Painted Ladies

by Lynn Bushell

  Ten days after Caro’s disappearance, Roussel gets a visit from the gendarmes. When he comes into the café afterwards, his face is ashen and his eyes are rheumy with exhaustion. He stands looking at the group around the table.

  ‘All right, Roussel?’ Bénard says.

  One of the girls gets up. She goes across to him and loops her arm round his. ‘Why don’t you come and sit down, Ricki?’

  ‘I don’t want to. I’ve got things to do.’

  ‘What things are those?’

  ‘None of your business,’ he says, throwing off her arm. ‘None of your fucking business.’

  For a moment, he looks round as if he isn’t certain what he’s doing there and then he turns and walks out.

  They see nothing of him in the next week. Groult, the painter in the studio below Roussel’s in rue Delambre says he heard him arguing with Caro on the night before her disappearance. Others add their own accounts of Roussel’s preference for young girls, his shortcomings as an artist and a man, his tendency to violence after he’s been drinking.

  Renée is surprised how little loyalty the painters seem to feel for one another. While they go on arguing and speculating about what’s become of Caro, no one seems to care about Roussel’s predicament.

  When she goes to his studio, a part of her is still expecting to find Caro there. The door is open. Listening, she can hear a faint tap-tapping on the other side, suggesting somebody is there, but when she knocks, there is no answer. Still the tapping goes on. She peers round the door. Inside, it’s empty, but a cord is dangling from the open skylight and the draft is rapping it against the wall. The room looks even more chaotic than it did when Caro lived in it. Her foot knocks up against an empty bottle. The same plates are piled up in the sink and there’s a saucer full of cigarette butts on the carpet by the chaise longue. Roussel’s clothes are strewn across it and the cushions have been bunched at one end with a rug spread out along its length, as if someone’s been sleeping there.

  The room reeks of neglect. The only item that suggests Roussel might have a life outside it is the drawing pinned above the sink that had lain in two halves on the bench the last time she was there. The torn halves have been taped together and Roussel has put a cardboard frame around it.

  Renée sees that several of the tops are off the paint tubes and the dipper has been filled with oil. A dozen brushes are laid out across the worktop. He’s been working on the painting Caro had been posing for before she left. When Renée puts her face up close to it she sees a smear of fresh paint on the surface.

  She goes over to the cubicle. The curtain rings have come adrift at one end of the rod and, as she draws it back, she sees the marks of Caro’s fingers in the grey stains on the curtain. Caro’s wrap is on the hook. She bunches it against her face. There is a scent on it, but it is not the scent of Caro. She has taken her scent with her, if indeed she had one. Renée glances up and sees her own reflection in the grimy surface of the mirror hanging from the curtain rail. As she steps back, she stumbles over Caro’s sandals.

  She goes out onto the landing, leaving the door open as she found it. Outside on the pavement, she sees Roussel coming down the street towards her.

  ‘Lost your way?’ He’s carrying a heavy-duty bag in one arm, with the other wrapped around it. Renée hears a clink of glass. There’s three days growth of stubble on his chin and she can smell the whisky on his breath.

  ‘I wondered whether you’d had any news of Caro?’

  ‘Given all the trouble that girl’s caused me, I’d have done myself a favour if I’d left her where I found her.’ He is rummaging inside his pockets with his free hand for a cigarette. His hand shakes as he lights it.

  ‘You look dreadful.’

  ‘I’ve been living in the studio. My wife has kicked me out. Some kind friend has been spreading rumours that I pick my models off the streets and dump them back there when I’ve finished with them.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I admit there have been times when I could cheerfully have murdered Caro, but I wouldn’t have been mad enough to do it just before the autumn exhibition.’

  ‘I once saw you slap her.’

  ‘She would have despised me if I’d let her get away with it when she got greedy. Every now and then she’d try it on. It was as if she felt she had to keep her hand in. Me and Caro understood each other.’

  ‘Pierre said . . .’

  ‘What?’ She shrugs. He throws his spent match in the gutter. ‘I know what they’re saying out there, but you can’t corrupt someone unless they’re innocent to start with. She’d had several lovers when she came to me. At least I paid her for the work she did, I kept her off the streets; she had enough to live on and as much ice cream as she could eat.’ He rests his back against the wall as if he’s having trouble staying upright. ‘If you don’t mind, I shall crawl back to my bogey-hole. I’m not fit company for anyone at present.’

  ‘Is it Caro or your wife that’s got you into this state?’

  Ash is dangling from the cigarette in Roussel’s mouth. He doesn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Isabelle is trying to deny me access to my daughters. I may be a bastard, but I’d never harm them.’ The ash settles on his sleeve. The linen suit looks grey. ‘You know the trouble with posh women? They insist on sitting down to dinner with a knife and fork, but they still chew your balls off when they’ve got them on a plate.’

  ‘You can still work. She can’t take that away from you.’

  ‘You may have noticed that I haven’t got a model.’

  ‘Can’t you get somebody else to pose for you?’ Roussel gives her a long look. ‘I can’t do it. Pierre’s got work to finish, too.’

  ‘You wouldn’t do in any case. You’re not the same shape.’

  Renée bridles. ‘Fussy, aren’t you?’

  ‘I would need to start from scratch. You can’t graft figures onto one another. If I had you for two afternoons I could white out the figure and paint over it.’

  The idea that the ghost of Caro would be permanently underneath Roussel’s depiction of her bothers Renée more than the idea of sitting for him.

  ‘Pasting me on top of Caro; it’s like rubbing someone out.’

  ‘You must have been rubbed out a dozen times while you were sitting for Pierre.’

  ‘But only so that he can paint another one of me on top. He’s not replacing me.’

  ‘I need a model. Caro isn’t here. Unless I get it finished, I’ll have wasted three months on that picture.’

  ‘Show it as it is, then.’

  Roussel gives a weary smile. ‘For someone of your class, you’re quite bright, Renée, but you don’t know anything about art.’

  ‘What’s it got to do with art?’

  ‘You think I’d be betraying Caro if I painted over her?’

  ‘You would be killing her,’ says Renée, simply.

  ‘What’s a Nabi?’

  There’s a pause before he answers. ‘Where did you hear that word?’

  Renée hesitates. She doesn’t want to tell him she has been in Roussel’s studio. ‘It’s written on that poster by your workbench.’

  Pierre glances at the poster. ‘They were artists who met up as students in the 1880s. When they left the art school they continued working as a group.’

  ‘Were you one?’

  ‘Briefly.’

  ‘What about Roussel?’

  Pierre picks out a brush and tests it with his fingers. ‘He was there at the beginning, yes.’

  ‘Why did you call yourselves the Nabis?’

  ‘We wore beards, a lot of us were Jews and we were very earnest.’

  ‘Is that what the word means . . . earnest?’

  ‘It means somebody who speaks the word of God. I know, it sounds unbearably pretentious. I can only say that we were very young.’

  ‘Is that the sort of thing they did?’ She nods towards the poster.

  ‘That’s a painting by Serusier. It’s fairly typical.’


  ‘And Roussel painted like that, did he?’

  Pierre looks at her. ‘What is it that you want to ask me?’

  Renée colours. ‘Roussel’s asked me if I’ll sit for him, so he can finish off his painting for the Salon. He would only need two afternoons.’

  There is a slight pause. ‘Did you say you would?’

  ‘I said no, but without a model he can’t finish off his picture.’

  ‘Any time you spend with him is taken off the time you have with me.’ He has his back to her, but Renée knows by the determined setting of his shoulders that he’s trying not to say what he would like to. ‘You must please yourself, of course.’

  ‘I just felt sorry for him.’

  Pierre glances at her. ‘Last week you were blaming him for Caro’s disappearance.’

  ‘I’m not sure it was his fault, exactly. He looked after her.’ She wonders if she ought to mention Gallagher. ‘You said yourself she was a lost cause.’

  ‘At the point when she met Roussel, I suspect she was.’ Pierre takes out his pocket watch and flips the lid back.

  Renée stares. ‘You found your watch.’

  He looks up. ‘Did I not say? It was in the studio at Saint-Germain. I found it when I went back that weekend.’

  ‘I thought . . .’ she stops. Her life feels skewed. She crosses over to the window.

  Pierre is winding up the watch. ‘I dare say I could spare you for an afternoon,’ he offers grudgingly.

  She gazes down into the street. She’s thinking of the white space in the centre of the canvas with the hazy image of her predecessor underneath it and of Roussel blocking in the shape of her on top of it, obliterating anything that still remains of Caro. She sees Caro scooping cashews off her ice cream with a spoon and feeding them to Sweetie, Caro staring back at her defiantly when their eyes met that morning in the street outside the studio, and gazing proudly at the cuts along her arm. She sees her blank face after Sweetie disappeared. She hadn’t understood why anyone would grieve for Sweetie and she wouldn’t understand why anyone should grieve for her.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Actually, I think I won’t,’ she says.

  There is a pause before he answers. ‘As you wish.’

  The picture’s finished. Pierre steps back. He makes a minor readjustment to a patch of colour.

  ‘Can I see now?’ Renée skips across the room and slips her arms around his waist. The painting shows her standing with her back to him, the weight on one leg, her arms crossed over her chest, her head thrown back so that her blonde hair seems to be dissolving in the light. She recognises objects in the room – the worktop with its jars of oil next to the easel, crumpled drapes and cushions on the chaise longue and the cane chair with her wrap thrown over it. But everything has been transformed. Paint crackles on the surface. It’s a glittering kaleidoscope of colour into which she blends so seamlessly that Renée wonders how she ever managed to exist outside it.

  ‘Pierre, it’s beautiful!’

  ‘I simply put down what was there.’ He kisses her. She reaches for the wrap. ‘I can’t wait to see what it looks like in the exhibition. Will there be a lot of people there?’

  ‘The opening is an opportunity for an invited audience to see the work and meet the artists. I’m not sure that anybody looks much at the paintings. They’re too busy eyeing one another.’

  Renée goes behind the curtain and pulls on her clothes. For weeks the only thing that anybody’s talked about, apart from Caro’s disappearance, is the Salon exhibition. ‘What day is the opening?’

  ‘The eleventh of September.’

  ‘Does it last all evening?’

  ‘Normally it lasts until the champagne runs out.’

  ‘Are you putting any other pictures in?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘What are they of?’

  Pierre doesn’t answer. It occurs to her that from this moment she no longer has a role. What will she do now? She pulls back the curtain. Pierre is sitting by the easel.

  ‘Dearest, you do know that I can’t take you to the opening, don’t you?’

  She stands looking at him. Pierre leans back. He sighs. ‘I’m sorry if that’s what you thought. You see, it’s not the sort of thing the painters take their models to. It simply isn’t done. We’ll go together later and have tea somewhere. We’ll make a day of it. How’s that?’

  She nods. Of course, she thinks. He couldn’t take her to a thing like that. He would be telling everyone she was his mistress. ‘What about the other pictures? Where are they?’

  ‘They’re in the studio at Saint-Germain.’

  ‘Are they of Marthe?’

  ‘Well they’re of the garden and the living room and Marthe’s in there somewhere with the dog and both the cats.’ He smiles but Renée feels a chill inside her at the thought of the domestic life she is excluded from.

  ‘What does it feel like to be married?’

  There’s a pause before he answers. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You must know. You and Marthe . . .’

  ‘We’re not married,’ he says. ‘Did I say we were?’

  She can’t believe she’s hearing this. She searches backwards in her head. ‘The way you talk about her . . .’

  ‘Why would I talk any other way about her?’ Pierre tips up the bottle of white spirit, waiting for the liquid to soak through the sponge. ‘Are you upset? You thought that I was married when I wasn’t.’

  She picks at a loose thread in the wrap. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It would seem it does.’

  ‘It’s only that if you’re not married . . .’

  ‘What?’

  She shrugs. ‘You’re free.’

  ‘I’m not sure what that means.’

  ‘You’re not obliged to stay with her. That’s what I mean.’

  He’s shocked. ‘You don’t just stay with somebody because you’re married to them, Renée. Marthe’s been with me for nearly thirty years. To leave her would be cruel, ungrateful. It would be unthinkable.’

  ‘It’s not because you love her, then?’

  ‘Love doesn’t mean the same thing when you’re old.’

  ‘I wouldn’t stay with someone if I didn’t love them.’

  ‘But I do love Marthe. I’m just saying it’s a different kind of love.’

  ‘Why didn’t you get married?’

  ‘I suppose because it seemed unnecessary. We were all right as we were.’

  ‘Did you ask Marthe what she wanted?’

  ‘I think Marthe would have told me if she wasn’t happy.’ Renée’s tracing with her index finger in the dust. ‘And so would you, I hope.’ He wipes the cloth over his fingernails. ‘Are you unhappy, Renée?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’m just wondering where I’ll be in ten years’ time. I’m worried I’ll end up like Caro.’

  ‘We don’t know how Caro’s ended up.’

  ‘Most people seem to think she’s dead.’

  He sits down next to her. ‘You won’t end up like Caro, Renée. Caro only had Roussel. You have me.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  Pierre looks at her reprovingly.

  ‘No, I don’t mean that!’ Renée presses both hands to her temples. ‘You’re the only man, the only person who’s been nice to me. It’s just . . . oh, I don’t know.’ She bangs her fists against her knees. ‘Since Caro disappeared, it all feels different. It feels wrong.’

  ‘In what way, wrong?’

  ‘I never even knew her name.’

  What is preoccupying Renée is the thought that in a month or so she’ll have forgotten Caro, just like everybody else here. She’d thought they were friends, but they weren’t really friends, thinks Renée. She feels as she did when she was little and a doll she hadn’t cared for much until then had been given to her sister. It had left behind a space out of proportion to the space it occupied when it was there.

  ‘Nobody here knew anything about her. I suppose she to
ld us what she wanted us to know.’ He throws the cloth into the box of rags under the workbench. ‘You’d be wise to stay away from Roussel, Renée. If the police arrest him . . .’

  Renée glances quickly at him. ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘The girl has disappeared. It’s his responsibility. He’s her protector.’

  ‘Would you feel the same about me if I disappeared?’

  ‘Of course I would.’

  ‘It took you long enough to come and find me when I did.’ The words are out before she has a chance to stop them.

  ‘That’s not fair. I didn’t want to harass you if you’d decided not to see me any more.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s how Roussel feels.’ She is using Roussel to provoke him, but it’s the equivalent of stroking someone’s bare arm with a nettle. It’s impossible to have an argument with Pierre. ‘She had a friend, a man called Gallagher. She said he was her cousin.’

  Pierre smiles. ‘He couldn’t . . .’

  ‘No, I said that. Caro said his name was Charlie. They just called him Gallagher.’

  ‘I don’t recall you mentioning it at the time.’

  ‘I only met him once.’

  Pierre nods. So why talk about it now? is what he is implying.

  ‘Roussel’s wife has left him. Did you know?’

  Pierre lets out a little sigh. ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘Roussel told me, that day when he asked me if I’d sit for him.’

  ‘You must have had a fairly lengthy conversation.’

  ‘He looked terrible. I asked him what the matter was.’

  ‘And he said Isabelle had left him.’

  ‘And she’s taken both their daughters. It’s because of all the trouble over Caro. Maybe this man Gallagher . . .’

  ‘It’s rather late to mention something like that now. The police will wonder why you didn’t tell them straight away.’

  ‘You think I shouldn’t mention it?’ He doesn’t answer. ‘Don’t you think we ought to help Roussel?’

  ‘I don’t think we should feel obliged to,’ Pierre says calmly.