The Gallery of Vanished Husbands

by Natasha Solomons

  ‘Not in London. In Paris during the war.’

  ‘We went to see it eight times,’ said Leonard happily.

  ‘Ten,’ said Frieda less happily.

  ‘Charlie and the boys couldn’t talk about anything else,’ said Juliet.

  Max smiled. ‘Picasso will do that to you. He haunted me for years.’

  ‘Not any more?’

  ‘No. Now there are other ghosts, in different colours.’ He stood back from Juliet and peered down at the postcards. ‘I think something like that would suit you,’ he pointed the scissors at a nude portrait of Picasso’s teenage mistress, Marie-Thérèse, her bare breasts round as teacakes and her pale hair cropped into a fetching, asymmetric bob.

  Juliet laughed. ‘Most salons use pages ripped from magazines.’

  Max shrugged and turned her to face him, cocking his head to one side like a sparrow. ‘You’re like her. Full of sunshine.’

  ‘But wearing more clothes.’

  Max shot her a smile and Juliet was suddenly aware of the children. Allowing her eyes to close, she relaxed into the warm drowsiness of the kitchen, listening to the metal rhythm of the scissors. The table was soon scattered with chunks of hair, drifting across the postcards like dandelion docks. At last Max paused, scissors held aloft. ‘Well, what do you think, Frieda, Leonard?’

  The children turned to stare at Juliet. Leonard grinned and even Frieda smiled.

  • • •

  They’d been staying with Max for a week, although they only saw him at suppertime. The children slept in the sitting-room on a sofa each, tucked up with itchy horse blankets around their ears, watching the camel frieze plod around the cornicing. Juliet slept in Max’s bedroom. At first she refused but Max made it clear that he would not be in it, so she need not worry either about propriety (trying not to laugh as he said the word) or displacing him – he rarely slept at night and especially not now.

  ‘Who can sleep when the pink-footed geese and the wild fowl are busy on the marshes?’

  Juliet found that she could, perfectly well. His bedroom was sparsely furnished and unlike the rest of the house there were little or no decorative features, only a stylised portrait of a woman in yellowish tones with a long face and heavy-lidded brown eyes. It was an ugly picture and out of place but Max explained that it had been a present from his mother so he’d kept it. The floorboards were plain unvarnished wood, and there was no rug on the floor, just a simple beech bed, large enough for one, and a single chest of drawers in the same style. The room held Max’s smell – linseed oil, paint and the leafy scent of the wood. On her first morning casting around, Juliet realised there was no mirror and she was forced to use the tiny one in her face compact to comb her newly bobbed hair and powder her nose. On the second morning she simply didn’t bother. She spent the days quite alone, the children vanishing after breakfast to hunt wild things in the woods, reappearing breathless and mud-stained for further meals. Frieda, who in London ignored her brother and seemed to be grouching inexorably towards adolescence, reverted to childishness with relief. When she returned from a morning hunting with her cheeks pancaked in mud (‘For camouflage,’ explained Leonard) she met Juliet’s eye, daring her to say something. Juliet did not, relieved to have a reprieve – however temporary – from snarling adolescence. The children neither wanted nor needed her company and Max she hardly saw at all. Sometimes he crept back mid-morning, slipping upstairs to the bedroom where he would sleep in Juliet’s sheets until supper. Other days he didn’t return to the house until dark, his clothes coated in leaf litter and snatches of hedge.

  One morning Juliet woke to find the house silent. Max had not returned from his nocturnal ramblings while the children had already disappeared into the heart of the wood. She came downstairs in Max’s dressing gown, her fingers not reaching the end of his long sleeves. After making tea, she sat in the quiet of the kitchen for an hour, listening to the rustle and knock of the trees. A little later she heard the sudden scuffle of a car engine, followed by silence and footsteps. She waited for the knock at the door but after a few minutes there was nothing. Intrigued, she padded to the hall and opened the front door to find a tall, rather thin man leaving a pair of canvases propped against the wall.

  ‘Hello,’ she said and the man jumped, clearly startled to see a woman appear on the porch. ‘I’m Juliet. A friend of Max’s.’

  ‘Tom. Hopkins. Also a friend of Max,’ said the man. He studied her for a moment before reaching out and shaking her hand.

  ‘Is Max here? I’ve something for him.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. He’s on one of his walks. I’m not sure when he’ll be back. Come inside and have some tea. I’ve made a pot.’

  Tom studied her with interest. ‘All right. Help me with these.’

  Together they carried the canvases into the kitchen. Not waiting for an invitation, Juliet began to unwrap them and laid them on the table. Each painting was a portrait of a young man, one lying in a buttercup field, the other sunbathing on an upturned boat. Both were naked. The brown paper wrapping lay half unfastened around them, and Juliet felt as if she had undressed them a little hastily and publicly, and resisted the urge to the draw the paper back across. She glanced over at Tom.

  ‘These are wonderful. I should probably know you, shouldn’t I. Are you terribly famous?’

  Tom smiled at the barrage of her enthusiasm. ‘No. I am not famous. My stuff’s rather fallen out of vogue, I’m afraid.’

  ‘People can be very stupid. We’ll have to show them that they’re wrong. Do you have a dealer? Can I sell you at my gallery? Well, it’s not exactly my gallery but I do choose all the artists.’

  Tom laughed. ‘Don’t hang about, do you?’

  Juliet shifted from foot to foot, a little embarrassed to remember that she was still in her pyjamas, but also quite determined to have Tom’s pictures at Wednesday’s if she could. Jim and Charlie might sketch nudes and hold life classes but these portraits were no posed impressions of pink and white Marjories. There was a boldness in Tom’s paintings of the boys, and a sadness too, as though the middle-aged painter studied youth and beauty with a wistful eye – his own youth lost and the boys themselves indifferent to his interest. There was a loneliness in them that she understood.

  ‘I’d love to show your paintings at the gallery. Please say yes.’

  Tom scratched his nose, and then grinned. ‘All right. Why not?’ he said. ‘I was only going to give these to Max and he probably wouldn’t even remember to put them up. There’s a bunch of my canvases stashed in his shed.’

  Juliet smiled, delighted. ‘We should have that tea to celebrate. I think Max has some scones somewhere.’

  They sat at the kitchen table eating slightly stale scones and raspberry jam with the two naked boys propped up on the counter, watching.

  ‘How do you know Max?’ asked Tom.

  ‘Charlie Fussell introduced us and now I sell his paintings.’

  ‘He’s never mentioned you,’ said Tom.

  ‘Oh.’ Juliet tried not to be hurt. ‘And what about you? How long have you known him?’

  ‘Years and years,’ said Tom. ‘Before the war. And during. We were both war artists. I suggested it to him. He was all set to go to prison as a conscientious objector but I knew his heart wasn’t in the thing. He just wanted to paint people not shoot them. I thought that should be encouraged.’

  He paused, reaching for another scone, to which he added a wodge of butter as thick as cheese. ‘It might have been a mistake though. Perhaps the army or prison would have been better for him. It’s worse in a way, to sit and watch and have to paint it all and not be able to do anything. Inertia and watching without looking away do funny things to a man.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose they do,’ said Juliet slowly.

  She nursed her tea as Tom ate, flicking crumbs from his lap with elegant fingers. Most of the artists she knew had paint under their nails, fingers cracked and yellow from white spirit. Not Tom. His skin was smooth and
clean. He smelled of expensive aftershave.

  ‘I’m sure you like Max now,’ he said, ‘but you should have known him before. This version of him is like a black and white reproduction – only gives you an idea of the original.’

  ‘Don’t say that. It’s too sad.’ But Juliet wondered whether this was the reason she liked Max. There were still days when she felt that George had stolen the original Juliet and left behind a pallid copy.

  Tom continued, half to himself. ‘Max was quite something then. We were all a little in love with him.’

  Juliet flushed and studied her cup, embarrassed that Tom admitted so openly his feelings for Max and that he evidently assumed she and Max were lovers. But then she was wearing his dressing gown.

  When Max arrived back at the house a little later, she felt Tom observing them like a twitcher in a hide studying a pair of chiffchaffs, glancing from one to the other trying to determine their relationship. Max showed no embarrassment, tossing down his bundle of coats and paintbox and embracing his friend. ‘Stay for supper,’ he said.

  Tom smiled. ‘It’s only twelve thirty.’

  ‘Well then, you’ll be staying a while. I’m off to nap. Tell Juliet all my bad habits. My murky past.’

  ‘How do you know I haven’t already?’ asked Tom.

  Max slapped Tom’s thin shoulders, threw his head back and laughed. He left them alone again in the kitchen, and Juliet felt as if the light had suddenly been turned off. Glancing over at Tom, she caught a tiny sigh and understood that he felt it too.

  While Max slept, Juliet spent the rest of the afternoon accompanying Tom through the wood with his sketchpad. He reeled off the names of the trees and even the types of moss and the fat insects scuttling busily up and down the bark. ‘It was either become a naturalist or an artist. All the kids are busy with Pop Art. I’m just a simple figurative painter. I suppose that makes me obsolete.’

  That evening they all shared a meal of bread and honey with a bit of duck liver and goose fat dripping. The children were thrilled with the addition to the party, especially when Tom produced a bottle of wine from his car and gave the children a half glass watered down with water from the jug. The two men became loquacious as they reminisced.

  The children stayed quiet, hoping that their mother wouldn’t object to the wine or remind the men to curb their language. It was always the stories that made Juliet look down at the kitchen table and tuck her hair behind her ear that were the most interesting.

  For her part, Juliet decided that in Tom’s company Max seemed more like other men, losing the stillness that sometimes unnerved her. After supper, when the children vanished to play, Tom pulled a letter out of his pocket.

  ‘I’ve something for you. Doubtless you’ll say no because you’re a fool, but maybe she’ll talk some sense into you.’

  ‘Well, let’s have it,’ said Max, not in the least offended.

  ‘Cunard Lines are refurbishing the Queen Mary. It’s an attempt to lure passengers away from the shiny new jets and back to the romance of the ocean liner. They want you to create new murals for the First-Class Dining-Room – something whimsical and English to tickle the American traveller’s palate. I’ve spoken to them and they’ll give you a pretty free rein and the money’s not half bad.’

  He handed the envelope to Juliet who opened it, raising an eyebrow at the generous terms.

  ‘Oh, Max, you really should do it,’ she said.

  To her dismay Bluma Zonderman had been quite correct in her predictions – everyone clamoured for pictures by Jim and Charlie (YOUNG! MODERN! HIP! SEXY!) but no one wanted Max’s bird paintings. They might be the most interesting and accomplished in the gallery, but neither critics nor buyers cared.

  ‘If they like the murals, they’ll commission you to design patterns for new china, curtains, motifs for carpets, menu cards, napkins – the works,’ said Tom.

  Max frowned. ‘What nonsense.’

  Tom turned to Juliet in exasperation. ‘I said he’s a fool. You talk to him. You know he needs the cash.’

  ‘It might be fun,’ said Juliet, leaning towards Max. ‘It’ll be like adorning the house, only on a grand scale.’ She could see that he remained unconvinced and tried another tack. ‘The cottage needs a new roof. You said so yourself. It leaks whenever it rains. What’s going to happen next winter? You need to look at each stencil for a cocktail menu, every sketch for a mural as a tile for the new roof.’

  ‘And they’ve promised you a pair of first-class return tickets to New York as well,’ added Tom. ‘You could take Juliet.’

  Max laughed. ‘I’m not taking any boats, but Juliet does make a good point about the roof. I’ll think about it.’

  Unwilling to press him further, Juliet and Tom watched as he pulled on his coat and thick woollen hat. He paused beside the door, ready to disappear for another night spent wild fowling on the marshes and heath. He turned first to Tom.

  ‘Are you coming?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘No. Time for me to head back to town. Long drive.’

  Max nodded and faced Juliet. ‘Will you come?’ he said softly, looking at her.

  Juliet squirmed, not wanting to disappoint Max, not wanting to venture out. There were no curtains on the kitchen windows and outside it was pitch dark and the wind made the trees tap on the glass with thin fingers. She thought of the black wood stretching away to the bare marshes and of walking through the cold and damp and the bang of guns and of getting lost and not finding her way back to the brick cottage. She shook her head.

  ‘No thank you. Not tonight. Perhaps, tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow then,’ said Max, disappearing into the darkness and closing the door.

  • • •

  After the men had gone, Juliet, Frieda and Leonard sat beside the hearth playing snap and endless rounds of rummy, all cheating amiably. The smell of the kerosene lamps gave Juliet a headache, so they played by firelight. The wind shrieked down the chimney flue, making it seem as if the fearsome dragon carved into the mantle was roaring, his mouth full of upside-down flames. The three of them wondered separately and silently where Max was on such a night.

  Leonard pictured him swinging in a hammock slung from the branches of a great oak tree, a squadron of geese pink as flamingos perching beside him as he drew their portraits one by one.

  He watched his mother, wondering why she hadn’t gone too. He’d begged repeatedly. Wild fowling. It sounded even better than building sukkah dens with his grandfather, but Max had informed him that the night marshes were no place for children.

  ‘You’d talk too much. Frighten away the birds.’

  ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘You’re a chatterbox. Couldn’t help it.’

  ‘I could. I could so, couldsocouldsocouldso.’

  ‘See? A windbag of noise. Wait till you’re twelve.’

  Leonard had retired defeated, mystified by his mother and sister.

  For her part, Frieda was glad that Max was far away. He wasn’t like Philip or Charlie, or anyone. He was the wrong kind of weird.

  Juliet fretted that he’d slip down a ravine in the gale (she was almost sure Dorset had ravines) and never be seen again. Distracted from their card game, they went to bed early, Juliet giving the children a medicinal spoon of cherry brandy as she tucked them in. That was Max’s only stipulation. He wouldn’t have children wandering around at night, ‘poking into things’, so they must be given brandy to help them sleep. Neither Frieda nor Leonard objected, considering it an infinite improvement on their grandmother’s doses of cod-liver oil.

  • • •

  Max did return. But now every night before going out into the dark, he’d ask Juliet the same question, ‘Will you come?’ and every time Juliet shook her head, saying, ‘Maybe tomorrow.’ The gallery wouldn’t reopen until the New Year and in the meantime she lost count of the days. In the mornings as she meandered among the trees, she felt like the inverse of Samson, her old strength returning with the cutting of her ha
ir. Loneliness ripened into solitude and she stopped waiting for the hours to pass until suppertime with the others. Gradually she realised that she was well on the way to being in love with Max. He didn’t rattle away like Charlie or Jim but what he said was measured and interesting. He confided stories about the war and his childhood in the big house and even, if she asked, about the other women he’d painted years ago. Oddly she found she wasn’t jealous. She liked the way he listened when she talked, sipping at his whisky and leaning forward in his chair. For the first time in many years she’d spoken about George and the children and how it had been when he had gone, and Max had sat and let her talk without interrupting. When she’d finished, he hadn’t said that he was sorry or offered any words of condolence or pity. He’d only poured her a drink, pressing it into her hands, which to her surprise had been shaking. He’d tossed another log onto the fire, then sat back down beside her without speaking. There is space for me, in your silence, she’d realised.

  On Saturday morning she found an old pair of army boots and, padding them with several pairs of socks, walked for miles. Leaving the now familiar confines of Fippenny Hollow she found her way to the wildness of the heath, where the gorse was studded with yellow flowers and cooled by an icing of frost. In the distance she glimpsed the glister of the sea, cold and black under the low winter sun. The chatter of the boys and their drone of sex, sex, sex seemed far away. Although she couldn’t help observing that even out here on the heath the rabbits were busy rutting under the bushes – she suspected for warmth rather than any urgent desire. Returning to the edge of the wood, where the golden scrub of heath gave way to trees, she met Max on his way back and they set out for home together. He hadn’t shaved for a few days and the greying stubble lining his chin matched the silver tones of the wood. There was no need for small talk between them and they fell into step in easy silence, the only sound the crackle of frozen fern beneath their boots. The mild dampness had turned to winter cold, and as they reached Fippenny Hollow the morning fog froze in the trees creating a tinsel of hoarfrost throughout the wood. The midday sun struggled to rise above the tops of the beeches and, giving up, slithered back behind the hill. The ropes of rime had lingered into the afternoon without melting, strung across the branches like fine lacework scarves. Juliet felt she had fallen into one of the winter scenes at the National Gallery, a Bruegel perhaps, but when she told Max he shook his head.