She looked at Don. 'I think I'm right about the prize, don't you?'
He nodded. 'You need to know who won it.'
'You do too, surely.'
'It's not my genes which are in question.'
'What?' My God. She really hadn't thought of it before. A woman conceives at just that moment, a woman whose husband has not until then given her a child. A woman who was her ancestor. A painter or a poet? Whose genes lived on in her? She knew who she wanted it to be.
'It must be Rembrandt, mustn't it?' she said. 'I mean, I don't write poetry.'
'That's no argument. They were both creative people.'
'Chalk and cheese,' she said. 'They're not the same at all. A portrait has to tell the truth. Poetry gets away with whatever it wants.'
Don just looked at her and in the end, she turned back to the papers, 'It's the next day, Saturday, A day of abstinence from pleasures of the contest. Marvell did ask me to join him once more at the church but I find in myself no desire to do so, knowing he wishes the prize before the course is run and being no longer so certain that he is (he leader in my own affections. The other has known many women, esteems all woman high and understands well the ways in which a woman may best be pleased. That time in which he thought I did not cog his meaning whilst he spoke his mind in utter freedom to me was among the most pleasurable I can recall. This is folly perhaps and when my man returns, then that must mark the end of it but we will have a winner before that time and I shall carry the remembrance of this contest to the end of my days. Well, now, there's a woman to reckon with.'
'Poor bloke,' said Don. 'Old Dahl, I mean. She took him for a ride, didn't she? I wouldn't have stood for that.'
'And you think he didn't enjoy it?'
'Not in the end, no. I mean, we already know what happened, don't we? How much more is there?'
'One last day. A really short bit. Monday. This bids to be the end of all and I am a cursed fool to let that happen in the main home that would have been safely accomplished and more besides in the tower. Van Rijn has wrought a marvel, the best painting he says that he has ever done, one to which I cannot put forward any suggestion of improvement. On seeing it before me I was so stirred by the mirror of myself in his eyes that I acted with no caution and am paying the price for it. Marvell is deep in this. He has brought my man early from town, knowing his advantage in this game was disappeared. I have affirmed because I must that I am wronged in this matter and have suffered foul indignity from the Hollander and said plainly that I find him a dog and a rogue and no gentleman at all but did not like to speak of it before for fear the painting which was my husband's deepest desire would not be done for it. The limner is to go at once and Marvell is elevated in my husband's esteem so that no doubt my safety will be assigned to his hands in days to come. This page ends and all will be writ anew. And that's it. Finish. Just blank sheets after that. God, how could she?'
'She had to, didn't she?' Don said as if it were obvious. 'What else could she do?'
'How did it make him feel, do you think? There he was, with her in his grasp and it all falls apart on him.'
'Did he know? That's the question,' said Don. 'Did she tell him she was covering up or did she let him go thinking it had all been some sort of game?'
'Games. I think that was what Amelia was all about. She was looking after herself, wasn't she? I'm not sure I like her very much.'
Don gave her a look she couldn't fathom. 'Those are your genes too, Amy.' Then he turned back to the sheets of paper. 'What shall we do with this?'
'We can't keep it, can we? I mean, when this job's over, we'd be fighting over custody.'
'Oh I see. You're going off are you?'
'Well, I won't be staying here, will I?' She didn't know. At that moment she could imagine neither leaving him nor staying with him.
'You don't have to go,' he said, and there was a moment when they looked hard at each other and she saw lover's eyes looking back at her.
'Whatever happens, I think we have to give it to Parrish,' she said, 'but first we should write out what we think it all means so that he really understands and doesn't just lock it away in some dusty drawer.'
'What will we say?'
'Just what we know for sure.' She ticked the points off on her fingers: That a Dutch painter called van Rijn, who was certainly taken for Rembrandt by others he met here, came to Paull Holme. That he competed for the favours of Amelia Dahl with Andrew Marvell. That van Rijn was sent away in disgrace having painted what he thought was his best ever portrait and that Amelia faked entries in her day-book to persuade her husband she had always found the painter repulsive.'
'Poor old bastard,' Don said. 'His prize snatched away and his nose rubbed in the dirt. What did it do to him?' He stopped. 'Why are you looking like that?' he asked.
'Because I've just remembered what that man, what's he called? That man Brigham said in his lecture.'
'Which was?'
'Wait, Let me check.' She skimmed through the papers. 'Yes, that's it. He says the final phase of Rembrandt's self-portraiture was the greatest by far. He says a great change comes after 1662. There's a famous self-portrait in Kenwood House, the best of the lot, according to him. Suddenly we see complete honesty. Isn't that the point Parrish made? He says Rembrandt's a pauper, Hendrickje is dying and in the middle of all that the man is brought face to face with himself and somehow triumphs.'
'I wish I could see that portrait.'
'The one at Kenwood? It really is great. There are these two huge circles on the wall behind him. I don't know what they mean but you can see in his eyes that he does. Somehow he's saying I may not be Rembrandt the young and beautiful any more. I may not be Rembrandt the middle-aged, rich and successful. I am Rembrandt the old and my age does not matter a fart because I am the greatest painter on God's earth.'
'I will see it.'
'But listen, Don. We know what happened, don't we? We know what changed his life. It was what happened here.'
He looked at her as if he was unsure whether to trust her intuition, then he nodded. 'Yes, I suppose it was.'
'Don, I would so love to see Amelia's portrait. I suppose it's gone. Well, maybe it's time to accept that and concentrate on another picture. I'm going to get on with yours now.' I can't do anything about the dead, she was thinking, but maybe I can still do something about the living, about who this man in front of me really is and how I can decide.
'Do you want me here for it?'
'No, not at the moment.'
'I'm going to have one final look in that storeroom. I'll see if I can persuade Mr Parrish to lend me the keys.'
He didn't reappear until late, tired and empty-handed.
'It's very dusty in there,' he said, and pulled out a handkerchief to blow his nose. 'It's definitely not in there. It's not anywhere in the house.' He looked towards her easel. 'May I see it now?'
'No.'
'Why not?'
Because so much seems to depend on it, she thought. 'Because I'm going to work on it until I drop,' she said, 'and in the morning, when it's finished, you can see it.' He gave a sideways smile as he left, still turning his cheek a little away. She hardly noticed it now. Taking the cover off the picture, she wondered exactly what it was she was trying to achieve, an image of himself that Don could live with? Or was it more that she had to discover a Don whom she could live with?
Amy worked all that night, and more than one Don kept her company on her canvas. She was using acrylics so that they would dry fast and at four in the morning, she finally had the Don she most wanted in front of her, a Don who could stare back at her with an open face. She looked at that Don for a long time, loving him in that form and imagining painting her own face next to him. She sat down on the bed to stare at it and that was when she saw two torn scraps of paper on the floor. Each irregular piece was perhaps two inches square and the handwriting on them showed just a few words from each line, a phrase or less than that.
'… Drydock. I of
ten …' was one, and underneath it, '… looked upset an …' Turning over the other scrap, she read, '… expression in his …' across the centre of it.
The expression in his eyes. There was no doubt whose eyes the fragmented sentence referred to or where these scraps came from. Vin's statement, torn up and pulled out of Don's pocket with his handkerchief.
And why not? Why shouldn't he have got rid of something so hurtful, so wrong? Against that, how had he known it was there? So much for finding the tray in the kitchen. She hated the idea of Don pillaging Dennis's room, hated it and went on hating it while she sat on the bed trying to grope her way through all the conflicting fragments of this man who still held her heart. Then, because she knew she had a choice to make and she could only think of one way to bring matters to a conclusion, she picked up her brush again.
It was a clear bright morning with a breeze from the south-east bringing the mud and salt smell of the Humber across the grass in front of the house. As soon as it was light, she had set up her easel down by the river, near the remains of the old landing stage, and hung a cloth over the finished portrait. She made coffee and toast, then she woke Don, standing watching him while he dressed. She knew that in the next act of their play she would finally see him for what he was, one way or the other, and then her choice would be clear, to stay or to turn and walk away. In a few minutes' time, that decision would be made.
'This is it.' she said, loading up the tray. 'We'll have breakfast down there. Are you ready?'
'Not really.' They were both nervous for different reasons.
At the landing stage, he looked at the shrouded portrait as if he wanted to tear the cloth off it but she said, 'Not yet.'
She poured coffee but her hands were shaking and she spilt it on the tray, wiping it out of the way with her fingers. She looked down at the mess then up at Don, about to speak. He forestalled her, tearing his eyes away from the covered easel and saying, 'I've got something for you first.'
She had spread a rug over the bank and they sat on it side by side looking at the remains of the old jetty.
'He might have left from here, mightn't he?' Don asked.
'No. It said he left from the port.'
'But he sailed past and he would have looked across at the house, looking for her, wouldn't he?'
'I don't know,' she said. 'After all that, she was probably the last person he wanted to see.'
'I have something else for you. It rounds it off, maybe.' And he handed her a piece of old paper, folded in two.
'You can decide what to do with this,' he said. 'If you choose to keep it, that's completely up to you.'
'What is it?'
'You tell me. I think it's probably the first version of Marvell's poem. I don't know how it got there but it was behind the panel with the day-book pages. I kept it.'
'Marvell's first draft? To His Coy Mistress?'
'This version's called To My Coy Lady. It's different. Read it out.'
She took the heavy paper, thick and still surprisingly soft. The ink was quite black, protected perhaps by the darkness behind the panel. Someone had scribbled a rough sketch on the back of it, a sketch of a church.
She read.
'Had we but world enough and time
This coyness lady were sublime.
Your youth and beauty for their part
Would long outlive the limner's art.
No need for painted artifice
When age could not impair that face.
Thou by the Asian Tigris’ side
Shouldst emeralds find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, abstain
Until that Flood should come again.
But at my back I always fear
Time’s quick carriage hurrying near:
And yonder all before us He
Deserts of vast eternity.
The grave's a cold and dismal place
And none I know there do embrace.'
'I think it was better second time round,' said Don, smiling, and at the sight of that smile she wanted to abandon her plan.
'Did he read it to her? He must have done, then she hid it. That means there are only four people who have ever heard it.' Including van Rijn there had been five, but she could not have known that.
'Now the picture?' asked Don, looking at the shrouded easel.
'No, not yet,' said Amy slowly, staring at the ground. 'One more revelation first, I think. Don, don't you still wish we could see Amelia's painting?'
'You know I do. It's unfinished business. I'd give anything to see it.'
'I know where it is.' She spoke in a half-whisper.
He shook his head in disbelief and stared at her.
'Where? How can you?'
'I've only just realized,' she said, 'just a minute or two ago.'
'Come on, tell me.'
'On one condition.' She looked up at him and her face was set.
'Which is?'
'When I show you your picture, I will know something from your response. I will know whether we have a future together. When I know, I will either stay or I will turn and walk away. My car's all packed up. If I do go, don't try to stop me.'
He looked shocked. 'You're serious,' he said.
'Never more so.'
'I don't understand and I don't like it.'
'You don't have to understand. I will know if I can be with you. It's as simple as that.'
'Amy, you do want to be with me, don't you?'
'Oh yes, I just don't know if it's possible.'
He looked at the easel again. 'It's all down to that picture? I think these are higher stakes than I care to accept.'
'There's no real choice, Don. If you don't want to see the painting, I'm going anyway. Take it or leave it. The outcome will be the same but you'll never know about Amelia's portrait.'
She was on fire with certainty and he could see it.
'I'll take it,' he said in the end.
'Good.'
'So, where's Amelia's portrait? Let's go and see it first.'
'We don't have to,' she replied. 'It's here.'
He looked around them. 'No it's not,' Then he looked at the covered easel.
'Not that one,' she said. 'Funny, isn't it? Preconceptions change everything. We've been looking for a painting. You know what paintings look like. They hang on the wall, they're vertical. We should have been looking for something horizontal. Something, what was it? Twenty-two inches by eighteen? A tray is horizontal. A tray is about that size.'
He looked slowly down at the wooden tray on the ground, Dennis's heavy wooden tray with the ornate curved edges and, tipping the coffee mugs off it, he tilted it up to stand vertically. It was the exact match of the framed board they had found in the storeroom, the sad remains of Dahl's portrait. In complete wonder, he turned it round and they both stared at the surface, encrusted with dirt and old coffee stains.
'There's something under there,' he said. 'This time it's not just wood.'
Where Amy had rubbed the spilt coffee with her finger, a glimpse of pale pink had appeared. He rubbed more of the din away but she stopped him. How Dennis would have loved to know, she thought, and she thought maybe I'm doing this as much for Dennis as for me.
'Later,' she said. 'Now it's time for you to see what I've done.'
She went to stand behind the easel so that she could watch his face. He looked hard at her, trying to divine her intentions, then he reached out and pulled away the cloth.
She was praying that she would see surprise, innocent bafflement – that he would turn to her with a smile and a question, unable to recognize himself in what she had done. For a moment he looked simply pleased. The portrait was all in silver-grey and the Don who looked back at him was sitting half-turned on a graveyard bench with the moonlight on one cheek and the shining scar adding a line of quicksilver to the other. It defined and hardened him, a being from
another world, a hero of starlight and shadows. The man in the picture looked superb, completed by that scar. The man in the picture was Don as Amy wanted him to be but for his eyes.
The eyes in the portrait were cold and savage, the eyes which flashed out from that other Don.
In the moment when Don looked at the expression in those painted eyes, in that brief unguarded moment, his face changed and his own eyes took on the cold, destructive rage of recognition, an unmistakable knowledge of what the portrait meant. In that moment Amy knew she had the answer she least wanted and she turned and began to walk back towards the house, filled with a sudden fear that he might, after all, come after her.
'Amy,' he called, 'you've got this all wrong. Amy, stop. I didn't do it. I need you.'
She stopped and slowly turned and they stared at each other.
'You've got Marvell's blood, not Rembrandt's,' he said desperately. That's not me.'
She took one slow step back towards him, then another and another, looking into his eyes, searching his face, then she bent down, picked up the tray and strode away. She was halfway back before she dared look round and there was no sign of him on the bank, though a small copse of trees blocked part of the view. The house was blank-fronted, still asleep when she arrived there and she stood undecided, holding the tray which was no longer a tray, feeling numb, blank-fronted like the house. Then she took pencil and paper from her car, crossed to the saw bench and, as if it were an offering for dead Dennis, she laid the tray on its bed, wrote a note to Peter Parrish suggesting he had it carefully cleaned and turned to leave.
The Painter Page 36
