All the Days and Nights

by Niven Govinden

  – Who’s here?

  – Ben. He said not to disturb you if you were busy. He’s on the porch, reading the newspaper.

  – But why is he here? He usually calls beforehand. I didn’t hear the telephone.

  – You asked me to disconnect the phone last week. The hospital chasing the appointment you missed.

  – Tell him I’m working. I can’t see him now. Ask him to stay and have lunch with John. They always find things to talk about.

  – He’s not back yet.

  – He’s not back? Can you give Ben some lunch anyhow? He’s more likely to leave once his belly’s full.

  For a moment you had become one of the old paintings: your absence forgotten. And then to suddenly remember, like the shock of waking from a sudden sleep; chest beating with guilt. Vishni will not be fooled for long. Her face is studious as I recover myself, processing every gesture. She has learned too many of my tricks. Alone, I open the sketchbook and shape some lines from memory. You, leaning over the fence toward the meadow, pondering a comment you made to which your walking companion, Ben, is laughing heartily. I have always admired that about you: your ability to make strangers feel welcome, not just to do with hospitality, but with ease. You are always comfortable, unshaken, willing to be open with everyone. I remember how you charmed and subsequently became brotherly with those stubborn farmers who refused to sell us firewood because of how we were dressed, and also disarming the ladies who gossiped at the store. They are still untrusting of me on my rare trips to town, my demeanor varying from hesitant to brusque in my inability to make even a chink in their stony faces, but you they have time for. You have become like family, celebrating the birth of their children, their marriages, and paying your respects at the burial of their dead. My friends from the city too, when entertaining here was as important as work, all initially suspicious, waiting for you to trip yourself up with your story, until they realized that they loved you more.

  That afternoon with Ben was languid; the midsummer heat imbued you both with uncharacteristic sloth while I carried on working at the back of the house. Your masculine laziness was a wonderful thing to see: burnished, and in Ben’s case sunburnt, limbs stretched over chair arms and the edge of the kitchen table once lunch had been cleared. You drank beer with lemonade and read each other the oddest classifieds you came across in month-old editions of the New York Times, which Vishni saved to wrap up food for the trash. Patti Labelle and the Bluebelles were playing on a low volume, Ben joining in on ‘I Sold My Heart to the Junkman’ because, as he kept telling you, a girl had once sung it into his ear as they made love. You played dominos and waited for me. Boyish laughter rang through the house making me want to leave my work and join you. The piece I was working on was somehow dead in my hands in the face of so much life outside my door. You and Vishni often laughed together, giving the front of the house a lightness the back lacked. But there was something different, more vital in this chorus of masculine joking. It pounded deep inside my head and groin, intense and pleasurable.

  I was reminded of being a teenager in Jersey Heights and sitting on the promenade railings with groups of boys, pulsing with the joy that comes from seeking attention but also fearing its strength when it finally came. However much I wanted to crash your boys’ party, though I was aware that you were both waiting on me – that the shape of the day was dictated by my needs and working patterns, and how powerful that made me feel, made overt by a thumping in my chest – I could not intrude on your intimacy. You had the closeness of siblings, the way you shared the pitcher of spiked lemonade and bickered over whose turn it was to get up and flip the record. You talked about everything but me; the World Series, whether a horse can belch, the women in Hawaii. Paintings were the business of both of you and these were never mentioned. It was an unspoken rule between you. Outside the studio we all talked about other things. There were too many other things to talk about. A mixture of longing and envy kept me going through the day. Also, stubbornness, because I didn’t want either of you to think I was cutting my day short on your account. You were young men with egos. You would have dined off it for weeks. When I finally had done all I could, on a painting that was going nowhere and shortly after abandoned, I joined you. I planned on playing the martyr for your simple amusement, and to prove to myself that I had not been forgotten. Dinner was close to being served but you were nowhere near the table, instead fooling around at the paddock. By now the pair of you were softly drunk, taking it in turns to feed vegetables to the donkey you had recently rescued from one of the farms, where his age deemed him ready to be made into animal feed or glue. The wonder of this as yet unnamed pet illuminated your face. Ben’s too. You were as timid as children as you patted him and stroked his face. Other men, similarly inebriated, would have taken it in turns to ride him or some other juvenile cruelty. But you were both cowed by its docile nature and the depth of feeling that seemed to emanate from its lowered eyes. The beast, still wary but sated, moved his head away from the carrots, radishes and celery after a time, preferring instead to nuzzle your fingers. As you turned with delight to share this with Ben, the light hit the side of your face and your neck. You were bronzed and smooth, flaxen and happy; it was as if the last days of young manhood were making themselves known. I was blinded by the beauty of it, from the way you smiled to the trail of mosquito bites on your lower arm and the redness of your lips from all the beer. Ben was boyishly loud in his exclamations, vital and alive. I wanted to shout at you both to hold your pose because something from that moment needed to be kept. You were perfect. But I held my voice, because to explain it would be to kill your naturalness. You did not need to be made aware of how the sun had blessed that seemingly random moment and made it golden. Maybe you were both aware that something special had occurred, that had nothing to do with light or Art, but only with friendship. My visions of your impending age were not to be shared; wishing for crow’s feet to form and a coarseness in your hair’s texture to emerge so that I would have more to work with; that in my impatience for your youth to fade I was willing your decay. It was left to Vishni, whose voice carried overhead, calling us to the table while berating the boys for feeding the vermin what had been set aside for the salad.

  THOUGH BEN AND I spoke regularly, we had not seen each other for over three years. I was not ready to hold another show and he had other artists to attend. The Thanksgiving parties we held at the house were a thing of the past, and neither you nor I were particularly keen to spend the summer roasting in his clapboard house in Provincetown. Your remark after one of Ben’s many invitations arrived (Independence Day gathering, Memorial Day gathering; an endless list) never left me.

  – Beach parties hold nothing for you. Me neither. I can’t see you wearing funny hats and sipping on Rob Roys with sand up your ass. The fire will be the only thing that keeps you there; how it moves and what it shares.

  You could be overly protective then, taking pains to avoid those social events where I might be expected to sing for my supper. Ben’s entertaining never quite fell into that category, but his address book was a varied one and even in the most informal setting, an expectation to perform could still be felt. Your smart-aleck comment perfectly described my feelings toward seasonal laziness, though something in what you said only rang half-true. You were born and raised on the banks of the Hudson. When you felt suffocated and near violence, from arguing parents and the high, airless rooms of your cramped apartment, you jumped the subway to the Ellis Island ferry, where you looked out at the Atlantic. Being close to expanses of water, ocean waves rolling and crashing far beyond the horizon, rebalanced your shaken equilibrium and helped to make sense of your half-formed world. But you rarely spoke of it. They were stories that occasionally came out while I was painting; fragments of a past life that were left for me to piece together. A father, a brother in the navy; connected stories told years apart. When we traveled to London for my first retrospective over twenty years ago, we took almost all our meals
at a restaurant you found near Chelsea Bridge. I took for granted that you wanted to look across the river at the landmarks, not realizing your interests were more localized than that; the trail of solitary rowers that passed, the water lapping the bank at our feet. Back home, the stream wasn’t directly in sight from the porch, a meadow and a dip in the hill away, but we could hear its gentle rushing as we ate; opened our windows and allowed it into our bedrooms at night, its hypnotic quality more powerful than the ticking clock in lulling us to sleep. In London, your anxiety was such that, at your instigation, we changed hotel rooms several times and then finally the hotel itself, until we found one that gave the view of the water that you desired. At the time, your basis for complaint was due to noise, how you didn’t want my sleep disturbed by the roar of traffic and passers-by. I had several important meetings with museum trustees, interviews with newspapers and dinners with long-standing patrons cultivated through Ben. You wanted me to be as relaxed as I could be under the circumstances. But now I see how agitated not being near the water made you. You were on edge for much of the trip. We argued constantly. Could I have taken the sting out of our frozen winters by accepting some or all of Ben’s invitations? What internal development was halted by keeping you away from the sea? What was it about these things that you cannot bring yourself to explain?

  – You look tired. Have you not been to bed?

  I feel Ben’s moisturizer rub off on my cheek as we kiss. The scent of something tropical lies thickly between us, the bitter intensity of lemongrass, mixed with citric acidity. As ever, he is immaculate; although he looks after artists, he is not interested in looking like one. This never brings out any self-consciousness about my own appearance, only a reminder that a more refined presentation exists for those that have the energy to invest in it. If anything, his narrow-fitting suit tailored in New York by English expatriates and shirts with their thick navy stripes, his pastel linen shorts cut above the knee and Breton tops are another kind of uniform. Your clothes were different, far removed from city fashion; most often an overcoat one of the farmers gave you. Yet the two of you together still look like kin.

  He tries again, his eyes gentle with teasing:

  – Getting a little old for all-nighters, aren’t we? Seventy-five is when you start to behave.

  – I was old when I did them first time around. Now I’m a fossil with a paintbrush.

  – Vishni’s making her chicken and potatoes with saffron. I forgot how the living’s good in the country.

  – So long as we can still afford saffron. The kitchen will fall into a slump otherwise.

  – John’s out, I hear?

  – I sent him into town for paint. I think he had some other errands too. He lets things accumulate.

  – You should have let me know. I could have brought whatever you needed from the city.

  – Almost everything we need is here.

  – Let me rephrase that: I would have asked you if there was anything you wanted had I been able to get through on the phone. After two days of getting the busy signal I actually called the phone company to check whether there was a fault on your line. When they told me that it was more likely that you had disconnected the phone I didn’t know what to think. It’s never bothered you before, has it? And considering so few people have your number; I couldn’t understand the reasoning behind it.

  His eyes shine with no let up. His lips redden, making the promise of their rosebud shape real; then the red spreads across his cheeks, as the blood rises through his face. The wisps of air that trail his last sentences suggest an exhalation of something that had been saved up since that time: frustration, bewilderment, worry. Ben is Manhattan-bred, used to having his questions answered. An open-ended mystery is fine for the work, but outside of that, there needs to be a concrete order of things. The artists he best represents are those who do not live their lives in total chaos; itself an exaggeration left for those of poorer talent who are only appropriating the role.

  – I thought about sending a telegram but was wary of its theatricality. Drawing you out from wherever you were with the painting. A four-word missive from New York, designed to jolt you to your senses. A joke and a nuisance rolled into one, delivered by a sweet-natured, breathless boy, whom you would have to tip handsomely for cycling all this way. I knew you would despise the rigmarole as much as me. That you would hold it against me once the paintings were finished. So the easiest thing was simply to take the train and deliver the message myself: Plug your telephone in!

  – It wouldn’t happen that way. We’re too old to be holding grudges.

  – You’re also too old to be turning yourself into a hermit, Anna. The telephone’s never bothered you before. You have all the solitude you want out here, without these gestures.

  – Takes too much energy, gripes and feuds. It should be left with the young where it belongs.

  – Do you understand how people can worry if they don’t hear from you, are unable to contact you?

  – People, as you call them, know where to find me. I’m always here. As for those that care, two of them are in the house as we speak. The other is buying paint.

  – I also hear that you’re not taking the oxygen as you’re supposed to.

  – I have as much as I need. Ignore what you hear.

  Ben pours tea and holds out a cup. I take it, well aware that I am still glaring at him; understanding also the heat generated in my body as I bat his invasiveness away. Something in our altercation makes me feel more alive than I have been for these last few hours in the studio. Always the boys who tap my spirit; one at the table, the other buying paint.

  THERE IS A SOFTENING over lunch; the saffron that colors and infuses the chicken and potatoes mellows me somewhat, until I feel as light and flyaway as one of those dark-red threads of spice. We share the wine that Ben has brought from one of his father’s vineyards, and he talks happily about what is happening with his other artists. He knows, as I do, that there is no sport more torturous than gossip relating to the heightened work rate and success of other artists. In my younger days, those that felt like being under an apprenticeship of sorts, such talk would drive me from the table, so sensitive was I to the perception of my work and how it measured up to others’. Now there is something pleasant about its buzz. I swat it toward and away from me as if playing with a fly. As insects are a reminder of the summer seasons, so too is Ben’s talk, reminding me of the existence of other artists in the world. Jealousy can be just as deeply felt at this age as any other. You of all people understand how jealous I can become. What kills this is ultimately down to personal resources. Energy is finite, and you have to decide how to spend it wisely. Working on canvases taller than either of us, the strength to push a rolling ladder, or climb up the scaffold, can take everything I have. Time spent mulling over professional jealousies would deplete everything.

  – Are you going to show me the canvases? It’s half the reason I came here.

  – What happened to my welfare? You were concerned about so many things.

  – That was on my list too.

  – Wouldn’t you rather say hello to the donkey first?

  – I’ll feed the old boy his favorites before I go. Let’s see some paintings.

  – Nothing’s ready, Ben. I’m not prepared.

  – That’s not what I’ve been hearing from other parties. They suggested you have several ready to go. That it’s been the case for almost a year.

  – And how do you get to hear from other parties, I wonder? This house might not be clapboard like your place in Provincetown, but the walls are just as thin. I can hear when the telephone rings, as hard as they try for me not to.

  – Like I said, there are other ways besides the telephone. He sends letters from the post office. Collects mine from there too.

  I think about where you must keep those letters. I would never search your room, but something tells me that they are not in the house, that you probably throw them away as soon as they have been rea
d, the way you do with other more mundane correspondence that reaches the house. Maybe even in the trashcan outside the post office and store. You are agents, of a kind. Your friendship works independently of me, which is how things should be. So why does it jar so, this desire to know what you have been writing?

  – Show me. Just the ones you’re happy with. Bring them out. Take me to the studio. Anything.

  I try to visualize what Ben will see; what the paintings will make him say, how he will feel. I think of your responses when each of the last pieces was finished. The sigh that came from your mouth; something that could be read as a mixture of wonder and satisfaction. Equally, of disappointment. It is not Ben’s dissatisfaction that holds me back. I will drag him by the wrist to the studio if I am guaranteed that reaction. It is something that I already feel about my work of the past few years. Disappointment I can understand. I live with it, working daily on canvases that resolutely do not bend to my will, capturing the light differently to what I see. My fear is that he will love it. That he will see the larger works and feel that you are in the room; that the real essence of you, your quietness and sense of wonder about the world, has been made permanent. It will make me question what is deficient in his eyes, and again, in mine. What is it that Ben sees, what insight does he have, what has he shared with you that makes sense of these pictures. That I am capable of capturing something I no longer recognize.