Girl in Profile (14 page)

Gwen

Pale Quiet Songs

I have told John Quinn that I would like my paintings to be hung next to each other. They do not need frames and just short, self-explanatory titles (like
Girl in Profile
) are fine, but they do need to hang side by side. My work is cyclical and repetitious (like the life of a woman) with small but significant variations that can only be seen when they hang together. I want to show how it is to be a woman. We are full of hopeful expectancy, passive receptivity, empathic activity. Our lives are not linear like men's. We go round and round on the carousel, seeing the same view slightly different every time. Only slightly different. My old friend Michael Salaman from the Slade referred to my paintings as “Pale Quiet Songs”, which pleased me very much, for the pale quiet songs are the ones you remember, the ones you keep in your heart.

Elizabeth

Horseshoe and Cocoa

I sit and wait for death, ginger tom on my lap. How I wish there'd been more ginger toms. The moon blesses the bent heads of those dear old Caldey monks. Waiting and remembering. Are they action verbs? Are they even verbs at all? And. If. But. Do they conjunct, preposit? Do they connect?

Mr Smith the caretaker pokes his head round the door. Working late. Seen my light. Cocoa? Yes, please. Like something out of
Harry Potter
he brings a tray of buns – midnight feast – licks the cream right out of one. I wish he'd lick the cream out of this crusty old dusty old tart. To be fucked once more, that's all I ask. When you're old, nobody touches you. You touch things but they don't touch you. The senses go one by one as preparation for the end of age. A cursory hug if you're lucky. A pat on the shoulder. This frail crumbling heap of decay might rub off on you, I suppose.

“Make love to me,” I croak. And he does. Lifts me clean off the chair. Ginger tom scarpers. Lays me on my bed. Lifts up my nightdress. Undoes his belt. Shoves his cock in. None of this cootchety-coo crap. We're done in six lunges. I come like a small dry hiccup, he with a short groan, his brace glinting eerily. Then he gets up and goes. He fucked me like I wanted to be fucked. Hard. Fast. Intense. He fucked me like I was still a stunner. He fucked me like I'm still alive.

For the next few nights I leave my light on in the hope of Mr Smith and cocoa. Sometimes I think I dreamed the whole thing. Is dreaming an action verb? If it is then I guess I've lived a full and active life. If waiting and remembering are action verbs I've been busier than most.

Gwen

Mama Pussy

Mère Poussepin
should be the most serene of my paintings and yet she is not. I cannot keep her still. She is full of insubordination and giggles. She reminds me of me. As a child I had to take lessons lying on my back for my deportment, but my arms and legs twitched so much Father threatened to tie them up. Oh, Mama Pussy, I can't get you right. Your eyes are too bright, all the better to see you with. Your nose is too long, all the better to sniff you with, and your mouth is saying that under the guise of religion you can do whatever you very well like. You have the exuberance of a flower. The sheer cheek of a raindrop. I can hear you shout aloud at existence. You definitely don't belong on a prayer card.

Moth

Tomorrow

There's surprisingly little to do. I give the bathroom a zesty smile, change the bedsheets, press uniforms for the next two weeks. Prepare lunch at ten thirty. Eat it by ten thirty-five. Cheese sandwich, banana, cup of tea, biscuit. Wonder if she's having fish fingers. Take Freckles for a walk in the land of sniffs and smells. Feel the rain on my face and explain the rain/earth cycle to an imaginary friend. It feels so silent. My hands deep deep in my pockets.

The house is so empty. I do a dance move in the kitchen and feel ridiculous. Stretch out on the sofa, flick the remote. A quiz show,
Inspector Poirot
,
Brief Encounter
. Think about phoning Adam but that train's passed. Maggie? On her way to the States. My father? Deaf, won't answer.

I rearrange the coffee table. That vase. It looks very sterile. I'm a glossy advert for the perfect wife and mother. On the surface.

Calculate that if I walk very slowly I could set off for school at two, which means there's only another hour and a half to get through.

In the end, I leave at quarter to, reach the school at ten past. Another fifty minutes to wait. Luckily Rhys' grandad hops up and we have a little chat about the weather.

“How's the lick lick littlun liking it?”

“Loving it.”

“And you? What are you doing?”

“Lots of housework.”

He spits his concern at me. “Well, you look after yourself.”

“Will do.”

Elizabeth

Minnie Again

Minnie puffs up my pillows. Rounder now. Nearly time. Nearly due. “So sorry you lost your friend, Nana. You must be terribly lonely. Wanted to see you one last time before Holly comes. Mum says she'll help and Nick's mother too. I'm so lucky. So I can finish my art degree. Tattoos have become a bit of a strain. Someone came in the other day wanting a devil fellating another devil on his shoulder. ‘Oh my,' I said.”

What is life after all but one little devil fellating another little devil? A dirty old man in a flasher mac suddenly shocking you. Suddenly popping out at you.

“‘Chris'll have to do that for you.' I'm beginning to think the owner of the skin has too much say in the artwork. I want to control my own canvas (not just what goes on it), create my own canvases. Did you see that then? Holly kicked. No stretch marks yet. All those pumpkin seeds did the trick. Big news too. Uncle Ro's engaged at last. Poor old Chiara had so long to wait. And he's on the telly. I'll let you know the channel. Mum's made a breakthrough with the Seneca Valley virus. We found your old ballerina musical box when we cleared out the attic. Vintage kitsch. So sorry to make it short and sweet. Nick revving up the car as we speak. They'll visit next week. If you can hang on. Love you, Nana.”

“Love you too, Cheeks. Always will.” Hang on till next week, you stale old fart. Bows scraped out. Let the rains come. Nearly time. Nearly due. (The moon stares unflinching through the window, blessing me, blessing me.)

Gwen

Part of the Painting

Ma Cherie,

Thank you for the hours. Thank you for the moments. I do not think we shall meet again on this earth.

The rest of his rather short note is unintelligible; his mind and hand have become so shaky. I think I can make out the word ‘paint' and ‘body', but I cannot be certain. I stick the note to the back of
Girl in Profile
next to the mauve ribbon he gave me. I tried to scratch you out but I still see you. I will always see you. Thank you for the hours. Thank you for the moments. Yes. We live our lives in a succession of moments, and in the end the physical fabric of our bodies will gently dissolve and we shall become invisible. Part of the light. Part of the painting.

Elizabeth

The Objects on my Shelf

Just me in my room then. Just me in my room and the objects on my shelf. Is that what it all comes down to in the end? The nouns on our shelf. The small items left and the feelings we attach to them. That dandelion paperweight we found on honeymoon. I see in it the Eiffel Tower and the concierge with the moustache and the marmalade sandwiches, your execrable “deux big macs, siv vouz play”. The snow globe I shake on the perfect world of my children: the science awards, the gym competitions, the piano recitals. The wings I stitched, the wings that flew. Out of reach. The horseshoe we painted silver and hung on the garden gate. It reminds me of the paths I didn't take, the love I didn't make. Strange how when we have love we waste it and when we don't have it it's all we think about, all we crave. A postcard of the
Thinker
and a photograph of me at fifty-three in cap and gown by the statue of Lloyd George. I've got an ear-splitting grin and I'm punching the air. And the ballerina in her box, bent and crouching till the music starts. My life. Pale and quiet. Waiting for the song.

Gwen

Girl in a Mulberry Dress

I don't know where the painting ends and my life starts. Edgar glares at me reproachfully – I have forgotten to feed him again. Gloria brings eggs and milk, scolds me for being too thin. Her small daughter, Thérèse (named after the saint), pitter-patters in the sweet peas. Mulberry dress. Girl in a mulberry dress. What will she turn into? Who will she be? God's little flourish. Rodin's little muse without any arms. Her father, the soldier, was shelled to bits. Augustus and I on the beach near Haverfordwest, collecting cowries in the sand, watching the neophytes plunge into baptism, their selkie heads breaking the sea's caul in rebirth. As I am reborn in his hands. Prometheus.
Mon maître.
Buried with a statue of
The Thinker
in his pocket. His small blue eyes straining to heaven to see if the angels are wearing any knickers. Sometimes I sleep completely al fresco, feel the last dying colours of the earth, the raw siennas, red lakes, cerulean blues, the bolts of silk on a dressmaker's ledge. Turning my colour wheel beyond the pale of the moon. Minerva – goddess of invention. The mystery of the human form in a spatial dimension. I need some more china white from Lefranc if I'm ever to finish
Girl in a Mulberry Dress
. A succession of moments distilled onto canvas. My sketches get smaller and smaller. Let there be light. The size of postage stamps. Counting my rosaries. A dot in infinity. Over and over. Reducing, reducing, ever reducing. Edgar slopes off with the girl in a mulberry dress in the hope of being fed. The callous indifference of children and cats. I rearrange the objects in my room, the flowers and brushes in a jam jar on the barley sugar leg table next to my smock stiff and bleached to china white. My shadow turns grey. Back to Tenby of the Fishes it fled. Cadwallader in his oilskins catching all the little shrimps in his net. All the little shadows.

Moth

Four Weeks Later

No skills, no training, no qualifications, the man in the job centre said. I can balance a soft toy on the end of my nose but that's no good, that won't do. I was Miss Carmarthen at twenty-two but that's no good, that won't do.

What about kids' parties? Get a little van like Drew's. Blow up balloons, make a rabbit appear, disappear. Be a clown. Like God.

I can change a nappy with one hand, a light bulb with the other, but that's no good, that won't do. “Your CV's negligible,” the man in the job centre said, “for a woman of thirty-two.”

My kids on the other hand have CVs as long as my arm. When they talked, when they walked, when they first did a poop. All because of me. The songs I sang, the hours I dragged, the baths I didn't take, the love I didn't make. All for you.

“It's natural to be anxious,” Doctor Morgan said, “when your child starts school. She'll soon get the hang of it. Just continue doing what you do.”

Bent and crouching then to their every whim and desire. Bent and crouching under those elemental forces of sun and sea. Is that how it's going to be? Scorched by the sun, submerged by waves, my body found under the white cliffs of Dover, pecked to chips by gulls.

Elizabeth

Adam Again

Ten minutes, the Blue Room, Nurse Tinkerbell shouts. There's to be a talk on Gwen John by renowned artist Adam Shlesinger. My heart flits about with nowhere to hide but death. The older you get the more you come to realise that in the end all narratives twist into one. There is no coincidence. Black and white are tones not colours, he said long ago in an art class in Swansea.

“Elizabeth, your chair awaits.” Like frigging Cleopatra. No thanks. I'm deaf remember, and in any case I'm trying to read my book. I don't want to see him grown fat, ugly and old when I'm dying like that poem by Tudor Evans.

“Well, if you change your mind.” I won't.

But I do. I can't resist a peep. As the straggling applause fades out and the front door of High View House bangs shut, I stumble over to the window. The truth hits me with a wallop. He's grown old and fat and ugly and I'm dying. But there's still something in his walk, the angle of his head, those hands.

I wrench open the window and shout out of it. “Hey, Adam, it's me, Moth, remember? You took me to Cardiff Museum, told me about Gwen John and her affair with Rodin. I ran away, wept in a church. It was snowing that day, the children made angels by that statue of Lloyd George.” I don't know if I shouted these things or merely thought them, or you were hard of hearing, because you didn't deign to hear me, didn't deign to see me. You simply got in your silver car and drove away, leaving me fluttering at the window. An old woman fluttering at the window. An invisible woman. Is that what we all end up as? Invisible women? Please don't let me be invisible at the end. Please let them see me, let me be seen. Let me see them.

Gwen

My Death

I'll pack a small travelling case and head for the coast. The sea, after all, is still light.

Moth

My So-called Death