The Muse (5 page)

‘Where are you running off to?'

‘To see Miss Quick. She's – forgotten her umbrella.'

‘We were supposed to be having a meeting.' He turned to where Lawrie was now sitting again, the painting on his knees, hastily covered in the brown paper. ‘And who's this?'

‘Mr Scott has a painting,' I said.

‘I can see that. Isn't this all rather a flurry for eight fifteen in the morning? Where's Miss Rudge?'

‘I'm on the early shift, Mr Reede. Mr Scott came today because he was hoping someone would take a look at his painting. It was his mother's – her favourite . . .' I trailed off, desperate to follow Quick and see if she was all right.

Reede removed his wet overcoat with slow deliberation, as if I had placed the burden of the world on his shoulders. He was a tall, broad man and he filled the space with his fine tailoring and thatch of white hair, his woody aftershave. ‘Have you made an appointment?' he asked Lawrie, his small blue eyes glinting with impatience.

‘No, sir.'

‘We're not a
drop-­in
centre, you know. This isn't really how it's done.'

Lawrie stiffened, the brown paper rustling over his painting. ‘I know that.'

‘Well, perhaps you don't. Have Miss Bastien make an appointment for you some time next week. I have no time today.' He turned to look back through the door where Quick had fled. ‘Why the hell did Marjorie just run off like that?' he said. I'd never seen Reede look worried before. As he turned back, Lawrie stood up, half the brown paper falling to the floor. Reede stopped in his tracks, his gaze on the revealed half of the painting, the golden lion.

‘Is that yours?' he asked Lawrie.

Lawrie lowered his eyes and gathered up the paper in his hands. ‘Yes,' he said defensively. ‘Well – my mother's. Now it's mine.' Reede stepped towards it, but Lawrie moved away, putting his hand out. ‘Hold on. You said you didn't have time. You said next week. Although by then,' he added, ‘I may have taken it elsewhere.'

‘Ah,' said Reede. He put his hands up. ‘I just want to take a closer look. Please,' he added, which seemed to cost him a great effort.

‘Why? A minute ago you couldn't give a damn.'

Reede laughed; a twitchy joviality. ‘Look, old chap, I'm sorry if I was blunt. We get a damned lot of ­people coming in here with Auntie Edna's heirlooms or something they bought for three bob off a bloke in Brick Lane, and you get a bit sick of it. But what you've got there looks interesting. If you let me take a look, I might be able to tell you why.'

Lawrie hesitated, before placing the painting back on the counter. He unwrapped the rest of the paper. Reede stepped towards it, drinking in the image, his fingers hovering over the paint, the second girl's floating head, her snaking plait, the lion's passive stare. ‘My goodness,' he breathed. ‘Where did your mother get this?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Can you ask her?'

Lawrie glanced at me. ‘She's dead.'

‘Ah.' Reede hesitated. ‘So – have you any idea where she might have got it from?'

‘She bought most of her things from junk shops or flea markets, sometimes at auctions, but this one has been around since I was a little boy. It was always hanging on her wall, whatever house we moved to.'

‘Where was it hanging last?'

‘Her house in Surrey.'

‘Did she ever talk about it to you?'

‘Why would she do that?'

Reede gently picked up the painting and looked on the back. ‘No frame, just a hook,' he murmured. ‘Well,' he said, addressing Lawrie. ‘If she always had it hanging up, it might have had particular meaning to her.'

‘I think she just thought it was pretty,' Lawrie said.

‘Pretty is not the word I would use.'

‘What word
would
you use, sir?'

Reede blinked away Lawrie's tone. ‘On first impressions, “brave”. And provenance matters, Mr Scott, if you choose to exhibit things, or put things on the market. I assume that's why you brought it to us.'

‘So it's worth something?'

There was a pause. Reede breathed deeply, his eyes pinned to the picture. ‘Mr Scott, may I take you to my office so I can take a closer look at this?'

‘All right.'

‘Miss Bastien, bring us coffee.'

Reede picked up the painting and gestured for Lawrie to follow him. I watched them walk up the spiral staircase, Lawrie looking back over his shoulder at me, his eyes wide with excitement, giving me a thumbs up.

OUTSIDE, THE RAIN WAS BECOMING
a torrent. I scoured the square for Quick, but of course, by now, she had gone. With her rolled-­up umbrella in my hand like a lance, I ran along the left side of the square and turned up towards Piccadilly, blindly hoping I would see her. I took another right, unconsciously heading towards the tube station, and then I saw her, a block ahead. The traffic honked and screeched, and the statue of Eros loomed.

‘Quick!' I yelled. ‘Your umbrella!' Heads turned to look at me, but I didn't care. Quick hurried on, so I ran faster, reaching out to touch her arm. With lightning speed she pulled away from me and whirled round. Her expression seemed fixed on some distant point well beyond the bustling road, the tall and soot-­encrusted buildings, the colourful billboards, the pedestrians hopping desperately around the puddles. Then she focused on me, almost with relief. She was drenched, and though her face was sopping wet, I couldn't tell if it was rain or tears.

‘I forgot something,' she said. ‘At home – I've forgotten – I need to go back and get it.'

‘Here,' I said, ‘your umbrella. Let me call you a cab.'

She looked down at her umbrella, then up at me. ‘You're
soaking
, Odelle. Why on earth did you run out?'

‘Because – well, because
you
did. And look at you.' I put my hand on her wet sleeve and she stared at it momentarily. I was surprised by how thin her arm felt to touch.

‘Here.' She pulled the umbrella out of my hands and opened it above our heads. We stared at each other under the black canopy, the roar of rain bashing down upon its flimsy structure, ­people brushing us as they ran to and fro for cover. Her curls were matted to her head; her powder had washed off her face, I could see the true flesh of her skin – and strangely, without the make-­up, it looked more like a mask. She went as if to say something, but seemed to stop herself. ‘Jesus Christ,' she murmured, briefly closing her eyes. ‘It's a bloody monsoon.'

‘Shall I call you a cab?'

‘I'll get the tube. You don't have a cigarette, do you?'

‘No,' I said, disconcerted, for surely she knew by now I didn't smoke.

‘That man – how did he come to the Skelton?' she asked. ‘Do you know him? You seemed to know him.'

I looked down. Huge puddles were forming around our shoes. I thought of the coffee I was supposed to be making, how long I could be out here before I lost my job. ‘I only met him once before – at Cynth's wedding. He found me again today.'

‘
Found
you? That's fairly persistent behaviour. He's not – bothering you, is he?'

‘Not at all. He's fine,' I said, a touch defensive. Why was Quick talking about Lawrie, when she was the one acting strange?

‘All right.' She seemed to calm a bit. ‘Look, Odelle – I have to go. Tell him not to bother you with that painting.'

‘Mr Reede has already seen it.'

‘What?'

‘He came in shortly after you. Said that you and he had an early meeting. He had one look at it and took it to his office.'

She looked over my shoulder, in the direction of the Skelton. ‘What did Mr Reede say, when he saw it?'

‘He seemed . . . excited.'

Quick lowered her eyes, her expression closed. In that moment, she looked very old. She gripped my hand and squeezed it. ‘Thank you, Odelle – for my umbrella. You're a tribune, you really are. But take it, I'm going underground. Go back to the office.'

‘Quick, wait—­'

She thrust the umbrella into my hand, and turned down the steps of the station. Before I could even call again to her, Quick had disappeared.

 

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins
Publishers

....................................

January 1936

 

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins
Publishers

....................................

1

S
arah was unconscious, her face turned sideways, her artificial curls crushed on the pillow, the cuts on her bare legs covered in calamine smears. A soured scent of the night's last glass rose from her mouth. On the bedside table was an overfilled ashtray, a pile of detective novels, and her
Vogue
magazines, their corners curled. Her clothes were everywhere on the dusty floorboards, here, stockings like sloughed snakes, there, a blouse, flattened in the effort of escape. Her rouge had melted in its pot. In the corner of the room, a lizard flicked across the tiles like a mote upon the eye.

Olive stood at the door, the letter from the Slade School of Fine Art gripped in her hand. The letter was only two weeks old, but it had a handkerchief's flutter, the creases almost oiled from so much refolding. She walked over to her mother's bed and perched on the end to read it again, although she knew it off by heart.
It is our pleasure to invite you to undertake the Fine Art degree course . . . The tutors were highly impressed . . . rich imagination and novelty . . . continuing the rigorous yet progressive tradition of the school . . . we look forward to hearing from you within the next fortnight. Should your circumstances change, please inform us.

If she read it aloud, maybe Sarah would hear her through the fug, and that would be that; Olive would have to stick to her word, and go. Maybe a shock like this was best administered under the residual effects of a sleeping pill? When Olive had received the letter, back in London, she wanted to shout from the skyline what she'd gone and done. Her parents had had no idea – they didn't even know their daughter still painted, let alone that she'd applied to art school. But part of Olive's problem was that she had always been used to secrecy; it was where she was comfortable, the point from which she began to create. It was a pattern she was superstitious to break, and so here she was, in this village in the south of Spain.

As she gazed at her mother's sleeping form, she remembered showing her father a portrait she'd made of Sarah from art class at school. ‘Oh, Liv,' he'd said as her heart hammered, the expectation inching up her spine. ‘Give it as a present for your mother.'

That was all he'd said on the matter.
A present for your mother.

Her father always said that of course women could pick up a paintbrush and paint, but the fact was, they didn't make good
artists
. Olive had never quite worked out what the difference was. Since she was a little girl, playing in the corners of his gallery, she would overhear Harold discussing the issue with his clients, both men and women – and often the women would agree with him, preferring to put their money behind young men rather than anyone of their own sex. The artist as naturally male was such a widely held presupposition that Olive had come at times to believe in it herself. As a nineteen-­year-­old girl, she was on the underside; the dogged, plucky mascot of amateurship. But right now in Paris, Amrita Sher-­Gil, Méret Oppenheim and Gabriele Münter were all working – Olive had even seen their pieces with her own eyes. Were
they
not artists? Was the difference between being a workaday painter and being an artist simply other ­people believing in you, or spending twice as much money on your work?

She found it impossible to express to her parents why she'd applied, the portfolio she'd collated, the essay she'd written on background figures in Bellini. Despite all she'd absorbed about women's shortcomings in art, she'd gone and done it anyway. This was what she couldn't understand; where the urge had come from. And yet, even though an independent life was just within her reach, still she was sitting at the foot of her mother's bed.

Turning again to Sarah, she considered fetching her pastels. Once upon a time, her mother would let Olive parade in her furs, or her strings of pearls, or take her for eclairs at the Connaught, or to hear this violinist or that clever poet perform his work at the Musikverein – always friends of Sarah, and always, Olive had gradually realized as she grew up, in love with her. These days, no one knew what Sarah Schloss might say, or do. She resisted the doctors, and often the pills seemed pointless. Olive felt like she was nothing but a dreg, jetsam in her mother's wake. So she drew her, in secret, in ways that Sarah would probably never forgive.

THE LONG WINDOWS WERE AJAR,
and a breeze made the curtains dance. The dawn wind had lifted an impressive cloudscape from the mountains beyond Arazuelo, a duck-­egg sky striated gold and pink. The letter still in her hand, Olive tiptoed towards the balcony and saw blank fields spanning towards rugged foothills in the distance, patched with scrub and wild daisies, where kites circled and grasshoppers sawed in the empty melon fields, oxen dragging ploughs across the earth in preparation for later seeding.

Oblivious rabbits hopped across the orchard and far off in the hills goats were being herded, the bells on their necks clanking atonally and out of rhythm, a calming sound because it lacked any conscious performance. A hunter's gun rang out, and birds rose in chaos against the baroque Andalusian morning. Sarah did not stir, but the rabbits scattered, expert hiders, deserting the surface of the waiting earth. Olive closed the windows and the curtains dropped. Her mother probably hoped her long-­sought tranquillity was to be found here – but there was a wildness under the tolling convent bell, the chance of wolves in the mountains. The futile yaps of a dog in a barn would puncture every silence. And yet, since their arrival, Olive personally found the landscape and the house itself energizing, in a way that was unfamiliar and wholly unexpected. She had taken an old wood panel that she'd found in the outhouse at the end of the orchard, carrying it up to the attic as if it was contraband. She had treated it in readiness for paint; but it remained blank.

Her father strode into the room, his large foot skidding a
Vogue
under the bed. Olive jammed the letter in her pyjama pocket and spun round to face him. ‘How many?' he asked, pointing at the sleeping figure of his wife.

‘Don't know,' said Olive. ‘But more than normal, I think.'

‘
Sheiße
.' Harold only swore in German in moments of great stress or great freedom. He loomed over Sarah and lifted a stray strand of hair delicately off her face. It was a gesture from another time, and it made Olive squeamish.

‘Did you get your cigarettes?' she asked him.

‘Eh?'

‘Your
cigarettes
.' Last night, he'd mentioned needing to get cigarettes from Malaga and visiting an artist's studio – hoping to sniff out another Picasso, he'd said, laughing, as if lightning really did strike in the same place twice. Her father always seemed to slip out of the days like this – bored quickly, yet demanding an audience whenever he turned up again. They'd barely been here two days, and already he was off.

‘Oh,' he said. ‘Yes. They're in the car.'

Before he left his wife's room, Harold poured his beloved a glass of water and left it by her bedside, just beyond the orbit of her reach.

•

Downstairs, the shutters were still half-­closed and the minimal furniture was in shadow. The air had a tinge of camphor laced with old cigar smoke. The finca could not have been lived in for several years, Olive supposed. A large catacomb above the ground, each of its rooms reticent at her presence, long corridors furnished in colonial habits, dark hardwood cabinets empty of homely objects. It felt like everything was as it had been in the 1890s, and they were characters out of time, surrounded by the discarded props of a drawing-­room play.

The vague moisture in the air was already evaporating. Olive threw open the shutters and sunlight bleached the room, a day of exposure but no warmth. The view was an uncultivated slope, which led down to the high wrought-­iron fence and onwards, to the beginnings of the village road. She looked out; scraggy bushes and empty flower borders, three fruitless orange trees. Her father had said these mansions were always built outside the villages, near to well-­irrigated and lush earth, where in summer, he declared, they would enjoy olive groves and cherry blossom, flower gardens of
dama-­de-­noche
and jacaranda, fountains and leisure and happiness, happiness.

Olive still had on her winter pyjamas and stockings, and an Aran jumper. The flagstones were so cool, it felt as if rain had just fallen on their large smooth squares.
Just do it
, she thought
. Tell him you've got a place, and go.
If only it was easy to act on thoughts. If only it was easier to know what was the best thing to do.

In the pantry, she discovered a tin of coffee beans and an old but functioning grinder. It was all there was for breakfast, and she and her father decided to drink it on the veranda at the back of the house. Harold went to the room where the telephone was. He had chosen this finca as it was the only one hooked up to a generator, but it was a surprise they had a telephone, and Harold was very pleased.

He was murmuring in German, probably to one of his friends in Vienna. He sounded insistent, but he was too quiet for her to make out the words. When they'd been in London, and he'd had news of what was happening in his home city – the street fights, the hijacked prayer meetings – he would plunge into dark silences. As she ground the beans, Olive thought of her childhood Vienna, the old and the new, the Jewish and the Chris­tian, the educated and the curious, the psyche and the heart. When Harold said it was not safe for them to return, Olive could not quite take this in. In the circles they moved, the violence seemed so distant.

He'd finished his conversation and was sat on the veranda waiting for her, on a tatty green sofa someone had left out in the open air. Over his coat, he was wearing a long spindly scarf that Sarah had knitted, and he was frowning over his correspondence. He always had a knack of making sure that his post would be waiting for him, wherever they landed.

Olive lowered herself into a discarded rocking chair, hesitating for fear damp had weakened the glue, woodworm seeing to the joints. Her father lit a cigarette and placed his silver box on the flaking veranda floor. He sucked on the tobacco leaf, and Olive heard the satisfying crackle as his breath intensified the heat.

‘How long do you think we'll be here?' she asked, trying to sound casual.

He looked up from his letters. A thin line of smoke rose straight from the cigarette tip, no breeze down here to shift its journey. The column of ash accumulated, curving downwards and scattering onto the peeling boards. ‘Don't tell me you already want to leave.' He raised his dark brows. ‘Are you –' here, he sought the particularly English word – ‘
pining
? Is there someone we left behind in London?'

Olive stared listlessly at the January-­thin orchard, briefly wishing that there
was
some chinless Geoffrey, with a white stucco house in South Kensington and a job at the Foreign Office as an under-­secretary. But there was no one, and there never had been. She closed her eyes and could almost see the dull metal wink of imaginary cufflinks. ‘No. It's just – we're in the middle of nowhere.'

He laid the letter down and regarded her. ‘Livvi, what was I supposed to do? I couldn't leave you on your own. Your mother—­'

‘I could have been left on my own. Or with a friend.'

‘You always tell me you don't have any friends.'

‘There's – things I want to do.'

‘Like what?'

She touched her pyjama pocket. ‘Nothing. Nothing important.'

‘You never made much of London anyway.'

OLIVE DID NOT REPLY, FOR
her eye had been caught by two ­people standing in the orchard, waiting at the fountain that lay beyond the immediate ribbon of grass that surrounded the house. It was a man and a woman, and they made no effort to hide themselves. The woman was wearing a satchel against her body, and she seemed at one in this garden, the canes in the parched earth the only remnant of the tomatoes, aubergines and lettuces that must have thrived here once, when someone cared.

The man had both his hands stuffed in his pockets, his shoulders hunched, chin down, but the woman stared up at the muscular satyr in the fountain, poised with his empty canton. She closed her eyes, breathing in the air. Olive breathed too, the faint wafts of charcoal fire and fields of sage, the emptiness of this place, its sense of desolation. She wondered if there was a means to get that water flowing.

The ­couple began to approach the house, both of them with a pace as sure as the mountain goats, avoiding rabbit holes and minor rocks in their seemingly inexorable desire to approach. It jolted Olive, this confidence. She and her father watched them come near, their progress punctuated by the light snap of bracken beneath their feet.

The woman was younger than Olive had thought. Her eyes were dark, her satchel bulky and intriguing. She had a small nose and a little mouth and her skin was burnished like a nut. Her dress was plain black, with long sleeves that buttoned at the wrist. Her hair was also dark, thick and braided into a long plait, but as she turned to look at Harold, strands within it glinted redly in the morning sun.

The man had almost black hair, and was older, probably in his mid-­twenties. Olive wondered if they were married. She couldn't take her eyes off him. His face was that of a Tuscan noble, his body a sinewy featherweight boxer's. He was dressed in pressed blue trousers, and an open-­necked shirt like those Olive had seen on the men in the fields, although his was pristine and theirs were threadbare. His face was fine-­boned, his mouth had an agile facility. His eyes were dark brown, and they grazed Olive's body like a small electrical current. Were these two together? Olive was probably gawping, but she could not look away.