The Painter

by Will Davenport

  Amy looked at her watch. Eight minutes to eleven. She did not want to be late. No time for more than a quick look. The screen showed a printed introductory page: The Journal of Amelia Dahl of Paull Holms Manor in the County of Yorkshire. 1662-1663.

  She turned the knob carefully to let the spool move on and there, as the opening page of Amelia's carefully styled handwriting edged into view, faint and hard to read, she met her forebear for the first time.

  January the First in the year of our Lord 1661/62, this being the second year of the reign of our King Charles who is restored to us. On this day, at the start of the month I here begin to keep the Journal Book in red calf leather given me for that purpose by my beloved Husband. It is a propitious time, being the start of our new life in our new house at Paull Holme after the past five and one half years of our living in the town of Kingston. The air here is clear and fine and it is a joy beyond thought that I do not any more have to suffer the rank smoke from Popple's oil-mill. I pray that I may never again be obliged to smell that stink of burning rape-cake which has given its odour to the whole of my life for so long. This fair place has even a name which is dear to my heart from the years during which I lived with my mother's people in her land of Norway. There too is a place named Paull Holme, a place of beauty, and it eases my heart in this often strange country to think that travellers from that land which is half mine by virtue of my birth, did come here and name this place. This region of Holderness in which our new house is situated is a fine land, fertile and well-husbanded. The troubles which have lately faced us in our farmer home in the town are no more than passing echoes here. It is my belief that the people of Holderness concern themselves with few affairs of state and think more of their fields, their animals and their table. In the past years my husband has been wont to anchor his ship here when the tide and wind have been contrary. He has told me that he had stared on many occasions at the two towers which now form the buttresses of this, our house, and bent his thoughts to how, if fortune smiled upon him he might new-vamp them to habitability. When he and I first made our acquaintance together, we did discourse often in the course of that long voyage here from Batavia of how our life might be in my land of England but I would say this day that it is the first time that I may allow myself to feel any certainty of happiness. The weather continues extraordinarily fine and the grass we have sown on the earth before the house shows a head of green hair. It is altogether too early, my man does say, for us to live in this place. We have but two rooms now ready for our use and a third to be finished on the morrow. He wished us to stay longer in the city but I would not. This is to be my creation, my house, brought to a point of perfection by my eye and my voice if not my hand. If I am not here, these rogues will perform a tawdry work upon it and I will not have it spoiled so. I shall make a place with my constant attention to my art which shall stand as a most perfect home. Arrived today by carrier the overmantel just as we did order it from Beverley, also ten chairs. When my beloved husband returns from his voyage, it is my hope that he will find this house transformed from the empty condition in which he did see it before he sailed. In this house, I am free to exercise my art and shew what I can do.

  There was more of the same for the next few days, domestic detail expressions of longing for the absent Dahl, covering five or six lines each day. Amy spun the control to take her through it, scanning painfully slowly at first but then a little faster as she learnt to decipher the faint, tricky handwriting. In Parrish's typed version, the first entry had been January the fifteenth. She stopped abruptly two days before that. The entry for January the thirteenth was different, much longer than any that had gone before. She rewound the film carefully to the start of that day.

  Called up from my bed by John Mold at six of the clock with the news that my husband's ship, the Godspeed, was in the river and looked from the new window to see her at anchor in the near channel with no person visible on the deck excepting only the boatswain Xpeffer Ely, who I could be sure of at that distance by virtue of his great size and entirely hairless head. I did dress myself at a run and go at once all around the house making sure that all was in good repair and that the kitchen did ring of preparation for his arrival. A little after the new clock had struck seven I observed all sorts of bustle aboard. The boat was lowered and loaded and struck off for the shore so that I did run all the way around the new-seeded grass that will be our garden-lawn to the path below and then to the landing, where it was with some concern and a great pain to my heart that I saw no man in the boat who resembled my husband, who I had a month's mind to see, but then did spy him to my disappointment, remaining still on the wheel-deck of the Godspeed. The boat came to the landing with two seamen at the sweeps and with two other men seated in the stern. The first of these I knew at once for our Member, Mister Marvell, a man of high discourse and great wit, a pragmatical man though aualitied who has oft had business with my husband. The other was unknown to me, a draggle of a fellow of some age, a masty fellow who I saw to look after me in a way I did not like. He paid his price for no sooner had Marvell sprung to the shore with ease than this other fellow, in essaying to follow him without taking any proper care in the matter and still with his eyes fixed upon me, did fail utterly to hold his balance and sprawled down into the mud to the amusement of all of us excepting himself. On rescuing the fellow, Marvell did inform me that my husband had pressing business explaining his cargo and himself to those prating fanfaroons as my husband would call them who do call themselves the Company of Merchant Adventurers and who would have him fined for every part of every cargo he brings to the town which does not meet their petty rules. It is profoundly to be despaired of that after some years and after loyal service to the King, my husband is called an alien by these people, who were themselves traitors almost to a man during the years of the Royal Exile and cheered at the killing of the late King. It is they not ourselves who should be brought down now that the throne has been restored. Marvell astonished me with the news that the damp fellow now dripping on our dock was a limner of some skill, newly discovered by them all adrift in Gottingbourg in Sweden and brought here for no more than the privilege of his fare and keep to make my husband's portrait. All this time this clouterly man, who was now a scandalous sight in his stinking garments, did shiver and stare at me with his droll and gouty face, I would not fall foul of my husband if this is his wish but I was put in a dump that my man should be replaced in my house this night by such a one as this painter. Marvell doth then tell me that it may not be made known that the both of them have come ashore from the ship so that he plans to ride to the city from here and make claim to have come by carriage from London with the painter who is called Vanrin. Marvell shewed me a little drawing done by Vanrin on the ship and it is true that he can make a very creditable line. I went in search of such stuff as might prevent the painter from taking his death-chill.

  From the present day, a throat being cleared made itself heard in the seventeenth century and she came back some of the way to see the librarian standing at her elbow.

  'I'm sorry,' said the librarian. 'Mrs Shoosmith has arrived.'

  Amy tried to make sense of the statement and failed. 'Has she?'

  'She's booked on your machine. It's coming up to eleven.'

  'Oh, right. Sorry, I'm with you.'

  Peter Parrish was in his office when she arrived out of breath and late. He was wearing different tweeds and there was different colour paint splashed on them.

  'Did you have a look round?' he asked, genially.

  'I did,' she said, 'and I read some more of Amelia's journal, the copy in the library.'

  'Good, good,' he said. 'Excellent. You saw the house?'

  'What house?'

  He looked surprised. 'The Salter house? You didn't see my note?'

  She shook her head.

  'Didn't I mark it on the map?' He took the map from her. 'Yes, here it is. Oh dear.'

  'What?'

  'Silly me,' he said, 'I marked it
but I didn't say what it was I'd marked.'

  There was a cross on the map that Amy hadn't noticed before, a small inked cross at the top of the High Street.

  'That was their house,' said Parrish. 'Their house before they moved out of Hull. At least we think so. There are documents about it which mention Dahl as a past owner and I doubt there could have been more than one Dahl. There's not much left, only a couple of walls built into a quite horrid nineteenth-century thing, but I thought you'd like to take a look.'

  'I went to read the journal,' she said. 'I didn't have much time though. Why did they leave the town, do you know?'

  'Oh yes,' he said, as if surprised that it wasn't part of her family lore. The Civil War. Very confusing time, of course. You know Hull was the first place to come out against the King? They barred the gates to Charles I. 1642, that was. Right old rumpus after that, Cromwellians to a man. Sieges and battles. You know what happened, of course. They cut off the King's head. All very well until Cromwell died and the whole republic idea began to fall apart. By the time it got to 1660, they'd all changed their minds again – couldn't wait to get a king back again.'

  'But Amelia says Dahl was on the King's side.'

  'Dare say he was,' said Parrish absently. 'Odd considering he was a foreigner. Trouble is, he was on the King's side when the rest of them weren't. Bound to cause trouble that sort of thing. Probably a bit of a trouble-maker.' He exclaimed and put his hand to his mouth. 'I'm so sorry. Relation of yours. How rude of me.'

  Amy laughed. 'He doesn't mean anything to me, I promise.' But she was glad he'd said it about Dahl and not his wife. 'It's all very interesting, the journal I mean. I'll have to go back and read the rest.'

  'You might be disappointed. It's better at the start. Gets a bit dry later on. What was it you liked?'

  'The bit when this portrait painter arrived and falls in the mud because he's looking at her. Stuff like that.'

  He frowned. 'I vaguely remember. Haven't read the whole thing for yonks to tell you the truth.'

  'I want to know what happens with the painter.'

  'You know, I'm sorry to say I don't think he appears in it very much at all. Certainly hasn't stuck in my mind. Mind you, that wasn't the sort of thing I was looking for, so you never know.'

  'And Marvell? She mentions a Marvell.'

  'Well, she would. He was the Member of Parliament, you know. Anyway, better get on. About the house. The problem we have is producing, shall we say, a facsimile of the decoration without being accused of going too far. It's always a terrible moment you know, when you open your work up to the critical gaze and people say you've perhaps got a little carried away. Here of course we are very lucky to have the traces of what is very probably the original decorative scheme in one or two rooms. They were protected under wallpaper, but it's going to have to be a softly, softly approach. Now somewhere here,' he looked vaguely around the desk, 'we have an analysis of the pigments used and there's not too much of a problem matching them.' He waved a hand at a box in the corner. They're all in there. Dry pigment. Powder. You mix it with an off-white base, well it's almost a cream. Modern whites are much too bright – makes it look all wrong. The proportions are all written down. It's just a question of extrapolation. We don't have the corners, you see. You'll have to do the straight sections of the borders and then just, well, work out how they must have fitted at the corners. There are some tracings and I've had the tiniest go myself at fitting it all together.'

  He found a roll of paper on the desk and gave it to her with a sudden smile. 'See how it goes, anyway. I'll be out tomorrow. We'll have a chat.'

  Back at the house, she was lugging the box of paints towards the steps when a shout from the foreman's hut stopped her.

  'Is that lot booked in?' he yelled.

  'In what sense?' she said sweetly.

  'In the sense of is it booked in? All incoming goods go in the incoming goods book so it balances with the materials used book, just so no one gets any ideas about taking any of it for a walk off-site, see?'

  The book he put in front of her had so few entries in it that she knew this was just his way of telling her he was in charge.

  'Where you working anyway?' he said when she'd finished.

  'Back bedroom, first floor,' she said.

  'Which one?'

  'Left at the top of the stairs. Third room along?' she said, trying to remember.

  'Ceiling just been plastered?'

  'Yup, that's it.'

  'Room one three, that is,' he said. 'One meaning first floor.'

  'And three meaning three?'

  He ignored that. 'You'll have Don Gilby in there later. Maybe Dennis Greener from time to time. Space for all of you. You won't have met Don yet.'

  She just raised her eyebrows, giving nothing away.

  'We're all looking after him a bit. Be obliged if you did too.'

  'Is he ill? Is he under-age? I'm not good at changing nappies.'

  'He got hurt, made a mess of himself.'

  'What happened to him?'

  'That's his business. I wouldn't go asking if I were you. Best left alone. I don't want some smart-arsed woman making it any worse for him, see?'

  So he was a good man for all his ways and he was sorry for what had happened to Don. 'You don't have to worry about me,' she said. But the look in his eye said he thought she might be trouble. As she walked away she heard him say to himself, 'I don't know why I bother,' but he did really.

  The upstairs room was empty but there was a scaffolding tower in the middle of the floor and a pile of planks next to it. She tugged the tower to one corner and spent a precarious twenty minutes pushing the planks up into place on top of it until she had a working platform. Out in the yard she found a ladder no one seemed to be using and when it was set up and ready, she began for the first time to consider the complete unfamiliarity of the task she had taken on with such unwarranted confidence. Peter Parrish's plans helped. They were carefully dimensioned in feet and inches which would have been useful if she'd had a ruler. There was a cut-off piece of wood on the floor which looked about a foot long so, with a pencil, she began dividing it up into twelve approximately equal inch segments. When that was done, she climbed up the ladder, pencil ruler and plans in hand and began the excruciatingly uncomfortable task of transferring the outline of the design to the borders of the ceiling. After five minutes, the only thing that ached more than her wrist was her neck. That was when the door opened and a man in black overalls came in – Don, He was carrying an electric sander and wearing large plastic goggles which covered his eyes and most of his scar.

  'Hello,' she said.

  'Will it bother you if I start sanding?' he answered. 'It's going to be dusty.'

  'No. I'm not painting. I'll be drawing out the pattern for days yet, I expect. You don't need to wear those goggles on my account.' She regretted that as soon as she said it.

  'I'm wearing them on my account,' he said shortly. 'On account of the fact that we follow workplace safety regulations round here.'

  'Yes, of course. Sorry.'

  'Speaking of which, you've got an unsafe ladder there. It should be secured to the staging.'

  'Oh.'

  'I'll do it,' he said, putting the sander down and taking a length of cord from his pocket. Amy watched him take three or four turns round the ladder and the scaffold, then start to tie the knot. He did it, despite his missing figures, with the same skill he'd employed to roll his cigarette, then he turned back to examine the paint-covered panelling on the walls.

  'I was in Hull today,' she said. 'I went to look at her journal. Amelia's journal.'

  He looked up at her, both eyes, full on, a bright blue double-barrelled gaze. He's back in the jungle again, she thought, but is he stalking prey or scenting a mate?

  'The microfilm?'

  'Yes.'

  'Could you read the handwriting?'

  'Once I got used to it. I didn't have much time.'

  He turned away and drowned
out all chance of conversation by switching on the sander.

  NINE

  Monday, January 13th, 1662

  So here I was, lurching along most uncomfortably on this donkey. The sores I had collected on the way to the city had matured nicely by now and it was all I could do to stop myself yelling at each rolling, stumbling step the damned beast took. It was a tubby animal, sweaty and high-smelling and it farted with great regularity. I had heard its furnace of a stomach at work on the way out but the wind had been coming from in front and carrying away the output of that dreadful digestive process. Now the wind was behind us so I was left in no doubt at all about the precise state of the gases involved.

  Before I get back to the main point, to Dahl's new house and the exquisite woman who lives in it, I just want to talk about God for a short while. In Amsterdam, I have known a lot of people who believe in God with every fibre of their being. I have known Socinianites and Anabaptists and Jews and Mennonites of both the ordinary and the Waterland variety and even Catholics – in fact I rather think I was married to a Catholic, though she tended to cover it up. It is better not to dwell on such things. Amsterdam is a tolerant city but it changed sides abruptly thirty years ago and there are still some questions it is better not to ask.

  I command the best part of a thousand guilders for a full-length portrait. Even if my customers know nothing about painting, they know which painter's name creates the right impression. All right. Not at the moment. Lately, the way I paint has driven that sort of customer away. They haven't the stomach for it. They haven't the patience and they don't understand what I do with the paint. Smooth, glistening crap, that's what they want. Simple paint that a simpleton can understand. Painting shouldn't be about money. I don't give a toss for that sort of client. They're not what matters.