The Fire Portrait

by Barbara Mutch

  ‘Here you are!’ Daph wormed her way through the crush. ‘Hello, Mr Whittington. Aren’t you proud?’

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ Director Compton ascended a small dais and clapped his hands. ‘Good evening and welcome to our latest exhibition. It is most gratifying to see such an enthusiastic audience, despite the constraints of wartime. Tonight marks the opening of our dedicated space devoted to the work of the artist Frances McDonald who, I’m delighted to say, is with us this evening.’

  Daph squeezed my arm. Mary Clough gave me a tiny wave.

  ‘Go,’ whispered Father, resplendent in hired black tie. ‘Take care up the steps.’

  I’m wearing a new dress Violet’s sister made for me at the last moment. It is ink blue, the colour of the upcountry sky before darkness, with a crocheted, white collar. My hair is pulled back with a set of velvet-covered slides Violet found when sorting through Mother’s drawers, perhaps being kept as a gift for me. Director Compton led the applause as I walked forward. The clapping fragmented in my ears, lifting me back to the English oak and the sound of breaking lens glass and a sharpened view of the world. But there was no need for tremor. The faces looking up at me were smiling and nodding.

  Where had they come from? I’ve only ever sold perhaps a dozen paintings. Should I bow—

  Director Compton held up his hands. The room quietened.

  ‘I first saw the work of Frances Whittington, as she was then, when she was twenty years old, on board the Edinburgh Castle. She later submitted a sketch of Erica multumbellifera, from specimens here at Kirstenbosch. The detail was astounding. From such beginnings,’ he flourished a hand around the room, ‘Frances has gone on to become a superb botanical illustrator and a watercolour artist of rare quality. I hope you enjoy viewing her work and hopefully acquire a painting to cherish.’

  More applause.

  It was a long way from a folding stool in the veld.

  I waited for a moment.

  ‘Thank you, Director Compton, ladies and gentlemen, I’m honoured to be here. Many of the works you see showcase the plants growing around Aloe Glen, a small rural community on the edge of the Karoo.’

  I paused. ‘When I first moved there, over ten years ago, I struggled to see anything worth painting. But then I began to look more closely and found aloes, stone plants, and rare bulbs. It made me realise that there is beauty in the most remote place, if we’re prepared to look hard enough.’

  The audience were nodding.

  I remember the moment when I asked Mr Cadwaller if I could be an artist.

  I plunged, again.

  ‘But for me, these paintings reflect more than their subjects. They show the passage of drought, fire, flood and war. And the journey I’ve been privileged – and challenged – to take.’

  The thunder of applause took my breath away.

  ‘Bravo!’ someone called.

  Director Compton took my hand and led me off the dais.

  ‘Frances!’ A greying Mrs Phillips caught my arm and embraced me carefully around the baby. ‘Your mother would’ve been so thrilled. Many congratulations, my dear! I want one of the Brunsvigias.’

  I glanced at the three paintings, one in close-up, one showing pink globes strewn across the veld and the final one of the tumbleweed stage.

  ‘Such brushwork,’ a woman in a turban said. ‘Exceptional, Mrs McDonald!’

  ‘Will you excuse us, madam?’ Director Compton steered me away. ‘Well spoken, my dear.’

  Father followed, discreetly. He’s ready to rescue me in case I get overwhelmed.

  ‘May I introduce Major Owen Jefferson?’

  ‘How do you do,’ said a tall man in a bemedalled uniform. ‘I’m intrigued by this aloe—’

  ‘Why, Frances.’ Daphne’s father barrelled up. ‘You said you wanted to be an artist and here you are!’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Phillips.’ I extricated myself. ‘May I introduce the director and Major Jefferson?’

  ‘Pleasure,’ said Mr Phillips and planted a kiss on my cheek before heading across to the wine table.

  ‘This aloe,’ Jefferson repeated, examining it in close-up, ‘you observed it in the wild or in a collection?’

  ‘In the wild, sir. I only paint from wild specimens.’

  The director slipped away. Perhaps his role tonight was to introduce me to potential buyers. The heat in the room was increasing. I felt the baby move. I’d need to sit down soon.

  ‘I plan to buy this one,’ he gestured towards the aloe in flower, ‘and the fire-damaged one.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I paused. ‘Why do you want them both, sir, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  ‘Placed side by side, Mrs McDonald, they’re a powerful statement. They tell us to be vigilant.’

  An omen. A warning. I glanced at Father. He nodded.

  ‘Ma’am.’ The reporter, again. ‘Studio with Glass Shards? What message are you conveying?’

  For a moment I was back in my burnt house, touching the floorboards streaked with melted paint, discovering the glass piled in the centre. If you didn’t know, the scene might have been staged as an example – a foretaste – of modern art. Or a novel reflection on war: chaos rendered in primary colours, within a frame of fashionably charred wood.

  ‘I paint what I see, sir.’

  Mark said my paintings showed where my heart lay.

  But my heart is not whole, not concentrated in one place or with one person or on one subject.

  It’s divided. Protea Rise, Aloe Glen, Julian, Mark …

  ‘Frances?’ Director Compton reappeared. ‘Will you excuse us, Major? And,’ to the hovering reporter, ‘Mrs McDonald has answered enough of your questions. Frances, a gentleman is interested in Fernwood Buttress from Protea Rise. He wants to know the date of the painting.’

  I held out my hand to Major Jefferson who clasped it in both of his. ‘Stay safe, madam.’

  ‘Stunning detail,’ I overheard as I followed Compton. ‘Have you looked at the Lithops?’

  ‘I want Aloe Glen at Sunset. The original and the smoked one.’

  ‘Congratulations, Frances.’ Preston Bell, Daph’s father-in-law, intercepted me.

  The director led me into a quiet corner where an old man sat in a wheelchair.

  ‘My dear Mrs McDonald.’ He peered up at me through filmy eyes. ‘I have an interest in your two paintings of Protea Rise. Forgive me for not getting up. How do you know it?’

  ‘I lived in Protea Rise for a year, sir, after I arrived from England.’

  ‘When did you create this particular work?’ His hands were trembling on the arms of his chair.

  ‘Recently, but it reflects the house and garden from about a decade ago. You know the house, sir?’

  ‘Indeed.’ He tried to still his hands. ‘I designed it, before the turn of the century. Part of the specification was to preserve the wild fynbos. The proteas.’

  I felt my head begin to spin.

  ‘Frances?’ Father hurried to my side.

  ‘Is there a chair nearby, Father? I’d like to sit down.’

  He dragged one from the side and placed it next to the wheelchair. I sat down and breathed deeply.

  ‘Father, this gentleman is the architect of Protea Rise.’

  ‘Why, what a pleasure, sir!’ Father leant down and shook his hand. ‘You must be Maurice Benjamin. My late brother-in-law was the first owner, I believe.’

  The old man nodded. ‘He was. The latest owner has, disgracefully, built a wall around the property. I’m keen to acquire this painting so I can see elements of the garden which I remember with great fondness. It was laid out by a young, coloured man under my instruction.’

  ‘Alfius,’ I put in, smiling up at Father. ‘He used to talk to the plants.’

  But Father wasn’t paying attention. He was staring across the room at one of the Fire series.

  ‘I shall buy both of them, Mrs McDonald.’

  Father hadn’t seen any of the pictures before tonight.

&nb
sp; He left my side and hurried towards it, pushing through the crowd, oblivious to outstretched hands or smiles of congratulation. That particular painting didn’t have any spectators, probably because it was difficult to make out. No one knew who it was. I’d been unsure whether to include it, and stipulated that it wasn’t for sale. But I wanted it to be seen.

  ‘Frances – so sorry, Mr Benjamin – may I borrow you?’ Director Compton again. ‘We have a question about technique on the Lithops.’

  I stood up from my stool. Father turned and looked back at me.

  Even from a distance I could see the tears in his eyes.

  Father had recognised Gideon.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  I’ve taken risks in my life. Some have been physical ones like climbing trees and swimming past the breaker line. Others have been outwardly trivial, like wearing a flapper dress to the Kelvin Grove instead of a ball gown. But some have been bolder and required more of myself.

  Like standing up in a combative meeting and daring my husband to take charge.

  Or giving myself to a man to whom I am not married.

  The greatest professional risk I have taken was to hang ruined paintings in an exhibition and ask people to understand why …

  Do I regret what I’ve done?

  Not so far.

  But is there a cost? A cost to whatever – or whoever – will follow?

  Violet’s sister told me to eat pickles when the time of my confinement was near, but it wasn’t necessary. Outside events accelerated the process. Firstly, every painting and sketch in my exhibition, both pristine and singed, sold. There was no adverse publicity. Major Jefferson sent a note of appreciation. Maurice Benjamin sent flowers. I received several letters from visitors who wrote that the singed work was not just a reproach or a ‘beautiful revenge’, as one writer put it, but a cry for justice that hadn’t be served.

  I opened a new, private bank account to take the proceeds as I waited for the baby. I am saving, but I will not say for what.

  And then …

  ‘Fran,’ Father rushed into the lounge and twiddled the knobs on the radio, ‘listen!’

  Crackling filled the air, followed by an American voice.

  ‘A date which will live in infamy,’ President Roosevelt announced. There had been an attack on a place in the Pacific called Pearl Harbor. America was declaring war, the same America that had caused the Crash but would now, hopefully, rise up and save the world a decade later. If he was not already in the forces, Mark would be called up. Both fathers of my child would be in danger. My own father was exultant: as far as he was concerned, the war was all but won. And then the troublesome pro-Germans in South Africa would be forced to slink home and bury their guns and their inflammatory rhetoric for good. The fighting men would return from abroad to rebuild the peace.

  Hamish Gideon McDonald was born in late January 1942.

  I named him after Julian’s grandfather, who heroically taught Latin in Aloe Glen in the 1800s – the first radical in the clan; and for my brother Gideon, whose portrait now hangs in Father’s bedroom.

  ‘How do you know what he looked like?’ Father had choked to me amid the buzz of the exhibition.

  ‘He’s been in my dreams, Father,’ I leant against him. ‘Ever since I fell out of the oak.’

  ‘Dear Fran.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘You’ve given him back to me.’

  And to me, too, Father.

  Gideon’s nephew arrived on a sunny morning with a southeaster screaming over the Cape Flats and a pile of cloud heaped above Fernwood Buttress. I’ve seen eggs crack and baby birds appear, tiny beaks yearning for their mothers. I have seen newborn antelope stagger to their feet and run on green legs almost immediately. The birth of my son took longer than that, and there were times when I wondered if it would ever end and whether the baby I’d got so joyously had no desire to face the world.

  Violet was with me. She wiped the sweat from my face and gave me ice to suck as the hours went by.

  ‘Breathe, Miss Fran. Long and slow. Think of Master Julian.’

  But I don’t want to think of Julian. I want to think of Mark, who is my forever love.

  ‘I love him,’ I moaned. ‘Forever.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ murmured Violet, unknowingly. ‘And soon there will come his baby.’

  The wind rattled the windows, like it rattled the windows at the Kelvin Grove when I wore sea-green chiffon and hoped for a proposal. But I will have a part of Mark from now on, a part that will never leave. Dr Reed told me to bear down and I felt my body gathering itself for a final surge and I cried out, and then another cry came, a baby’s cry. I was shaking from the force of it and the nurse was handling a little wriggling body and placing it in my arms and I saw it was a boy.

  A laughing child, a different one, running ahead of me at Protea Rise …

  Violet was crying. The nurse took my baby and weighed him and then wrapped him in a blanket and gave him back to me. I can see morning sun through the window, striking the mountains yellow when the cloud shifts. It’s shining for me and for this little one.

  ‘A healthy boy, Frances!’ Dr Reed leant over and pressed my hand. ‘Rest now. You’ve done well.’

  I stared down at the baby and felt a wondrous recognition.

  He opened milky eyes and looked at me.

  He is, without doubt, Mark’s child.

  ‘Such hair!’ gasped Daphne, arriving at the hospital the next day with a vast bouquet. ‘So black!’

  ‘I know,’ I smiled, holding the tiny bundle close. ‘Perhaps Julian was dark-haired as a child.’

  Coal-black hair, dark eyes, and the making of fine-boned hands.

  I felt no qualms whatsoever. After all, who but me knows?

  ‘Clever Miss Fran!’ Violet hugged me and tickled the baby’s cheek. He yelled lustily.

  ‘Great lungs!’ exclaimed Father, peering at his grandson’s open mouth. ‘Perhaps he’ll be a tenor?’

  ‘Stay,’ whispered Daph, ‘your father needs you, Fran. You can paint all you like, Violet will help.’

  I know she will. It will be the easier path.

  In the week before Hamish was born, I received several letters from Aloe Glen.

  The police wrote to say that no further progress had been made in the matter of my house fire. Most residents of Aloe Glen and surroundings, Sergeant Roland explained, are convinced Mrs McDonald was the victim of a tragic accident, and wish to convey their sympathy.

  The town’s pact of silence had held.

  Lena Fuller wrote a surprisingly eloquent page to send Sipata’s best wishes because Sipata was unable to write, and also to say that she was visiting Mrs Louw from time to time because Mrs Louw was alone. My friends are caring for each other.

  Cora Engelbrecht sent a card saying that the veld was still soft and she’d taken an English book out of the travelling library for the first time and read it cover to cover. She ended with the hope that I and my child would be happy in Cape Town.

  My top-floor hospital window looked north, towards Bain’s Kloof Pass and the road to Aloe Glen.

  ‘Here’s a hungry boy, Mrs McDonald!’ Nurse Metcalf bustled in holding a crying Hamish.

  I lifted him to my breast and felt the sharp tug of his mouth and the answering response of my body.

  ‘Shall I teach you, little one?’ I whispered. ‘Teach you both worlds?’

  I thought of Aunt Mary and her question soon after I arrived. What are your intentions here?

  ‘Well done.’ Nurse cast a brisk eye over my technique. ‘I’ll be back in half an hour. Oh, forgive me,’ she pulled a telegram out of her pocket, ‘this came for you. Shall I open it?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ I glanced down at Hamish. His black eyes were fixed on me, his mouth working. Dr Reed says there’s no reason I shouldn’t have another baby when my husband returns. The body, he believes, becomes accustomed. Seasoned. ‘It’s easier the second time round, Frances.’

  The nurse ripped open the envelope
and held it in front of me.

  Wonderful news so proud love you always Julian

  ‘You’ll stay, of course,’ said Father when I brought Hamish home a week later to the nursery he and Violet had prepared in the spare bedroom. A wicker crib; a changing table and easy chair; bright, butterfly-printed curtains sewed by Violet’s sister; a teddy bear that once belonged to me and had been kept by Mother; everything we might need if I stayed for good. And, between Father’s work and my art, probably enough money to get by.

  ‘Aloe Glen is my home, too, Father.’

  ‘You belong here, Fran. And, professionally, this is where your market lies. You do realise that?’

  I do.

  But, equally, Father should realise that the inspiration for my most profitable work no longer lies on the peninsula. Collectors have an appetite for what they can’t see around them every day: unusual aloes, cryptic Lithops, veld lilies. They lie beyond the mountains, where the desert encroaches. A card from Truda arrived in the post with a pressed geranium bloom and a scrawled signature. Laetitia sent a package containing a knitted matinee jacket and the news that the aloes were in flower. The dominee wrote a note rejoicing in the Lord’s generosity in granting me a child and Deon Louw sent a formal letter with a question: how should he respond to his school friends who think his father is a hero for sabotaging the railway line?

  Please, ma’am, write back. I can’t ask Ma about this.

  While I pondered my answer, Director Compton phoned to congratulate me on the birth of my son and said he’d had a request from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, in London, via a Mr Raymond Cadwaller, for a set of paintings of an aloe known as a quiver tree, an odd plant whose tentacled leaves erupt from the apex of a pale, ridged trunk.

  ‘I believe they are endemic further north, Frances, but perhaps you may find some.’

  Today I took out the charcoal portrait and compared it with myself in the mirror.

  Pregnancy and new motherhood has softened my face. But there’s a restlessness, too.