Looking Down (30 page)

‘I’ve been thief and charlatan, honest broker and faithful husband,’ Richard said. ‘Done nothing I’ve been ashamed of, much. Not the sort of shame which burns, anyhow. Until I hid beneath that cliff.’

‘You didn’t kill her, Richard. Edwin did that.’

In John’s humble opinion, Richard did not suffer from Alzheimer’s, or anything as inevitable. He suffered the physical effects of something else, as well as understated, formless grief, and if only Richard could believe it was capable of improvement it would improve. He needed faith in the vigour he still retained. He needed to know that he was not going mad. That he was not blind and could still
see.
Long enough to get out a sketchbook again.

‘For which Edwin will suffer such punishment it beggars belief, and does not bring her back. Imagine, never to come here again. Bad enough for you or I, with our quieter needs, but for someone like him? That really is the wrath of God. Hell in life, worse than death. What would you wish if you were he? To be dead, I think.’

‘What he did was wicked,’ John said, rather primly to his own mind. He did not wish to dwell on it, because he felt a dark responsibility for Edwin. Friendship had been offered by Edwin: he knew that, now. He could have changed the course of Edwin’s life, perhaps, if he had noticed or been curious. That was his burden. He could not share it. He handed Richard the hip flask, which was entirely contradictory to some other doctor’s orders.

‘Wicked? So is the punishment,’ Richard said. Then he added with unexpected vehemence, ‘She was only a woman.’

John choked on his drink. ‘Only a . . . ?’

‘Only a woman who was in the bloody way. That’s what Edwin would think, isn’t it? Just another animal, of the lesser, female variety, a nuisance, a threat to something he held dearer. Moral values are movable feasts, John. He didn’t like women much, did he?’

‘He didn’t have many good role models, poor sod. He didn’t like anyone, much. He confessed to Sarah. Probably the only woman who ever hugged him.’

There was a note of bitterness in his voice. Since he was having a good day and all his senses were keen, Richard noticed.

‘Sarah touches the untouchable, as well as the wholesome,’ he said gently. ‘There’s nothing Sarah would not forgive. She will use what she has. Every bloke needs a Sarah, once in their lives. But she’s Everyman’s. Woman’s, too.’

‘Every man who pays.’

‘Did you? Did Edwin? I did, in my time with Sarah, but then I had money to give, and preferred that kind of exchange. Don’t misjudge her, John, it doesn’t become you. She got your girl buried, and mourned. She finds the pathways, like a good witch. Like my wife will find hers. You can’t stop a woman. You can’t own one. Especially a tart.’

The mist continued to clear and the sun’s reflection, ultravisible on the water, struck with a wondrous light. It looked as if the light came from beneath in a series of secretive spotlights, pointed up from beneath the quiet waves, sending signals to the unseen, watching birds. And other animals.

‘I’d hate to be a woman,’ John murmured, watching the sky.

‘So would I,’ Richard agreed, looking down at the sea. ‘And we rely on them too much to prop us up. Which is why they have to let us down.’

He did not quite want the mist to clear. It was better it did not, so that he could listen, and accept the man he no longer was. After an interval of peaceful silence, he spoke again.

‘I’ll probably lose my wife, but most of all I hate losing my mind. And getting things wrong. Not only getting them wrong, but being sure I got them right. I got everything right in that bloody painting, didn’t I? But you tell me, time and time again, that I didn’t see a chough. I saw a raven, red in beak and claw. That was the end for me really. Having to doubt what I
knew
I saw. I could not bear what else I saw that day, although it became bearable. But I was so sure I’d seen that glorious creature, too. I saw
it,
I know I did. And like everything else, I was wrong. So sure I heard him, too. That voice, clatter clatter clatter. I’d known it once, though never well. That’s despair, John, I tell you. That’s when I knew I was going insane, and no further use for man or beast, or woman. No use to them, either. That made me cruel. The fact that I have to doubt not only about what I see, but what I hear. I knew then it was the last painting. The very last. That I was going blind as well as deaf, as well as unfeeling  . . . ’

‘Listen.’

A chisel against chalk, tap, tap tap, clatter, clatter, clatter, sounding cross, like an old scold, oh, bugger, bugger, bugger, sod you.
Quork, quork.
The mist drifted, and the bird rose into sight. The wingspan black and vast, the body small, and the bird yelled, carrying its red feet like the half-suspended claws of an aircraft, ready to land and still poised to claw. Emitting from the red beak a yak yak yak of protest and gossipy discontent. They stood in unison, mouths open, as the chough hovered over their heads, seemed to examine them as they examined it in return, wheeled and turned, before flying seaward, moving them from the bench to the very edge, so they could watch. The bird circled and dived, a silhouette of wings and fantail and curved, red beak, curious, first, pausing as if to look back, then plunging towards water and
away. The Fire Raven, the Red-legged Crow, the Hermit Crow,
Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax
 . . .  Richard could remember all the names for it, and then it was gone, gone gone. They were practically dancing with excitement.

‘Oh, glory, glory be,’ John whispered.

The mist cleared and the air was full of their shouted laughter. Louder than the sea.

Define spring, Steven asked himself. He liked defining things.

Spring is an interval in the equinox which falls between winter and summer, a period of growth and instability. It seemed inadequate to refer to a season of profound change as a mere interlude in which change occurred, whether one liked it or not. All that thrusting and thriving. The season developed, he could feel it in the pavements beneath his feet, and he had changed with it, significantly, in the last few weeks, had he not, although he had to admit to a useful consistency in most things. Such as making a mess and clearing it up. There were three criteria for a home, he had insisted throughout his brief, intense and ultimately productive quest. It must be light, must be high, must be secure; bugger the cost. Of course he should have done it months ago, but then there had never been the present imperative. He would never have been able to invite Lilian to any of his previous, cramped studios, however clean he had made them and whatever the quality of the fabrics, and he certainly could not invite her round to his sister’s. Ah, Lilian, dressed in white, dressed in red, undressed in particular. She liked it here. Said it felt safe.

At the top of the house, small but sweet and not yet particularly comfortable, since it consisted of walls, chair, bed and a slightly irrelevant kitchen. From time to time he could hear trains from the station near by, giving him a sense of handy escape routes to other places and removing any feeling of claustrophobia. At a push, he could climb out, and in, although that was not an activity
he wished to encourage in himself, or anyone else, now that he had responsibilities. He had checked the rear of the building assiduously. Oh, Lilian, so sweetly and only occasionally available, cleverly teasing him, her presence already celebrated by a photograph of her lovely self, sitting on the chair. Was she the catalyst to the new peace and the new home? Passion was fine but tiring. Energy was finite and far from inexhaustible. Passion also robbed him of something and he was not quite sure what. The ability to dream, for instance, and the desire to climb anything other than the glorious mountain of Lilian’s thigh, for instance. She liked the roughness of his callused palms. It could not last. He felt immensely rich, but wary of his own contentment.

It was bad for a young man to have everything his heart desired. That could not last either, it was the death of fury and ambition. He rather missed his own bitterness, the badge of his exclusivity, his excuse for not loving and not being loved. It was only in this state of dangerous contentment that conscience could come creeping, like a sniggering voice in the background of some discreet, respectful gathering. Conscience was laughter in church, a shaft of light between ill-fitting curtains, which he did not like. It forced him to realise that he really had brought a great deal of mess into a couple of lives and it was particularly unfortunate that this should have involved his sister. Whom he loved and admired, to be frank. Still, it was a positive mess: her good painting was mended, no real harm done, and he had returned that sweet little nude he had pinched from her dentist friend – what more did she want? No, the conscience came from being less than frank about the whole business, and being
thanked
for the rescue of Minty’s sister. As if
that
was the real result of climbing the wall and risking his neck.

He rose from his graceful recline on the bed, and left the room. As he did so, a series of images flashed through his mind, like old, cracked film. He was standing in that gallery, by that snooty girl,
with the addresses on her screen, himself still fresh with
zing
and anger. Then he was in the biggest room of the penthouse, shushing the girl, telling her it was all for the best, come with me, I’m not here to hurt you. You,
it, she,
his jaw dropping as he spoke. Oh, my darling. There you are.

Steven left his new room, purely in order to come back, slowly. There
she
was.

Tiepolo, leading exponent of Italian Rococo. Style characterised by airy frivolity and playful effects.

Look at it. Look at that triangular composition, the uncanny use of light and shade, the white, not pale, droolingly beautiful women at the very centre. Look at that bare shoulder and décolleté neckline. The way the ghostly white passages contrast so powerfully with the dark backs of the figures in the foreground. The gentle, summoning arm of Jesus, the preacher. Youth, beauty and age, all in thrall to the wise one. Found, easily wrapped, on the floor of the Chinese traders who dealt in art and slaves. Easily rolled up into nothing.

Utterly magnificent. A surge of ridiculous, jaw-dropping happiness.
Zing.

He wondered if he would ever want more than the single, real masterpiece, supposed he might. Tiepolo was the reason for acquiring a home:
The Sermon on the Mount
deserved a home. In contemplation of his own deficiencies, Steven sighed.

Art was the real mistress.

Sarah Fortune repositioned the painting of the cow on her living-room wall, where it fitted perfectly into its rectangle of faded paint. Then, dressed for the heat of the day in a black linen shift clinched in at the waist with a broad red belt and her red shoes, she went out to lunch with a lover.

She made him laugh, when he was sad.

That was the whole purpose of luck.