The Muse

by Jessie Burton

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ she said.

  ‘This is from Miss Peggy Guggenheim.’ He stumbled over the pronunciation of the woman’s surname. ‘Read it for yourself.’

  Disconcerted, Olive took the letter, sat at the table, and read.

  Dear Mr Robles,

  Harold Schloss gave me your address. Forgive my forwardness, but I do believe that in these matters, honesty of expression is invaluable. I hope that you, as an artist relatively new to these transactions, would agree. For I have no wish to be a faceless ‘purchaser’ – your work has enlivened my wall, and I am enthralled.

  Olive looked up at Isaac, her mind racing. ‘Oh, Isaac. How wonderful—­’

  ‘Read on,’ he said.

  When Schloss said he had something special to show me, I was dubious. Art dealers say this a lot to me, and I am quickly learning to develop a “sang froid” when it comes to such declarations. But Schloss was adamant; even coming to Paris specifically to show it to me. He said you were from the land of the Moors and the endless starlit skies, of Arabic palaces and Catholic forts, where blood is in the soil and the sun beats the sierra. Your dealer may sound a theatrical Viennese, Mr Robles, but I have come to entirely trust his opinion.

  I am so delighted I agreed to meet. The enriching effects of your painting change by the day for me. My friends, who know better than me, call it a chimaera, a chameleon, an aesthetic pleasure and a metaphysical joy. I would rather say that Women in the Wheatfield is not an easy painting to categorize, and that this is a good thing. Whilst I admire your figurative stubbornness in a time of abstract shapes, this is not to say I think you are part of a reactionary, regressive force – far from it. You are up to something new.

  The colors – where to start with your colors? I joked to Herr Schloss, “perhaps if we cut Mr Robles open, we will find a rainbow hiding inside?” But guard your hands, Mr Robles – I know we will only find out this rainbow through the process of more paintings.

  The overall spirit of Wheatfield to me feels mythical and unbridled. Yet there is something fastidious in your animals, as if their lines have been rendered by a Renaissance master with a realist’s touch – and the fact you have painted oil onto wood compounds this sense of tradition. It is both dream and nightmare, irreligious yet striving for some faith. Yet the colors of the women – their expressions, the sweep of the sky – they seem derived from a somewhat more modern soul.

  This is just what I take from it, of course. You must do as other great artists do, and ignore all “opinion”. Anyway, Mr Robles: I love it; take or discard that as

  you will.

  Schloss probably told you that I am planning to establish a gallery in London next year, and I have your painting intended for the opening exhibition. I do not know if I shall be able to part with it for public consumption – I do not want to share it and for now, it hangs on my bedroom wall. There is a call to intimacy within it, a personal struggle and defiance that seems so essentially human – dare I say, so essentially female – which has come to beat inside me like an extra heart.

  But I want to be a good collector, you see – and good collectors always share. I would love for you to see it on the public wall.

  I will never make an artist explain himself to me, unless he himself chooses to do so – so I ask here no questions of impulses, process, your wishes for what may come. But here is my one request. Schloss has assured me that there will be opportunities to see more work, and all I ask is that you consider me a supporter. To wit: when it comes to showing you to the wider world, I would love to be your first port of call. The first of anything is so often the most indefatigable.

  Yours, in admiration,

  Peggy Guggenheim

  Olive started to laugh, giddy laughter – the laughter of someone whose lottery ticket has just come through; her winner’s mind already racing over the transformations of her life to come. ‘Oh, Isaac,’ she said. ‘You’ve made a new friend. She loves it.’

  ‘She is not my friend.’

  ‘Come on, Isa. There’s nothing to worry about.’

  He went very still. ‘Is it true that your father has told her I have more paintings?’

  Olive placed the letter slowly on the table. ‘I don’t know. That’s the honest truth. But it’s inevitable he would – he’s a dealer. It’s half his job. He got Guggenheim – hook, line and sinker – and he wasn’t going to let her go again without a little bait.’

  He ran a hand over his face. ‘Did you know this would happen, Olive?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you suppose it would happen?’

  ‘I didn’t think about it.’

  ‘You didn’t think about it.’

  ‘I – just knew I couldn’t tell my father that it was mine.’

  ‘But why not?’ He pressed his finger on the letter and she watched his skin turn white. ‘Would it not be easier than all this?’

  ‘Teresa put me on the spot. She interfered—­’

  ‘Mr Robles does not have any more paintings,’ Isaac said, folding his arms. ‘That was the one painting he had. And now it’s sold. And now there are no more.’

  ‘Yes, but—­’

  ‘So I am going to tell your father, the dealer, that I do not have time to paint. My work in Malaga does not give me the time for it.’

  ‘Peggy Guggenheim bought you, Isaac. Her uncle—­’

  He made a sound of disgust. ‘Listen to yourself. Peggy bought you.’

  ‘Peggy bought us. Don’t you see? We’re together in this. Your name, your face: my work.’

  ‘Olive. This is very serious. There is no balance.’

  ‘Just one more painting. One more.’

  ‘I have not enjoyed this. I said yes, like a fool. I was tired, I was stupid. And now you are like a drunk, searching for the hidden bottle.’

  ‘Blame your sister, not me. I never wanted this situation, but here it is.’

  ‘You could have stopped it. You didn’t want to.’

  ‘Did you give the money to the workers?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘And didn’t that feel like you were doing something? Aren’t we all supposed to make sacrifices – isn’t that half your credo that you’ve been telling me since the day we met?’

  ‘And what sacrifice are you making, Olive? As far as I can see, for you this is a big joke.’

  ‘It’s not a joke,’ Olive snapped, pushing her chair back and facing him square-­on.

  ‘You have been behaving as if it is.’

  ‘Why do you and your sister think I’m so stupid? Do you know how many artists my father sells? Twenty-­five or six, last time I counted. Do you know how many of them are women, Isaac? None. Not one. Women can’t do it, you see. They haven’t got the vision, although last time I checked they had eyes, and hands, and hearts and souls. I’d have lost before I’d even had a chance.’

  ‘But you made that painting—­’

  ‘So what? My father would never have got on a plane to Paris with a painting he thought was mine. I’ve lived with that realization for years, Isaac. Years and years, before you and I met. When I came down here, I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life; I was lost. And then I met you. And then your sister –your interfering little sister, who perhaps did me the greatest favour anyone’s ever done, even though the truth of it is killing her – came along and changed everything. And I like it, Isaac, and I don’t want it to stop. One day I might tell him – just to see the look on his face. Maybe that will be a joke. But not now. It’s too late.’

  ‘Too late – for what? And please do not say it is because you want to carry on helping the Spanish working man. I do not think I can tolerate it.’

  ‘You were happy enough to take my money—­’

  ‘Peggy Guggenheim’s money—­’

  ‘Which was prob
ably double your annual salary. Do you think I truly don’t care about what’s happening down here?’

  ‘You may care. But it is superficial. You do not understand it at the heart.’

  ‘But I’m the one who can actually pump proper money into it, not you. And who says you’re the expert?’ She threw up her hands. ‘All right, Isaac, I’ll tell you why I want to carry on – it is for me. But I can help some ­people along the way, at least. I want my paintings to be so valuable and so important that no one can pull them off the market and hide them away because – heaven forfend – they were painted by a woman. And it’s not just that. I’ve seen what success does to ­people, Isaac – how it separates them from their creative impulse, how it paralyses them. They can’t make anything that isn’t a horrible replica of what came before, because everybody has opinions on who they are and how they should be.’

  ‘I am glad you are being honest. But it would still have been the same painting if your name was on it,’ Isaac said. ‘You could have changed things.’

  ‘Oh, God, I could wring your neck. You’re so naive – it wouldn’t have worked out the same way at all. There’d be no flirty letter from Peggy Guggenheim, no exhibition in her new gallery on the basis of one painting, nothing like it. And it would take all my energy “changing things” as you put it, with none left over to paint – which is the whole bloody point of everything. The energy a man might use on – oh, I don’t know, making good work – you want me to use on “changing things”. You don’t understand, because you’ve lived your life as an individual, Isaac. And yet everything you do as a man is universal. So enjoy the glory, enjoy the money, and do it for me, because I certainly wouldn’t have been allowed.’

  ‘A cheque from Peggy Guggenheim isn’t going to change the political situation round here,’ he said. ‘You are the naive one.’

  ‘Well I’d rather be naive than boring. What’s wrong with the pair of you? I’ve given you this! You and Teresa are as bad as each other.’

  ‘My sister is angry with me,’ he said. ‘She’s right.’

  ‘Well she’s angry with me too. We’re hardly friends. It’s a mess. But let’s face it, when is Teresa not angry?’

  There was a brief moment of unity, of levity, as they thought of Teresa and her scowling, her defiance, her sense of what was right, and her unorthodox ways of going about it. ‘I don’t think she considered any of this when she put my painting on the easel,’ Olive said. ‘She doesn’t know me at all.’

  Isaac leant back in the chair and exhaled the moment of truce. ‘No. It did not go according to her plan. But she still idolizes you. And I think she knows you better than you know yourself.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘That maybe, Olive, you didn’t want your painting to be so secret after all.’

  She stared at him. ‘What?’

  ‘You let her into your bedroom. You showed her your paintings. Did you never wonder that my sister might skip ahead of you a few steps?’

  ‘I showed her my paintings as a friend.’

  ‘Teresa did not do this to you maliciously. Stop pretending that she has done you a harm.’

  Olive slumped onto the table. ‘If you’re so worried about your sister’s feelings you should never have touched me in the first place. That’s what’s really bothering her. I don’t know why.’

  ‘Olive, you came to me – you wanted . . . All right. How about we stop this, now?’

  Olive lifted her head. ‘What do you want to stop?’

  ‘This . . . lie. I feel I am deceiving your father—­’

  ‘It doesn’t matter about him. He’s happy. He’s delighted. He’s sold a piece of art and he’s cultivating the reputation of a very promising artist—­’

  ‘Who doesn’t exist.’

  ‘But the Isaac Robles we created – he exists.’

  ‘We are going round in circles.’

  ‘Just one more painting. One more.’

  ‘You are so bossy, Olive. So careless with other ­people’s feelings.’

  ‘Am I? What about you? You didn’t even want to kiss me when I turned up.’ They sat, facing each other in silence. ‘Please, Isa. I know it’s a lot. But I’ve got a painting called The Orchard. We could give Peggy Guggenheim that.’

  ‘The more we play, the more dangerous this gets.’

  ‘Nothing bad is going to happen.’ Olive knelt down by Isaac’s side, her fists locked together in supplication, resting on his knee. ‘No one will ever know. Please, Isa. Please.’

  He ran his hands nervously over his head. ‘What if Peggy Guggenheim wants to meet me?’

  ‘She’s not going to want to come down here.’

  ‘What if she invites me to Paris? She has already mentioned London.’

  ‘Then say no. Play the elusive artist.’

  Isaac narrowed his eyes. ‘Now is not the time for English irony.’

  ‘No, I mean it. Isaac, please.’

  ‘What will you do for me?’

  ‘Anything you want.’

  Isaac closed his eyes and ran his hand down his face again, as if he was washing away his thoughts. He lifted her from the floor and rose from the table, leading her through across the kitchen towards his bedroom door. ‘One painting, Olive,’ he said. ‘And then – no more.’

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  14

  Isaac demanded to see The Orchard before it was shipped to Harold’s office in Paris, ‘so at least I know what I am putting my name to.’ Teresa suggested that perhaps Sarah should view it too, because it would be useful for her to see Isaac with The Orchard. This would reinforce the general belief that the painting was his, should Sarah ever mention seeing it to her husband.

  Olive was surprised at Teresa’s suggestion. ‘I suppose it’s a good idea,’ she said to her. ‘But I thought you didn’t want anything to do with this?’

  Teresa merely shrugged.

  ‘OH, IT’S WONDERFUL,’ SAID SARAH, standing in front of the painting that afternoon in the front east room. Olive scuttled away from it – rather like a crab, it seemed to Teresa – running from a great wave, unable to put her head out of her shell. Her confident attitude had evaporated, and she sat herself in her father’s armchair to watch her mother. Teresa took in the vision of Sarah’s red woollen trousers, the deep blood shade against her creamy skin; Sarah had clearly rallied herself. ‘It’s so like our orchard,’ she said. ‘But . . . different.’

  ‘Thank you, señora,’ said Isaac, in visible discomfort.

  ‘Isn’t it good, Liv?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Olive, unable to meet Isaac’s eye.

  Sarah insisted that Teresa fetch Isaac tea and polvorones. ‘We’re so glad to have Teresa,’ she said. ‘It would all be such a palaver without her. And I’m so proud of finding you, Mr Robles,’ she said to him, leaning against the back of the sofa where he was sitting. She was warm, conciliatory. ‘How does it feel, to be the toast of Paris? she asked.

  ‘What is toast?’

  ‘It means you’re everyone’s new favourite. He’ll be champing at the bit when he sees this.’ She waved her hand in the direction of The Orchard. ‘Honestly, Mr Robles, I’m just so glad I commissioned you in the first place, although it’s hard to share you. It’s just such a shame my painting is hanging on another woman’s wall.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ she sighed, and it sounded like twenty words in one. ‘My husband will be home soon.’ The marital noun made it sound as if Isaac would have no idea who Harold was.

  ‘It will be good to see him,’ said Isaac.

  Sarah smiled and left the room, and Teresa felt as if the wattage of the day had dimmed as they listened to her moving back up the main staircase. Olive stepp
ed quickly to the door and shut it. ‘Well, Isa?’ she asked, whirling round. ‘Do you like it?’

  They all stared at the painting, the undulating patchwork of fields, the surreal intensity of colour, the white house which once was his to roam and now the home of someone else. ‘Does it matter whether I like it?’ he asked.

  Olive looked uncomfortable. ‘You don’t like it.’

  ‘I can see its merit, but it is not what I myself would paint,’ he said.

  ‘He doesn’t like it,’ said Teresa.

  ‘It is not that simple,’ Isaac snapped.

  Olive stood before the painting. ‘I think it is that simple, really. What don’t you like about it?’

  ‘My God!’ he cried. ‘Why do I have to like it? Is it not bad enough I am pretending I have made it?’

  ‘Do keep your voice down,’ she said.

  ‘You have even painted my initials on it.’

  ‘A necessary touch.’

  He stood up. ‘I hate it,’ he said, savagely. ‘I hope your father does too.’

  ‘Isaac—­’

  ‘Good day, señoritas.’

  Olive looked as if he had slapped her in the face. When he left the room and the two girls were left alone, Olive ran to the window, watching Isaac’s figure disappearing down the slope to the rusting gates. He pushed them open roughly, not looking back once.

  ‘Do not be upset,’ said Teresa, stepping forward. ‘What does it matter if he likes it?’

  Olive made a sound of frustration. ‘I don’t care about that. You have no idea what you’re saying. He can hate what I create, but I can’t create if he’s angry with me. I just can’t.’

  ‘But why not? You painted before you knew him.’

  Olive gestured at The Orchard. ‘Not like this, not like this!’ She pressed her forehead against the peeling wooden shutter. ‘And if he doesn’t like it, how can we be sure he’ll ship it to my father? It has to go soon. We’ll lose momentum with the Guggenheim woman.’