by James Wilson
‘And what business is that, Mr. …?’
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Red-tie’s lips twitch. Farrant still looked at me impassively, but I noticed the broken veins on his pale cheeks starting to colour.
‘Farrant,’ he said. ‘I’m an engraver.’
‘Ah,’ I said, with an air of indifference. I took a deep draught of my beer, and grinned at Red-tie. ‘That fortifies you, Mr. …’
‘Hargreaves,’ said Red-tie, laughing.
‘Better than a warming pan.’ I barely heeded the critical voice in my own head saying That sounds foolish – warming pans don’t fortify; I was too busy trying to think of a way to direct the conversation back to Petworth, and then to artists, and then to -
‘Did they say anything of Turner?’ Farrant asked suddenly.
I could scarcely believe my good luck. ‘Turner?’ I said.
‘The landscape painter,’ said Farrant, looking not at me but at Hargreaves, with a meaning expression that seemed to say: See, I know what I am about.
‘Yes, as it happens,’ I said, laughing. ‘Though I don’t know how much of it to believe.’
Farrant leaned forward. ‘Why, what did they tell you?’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘that he was a strange, secretive little devil, who locked himself in the library, and would admit no-one save the Earl.’
Farrant nodded. ‘Is that all?’
‘He had a housemaid for a . . . friend – you know the kind of friend I mean, Mr. Hargreaves? – and gave her a little picture to remember him by. That part’s true at least, I think, for her daughter showed it to me – the poor girl’s soft on Paul, I fancy, and thought no doubt she’d impress his uncle.’
Hargreaves guffawed lewdly.
‘And I’ll tell you, the funny thing – what do you think it was?’
Hargreaves shrugged, and looked away; while Farrant was so intent on hearing the end of my story that he could not bear any distraction from it, and shook his head impatiently.
‘What you or I’d have done is leave her with a sentimental miniature, wouldn’t we, Mr. Hargreaves? Or a peaceful country scene? But not Turner – he had to give her a blood-red sunset, and a rising storm. “Here you are, darling. Something to remind you of me.”’
Hargreaves began to laugh again, but Farrant cut him short.
‘That does not surprise me,’ he said. His voice was quiet but tremulous, and he clenched his fists like a man struggling to keep some great passion in check. ‘Nothing of what you say surprises me – save that he gave her anything at all.’
‘Why?’ I said. ‘Did you know him, then?’
‘Well enough,’ he muttered. ‘Well enough.’
I said nothing, waiting for him to go on; but after a few moments he shook his head and said:
‘Anyway, it is no matter.’
‘No,’ I said; and then – thinking it was at last safe to do so – ‘I should like to hear.’
He shook his head again. ‘What good’s tittle-tattle? I tell you what I know, and you tell the next man, with a bit added here, and another there, to season it; and he does the same in his turn, and soon there’s a hundred different stories, and no-one believes any of them. I want people to have the truth, here, in front of them, black and white. And they will, soon enough.’
His face was so grave, and his voice so urgent, that it was impossible, in that instant, to believe he had lied to me.
‘What,’ I said, ‘are you writing a book?’
‘No,’ he said darkly. ‘But there are others interested in Turner.’
My skin prickled, as it does at the onset of a fever. Was others just a rhetorical flourish, or did he mean more than one? If he had found out about me, of course (which was clearly the case, although I did not know how), was it not reasonable enough to suppose that he also knew something of Thornbury, and had perhaps communicated with him? But what if there was a third – or even a fourth – biographer, of whom I had never heard at all?
‘Really?’ I said, as casually as I could. ‘Who?’
He took a leisurely sip from his glass and then set it down again, wiping the suds from his mouth. ‘You will forgive me, sir,’ he said with a sigh, avoiding my gaze, ‘but I barely know you; and this is a delicate matter.’ And I could not help noticing – dear God! how complex are our emotions, and how contradictory! – that while his shoulders were bowed under the weight of some great burden, yet his eyes shone with the consciousness of the power he enjoyed at that moment.
‘The truth is,’ said Hargreaves, with a wheedling smile, watching Farrant closely all the time, ‘there’s a value now, to stories about Turner. There’s a gentleman as pays good money for them. What Mr. Farrant’s saying is, you want him to tell you, you’ll have to put your hand in your pocket -’
‘No!’ roared Farrant, so loudly that the room suddenly fell quiet, and every face turned towards us. ‘I don’t care anything about that. I want the facts straight, number one; and number two, no-one knows about them till they’re published. That’s the first rule of war: don’t give your secrets to the enemy.’
‘Who are the enemy?’ I said.
Farrant didn’t reply at once, but instead stared thoughtfully before him. At length he turned abruptly to me and said: ‘Turner had powerful friends.’
‘Indeed -’ I began; but Farrant was already preparing to leave, pulling his coat about him and searching for his stick. ‘Oh, please,’ I said, touching his arm. ‘Don’t go. Let me buy you a drink.’
He knocked my hand away and shook his head emphatically. ‘I shall wish you good night.’
My palms felt dry and empty – I longed to clasp them round his rough sleeve, and drag him back to his chair – but I knew nothing would be gained by it. If he was not angry with me yet (and it seemed to have been Hargreaves, rather than I, that had provoked him), he soon would be if I persisted in trying to detain him. All I could do, during the unconscionable time it took him to get ready, was to stare at the fire, and exchange sheepish grins with Hargreaves. At last, he fastened the final button on his coat, and without another word, began his stately progress towards the door.
‘You can buy me a drink,’ said Hargreaves, when Farrant was out of earshot. ‘And I’ll tell you what I know.’
‘About the gentleman?’
His face took on the surly, puzzled look of a slow-witted man who suspects he is being mocked. ‘What gentleman?’
‘The gentleman who pays good money for stories about Turner.’
‘Oh!’ He clearly hadn’t expected this; and he frowned as he wrestled with the troubling question of why I should want to know. Fearing that I had gone too far, and given too much away, I said hastily:
‘I was thinking of my nephew. He could spin him a tale or two.’
‘Ah, I see!’ He smiled and nodded, and for a moment I thought he was going to tell me, for he gave me a crafty sidelong glance that seemed to say, I get your meaning now; you’re a man of the world like me, which I interpreted as a prelude to doing business. But then he suddenly looked away and said: ‘I won’t deceive you – I know no more than Jack Farrant told me, and that’s little enough.’
‘His name?’
Hargreaves shook his head.
I cursed inwardly. Could it have been Thornbury? That was the likeliest explanation, but it failed to explain Farrant’s letter to me. An author might naturally give a useful informant money; but he would scarcely pay him to send his story to a rival. Perhaps there was someone else . . .? Or perhaps Farrant had merely heard about me from Davenant or George Jones (for did not his letter mention both their names?) and had written to me on his own account, for his own reasons? I should gladly have given fifty pounds for the answer, though I knew better than to say so. Something of my feelings must have shown, however, for, before I had time to speak, he went on eagerly:
‘But I’ll tell you something else – a sight tastier – about Turner.’
I forced an indifferent smile on to my face, and said lac
onically: ‘As good as the housemaid?’
‘Oh, better!’
‘Very well.’
He shook his head, and wagged a finger at me. ‘Drink!’
I summoned the barmaid. The question of what he should order at my expense seemed to exercise Hargreaves terribly, and he agonized over it for some seconds before finally saying:
‘A pot of porter, if you please, and a tot of brandy’ – here he leered comically at me – ‘just to keep it company on the way down,’ And then, as if he feared I should cavil at this extravagance, and withdraw my offer, he laid his grimy fingers on my cuff, and said: ‘It’s worth it, Mr. Jenkinson. You’ll see.’
And so, indeed, it proved; for this, as near as I can remember it, is what he told me – his face thrust forward, his eyes gazing up into mine with the anxious look of a dog that expects another biscuit if its master likes its trick, and a kick if he does not:
‘I’m a waterman by trade; I was a hog-grubber once, but, what with the new bridges, there’s no living to be made on that stretch of the river now; so the last fifteen year or more I mostly been plying Wapping. And that’s where I saw him – oh, must’ve been a dozen times, at least.
‘He was a rum one – you knew that the minute you laid eyes on him – not much taller’n a child, with a big hat, and a long coat. You couldn’t see his face clear, for he’d wrap a scarf around it, to keep the cold out o’ doors, as he’d say, and besides, it was dark more often than not; but I remember his big Jew’s nose, and his eyes looking at you like a ferret, and his grey hair sticking out under his hat – for he was already an old fellow by this time.
‘He liked me, he said, on account I’d been a sailor; and usually he’d ask for me special, to go to Rotherhithe. It was always the same: I’d take him across of a Saturday night, and bring him back again Monday morning. General, he wouldn’t say much, just sit staring over the side of the boat, as if he was looking for something in the water; and once . .. once or twice I saw him take out a notebook, and scribble in it.
‘I didn’t know who he was – he never told me a name – but I wouldn’t have guessed it was “Turner”, for one time, as we was putting in at Rotherhithe, an old seaman who’d had a bit to drink come up to him and says: “Back again, Mr. J.? Lord, give the girls a chance!” Might have been “Jay”, I suppose, but it didn’t sound like that – too quick, if you know what I mean. So perhaps he went by “Jones”, or “Johnson”.
‘But then one time, he’s going ashore at Wapping, and another gentleman steps down to take the boat, and sees him, and says: “Why, Turner!”; but he just shakes his head and marches off without a word. When the other gent’s settled himself, he says: “You know who that was? Turner, the Turner! J. M. W.? R.A.? I’d heard stories about his adventures, of course, but I never believed them before now.”
‘So I says, “What stories, sir?” And he says: “Why, that he’ll finish painting on a Saturday night, and put a five-pound note in his pocket, and go and wallow in some low sailor’s house by the river till Monday morning!”
‘And the rummy thing is, after that, I never saw the old man again.’
My mouth was dry; I could hear my own heartbeat throbbing in my ears; I was filled with that strange tumbling excitement you feel when your wildest intimation suddenly becomes a certainty. Hargreaves must have seen the effect he had had, for he concluded by exhaling dramatically, and sitting back with a triumphant glint in his eye, as much as to say: There! What did I tell you?
‘Well,’ I said, still striving to sound nonchalant, even if my glowing cheeks betrayed me. ‘That was tasty enough, I suppose.’ I got up, squinting at the clock above the bar counter.
‘Worth another pot?’ he said quickly.
I hesitated, and then laughed and said:
‘Oh, why not? But you’ll drink it alone; for I must off home.’
It was while we were waiting for the barmaid that Hargreaves suddenly leaned over and tugged my sleeve.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said, looking round to see that we were not overheard. ‘The funniest thing. Fair turned my stomach. One time, we was nearly at the south bank, and Turner looking in the water as usual, when he suddenly points to something and says: “Over there! Row over there!” “What is it?” I says; for I couldn’t see nothing; but he just says: “Row! Row!” And he takes out his little book, and starts to sketch something, frantic like, as if all of a sudden it’s just going to vanish away.’
Hargreaves looked about him again; and when he turned back to me there was such disquiet in his eyes that I realized he was telling me this not for gain, but to unburden himself.
‘I didn’t see what it was until my oar struck it, Mr. Jenkinson. So help me, it was a body – a poor girl, couldn’t have been more than sixteen, as’d drowned herself. And there was Turner, lost to the world, drawing her face.’
XXV
From the private notebook of Walter Hartright,
7th October, 185–
Others may read a journal.
No-one must read this.
What is a man who slips like mercury between the fingers, who is never where you think to find him, who goes abroad under an assumed name and a borrowed identity?
A man who never marries; and maintains no household; and even in those places where he hides from the world has secret chambers in which to conceal himself still more completely?
A man who consorts with whores in stinking taverns? A man who responds to seeing a corpse not with some pious exclamation of pity, but by taking out his notebook and drawing it?
He is a genius.
Last night, for the first time in my life, I was like mercury.
I have never been so free.
Leaving the White Post I might have -
What?
Gone anywhere. Done anything. Walked to the docks, and taken passage for Java. Returned to Maiden Lane and found a girl, and enjoyed her in the alley where she stood. No-one could have said: That was Walter Hartright. No-one could have blamed me. No-one could have blamed me.
Gravity held me by a thread. At any moment I might have snapped it, and drifted away altogether.
But I let it draw me homeward, as a child draws a kite.
Until I reached Piccadilly. And the Marston Rooms.
I did not seek her.
But I did not send her away.
I had set down my journal. I was so tired I had lost all sense of time. I was watching a drunk man lurching towards the door.
She said: ‘A penny for your thoughts.’
I turned. She was perhaps twenty-five, wearing a close-fitting blue dress and crinoline. She had thick fair hair pinned loosely over the nape of her neck. She smelt of musk.
‘What are you about?’ she said.
I smiled, and weighed the open journal in my hand.
‘What, are you an author, then?’
I said nothing.
‘Must be lonely work, being an author. I expect you feel like a bit of company, don’t you, sometimes?’
I nodded.
‘That’s good,’ she said, sitting beside me. ‘I’m fond of company, too.’ She leaned close. She was warm. I smelt the hot biscuit tang of powder on her cheeks.
‘You going to buy me a drink, then?’
I jerked my head at the waiter.
‘I like champagne,’ she said. ‘It makes me gay.’
The drunk man had finally stumbled into the street. Through the window, I saw a woman in a wide-brimmed hat accosting him.
‘I’m Louise,’ said my companion. She pouted teasingly, and gave a little nod that invited me to tell her my name.
I said nothing, but merely looked at her and smiled.
‘Gentlemen are often shy about that,’ she said. She put her head on one side and appraised me, running her tongue over her blood-red lips. ‘What about Leo?’ she said at last, in barely more than a whisper.
‘Leo,’ I heard myself say.
She spread her hand on the open page of my jo
urnal and caressed it, as if she might coax the meaning from it. ‘So, Leo, what are you writing?’ When I did not reply, she suddenly seized the book and began to read at random:
‘What’s this – “wallow in some low sailor’s house by the river”?’ She broke off, laughing. I snatched the book back.
‘You bad boy,’ she said. ‘Is that what you get up to?’
The waiter came. His smile said: I know what you’re doing. I wanted to hide my face in shame. I wanted to acknowledge his gaze, and bask in the warmth of his admiration.
‘Champagne,’ I heard myself say.
‘Very good, sir.’
‘And something for yourself. Make the night go a bit sweeter.’
‘He’s a gent, ain’t he?’ giggled the woman, catching the waiter’s eye.
His smiled deepened. ‘Thank you, sir.’
When he had gone, she took my wrist in her hot fingers and leaned closer. Her breath smelled of licorice and wine.
‘I like to wallow,’ she whispered.
‘I bet you do.’
How can I explain it? I cannot say it was not my voice. But it was the voice of a me whose existence I had never suspected. He must have been there always, sealed away in some blackness so profound that I had never thought to try to penetrate it. But now the shutters had been thrown open, and we could see and hear each other.
‘I know a nice place,’ she said. Her lips brushed my cheek, and she whispered in my ear: ‘What would you like to do with me?’
We were poised, Leo and Walter; balanced on a pinpoint.
It’s natural enough, ain’t it? A man and a woman were made to give pleasure to each other.
Think of …
You can’t pretend you don’t feel
You can’t pretend you only want to fuck your wife.
I could see the pulse in her throat, as if some tiny creature were trapped beneath the skin.
See? Her heart’s pounding, too.
If I go with her, I shall cease to be me.
Isn’t that the point?
‘Mm?’ she murmured again. ‘What would you like?’ She drew my ear-lobe into her mouth, nipped it, rolled it on her tongue.