At Your Beck & Call

by Jane Harvey-Berrick

  And I painted me—I painted about my past. The women, the men, the parties, the excesses: pleasure, passion and pain. My largest canvas showed me surrounded by faceless, shapeless, nameless women, as they devoured my naked body. I wasn’t hiding anymore.

  Carl had returned from his honeymoon, more tan and heavier than when he’d left. We met up with his father and played a round of golf where they both thrashed me, Carl winning by nearly a dozen strokes. He didn’t even have it in him to gloat.

  Days turned into weeks, months passed, and nothing changed. The silence grew louder, threatening to crush me. Eloise was there, never judging, always on my side, but refusing to allow me to sink.

  I went through the motions with Magda, who was careful never to mention Laura’s name. And somehow, working side by side, we gradually pulled together an exhibition.

  She hesitated only once, when I gave her the text to use for my profile in the exhibition catalogue. I didn’t back down and in the end, she had no choice but to agree.

  Eloise had rallied the troops for the opening night of my show. Marco was there with his latest boyfriend, an older man who was a music video producer. He asked me if I’d be interested in designing some cover artwork. I said yes, even though not much interested me at the moment.

  Peggy and Cindy were there, as well; quietly sympathetic, acting as if I’d suffered a bereavement. Maybe I had. They fluttered and tutted and hovered around me in a way that was irritating but so full of love, I couldn’t be angry with them.

  Carl arrived with Tessa, who was awkward and ill at ease, but not unpleasant. It was the first time I’d seen her since the wedding, although Carl and I had been meeting up more often than usual. She thanked me for my wedding gift to them which was a long weekend staying at the Bowery Hotel in NYC, first class tickets and reservations to a show that she particularly wanted to see.

  But Tessa’s thanks were given before she read the exhibition catalogue and before she saw the paintings.

  I’d briefly considered telling Carl not to bring his parents, but in the end I didn’t. They might not think I was a good influence after tonight, but at least they’d know who I really was.

  Véro had flown in especially, very pregnant and looking tired but smiling happily every time her husband looked at her. His eyes followed her across the room when he wasn’t glued to her side.

  I’d only met Thomas a couple of times before, once being at their wedding, and I knew that he was aware of our history, but he smiled and shook my hand, and if it bothered him, he never showed it. He knew that his wife loved him, and nothing else mattered. I was jealous as fuck. Not of Véro, but what they had with one another.

  Magda had been right when she’d warned me about the effect that my personal statement in the exhibition catalogue would have.

  Hallen Jansen’s second major exhibition ‘Paradise Lost’ delves into a darker shade of the human psyche. Influenced by the eight years he worked as a professional escort, we visit a sinister underworld where men are objects of desire, devoured relentlessly by a parade of faceless women. The work is intense, angry, vengeful—and at times loving and gentle.

  ‘Pay Day’ is a violent piece—an earlier image defaced with red and black paint, dollar fills and shards of glass fixed to the surface, giving a collage effect.

  ‘The Menu’ is a scene of disturbing ferocity where unnamed women feast on the artist. Balancing this are a number of pieces that the artist describes as poems to a dark haired woman—’Beauty Slandered I-IV’. Linking the two halves of the exhibition is ‘Diptych’—a two panel piece, again featuring the artist shrouded in shadow, with the dark muse haloed in bright light: a metaphor.

  “All of my work is deeply personal—this series of paintings more so than ever before. It’s about revealing and defining, a refusal to hide the darkness that exists in all of us.”

  Hallen Jansen graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor of Arts in 2006.

  Interest in the show was intense. Critics from several national newspapers had flown in, as a result of Magda working her considerable contacts. Word of mouth had done the rest and tickets for the preview had been snapped up in a matter of hours.

  I felt disconnected from the flurry of activity around me, although not unaware of the shocked or brazen glances that were thrown my way.

  When I first walked in, a collective gasp sounded around the room. It was almost amusing. Almost. Eloise took my arm, not caring that assumptions about our relationship were now being wildly imagined.

  Carl strode over and shook my hand, then pulled me into a hug.

  “You’re a crazy bastard, but I love you, man.”

  His parents couldn’t meet my eyes at first. Mrs. Hennessy walked over eventually, a determined glint in her eye.

  “Hello, dear,” she said. “You’ve really given everyone something to gossip about tonight.” Then she patted my shoulder and managed a small smile.

  Mr. Hennessy nodded and shook my hand silently.

  Tessa didn’t know what to say or do, so she clung to Carl’s arm and blinked rapidly every time she met my gaze. I don’t know why she was so disturbed—she’d known about me for a long time.

  Magda was in full flow, ramping up her sales pitch, although it didn’t seem to be needed. The speed at which red dots appeared below each piece was dizzying. Financially, the show was a huge success. There was only one painting that remained unsold by the end of the preview—the diptych. Even though it hurt to look at, it wasn’t for sale.

  I was escorted around, introduced to critics and patrons, enthusiasts and fellow artists, speaking only when spoken to, saying what needed to be said and no more.

  I examined each face as if from a great distance, but never saw the one I most wanted to see.

  Eloise came up to me with a glass of champagne, which I refused.

  “She’s not coming,” she said, quietly.

  My jaw tightened and my eyes hardened in reply.

  “Yes, I speak to her. She is also my friend.”

  I nodded and walked away.

  The next day the reviews were glittering and more than enthusiastic: ‘a brave new voice’; ‘chilling, intense’; ‘artistic and technical excellence combined with emotional depth’; ‘a vivid portrayal of the dual nature of love’.

  It was so much bullshit, but that last one caught my attention. Had I painted love? Maybe that was true—I’d painted my experience of love: shadows, pain and pinpoints of light.

  My phone was ringing off the hook with requests for interviews—many of them with no connection to the art world, just prurient requests from journalists who wanted to know more about sex for sale.

  I ignored them all. After two weeks, I decided to get out of LA for a while. I’d had offers from several galleries in New York to host my next show, whenever the fuck that would be, but instead I decided to go to Sweden. I wanted to visit Malmö, and see if I could find any trace of my father. Or maybe of myself.

  It had been more than four months since I’d last seen Laura—and yes, time still moved in days and hours and moments away from her: 132 days, 19 hours.

  We’d been apart longer than we were ever together.

  I’d cleaned up the studio, mothballing it for however long I was going to be away. I was thinking maybe two or three months.

  I didn’t want to make any firm plans.

  Katja, my cleaner, had agreed to come in every two weeks to water the plants, and Eloise had promised to keep an eye on everything else.

  All I had to do was call a cab to take me to the airport the next morning. Eloise had offered to drive me, but I’d insisted on saying my goodbyes to her over coffee, and not in the departure lounge of LAX. Too fucking dramatic.

  I wandered through my empty studio, glancing over the rows of vacant canvases standing in ranks, dormant and waiting to be brought to life. The easel rose scaffold-like, and my palette hung uselessly from a peg. My brushes had been cleaned and stood sentry next to a neat stack of unused sketchpads. E
ven the charcoals and pencils had been sorted and arranged in sterile rows.

  Light streamed through the window, throwing long shadows across the paint-splattered wooden floor. Golden hour—that time of the day when magic can happen.

  I was surprised and irritated when a knock on the door interrupted my silence.

  I jogged downstairs and pulled it open. The last person I’d expected to see stood there, rocking nervously from foot to foot.

  “What do you want?”

  “I need to talk to you, man. It’s important. Can I come in?”

  Wordlessly, I stood back and allowed Joe to walk inside.

  I pointed him toward the kitchen and stood with my arms crossed as I leaned against the door frame.

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and bit his lip before he met my dispassionate gaze.

  “Um, so, Mom doesn’t know I’m here.”

  Why did that hurt so fucking much?

  My cool restraint fractured, and I pulled out a chair, cringing at the noise grating against the terracotta tiles. I leaned forward on my elbows and let my head rest in my hands.

  I heard a second chair scrape across the floor as Joe sat down opposite me.

  “She’s not been well,” he said.

  My head jerked up.

  “Ellie didn’t say anything!”

  Joe grimaced. “Uh, Mom didn’t really want anyone to know. She’s only spoken to Mrs. Brienne on the phone.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She, ah, I guess she didn’t tell you…”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Fuck, man, this is hard for me! Mom was … Mom was pregnant.”

  Silence.

  I stared at him uncomprehendingly. Did I just hear that right? His words slowly penetrated the walls I’d built around myself.

  “Laura’s pregnant?” I couldn’t stop staring at him. “No, she never told me…”

  “She didn’t know … she didn’t realize at first.” Joe’s cheeks flushed, and from the way he was staring at it, he seemed to find my kitchen table fascinating. “She, uh, she thought when she didn’t … um, she thought it was the menopause.”

  I couldn’t take it in, violently forcing back the thin thread of hope that I’d dared to feel. My disloyal lips began to smile.

  “Look, man, I don’t know how to say this,” Joe continued, still tracing the grain of wood on the table’s surface with one finger, “so I’m just going to say it. Mom, she lost the baby. She had a miscarriage and … it didn’t go so well … and the doctors … she had to have an emergency operation. A hysterectomy. So, uh, that’s why she hasn’t been very well. She didn’t want anyone else to know—just family.”

  He swallowed and looked up suddenly.

  “I’m sorry, man. I thought you should know.”

  Emotions rioted through me; dominant was pain, like I could never have imagined. I didn’t know what to think, what to say. It was as if I’d seen a glimpse of a possible future, only to have that vision seared away ruthlessly.

  I looked up at him, his face a pale mirror of the pain and regret in mine.

  “Can I see her?”

  He nodded slowly. “She’s pretty upset. Dad’s with her right now so…”

  “What?”

  “Ah shit, man! I didn’t know who else to call and there was so much blood…”

  He flinched, and I wanted to hit something, him, anyone.

  “He’s my dad. And I know he was kind of an asshole, but he still cares about her.”

  I stood up abruptly, my chair skittering backwards.

  A hard look crossed Joe’s face.

  “She doesn’t need any shit from you. I’m only here because I thought you had a right to know. But I’m warning you … look, I know you care about her, too. I went to see your exhibition. I saw all those paintings. I get it now, I do. You care about her.”

  “I love her.”

  He looked down. “Yeah.”

  “When can I see her?”

  The words ripped out of me resentfully. I wanted to go to her. I wanted to see her. I needed to be with her.

  “She’s home. She’s resting now, so tomorrow morning would be better. Um, look, I don’t want to be a dick about this … but I’m not going to tell her that you’re coming over. Otherwise she’ll…”

  I finished the sentence for him. “She’ll tell me not to come.”

  He rubbed his neck. “Yeah. Probably.”

  “I’ll be there at 9AM.”

  He winced. “Um, make it after 10AM. It takes her a long time to get up in the mornings. She’s, um, sore … from the operation.”

  Bile filled my throat.

  “Ten.”

  He nodded and stood up.

  When he reached the front door, he noticed my suitcase.

  “Are you going away?”

  I shrugged. “I was.”

  He nodded but didn’t speak.

  Just as he was about to get in his car, I called after him.

  “Joe?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Just … thanks.”

  I didn’t sleep that night. I kept going over and over everything that had happened, torturing my brain for details of when it went wrong, and what I could have, should have, done differently.

  I tried to think of how to explain to her all the dumb choices I’d made, all the stupid things I’d said—that we’d both said, both done.

  In the end, confused and exhausted, I wrote down everything: what life was like for me growing up, how my father’s death had affected me, living with my mum, going away to school, the porn films, the art classes, meeting Eloise, working as an escort—everything up to including the precious few months when we were together. I wanted her to understand. And I needed her to forgive me.

  I wrote it all down and put it in an envelope for her, glancing once more at the final words.

  So now you know everything. You know why I fell in love with you and when—and that you mean the whole world to me.

  And I hope you change your mind.

  I was so tired. Tired of everything hurting; tired of the pitying looks that Joe and Maggie kept giving me; tired of my own morbid thoughts. I was just tired.

  I’d been out of hospital for three days and although my mobility was beginning to improve, misery overwhelmed me and I couldn’t stop crying. It was so stupid. I’d complained about my periods, but now that they were gone forever, I missed them desperately. My womb had been removed, along with my ovaries: I no longer felt like a woman.

  And worst of all, I’d lost our baby—Hallen’s baby.

  I’d been so shocked when I realized that I was pregnant. I just couldn’t believe it—it seemed like a miracle. But the way things had ended between us … I didn’t know how to tell him. And by the time I found out, we’d already been apart for nearly three months.

  I’d had the emotional fallout from Maggie to deal with. She’d been in floods of tears and had locked herself in her room. It had taken me over an hour to get her to let me in, then even longer before she could begin to calm down. In between bouts of crying, I’d managed to understand that she’d always thought her father and I would get back together. Why on earth she’d held onto that idea when he was remarried with a child, I had no idea—but apparently she had.

  Finding that I’d also moved on had been a blow to her; but I sensed that there was something more to it than that. Finally, she’d confessed that before I’d arrived in the kitchen, she’d been flirting with Hallen—or trying to. She was shocked, ashamed, and furious with me—particularly when I admitted that both Joe and her father knew about Hallen.

  That had brought on a screaming match and fresh accusations—that I didn’t trust her, that I loved her less than her brother: ridiculous, ugly, hateful words that she’d flung at me. And then she’d run out of the house, roaring away in her car. I’d tried to follow but lost her after a couple of miles. Then I’d called her brother, her friends, and eventually her father.

 
; I stalked her Facebook page to find out where she was; and waited at her apartment with her roommate who was awkward in my presence.

  It was two days before Maggie finally came home. She spoke to me grudgingly, but we managed to have a fairly civilized conversation before she started crying again and we were both in tears, from sheer exhaustion as well as emotional overload.

  And in all this time, I’d heard nothing from Hallen.

  For the first day, I was sure that he’d get in touch when he calmed down. But as the hours rolled into days, and days into a week, I realized that wasn’t going to happen. And when I thought back to what Maggie had said to him—to us—and the look on his face as he’d walked out, I started to feel a sickening chill in the pit of my stomach that spread to my whole body, leaving me numb and afraid.

  I’d been so preoccupied with making sure that Maggie was okay, I simply hadn’t realized how badly I’d hurt him. Again.

  More than anything I wanted to put it right—I just didn’t know how. I picked up the phone to call him a dozen times, but I didn’t know what I’d say: sorry I’m such a coward; sorry my daughter called our relationship disgusting; sorry I’m so ridiculous and needy but you’re too beautiful for me—and too young.

  So I didn’t say anything. God, how pathetic was that? I was a middle-aged woman acting like a damn teenager.

  Besides, I thought he was better off without me. Sooner or later—probably sooner—he’d meet someone more suited to him. By which I meant someone younger. But, God it hurt. So badly. I missed him more than I dared admit, even when I was alone with my thoughts. Which I was, a lot.

  Maggie and Joe had their own apartments and their own lives. I saw them occasionally and they phoned or texted a couple of times a week, but my days were long and empty.

  It was impossible not to think about Hallen. Even when I tried to program myself to think about something else, my thoughts always rushed back to him. I wondered what he was doing and who he was with. I knew that he’d given up the escort work—or said that he had—but since we weren’t together, there was no reason why he wouldn’t go back to it. I suspected he’d only given it up because we were dating, and I was grateful for that. I couldn’t bear the idea of sharing him with other women. It made me ill to think that he might go from my bed to Sian’s—or somebody like her.