Girl in Profile (10 page)

Gwen

Letter to Rodin

Mon maître,

I have sold
Fenella
my nude girl to the Contemporary Arts Society, and the American collector John Quinn has bought
Girl Reading at the Window
, so I do not want for money at the moment. I nearly died when the letter came addressed to Miss John, 29 Rue Terre Neuve. “A five hundred franc advance awaits you at Brentano's bookshop for any picture you care to send.” He looks for something he calls acid in the work he picks. Evidence of pain and struggle. Well, I have certainly had enough pain and struggle to warrant getting a little acid. He's something of an eccentric apparently. He rides his horse in Central Park every morning, takes castor oil, wears rubber heels. He said he would get rid of his Picassos for a Gwen John. Augustus is both pleased and peeved at the outcome. I think he rushes too much in his life and his work. It is all action and dynamism but little reflection or meditation, which is so important, n'est ce pas?

I realised I want to paint consciousness. Just as in your
Thinker
you make the act of thinking theatrical, I want to make consciousness palpable. To suggest connections between objects and personality: the closed book, the open book, the window, the cat, the teapot, the diary. You think I am too high-flown. Well, perhaps I am.

I followed you to church last week. I sat in a back pew. You didn't notice me. I barely heard the sermon. Was it light came first or was it the word? Surely it must have been light. I was busy sketching hats, plaits and backs. Oh, the baffling secrecy of a back. I am half in love with the little orphan girls and their snowdrop bonnets. Do you know why they sit on their hands? Well, I'll tell you. It is because they know that the hands reveal all, betray everything. Perhaps that is why you never finished
Whistler's Muse
. Because you knew my hands would betray everything. Like the long fingers to the mouth in your
Farewell
. The fluttering speech of the hands. Do you really imagine you can spend the rest of your life without visiting me again? Without warming your thumb in my mouth once more? Without tasting the origin of all creation as you call it? If a woman undressing is like the sun coming out then your eye must be continually blasted by the naked models you employ to cavort and shove their pudendas at you. Your fucking whores. Strange how they change shape whilst working with you. Is that because you fuck them all? Is that because you fuck them into being pregnant? Is that how come you sculpted Eve cowering, hands over her belly? Cast out. Cast out of Eden. Your fucking whores.

(Note to self. Do not send this draft.)

Elizabeth

The Weight of Words

Peter's memorial. I wear black, Wendy plum. Someone is playing the bagpipes. It is monstrous, ludicrous. I feel quite sure Peter would have preferred Beethoven. He's to have a woodland burial. There's been much debate on the subject.

“Under a toadstool.”

“Good for the agriculture.”

“Lay where they fell in World War One.”

“Should have left him in the pond where Martha tried to leave Harry, but he kept on screeching.”

Peter's body arrives in what looks like a giant laundry basket followed by a solitary mourner – a man in jeans and tee shirt. Wendy starts giggling. “Dirty linen,” she whispers to me. “I can't help thinking of dirty linen.” There is talk of God and the resurrection, some dreary singing, praying, a creaking of knees. Somebody farts continually, possibly me. The man in jeans gets up to speak. He is very sunburnt like a fisherman.

“Peter Sillitoe, what can I say? A man of many words, as you probably know, and many talents. But what you probably don't know is that he as good as killed his wife.”

Someone applauds like it's a piece of theatre. The rest of us lean forward, sick with excitement. This is soap opera come to life.

“Steady on,” the vicar says, patting the man on the arm. “Remember where you are.”

“He said he did his best. ‘Oh, Herb, he used to say' – that's not my name, it's just what he called me – ‘Oh, Herb, I did my best…'” (He is nodding now like a dog in a car window.) “But you didn't, Dad, you didn't. You could have stopped her and you didn't, and she was my mother.”

We are creaking gates agape, ajar. Nurse Tinkerbell leads Herb off to calls of take care, mate, don't let it get you down. Man united in grief. The vicar takes up the eulogy but the words have lost their meaning with the wrong reader.

“Peter slept in a camper van after Nancy died on Kenfig Nature Reserve. Ate noodles, brewed tea. A common sight with his binoculars, conserving, collecting, collating. ‘Oh, Herb' (my real name's Richard by the way) ‘between the petrel and the porpoise, the wind cry, the wave cry.' He would quote T S Eliot. ‘In the end is my beginning.'”

Afterwards there are sausage rolls and jam tarts. The piper eats five of each according to Wendy, and there is nothing under his quilt. I am garrulous with emotion.

“We were so busy gassing we didn't notice a thing. He tipped over, couldn't right himself with his weight. Gurgle, gurgle, then it was curtains. Horseshoe – I mean Mr Smith the caretaker – fished him out and he was smiling. Not Mr Smith, I mean Peter. That's what made me really cross. Like he was happy to leave me, leave us behind.”

Nurse Tinkerbell hands me a black notebook. “Herb, I mean Mr Sillitoe, didn't want it, so we thought you might like it, being an avid reader.”

Peter's diary. I'm left holding the weight of words. The corpse of a man. Is that what we all boil down to in the end. A bunch of words. A few nouns, a connective, maybe an adjective or an action verb if we're lucky. Suck it. Suck it hard. That was an action verb, my goodness. And isn't it often the case that the important things lie in the addendum? Like Horseshoe licking the jam clean out of a tart leaving a crusty old dusty old shell, a small empty hollow where something good was. Where the heart lay.

Gwen

Young Nun

The young nun asks me why I want to become a Catholic. Her eyes are bright and remote as stars. I sit on a cane chair in a puddle of shadow, murky, tainted. I have prepared my answer.

“I want to subdue the extremes of my personality. Align myself with something good. With God. Generally my feelings are refined, sensitive, but sometimes I suffer from an excess of them. I'm overwhelmed by carnal desire.”

She smiles, complacent in virginity, having given it all to God. What would happen if she died and found there was no God? What cry of desolation would escape those pale shrimp lips? Or would it matter? Is the striving all? Is the hoping all?

“I feel that the core of me is dark, that I am bad, unworthy, unable to love or be loved.”

“He loves us all, even the sinners.”

“But I want him to love me the most, love me the best. Don't you see?”

The young nun sighs – are we all in thrall to the same master? – and her response sounds rehearsed. Is life just a series of empty gestures, grotesque poses?

“How can God compare a lion with a flower? He loves the different qualities in each of us.”

“But what if there are no qualities to love?”

“You paint, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“Well. Why not find God's love through the beauty of nature. Be God's little artist. God's little flourish.”

“Oh yes, how nice. What a good idea.” Empty gestures, grotesque poses. I sit in a puddle of hypocrisy, a bag of piss and shit.

“In fact, we're looking for someone to paint the founder of our convent, Mère Poussepin.” She gets up, bustles about, her beautiful young body straining in the dove-grey uniform. I suspect that later tonight I will imagine myself a man, shoving God out of her mind and body with my dick. Please forgive me.

She hands me a prayer card of Mama Pussy. “If you're interested.”

“I'd be honoured.” I grin like a fucking ape.

Moth

Rope and the RSPCA

I shove Ro and Jamie in front of the Wii. They start playing a Harry Potter game, Jamie as Voldemort, of course, and Roan as Dumbledore (bad to his sister – hmmm…). Max kindly offers to help Dove colour her paper tablecloth with felt tips.

I Google the local RSPCA branch and punch in the numbers. Options: one for wings, two for scales, three for horns kind of thing. My ear is assaulted with canned muzak. Then a robotic voice informs me that the RSPCA relies heavily on public donations for its life-saving work.

Piss off.

That hedgehogs like cat food but it gives them diarrhoea.

Won't be giving them that then.

That every year the government is blackmailed by someone with a rabid animal.

Good.

That a brimstone butterfly looks like a green leaf.

Useful to know.

At last a real person answers. I explain about the foxes.

“They're starving, disorientated, possibly injured…”

“Not a lot we can do about that,” the Right Shit Piece of Crap Arse replies. “It's not a situation we're equipped to deal with.”

What sort of situation are you equipped to deal with – trick or treating? (I remember reading in the
National Enquirer
that if a paedo is found with a bowl of candy at Halloween he's carted off to jail. A stick or two of candy in the house is okay, but a bowl by the door and his number's up.)

“Foxes are becoming quite obnoxious,” the Right Shit continues. “They rampage through the rubbish, squirt the garden.”

Squirt?

“A woman reported a fox sunbathing in her conservatory bold as brass in broad daylight.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Leave well alone. Survival of the fittest, I'm afraid. A badger'll probably get 'em tonight. Have you tried your local vets?”

I put the phone down. Jamie is shaking the remote like he's wanking and Max yells from the dining room like his scar's boiling with Voldemort's evility. Dove comes in with a comically shocked look. “He's coloured it all black. You're meant to colour the shapes, the mermaids and the unicorns. If you colour it all black you can't see the shapes.”

The phone rings. I pick up, praying it's Drew checking in, but it's someone wanting to know if I know how much a funeral costs these days and would I like to put away for my own.

“No.” I spin in my chair. “Right. All of you: out. Go and play in the garden. You too, Ro. Off you go. Out.”

I Google the local vets, punch in the numbers. One for whiskers, two for claws, three for beaks type of thing. My ear is assaulted by canned muzak. Then a robotic voice informs me that I am in a queue but my call is important to them. At last a real person answers. I explain about the foxes.

“Have you tried the RSPCA?”

I breathe so heavily I probably scare the receptionist out of her straighteners.

“They're notoriously difficult to pin down.”

“I gathered that. I was just wondering if I could bring the foxes to you.”

“Oh no, it's illegal to transport a wild animal.”

“Could a vet come and take a look at them?”

“Oh no, it's illegal for a vet to come out to a wild animal. A couple of years ago a vet came out to hunt for a lost duck, missed snipping a spaniel. He went on to impregnate ten bitches.”

The vet?

“Can I give them some dog food?”

“Probably just give them diarrhoea.”

“What can I do for them, then?”

“Best to leave well alone. Let nature take its course. You just can't help some animals.”

I put the phone down. So I'm to leave the foxes to their fate, am I? Maybe Mo was right after all. Best off being shot, put out of their misery.

I get up, fix some lunch – fluffy cheese on toast à la Annabel Karmel. The smell brings the children drifting in. Jamie's first, a huge smile on his face. He's not a bad lad really. “D'you want your medicine now?” I ask gently.

“Not yet. You did have some rope.” His voice positively shines. “In the shed.”

Something tiptoes up my spine. Before I was married, a fortune-teller in Porthcawl told me I was a supersensitive. It's one step away from being a psychic. It means I pick up on things. “Roan,” I shout, dropping a piece of Annabel Karmel. “Where's Dove?”

“Here I am, Mummy.” She's by the outside tap, filling the dog's bowl. “I'm getting Mr Stinks a drink of water. He doesn't look very well.”

I sprint up the garden. Mr Stinks is lying on the ground. Softly whimpering, barely moving.

Elizabeth

How's a Marriage Like a Hurricane?

Elizabeth.

Hi, dear friend. Glad to hear back. Sorry for your loss. It's hard to watch them slip away. I watched my grandad, and in the end the bills were astronomical. I think I had Cardinal baseball drilled in me by accident as I sat with him listening to games at a young age. The greatest Cardinal of all was I think Jack Buck, broadcaster and voice of the Cardinals. We struggled over the weekend. Lost two of three to Pittsburgh – damn the bad luck.