The hand that grabbed her forearm hurt her so badly that she cried out. Another hand, part of a hand, came across her mouth. Don, panting hard, was behind her, holding her so tight she couldn't breath. She tried to kick back at his ankles but his feet danced away from her as he dragged her off-balance along to the end of the saw bench. He let go of her mouth for a second and she got out another yell and then the rising whine of the blade was louder than her screams and she struggled all the more. He hit her then, and she fell forwards over the bench towards the accelerating blade, trying to get her hand round something she could hold on to. All she could reach were the metal rollers and they spun from under her clutching fingers. She could hear Don sobbing and above that, someone further off, shouting. In that moment, when she expected to feel its teeth bite into her, the power to the saw was shut off, its brake came on and the blade slowed rapidly.
From a window in the house, Tel shouted at her, 'Come on Amy, run. This way.'
Gengko erupted from the front door, racing towards them across the gravel. She ran to meet him and he stood shielding her, but Don hadn't moved.
'You're safe now,' said Gengko breathlessly. 'We were keeping an eye out, just in case. Tel cut the mains. What's that crazy bastard doing now?'
Don was still by the saw, smashing something down on the slowing blade, again and again. It was Dennis's tray, Rembrandt's greatest work, reduced to matchwood.
EPILOGUE
London. Saturday, June 16th, 2001
On a warm afternoon in early summer, Amy walked on Hampstead Heath with an envelope crumpled in the pocket of her jeans, heading for a date with a man. Her path, crowded by a profusion of flowering bushes, opened out on to a swathe of lawn with a lake beyond but her target was the house in front of her and she made straight for the front door. She smiled at the uniformed attendant inside and though she had never been there before she headed instinctively to the left, quite certain that she could find him with no outside help. Left again into one of the wings standing out from the house, a high, crimson room with damask wall hangings and there, just by the door, he was waiting patiently, gazing at her, a little defiant, a little grumpy even, as if she had disappointed him.
'Hello,' she said softly, 'I'm sorry I took so long.'
He stared unblinkingly at her, a white linen cap on his head, blurred maul-stick and palette in his left hand and the sectors of two great circles on the wall behind him. Portrait of the Artist said the plate on the frame, Rembrandt van Rijn. She gazed at him. His clothes were simple. His long grey hair was bunched under his cap, the lighting seemed contrived to show the size of his nose and she could find no vanity anywhere in it. She felt a need to apologize for the painting in whose destruction she had played an accidental pan, the painting she had felt with her fingers and never seen, the painting into which this man in front of her had poured all his art and all the remaining fire of his youth.
Behind Amy, two middle-aged couples stood staring at the picture. There's a new theory,' said one of the men in a thin, petulant voice, 'It's one I rather like. It holds that the circles, do you see, the circles on the wall behind him are there as a sign of his greatness. It refers to the story of Apelles, do you see? Apelles showed his rival that he was the world's best painter by drawing two perfect circles just so. I like to think that's what Rembrandt is saying too.'
Amy glanced round, irritated, and saw the young attendant who stood behind them. He had a pony tail and a nice face and, as she caught his eye, he winked at her. When the others had gone, striding into the next room from where another and equally firm opinion carried shrilly to them, he took a step nearer, glanced at the picture and remarked in an amused voice, 'Wrong story.'
'Was it?'
'He meant Giotto, not Apelles. You'd be amazed how much crap I hear in here.'
Amy looked at the portrait again. 'Do you know much about it?'
'I work here because of it,' said the man. 'It's why I applied for the job. The Turner and the Franz Hals are fine in their own way but this is the one. This is the pride of Kenwood House.'
'What year was it painted?'
'In the 1660s. Some say '62, some say it was a year or two later. Just look at him. Isn't that the most honest look you ever saw?'
'I think it was 1662,' she said.
'Well, something's happened to him. Something's brought him face to face with himself. Hendrickje, his mistress, she died in '63. They think she caught the plague. Perhaps it was that.'
'No,' she said definitely. 'It happened before that.'
'His son died, too. The old man had six years by himself after that. Poor as a church-mouse. Living off charity. But just look at that. Poverty didn't matter. He was painting better than ever and he knew it.'
'So is that what the circles mean?'
'Yes. He changed the picture, you know. I've seen the X-rays.'
'How?'
'First time round, it showed him working away on a canvas, then he changed his mind. He put his hand on his hip, got rid of the canvas. But I don't think that's the main thing.'
'Which is?'
The attendant was standing right beside her now and his enthusiasm spread out like an aura she could almost see. 'He switched the picture round. His brushes and his palette and that stick, he put them in the other hand, his left hand.'
'Fantastic,' said Amy, and the young man next to her looked at her sharply.
'Are you making fun of me?'
'No, of course I'm not. I understand exactly what you mean.'
'Really? You'll be the first one.'
'He's not looking in a mirror any more, is he?' said Amy. 'That's the point. He's turned himself the right way round. This picture isn't for him. It's not the way he sees himself, it's for the world. It's his statement. He's saying this is what you see when you look at Rembrandt, take me as you find me.'
'Yes,' said the man, 'you do understand! Remember the circles, Giotto's circles? He's saying I may be an old man now but don't mess with me because I'm one hell of a painter. My name's Paul by the way, and I want to tell you more about it but that's my boss in the doorway and he thinks I'm chatting you up, I finish in half an hour. I could tell you the rest of it then.'
Thinking of the envelope in her back pocket, she said, 'No, I'll tell you the rest of it, I'll tell you how he came to paint this picture. It's time someone else knew. I'll be sitting outside on the grass, somewhere by the lake.'
She sat down to wait for him on a grassy bank and looked at her watch. Three hours before she had to be at work at the wine bar. It wasn't really work, it was just the way she made her money, the way she paid for the paint and the canvas which occupied her right through the day, every day. She stared at the flowers and the lake for a long while, then she took the envelope from her pocket. It had come that morning in delayed response to the letter she had written to Paull Holme Manor.
Gengko had the neat, laborious handwriting of a fifteen-year-old and he hadn't wasted any words.
'Your letter to Mr Parrish came my way,' it said. 'He's in the hospital. It got dodgy but he's on the mend. Don went for him, did him some damage before we stopped him. They've put Don where they put the crazies. The cops say Dennis was right. Come back and see us. Love and kisses Gengko.'
Staring at the letter, she knew Don had been a dangerous illusion and that what she really mourned was the beauty he had destroyed. At the bottom of the page Gengko had added an afterthought, 'P.S. Next time, pick someone simpler.'
Across the grass, far away, she saw Paul looking for her. Good advice, she thought, and she wondered whether to wave.
AFTERWORD
The Historical Sources
Readers may wish to know what evidence there is to support the idea that Rembrandt might have come to Hull in the early 1660s. He was indeed a notorious stick-in-the-mud ('too busy to travel') and initially the idea seems absurd.
Interested in the self-portraits, I was looking at Rembrandt's changing view of himself over the years and wondere
d what happens to men who find ageing hard to accept. I began to read everything I could find about Rembrandt's life. I first came across a reference to Hull in Christopher White's excellent biography. Discussing the four English views drawn by Rembrandt around 1640, White explains them convincingly as being probably based on the work of another artist. He then goes on to describe as 'more inexplicable' George Vertue's remark that Rembrandt visited Hull in 1661 or '62, saying that while there was no evidence to render this impossible, there was also no shred of confirmation to be found, and that Vertue was relying on the testimony of someone who was only nine years old at the time.
The idea delighted me. Rembrandt in Hull of all places. I went to look at the Walpole Society transcription of the Vertue diaries and the entry is indeed just as I have reproduced it. There, in the reading room in the Victoria and Albert Museum, I felt the skin on the back of my neck start to prickle. It seems to me that you cannot read the amendments Vertue made to that part of his diary, correcting the words transcribed by someone else, without getting a strong feeling that Vertue did indeed see a painting of a Yorkshire seafaring man and that he believed that what he saw was indeed a genuine Rembrandt. Vertue in turn believed it was worth recording the story told to him by Marcellus Laroon, even though Laroon had been just a child at the time. That Laroon should turn out to be a famous engraver himself is an interesting coincidence.
The more I looked at Rembrandt's personal circumstances, the after-effects of his bankruptcy, his dispute over the Julius Civilis picture and his low output of dated works for some months at that time, the more possible the story seemed. It was then, on a visit to Hull, that I first saw the Sheahan history of Hull which predates the Walpole Society publication of Vertue by half a century. I found the same story in that book, again reproduced here exactly as printed.
Van Loon's strange book, purporting to be the diaries of Rembrandt's doctor, really exists and does contain the passage quoted which details the Hull trip with its diversion via Sweden.
Vertue named Dahl as the owner of one of the Yorkshire portraits. Dahl was apparently a man of substance, connected with the sea, and he should have existed in the archives if the story was to stand up. I visited the Ferens Gallery and discussed the matter with Ann Bukantas, the Keeper of Pine Art, discovering to my surprise that she was on the same trail and had a thick folder of material. We agreed that Dahl should appear somewhere in the records but he resolutely did not appear. The Hull archivists helped me all they could. Hull Trinity House, an ancient corporation with ancient shipping records and somewhat Masonic ways, was less helpful, charging me for a reply each time they said that no, they had no answer to my latest question. However, it struck me, late in the day, that Dahl might be spelt in many different ways as names were rendered phonetically at the time. My skin prickled all over again when I found a Mr Daril living on the banks of the Humber and engaged in various large transactions at just the right time. Daril, I felt oddly sure, was the Dahl who had the Rembrandt portrait. I took the liberty of transferring him from the south bank to the north because in the village of Paull and the relic of Paull Holme tower I had found the landscape in which I wanted to set the story.
The moment when I thought of bringing Hull's Member of Parliament into the story was one of pure serendipity combined with blessed ignorance. At that stage in the plot I needed a cosmopolitan Hull-dweller, someone who, in a short peace between the Dutch wars, might speak Dutch. Searching a list of MPs, I was utterly astonished to find that one of Hull's two MPs at the time was Andrew Marvell, a Dutch speaker and an expert on the Dutch who was apt to disappear to Holland on unexplained missions for his diplomatic masters.
Finally and above all, what I found fascinating was the change in the nature of Rembrandt's self-portraits in their final phase of uncompromising honesty. The date for this new view of himself fitted perfectly and, having developed a great affection for the crusty old man, I had no choice but to tell this story.
Will Davenport
The Painter Page 37