The Restoration Artist (11 page)

“The tide is coming in,” her voice said. Beyond the walls of the church the ocean sighed, the sandpipers called on the beach. When she turned again, she studied me with a serious expression, as if regarding a stranger.

“What is it?” I said.

“I wonder if I should have done that.”

“Are you regretting it?”

“No. No. But still.”

I said to her, “Would you pose for me again?”

She walked over to the door and opened it wider. Light entered, the smell of the ocean, the sound of the incoming tide.
When she spoke, her voice was flat. “Don’t have any illusions about who I am, Leo. Or what I can be.” She stepped out through the doorway. Holding her sandals she quickly crossed the sand, skipping past the puddles, lifting her skirt high on her thighs when her feet splashed the water up around her legs. On the other side she bent to slip her sandals on before turning to look back—like the woman in “Love and the Pilgrim.” But she did not stretch out her hand, and she was quickly gone.

I turned back to the painting. And there, as my eyes adjusted to the darker interior, the scent of Lucky Strike cigarettes hanging in the air touched some chord in me and I was plunged into another world.

T
HE PINK AND ROUNDED CURVE
of the woman’s breast was a few inches from my face. I was naked, so was she. We had not exchanged a word in the last hour. I hadn’t even seen much of her face, just her pink nipple and the curve of her breast rising and falling very slightly with her breathing. The overhead lights were bright, without shadows, and beneath her skin I could see the line of two bluish veins.

When I glanced down and to the left I noticed a slight sheen of perspiration in the space between her breasts, and below, her navel and the gentle swell of her belly. A fold of white sheet was draped over one of her thighs, and the contrast of pink skin and white cloth and her dark pubic hair drew my attention. I knew I shouldn’t look. All I could think about was that I must not get an erection because fifteen other people were staring at us intently.

The woman and I were arranged on a platform in a complicated
pose based on the figures in Rubens’s painting
The Union of Earth and Water
. The people peering at us so attentively were students in Don Jarvis’s life drawing class in the art school on Hamilton Street in Vancouver. Usually I would have been among them. But to earn a bit of extra income, I sometimes sat as a model in the portrait drawing sessions. Always clothed, though, and never practically entwined with a naked woman.

By avoiding all eye contact with the other students in the room, and by keeping my eyes on the far wall, and by not looking at the woman’s body, I managed to get through the next hour.

After the session was over, and we were dressed, she surprised me by asking if I wanted to go for a beer at the Alcazar, the pub two blocks away that was favoured by art students. Her name was Hollis and she was a painter. She had a thin nose and a wide expressive mouth framed by short untidy hair, and she was quite a few years older than me, at least in her mid-twenties. Her eyes were outlined with heavy mascara. She smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes and wore a leather jacket, like Marlon Brando’s in
The Wild One
, with metal studs and zippered pockets and a buckled waist.

I told her I painted landscapes. She gave me a look, half disbelieving, down her nose, raising her eyebrows. Her scrutiny made me uncomfortable. Her gestures were animated, quick, her bony fingers fluttering in the air, the numerous rings on her fingers sparkling, both wrists jangling with bracelets. She wore red lipstick, and she looked gypsy-like in the hazy light of the bar. When she asked whose work I liked and I mentioned Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth and Corot, she laughed and asked me what century I thought I was living in. I hadn’t heard
of any of the artists she talked about—de Kooning, Kline, Joan Mitchell. I was eighteen years old, living on my own for the first time, and I wanted to be an artist. She made me feel ignorant, inexperienced, out of my depth. And completely fascinated.

In those days, if people asked me about myself, my past, I usually made up a story about my parents dying in an automobile accident and being brought up by an aunt. But this time, when Holly asked, I told her the truth, that I had grown up in the Guild Home for Boys, up on 44th Avenue in Kerrisdale. Her manner changed then. She leaned across the table and touched my cheek and told me I had sad-poet eyes. Later in life, when I was a little older, I understood that change, and how my story would affect women, and sometimes I took advantage of it.

Holly and I talked a long time in the bar. She switched from beer to bourbon. And then she took me to her loft above a Japanese grocery store on Powell Street. When she opened the door and flipped the light switch the whole room lit up and the colour hit me like a physical blow. An enormous abstract painting leaned against the opposite wall. Thick yellows bright as exotic flowers, brilliant jungle greens, slashes of reds and pinks like the feathers of tropical parrots. I was stunned.

There were other paintings in the room, all of them big and bold. Slabs of midnight blue over smears of charcoal black, jagged orange gestures breaking through fields of deep purples. They were shocking, violent, almost alive. I’d never seen anything like them before. Everything on the canvases seemed a chaos, a random clamour of savage colour and primitive shapes. But with a meaning to it, a hidden meaning that
seemed just beyond my ability to understand. I was lost, overwhelmed. But I was also impressed.

When I asked her what they were about, she answered that they weren’t pictures of something, like the landscapes I painted, and they weren’t for decoration either. They were facts, she told me. Not a copy of reality, but reality itself.

“I don’t paint nature,” she said. “I am nature. Think about that one when you’re doing one of your landscapes.” Then she had turned off the lights, plunging the paintings into darkness, leaving a burning afterimage like fireworks on my retina.

She took me to her bed, in that room with its sweet scent of oil paint and tangy turpentine, and kissed me with a mouth that tasted of bourbon and tobacco. My real education had begun there, in art as well as in love.

T
O WORK,
I
TOLD MYSELF, AS
I
HEADED TO THE
chapel, hurrying across the damp sand and straight up to “Love and the Pilgrim.” I focused on the technical problems presented by the darkened varnish and the fragile pigments. But I had held the brush and cloths for only a few minutes before I set them down, unable to lose myself today in the painting’s shadows. I could not stop thinking of Lorca.

I reached for my sketchbook and opened it to the portrait I’d made of her yesterday. With my penknife I cut the page from the sketchbook. Finding a couple of thumbtacks in my paintbox I pinned the drawing to the wall. I remembered each stroke of the pencil, each little smudge and erasure, and what had taken place between us here in the chapel. I ran my fingers over the paper, remembering her eyes and her voice and her mouth. Then I turned away from the drawing and left.

My restlessness took me up the ridge and over to Ester Chauvin’s farm, Manoir de Soulles, where I sometimes stopped for milk and cheese and on occasion took away a cooked dish
of lamb stew or roast chicken. I passed the big stone barn with its smells of hay and manure just as Ester appeared from a side door, two buckets of feed in her hands, chickens clucking towards her skirts, a smile of greeting on her face as she caught sight of me.

“Bonjour
, Monsieur Millar.” She set the buckets down and we shook hands. “Something for you today? Milk, eggs?”

“No, thank you. I was just passing.”

“I have a
canard
cooking in the kitchen if you need something for dinner tonight.”

“Thank you, madame, but I already have sardines from Simon Grente.”

“Ah. Well, next time. I will give them to Madame Daubigny.”

“Madame Daubigny?”

“Yes, she was here the other day when I was butchering a duck. I told her I would be making confit today and she ordered one. It was a large duck. The two of you could have had dinner together. Both of you eating alone like that in your separate cottages is a shame.”

An image flashed across my mind, of the two of us sitting down to a dinner outside in my garden, candles and moonlight. I would like nothing better, I felt like telling Ester.

After drinking a cup of coffee and a small glass of pommeau with Ester, I took my leave, resisting the urge to wander past La Maison du Paradis. Instead, I decided to head up to the Hôtel des Îles.

Coming up the path I heard voices behind the garden hedge, one in particular that I recognized, and I opened the gate hopefully. Four people were sitting in the sunshine at
one of the tables, a bottle of cider between them, the dark green glass beaded with moisture. They turned at the sound of the gate. Two couples, strangers, tourists probably. I looked around. She was not here. I heard the similarity in one of the women’s voices, the slight huskiness and the Parisian accent. Sticking my head into the kitchen I said hello to Victor and Linda.

“Leo.
Bonjour,”
Linda said. “
Ça
va
? How are you?” She gave me a quick embrace and a peck on each cheek. Victor set down the knife on the cutting board where he was chopping parsley and shook my hand.

“You have some visitors, I see.”

“Oui
, off the yacht in the harbour. Did you notice it?”

“No, I haven’t been down that way.”

“They came up from Brest last night. I’m just making lunch for them. You’ll stay? I’m making a cheese and walnut salad.”

“Thanks, but no. I had a big breakfast this morning. I need to walk it off before I think of food again. But I will have a glass of cider.”

“Go and sit in the garden,” Linda told me. “I’ll bring you some.”

I took a seat at a table on the opposite side of the garden, sitting at an angle to the visitors. Linda brought me a tall glass of amber cider and a saucer of roasted almonds.

While I sipped the cider, I listened to the visitors’ conversation. But it was the one woman’s voice I listened to, not the words but the timbre. She was in her fifties, petite, hair cut short into bangs that framed her face. Not at all like Lorca. But if I looked away, I could imagine it was she, and I could almost see her.

From the Hôtel des Îles I took the path that led to Les Hauts-Vents and the clearing where I’d been the other day with Père Caron. The mechanical contraption for distilling apple brandy was in place outside the little stone hut, but today it was silent, just a faint smoky apple aroma lingering in the air. Étienne was nowhere in sight. I sat down on the rough-hewn log bench. I wished Tobias would appear. If it was just the two of us here, in the daylight, not in mysterious fogs or shaded woods, we could get to know each other.

When I thought of his injury, his burden, I asked myself again if there wasn’t something I could do to help him. But what? Money? I certainly had more than I needed now. For some reason, when I stopped painting, my prices went up. Serge had probably engineered it in some way, I supposed, but in any case my bank balance was healthy. But what could money do for Tobias? Did he need better care? A private tutor perhaps, or trips to the mainland, Paris even? Would that be wise? What about music lessons? Hadn’t he shown some kind of talent when I heard him that day in the forest?

And then my thoughts returned to Lorca. Always back to her. I didn’t know what I felt, really. Was it just loneliness? Was it sexual desire?

I opened my sketchbook and reached into my pocket for a pencil. I felt rusty, the way I imagined a musician must feel coming back to an instrument after a long absence, the fingering of chords no longer automatic.

Lorca’s suggestion that I make a new painting for the chapel was still in the back of my mind, growing like a seed but not yet showing any buds. There ought to be figures in the painting, I thought, like in “Love and the Pilgrim.” But what figures,
and in what relation to each other? There would need to be a story, but I had no ideas. Placing the sketchbook in my pocket I headed back to the chapel.

My footsteps from earlier in the day were still visible in the sand, like those of a solitary Crusoe. The two blue herons that liked to feed along the ponds left by the tide took flight as I walked across. They made a big loop round the side of the chapel and swept down again behind me.

She was there. But not as I wanted her. She was there only as an image, the portrait drawing, still pinned to the wall. The likeness was very good, I realized. So good that I found it a bit unnerving, sitting alone with this face in front of me, her and not her at the same time. The drawing was also powerful, I saw. Precisely because it showed my desire. Had she seen that? Was that the illusion she had referred to?

I turned away, hiding her face from my gaze, and went back outside, round to the back side of the chapel. The tide had started its gradual and inexorable approach. Soon my footsteps would be erased. I took off my shirt and pants and walked naked down the sloping shelf of rock and into the warm sea, wading out to knee height, and then I dove in, feeling the clean clear water wash over me. I turned over onto my back and floated. The outline of the chapel was like a ship in the water, an ark. I thought of the blank white wall above the doorway. In my mind’s eye I imagined a scene there. A landscape, vague and unformed, like a place hidden in mist, a memory or a hope.

T
HE NEXT MORNING, THE TIDE MADE ACCESS TO
the chapel impossible. My wandering took me in the direction of the presbytery. Perhaps Père Caron would be home. We could have a coffee together.

Coming up to his house on the west side I took a shortcut by climbing over the low stone fence and cutting through the apple orchard, past the tall mauve hollyhocks on the south wall, and was just crossing the lawn when a strange figure appeared from the side of the house, dressed in a canvas smock and wide straw hat with a veil hanging down from the brim. Two hands covered in a pair of long canvas gloves were extended as it advanced towards me.

“Are you looking for me?” a voice said.

“Père Caron?”

“Yes, somewhere underneath all of this.”

The veil was lifted to reveal the priest’s face. “I was just about to visit my bees. Which is why I’m wearing all this. Would you like to come and help me with the gathering of the honey?”

“I don’t know anything about bees.” I indicated my bare arms. “I’m not exactly dressed for it, either.”

“No matter. Come with me back to the house. I’ve got some extra gear.”

Five minutes later I emerged wearing a long raincoat, a veiled straw hat like the priest’s and a pair of gardening gloves on my hands.

“They don’t usually sting,” he explained as we walked down towards a cleared area near the trees where a number of rectangular wooden hives were arranged in a semicircle. “At least not me, after all this time. But they might be disturbed by the presence of a stranger, so keep your movements slow.”

As we drew closer to the hives I could see the bees, little black dots in the air, hovering around the structures or moving back and forth to the trees in a steady stream.

“I sometimes use a smoker to pacify them,” Caron said, “but it leaves them confused and agitated. Don’t worry, you’re well protected. Bees are actually quite docile. The stories of people being attacked by swarms are mostly myth. They’re not going to mind sharing a bit of their honey with us.”

I could now distinguish the black dots as individual bees. A steady hum buzzed from the interior of the structures, like the sound made by plucking rapidly on a stretched rubber band.

“They have their own music,” Père Caron said. “Each individual bee is insignificant on its own, but together, all those wings moving in unison create a voice. The voice of the hive.” He puts a hand on my arm. “Stand here and listen a moment.”

There were fluctuations in the sound, slight variations in volume, a little more intense on one side, a momentary pocket of silence on the other.

“Like an orchestra,” I said.

“Directed by the same conductor that guides our own actions.”

“Whom you call God?”

“Something more than chance, perhaps?” he answered. “The buzzing sounds monotonous to most people, but I can hear the differences in the voices. Mostly they are content, happy to have sunshine and flowers. When a storm is approaching you will hear a tone of anxiety. If a wasp or a mouse gets into the hive the buzzing becomes angry.”

“And today?”

“The sounds of harmony. All is right in their world. You see that they are flying back and forth towards those trees?” He pointed a gloved hand. “Just on the other side is a meadow of lavender. A lot of nectar is being brought back. The voice of the hive today is one of industriousness too.”

Some of the bees had discovered my presence and were buzzing around my veil, a couple of them settling on the cloth and crawling about just inches from my nose. I raised a hand to brush them away.

Père Caron touched my arm. “Keep your movements calm and slow. These are the guards of the hive. They are curious about you, nothing more.” He lifted the lid from a hive, set it on the ground and then slid out one of the flats on which the bees had constructed a comb. Gently, he shook the bees loose. “Ah, nice and full of honey.”

While I watched, he removed his glove and used his fingers to break off a small piece of comb. “Taste this. Just chew it lightly and spit out the wax when the honey is gone.”

I lifted my veil, slipped the piece of comb into my mouth and chewed. “I can taste the lavender.”

“I would like to have an orange blossom honey, like the one I tasted in Provence once, but orange trees will not take to our climate. Twice I’ve imported seedlings from the mainland, only to have them wither at the first touch of the east winds.”

Taking up a pail and a wooden spatula, he began to ease the honey gently from the flat, the golden syrup pouring out in a thick slow stream. “Is that not a miracle?”

“If you believe that miracles are possible,” I said.

The priest gave me an inquiring look. “I often think that the bees can teach us something.”

“Harmony, order, co-operation?”

“Yes, of course the hive is a model of a good society. But I was thinking that when you take an interest in something other than yourself, even something as apparently insignificant as a hive of bees, the world becomes a much more remarkable place. There is a chain of events from the pollen in the flower to that honey on your tongue which goes far far beyond this little meadow. And you are a link in the chain. You have a part to play as well.”

“And what would that be?”

He smiled. “Have you settled down in the cottage?”

“I don’t really think I can restore the damage to the painting in the chapel, Père. It needs the hand of a professional. I’m not even sure I’m going about the cleaning process in the correct way.”

“I see.” He busied himself with the honey flat, but I’d heard the disappointment in his voice.

“I had a visit from Madame Daubigny,” I said.

“Ah.”

“She made an interesting suggestion. That I should make a brand-new painting for the chapel.”

“To replace our ‘Love and the Pilgrim’?” He took up the pail of honey and moved in the direction of the house. I followed, removing my hat and gloves, which were becoming uncomfortably hot. “And this new painting, can you accomplish such a thing?”

“I can try. With your permission.”

“By all means, my boy. Of course.”

“I can’t replace the Asmodeus. And I’m certainly not as talented as he was.”

“One never knows what a painting can accomplish. And what will be the subject?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe it will be an island landscape, with figures. Like the original. Pilgrims and lovers?”

“Maybe.”

We walked for a few moments in silence, and then I said, “I wanted to talk to you about Tobias. Do you think he would take to some music lessons?” I told him about hearing Tobias trying to play the clarinet.

“Have you put the idea to Madame Daubigny?”

“Sort of. She didn’t discount it entirely.”

“I know you want to help him in some way, Leo, but I honestly don’t think Tobias has much talent in that direction. I have tried to get him interested in the piano more than once.” He shook his head. “But I have a better idea. Why don’t you be the one to give Tobias lessons? In drawing.”

“Really? Do you think he would be interested?”

“He likes to draw. He is a bit of a wild boy, but when he is drawing he becomes very serene. The activity seems to give him pleasure. His whole face changes.”

“Of course I’d be more than happy to help him.” I was thinking of how important drawing had been for me when I was Tobias’s age, how it had allowed me to forget my loneliness.

Père Caron said, “I’ll put it to him so that he understands. The answer will be his alone, though. Now, I must give you a jar of honey to take home.” He took me through to a pantry where two of the shelves contained rows of neatly arranged jars.

“My treasure trove. Each of these is from my bees—collected, strained and bottled by my own hand. As a painter, you will appreciate the varieties of colour.” There were transparent golds, silky ambers, dark malty-looking syrups. He ran his fingers over the jars, “Now, let’s see. Ah, here. I think you will like this one.” He unscrewed the cap, lifted out a seal of white wax and reached for a teaspoon in the drawer. Dipping it into the honey he offered the spoon to me. “Taste it.”

The flavour was immediate and powerful. I ran the honey back and forth over my tongue and swallowed. “Something grassy, summery?”

“Wild thyme. Last summer. It was growing everywhere.” He handed me the jar. “And you must take one for Madame Daubigny as well. This one.” He reached for a second jar. “It’s not a grand cru, but not ordinary either. Perfectly suitable for a gift.”

He could just as easily have given it to her himself, I thought. Was he trying to steer us together? I shot a sharp look him, and received a curious smile in return. I felt myself colour slightly.

As I left, the two jars of honey in my pocket, the priest called, “And, Leo, let the boy come to you, if he wants to. Who knows, perhaps miracles are possible, even if they are only small ones.”