The Fire Portrait

by Barbara Mutch

  As my pencil flew, I thought of Mark. What would he rebuild, what would he design afresh?

  On the fourth day I took a bus to Kew Gardens.

  ‘Mrs McDonald,’ Miss Channing, assistant to the director, greeted me with enthusiasm, ‘we’re so grateful for your collaboration on the aloes. Mr Raymond Cadwaller first drew our attention to your work. We plan to show them alongside other selections once visitor numbers pick up. The war has limited the ability to travel, as you can imagine.’

  ‘I have another one for you.’ I opened my portfolio and handed over my latest painting. A malachite sunbird, perched on the flower stalk of a quiver tree, its feathers glistening in shades of blue and green, its beak imbedded in a bright yellow tubule. ‘The emphasis is less on the plant, as you can see. I realise you may not want this because it’s primarily about the bird—’

  Julian had been too ill to walk with me to the quiver trees, so I painted them for him while they were in bloom and crowded with malachites. He said I captured the birds’ elegant greed.

  ‘My,’ Miss Channing murmured, ‘how utterly captivating. We shall be honoured to add it to our collection. Now, may I offer you tea? And a walk, perhaps? The rain is holding off. I’d like to discuss some new commissions with you.’

  The Cherriot Gallery turned out to be untouched by bombing, although adjoining buildings had been hit.

  ‘Welcome!’ cried the flamboyant American owner. ‘We were spared from the carnage! I’d be delighted to display your portrait, Mrs McDonald. Take your time to look around.’ He spread his arms to show an eclectic mix of work. Landscapes, pen-and-ink drawings, oriental scrolls, small sculptures, portraits of every style. Mr Cadwaller would’ve been enchanted by the range but perturbed by the lack of focus.

  ‘Why do you want the Fire Portrait, Mr Cherriot?’

  ‘It’s a forerunner. The war has upset old notions, old conventions. Art is on the cusp of vital change.’

  I hid a smile. I should have brought along a second Studio with Glass Shards.

  ‘And where art goes,’ Cherriot waved a hand as if there were no other safe predictor, ‘so goes society.’

  ‘Or the other way around, sir?’

  ‘Indeed. Your country is set on a particular path. You have brilliantly reflected that ambiguity.’

  Major Jefferson arrived to fetch me early on the appointed morning.

  I cannot say I slept much the previous night.

  I was wearing my red dress, black court shoes and a small red-and-black hat I’d found in a cubby hole of a shop on Oxford Street. ‘How chic,’ was my hostess’s verdict. ‘They’ll want to buy you, too.’

  Banners hung outside the auction house and a crowd milled through the ornate interior. A man in formal dress guided us to seats in the centre of the room. The director of the auction house hurried over and shook my hand. ‘A pleasure to meet you, madam. We shall do our best with your work.’

  Mr Cherriot raised a hand to us from his position near the front.

  There were several lots before mine, which was just as well, as the process was conducted with such speed it took me a while to follow. The auctioneer was at the podium. ‘And now,’ he said, as his assistant brought in an easel, set it under the angled lights and uncovered my piece, ‘we come to a self-portrait by the English-born South African artist, Frances McDonald, rendered in charcoal, ash and blood.’

  The audience murmured. The auctioneer inclined his head.

  ‘A unique treatment, indeed. This Fire Portrait was created in the aftermath of a conflagration that took place in the artist’s rural studio in 1941. Apart from the advance viewing this past week, it has never been seen in public and the artist stipulates the work should be made available for public display after it has been bought. Ladies and gentlemen, shall we start at two hundred?’

  ‘Here we go,’ Major Jefferson whispered in my ear.

  I stared at my face. The slash from the cracked mirror. The blood. The defiant, despairing eyes.

  Do these brave, war-weary Londoners understand? Do they see themselves? Do they see others?

  I sensed Jefferson’s excitement next to me and concentrated on the podium.

  ‘Five hundred, I have. Five fifty? Thank you, sir, on the left. Six hundred. Seven hundred, thank you, at the front. Eight hundred. Am I bid one thousand pounds?’

  It continued.

  And finally, when I could hardly bear the tension: ‘Two thousand going once, twice, going to Mr Cherriot of Cherriot Gallery. Congratulations, sir.’

  Two thousand pounds!

  With two thousand pounds I can secure what I lost.

  The room burst into applause. Major Jefferson hugged me.

  Mr Cherriot turned to me and clasped his hands together in salute.

  Random people came up and shook my hand and affirmed their congratulations. Several asked what my next work would be. A gallery owner from New York said he’d seen my pieces there and to alert him when I produced fresh portraiture. The curator of a private collection asked for preferential notice of upcoming Cape watercolour landscapes, of the peninsula in particular.

  As the crowd began to disperse, I noticed an elderly, white-haired man on the fringe.

  He smiled and raised a pair of bushy eyebrows.

  ‘Mr Cadwaller!’ I rushed across and embraced him. He is smaller than I remember.

  ‘You’ve outdone yourself, my dear.’ He patted himself down once I let him go. ‘Our early work was merely the curtain raiser. This,’ he motioned towards the Fire Portrait, where Mr Cherriott was holding forth, ‘is your true vocation.’

  ‘I’m not sure, sir. It took too much from me.’

  ‘And so it should! Art does not come without a price, Frances!’

  I smiled. Always exhorting me, never giving ground.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘You have a story to tell.’ He fixed me with a penetrating stare. ‘And more work to do.’

  He turned away, raising a paint-stained hand.

  In celebration, the Jeffersons took me to tea at Fortnum’s and then dropped me at the National Gallery where I spent the afternoon in awe, staring at the works I’d only seen in reference books.

  I left London a few days later.

  The portfolio that carried the Fire Portrait was stuffed with fresh work. A London series. A city rebuilding, hauling itself out of the endless debris. I had only lost a studio …

  Meanwhile, the Fire Portrait is on prominent display in the Cherriot Gallery.

  Mr C, as he wishes to be called, says it’s already causing a stir. He hopes it will cause so much of a stir that buyers will purchase other work from him while they’re there. And who am I to object to such a pragmatic instinct? It’s close enough to my own.

  I called in to look at it one last time. Several people were gathered around.

  ‘Grim, I call it.’

  ‘But you don’t want to stop looking. Her eyes—’

  ‘Why the score down the face?’ asked a lady in a plaid skirt and matching beret.

  ‘She’s two people,’ murmured her companion after a moment. ‘She’s torn by what she’s seeing.’

  Chapter Sixty

  I’ve been away for seven weeks. Seventeen to twenty-one days each way by sea, and just over a week in London. It’s a long time for a boy to be without his mother. We won’t be apart again.

  I packed the night before we were due to arrive and set my alarm clock for dawn.

  I’ve learnt new colours in London. Not just shades of grey from the rubble but also nuances of red: the particular flush of sunset found in Turner’s work. How long did it take the great artist to get it right? Mr Cadwaller once goaded me by saying I could settle for being an educated admirer of the Masters if I didn’t want to put in the work on technique. Talent alone would not make up for laziness.

  And still he pushes me onwards …

  I stared at the southern horizon for the first pucker of Table Mountain.

  Brightening stained the
east.

  Other passengers were coming on deck, now. They’ve often seen me painting during the voyage and they smile and mostly leave me alone. I’ve handed out the last of my cards and directed the keenest to my exhibitions at Kirstenbosch.

  The city appeared below the mountain, intact, shining, blessedly untouched by war. Sun began to catch the gorge slashing the tabletop, exposing the relief in the cliff face. Two tugs curved into the bay to guide the ship to its moorings. I packed my easel and ran to my cabin to stow the pictures.

  Slowly, the great vessel eased towards the quay. My fellow passengers waved and shouted and craned down to spot their families. Ropes snaked over the side, the ship was tethered, the gangplank was lowered. Through the noise I heard paperboys shouting ‘Argus! Best paper in town!’ A whistle sounded from the mail ship train. Would travellers bound for the diamond and gold fields look up from their newspapers and idly wonder what went on in tiny, thirsty stops like Aloe Glen?

  ‘Fran!’ I heard Father shout. ‘Over here!’

  And then came my boy, flinging himself against my legs.

  ‘Hamish!’ I buried my face against his neck.

  ‘Look, Mama,’ he shouted, thrusting a picture at me. A boat. A stick figure waving. ‘That’s you, Mama!’

  ‘Of course it is, clever boy!’

  ‘Fran, my dear!’ Father still dresses formally with a hat and a pocket watch although the fashions for men have moved on.

  ‘Did you get my telegram, Father?’

  ‘Indeed, I did!’ Father’s eyes gleamed. ‘A triumph, my dear!’

  ‘Mr Field,’ I said over the telephone. ‘I’m now in a position to go ahead.’

  ‘Excellent. I will arrange a viewing. The owners are still in two minds, but I suspect if you confirmed your generous offer, they would succumb.’

  Fernwood Buttress stretched into a clear sky as I parked the car.

  The gate opened with a squeak. The thatched roof still looked like prickly icing, the shutters were still bottle green. And the garden? Abundant, branching proteas filled the borders. A mass of strappy clivias nudged up against the last of the summer’s daisies.

  The air left my chest and I sank onto the grass.

  ‘Mrs McDonald? Are you alright?’ A young woman bent over me. ‘Do you need help?’

  ‘No!’ I laughed and got to my feet. ‘Protea Rise always does this to me.’

  ‘Well,’ she looked at me curiously, ‘I suppose if you grew up here, perhaps it would. Do come in. I’m Madge Carter; my late father bought the house from your family. I live here with my husband.’

  The interior had been updated since Aunt’s time. A smarter kitchen. New panelling in the study.

  We sat in the lounge at either end of a large couch. Mrs Carter poured tea. I listened for the chatter of sugarbirds, the bustle of white-eyes.

  ‘I believe you wish to buy our house.’

  She spoke bluntly, but that suited me. If she didn’t want to sell, then there was no point in continuing. Despite the briefest glance before my momentary imbalance, I’d committed the garden to memory. I could paint its latest style even if there was no hope of a return.

  ‘I’ve been living upcountry, Mrs Carter, but recently returned to Cape Town.’

  ‘I know. And I’ve seen some of your artwork. Aloes. Proteas. They’re stunning.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘We inherited this house but, frankly, we’d prefer to be nearer the sea. We don’t have a family so we’re not bound to schools. We would,’ she looked straight at me, ‘be willing to consider the offer on one condition. Mr Field said it would be up to you.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘I want one of your paintings please, Mrs McDonald. Of the mountain, done from the garden.’

  ‘Fernwood Buttress from Protea Rise,’ I murmured.

  ‘I saw it at your exhibition. The one with the burnt paintings.’

  Everyone remembers the burnt paintings. They, and the Fire Portrait, may end up as my true legacy.

  ‘It will be my pleasure.’ I smiled and held out my hand to her. ‘I’ll paint a new one, reflecting the garden and the mountain as it is today. To make it personal for you.’

  And so it was done.

  ‘Are you sure, Fran?’ Father asked as we sat in his Newlands cottage. ‘You might marry again, you don’t want an old man cluttering up the place.’ He pulled out his watch and looked at it.

  ‘Protea Rise will be our home, Father. Yours and mine and Hamish’s. And I won’t marry again.’

  ‘Why ever not? You’re a catch, my dear!’

  I smiled and ruffled Hamish’s hair as he played on the rug with his interlocking blocks. Towers and bridges. Just like his father. I don’t know if Mark is alive. I may never know.

  I did one more thing while we were waiting to move in.

  I wrote to England with a query for the parish records office on births and deaths from the early 1900s. And I found that Mother had been pregnant with me at the time Gideon died. Somehow by intuition, imagination or a twist of science yet to be discovered, I peered out of my mother’s womb and saw my brother.

  A laughing boy, running before me through the garden.

  ‘Long ago,’ I said to Hamish some months later as we sat in the garden of Protea Rise, ‘I had a brother called Gideon. He went to heaven before I was born. But I saw him.’

  Hamish stared at me with coal-black eyes. ‘How, Mama?’

  I wrapped my arms about him and rocked him against me.

  ‘I dreamt of him. In a garden just like this.’

  ‘I want to stay here for ever, Mama.’

  Chapter Sixty-One

  The press are clamouring for interviews. The success of the Fire Portrait has spread across the ocean and arrived in Cape Town.

  I sat down in a private room at the Vineyard Hotel with the man from the Argus, ready to be honest – but not too honest. ‘No politics,’ warned Owen Jefferson when he set up the interview. You may see the portrait as a blow against bigotry, Frances, but local readers do not necessarily wish to embrace that.

  ‘Mrs McDonald, the art world – and, indeed, the general public – has been buzzing with reaction to your Fire Portrait, now on display in London. What does it say to the viewer, in your opinion?’

  Mr Cherriot says it shows ambiguity, Father sees alienation, I see the future … ‘I think it tells us to be aware of the price of suffering.’

  ‘Your suffering?’

  ‘Yes. And viewers may identify with that, in the wake of the war.’

  The reporter, Mr Arthur Conradie, waited for me to elaborate. I smiled. He consulted his notes. ‘There’s been speculation that the fire which destroyed your studio, and which led you to create this work, was set deliberately. Is there truth to such rumours?’

  There’s no doubt that the whiff of arson has fanned the flames – No, Frances! – of publicity.

  I composed myself.

  ‘The fire was a personal loss, without a doubt. But out of loss comes reinvention, don’t you think?’

  ‘Reinvention?’ Conradie looked sceptical. He’s older than the young thruster who covered my first exhibition. He’s after a scoop, a revelation that will lift this piece from the supplement pages and into the more lucrative realm of hard news. ‘In what sense, madam?’

  ‘I’d never contemplated portraiture, Mr Conradie. My speciality was botanical illustrations and landscapes.’ This was easier ground. ‘For most of my life I’ve drawn and painted the flora of the peninsula and the area around Aloe Glen, on the edge of the Karoo, where I lived for many years.’

  ‘So this event, this fire, was so dramatic it spurred you to a new genre?’

  ‘It did. In such circumstances, I would suggest that anyone – even yourself, sir – would be affected.’

  ‘Indeed. To what do you ascribe the popularity of the work, given that it is deeply disturbing?’

  I have prepared answers, but how do you describe in words what can only be felt? The woma
n in London was drawn to the eyes; her companion, to the sense of being torn. We see ourselves in that face. We see our actions.

  ‘I think people have responded to its authenticity. It shows a moment of private crisis.’

  Why? I asked myself when I decided to reveal the work.

  Why do I want my private agony visible for all to see?

  ‘And the score down the middle?’

  ‘I drew what was in front of me, sir. My reflection in a cracked mirror.’

  ‘Is there a political message inherent in the portrait, madam?’

  I hesitated. Careful …

  ‘I hope it encourages us – wherever we live, whatever our background – to be tolerant of others, especially if they’re different from us.’

  ‘Are you saying that you oppose the government’s policy of racial segregation?’

  ‘I’m an artist, sir. A fire led me to create a portrait that’s changed my life. It happened during a war that cost many lives. I hope we can learn to live alongside one another again.’

  The telephone call came a year later. I’d already received letters from Cora to say that more travellers were stopping off in Aloe Glen. They wanted to look at the Fire House, as they called it. And to see the aloes I’d painted. The Metzes had opened a bed-and-breakfast cottage on their farm to take advantage of the visitors, and Lena Fuller’s partner was guiding them up Aloe Peak.

  We’re grateful, Cora wrote. Even though you aren’t here, you still make a difference.

  ‘Is that Mrs Frances McDonald, the artist?’ The speaker had a strong accent, like the ladies in my literacy class years ago, before we worked on their pronunciation.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘I am the parliamentary secretary to Mr Wynand Louw. Mr Louw invites you to meet with him next Wednesday morning, madam. At 10 a.m., if that is convenient.’

  I sat back on my stool and placed my brush on my palette.