Our meal was brought out and we all picked at our food. After a few minutes Egremont put down his fork. “I have no relish for my meat. If this is all that comes from Turner’s tricks he shall have hell to pay. You two may continue, but I will take a walk with the dogs.”
In the morning we all gathered in the breakfast room at an early hour. Egremont and I had hardly slept. Grant did not look well rested either. We attempted to make conversation, but the effort failed.
At last old John came in. He bowed and walked a few steps into the room, where he stood stock still, like a character in a play. “My lord,” he said, “Mr. Turner begs your company in the studio.”
Egremont rose quickly and rushed out. An expression of surprise appeared on John’s normally impassive face as he saw his master move so quickly at another man’s behest. He followed Egremont out the door. I looked at Grant. He returned my look. “Our fates,” I said, “are hanging in the balance.”
Hardly ten minutes had gone by before John returned. He seemed frightened and asked me to come upstairs as quickly as I could. Without pausing to ask any questions, I rushed toward the door. I looked back at poor young Grant. His beautiful face looked like death. My mind was full of terrible thoughts. Egremont was of an age where he might have a stroke at any time. I thought that he might be lying on the floor demanding my attendance. As I ran down the corridor toward the studio, I saw Turner walking toward me. He looked thinner and pale, but there was a queer smile on his face. But I did not stop because I could hear Egremont calling my name with a kind of desperate urgency.
Egremont, a mad gleam in his eyes, was pointing at a canvas propped up on the easel. I feared he was in the midst of some species of fit. “Look at this, damn it, look at this!” he cried.
What I first saw was light. The world and my own mind suddenly grew quiet. All my fears vanished. Petworth House itself, the room I was standing in, the life that had brought me to this place and the moment I was living in all disappeared. There was nothing but the light. I cannot describe it except to say that it seemed I was seeing light itself.
Gradually the images out of which the painting was composed emerged, resolving themselves into something I can remember. I was in the center, but I was not myself. There was a sea beyond, a field below, a room filled with unbearable beauty, and I knew that all of them existed only for me and because of me. Beautiful boats returning from glorious lands dotted the sea, beautiful men struggled on the plain. I could see the sweat on their glistening bodies and the blood that flowed from their wounds. I wanted to weep for the horror and the shame of it, so many beautiful young men, so much suffering and dying. But I could not be sad because I could hear music, simple and sweet, yet like no other music I had ever heard, ringing in the air. I knew that it had been produced by the lyre, the lyre I had flung down and that was leaning against the side of the dressing table. It was such beautiful music! In all the years since I first saw the painting I have only sometimes been able to make out small snatches of it, but in that first moment I could hear it clearly. And I wondered if it was not the lyre, but the sound of the gods themselves, speaking to each other as they hovered invisibly over the battlefield, that I heard.
I became aware of Egremont saying something and pressing up behind me in a kind of dream. I found myself on the couch on which Turner had had me pose. I could not speak nor take my eyes off the painting. I could feel Egremont fussing with my dress and then with my under things. I lifted myself up for him and he came into me. I saw Grant more beautiful than I had ever hoped to see him, I saw my own smile in the mirror urging me on. I met Egremont’s thrusts and felt the heat of all the love I had ever hoped for and all the love I could remember. I dissolved into the blue of the sea.
. 43 .
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: October 11, 2003
Subject: RE: RE: RE: Change of plans
Yesterday I met Barry at the Tate and had him point our guy out to me. He’s less prepossessing in life than even the photos in his house would suggest. He was wearing ill-fitting slacks and a sweater. Not a lot of hair, and what there was needed to be cut. He has a funny shuffling sort of walk, and there is something odd and hesitant in his movements. He seems an unlikely candidate for a blessing, but, as you have pointed out, the only ones who could truly deserve this are those who seek it.
He stood out from the other tourists in that he seemed to be struggling with the paintings. He stood in front of each one for a long time, often circling back to the same paintings over and over again. I felt that he was looking for something, much as you and I are, but that he isn’t sure what it is. There was a puzzled and desperate look on his face.
I first let him see me in the room with the unfinished paintings. I wasn’t quite dressed as if I was going to meet Mr. Ashford, but I confess to having taken some pains to make myself appear interesting. The cafeteria was crowded, so I had a reasonable excuse for sitting down at his table. He wasn’t wearing his wedding ring, although I could see the mark it had left on his finger. It was easy to get him to talk; it always is with men who have their wedding rings in their pockets.
I have to admit, I half warmed to him as we made small talk. I said that I worked for an investment firm and was here from New York on a short business trip. He told me about himself; nothing that wasn’t true, but nothing we didn’t know. I had expected, frankly, for the floodgates to open and for him to pour out his life story. Middle-aged men are somehow drawn to me. I can’t tell you all the things I have learned in airport departure lounges or, God help us, on the plane itself. I thought my charms had deserted me. I said I was happy I’d had a chance to get to the Tate. I told him that Turner had been my favorite painter since I studied art in college. It was so refreshing to get to see the Turners after two days of sitting in hotel meeting rooms and staring at PowerPoint presentations.
He finally lit up a bit and said that Turner was very important to him too. It was only his second trip to London. He had been once before while he was in graduate school and had been longing to get back. He was on a business trip too, he said, and I could see the lightbulbs begin to go off as he thought about two lonely Americans in London.
We chatted about Turner. He is no expert, and very naive in terms of his art historical understanding, but he’s not stupid either. He is one of those people who sincerely believe, I think, that art can reveal “the Truth.” He doesn’t know what truth he is looking for, but seems to believe that if he stares at Turner long enough it will reveal itself. It is sort of sweet, actually.
I was getting tired of him, so I told him I had to get back to my hotel. He asked me where I was staying; he said his hotel was on the way; would I mind if we walked together. This was the first thing he lied about. We continued our conversation about Turner on the way. It occurred to me that if I appeared to share his enthusiasm he might reveal any secrets he had in an attempt to make himself interesting to an attractive young woman. When we got to the InterContinental, I asked him if he wanted to come in for a drink. For a moment I thought he was on the verge of revealing something, or perhaps just taking the plunge that middle-aged men always want to take. But he said no to the drink and went on his way. I went into the hotel bar to wash my hands and have a glass of wine before heading back to the apartment.
Barry had been following us and he picked him up at the hotel. He continued walking away from his hotel toward Hyde Park, then toward the Brompton Oratory, and then back up toward Bloomsbury before heading back to Westminster. He gave Barry quite a tour, and he told me he may put in for a new pair of shoes. He stopped at a number of pubs and eventually at a cheap Indian place for dinner. At closing time he was at a pub not too far away from his hotel. In the morning he was on the early flight out of Gatwick.
He’s a sad guy; one of those middle-aged guys who missed the party and knows it. If he had been touched by the thing we seek surely something would have rubbed off. He’
s got no patina whatsoever.
How do you like Singapore?
Cheers,
Gina
. 44 .
THE JEWELS, I REMEMBERED, had been dropped carelessly on the floor. They were the same jewels I had seen on Jessica’s neck at Petworth. No other woman had ever earned such a treasure, and no queen had ever been so careless of her fortune.
It was early October and I was back in Princeton, feeling as though I was disappearing from my own life. My dreams of Helen and my regrets about England were on the verge of overwhelming me. I thought of Helen sitting at the little golden table, dressed in nothing but nearly invisible silks; I thought of Gina turning her back on me and walking into the hotel. Helen picks up the jewels and examines them: gold and diamonds from India, rubies from Persia, emeralds from Egypt. Gina takes the lift up to her room, undresses, and takes a shower. She sits in her nightgown and works at her laptop. Helen sees the fire that glows from within a perfect gem and lets it fall to the floor, where a kitten paws the bauble. Gina hits save, takes her nightgown off, and slips into bed.
Helen was the saddest woman who ever lived. My own sorrows and complaints seemed petty and hardly worth considering compared to hers. The golden cup from which she and Menelaus had drunk on their wedding night was on her table, but it was filled with shells she had picked up when she wandered on the beach after she first arrived in Troy. There was a jewel-encrusted knife on the table that had once been given to Menelaus in tribute. She had whispered into his ear and the knife was hers. Men are such fools. Sometimes she thought of taking the beautiful blade and cutting into the flesh of her perfect cheek. If only, she thought, men did not always find me so beautiful, if only their foolishness did not make my beauty a burden.
And Gina’s beauty must be a burden to her as well, I thought. While she was trying to make things work out with her stupid husband, men were probably falling all over her. I felt like an ass for not getting any contact information. All I knew is that her name was Gina. How many Ginas were there in New York? How many were that beautiful? Even if I found her, what chance would I have?
My memory of what had happened in London changed as time passed. Gina became more willing to spend the night with me, while my refusal to cross the threshold of the hotel seemed simply idiotic. I spent hours staring at my computer at work, lost in these and similar thoughts. I made a couple of serious errors in the process—a note from a major donor went unanswered, there was an extra digit in an award letter that I sent out. And at the same time, I was worried about how to find the money to fix the house at the lake. Should I just sell it to Mossbacher? And should I sell the painting? I could be rich beyond any dreams of money that I had ever had, but the thought of parting with the painting was more than I could bear. I needed to see it again, but I was trapped in my house in Princeton with Susan. And underneath it all, the bass notes that anchored my mania, was the thought that Susan was seeing somebody else.
As time passed I became more and more certain of it. She often had to work late in those days, and she occasionally spent the night in the city. It’s clear to me now that her “infidelity” was an excuse to justify the essential lie that my life with her had become. Because the face that I showed her was false, I became certain that hers was false as well.
We quarreled frequently in those days, mostly over things that had nothing to do with what mattered. Usually the subject was her perception that I had become sullen and uncommunicative.
“I cannot live with you if you won’t talk to me,” she said.
“What is there to talk about? I’m fine. You work a lot; I work. We’ve been married for over twenty years: we’ve said all the things that need saying,” I would answer, and so back and forth, with the truth about the painting gnawing at me like an ulcer.
I had not, I confess, expected her to take the initiative, nor had I allowed myself to see how bad things had become. It was the coward’s way out: I didn’t have the courage to take any action so I did nothing until the situation became unbearable to her.
One Saturday morning she was in the kitchen drinking coffee when I came downstairs.
“I am not happy being here with you,” she said. “Something is going on. I don’t think you’re messing around with Ruth Carpenter, but something happened in London and you’re not telling me about it.”
“Nothing happened in London. I gave a talk. I walked around. I saw some pictures.”
“I don’t think you’re lying, but I don’t think you’re telling the truth either.”
Her friend Julie had taken a three-month assignment at the Chicago office, she told me. Susan was going to stay in her apartment in exchange for watering the plants and feeding the cat. It would give us both, she said, time to think.
“I’ve packed my bags. I’d like you to drive me to the station.”
It occurred to me that I ought to play the injured husband and let her know that I knew why she wanted to stay in New York, but the world of possibility I saw opening up before me rendered me dumb.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” I saw that tears were starting to form in the corners of her eyes. “I was hoping you would ask me to stay.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” I said at last. “You’re not happy; I’m not happy. Some time apart might be good.”
I carried her bags up the stairs to the platform. They seemed heavy with the weight of our marriage, but also with possibility. The platform was crowded with people going to a matinee. I wondered who would be there to witness her leaving. Word gets around pretty quickly in Princeton.
When the light of the train appeared in the distance, she planted a kiss on my cheek. “I want to love you,” she said, “but I need you to talk to me. Call me when you want to talk. And take care of yourself.”
She struggled onto the train with her big legal briefcase and the two suitcases.
I watched the train recede into the distance. I touched the place on my cheek that was still wet with her tears and wiped it with the back of my hand. I got in my car and headed straight for the mountains. The world was before me.
. 45 .
WHEN I CAME DOWNSTAIRS I found them all gathered in the Carved Room. Lord Egremont himself handed me a glass of champagne. “Come,” he said, “this will do you good. We have been toasting Mr. Turner’s great success.” I took the proffered glass and raised it in Turner’s direction before swallowing it off in a gulp.
“I thought that you might never come down,” Turner said. There was a sparkle in his eyes that had only something to do with champagne.
I looked at Turner as I held out my glass for more. “I am overwhelmed, sir. How long was I in the studio?”
Turner smiled and took out his timepiece. “Well over an hour. I thought we might have lost you.”
“I had no idea. Time has been altered,” I said. “If you had said ten minutes, if you had said a year, I would have believed you.”
“He has outdone himself, has he not?” Lord Egremont said. I turned to face my host. He was seated in an armchair, with his arm around Mrs. Spencer’s waist. I had never seen her look more beautiful.
“I hardly know what to say,” I said. “It is not a painting that you have made. It is something else altogether.”
“But you like it?” Turner asked with a laugh.
“Like it? I suppose I do, but it is not the sort of thing one likes. It is like breathing or sunshine or fire or water. It exists. It is true. It is most beautiful. I can think of nothing else to say.”
Turner beamed like a schoolboy who had just stolen a sweet without being noticed.
“I had always known,” I said, “that the world was beautiful and we were blessed to be alive in it. But I had never quite felt what that meant until now.” I drank some more champagne. My hand, I saw, was shaking. “But,” I went on, turning to Mrs. Spencer, “has not Mr. Turner played us a cruel trick? Will this world suffice now that we have seen what we have? Can we live knowing what we now know?”
&nb
sp; I must have seemed half mad to her, for she detached herself from her lord’s grip and came over to me. “You are overexcited,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I felt that way myself when I first saw it. You will soon become yourself again. It is only a painting, although a very great one.” Her touch calmed me.
I asked for tea, the champagne having gone to my head in a way I found disagreeable. I sat down and looked across at Turner. It was impossible to reconcile the ugly little man in the greasy suit with the vision of Helen that he had created. He was in the midst of telling one of his vulgar stories about his travels—this one involved a French countess and a chamber pot. As he reached the conclusion Mrs. Spencer and Lord Egremont joined him in his laughter.
Turner reared his head back and brayed like a donkey. He has only a few teeth left and of those that remain most are broken and all are dingy.
But gradually, as the conversation of my friends enveloped me, I came out of the dream into which I had been plunged and felt more and more like myself. I was even able to say a few sensible things about Turner’s masterwork, which pleased the artist and earned me grateful looks from both Egremont and Mrs. Spencer.
We had been thus together for about an hour when Lord Egremont said he wanted to go up to the studio and discuss some matters of business with Turner. When I recollect this moment, I seem to remember that Egremont nodded at Mrs. Spencer in what seemed a purposeful way, but whether or not that was the case, Mrs. Spencer proposed that I should accompany her on a walk about the grounds. “The weather,” she said, “has turned fine. We two have much to discuss. And the exercise will do us good. Come, let us go to the Rotunda.”
My heart sank at these words, for I knew somehow that they meant my days at Petworth would soon come to an end. But I said that nothing would please me more than to revisit that wonderful spot in her company, and gave her my arm.
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