Keeping the World Away

by Margaret Forster

  Yet Ida called her ‘reserved’. She did not know how lacking in the smallest scrap of reserve she had become when she was with her maître. Ida would have been shocked to see how brazen she could be, utterly without inhibition. But then Ida knew about a love like this. She loved Gus, but her devotion to him had not kept him by her side. Aware of this, Gwen wondered if there might be a lesson she ought to learn from Ida’s position, and apply to herself. She did not like to think so – could not bear to imagine that by keeping nothing back, by exposing herself so completely to Rodin, laying before him all her love, she might have made him wary. Calm, calm, he was always advising, compose yourself, be tranquil, he urged, and what was that but a warning? A warning which she could not heed, and which made her angry. She saw herself as a blue flower growing high in the Alps, refusing to be found and cut and killed.

  She voiced none of this to Ida, who had her own troubles, but she thought about doing so. She trusted Ida, and needed a confidante. But then, suddenly, it was too late. In the first week in March 1907, Ida felt her labour pains begin, mild enough to permit her to walk from her apartment to the Hôpital de la Maternité, where she gave birth to yet another boy. Gwen, when she received the message, said out loud, though there was no one with her, ‘Oh dear!’ Ida had so wanted a girl, every time. Mrs Nettleship arrived and, Gwen knew, would be in charge, so she would wait until later to visit Ida. There never was a later. On the 14 March another message came: Ida was dead, and Gus was drunk.

  *

  The studio was enormous. Gus had told her it would be magnificent when the workmen had finished, and she could see what he meant. But standing in the doorway that day she thought how its echoing emptiness, its disarray, the chill in the air were like a form of grief itself. Gus wandered about, still drunk, sometimes singing, sometimes whistling, a look of what anyone who did not know him might interpret as contentment on his face. Silently, Gwen moved about, clearing away some of the builders’ debris, lifting bits of plasterboard very, very carefully and stacking them neatly. Gus should not really be here at all but she had guided him here, encouraging him to believe that it was perfectly proper for him to try to work. He was no good to his crying children and he antagonised Mrs Nettleship who, with Dorelia, was looking after them.

  There was to be a cremation. Gus would not attend and neither would she. What was the point? They did not want to see a row of weeping mourners when their own distress was so savage. Work, that was the only thing. Work, try to put into their art all that they felt, and so keep Ida alive and warm within them. They did not talk about her. Neither of them mentioned her, not since the first moment when she went to collect Gus (she felt that is what she had done, scooped him up, taken him away from Mrs Nettleship). He had told her then how beautiful Ida had been just before she died. ‘Here’s to love!’ Ida had said, and the two of them had drunk a toast in Vichy water. Gwen could hardly bear to hear this and had put her finger to his lips. She wondered if she should embrace him but instead she led him to his easel, and put a paintbrush in his hand. After staring at the canvas for a long time, he began to paint.

  And she drew him. Sitting to his right, she positioned herself on a stool, sketchbook on her knee, and drew him, and while she drew she thought of her lover. Rodin would hear about Ida’s death, everyone would, and when he returned to Paris he was sure to come to her, knowing how shocked she would be. She had left a note with the concierge and he would read it and come to the studio, but delicacy would prevent his entering, so she had left another note with the concierge here, saying when and where she would meet him. She needed his comfort. He would hold her, and stroke her hair, and do for her what she could not do for Gus. But instead, on the third day, when Gus had slept as though in a coma, and she had not slept at all, a telegram was brought round by her own concierge. Rodin was not coming to her. He expressed his condolences but said nothing more. And he had been in Paris all this time.

  Anger began to mix with grief as she stayed close to her brother. Death was so near, time so limited, and her lover did not seem to appreciate this. He could die, like Ida. He was more likely to die than Ida had ever been. She developed a hissing noise again in her head and felt she might explode with the frustration of it all. Gus, awake at last, properly awake after days of stumbling about and drinking heavily, when she could not persuade him to paint, was unaware of her state of mind. He wanted his children back. Mrs Nettleship had taken the three eldest back to Wigmore Street with her, and he had had to let her do this, leaving the two babies with a nurse and Dorelia. Now he wanted them all reunited. Gwen could not begin to comprehend how this could be managed and was no help in making plans. But Gus was full of schemes, and the energy needed to explore all the alternatives began to come to him, so Gwen went home, back to her attic room, feeling that she was not needed so much any more. She could return to her own life.

  Back in her room, soothed by its peaceful air, she wondered about her life. Did it have meaning without her master at the centre of it? But he was not at the centre now, perhaps never had been. He was on the edge, and ever threatening to slip off it. Dying would solve everything – if she were to die, like Ida, not him. She could kill herself and have done with him. What, after all, was there to live for if she had lost his love? She had no children to mourn her, no dependants she would be deserting. More and more it seemed attractive to end her own life. Wicked, but attractive. Lying on her bed, watching the tops of trees tremble in the wind outside her window, she thought how easy it would be to drift off for ever, fall into a deep, deep sleep, toasting not love, as Ida had done, but death itself.

  Then he wrote to her, a letter full of concern, saying that he did love her and that he wanted her to be happy. He would come to her soon, and wanted to find her tranquil and working well. One last chance, she promised herself.

  IV

  QUIETLY, URSULA TYRWHITT climbed the stairs, pausing every now and again not because she found them steep but to listen. She could hear nothing from above. It might mean that Gwen was out but she did not think so. She hoped her friend was painting, and that the intense silence was a sign of creativity. A new painting had begun. Ursula had seen it the week before. It was different from anything Gwen had ever attempted, a painting in which there were no people, only objects. She had said this to Gwen – ‘No figure? There is to be no figure?’ – and Gwen had shaken her head. ‘It is not about people,’ she had said, and shrugged, a gesture Ursula knew well. It meant ‘do not press me’.

  She was carrying some primroses, bought that morning from a woman selling them in the street. They were fresh, newly picked, drops of moisture still on the delicate petals. Ursula was holding them in her gloved hands, conscious of their fragility. The stems were tied with a thin wisp of straw and would come apart any minute. Cautiously, approaching the top of the staircase, she raised the posy to her face to see if the primroses still carried their scent. They did, but only faintly, only a trace of the woodland where they had been picked remaining. Gwen’s door was slightly open. Ursula hesitated. The gap was just wide enough for her to peer round. Gwen was standing motionless in front of her easel, paintbrush in hand but not poised to touch the canvas. She was staring at it as though she did not recognise it, and was bewildered by what she saw. ‘Gwen?’ Ursula whispered, fearing to break whatever spell her friend seemed to be under. Mutely she held out the primroses.

  In a sudden swift movement, Gwen put down her paintbrush and crossed the room to take the flowers. Without speaking, she took them from Ursula and turned and seized a glass tumbler which she filled with water from her sink and placed on the little wooden table in front of the window. She pushed the primroses into the tumbler, not seeking to arrange them, and stepped back. There was an open book on the table but now she removed it. The window was open, but she closed it and drew across it the fine lace curtain. Again she stepped back, and this time nodded. Ursula was afraid to speak and wondered if she ought simply to turn and tiptoe away, but Gwen spoke first.
‘Good,’ she said, ‘the flowers are just right. They say the right things.’ Ursula wondered what these right things were, but Gwen was asking if she would like tea and did not seem to want her to go.

  They sat at the back of the room, on the bed. Around the window there seemed to be an aura which could not be touched. The table, and the wickerwork chair, were clearly arranged for a purpose, and so was the parasol leaning against the chair. Ursula said she hoped she had not come at an inconvenient time and spoiled Gwen’s reverie, but was assured she had not. ‘It is too late now,’ Gwen said, ‘the light has changed, the shadows are wrong.’ They sipped their tea. It felt companionable, sitting perched on the bed, but Ursula sensed the tension in Gwen. She would not insult her by stooping to pleasantries. Instead, she waited. Gwen’s question came at last: had Ursula been to Rodin’s studio that day? Yes, she had. She had continued to work on the head Rodin had thought promising. And had the maître been there? No, he had not. ‘He has not visited me for five weeks,’ Gwen said. ‘He no longer replies to my letters. What am I to think, Ursula? What am I to do?’

  There was no honest answer possible to that. Gwen trembled slightly as she spoke, but whether with distress or anger Ursula did not know. Carefully, she placed a hand on Gwen’s knee, the lightest of touches, merely to acknowledge that she knew how painful any mention of Rodin had become. ‘May I look at your painting,’ she whispered, ‘or is it too soon?’ ‘Much too soon,’ Gwen said, ‘but look if you will. It is nothing yet.’ Ursula, standing in front of the canvas, saw this was true. A vague impression of the window and the wall beside it and that was all. So far as her friend could see, Gwen had not progressed beyond what she had done the week before, and yet a strange, hypnotic quality was starting to emerge. ‘I love this room,’ Gwen suddenly said. ‘It is me, you know, at last.’ ‘But you said “no figure”,’ Ursula reminded her, ‘so where are you in this room that is you? You are invisible to me.’ Gwen pointed. ‘There,’ she said, ‘coming home, leaving home. It is what I see. That corner. It is what I know, finally.’

  Ursula took her teacup to the sink and set it down there, not wanting to turn on the tap and make even the slightest noise. Gwen was struggling to tell her something and she wanted to understand. It seemed to her that Gwen must be mistaken – there was nothing about that corner, with its window and table and chair, that could possibly be her. The corner was all peace and calm and serenity, whereas her friend radiated energy, the air around her crackled with it and there was always the feeling that there might be an eruption. Gwen must mean something else. ‘It is a pretty room,’ Ursula murmured, ‘but you are more than a corner in it, Gwen. It is only a tiny part of you, surely, dear? You yourself are so much more.’ Gwen shook her head violently and then put her hands up to her face. ‘No,’ she said, ‘without him, I am less than that corner.’

  The rumours had hardened recently into definite information. Ursula had heard about Rodin’s new mistress but feared that Gwen had not. Should she tell her? It was not something a friend would wish to do. But Gwen would hear of it, it would come to her ears in the end and hurt all the more for her realising that her friend must have known. Hesitantly, Ursula went over to Gwen and took hold of her hands. ‘Gwen,’ she began, and then stopped. Gwen’s hands were cold, yet her face was flushed. It was not the right time to tell her. She was happy with her conviction that this corner of her room, which she was painting, signified herself – calm, peaceful, content. To tell her about Rodin would be like smashing the window, throwing the primroses to the ground, upturning the table and chair. The painting would never happen.

  ‘I must go,’ Ursula said, and kissed Gwen lightly on the cheek.

  *

  All night she lay there, her body tortured by desire for him, his eyes locking onto hers, his hands everywhere, his body a weight upon hers which crushed her, and in her head a delirium of feeling she could not release. The dawn light creeping cautiously through the window found her exhausted and weeping, every bone in her poor body aching and her throat raw and dry, her head rigid with pain. It was hard to rise from her bed at all, and she staggered when she did so, clutching on to the rail of the headboard until it bent and creaked and threatened to come loose. Slowly, she steadied herself. The light grew stronger, it was changing in colour and she had to hurry. She went to the sink and splashed her face with water and then filled a cup and drank some of it. No time, no need, to dress. She shivered, but with apprehension not cold. Suppose it was not there this morning? Suppose what she had seen had vanished?

  She settled herself in front of her easel and waited. The sun was up, the flood of light now tinged with gold, bathing that corner of her room so softly. The sunlight touched the primroses and made them shine, it stroked the top of the table until the solid wood seemed to become smooth and liquid. The wall was defined strongly, a wedge near the window, sharp and pointed at the end, and then a great shadow beyond it where no colour was visible. The chair was too near the table. She crossed the room and moved it an inch or two to the left. Yesterday she had put her coat over the chair, beneath the parasol, but then removed it. She had tried, last week, a different painting, with only her coat over the chair and the curtain open, as well as the window itself. She had put an open book on the table, pleased with what this would signify. But that had been another person, one full of hope still, cheerful, confident her maître would soon knock on the door and be welcomed in. That reading of herself was finished. She saw now how far away she had been from achieving the state of mind her lover wished her to attain. This picture, this was what he wanted. It even occurred to her that his absence was deliberate. He knew she would suffer, and would have to control this suffering, and through doing so would reach a level of serenity she had not yet come near.

  Two hours after dawn and the light exactly right. She painted. Carefully, slowly, building up the layers of paint, catching the strengthening radiance diffused through the lace curtain. She could hear her own heart beating, her own breath escaping. Her hand was not quite steady and she had to support her left arm, the arm she painted with, with her right. She would have to go in search of more primroses herself – Ursula’s would not last beyond another day. The flowers had become crucial to the painting, giving the corner of her room the touch of colour it needed. Without them, the scene was barren. It struck her, as she went on painting, that she could give this painting to Ursula. It was not for exhibiting, or for sale. She would keep it or give it away to someone who would understand it and treasure it for what it was – see its significance.

  It was over for another day. She cleaned her brush, pulled back the curtain and opened the window. The air was still cool and she breathed it in deeply, and thought that she must eat, but to eat she would have to go and find food, which meant leaving her room. She dreaded doing so, fearing that Rodin might come and find her gone and not trouble to come again. Here, she pined for him but he would not know that if the room was empty. She doubted if he could read the scene with her eyes and see how she had striven to please him. He must see her there. She wanted to be standing in the middle of her room, looking towards the window, proud of what it conveyed about her.

  But she had to eat. She had allowed herself to exist on grapes and nuts and raisins and bread but now there was nothing at all left. Yesterday, she had drunk tea and now the tea was finished too. There was a pain in her belly and she felt light-headed, hardly trusting herself to dress and descend all those stairs. The noise of the street would overwhelm her but she must face it. Gathering her things together – her coat, her new black hat with its bright green ribbon, her purse, her key – she left her room and paused a moment on the landing. She looked at the shut door, the blankness of the wooden panels, and could hardly believe what lay behind it. It seemed urgent to get herself back inside as quickly as possible, and she began to run down the stairs so fast that at the bottom she almost fainted. She knew where to buy bread and cheese and more grapes, and where to get the tea she liked, but it wa
s an ordeal to go through the necessary transactions. All the time she was peering up her street to check that Rodin was not alighting from a cab and entering her building. When she was back at the street door, she felt such relief, and yet also such disappointment. She had hoped, in an absurdly superstitious way, that by leaving her room she would be sure to make Rodin come.

  She could hardly drag herself back up the stairs. Halfway up, she stopped and sat down, and broke off a piece of bread. It was newly baked, still warm, the crust golden, but in her mouth it tasted dry and threatened to choke her. A grape was better, the sharp bite of it delicious, the juice comforting. She took another, holding it for a moment on her tongue. The pleasure of the taste, when she crushed the grape this time, made her want to weep – there was so little pleasure, so little joy, in her life without her lover. Her senses were dulled and she had begun to feel all emotion extinguished. She stood up, climbed the remaining stairs, and then paused again on her landing. She wondered what she would see when she opened the door. The room might merely look sad. The corner, which she had turned into a representation of how Rodin wanted her to be, might be a mirage. Everything depended on that flash of recognition she ought to experience as she looked at her room with the eyes, for a mere second, of a stranger.