“I’m probably interrupting,” Larkin began.
“Good morning,” she replied. “But as a matter of fact —”
Holly gestured vaguely at the empty canvas.
“White on white. I thought you’d done that.”
As he stood over her with an eloquent, almost intimate smile, Holly realized she’d made a mistake in asking Larkin to drive back from the crêche. It put him a little too much in charge. The man, driving. She was going to have to get out from under that.
“You’re telling me you don’t start work with an empty sheet of paper?” Holly asked.
“My notebook,” Larkin answered, leaning against her desk and crossing his arms like an old friend. “I tell everyone they should carry one. When you get back to the studio, it makes the blank page look a lot less threatening.”
Holly shrugged. “It’s not something that works for me.”
“What does?”
Holly disliked his insinuation, and got up to roam around the studio. She stopped by one of the piles of books that tended to accumulate on her tables and shelves. Period pieces from whatever period had caught her interest. She picked up the Voyage of the Beagle, but Larkin strolled over and took it from her, opening it idly. He was standing far too close.
“Charles Darwin lived here in 1832,” Holly told him, moving away. “I never realized before we came here, but he spent four months in Botafogo. Which was a rural hamlet then instead of highrises and a sports club where the bicheiros hang out on weekends. The guys who run the numbers racket? Hanging by the swimming pool with their bodyguards. I used to take my kids there. It’s a great pool, and it’s cheap to join, but then someone told me who the bicheiros were, and I kept picturing my kids in the water during a shoot-out.”
She stopped, remembering the morro, and shivered as Larkin picked up a paper from the table.
“These the pieces you were talking about?”
Her beautiful washes of skin disease. When she’d finally got home the previous afternoon, Holly had gone straight to her studio and taken out them out, layering the table with the subtle mixtures of colour that Larkin now began to thumb through, distracting her, making her flush again at the sight of him judging her work.
Holly wasn’t sure why she’d wanted to look at them again. She’d puzzled over them for ages, only coming to herself at the sound of the boys downstairs piping like angry birds.
“It’s my truck!”
“Mine!”
Holly had felt a moment’s irritation before remembering that Todd was back in the Amazon. She’d been neglecting the boys, leaving them with the maid for far too long. Sighing, Holly trotted downstairs, arriving in the living room to see Evan and Conor tugging red-faced at either end of a cheap plastic fire truck, while the maid, Cida, called from the kitchen, “You’ve got thousands of trucks.”
“You do,” Holly said. “What a noisy racket.”
She sat down on the floor with her back against the sofa, quietly watching the tug-of-war until Conor — glancing at her — grew half-hearted, embarrassed to seem as babyish as his little brother, and irritably let go of the toy.
“That isn’t even the best one,” he said, choosing a metal Dinky toy so small that Holly couldn’t even see what it was as he leaned on it, making loud truck noises while pressing it determinedly across the rug. Poor honourable Conor; he was so intense he always tugged at Holly’s heart. But little Evan was happy, and at least they weren’t fighting. Holly rubbed her back against the sofa, watching them play as she drifted slowly back to her washes.
The question was, had she made illness beautiful? Or had she simply painted colours, form without subject? Pursing her lips, she had to ask, Was there any morality to art at all?
“Mommy, look at the little man climbing the ladder. Look how he goes up and up and up.” Evan, singing. “Look at the little man, Mommy.”
“My truck is saving more people,” Conor told her. “It’s saving the environment. See, Mommy? It’s saving the trees.”
“They’re hungry,” Cida said, bashing open the kitchen door with an overloaded tray. “But look at this, I made biscuits for dinner.”
“Biscuits! Biscuits!”
“My God, is it dinnertime already?” Holly stood up reluctantly, seeing her day evaporate in food, bath, bedtime stories, and now she thought of it, a promised phone call from Todd that would probably crackle over the otherwise unreliable phone lines just as the boys were settling; unsettling them, leading to more stories, probably a bedtime snack.
And her washes?
Glancing at the subtle greys, Holly drifted unwillingly closer to Larkin. She never had time to follow through on her thoughts, leaving her art inconclusive. She needed to carve out more time for herself. It was probably the main challenge she faced: find time not just to paint, but to think about painting. It was hard to justify staring into space when her children needed her, yet she needed her daydreams, the perspective they gave her, the images that arose, both the confidence they let her feel and the sense of completion. Erotic completion, sometimes, with Todd so often gone. It occurred to her that Larkin knew something about that. What was that they said? Artists are great masturbators. Artists, musicians.
She was smelling Larkin’s musky cologne, his drying sweat. Holly felt helplessly angry with herself. Why had she thought about her erotic daydreams? Didn’t she also have long conversations with Darwin? Spin scenarios to examine her day from different angles; to finally, maybe, grasp what was important, what had actually happened when she was too busy looking at the clock to see time passing by? There were really two Hollys, her chaotic inner self and the form people saw. They only came into focus in her daydreams, and once she was focused, she could finally make art.
It really did sound crazy. Would Larkin see through her? Holly crossed her arms nervously, suddenly unable to bear the familiar, even proprietary way he was pawing through her washes with one hand while holding her book with the other. This was her heavily underlined, scribbled over, thoroughly private copy of Darwin’s Voyage. By coming to Rio, she’d embarked on her own long voyage and couldn’t stand for him — well, to have a hand in it. Holly smiled and shook her head. Larkin glanced at her in surprise, and she was able to tease the book out of his grip.
“But in 1832 — “ she said, retreating towards the other side of the table.
“We can’t forget 1832.”
“Botafogo was still rural, and Darwin lived there in a little cottage. He was just starting his round-the-world trip as naturalist on the Beagle. They’d left England the previous December and sailed across the Atlantic to Brazil. Then Captain FitzRoy, the Beagle’s Captain FitzRoy, decided he was going to survey the Brazilian coast, so he just dropped Darwin off for four months in Botafogo. The ship’s artist was there too, and Fuegia Basket. She was the native girl from Tierra del Fuego, the one FitzRoy had kidnapped a few years earlier. Do you know this story?”
Larkin shook his head. “This is what you’re painting?”
“It’s hard to know where to start,” she admitted, flicking a finger at the empty canvas. “I dropped out of art school, and I’m just not very experienced technically.”
“But the paper isn’t blank if you’re using Darwin’s book, is it?”
Holly glanced over quickly, suspecting Larkin of trying to score a point. But he looked kind, his head still canted toward her intently, his eyes shining brightly from within the cave of brows. He was so sincere, he threw her. Living with Todd for so long had left her accustomed to layers of irony and rebuke. The empty canvas was a rebuke. Holly started rambling around the studio again, touching the wall as she went.
“What happened is that FitzRoy had been to South America a couple of years before the voyage of the Beagle. When he was mapping Tierra del Fuego, he picked up three native people there and took them back to England. Four, actually, but one died f
rom his smallpox vaccination. FitzRoy called the ones who were left York Minster, Jemmy Buttons and Fuegia Basket. If you can imagine. He decided he was going to educate them as Christian missionaries and take them back to Tierra del Fuego, where they were supposed to spread the word. The trouble was, he couldn’t get another ship for a couple of years, so his captives had to live with the mission society all that time in England. They learned some English and how to use forks, then they were presented to the King and Queen.
“But everything moved so slowly then. When they finally sailed on the Beagle, FitzRoy decided he was going to map the Brazilian coast, so he ended up leaving Fuegia Basket in Botafogo for four months with Darwin. She was about 11 years old at the time, about nine when she’d been kidnapped. Darwin had a houseful of kids later on in England. You wonder how they got along. FitzRoy, you know, FitzRoy ended up founding the science of meteorology. After which he slit his throat.”
“Interesting,” Larkin said. “Meteorology?”
“It’s Darwin I’m painting.”
Holly arrived back at the canvas, thinking it best that Larkin leave. “I’m sorry I sound so disconnected. I guess this is what I’m like when I’m working.”
“What you are is a great purveyor of information,” he said gently. “It’s a sign of loneliness, I always think. The way it builds up and spills out.”
Holly touched the milky white canvas. She had no idea what to say.
“I came to take you out to lunch,” Larkin said.
Holly shook her head, feeling out of her depth. Men may have looked at her, tried to flirt, let her know they were available. But no one had ever actively pursued her, if that was what Larkin was doing. She’d perfected the role of the virtuous wife, calm, businesslike, distant, helpful, and at times a little hard of hearing. It had always kept her safe; she could congratulate herself on her constancy. Meanwhile confirming her sense, as the men drifted off, that she was not insurmountably tempting.
“Don’t be boring, Holly. It’s only lunch.”
“Oh, ‘boring.’ As if boredom was the eighth deadly sin.”
Holly pursed her lips, then realized she must have looked petulant, which was probably the wrong thing to do. Larkin was leaning toward her again, leaning down from his rangy height. He seemed confidential now, and older, superior.
“Boredom or chaos,” he said. “I prefer chaos, myself. Finding it’s usually one or the other.”
“I don’t,” Holly said. She shrugged; it was true. Not that she had thought it out before.
“Repression,” Larkin said, coming around to her side of the table and touching her lightly on the cheek. “I suppose it has its uses. Your friend’s right, your work is very good. A little weird, but good. The strain is showing.” He bent and kissed her, brushing her cheek with the faintest suggestion of lips and stubble.
“Call me,” he said, going out the door.
She realized he must do this often, and felt a coruscating envy.
Mrs. Austen, the Consul’s wife, is out for a morning’s ride. Holly insists she will ride peacefully through the aboriginal forest, a calm place seldom visited by overseas travellers.
Yet Holly is not completely in control of this fantasy, which tunes in and out of the day’s uncomfortable reality. Mrs. Austen, for instance, seems to be accompanied by an oddly modern band of companions who would not have ridden with an English lady in the nineteenth century. The young Darwin rides to her left, which is plausible: he is a gentleman, after all; a blonde and blue-eyed boy from home. Yet to her right is the Indian girl, Fuegia Basket, who should not know how to ride, despite the fact she is an alert, vivacious child who has seen a great deal in her short life. Their party is led by a Brazilian rancher who is taking them on an excursion to his country house; a shrewd, boxy-looking individual with one blue eye and one brown. He is an acquaintance of Mr. Austen, who has unfortunately been prevented by official business from making one of their party: which, of course, in the real — repressed — nineteenth century, would have stopped this ride before it had begun. Wouldn’t it?
Yet, for all this, the picture has an antique look, which Holly finds increasingly restful. Mrs. Austen seems to have dressed young Fuegia in a cut-down riding habit far too hot for the country. She is herself wearing an elegant habit and a pair of doeskin gloves. Slaves follow with their picnic and much of Mr. Darwin’s collecting equipment. The weight of their burdens distresses Mrs. Austen, who is, like young Mr. Darwin, an opponent of the pernicious institution of slavery. She can only hope they are cooled by the pleasant morning breeze, which touches her own cheeks lightly.
It is June, early June, and the scene around them is most limpid and affecting. Lianas twine loosely about the trees, drooping like fine silk draperies. Orchids sprout from the crooks of branches, fleshy but pure. The road here is wide, and protected as it is by an immense canopy of trees, the surface remains dry, though soft and leafy, sounding a soft clump beneath the slaves’ feet and horses’ hooves. Near the log crossing of a narrow stream, they pass huge spiders’ webs strung between the lofty trees. Mr. Darwin must dismount to collect an unsightly specimen, and apologizes cheerfully as they resume their way.
It is a peaceful ride. Monkeys call, marmosets cry, and insects loudly grate their songs. Then the riders catch sight of a white breast and a black tail falling in the shape of a lyre. It is an unusually beautiful bird sitting on a dead branch at no great elevation. The Brazilian shows little interest in a specimen he declares is seen here commonly. Yet its lyre-shaped tail is like nothing the English have known before, and Mr. Darwin raises his rifle slowly. He shoots, misses, and the bird flies on, although it perches again no great distance down a lane which here intersects the road.
Now there comes a sound of hooves. Captain FitzRoy rides up, an unsettling development. No one wants his dark, raw presence, his overweening manner. He is too much the aristocrat, being directly if illegitimately descended from King Charles II, and a nephew of Viscount Castlereagh: the same Castlereagh who cut his throat ten years before, casting a prophetic shadow over his nephew’s life.
Does the body bear ghostly scars of violence yet to come? A nettling thought; yet on this June day, all that Mrs. Austen can perceive of Captain FitzRoy is his high-bred arrogance. He has seen the lyre-tailed bird, yet does not appear to notice the party of slaves who accompany them, merely dismounting and extending his hand until a slave runs forward with his gun. Mr. Darwin dismounts after him, followed by Mrs. Austen, who is followed in turn by Fuegia Basket. Mrs. Austen does not want to join the gentlemen, but seems to have little choice. Together they close in upon the bird, but it flies again, and they must creep further down the lane. The Brazilian rancher falls in behind them, signalling for his slaves to join them.
The chase is long, the bird a flirt, flitting from branch to branch down the narrowing lane. None of the three chief hunters is able to take a successful shot, although Mr. Darwin collects a blue morpho butterfly which bumbles out of the forest on wings as big as clapping hands. Mrs. Austen’s Portuguese is uncertain, and she cannot make out whether the Brazilian calls their prey a tesouro or a tesoura, a treasure bird or scissors bird, for the shape of the tail. Yet for all her reluctance, she hopes she is seeking a treasure.
The lane soon degenerates into a path, and is heading noticeably uphill, yet the Brazilian assures them he knows well where they are, and that there is no harm in continuing. Once they think they have lost the bird. But Fuegia Basket spots its white breast shining just inside the forest, on what they quickly perceive to be an animal trail cutting down from the hill’s summit. It is no place for an English lady, but Captain FitzRoy does not seem inclined to abandon his quest: not least, Mrs. Austen now understands, because of Man’s unvarying desire to impress Woman with his daring. As Mr. Darwin secures a beetle, the captain uses the barrel of his gun to push at the foliage guarding the entrance to the trail. When he is sure that Mr
s. Austen is watching, he steps recklessly into the opening he has made, and they are committed to ascend.
There is very little chance for sport on this steep and humid trail. They must scramble upwards in single file, the trail being like a tunnel, hemmed in nearly by vegetation. Increasingly, they use this vegetation to pull themselves forward, and soon enough are crawling up the rocky face of the mountain, granite in their reaching hands, or the snaking tree roots which surface here above the thinning soil. Mrs. Austen quickly loses sight of the lyre-tailed bird, although there are loud, indeterminate animal cries in the forest all around them. Then she sees an opening in the trail, and to her eye the men before her disappear into a blaze of sunshine. Mrs. Austen herself soon emerges into a clearing, where she finds the Brazilian rancher scuffing with his boot at a cultivated patch of some bristly crop which does not seem to please him. On one side, the crop ends at a sheer cliff falling straight to the plain below them. Then she sees a silver flash as Mr. Darwin shoots a white breast off a dead tree at the edge of the forest. There is an eerie human cry as the shot bird falls.
Immediately, the Brazilian yells and darts into the forest. He is dragging forth two black children, each by a shoulder, as his slaves disperse beyond the first clearing, stout sticks at the ready. Mrs. Austen draws Fuegia Basket to her side, and crouches with her at the head of the trail. The Brazilian now cries loudly in English that these are his neighbour’s escaped slaves. Mrs. Austen understands he means to suggest his own slaves do not wish to escape; or in any event, that they do not escape. She knows his reputation as a disciplined man who has never flinched from what needs be done. Nor has Captain FitzRoy, who joins the new hunt wolfishly. He is wicked, he is thorough, he clearly enjoys playing the bully, while poor blonde Darwin trots miserably past, apology in the bent of his shoulders as he retrieves his unremarkable specimen from the base of the long-dead tree.
It is not long before the clearing is filled with a dozen or more recaptured slaves, who do not speak, or even cry. It is not certain the entire complement has been discovered. A messenger is now sent, to inform the Brazilian’s neighbour he may wish to return with dogs. Another trustee is delegated to strip lianas from the forest, which may be used to bind the slaves. Mrs. Austen no longer feels herself a part of the gentlemen’s hunting party. Instead she examines the gathered group, as if searching for an answer to a question yet unasked. Slowly the English Consul’s wife becomes aware that the oldest of the recaptured slaves, an ancient crone with scarified cheeks, does not take her eyes off Fuegia Basket.
Drink the Sky Page 6