“They were at the back of a big stack. Paint from the front of one had smeared the back of the next. I thought that she must have hidden them quickly, before they’d had time to dry properly.”
Did you have to hide the woman’s face, her gash of a mouth as she screamed, so that you could sleep? Or was it the masked man, dark with menace in the shadows, who disturbed you as violently as he did me?
“Todd thought they were proof that she had psychosis.”
“Todd?”
“My fiance at the time.”
We are interrupted by Mrs. Crush Secretary, who gives Mr. Wright a sandwich; clearly his lunchtime meeting didn’t include any lunch and she has thought about this, looked after him. She barely glances at me as she gives me mineral water. He smiles at her, his open, winning smile. “Thanks, Stephanie.” His smile is going out of focus. The office is dimming. I can hear his concerned voice.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
But the office is in darkness. I can hear but not see. It happened at lunch with Mum yesterday and I blamed the wine, but today there’s no scapegoat. I know that I must keep calm so the darkness will clear. And I continue, forcing myself to remember back—and in the darkness your dull-toned paintings are vivid.
I turned back to the paintings. Why had you painted them, Tess? As a message? And why had you hidden them? Todd didn’t realize my silence had been filled with urgent mental chatter.
“Someone has to tell it as it is, darling.”
He’d got so redneck all of a sudden, as if being resolutely wrong was being masculine, as if he could turn the aftermath of your death into an Iron John weekend. This time he sensed my anger. “I’m sorry, ‘mad’ is maybe too blunt to describe it.”
At the time, I silently and furiously disagreed with him.
But now I fear madness rather than look at its literary pedigree. And I realize my earlier viewpoint was that of onlooker rather than sufferer. “Not mad sweet heaven”—because loss of sanity, of self, generates despairing terror whatever label you want to use for it.
I came up with some excuse to leave the flat, and Todd looked disappointed. He must have thought the paintings would put an end to my “refusal to face the truth.” I’d heard that phrase in his quiet concerned chats on the phone to mutual friends in New York, when he thought I couldn’t hear, even to my boss. From his perspective, your paintings would force me to confront reality. It was there in front of me, four times, a screaming woman and a monster man. Psychotic, frightening, hellish pictures. What more did I need? Surely, I would now accept the fact that you committed suicide and move on. We could put things behind us. Get on with our lives. The hackneyed life- coach phrases could become reality.
Outside it was dark, the air raw with cold. Early February is not a good time to be constantly stropping off. Again, I felt in my coat pocket for the nonexistent glove. If I’d been a lab rat I’d have been a pretty poor specimen at learning patterns and punishment. I wondered if slipping on the steps would be worse than gripping a snow- covered iron railing with a naked hand. I decided to grip, wincing as I held the biting cold metal.
I knew I really had no right to be angry with Todd, because if it were the other way around, I’d want him to return to being the person I thought I knew too—someone sensible and levelheaded who respected authority and didn’t cause unnecessary embarrassment. But I think you’re pleased that I argued with policemen and accosted grown men on their doorsteps and in their flats and took no notice of authority and that it’s all down to you.
As I walked alone through the streets, slippery with frozen slush, I realized that Todd didn’t really know me at all. Nor me him. Ours was a relationship of small talk. We’d never stayed awake long into the night hoping to find in that nocturnal physical conversation a connection of minds. We hadn’t stared into each other’s eyes, because if eyes are the window to the soul, it would be a little rude and embarrassing to look in. We’d created a beltway relationship, circumventing raw emotions and complex feelings, so that our central selves were strangers.
Too cold to walk any farther, I returned to the flat. As I reached the top of the steps, I collided with someone in the dark and was jolted with fear before realizing it was Amias. I think he was equally startled to see me.
“Amias?”
“I’m so sorry. Did I give you a fright? Here …” He held a flashlight for me to see my footing. I saw that he was carrying a bag of earth.
“Thanks.”
It suddenly struck me that I was living in his flat. “I should pay you something while we stay here.”
“Absolutely not. Anyway, Tess had already paid next month’s rent.”
He must have guessed I didn’t believe him. “I asked her to pay me with her paintings,” he continued. “Like Picasso with his restaurant bills. And she’d painted ones for February and March in advance.”
I used to think you spent time with him because he was another of your waifs and strays, but he’s got a rare kind of charm, hasn’t he? Something masculine and upper class, without being sexist or snobbish, making me think in black and white of steam trains and trilbies and women in floral frocks.
