The Painter's Friend

by Howard Cunnell

  Slowly passed my hand over the hull of Gene’s boat.

  Must have taken a while.

  Me and Michael started her, he said. Brought her up the river when she wasn’t much more than a wreck. Do her up, sell her, that was the plan.

  Then when we lost him, I’d work on her for Perseis. You heard her. Been together since we was seventeen, he said. Still thought I could have killed Mike.

  You all right? I said.

  Gene looked at me the way he had the first time we’d met. After the cops had let him go for the umpteenth time. Like he had no use for me and never would. A stranger passing through his world.

  Course I’m not all right, Gene said. What do you think? Fucking cursed. Fucking start again. Couldn’t go before. Look like I was running away.

  Any news from the divers?

  You seen any divers? he said. Cos I fucking haven’t.

  I had seen police launches on the river, but no divers.

  I looked up at the boat.

  Need an engine, I said.

  Working on it.

  Gene turned and ducked back under the poles and looked up at his boat.

  Shouldn’t be using a belt sander, he said. Makes the hull too flat, but you gotta use the tools you have.

  Gene blew on the hull, raising a cloud of dust. Rubbed the spot with his sweatshirted elbow. Pulled his handkerchief back up over and his mouth and nose.

  Looked down at me, the cloth covering his face. Raised the belt sander in a salute and turned to his work. The raw whine of the sander started up as we left the hangar.

  Cost money, Adam said as we walked back.

  What does? I said.

  We should talk to John, he said.

  Adam was right. The supplies I needed would cost. More than I had certainly. But the old man didn’t have any money to spare, far as I knew.

  Your goldfinches, Adam said.

  What about them?

  You think they just happen to come back where they do, every year?

  Didn’t know the first thing about goldfinches or where they came from.

  John buys this special seed, Adam said. Niger seed. The goldfinches love it. Been putting it down for years. That’s why they come back to that tree, right by John’s boat.

  Does Gene know that Anthony Waters is Brady Millar?

  Who’s Brady Millar when he’s at home? Adam said.

  I told him.

  Are you sure?

  You think I should tell Gene?

  Does it make any difference? Adam said.

  Brady Millar was a fighter, I said.

  Right, Adam said. I see what you’re saying.

  You think I should talk to him?

  I’m gonna think about it, the giant youth said.

  We were nearly home when the explosions started. Red began trembling and barking. Adam scooped her up and cradled her, the dog wild-eyed and panting heavily at each clattering blast. Fireworks bloomed like bursting shells in the sky above the moorings.

  Don’t worry sweetheart, I said to the dog in the giant’s arms, it’s just noise.

  I could make out Alex Kaplan on his cultured lawn, bathed in gunpowder smoke. The big rockets flew upwards, burning and falling over the river and close to the boats.

  Kaplan white-shirted, bent over the rockets with a lighted taper in his hand.

  Close as I was to the canvas, John Rose’s wool hat was a giant black field, shining where it was still wet. Have to move down the ladder to see his face. Get off the ladder entirely and move over to where Adam and Gene, wearing masks, were shaking paint cans and spraying, if I wanted to get an idea of how the whole thing was working out. Better to trust the small painting I’d made of the old man on Vesna. Put a numbered grid over this picture, and before sizing the big canvas I’d replicated the grid to scale. Stuck and re-stuck the little picture where I could always see it. To the canvas. The side of the ladder. Be working blind otherwise. I applied the black paint thickly and twisted the brush into the canvas to replicate the curl of the wool.

  We’d cut the wood for the giant stretchers, and worked the great sheets of canvas over the finished frames. Everything had to be done properly, but to this new scale. Paid particular attention to the detail of the corner folds, which on frames this size involved a lot of material. Everything was a two- or three-person job.

  The massive, awkward to handle canvasses were stacked up against the hangar’s wall.

  Took huge amounts of rabbit skin glue to size the canvasses, but it was the fumes from the spray paint that made me risk working with the big doors open.

  Come on Dan, I said. Fresh air time.

  Oh man, the boy said.

  Now, son.

  Danny wore a bandana over his nose and mouth like the men. All day Goldie and the other kids had been running in and out to see him, bringing with them little artworks they had made: colourings, plasticine flowers, dogs and boats made from shiny foil, carved polystyrene horses with pink felt-tip manes.

  Put them in the trees, I said.

  Where? Goldie said.

  By Michael’s stones, Danny said.

  Working from a double-platformed trestle tower, the boy was helping Adam and Gene paint a big mural of the island on hardwood panels.

  Came slowly down the ladder. Lowered his bandana and looked at me from the platform.

  Oh man, he said again. What about Adam? And Gene?

  Gene coughed into his bandana, his face behind the material making broken shapes.

  Go on son, he said once he’d finished.

  The first thing I’d heard Gene say all day.

  Danny sighed and held up his arms.

  Lift me, the boy said.

  Taking an arm each Adam and Gene lifted him over the side of the trestle tower and then lowered him until his boots were level with my face.

  Now, I said, and caught the boy when the men dropped him. A heavy weight.

  Red was waiting in the sun. She wouldn’t come into the painting room, but stayed outside, patrolling the fence line, or sunning herself in the yard that was overgrown with dandelions and the long spikes of flowering hollyhocks tall as the boy. The vertical line disclosed.

  Eyes shut, Danny walked on wobbly legs, his hands to his head.

  Ooohhhh, he said.

  Danny, I said. Danny! You all right?

  The boy opened his eyes.

  Ha! Fooled you, he said, and ran away with the dog.

  I scratched at the dried paint on my arms and under my fingernails, smoked a roll-up and watched Danny and Red chase after wobbling butterflies and fat bees in the shimmering sunshine. Red let the boy hold her and push his face into her warm fur. In the middle of the game the boy suddenly became serious and rushed back to the hangar, pulling the bandana back up over his face. A boy with a cause. Red chased him to the doorway but no further. She came to me, walking slowly and looking very serious and responsible. Always the sound of water. In the direction of the river the low light between the dark trees was a radiant silver. I gave the dog a piece of cold sausage from my pocket. She smacked her jaws.

  Let me know if you hear anybody coming, I said.

  Red lay down next to the water bowl with her head between her front paws, looking towards the shining treeline.

  Started to go inside and then came back out and gave Red another piece of sausage. Leaned down and kissed her on the nose.

  You’re a good girl, I said. Yes you are.

  Everybody gave what they could or what they wanted to, John had said when he gave me the cash.

  There won’t be any more.

  Gene and I had brought the materials upstream by small tender on an afternoon so clear the arched bridge of Portland stone behind us was reflected in the sky.

  The wind made briefly expanding patterns on the surface of the river. Unnameable shapes that quickly disappeared to be replaced by others. The boat low in the water, laden with art materials: canvas, timber for stretchers, plywood, tubs of size, brushes and paints – acrylic
s and canisters of spray paint – fixative, cable ties, boxes of nails, all of it wrapped under tarpaulin like contraband. Gene tied up at the boatyard jetty and we made several trips to the hangar to unload the stuff.

  I held on to the ladder tight with one hand, pressing my knees into it, with my free hand dipping the big decorator brush into the tray of paint balanced on the rung – a mix of red, yellow and brown to make the sandstone colour of his skin – and applied paint to John’s huge painted likeness. It was like painting the side of a mountain.

  There’s a tradition of English painting in which the portrait of the subject is framed or surrounded by a series of smaller pictures showing scenes from the subject’s life. Victories and defeats. Births and deaths. I’d seen this kind of work in country shows and fairs, the sides of wooden caravans, the painted backdrop of the boxing booth, and in fact on championship belts splashed with the blood of both winner and loser. I’d seen it on painted flatware and scrimshawed ivory, on the banners of trade unions raised high above the stones and fire of demonstration.

  I was painting John Rose and the others with this in mind. Deciding on scenes by the stories they had told me. Around the big portrait the old man’s medallions included a picture of him on the deck of a burning merchant ship, sharks in the water, another dancing with Vesna at the Caribbean club after the war. Holding Nancy his infant daughter. Standing alone and ramrod straight by the painted barge.

  Vesna would have liked to have somebody make her picture, John said when I went to make the study for the big painting.

  I don’t mean she was vain, he said. Just it would have tickled her. Sorry if I moved.

  I was very careful with the small preparatory paintings or studies, protecting them with scavenged bubble wrap and placing them in cardboard pockets I’d made when I was not using them. In a notebook I dated all the studies and my progress on each big canvas.

  Walking with Red through the forest so late at night it was almost morning, my head would be full of energy and my body dead tired. I’d fall back into my bunk without washing the paint from my hands and face so that in drying the paint made my skin tighten.

  Not going to stop. I’d place paintings on every surface I could find, hang them in the trees, paint directly onto the trees, float pictures on rafts down the river, make the rafts themselves works of art. Not just paintings but art works of all kinds. More nature sculptures, like Michael’s cairn, and sculptures made from materials found and scavenged from the island.

  The painted island would become known all over the world, and because of this it would be protected. The art made permanent. The paintings would not be for sale.

  Evelyn Crow would not be able to make the art disappear. Nor anybody like him.

  Then I would hear the goldfinches singing and Red would be awake and looking at me, mouth slightly open. A kind of still, silent panting. Keeping vigil or waiting to be fed.

  The spray paint fumes were really getting to me.

  I gave John Rose young eyes. Restored the crumbling irises to strong rings. Added silver to faded grey. I guessed John had contributed the lion’s share of the money I was to spend on supplies. The old man wouldn’t say, of course. John would want me to believe that the art project was well supported.

  I was so short of money I was fanatical in making sure I got receipts for all of the materials so that I could account for everything. If John was surprised to see each penny justified he didn’t show it.

  Don’t make this about Adam and the camp, John had said. People paid their money for you to represent them in this fight, not a bunch of damn squatters.

  When did you leave the navy?

  John had covered the floor of his boat with a tarpaulin sheet.

  I had to pack in the merchant ships, John said, once I was married and the baby came. Vesna would not stand for me gallivanting around from port to port.

  The old man smiled to himself. Ran a finger along the long-gone moustache. We were sharp for shore leave, he said, nodding at the photo of the two young men with their arms around each other’s shoulders. Me and Billy there. Had a man in Hong Kong make us three suits at a time. I must say we cut a dash.

  Why’d you go to sea in the first place? I said.

  What’s that? Take that blessed thing out of your mouth.

  The paintbrush, he meant.

  What made you go to sea?

  Ever since I was a little chap I wanted to travel the world. Who knows the world better than the British Merchant Navy? Java. Rangoon. The Indian Ocean and the Pacific. The China seas. I have travelled up the Nile, he said. Walked in the streets of Constantinople and Timbuktu. Seen flying fish at first light. Wept at the Gate of No Return.

  Must have been tough, I said. Leaving all that. Missed the sea.

  Stay outside, he called to Red, who was peering in at us from the open cabin door, her face and ears a configuration of triangles.

  I loved Vesna, John had said. How much longer are you going to be?

  Come and look Terry, Danny called out from the other side of the hangar.

  Carrying the paint tray I came slowly down, the wood handle of the paintbrush between my teeth. Descending past John’s giant face. Rinsed out my brush with cold water and left it on the big draining board of the Belfast sink. Crossed the big space passing the finished and unfinished pictures that were wrapped and stacked against the wall. Like being on site and in the studio at the same time.

  I looked back at John’s portrait.

  What do you think? Danny said.

  The mural was being painted on three large plywood boards.

  Danny had drawn the original picture, crayoning and felt-tipping in the bright colours on a piece of card. I’d replicated Danny’s picture on the boards, just the line work, using the grid system again, writing in the names of the colours to be added.

  Three of the sections were finished, strong and clear like new graffiti seen from a train window. The teardrop-shaped island was painted a vibrant green, the river blue, with the recognizable figures of John, Stella and Danny, Gene, Perseis and others waving and smiling from bright decorated barges. Adam and dogs in the camp. A porpoise arching through the water. The dogs Red and Choo-Choo on the foreshore. Even the rose-pink bridge.

  The boards, though big, were individually portable, and the whole mural could be assembled or disassembled. Gene made eyelets in the corners of each board so that we could put cable ties through and lash them.

  Gene and Adam put down their spray cans. Both pulled down their bandanas. Like Danny their faces were half clean and half sprayed with multi-coloured paint.

  Danny had begged to be allowed to use the spray paints.

  Can you help him? I’d asked Adam.

  I’ll help the kid, Gene said.

  I was amazed to see Gene’s strong outlines, his confident use of colour.

  Put up enough tags in my time, he said when I asked him.

  I didn’t know that, I said.

  You never asked, he said, rattling a can.

  You tell him about Millar? I’d asked Adam.

  She’s better off with him, Adam said.

  Gene tell you that? I’d said.

  Adam had nodded.

  You think Gene will go after him?

  Gene won’t hurt Perseis, Adam had said. But his heart’s broken, so who knows?

  In the painting a dark-haired Michael sailed a dinghy on the river. Gene passed his fingers over the figures of Perseis and Michael without touching them.

  Danny looked at Gene, his decorated face expressionless, and nodded.

  How long before it’s finished? I said.

  We stood in front of the vast panels of bright colour.

  Tomorrow, next day, latest, Adam said.

  Gene brought the little flat-bottomed Zodiac around, tying off at a buoy made from an old green jerry can and a weighted line. The tender moving gently on the riffling current, too small-looking for the job. Gene waded ashore.

  Pointed the camera at h
im without turning it on.

  Gene a dark figure all in black, heavy boots. Adam a silent giant by his side.

  Waiting for the full moon to rise.

  For the river to become a lighted highway. Bright enough to see.

  Sack full of ropes, bungee cords and thick black cable ties. Video camera. No lights. We wore dark clothes and while we were waiting, Gene and I muddied our faces.

  My secret wish was for swans flying across the swollen moon as we ferried the paintings downriver. For the paintings to be suddenly everywhere in the morning.

  You still got that video camera? I’d asked John.

  What camera?

  The old man was using a Stanley knife to cut the plastic ties on a box of protest leaflets.

  Gone to beg for some of his life-giving brew. Remembered the home movies he’d shown at Michael’s celebration. Tired and so stiff I could hardly stand, but my head fizzed with ideas, and I hadn’t slept in days.

  Don’t come in, John had said, passing me a brimming cup.

  Red licked at the wet paint on my leg.

  Knock it off, Red, I said.

  The camera you used to make all your films, I’d said through the narrow opening. And I’ll need to borrow the Zodiac.

  I could even show John’s films with the new footage I was planning to shoot. Make it all the same film.

  The old man disappeared inside with the leaflets. Was gone long enough for the coffee to have cooled if I hadn’t gulped it down at once.

  These are mine, John said, handing me a bag with the heavy camera and its housing inside.

  The knife blade he’d left on the little sill was free of rust and gleaming.

  The Zodiac key was on a stretchable lanyard with a carabiner at the other end, and I attached the clip to my belt loop and stuffed the key and lanyard in my pocket.

  Interval of John coughing and me pretending not to notice. Blood on his cheek.

  Are you listening? John had said.

  There’s one other thing, I’d said.

  In the hangar I’d wrapped the mural panels and three of the massive paintings in sacking and tarpaulin, and tied them with rope. Painted numbers on them so I’d know which was which. The huge pictures were stacked up against a couple of ash trees. Another stack of paintings were wrapped up in the hangar. For the weir and the boatyard fence.