“About sunup,” Hurley said. “Locke says we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”
Jeff always preferred to keep to himself and didn’t relish the idea of spending a day trekking across the island with the inscrutable Locke. Still, now that he had had a moment to think it over, Jeff admitted to himself that the foraging party sounded like a pretty attractive idea, a jaunt that would do him a world of good. Lately, he had been spending more and more time in the studio—too much, probably. His craving for solitude seemed to be growing day by day. He thought he might be becoming agoraphobic, except that even if you gathered together every single survivor of the plane crash, they still wouldn’t make much of a crowd.
But no matter what his self-diagnosis turned out to be, the fact remained that Jeff found comfort and serenity by himself. More than that, he felt protected somehow. But against what? Or whom?
The studio was the perfect sanctuary for a man seeking solitude. The brush was nearly impenetrable on all four sides and many of the trees were seemingly sewn together with vines up top, providing a canopy that was nearly as leak-proof as thatched roofs in Jeff’s native Scotland.
Jeff had discovered the little clearing quite by accident. Many of the crash survivors preferred to live on the beach, hoping every day to catch a glimpse of a rescue plane or ship. The rest had moved deeper into the forest, living in caves near a bountiful spring. Jeff saw the latter group as fatalists—those who accepted that they were going to be stranded on this island for a long, long time, perhaps forever. They were settling in; the ones on the beach lived in constant hope. Or fear.
Jeff felt comfortable with neither group. He joined foraging parties to look for food or gather firewood, but he never spoke much to the others, and he went out of his way to keep from forming even the most rudimentary relationships. One day, working at a distance from the rest of a hunting group, he glimpsed an opening in some thick greenery and impulsively crawled through. He was delighted by what he found. In retrospect, he thought it a little odd that his first thought wasn’t to use the place as shelter, but as a hideout. Why he should have need for a place to hide away from everyone else was a question Jeff couldn’t quite ask himself. But he knew that there was a kind of weird inspiration there. Once inside, he began creating again, for the first time in a long while. He began referring to the place as his studio. And, little by little, it became his home as well. Jeff had been one of the lucky ones who had actually found his own luggage amid the wreckage. The suitcase sat on one side of the studio. On the other was a thick, comfortable pallet of leaves, grass, and straw, over which Jeff had draped a blanket from the plane. Hurley was the first visitor he had ever had here.
Jeff noticed that Hurley was again staring intently at Jeff’s latest drawing. “Dude,” he said, “that’s messed up.” He cocked his head, smiled a little, and added, “But it’s kind of cool, too. Kind of, um, heavy metal.”
Jeff didn’t quite know how to respond to this double-edged compliment. “I feel the same way,” he said.
Hurley crouched beside him. “Um, you’re an artist, right?”
Jeff nodded, a little reluctantly. “Used to be.”
Hurley gestured around the space. “Looks to me like you still are,” he said. “Look at all this stuff. It’s, like, weird. You know? But I like it.”
The studio was crowded with sculptures, drawings, peculiar objects made of sticks or clay or fish bones. Some of the works resembled people, but most were abstract: merely shapes that Jeff had found interesting, or textures he had juxtaposed in odd and surprising ways. He spent almost every day at work here, making object after object, drawing after drawing. And virtually no one else on the island had ever seen any of it.
It isn’t for them, Jeff thought. It’s for me.
Hurley said, “You must have some strange stuff going on in your head. Were you a druggie back in the sixties or something?”
Jeff laughed. “I was born in 1970,” he said. “So, no.”
“Okay, then,” Hurley said, “you must have been a druggie in the eighties.”
Jeff shook his head. “Wrong again. Never a druggie. Never really a drinker. I’ve lived a fairly uneventful life.” Ha, Jeff thought. There’s my first lie of the day.
“Then where do you get all these out-there ideas?” Hurley asked. He had stood up again and was walking around the studio, studying piece after piece.
Jeff shrugged. He didn’t know how to explain to Hurley how different all this was from the art he used to make, the work that had once caused him to be ranked among the most celebrated young artists in Britain. He couldn’t talk about how these increasingly disturbing images seemed to emerge full-blown in his imagination, compelling him to create things that almost frightened him. Indeed, there was much that had happened in the last year, before and after the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, that Jeff could not quite put into words. And didn’t want to.
Hurley squatted and carefully picked up a small sculpture. There was something vaguely human about it, yet it clearly wasn’t meant to be a person.
“What is this?” he asked.
Jeff smiled a little ruefully. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Hurley looked a little puzzled, then nodded. “I saw this show on TV one time about Easter Island,” he said. “They’ve got these awesome stone idols all over the place, and nobody knows who put them there.”
Jeff said, “Yes. I’ve been to Easter Island. When I was in college.”
Hurley was impressed. “Cool.” He looked closer at the carved rock in his hand. “This kind of reminds me of those things. It’s like…” He thought hard, trying to come up with the perfect description. “It’s like Easter Island on Mars.”
Jeff laughed. “Well, I’ve been to Easter Island,” he said, “but never to Mars.”
Hurley looked around at the other pieces. When he came back to the drawing that had first caught his attention, he seemed startled. He pointed at the designs behind the mysterious shadow creatures. “What do those things mean?”
Jeff shrugged. “Again, you know as much about it as I do.”
Hurley stared harder. “I’ve seen something just like them.”
“On TV?” Jeff asked with a smile.
Hurley shook his head. “No…” He rapped his forehead with his fist, trying to shake the memory out of his brain. “No, not on TV. I saw these for real.”
2
JEFF HADLEY STARED INTO the model’s eyes.
That in itself was testimony to his great professionalism and intense concentration, because the attractive young woman was not wearing a stitch of clothing. When the painting was completed, her body would stand atop a vividly colored mushroom cloud of nuclear holocaust, what Jeff intended as a surrealistic image of sensuality and disaster. He conceived it as kind of a parody of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, except that he planned to place the figure within an apocalyptic context. It was typical of the kind of work that was making the thirty-year-old artist something of a phenomenon in the London art world: hyperrealistic, almost photographic renderings of human forms placed in mystical, humorous, or—as in the case of the current painting—horrific settings. Because those human forms were frequently female and naked, Jeff’s work had struck a chord with a wider public than had that of some of his peers. But he was also championed by the critics and art dealers, who found the messages embodied in his paintings just vague enough to be endlessly debatable, always worthy of further examination.
Jeff planned his paintings in minute detail. He didn’t believe much in inspiration; his art was thoughtful and precise and as perfect as he could make it. To his detractors, the result was a kind of cold soullessness. But to his admirers—and they outnumbered the detractors by a considerable margin—his precision spoke of impeccable technique, of sometimes fantastic ideas brought to vivid life.
All that would come, Jeff knew, with this new painting as well. But, for the moment, it was all about the eyes. The impact of the painting would not depend
on the terrifying vision of the ultimate bomb blast or on the erotic lure of the model’s body. The meaning would have to be in her eyes. They would have to convey a mixture of seduction and despair.
And Jeff knew he had found the perfect model for the piece. Most models had aspirations to be actresses and, as annoying as that could be, it sometimes made it easier for Jeff to coax them into a specific mood or attitude. Ivy Tennant was no actress, though. She was a struggling twenty-two-year-old art student who occasionally made extra income by modeling for art classes or, somewhat to her shame, posing for nude photographs for Internet porn Web sites.
It was because of one of these Web sites that she had attracted Jeff’s attention. He had been giving a lecture at a local university and had noticed her lovely, rather sad face in the class. Afterward, as the students filed out, Jeff heard two boys snickering about Ivy when she walked past. They had stumbled across one of the Web sites and were only too willing to share the address with Jeff when he asked. The next day, after having studied some of Ivy’s more explicit photographs, he asked her to model for him. He found her body to be nearly perfect, but she also possessed something that he wanted even more. The seduction and despair Jeff sought were right there in Ivy’s eyes—that intriguing mixture seemed to be her natural state.
And, at the moment, there was an added quality of worry in Ivy’s eyes.
“Am I doing all right, Mr. Hadley?” she asked softly.
Jeff stopped painting. “Please call me Jeff. And what do you mean?”
She blushed and looked downward. “It’s nothing.”
Jeff smiled reassuringly. “Please. What is it?”
Ivy said, “Well, usually when I model, the artist or photographer or whoever just can’t stop talking about how beautiful I am or what a hot body I have. You know, lech kind of stuff.”
Jeff said, “I see.”
Ivy looked into his eyes. “But you,” she said, “you haven’t said a word. And you act like my body isn’t even worth looking at.”
Jeff was silent for a moment. “Would it make you more comfortable if I talked like the others?”
“Not comfortable, exactly,” she said. “It’s just…I admire you so much. I want to please you.”
Jeff pulled a stool closer to Ivy and sat on it. He reached out and took her hand in his. “Ivy, you are one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. But I chose you for this project for more than your beauty. You have a special quality, something that’s yours alone. You deserve better than just to be ogled. You should be treasured.”
Ivy shook her head. “I don’t like the things they say.”
“I wouldn’t like it, either,” Jeff said. He patted her hand and stood up. “I hope you will be very proud of this painting.”
Ivy blushed again. “I’m already proud. Thank you so much.”
It would be so easy, Jeff thought. Like picking a ripe mango from a tree. He immediately tried to push the thought from his mind. He had had many such dalliances with models. This girl was too fragile. She should be protected, not just used. Yes, Jeff thought, this time I’ll do the noble thing.
Jeff smiled at her and said, “Now let’s get back to work.”
But there was not much more work done that day. When Jeff stood once again at his easel and looked into Ivy’s eyes, they no longer held the haunting quality he sought. Instead they shone bright with pleasure. Nice for her. Bad for the painting.
On their fifth session together, Jeff and Ivy worked late into the night. A prestigious gallery owner was pressuring him to complete the painting and Jeff pushed himself and his model to the point of exhaustion.
Not that she complained. Far from it—the longer the session, the more energized she seemed to be. After nearly a week of working together, Jeff had become keenly aware of a different kind of aura in the room. He had long since completed painting those crucial eyes, and as he devoted session after session to capturing on canvas her luscious body, he sometimes felt his promise to himself slipping away. Sometimes, after staring intently at her for seemingly hours at a time, he would glance up at Ivy’s face to find her beaming a slight but knowing smile.
Jeff glanced at his watch. “Oh, my God,” he said. “It’s nearly two. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s all right,” Ivy said, stretching and yawning. “My first class tomorrow isn’t until noon.”
“Good,” Jeff replied. “You should get to bed.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” She said it pointedly, gazing deeply into Jeff’s eyes.
“Ivy…”
She caressed his cheek, then kissed him softly on the lips. “Jeff…” she whispered. Ivy smiled wickedly. Now those eyes shone only with seduction.
“It’s late,” he said. “You should probably get dressed.”
She said, “Or not…”
And she didn’t.
3
“WE GOT FISH!”
The call came from outside, down the beach. Hurley grimaced a little. “Jin comes through again,” he said. Then, shaking his head, he added, “I hate fish.”
Jeff knew Jin no better than he knew anyone else on the island. He felt a little more justified in this case since Jin spoke no English, only his native Korean. As far as Jeff knew, Jin’s wife Sun spoke no English, either. That language barrier made them seem somewhat remote from the other castaways. But what the hell, Jeff thought. I’m pretty remote from the others, too.
Even though Jeff and Jin weren’t pals, exactly, Jeff enjoyed watching Jin at work in the surf. He seemed to have a real knack for bringing in enough fish for everyone, a talent that almost all the others lacked. Locke occasionally brought in a boar and the change in meat was welcome, but Jeff liked fish just fine and thought of Jin as the real unsung hero of the castaways.
Hurley squeezed through the opening of the studio and Jeff followed him outside. A couple of survivors were already gutting the fish and another was stoking the fire. Hurley looked wistful and said, “What I wouldn’t give for a steak. Or huevos rancheros.”
Jeff smiled. “It’s a big island. Maybe there are cows and chickens lurking just over the next ridge.”
Hurley didn’t seem convinced. He walked over to the cooking fire to lend a hand. Jeff hung back. He was far too preoccupied to be hungry. The drawing he had been working on had unnerved him—something which had been happening more frequently of late—and he welcomed the chance to clear his head a little. He took a deep breath, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his skin and the cool breeze that wafted across the beach. He sat down on the sand and stared out at the vast expanse of ocean before him.
Jeff was always fascinated by how the island was both breathtakingly beautiful and deeply horrifying to him. In many ways he had accepted that this was where he would spend the rest of his life. Others might talk endlessly of rescue or of escape attempts, but deep in his heart of hearts, Jeff knew there was no way out. He felt uncomfortably like a character in one of those devastatingly boring absurdist plays he had willingly sat through when he was a student, when he was at an age to confuse pretentious tedium with depth of thought. Even the better plays in the genre presented an unrelentingly bleak view of humanity. Ionesco. Beckett. None of them offered hope of any kind. Existence is meaningless—grotesque and grim. We waste our lives doing nothing and then we die. And after we die…nothing.
But even on days in which such dark thoughts invaded his imagination, Jeff was able to make himself look at the island from an entirely different perspective. Even he had to admit to himself that this place truly was a paradise. There was plenty of food and freshwater. There was always a new place to explore, exciting new things to see and do. Jeff wondered if he had some sort of split personality, compelled to experience the same place both as heaven and as hell.
On the hellish side were some of the odd and unexplained events that had taken place on the island since the crash. Jeff had experienced some of these things himself—the terrible crashing noises, their source unknown, hints th
at the island was home to some sort of ferocious beast or beasts. And he had seen how the tensions of being castaways had eaten away at the sanity of some of his fellow survivors. Tempers were short; rivalries, even enmities, could erupt from even the slightest conflict.
But Jeff had little to do with the others. Regarding the island monsters that some of the more excitable survivors chattered about, he had seen nothing concrete and he wasn’t superstitious. If some sort of creature from a horror film should show its ugly face, he would deal with it then. Sometimes he rather hoped a long-leggedy beastie would go bump in the night, just to break the monotony. In the meantime, his conscience offered Jeff more than enough disturbing terror for one lifetime.
For his first few weeks on the island, even his conscience didn’t haunt him. His mind was too occupied in replaying again and again the horrifying last moments of Oceanic Flight 815.
4
IVY GOT UP MIDMORNING, made herself some coffee, showered, and left for school a little after eleven. Jeff slept through it all.
When Jeff awoke at about one in the afternoon, her scent on the pillow reminded him of the extraordinary early morning hours. He lay back on the pillow with a groan. Jeff was not the type to have a guilty conscience, but at the moment, he felt an unpleasant twinge of remorse. For over a week now, he had told himself repeatedly to stick to business. He could see the vulnerability in Ivy’s expressive eyes and knew both that she was his for the asking and that she would see the experience as something far more meaningful than anything he might intend. And because, despite what other faults there were in Jeff’s character, he was essentially a kind man, he did not want to hurt Ivy, but to help her. And so he had instituted a strict hands-off policy.
The truth was that Jeff’s experience with Ivy was far from unique. He had been born, it seemed, with two equal talents—creating art and attracting women. Jeff enthusiastically embraced and developed both of his talents, beginning in his early teens, and now his list of romantic conquests was easily as long as his art résumé. In many cases, in fact, the two lists had a great deal in common—many a beautiful woman had ended up both on his canvas and in his bed. Sometimes, he thought ruefully, one of the gallery shows came off like a trip down memory lane, an erotic diary written in oils.
Lost: The Novels Page 29
