by Gail Bowen
Roy smiled. “I’ve been forewarned.”
“Forewarned is forearmed,” Ben said. “Follow along.”
We hadn’t made it out of the hall when Roy stopped in front of a felt portrait of Sally. The razor cuts the artist had made in the pressed wool fibre were stark, but she had managed to suggest both Sally’s strength and her vulnerability. Roy was absorbed in the piece. “There’s such tenderness here,” he said. His expression was sheepish. “I have so much to learn about art.”
“You’ve come to the right place,” Ben said. “Every piece in this collection is first rate. Izaak would never have anything shabby connected with Sally.”
“Did she ever see all this?” Roy said.
“Oh yes,” Ben said. “She contributed the first piece. Izaak always called Sally ‘an academy of one.’ He had told her that artists admitted to the American Academy in New York must give the academy a self-portrait, so Sally gave Izaak one for his birthday.”
Ben gestured to the art that spilled from the living room into the dining room and hall and up the staircase to the second floor. “What you can see here is less than half the art in this house.”
Roy gazed around the room, taking it all in. Finally, he turned to Ben. “I don’t need to tell you how powerful these rooms are, not just cinematically, but for storytelling. Why didn’t you use them in The Poison Apple?”
“Loyalty,” he said. He picked up a ceramic of a teenaged Sally sprawled on a rocker, holding a cat. “Izaak was my friend, and he had been a real power in art circles. This was his private world. I feared making it public would expose him to ridicule.” Ben regarded the ceramic in his hands thoughtfully. “Over the years, I’ve wondered if I was mistaken.”
“You’d agree to letting me include scenes of this house in Flying Blue Horses?”
“I would,” Ben said. “I’m aware of the rumour that Izaak was a pederast. He was not. It’s true that Sally was far too young for a sexual relationship when theirs began, but Izaak’s obsession was not with children; it was with Sally. He loved her. There was never anyone else for him. He was her teacher. Her mentor. Her champion. Her agent. And throughout her life, whenever she welcomed him into her bed, he was her lover. Revealing the devotion evident in this house might put the lie to the ugly stories about Izaak’s relationship with her. She wasn’t his victim. She was his life.
“When I heard that Izaak suffered a fatal heart attack seconds after Sally died from an anaphylactic reaction to almonds she’d ingested, I was devastated. But I was also relieved. As Izaak’s friend, I knew he wouldn’t have wanted to live in a world where Sally Love no longer existed.”
“That much, at least, is true,” I said.
Ben smiled. “A poet whose name I no longer remember said, ‘Poetry turns the cube of reality.’ I’m beginning to think that living does that too. Our perspective is always shifting. Now, I can’t offer you food or drink. The kitchen in this house is not stocked, but there are a number of very nice specialty shops in my neighbourhood. After we’ve explored the house together, there’s a picnic lunch waiting for us at my condo.”
* * *
—
Ben had done us proud: a small selection of very fine cheeses, a rustic baguette, and a plate of fruit that was surprisingly flavourful for a December day on the prairies. During lunch, Ben and Roy talked shop. I stayed quiet. I had nothing to contribute, and it was fun learning about movie making and watching these two men take each other’s measure, and take pleasure in what they saw. After we cleared away the dishes, Ben led us to his home office. On the desk were neat piles of plastic DVD boxes with yellow labels.
“This is all the material I didn’t use in The Poison Apple,” Ben said. “Joanne, since we spoke on Monday, I’ve reviewed the DVDs of your summers at MacLeod Lake. To be frank, until this week I hadn’t paid much attention to the material I shot before Sally was born, but there’s much in these early tapes that will be meaningful to you.” He picked up a DVD. “This one starts with the Thanksgiving weekend just after you were born and picks up months later with your first summer at the lake. You were a month shy of your first birthday, but in that very watchful child, I can see the woman you’ve become. Why don’t you take that one home with you today? I think you’ll be glad you did.”
He turned to Roy. “Given the perspective of your project, I’m sure everything here will be of interest to you too. The content notes on the DVD labels might spark some ideas.”
“I’m eager to look at them.”
“Why don’t you start right now?” Ben said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with Joanne privately for a few minutes. We won’t be long.”
Roy’s smile was easy. “Take your time. There’s plenty to occupy me here.”
* * *
—
Ben led me back to the kitchen. “These days I find sitting at the table best for serious conversation. My hearing is not what it once was. Besides, I like to watch people’s faces.”
Ben pulled out a chair for me and took his place across the table. “After we spoke the other day, it occurred to me that I might have left you with the impression that your father was indifferent to you,” he said. “That’s far from the truth. Your father wanted a child, and he loved you. Your mother did not want a child, and she resented the fact that he loved you. That’s the crux of the matter. Everything else—the cruelties, the betrayals, the heartbreaks, the bitterness—springs from those not-so-simple facts.”
“I know my father believed my mother would grow to love me after I was born and she didn’t,” I said. “That happens in families. If one parent discovers he or she wasn’t cut out for raising a child, the couple works out a solution. They find middle ground. Why couldn’t my parents work it out?”
Ben shook his head. “There was never any middle ground for your mother,” he said. “As you know, she was brilliant.”
“Actually, I didn’t know that,” I said. “I barely saw her.”
“That’s a pity,” Ben said. “Because Caroline was impressive. Your father met her in medical school. She planned to become a psychiatrist.”
“I’d forgotten that,” I said. “She had a breakdown and never graduated.”
“Yes, and it was a grave disappointment to her.”
“Med school is brutal,” I said. “There must have been other options.”
“Not for Caroline,” he said. “She tried again, but the result was the same. She had a history of mental illness. I always wondered if she chose psychiatry because she wanted to discover what was wrong with her.”
“And she found her answer,” I said. “She never hesitated to tell me that I had ruined her life.”
“Caroline was her own worst enemy. She couldn’t share your father’s love with anybody. She loathed your Grandmother Ellard and Des and you equally. To keep her hold on your father, Caroline agreed to conceive a child she didn’t want with a man she was jealous of. When she saw how much your father loved you, she froze you out of their lives. That’s why you all but lived with your Grandmother Ellard until you were old enough to go to Bishop Lambeth.”
“Why did my father let that happen?” I said. “They told people my mother was not strong enough emotionally to raise a child, but she was hardly a recluse. She had an active social life, and she travelled. My father could have hired a nanny and let me live at home. Why didn’t he do that?”
“She threatened him. Having convinced your father that letting you live with Des would potentially ruin her and your father’s medical practice, she shuttled you off to your grandmother’s and then to boarding school. She promised your father that if he ever brought you home to stay, she would make the truth about your conception public. It was a grenade that would hurt everyone.”
Ben took my hand. “I hope the truth will help more than it hurts.”
“I hope that too,” I said. “The motto of my old school was Vincit omnia veritas. Truth conquers all. The crest of the tunic I wore every day for thirtee
n years was embroidered with those words.” I tried a smile. “Maybe they will have become part of me through osmosis.”
“In that case,” Ben said, “take the DVD I mentioned. It covers a time that you were far too young to remember, but seeing the life that went on around you at MacLeod Lake during those years may help you understand what happened later.”
Ben was clearly tiring, so after I collected the DVD and Roy arranged to have the others shipped to Regina, we thanked Ben for his hospitality, and the three of us said goodbye. Before we pulled out of the parkade next to Ben’s condo, Roy phoned Ainsley to fill her in on our meeting with Ben, and I called the university’s Department of Art and Art History to see if Sally’s old studio was occupied.
We were in luck. The outgoing artist in residence had left the previous weekend and the incoming artist wouldn’t arrive until January. The place had been cleaned, and the heat had been turned on. The admin assistant to whom I spoke gave me the numerical code to the electronic door lock and asked me to get back to her if there were any problems.
When Roy rejoined me, he was buoyant. “Ainsley’s as excited about Flying Blue Horses as we are,” he said. “She’s already asking when she can read the script.”
“Did you tell Ainsley she can read the script as soon as you write it?”
“I said I thought I could have something to show her by the first week in the new year. That may be overly optimistic, but I feel good about this, Joanne. The scenes seem to be forming themselves. Our time with Ben at that remarkable house made me quiver.”
“Well, prepare to quiver again,” I said. “Sally’s studio is available. No one’s living there, so we can take as much time as we need to look around before we’re scheduled to meet Father Ariano.”
“Everything’s going our way,” Roy said. “Now, do you have an address I can plug into the GPS?”
“I’ll do it.” I punched in the address on Spadina Crescent. “Set to go,” I said. “Depending on traffic, it’s only about ten minutes from here.”
Roy pulled out of the parkade. “How did Sally end up having her studio in Saskatoon anyway?” he said.
“Happenstance. By the time Sally was in her early twenties, she’d made a lot of money. The art world was abuzz with rumours that Sally Love’s work was a smart investment, so people were paying highly inflated prices for her work. Izaak was her agent so he was raking it in too. Sally said they were both getting tired of travel, and Izaak suggested they use their money to put down roots somewhere.”
“And out of all the places in the world, they chose Saskatoon,” Roy said.
“Over the years, I’ve wondered about that too,” I said. “But when you told me that when Des was young, he’d spent time spent at Emma Lake, I saw the connection. The Artists’ Workshops were affiliated with the University of Saskatchewan Kenderdine Campus. Des left the U of S a sizable bequest in his will and asked that his papers go to the university archives.
“Most importantly, Sally had fallen in love with the river valley in the centre of the city. The area was central and it was close to everything Sally wanted to be close to. She bought a one-storey bungalow a stone’s throw from the Mendel Gallery and converted it into a studio with a work area overlooking the river.”
“And Izaak bought the house we were in today, so he could be close to her,” Roy said.
“Sally was glad Izaak was there,” I said. “Suddenly there was a great deal of money floating around her, and according to Sally, when the sharks started circling, Izaak protected her.”
Roy sighed. “That is one complex relationship,” he said.
“It is, and the only two people who will ever fully understand it died an arm’s length from each other fourteen years ago on Valentine’s Day.”
* * *
—
The wind off the river was cold, and I welcomed the warmth of Sally’s studio. The cleaners had done yeoman’s duty. The place was spotless, and the sun pouring in through the skylight and the window overlooking the river pooled invitingly on the hardwood floor.
Roy looked around appreciatively. “This is a great space for an artist.”
“It is,” I said. “I was only here once before, and I was too angry and frightened to take anything in.”
Roy’s look was quizzical. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not much,” I said. “But it’s part of the story, and as awful as everything was, that day Sally and I were together in a way we hadn’t been for a very long time. Her life had been hell since Erotobiography opened. I’d never felt the kind of hatred that was in the air that night. People weren’t just protesting Sally’s work; they were protesting her right to exist.”
“And that continued?” Roy said.
“It intensified. Sally’s phone never stopped ringing, and the threats were bloodcurdling. The morning before Christmas, Sally called to tell me that during the night womanswork, an art gallery she owned on Fourteenth Street, had burned to the ground, and the fire department suspected arson.”
Roy’s eyes widened. “Arson? My God, that certainly crosses the line.”
“Sally asked me to meet her at the gallery to assess the extent of the damage,” I said. “It was a nightmare. All that was left of that graceful showcase for women’s art was a charred skeleton.”
“Sally must have been devastated.”
“She was. I thought she was on the verge of shock, and I knew we had to get out of there. When we started towards our cars, a young fireman ran up and handed Sally an antique porcelain doll. He said he thought it might have sentimental value. Sally tucked the doll inside her coat and we came back here. The doll’s hair and clothes had been burned off and she was covered in soot. Sally set to work with solvents and creams to restore her. When she was finished, the doll was still battered but her eyes shone through, bright blue and defiant. Sally handed me the doll and said it was my souvenir of our morning.”
“What did Taylor think of that story?” Roy said.
“I’ve never told her. I didn’t want her to know about all the vitriol that was aimed at Sally that winter. But the doll Sally gave me is in one of the packing cases in our garage. When I get back I’ll give it to Taylor and tell her about this place. She was talking the other day about wanting to make art that showed that nothing is static, that everything is constantly transforming.” I walked to the window and beckoned Roy to join me. “From here it seems as if the river is flowing both ways, and look at how the ice and water on the river are dappled by the light. I think this studio might be a good fit for Taylor.”
* * *
—
I called ahead to let Father Gary Ariano know we were on our way. The college bells were chiming three o’clock when Roy and I walked through the main entrance and Gary Ariano, wearing blue jeans and a Gonzaga University sweatshirt, greeted us with a grin and an outstretched hand.
After I introduced Roy, I turned to Gary and raised an eyebrow at his sweatshirt. “I thought you graduated from St. Michael’s,” I said.
“I did,” he replied. “My brother, Lou, went to Gonzaga, and I lost a bet. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I imagine Lou does,” I said.
Gary’s lips twitched towards a smile. “Time to move along,” he said. Roy and I followed him up two flights of stairs through a door marked “Private” into the priests’ common room. Nothing had changed in the fourteen years since I’d last been there. The ambience was still 1960s recreation room: worn but comfortable furniture, a TV, a well-stocked wet bar, and an outsized aquarium.
Gary gestured to the bar fridge. “Too early for beer?”
Roy raised his hand in a halt sign. “I’m driving.”
“And I had wine with lunch,” I said. “But thanks.”
“I’d better pass too,” Gary said. “I still have students to see.”
“Aren’t they in the middle of exams?” I said.
“You’d be surprised at how many students decide to seek God the nigh
t before a final,” Gary said.
Roy had gravitated towards the aquarium. When Gary joined him, Roy was apologetic. “Sorry. I’ve never been able to resist the allure of tropical fish.”
“Please don’t apologize,” Gary said. “Our lives are busy, and that silent, timeless world is very compelling. Sally never tired of watching life in the watery kingdom.”
“That surprises me,” I said. I stepped closer to the aquarium. “But maybe it shouldn’t. Look at that gold and lapis lazuli on that angelfish gliding through the coral reef—absolutely breathtaking—and the spines on that pair of lionfish look like sunbursts radiating off their bodies. Miracles.”
“Maybe,” Gary said. “But what intrigued Sally was the thought that those exquisite creatures lived out their lives not realizing that no matter how gracefully they swam they would never get anywhere and that their sole reason for existing was to please us. She said when it came right down to it, they were just pretty little fish swimming in an artificial environment. When one of the pretty little fish died, it was scooped up, flushed down the toilet, replaced by another pretty little fish, and the universe rolled on.”
My throat tightened. “Did Sally see herself as one of the pretty little fish?” I said.
Gary shrugged. “I don’t know. She was still grappling with the big questions when she died. Sally had a very fine mind and she was knowledgeable about a surprising array of subjects. Izaak Levin made certain she received a first-rate education.”
I shot him a sharp look. “Sally paid in hard coin for that education,” I said.
“She didn’t entirely see it that way, you know. She thought of her relationship with Izaak as a fair exchange.”
I was stunned. “She was fourteen years old, Gary.”
“Joanne, I’m not giving Izaak Levin a free pass on this. I’m just telling you that at least a part of Sally believed Izaak saved her. They travelled the world together; he took her to the great galleries and to lectures that awakened her mind. They read books together. Most importantly, he made it possible for her create art.” Gary’s dark eyes bore into me. “Sally’s alternative was to live with a mother who wanted her dead and who ultimately did kill her. It wasn’t right for Izaak to sleep with Sally when she was a fourteen-year-old girl, but I find it difficult to be unequivocal about his influence on her life.”