The Muse (10 page)

‘And they threw it down the well to meet her sister.'

Olive shivered. ‘That's awful.'

Teresa shrugged. ‘I like the lion.' Her eye was caught by Isaac standing at the door. ‘He knows the value of peace. He keeps his place.'

‘Maybe he didn't like the taste of bony girl,' Isaac said. Olive turned to him. He folded his arms and fixed Teresa with a look. ‘Telling stories again, Tere?'

‘She's a good storyteller, Isaac,' said Olive. ‘Imagine waiting down in the darkness whilst your sister faced a lion. Imagine holding her head in your hands; the rest of her, disappeared. What happened to Justa?'

‘She died of the shock,' said Teresa.

‘So would I,' said Olive.

‘You don't know that, señorita,' said Isaac. ‘You might be strong.'

‘Oh, no. I'd definitely faint.' Olive looked thoughtful. ‘Do you know, I might visit that church.'

‘Señorita?'

‘Why not?' said Olive. ‘At least then we could say that one of our lies was actually a truth.'

 

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PART II

Belonging

 

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August 1967

 

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VII

L
awrie and I made it to the cinema for our first date. In the end, we went for
You Only Live Twice
. There was so much bare flesh and sadism in it, I was embarrassed for making the suggestion. No romance, just gadgets and Sean Connery's chest that looked borrowed from an ape. I think, on reflection, I would have preferred to watch Catherine Deneuve, but I was happy simply to sit with Lawrie, to catch his lovely scent, the dense warmth of his body, this person who in turn had chosen me.

Over the next two weeks, we saw each other nearly every single day. It was a fabulous sickness. We went to the Wallace Collection and the National Gallery, to see if we could spot any more paintings with the initials I.R. (no success). We went to the theatre, and I still have the ticket stub. It was called
Play
by Samuel Beckett, and I had never seen anything like it. I remember my delighted shock as the curtain went up, the three actors revealed – one man and two women, playing his mistress and his wife – stoppered to the neck in giant grey funeral urns, unable to move, gabbling incoherently before they began interspersing their stories to the audience, remaining oblivious of one another.

We went to Soho restaurants and bars – All Nighters, the Flamingo – and discovered that we danced together very well. I didn't like having to shout to be heard over the noise and it got very smoky past eleven. We saw gangsters and their girls there: slick hair, gold rings, a shimmer of malevolence. But the important thing was the live music. It was wonderful – ska, calypso, jazz and blues.

I didn't know it, but a bond had been sealed, and who'd suggested what, who'd wanted what – that strange dance of allusion and manners that distinguishes the first time for anything – had faded. We were dependent on each other without really knowing each other, in that way the young can be when they have never been burned or hurt or discarded, when they share everything, making the mistake that the other person is the answer to their confusing sum. He was lonely and I was lost – or was it the other way round? We hadn't slept together; it hadn't got to that yet. It was very innocent, in its way.

Since our exchange in the rain on Piccadilly Circus, I'd hardly seen Quick. Only Pamela and I – and a ­couple of the academics, who normally kept to the basement with the archives – seemed to come in dutifully every day. She seemed to be absent more than you would consider acceptable, often only coming in for a ­couple of hours. We were attached to the research part of the building, not the gallery round the front on Jermyn Street, so it was always quiet. I missed Quick's attention.

In her absence, Pamela invited me to eat my sandwiches with her in the courtyard, leaving the reception desk unattended. I'd hesitated, firstly because I was still finishing my Muriel Spark book, a collection of short stories and radio plays she'd had published six years before. The second reason was that I did not really want to hear more about ‘­people like you' – a phrase that Pamela occasionally slipped into our conversations – but my lack of contact with Cynthia, and the absence of Quick, was making me miss female company. And thirdly: I really thought someone should be manning reception.

Pamela's lunchtime questions about life in Trinidad were a lesson to me in how little her school days, and all the days after, had taught her of the Empire's reaches. But she also had a genuine curiosity, and my descriptions of the weather and what humidity and heat did to books, to clothes – and how it shaped the food your mother once made you, the music you listened to, the ­people you knew – it made me realize how far away from it I really was. It conjured Cynth, our long journey together, and then it reminded me of our stupid stand-­off, and I thought I might cry, so instead I pushed Pamela to talk. She told me about her mother the seamstress, and how her father portered meat at Smithfield. She had five brothers – and a sister, she said, who'd died when Pamela was eight.

‘I've got to ask, Odelle – you got a feller?' she said. ‘You been looking sort of dopey these last few weeks.'

I hesitated. I so wanted to talk about Lawrie, about love – what it might feel like, and whether I was in it. ‘No,' I said, instead. ‘I haven't.'

Pamela narrowed her eyes. ‘All right. You keep your secrets.
I've
got a boyfriend. Billy. He works behind the scenes at All Nighters, but I wouldn't expect you'd go there.'

‘Why?' I said.

She laughed. ‘ 'Cos you're too sensible to waste your youth dancing in clubs.'

I laughed back, intuiting true flattery in her comment, that for the first time, she was imbuing me with some sort of sophistication and status. But I could still picture how Lawrie and I had danced in that very club, the sweat running down our backs. It did feel like a different me.

Pamela wore Billy like a medal, but thinking of the men I'd seen there, I wondered if he was more of a bronze than a gold. As the days wore on, and our sandwich lunches continued, my book of Spark stories still unfinished, I found myself surprised to feel sorry for Pamela, whose company I was coming to enjoy. ‘Billy's got big dreams,' she'd say, but never elaborated about what exactly, and I had the feeling they didn't really include her.

REEDE HAD TELEPHONED LAWRIE, SAYING
he'd had an ‘inordinate piece of luck' with the Prado gallery in Madrid, and could Lawrie come as soon as possible. On the morning he was due at the Skelton, he was already waiting for me on a bench in the middle of the square.

‘Hel-­lo,' I said, sitting down next to him. ‘Excited for news of the lion girls?'

He smiled. ‘A bit.' As he leaned over to kiss me, a man walking past tutted loudly. I couldn't be sure, but I thought I heard the word ‘
disgusting
'. We ignored him; I was never going to say anything, however much I might have liked to, but I did wonder if Lawrie might speak up.

‘Come on,' I said, when it was clear that either Lawrie hadn't noticed, never assuming such a comment might be directed at him – or that he didn't consider it worthy of attention. ‘You'll miss your appointment with Mr Big Shot. But you go in first, I'll follow.'

‘Why?'

‘I don't want Pamela to know about us.'

‘Are you embarrassed about me?' he said.

I laughed. ‘Of course I'm not. It's just – well, if she finds out about you, I'll never hear the end.'

•

Sitting at my desk, having safely outwitted Pamela, I couldn't stop thinking about what was going on in Reede's office above me. I was very curious about Lawrie's painting. And although my mother always said that if you listen at doors you deserve every burned ear you get, I knew Reede wasn't going to tell me a thing. Quick was away that day, and Lawrie couldn't be trusted to relay every particular.

I took the back stairs to the next floor and hesitated before putting my eye to the keyhole. I could feel my pulse beating hard, fearful that one of them inside would turn, and hear me. Lawrie's painting was propped up on the easel by the desk. It was a perfect rectangle, filled with vibrant colours; vermilion, lavender, indigo, terracotta, livid greens. And to my complete surprise, sitting in one of Reede's low-­slung leather armchairs, was Quick. Once upon a time, the Skelton had been a domestic house – most of the panelling was original – and I imagined Georgian ladies sitting where Quick was now, playing with a spree of little dogs and wondering what syllabub to feed their guests.

What was Quick doing here? She was staring into the empty grate, her arms wrapped around her body. She looked nauseous, as if she was waiting for an explosion. She reached down into her handbag and brought out her cigarettes, busying herself with lighting one.

‘So. Isaac Robles,' Reede was saying, pulling out a photograph from a buff folder on his desk. ‘Ever heard of him?'

‘No,' said Lawrie.

‘The Prado in Madrid sent me this. They think it's him, in Malaga, around 1935 or -­6. We don't know who the woman is, but the photo was most likely taken in his studio, and she's probably a model he used. It matches up to other images of him in Madrid earlier in the thirties. He was just beginning to enjoy a bit of fame when this photograph was taken. But of course, what has excited me most is that the painting in progress on Robles's easel looks
exactly
like it could be yours.'

There was a silence. Lawrie had his back to me, so I couldn't see his expression through the keyhole, but he was very still, as if he'd been stunned.

‘What?' Lawrie said, quietly. ‘Is that possible?'

Reede smiled. ‘Thought you'd like that. He's only started on the lion by the looks of it in the photograph, but it's fairly emblematic, wouldn't you say?'

Lawrie took the photograph from Reede's outstretched hand. His shoulders were hunched, head bent in concentration. Quick remained seated, watching him, dragging deeply on her cigarette.

‘Where did the Prado get this?' Lawrie asked.

‘They don't know for sure. Their records from the thirties are not complete, for obvious reasons. Robles might have left it with someone to keep it safe when war broke out. They might not have known what to do with it, so gave it to the Prado. Isaac Robles wasn't very popular with the authorities, and his work wasn't really to their taste. You didn't want to be caught with evidence that you were friends or acquaintances with undesirables.'

‘ “
Undesirables
”?'

‘From what we know, Robles moved in quite left-­wing circles. That meant he could have been a political agitator. They probably accepted this photograph and slipped it in their files. Robles didn't survive to match Miró or Picasso in output and trajectory. But what he
did
make is superlative. One theory for his small output, other than an early death, is that he destroyed a lot of his work. That sort of practice always makes a painter more special – it's his rarity. Now, to the point. I believe this painting of yours is what we call a sleeper.'

‘A sleeper?'

‘Yes, it's been lying in wait for us, overlooked for years. We're looking at 1936, perhaps,' Reede continued. ‘The fact there is no frame is unfortunate. You can learn a lot from a frame's quality. I assume Robles wouldn't have had access to many, if he was back and working in the south of Spain. But if this
is
by Robles, and I think it is, then it was painted as he reached the cusp of his powers before war came. Look at the colours, the surreal narrative, the playfulness. It's highly unusual. I see why he was so prized at the time.'

‘What happened to him?' Lawrie asked.

‘War happened, Mr Scott. There are several theories. One is that he went north to join forces with other Republicans as Franco's troops inched up from the south. They never found a grave, but at that time, it wasn't uncommon. He was from the south, Andalusia, and he lived and worked in Malaga for a time, fairly unsuccessfully. He travelled to Madrid and Barcelona – there are a ­couple of his lithographs there, fairly minor.'

‘I see.'

‘But at the time
this
photograph was taken, Robles wouldn't have been so worried about war. He was working well. He'd abandoned his idealistic, figurative aesthetic once he was back home, and it appears that he started to paint quite differently. A few months before Spain cracked apart, he painted a work that caused a real stir. It's called
Women in the Wheatfield
. Have you heard of it?'

‘No.'

Reede turned towards the door, and I swore he looked at the keyhole. I froze.

‘It's not particularly famous, but it's a special painting,' said Quick, and Reede turned back to her. Gradually, I edged my heart back down my throat.

‘Why is it so special?' asked Lawrie.

‘I've done a little investigating,' Reede went on before Quick could say anything more. ‘We know that Robles sold
Women in the Wheatfield
in Paris, around the time this photo was taken. A man called Harold Schloss sold it.'

‘I see,' said Lawrie. Even through the keyhole, I could see that he looked visibly uncomfortable.

‘It went to New York for a while, and now hangs in Peggy Guggenheim's house in Venice. I've seen
Women in the Wheatfield
myself,' Reede went on, ‘and it has similar qualities to yours. Extraordinary in the flesh.' He touched the edge of Lawrie's painting. ‘Sometimes, I think he would have been a genius, had he carried on.'

‘Why?'

‘That's not always easy to define. But you see, with most artists, you have one thing or the other – the visionary with sub-­standard technical skills, or a short time frame of astonishing output that diminishes in quality, for one reason or another. These fellows have no training in composition, and most of them can't therefore subvert it. Or, you have the excellent trained draftsman with no imagination, who will never paint the world anew. It's actually quite hard to find someone who has it all. Picasso has it – you should see his early works. It's subjective, of course, but I think Robles had it too. And I think your painting demonstrates his skills to a higher level than
Women in the Wheatfield.
Some say his scant works are political; others find them to be escapist
tours de force
. That is the quality they have – perpetually interpreted, yet always standing up to every iteration. Robles has lasted. You don't get bored. You see new things. Moreover, on a basic aesthetic level, they wash gorgeously over the eye whilst never being twee.'