The Fire Portrait

by Barbara Mutch

  ‘Are you sure, Frances?’ Truda hovered in the doorway once I was unpacked.

  ‘Yes!’ I embraced her. ‘And you can come here, too, whenever you wish.’

  She needs to know she has sanctuary with me if she needs it. I will shelter her, like she sheltered me.

  ‘Wynand says it’s not over,’ she whispered. ‘He says in his letter that many more like him are still free.’

  ‘They won’t hurt you, Truda. Their quarrel is with the government, not with you.’

  ‘What does Julian say,’ her faced softened, ‘about the baby?’

  ‘I think he cried. He can’t wait to come home.’

  She nodded and touched my hand.

  Julian wrote nothing about the latest blows against Allied forces.

  ‘Egypt and Suez are the prize,’ said Father tersely over the phone. ‘They can’t be allowed to fall.’

  Julian had also written to Father, telling him to insist I return to Cape Town.

  ‘In time, Father. Don’t worry.’

  ‘But I do, Fran,’ he said crisply. ‘I’ve always supported you but you’re being mulish.’

  ‘I have to stay. I must prepare for the exhibition.’

  And nature, it turns out, is conspiring with me. The Brunsvigia lilies are flowering in an abundance I’ve never captured before. Multiple pink trumpets radiate from a central stalk to resemble fragile globes held aloft. Once the petals fade, the entire head breaks off and rolls away like tumbleweed, scattering seed in a final, dramatic flourish. I sit on my stool at the base of Aloe Peak every day and sketch them on the new paper Father bought for me. Sipata and her neighbour, Lena, come to watch. A few days later, some of the poor men who fought my fire appear. Perhaps they came out of curiosity: the sight of a lone woman, making pictures in the midst of the veld, or perhaps they want to protect me, although I don’t know why when Wynand Louw is detained.

  Sometimes the men tell me how beautiful my sketches are. But not always.

  ‘Paint a picture of your house, ma’am,’ one man said quietly. ‘Show it like it is.’

  In their own quiet way, they are urging me to reveal what no one wants to acknowledge. And I suspect they know who did it.

  Afterwards, I go back to the flat and mix colours and build up the full effect of the lilies. I decide on well-diluted pyrrole red for the petals, ochre for the skeletal remains.

  I work long into the night.

  ‘Ma’am must eat,’ Sipata says.

  She still comes to help even though I can’t pay her as much as before. She makes soup and we share it together. Sipata and I are now friends. The fire has brought us together, as it has forced others away. If I happen to see Cora or Sannie at the store, they smile and compliment me on my pregnancy and then they leave before we can have any kind of conversation.

  There are many plants, of course, that aren’t in flower at the moment. I have sketches of them, damaged in the fire, that I plan to copy in the evenings. But I find that it helps to be outside for the light and the sense of movement in the veld. So I attach a damaged sketch to my new easel – sent by Father – and clip a fresh sheet on top and set off.

  ‘Ma’am?’ Tifo came over to me one day as I headed out. ‘There’s a place you can sit.’

  He led me round the side of the petrol station to a patch of grass. Aloe Peak reared in perfect symmetry against the sky, its slopes clothed in familiar scrub. If I sat with my back to the building, I could catch the light and the movement without having to walk so far.

  ‘Thank you, Tifo. What a good idea.’

  I might even see springbok in the distance. Agile, fleeting beauty.

  ‘My,’ a voice intruded over my shoulder a month later, ‘what a beautiful picture. Do you sell any?’

  She was wearing exotic wide-legged trousers and a broad-brimmed hat with a velvet ribbon.

  ‘Yes, in Cape Town. I’m preparing for an exhibition at the moment.’

  ‘Phillip?’ the lady called over her shoulder. ‘Come and look!’

  It’s Tifo, I realise. He sent them from the forecourt.

  A man in military uniform came around the side of the building, jangling his car keys in his hand.

  ‘We can’t stop now.’ He gave my picture a cursory glance. ‘We’re late as it is.’

  ‘I take commissions,’ I said. ‘My name is Frances McDonald. If you give me your details, I could paint whatever you wish. Or you can see my work at Kirstenbosch in the new year.’

  ‘I’ll be gone by then.’ The man gave a brief, wry smile. ‘But my wife holds the purse strings.’

  ‘Just as well,’ the lady teased. ‘My taste is far better than yours!’ She twiddled her fingers at me and they turned away.

  I heard the sound of their motor car pulling out of the station. Once upon a time I could have been that woman: well-dressed, handsomely married …

  But she – and Tifo – have given me an idea.

  I begin to dash off a few smaller drawings, first impressions like Mr Cadwaller once urged. Reflect what the eye sees!

  A wagtail scratching at the base of the building. A bird of prey silhouetted on a telephone line.

  A few lines, quickly rendered. A moment captured, just so.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  My hands are shaking as I write this.

  I went back to Marico Road today with a torch, and stood in my ruined studio.

  Sipata and I hadn’t moved the cupboard because it stood flush against the wall and anything on top of it would have fallen to the floor and been found.

  I crouched down and played the beam of my torch between the wood and the wall.

  There were a few sheets of paper lodged in the tiny gap.

  I stood up and began to pull on one side of the cupboard.

  Why did I do it? What if it had fallen on me?

  But then it gave slightly, sufficiently, to allow the papers to escape.

  Two preliminary sketches of my aloes. One of the bird with the orange throat.

  And, between them – I sat down and wept – the precious image of Gideon, the one I showed to Director Compton. It is remarkably undamaged.

  Since the fire, my brother had disappeared from my dreams.

  Perhaps now, he will return.

  Three months, ten watercolour paintings, ten pencil drawings. A sheaf of damaged work. A slim portfolio of what I call my ‘Cadwaller Sketches’. The picture of my brother. My diary. The charcoal portrait. My easel, my paints and pencils. My brushes. A set of Cape Town outfits.

  And a decision to leave Aloe Glen and have my baby in the city.

  Why, after I vowed to stay?

  Because there will be no second chance if I happen to stumble in the veld or pull a cupboard onto me in my haste, for I know, as surely as I know the identity of the father, that this will be my only child.

  I need to be in a safer place.

  Once the decision was made, Father refused to allow me to undertake the journey alone. ‘Bain’s Kloof ought not to be negotiated in the final stage of pregnancy. I will come up by train and we’ll drive back together. No arguments, Frances.’

  The dominee stopped by last evening to wish me well.

  ‘We shall pray for you, Mrs McDonald.’

  It is kind of him to make the offer. I notice of late, when I attend church, that he’s careful to pray for all victims of the war. I feel the glances of my fellow congregants on the back of my neck as he speaks.

  The early train drew in beneath a cloud of smoke.

  ‘Fran!’ Father bustled out of his compartment, tie flying about his face. ‘How well you look! And the countryside,’ he threw his arms wide, ‘so lush, my dear. Extraordinary!’

  ‘The car’s packed, Father. We can go straight away.’

  The word has got around that I’m leaving. My informal protectors have been quietly tipping their caps at me and shaking my hand whenever I encounter them around town. Mr Fourie has wished me well and cancelled my weekly newspaper. The art class has been su
spended. Laetitia embraced me and told me not to stay away for too long.

  ‘Good luck, ma’am, good day, sir!’ shouted Tifo, as he attended to his petrol pump. I’d asked him to carry my suitcases and easel downstairs so that Father would not need to see my tiny flat.

  ‘Good day!’ Father lifted his hat. ‘Friendly fellow! Ah, Mrs Louw, how nice to see you again.’

  ‘And you remember Sipata, Father? And may I introduce Lena Fuller?’

  ‘Indeed I do. How do you do, Mrs Fuller. I know you’ve all been very kind to Frances.’

  ‘We brought tea.’ Truda handed me a basket with a flask. ‘And Lena made sandwiches.’

  I embraced them both and felt Truda shiver slightly. ‘Maybe you won’t come back,’ she murmured.

  ‘Ma’am will be back,’ said Sipata quietly. ‘The veld will bring her back.’

  ‘Goodbye, ma’am,’ came a voice from behind. It was Toby Engelbrecht, a teenager now.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’

  ‘It’s breaktime, ma’am.’

  I put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ll be back in a few months, then we’ll do some more drawing.’

  The youngster nodded, blushed, and ran off, nearly tripping over his feet.

  Father held open the passenger door. I took a last glance up the road that led north between the slabbed mountains towards the flat plains of the Karoo. I want to introduce my child to that infinite horizon. I climbed into the car and Father closed the door and raised his hat to the three women. We nosed out onto the road and I waved.

  ‘I’d like to see your house,’ Father said, turning down Marico Road. ‘Do you mind, my dear?’

  From a distance the place looked blind, like the houses I’d seen when I first arrived in Aloe Glen, their curtains tightly drawn against the heat. But my house was blind because its windows were boarded up.

  ‘Oh, Fran.’ Father put a hand on my arm. ‘A tragedy—’

  ‘Can we go, Father?’

  He turned the car around and we drove past the van Deventer place where Mrs van Deventer was surely watching. She’d given me a pair of knitted bootees when she last saw me.

  ‘I made a mistake about you, Frances McDonald.’ She sniffed. ‘I didn’t think you’d last this long.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs van Deventer. For the bootees as well.’

  She gave a grudging nod. ‘I will see no one interferes with your house.’

  ‘That is kind, but Sipata promised to do that for me. And the men who helped fight the fire.’

  She looked at me, affronted, but I’m not ready to give her any reprieve.

  Not yet.

  Not after what I now know.

  Last week I attended the church ladies’ morning for the first time since the fire.

  Cora, Sannie, Aletta and Anna were there, the tea party ladies who laughed at my painted furniture and kissed me on the cheek when they left my home. I sat at the back of the hall so they didn’t notice me.

  An expert cook demonstrated how to carve tomatoes to look like roses.

  An up-and-coming soprano sang folk songs.

  We ended with a reading from the Bible that was, I think, about faith, hope and charity.

  ‘I’m leaving to have my baby in Cape Town,’ I said when I found them together at the end. ‘Before I go, I wanted to ask what I’d done to make you avoid me since the fire.’

  Cora gulped and rearranged a chair. Sannie blushed. Aletta looked at her feet. Anna stared at me.

  ‘I’m not leaving until you tell me. Or maybe the dominee knows?’ I pretended to look about for him.

  It was Anna who was the bravest.

  ‘It’s not you, Frances. It’s just—’ She glanced desperately at the other three and then back at me. ‘We didn’t know what to say.’

  ‘Why? You could at least have shown more sympathy, Anna.’

  I sensed their shame – but for what, exactly?

  ‘We know who did it,’ blurted Sannie.

  My head pounded and I saw again the orange flames, the cracked mirror, my ruined pictures.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell the police?’ I shouted.

  They looked at one another, and then around the hall but it was, by now, empty.

  ‘Because,’ Cora put a hand gently on my arm; I’ve missed Cora’s softness, ‘most of the men – our husbands – belong to the same organisation as Wynand Louw. It favours Germany. It’s responsible for the sabotage. If we tell the police about Wynand, they’ll want to know how we found out, and they’ll detain our husbands, too.’

  ‘So we kept quiet,’ said Anna. ‘We stayed away from you to save our men.’

  ‘And what if I now go and tell the police?’

  ‘They won’t believe you,’ asserted Aletta, speaking for the first time. ‘They won’t believe the whole town knew and did nothing to stop it. It would be your voice against the rest.’

  The whole town knew and did nothing to stop it.

  I felt behind me and sat down on a chair. ‘But your husband helped me, Sannie! He called the engineer, he recommended a builder!’

  She knelt at my side. Tears slid down her cheeks.

  ‘He was ashamed. He thought it was wild talk. He never expected Wynand to go through with it.’

  ‘Did you know,’ I stared at each one in turn, ‘what was planned for my house?’

  ‘No!’ they exclaimed.

  ‘Abel told me afterwards.’ Sannie wiped her tear-stained face. ‘I told the others, but not Truda. We swore to keep the secret. We thought if we left you alone, you’d leave. It would be safer for us if you left.’

  ‘But I didn’t.’

  I felt the baby heave beneath my flowing dress. My head was aching.

  Cora ran to the kitchen and poured me a glass of water. ‘Here, drink slowly.’

  I held the glass against my cheeks for a moment and then drank.

  Their English is much better these days. Both in vocabulary and grammar. I have, at least, achieved that.

  ‘We were caught, Frances,’ Anna said quietly. ‘Caught between keeping our men out of jail and being friends with you.’

  I couldn’t really blame them.

  I stared around at the church hall, at the framed photographs of past lady members smiling on the walls.

  If it had been me, would I have endangered my family’s unity by being honest?

  Pulled my own house down for the sake of an outsider?

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  ‘Mrs McDonald! Look this way, please!’

  Flashbulbs exploded.

  Father took my arm protectively and beamed his old, expansive smile. A young Argus reporter elbowed his way over.

  ‘What is the background to the so-called Fire series?’ His pencil hovered above his notebook.

  I glanced inside to where my paintings hung.

  A Pink, Armoured Aloe. The same one Mark bought, its tentacled leaves clasped about its heart.

  Fernwood Buttress from Protea Rise, repainted from memory.

  Aloe Peak at Sunset, based on the first sketch I made in my new home.

  The Lithops drawings, some on tinged paper, some on fresh.

  ‘Mrs McDonald?’

  ‘There was a fire,’ I replied. ‘A number of my pictures were burnt. Some were saved.’

  ‘Fran!’ Daphne waved at me frantically over the heads of the crowd.

  ‘But why, ma’am, would you choose to exhibit ruined work alongside pristine?’

  I know how I’d like to answer his question, but I also know my reply is not for sharing. The whole town knew and did nothing to stop it.

  Better to stress the artistic contrast and leave it at that: new paintings, elegantly framed alongside grey, creased versions, un-glassed and pegged beneath simple metal hangers. Father, after initial qualms, said that there was no such thing as bad publicity and I should stand firm.

  So did Mr Cadwaller, to whom I’d written for advice.

  Ignore the naysayers, he wrote back, art is all about risk. Hold
your ground, Frances!

  But the director and his committee had been nervous.

  ‘I don’t wish to discard the damaged paintings, gentlemen,’ I persisted. ‘They highlight a fresh approach in the later interpretations.’ After lengthy deliberation, they finally gave cautious approval – even to the text for the catalogue: a unique opportunity to showcase an artist’s response to tragedy – after which there’d been a tricky discussion about pricing. Director Compton suggested the price for each new painting should include its damaged equivalent if I insisted on showing it alongside.

  ‘But they took the same amount of work, sirs,’ I said. ‘And they tell a story which has a value, too. May I suggest the same price for each?’ There was an intake of breath. The committee members are botanical experts, not necessarily art lovers or businessmen. And I’m discovering a commercial bent. ‘If,’ I added with a smile, ‘a buyer wishes to purchase both versions, then the damaged painting will be reduced by half.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Director Compton, hastily. ‘I think we can agree to that.’

  But they wonder at the wisdom of making a political statement at an exhibition, although arson is never mentioned, and they doubt anyone will buy damaged goods. Maybe they’re right? Yet the newspapers describe ongoing sabotage around the country. Pylons brought down, trains disrupted. For those who suspect the fire may have been deliberate, my warped pictures show the price of disunity.

  ‘Come,’ said Director Compton, fending off the reporter and ushering Father and me through the door.

  Another flashbulb exploded.

  The crowd parted.

  I see some familiar faces – the Chisholms, the Pringles, Thelma Radisson in a vast hat, but mostly it’s a gathering of well-dressed and hopefully wealthy strangers with a sprinkling of military uniforms. And it’s an approving crowd. I’ve become so used to being the interloper, the outsider, that I don’t expect to be welcomed.