so. She was a married woman, and it would have been a sin to admit her feelings towards another man. But I knew, all right. Or at least, I was sure I knew.’

  A cloud drifted over the sun and its shadow, falling on the garden, seemed to darken the tone of the conversation.

  ‘You were sure you knew.’ Tara realised with surprise that she was playing the same word-game he’d earlier used against her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you were wrong.’ She was following a hunch.

  ‘Yes. I was mistaken.’

  ‘Tell us what happened.’ Tara, the prosecuting counsel, leading the witness.

  De Blaca’s tension seemed to ease immediately, as though he had resolved to tell everything and the mere intent of confession had lifted a great burden from his soul.

  ‘It was a day I’ll never forget as long as I’m allowed to live.’ His eyes closed and his voice had dropped to a near-whisper. ‘A bright, beautiful County Clare morning, everyone’s ideal morning, sun glistening on the cobwebs in the hedgerows and the sea dancing with a million shimmering points of sunlight. I rose at dawn. I couldn’t sleep. I walked on the beach at Claremoon Harbour, tossing bits of jetsam into the ocean, unable to thin
k straight, unable to focus. I was angry with the world, and particularly angry with Ann for coming between me and the only thing that meant a damn to me, the only thing that made life worth living.’

  He stared up at the top of the cedar tree, but his eyes were really looking upwards at the farmhouse at Barnabo, perched high on the crags above the beach.

  ‘At last, maybe around seven in the morning, I knocked on the front door. It took her a while to answer. She was wearing a dressing-gown and her eyes were sleepy and full of innocent surprise. I’d never seen her like that before, her fair hair loose and tousled and golden, like the rough-stacked hay on the hillside behind her. I desired her more than I could bear.’

  ‘And where was Martin during all this? Where was her husband?’

  ‘Who knows? Over the hills and far away. Milking the cows, ploughing a field, or just behind a hedge with a naggin bottle of Jameson. Who knew, who cared?’

  ‘So Ann let you in as usual,’ pursued Tara. ‘And you set up your easel as usual in front of the big window.’

  ‘Yes. But my hand was shaking and my co-ordination was gone. I knew it was pointless.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I was consumed with anger. Not just anger, a volatile mixture of emotions – rage against her, and desire for her. I went looking for her.’

  ‘Why? What did you intend to say or do?’

  He shook his head with impatience. ‘I don’t know. I couldn’t help it. I found her in her bedroom. I pounded on the door. After a moment she opened it, just a crack. I could see her, still in her dressing-gown, but it had worked loose and I could see the pale Nordic skin of her neck and shoulders. She seemed afraid of me. She told me to go away, that she was trying to dress.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Of course not. I could no more go away than…than give up my art. I told her everything, shouting through the door. How much I loved her and wanted her and needed her, and how I knew she felt the same. I begged her, pleaded with her to let me in to her bed.’