The Painter's Friend

by Howard Cunnell

  She’d given me no sign.

  I should be going, I said. Thanks for dinner.

  Thanks for the help, she said.

  Anytime.

  Red stood in the river up to her rusty flanks, barking with happiness. Jaws dripping water, bright teeth sharp, looming over the fleet of model boats at the water’s edge. Summer solstice. A black flag with a luminous skull and crossbones was raised over the island.

  More flags and banners flew from boats, from the trees, from the weir’s iron bridge. John Rose’s narrowboat showed a faded red ensign. Protest flags, black flags, golden flags like tall curved sails, flags embroidered or painted with words and symbols: anarchist signs, peace signs, rainbows, No Evictions, Save Our Boats.

  Gene had asked me to help him make a flag for Michael.

  Make it big, Gene said, and I did, working bare-chested through a hot afternoon, painting Michael’s face on a sheet in bold and large black lines. The lost boy’s banner flew below the skull and crossbones. Like something you see at the football. The kid even looked a bit like Maradona. Gene watching over me, his shadow falling on the work, becoming bigger as the sun moved. Finally had to ask him to move. Still feel the sunburn on my shoulders.

  All right? I’d said when it was finished.

  Gene gently put his hand on my already sore shoulder.

  Yes mate, he’d said. Lovely.

  Little kids, bloody and mutilated, with stuck-on beards and wooden swords edged with silver foil, ran laughing and yelling along the shoreline. Adam running with them, a laughing kid under each arm, another on the youth’s huge back.

  Smoke rose from cooking fires, blue smoke into blue. The island buzzing with talk, shouts, laughter, overlapping music and happy dogs.

  The slender bootlegger Tuppy Lawrence, dressed like a castaway in torn clothes, carried an open boat carved from styrofoam down to the shoreline. A lone plasticine figure aboard, mad-eyed, in rags, a kicked-over empty water barrel by his bare feet, surrounded by the bones and half-eaten bodies of ships’ officers, who lay dead among torn sashes and scraps of golden braid.

  Tuppy’s lifeboat was mounted on a styrofoam base, painted like a rough sea, crowded with the surfacing fins and wide open jaws of frenzied sharks. The boat and figure were glazed with sealant of some kind but which seemed flavoured with petrol. The warm summer air was thick with accelerant.

  Every kind of boat crowded the shore, dust rags and patches of faded denim for sails. Masts made from chopsticks, big kitchen matches, tree sprigs. There were cardboard barges, a couple of friendly tugs. Found materials, saved and salvaged. The fruits of expert mudlarking.

  Different boats fell into stormy shadows as Red splashed through the water. The dog huffed at the bloody castaway, her head like a huge triangular storm cloud passing over the lifeboat.

  Stella and Danny held aloft a ship of the line with matchstick-firing cannons.

  A cardboard trawler’s tinfoil hold brimmed with a catch, the fish made by multi-coloured match heads dusted with glitter. Figures painted yellow to make sou’westers pulling hard to raise another net.

  John Rose carried a large cruise ship or passenger liner to the water’s edge. The ship’s many windows were made from what may have been plastic film stock, or the glassine windows of unpaid bills. Crowded at the rails and looking out from the windows were many black figures, in hats and suits and best dresses. Toy soldiers John had disarmed and repainted as civilians, the costumes cut from coloured paper. The ship’s two funnels, made from plastic coffee cups salvaged from the river, were lined with nests of wire mesh packed with wood shavings and scraps of newspaper.

  Gene carried a red sailboat.

  How long had everybody been busy making their boats in secret?

  Two cops had been with us all day. Young and younger. Tall and short. The close-cut barnets. Wrap-around sunglasses. The thick-soled shoes. Making it clear. No body found. Case still open.

  Shadowing Gene. Who was a fist. Closed and hard.

  Perseis wore a different wildflower crown, and I had a vision of her in the dark, candlelit barge, fixing dead flowers and grasses to rings of wire.

  Now there were long shadows on the ground. A big sky patterned with the last of the sun’s fiery light.

  We sat under paper lanterns while John showed a pieced-together home movie on a rigged-up screen made by a sheet between two trees.

  A young, black-haired woman in a flowered headscarf at the wheel of a moving boat that looked familiar until I realized it was my boat, before the superstructure of the wheelhouse was added. The woman – Mrs Whitehead? – waved at the person holding the camera – John or Vesna, it had to be – before the barge chugged past and the woman and her flowery headscarf slowly vanished, the silver river the last image to disappear, and then that section of film ended.

  Now here came Vesna unrestored, sorry-looking were it not for the boat’s jaunty progress on the water, and her smart ensign. A younger John at the wheel in a blue cap and startlingly bright red jumper, grinning like a settler in a new world, haloed by a dense cloud of diesel exhaust.

  Something about the film used – was it Technicolor? – the bright sheet it was projected onto or the lantern light we watched it in, sharpened all the primary colours, so that John in his red sweater seemed a vital presence, a world-builder.

  Thirty seconds of Perseis holding a baby, Michael, and sitting on the bench seat of a dinghy next to a smiling blonde woman I knew to be Vesna. Perseis softer, in a T-shirt and denim shorts, her dark hair not cropped down but falling past her shoulders. Both women blushed with sunshine, Michael grabbing at the spangles of light dancing on the water surrounding the boat, his little hand opening and closing.

  Then Michael with chubby legs, launching a sailboat onto the water, the fingers of a big disembodied hand, Gene’s hand, holding the child safe at the water’s edge.

  The shadows or outlines of islanders passed in front and behind the sheet that sometimes lifted or otherwise moved on the summer breeze, these present images joining with footage of Michael and Danny (‘Hey, that’s me!’) playing in the fractured light of a clearing in the forest.

  And then Gene’s image suddenly, looking so completely changed I thought at first it might be somebody I didn’t know, who looked a bit like Gene but whose face was smooth, whose large clear eyes were radiant with happiness and belonging, and whose head was untouched by the shroud of grey that covered it now. Gene was black-haired in this incarnation, like Michael, curly heads both, and you could see how strongly the boy took after his dad. Wiry, big-eyed. Sitting either side of Perseis, who laughed and made a face, crossing her eyes and blowing her cheeks out, then laughed again and tucked a long strand of her hair back behind her ear. The family all holding gold ice-cream wafers.

  A woman, Perseis, cried out.

  Gene’s voice calling from the darkness:

  Why don’t you turn that fucking thing off, John?

  The film stopped, the sheet becoming blank, and I could hear the sound of a motorboat, quiet and then loud, moving fast. Both men were staring at the empty space where their younger selves, and the ghosts of the people they had loved the most, had moved again in the sunshine of the past. Stella was holding Perseis and talking to her.

  John Rose said something to Gene I couldn’t hear, and Gene nodded, at least I think he did, and then he looked at the river, and moved towards the rising noise of an outboard engine.

  Three figures in the boat speeding across the river towards us. Bright wake on the darkening water. Kaplan, at the wheel, in a black shirt and a windbreaker, the material shiny like a heat blanket, the tall, red-haired girl, and sitting close to the girl Anthony Waters, also in black. All wearing sunglasses against the wind and spray.

  When Waters led the girl onto the island there was no sign of Alex Kaplan.

  The air was thick with heat and unburned fuel. The longest day finally turned to evening.

  Poor Michael. A girl you’d make wild promises to you wo
uldn’t be able to keep. She was taller than any of the people who were staring at her. Pale face pinned with thousands of freckles. The redness of her hair under a black bandeau fire behind a screen. She’d never be able to go anywhere without being noticed, but for two years nobody had remembered seeing her with Michael on the day he died.

  The tall cop raised his phone to take a picture of her.

  Angry looks thrown his way. A few shouts. Waters made a movement towards the cop that was so slight I almost didn’t see it.

  The cop’s partner said something from behind his hand, and the tall cop made a face and put his phone away. The short cop said something else, lifted his head towards Gene, and the tall cop nodded.

  I hadn’t seen where Waters came from and when he stepped away he disappeared from view, but I knew he was there. Knew he was watching as Gene, pulling Perseis by the hand, moved towards the girl. Hot breeze making the flags snap, and ruffling the fur of dogs.

  Gene and the girl met each other and the girl reached for Gene’s hands. Gene’s death-white face tightened even more. The girl had her head bowed. Perseis looking at them both, her hands wringing out the golden cord. Gene and the girl held each other for a long time. I could hear the girl talking but not what she said. Gene swayed in the almost purple light.

  John Rose was still standing in front of the white sheet, his form made dark, the sheet bordered by the leaves of the trees it had been roped between, a composition of man and sheet and green leaves. Not sure the old man had moved since Gene had spoken roughly to him.

  Perseis made a noise like a growl. Waters appeared. Stood close behind her.

  The girl put her red head against Gene’s chest. They held each other. Finally Gene let the girl go. Said something to her I couldn’t hear. She nodded. Wiped her face. Perseis stepped towards him and touched his sleeve. Gene pushed her hand away without looking at her.

  Oh Gene, she cried.

  Call the fucking divers, Steve! Gene shouted at the cops.

  Perseis still pulling at his sleeve.

  Told you! Gene shouted. Told everybody!

  The tall cop took his hands out of his pockets, said something I couldn’t hear. Pointed upwards, then rubbed his thumb and forefingers together, shook his head.

  Fuck excuses, Steve, Gene said. Just get them in the water.

  Perseis began to fall. Waters materialized once more. Caught her. Held her up. Made her look at him. Smiled. Pushed a non-existent curl of hair behind her ear.

  Gene let him.

  You were right, I heard her say.

  She said it again, but I didn’t know which of the two men she was talking to.

  Waters put his arm around her and led her away.

  When Waters sat down beside me much later, he was holding a half-empty bottle of red wine.

  Drinking from a paper cup held inside another cup. Something different about him. The wine he’d drunk, or maybe it was just that I was looking at him more closely. There were two new security cameras in his shop, and two more on the top of the fence that surrounded the boatyard. The camera casings were a matt naval grey.

  Sandy hair damped down and lightly scented with something. The skin of his face was tight and so pink you might think he’d shaved twice. Changed his clothes. Short sleeve white shirt, biscuit-coloured slacks.

  What are you, I said, an ex-cop?

  Waters shrugged, drank some wine.

  I was a soldier, he said. Then I went to work for Mr Kaplan, for whom I perform many duties. As you have seen.

  Do you remember Brady Millar? I said.

  A small smile.

  Welterweight, he said. A very dangerous fighter. When active. A man with an education. Stood out.

  You wouldn’t know where he is?

  Waters looked at me like he wanted to kick me down a flight of stairs. Colour flooded his face.

  Why on earth would I know that?

  You’re Mr Kaplan’s security man.

  Was, and the Millar case was before my time.

  All right, I said, but you must have an idea.

  Waters put his cup of wine on the ground.

  Looked at him. Light scar tissue around the eyes. Economy of movement. Skin of his hands smooth the way fighters’ hands get sometimes.

  I know you’re Brady Millar, I said. I know that much. I just don’t know what you’re doing here.

  This time he laughed out loud. But he wouldn’t look at me.

  Strange that he’d keep you around, I said. Must be something in it, but it makes no difference to me.

  You don’t know what you’re talking about, he said.

  Waters looked at me. No expression. Hard thin mouth full and violet with wine.

  Mr Godden, Waters said finally, what you don’t know about me and Mr Kaplan and this island would take too much explaining.

  Try me, I said.

  Mr Kaplan’s changes will make this a better place.

  Not for the people who are already here, I said. They can’t afford to stay.

  Some can, he said. People tell me things they wouldn’t tell a stranger.

  Why are you here, I said, really? Kaplan pay you off? What have you got on him?

  Waters swirled the wine in the plastic cup. When he looked up he was smiling. Almost didn’t recognize him.

  I am persuaded to believe, he said at last, that my future is here.

  The ex-soldier, maybe former boxer, stood straight up without any apparent effort. Still holding the wine bottle and the two plastic cups, he walked back towards the dark lines of boats.

  Long ago, and as strong and wild as I was ever going to get, I met a rich, twenty-year-old Greek girl, who told me straight out that she’d sleep with me because it would piss off her dad. Flavia was looking for something I couldn’t give her, even if she knew what it was. She was playing pool badly in a pub she shouldn’t have been in, wearing a sheer silver dress with thin strips crossing the hollows of her collarbone, her anger a force field. The dress moving on her and with her.

  Thick dirty-blonde hair chopped off at the neck. Face an oval, cheekbones you could cut a rope with. Straight nose and full lips. Dark eyes that told a different, sadder story about herself than any she told me.

  Pub closed so taxi back to her place. Something Lodge. Modernist. Decorative concrete screens. We fell in the door. If I’d been her dad that’s as far as I’d ever get, but he offered me a glass of pomegranate-coloured liquor I didn’t recognize, and asked me what else I did when Flavia told him I was a painter.

  For money, he said.

  The bottle sat on a table that shone with inlaid coloured stones. Both of them looked like they would cost too much.

  We’re going up to my room, Flavia said.

  Have you eaten? her father said. Darling?

  Naked she was too slim, enough to worry me.

  She did what she liked, she said what she liked. I was hooked. Crazy loud in bed, but not for my benefit. Later Adrian, her father, bought one of the full-length paintings I made of her.

  Flavia showed me pictures of her dad’s house on a Greek island. I forget the name. White house, red tiles, blue sea. Said we’d go there. We never did. Where I got the idea though. Get there some day. Place like that.

  I hadn’t thought about her in years. Flavia.

  Tuppy was dead drunk, flat out near the water like a sailor washed ashore. Red crept near to him but I called her away.

  Adam, his face painted like one of his dogs, sat down beside me.

  The girl told the police everything, he said. What she came home for. Said she saw Michael go into the river and never come out. That Steve cop said has Gene threatened you? She said Mr Vincent hasn’t threatened me, no.

  Poor Gene, I said.

  You know how it is, the big youth said, looking at me with painted whiskers on his face and a black nose, the paint hiding his scars.

  Gene, in his own world, waded into the water holding a burning torch high above his head. Brought the torch down and set the
red sailboat on fire. Released it flaming onto the water, where air on the river filled the pure white sail. The feathery summer wind made little ridges and pleats on the water. You could see these in the light made by the waterborne candles, so that the impression was of light being thrown on soft turbulence. The candlelit water dirty brown.

  The red sailboat drifted into a cardboard barge and it went up in flames. Another boat, a man-of-war, caught fire. Up to his waist in the river, Gene watched the boats burn, the reflection of the flames dancing on his pale, stricken face, the flames themselves visible on the surface of the water and in Gene’s black eyes.

  Small, quick fires. Torched fragments carried up into the night sky in bursting flakes of red and gold. The smell of burning paper, wood, petrol. The boats that passed through the fires unharmed were lucky, or better built. Though the funnels smoked, John’s liner remained somehow intact, moving with what seemed secret purpose towards midriver, out of my sight.

  I thought of ships, of armies, hanging on.

  There’s a blessed porpoise in the river, John Rose said in the morning.

  No sign of the coffee I was dying for.

  Slept in his party clothes. Lilac-coloured open-neck shirt, with a violet neckerchief, white cord trousers and blue and white deck shoes. Everything not dirty and not clean. The outfit looked different in the morning, like he’d found and put on half-remembered clothes from the dressing-up box of somebody else’s past.

  Stale whisky on his breath. Ashy skin. Dirty-white crust at the corners of his mouth and his yellow eyes.

  Looking a bit doolally.

  You all right, John?

  No answer. Gazing upstream, somewhere beyond the light blossoming in mysterious sequence on the water.

  Vertical flags were shrouds hidden in the trees. The still air flavoured with dead fires, the made fleet vanished. A single wine bottle moving on the tide at the river’s edge. The reed grass near the towpath was beaten down, burned-looking, lifeless.