close to the right-hand wall, beyond the enormous rug. The latter was a blond young man of around twenty. He was naked, and shielded his genitals with both hands. He had not been painted, only lightly primed. He was openly breathing, blinked frequently, and followed Miss Wood's movements closely. It was as though he was not a painting, but a perfectly normal and attractive boy, standing naked in the room. He was called Portrait of Joe, and was by Gabriel Moritz. Moritz was one of the French natural-humanist school.
Wood knew all about them. Natural-humanism rejected any attempt to turn a person into art, and so was utterly opposed to pure hyperdramatism. To the humanists, works of art were first and foremost human beings. Their models did not have their bodies painted and were put on show exactly as they were in daily life, naked or dressed, posing almost without taking up quiescence.
The natural-humanists were also determined not to hide any of the body's blemishes: Wood could see the scar from what must have been a childhood scrape on Portrait of Joe's right knee, and the curl of a distant appendix operation. The boy seemed a little bored with being on show. While Miss Wood was looking at him, he cleared his throat, puffed out his chest, and ran his tongue over his lips.
The other work was better, but was from the same tendency. Wood already knew it, and had no need to go closer and read its title: Girl in the Shade by Georges Chalboux. The body of Girl in the Shade was less appealing than the Moritz. It looked like a university student who had decided to play a joke on its friends by taking all its clothes off and standing still.
The stands by the side of the two works displayed all the accoutrements for maintaining humanist paintings: small trays with bottles of water and wafer biscuits that the works were allowed to turn to whenever they liked, signs they could hang on the wall to say that the painting had gone for a rest or was absent for a while, even one which said: 'These people are working as a work of art. Please respect them.'
Miss Wood finished studying the works and swung her tiny bag from side to side as she walked round the room. She detested French humanist art in all its forms: from Corbett's 'sincerism' to the 'democratism' of Gerard Garcet and the 'absolute liberalism' of
Jacqueline Treviso. Works that asked permission to go to the bathroom or simply went without asking, outdoor pieces which ran for cover when it started raining, paintings which haggled over how many hours they should work, and even the poses they should adopt, who butted in to your conversations with other people, who had the right to complain if they were upset about something or to share your food if they saw you eating something they fancied. April Wood definitely preferred pure hyperdramatism.
She heard a noise and turned round. Hirum Oslo was coming up the garden path, limping and leaning on his stick. He was wearing cream-coloured trousers and jersey, with a red Arrows shirt. He was a tall, good-looking man. His dark skin seemed at odds with pronounced Anglo-Saxon features inherited from his father. He had short black hair, brushed back off his forehead, where his eyebrows were thick and expressive. Wood found him the same as ever, perhaps a little thinner, with large sad eyes that he got from his Indian mother. She knew he was forty-five, but he looked more like fifty. He was a concerned man, alert to everything going on around him, anxious to find someone with problems to whom he could lend a helping hand. Miss Wood thought it was this outpouring of solidarity that aged him: it was as if part of his good looks had been rubbed off on others.
She walked to the glass doors to greet him. Oslo smiled at her, but first of all stopped to have a word with the Chalboux work.
'Cristine, you can take a rest whenever you like,' he said to her in French.
'Thank you,' the painting smiled, nodding her head. It was only then that Oslo turned to greet Miss Wood. 'Good afternoon, April.'
'Good afternoon, Hirum. Could we talk without the works of art?' 'Of course, let's go to my office.'
His office was not in the house but at the bottom of the garden. Oslo liked to work surrounded by nature. April Wood could see he was still a keen gardener: he grew rare plants and identified each of them with labels as though they were works of art. As he let Miss Wood pass in front of him in a narrow part flanked by tall cactuses, Oslo said to her: 'You look very attractive.'
She smiled without replying. Perhaps to avoid the silence, he went on quickly:
'The withdrawal of Van Tysch's works in Europe has nothing to do with Restoration, does it? But if I'm not mistaken, it has to do with your presence here today?' 'You're not mistaken.'
Because of his limp, Oslo made slow progress, but Miss Wood had no problem keeping in step with him. She seemed to have all the time in the world. The shadows deepened as they reached the coolness of a clump of oaks. A murmur of water could be heard somewhere in the distance. 'How was your journey? Was it easy to find my lair?'
'Yes, I took a plane to Plymouth and rented a car there. Your directions were spot on.'
'That depends on the person,' Oslo said with a smile. 'Some dolts manage to get lost coming out of Two Bridges. Recently I had a visit from one of those artists who want to put music in their works. The poor man was going round and round in circles for two hours.'
'I see you've finally found the perfect refuge: a lonely spot in the middle of nature.'
Oslo was not sure whether or not April Wood's comment was entirely well meant, but he smiled all the same.
'It's much pleasanter than London, of course. And the weather is good. Today though it's been cloudy since dawn. If it rains, I'll put the outdoor pieces inside. I never leave them out in the rain. Oh, and by the way,' – Wood noticed an odd change in his voice -'You're going to get a surprise…'
They had reached the spot where the sound of water was coming from. It was an artificial pond. In the centre stood an outdoor work of art.
After a pause during which Oslo tried in vain to guess what Miss Wood was feeling, he said:
It's by Debbie Richards. I really think she is a great portraitist. She used a photo of you. Does it bother you?'
The girl was standing on a small platform. The bobbed hair was exactly right, and the Ray-Ban glasses were very similar to the ones she wore, as was the green suit and miniskirt. There was one important difference (Wood could not help noticing it): the naked legs had been corrected and lengthened. They were long and shapely, much more attractive than hers. But it's obvious, painters always make you look more beautiful, she thought, cynically.
The portrait stood motionless in the pose it had been placed in. Behind it was a wall of natural stone, and on its right a small waterfall cascaded. Who could the girl be who looked so like her? Or was it all thanks to cerublastyne?
‘I thought you didn't like portraits that used ceru,' she commented after a while. Oslo laughed briefly.
'You're right, I don't. But in this case it was essential for the portrait to look like the original. I've had it for a year now. Are you annoyed I commissioned a portrait of you?' He asked, looking at her anxiously. 'No.'
Then we won't mention it any more. I don't want to make you waste time.'
His office was in a glass summerhouse. Unlike the living room up at the house, it was a jumble of magazines, computers and books piled in unsteady columns. Oslo insisted on clearing his desk a little, and Miss Wood let him do so without a word. Without knowing why exactly, she felt ill at ease. Nothing about her revealed this fact, except that the knuckles on the hand gripping her bag were white.
It had been a low blow, a real low blow. She would never have thought that Oslo still wanted to remember her, least of all in this romantic way. It was absurd, meaningless. She and Hirum had not been seeing each other for years. Of course, they heard news of each other, particularly her of him. Ever since Hirum Oslo had abandoned the Foundation and become the guru of the natural-humanist movement, almost every art magazine mentioned him, either to praise or denigrate him. At that very moment, Oslo was putting away a well-worn copy of his latest book, Humanism in HD Art, which Wood had read. During her plane journey she had planned out their meeting, and had decided to comment on some passages from the book – that way they could avoid talking about the past, she thought. But the past was there, in every inch of the office, and no conversation could avoid it. And as if that were not enough, there was that unexpected portrait by Debbie Richards. April Wood turned her head to look out across the garden. She caught sight of it immediately. 'He's placed it so he can see it from his chair while he's working.'
Oslo finished tidying up, and turned to face the pale, slender figure in dark glasses. Is she annoyed? he wondered. She never shows her feelings. You never know what's really going on inside. He decided he could not care less if she were annoyed. She was the last person to reproach him for his memories. 'Sit down. Would you like
