Picture This

by Tobsha Learner

  She stood in front of the two world-famous portraits of Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, hung on either side of a huge ornate fireplace. An El Greco painting had been placed above the fireplace on the same wall – a haunting but tortured portrait of St Jerome, powerfully expressionistic in contrast to the controlled, almost photographic, invisible brushstrokes of the Holbein works that flanked it. An audacious piece of curating – and yet each work complemented the other, sublimely teasing out a complex dialogue between the three paintings and, in a strange way, the men themselves, Susie thought.

  Staring up at the Thomas More portrait, knowing that Holbein had painted it nine years before the statesman’s beheading, Susie found it impossible to look at the face without thinking about the treacherous strategies More must have navigated in that short time. It was a vivid portrayal of the complexity of his life, she observed, marvelling at the pensive expression tinged with a hint of defensiveness and vulnerability, as if Holbein had caught his sitter in a moment of self-doubt. The sitter’s expression was in direct contrast to the defiant gold chain and medallion he was wearing, emblem of his service to King Henry VIII. The politician’s hands, held tentatively in front of him clasping a mysterious slip of paper, implied that he was on the brink of presenting a proposal or judgement with a degree of trepidation as to how he might be received. It was the penultimate portrait of a strategist caught in the headlights of a tyrant, and she couldn’t help but glance sideways at Felix, knowing that he was just as astute and ruthless a strategist.

  The gallerist swung around. ‘An extraordinary room, right?’ He strolled into the centre as if he owned the building and the collection. ‘Nothing else quite like it in the world – Holbein, El Greco… ’ he pointed to the opposite wall, ‘… a Titian sandwich with a Bellini in the middle,’ he concluded, pointing irreverently at Bellini’s St Francis in the Desert – the gaunt saint poised at the mouth of his cave, arms stretched out as if welcoming the early morning light – which hung between the two Titian portraits – Man in a Red Cap and Pietro Aretino. ‘And all this before you even get to sit down at dinner. Can you imagine sipping aperitifs staring up at these guys?’

  ‘I wonder if you’d ever get immune to such beauty? Whether after a while you’d stop noticing and end up walking through the rooms oblivious to what’s hung on the walls?’

  ‘You would. I’ve seen it with some of my collectors. The human eye craves visual novelty and sometimes I think the more saturated it is, the more addicted to novelty and change it becomes. As to poor Frick, he didn’t have time: he only got to live here for five years before he died.’

  *

  She followed him into the South Hall, her high heels clicking against the stone floor, the inner central courtyard now visible through glass doors with its 19th-century landscaping, tinkling fountain and ferns, an oddly abandoned sanctuary as if a party of ornately adorned, hat-wearing Edwardian ladies had just left the open-roofed space. The atmosphere within the mansion without the usual mingling spectators was strangely still, and to Susie it seemed as though Frick himself and the people that had passed through his life stood poised in each darkened hallway, watching.

  The murmur of voices greeted them as they made their way down the narrow stairs to the Goya exhibition, hung in the smaller galleries beneath the main building. As they entered there was an immediate ripple of reaction through the cliques gathered around the artworks. An elegantly dressed woman in her early sixties, her face a taut canvas upon which make-up had been meticulously applied, detached herself from a group and made her way across the floor.

  ‘Felix, darling, so glad you could make it,’ she proclaimed in a genteel Southern accent, then air-kissed the gallerist before turning to Susie. ‘And this is?’

  ‘Susie Thomas,’ Felix announced, his surprise that she hadn’t recognised Susie evident in his voice. He indicated the woman, who was now resting her hand territorially on Felix’s arm: ‘Susie, Charlene Harrison.’

  ‘Of course, Susie Thomas, the sensationalist. Goodness, well, I hope you don’t find the exhibition too staid,’ Charlene retorted before Susie had a chance to speak.

  ‘Actually Goya’s one of my favourite painters,’ Susie ventured, smarting a little at the ‘sensationalist’ comment.

  ‘Bully for you.’

  ‘Charlene is one of the museum’s trustees and a collector in her own right,’ Felix explained.

  ‘Nothing after 1890, I’m afraid, so no Jackson, no Warhol and, thank God, no Cady Noland and no Susie Thomas, but you’re in good hands with Felix – he is the best and the baddest,’ she purred, stroking Felix’s arm. ‘So we have the portraits in one room and the miniature ivories in the other, the lithographs are upstairs – all of this work was made in the last years of Goya’s life when he was a political refugee living with compatriots in Bordeaux. So, an exciting insight into his final years, his failing health, his confrontation with his own mortality. The miniatures are particularly wonderful. And I cannot tell you the trouble we had coordinating this show – years of negotiation have gone into it. The French and the Spanish are not the easiest of people.’ She pulled him aside. ‘Felix, darling, I should warn you that dreadful woman Joanna Fleisch will probably arrive. Somehow the guest list escaped me this time. I am so sorry, Felix. She is so apt to be confrontational.’

  ‘No apologies needed, I can handle her… ’

  Just then a man in his early forties bristling with self-importance, wearing a chequered suit, waistcoat and cravat more reminiscent of the Manhattan of the early 19th century, bustled his way through the crowd towards them.

  ‘Christ, all I need,’ Felix commented, realising he was cornered.

  ‘Good luck.’ Charlene disappeared into the crowd.

  ‘I thought you’d be here,’ the man said, confronting Felix.

  ‘Donald Voos, art historian; Susie Thomas, artist.’

  ‘Oh, right, the great white hope of Baum #2,’ the art historian cracked dismissively.

  ‘New watch, Donald?’ Felix remarked, noticing the mechanism as it caught the light. Proudly Donald held his wrist up.

  ‘Chopard L.U.C. 1963. I’ve been searching for years. She’s a real beauty.’

  ‘Donald collects watches. It’s a very expensive habit, even for an art critic who writes for TheNew York Times,’ Felix told Susie, then turned back to Donald. ‘I might be able to put you in the way of a Philippe Patek ’72. I found this great guy.’

  The critic ignored the comment. ‘You’ve been screening my calls. We need to talk.’

  ‘Not now, Donald.’ Felix turned back to Susie. ‘Donald authenticates my Hoppers; he is the number-one authority on the Ashcan School, although he’d never tell you that. You should read his catalogue notes; they’re sublime.’

  ‘Oh, stop it, Felix. Why would a conceptual artist like Ms Thomas here want to read academic minutiae about a bunch of dead figurative painters?’ The art historian’s voice was low and whiny.

  ‘Because my own work is essentially figurative,’ Susie snapped back. ‘And I love Hopper.’

  ‘Really? I suspect the only Hopper you know involves a diner.’

  ‘Donald, play nice. Susie is my guest.’

  ‘Guest? You don’t have guests; you have either projects or conquests. The question is what will Ms Thomas turn out to be?’ At which the critic swung back to Susie. ‘If you’re lucky, darling, both. Felix is so terribly exciting, addictive even. He can lead you into some very dark places.’

  ‘I’ve already offered, but Susie’s got her own dark places,’ Felix joked while trying, unsuccessfully, to edge the artist away from the critic. Susie turned back to Donald.

  ‘I’m a grown-up, I can look after myself. But I do have a question. I’ve always wondered whether Hopper would have become famous if his wife hadn’t introduced him to watercolours? I mean if she hadn’t campaigned for his inclusion in that group show at Brooklyn Museum in 1923, he could have continued on until his death undiscovered. He was 41 and tot
ally under the radar until then. It’s like Jo promoted him and gave up her own career, and she was a good artist.’

  ‘Women artists always ask that question. Frankly, is it important? Edward Hopper would have discovered watercolours sooner or later, and the work is standout, so if it hadn’t been Jo it would have been someone else. Besides, if Jo Nivison was really going to have a serious career she would have been lauded by then, bearing in mind she was 40 herself. But hey, I’m not a feminist, and apparently neither was Jo Nivison when it came down to it,’ Donald retorted, then turned back to Felix. ‘I had a call from the Foundation, that Joanna Fleisch woman.’

  ‘Another time, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘She’s very insistent—’

  ‘Let’s speak tomorrow, Susie and I have some Goyas to look at.’ Felix grabbed Susie’s arm and led her quickly away.

  ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘We were close for a while, and Donald has never really forgiven me for it. But he’s far more useful as friend than foe.’ He grabbed two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and handed one to her. ‘To us, not them,’ he toasted, then downed his glass and took another.

  ‘By the way, I agree with you on the Jo Hopper question. Without a doubt she changed his whole trajectory. Hopper reacted to people; he was not an initiator. She made him and sacrificed her career in doing so. It’s only been fashionable to be female for the last few years, people forget that. I don’t. Another reason why I’m such a brilliant gallerist.’ He grinned cheekily.

  ‘And modest too.’

  ‘Hey, this is Manhattan, not some demure dinner party in Hampstead. By the way, have I told you how sexy you look in that dress? Kind of Red Riding Hood meets dominatrix, totally my thing… ’

  ‘I thought we were here to see some art?’ she teased.

  They walked into the next gallery, filled with Goya’s miniature ivories displayed in glass cabinets. As small as they were, the beautiful ink paintings had a fluidity of line and naturalistic expression that made them infinitely more contemporary-seeming than the work of the artist’s peers.

  Susie stared down at one particular miniature. It depicted a woman in a voluminous dress and with bare feet standing in a landscape, her whole body battling a fierce wind that was blowing the ankle-length dress against her and her shawl over her shoulders, while her half-turned face was completely obscured by her flying hair. In a monochrome landscape of blue-black ink she was a lone figure set against the elements.

  Suddenly she felt the heat of Felix’s body as he stood beside her.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ he murmured reverently.

  ‘It’s amazing how he’s managed to get so much movement in such a tiny drawing. You can really feel that wind stinging against her legs and shins, her hair swirling madly and getting into her eyes and mouth, the struggle to get her shawl back over her shoulders, the spongy grass under her naked feet,’ she said, speaking to herself as much as to him.

  ‘Apparently he used to drop ink onto the ivory and the way it spread and bled, leaving whiter areas, fired up his imagination. He’d work the figures out of the ink, not the other way around.’ He was thinking about another figure the miniature reminded him of: the waitress standing on his balcony wall, her wings fluttering in the breeze. Had that actually happened? The next morning he’d found a trail of paint-encrusted gold feathers and the footage he’d shot. Part of him was appalled and part of him intensely intrigued and excited by the experience, and he knew he would not be able to stop himself from watching it all over again, on his laptop, furtively, like porn. Sometimes he felt as if there was another man buried within him – a golem, a mud man blind with rage he couldn’t stop from bursting out.

  ‘Do you think if we stole one they’d notice?’ She looked up at him, grinning.

  ‘I think if you smashed that glass a million alarms would go off and I could forget all about launching you. I’ll buy you one, one day.’ It was a throwaway comment, but to his surprise he found he meant it. ‘Do you want to see Enredos de sus vidas? It’s in the room upstairs.’

  Susie stopped in her tracks. ‘You know that drawing?’

  ‘Sure, the title has haunted me ever since someone introduced me to it a couple of years ago… Apparently it was originally entitled The Entanglement of Her Life – which sounds more sinister. I guess Goya had a reason to change it.’

  Again Susie wondered how he’d stumbled across the relatively obscure work, and yet instinct warned her not to reveal how the drawing had come to be in her own life.

  Marked 46, it was set against cardboard behind the glass front of a cabinet. The artwork itself was fairly small – seven and a half inches by six. A simple drawing of two women embracing against a background of macabre faces leering out of heavier shading. The title was scrawled in black crayon in Goya’s own handwriting beneath. Susie’s heart clenched; for her it embodied a simpler time, a period in her life when intimacy, sex and creative inspiration had joined together seamlessly and had felt as if it would go on for ever.

  She peered closer. The reclining woman had her arm raised as if drawing the other woman down into an embrace. The figure atop, younger, round-faced, was smiling, but her gaze seemed to extend out of the drawing and fall upon the artist, the unseen participant. The shadowy cloud that backed the two figures was more nightmarish in execution than she’d remembered: grotesque half-faces looming out of darkness, bat wings, dogs’ heads, with some lighter touches like butterfly wings. To Susie’s mind they now appeared to represent societal disapproval but at the same time, perhaps, the doubts and fears of any couple, the unspoken anxiety that you never quite know the true nature of your lover, her history, what she’s really thinking… And the poignancy of this, in terms of Maxine’s suicide, hit her like a blow.

  ‘You’re very quiet,’ Felix said tentatively.

  ‘I think Goya must have known these women. Maybe he knew the older one first and originally intended to make a more judgemental drawing – The Entanglement of Her Life, the emphasis being on the corrupting lesbian lover – but when he saw the two women together he realised that there was so much joy between them it would be immoral to pass judgement, so he changed the title to Entanglements of Their Lives, and refocused the theme and the drawing on the encroaching, judging world around them,’ she told him, astonishing herself with her own honesty. Felix listened, an intensity playing about his eyes that, she decided, must be sincere.

  ‘When I first read the title, the word “Entanglement” seemed to encapsulate exactly how I was feeling – caught in a web that tightened every time I moved,’ he told her, his voice now uncharacteristically free from artifice. ‘At the time it reflected my own life; keeping everything compartmentalised was getting increasingly difficult. I think it was then that I decided to opt out of relationships altogether and only focus on career.’ He was lying, calculating that she would empathise with such a story. Well, he thought, it was more a half-truth than an outright lie. But her response was a sceptical frown. ‘For people like us, intimacy is like psychological ice,’ he elaborated, hoping to win her over. ‘We skate above it, terrified of falling through when the ice is too thin.’

  ‘You fell through?’ Susie asked, incredulous.

  ‘Momentarily, but I didn’t drown, right? And that’s the main point, isn’t it?’ he answered. Both of them were now acutely aware of each other’s physicality.

  ‘I did,’ Susie murmured. She returned her gaze to the drawing but, overwhelmed by the awkward tension, somewhere between fear and strong sexual attraction, she couldn’t step away.

  ‘Hey, we’re all human,’ he answered softly.

  He inched towards her and their shoulders touched. The sound of a loud hooting laugh broke the moment.

  ‘Oh Christ, that’s Joanna Fleisch.’ Felix grabbed Susie’s hand and pulled her out into the hallway outside the gallery. Looking around, he spied a service cupboard; in seconds they were inside.

  They were eclipsed by instant
darkness but, once her eyes had adjusted, she could see a couple of mops and brooms hanging on hooks against the back wall. Felix pressed his mobile phone and the screen light came on, transforming the small room into a cavern of shadows. Grinning, he put his finger to his lips, indicating they should keep quiet, then switched his phone off. Only the light slanting in from under the door illuminated them now. Outside they could hear footsteps and then a woman asking for Felix.

  Susie held her breath. There was something both deliciously transgressive and ridiculous about the two of them hiding out that made her see a whole other side to Felix’s personality. It was as if they had been transformed into one of the inked miniatures they’d just been looking at; his dark eyes shining from the hollows of his face, her dress a quilt of shadow. The scent of him – a mixture of an exotic musk and the actual perfume of his skin – washed over her like colour. A dark purple, she decided. Or was it mauve?

  They waited, the silence stretching between them until it was taut. Outside the footsteps faded.

  ‘What are we doing?’ she whispered.

  ‘This… ’ He leaned down and kissed her, his lips and tongue insistent.

  To her wonder, he tasted right, so right she moaned, the sound vibrating against his lips. Still kissing her, he half-smiled and, slipping his hand under her skirt, found her and started playing her. Wrapping one leg around his hip, she pulled him down into a deeper embrace, all rationale gone. The only thing she was aware of was wanting him inside her. Pushing her against the wall, Felix lifted her skirt and ripped off her underpants, then moved down her body. Struggling, she tried to stop him from going down on her, but he pushed her hands away as his fingers slipped beneath her jacket and T-shirt. He found her small breasts and pulled sharply at her erect nipples, pinching down hard as he did. She gasped, in both pain and pleasure. To abdicate control was terrifying to her, and panic began to flutter at the back of her throat, the fear that if she didn’t control the sex she would not be able to control the emotion. A paradox she could not afford. He was now between her thighs, her hands entwined in his thick hair, his mouth on her sex, sucking at her clit as his fingers played both her vagina and anus. Staring down, she could hardly believe that this was Felix Baum on his knees pleasuring her, still fully clothed, his thick black hair a bobbing mass between her legs. She was close to coming, but she wanted more, she wanted him in her, to feel his cock inside her. She hauled him up and began unzipping his fly. Released, he was compact and heavy in her hands.