Authenticity (14 page)
Authors: Deirdre Madden
He could barely drag himself around the gallery, and he soon sat down again, this time near Holbein’s
Portrait of a
Lady with a Squirrel
. The painted lady, with her tethered, bright-eyed pet snuggled to her breast, was being studied by a young woman. Would he have noticed her had she stopped in front of any other picture? Perhaps no other would have afforded a more striking contrast. He examined them both closely. The young woman’s hair was cropped shorter than William’s own, and she had three stars tattooed on her foot, just above the ankle bone. He could see her nipples through the tight white T-shirt that was cropped to reveal a flat tanned midriff. It took only a slight mental effort for him to see her as naked as one of the vast goddesses in the paintings
which were displayed in adjacent rooms. The woman in the painting was also dressed in black and white, but in clothes that concealed everything, from her angular bonnet of white fur to the white folded stole draped across her shoulders. The young woman standing before him was not the final word on the fate of women. It was hard to believe that she might look, some hundreds of years from now if her image was preserved, as quaint as the woman in the painting.
I
know
exactly
what you’ll think of Madame in her crystal!
There was something hard and cynical about the young woman’s face. He had often noticed this in young people recently, particularly in girls. It was the look of someone who had no illusions about society: what it offered, what it amounted to. Liz was always fretting about the children, especially Sophie, and what her life would be when she grew up. ‘Everything’s changing so quickly now. How can I prepare her properly for the future when I have no idea what sort of world she’ll be living in?’
He was so lost in thought that he forgot the woman wasn’t a painting but a real person until she turned to him and gave him a taste of his own behaviour, until she looked him over coldly, long and hard, every inch of him. ‘Seen enough, granddad?’ Determined not to lose face, he did his best to stare back insolently. ‘Piss off. You give me any hassle and I’ll call the security guards, d’you hear?’ She had raised her voice, and people turned to stare at them both. Suddenly William lost his nerve. He stood up and walked quickly away, forcing himself not to break into a run.
In the gallery shop he chose a book about Giverny for Gregory, and a postcard of the squirrel painting, then went to the café and bought himself a cup of tea. The girl at the till reminded him of Hannah: she had the same unusual and attractive combination of blonde hair and dark brown, almost black eyes. He almost never thought of Hannah these days. There had been other women since then. Not many: the opportunity didn’t present itself often and he had to be
careful. Liz had said she would leave him if it happened again and he believed her. He didn’t know why he had been so indiscreet about Hannah, didn’t understand what had possessed him at the time. At least now, he thought, he had the sense when he sought release elsewhere not to let emotions come into it, his own or anyone else’s.
The postcard was for Julia. He would write it now and post it before meeting Liz at the time they had arranged. She had nothing to fear in Julia, no reason to be jealous, but she wouldn’t necessarily understand that so it was best she didn’t know. He drank his tea and wondered what he should write. He was embarrassed about how things had ended when he went to see her exhibition. It was strange and fortuitous his meeting her at just this moment in his life, and he was keen not to break the connection. On the back of an envelope he took from his pocket he drafted out what he might say to her, anxious to strike exactly the right tone. When he was satisfied, he took out the card. He glanced momentarily at the image again, at the woman’s odd bonnet and decorous clothes, at the lithe, bright squirrel.
And then he started to write.
Dear Dennis,
Well, I got here, just about. What a journey! First off, a huge
THANK YOU for taking me out to the airport and helping me
with the luggage and everything. I must confess I had a sinking
feeling in the pit of my stomach when I arrived in Fiumicino and
stood by the baggage conveyor looking at all the cases coming out,
waiting for mine. It came eventually, although all my bags seemed
to have mysteriously doubled in size and weight somewhere
between Dublin and Rome. I stood in the boiling heat sweating
like stuck pig, hearing people all around me talking, and I wasn’t
able, quite naturally, to understand a single word that was being
said. So I realised at that moment that from here on out I really
am going to have to rely on the comfort of strangers, and look out
for myself, and stand on my own two feet and all that jazz. If I
have a problem now there’s no point in thinking ‘I can ask Dennis
and he’ll help me, he’ll know what to do.
’
I will just have to deal
with it myself. And about time too, I can hear you say. All this is
a very garbled and inarticulate way of thanking you not just for
seeing me off yesterday morning, but for everything you’ve done
for me over the past years.
So the trip from Rome up to Siena was my baptism of fire in Italy.
It was all fairly frantic from the moment I arrived. I had arranged
with Enzo, the man in charge here, before I left Ireland that he
would meet me off a particular train and bring me out to the Villa
Rosalba. I was worried that if I missed the connection I didn’t
know how I would make contact with him, or how I would get
here. Every stage took longer than I thought and it was all cut
very fine. I almost got on the wrong train, and then got the right
one just at the last gasp; the doors of the carriage literally clipped
my heels as I got in. I did manage to relax during the journey and
admire the landscape which is so marvellous: the hills, the little
towns, the remarkable colours, the light. I know I’m just going to
love it here. I began to worry a bit as we approached Siena, that I
might not be able to find Enzo, worried more when I actually saw
the hordes of people in the station, but there in the middle of it all
was a man with a huge placard saying
‘R.
Kenedy’.
I’ve only been here for twenty-four hours and I’m still
overwhelmed by it all. For anyone to be here would be a pleasure –
you for example would just love it, I feel sure of that – but for a
painter it’s something more again. I know I’m going to do good
work. I’m still getting the studio set up, but I hope to start
tomorrow. It is, as you know, the only thing that really interests
me. I need to be painting and what with preparing to come out
here I haven’t done anything much in the past week, so I feel
restless and mad keen to get started again.
The Foundation is well organised. We each have a studio and a
bed-sitting room, with a little kitchen corner: fridge, hot plate,
press for food and crockery. We cater for ourselves at breakfast and
lunch, which is good because it means you can put your own
shape on the day, rise early or late as you wish, and work straight
through what should be lunch time if you feel so inclined. Then
we all come together in the evening to share a meal cooked by
Marguerite who, together with Enzo, runs the place. We ate out
on a terrace, with a view of the valley below, and the olive trees
and the cypress trees, and night fell and bats came out in the dusk.
We ate pasta with an aubergine sauce, then roast chicken with
spinach, then fruit and cheese.
As regards the company of the damned, there are six artists in
residence at any one time, three Italians and three foreigners. We
all stay for six months, but the arrivals are staggered, so that there
are only ever two new inmates wandering around like lost souls at
any one time. The other person who arrived yesterday is an
American called Ray, who’s from Maine, and seems decent; in fact
they all seem quite nice. There’s one man I haven’t met yet, Karl
from Heidelberg, who is off in Rome for a few days. There’s Elsa,
from Turin. She’s a lovely woman and speaks fluent English,
which is a help to me. Gina is a sculptor from Catania (doesn’t
speak a word of English) and Mauro is a painter from Milan.
From my point of view this is no bad thing, as it means I have
enough people to talk to easily, but also a good incentive to learn
the language. I’m determined to learn as much Italian as I can
while I’m here and I listened to my cassette for an hour this
afternoon. I haven’t seen any work by any of the others yet,
although I’m curious to do so. I feel there’s a bit of needle between
Elsa and Mauro, but that’s only a hunch. I don’t think I should
have too many problems fitting in. As I say, they seem like a
decent bunch, and I like having a bit of company in the evenings
when I’ve been working all day.
I’ll finish up here. I’ll write again at the end of the week when
I’m more settled. I’ll be sending cards to the family soon, but in
the meantime give them all my love. These are just first
impressions in a note to let you know that I’ve arrived. It is
important for me to be here Dennis – good for me too. And again,
I really can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done not
just over the past mad week, but over the years. I really am
grateful
Best love,
R.
Dear Dennis,
I’m glad you were pleased with the little cakes from Siena. I know
you could live on marzipan so as soon as I saw them I thought,
‘Dennis would kill for these.’ I bought a box of them for you on
the spot. Let me know if you can think of anything else that you’d
particularly like from here. I’m always on the lookout for things
that might please you. A wine buff like yourself would be in
heaven: I’m developing a great taste for it myself. I wish I could
see my way to sending you a few bottles but I don’t know how it
might be done. You’ll just have to come out here and drink it on
the spot. I’m still trying to think of what I might send Dad.
Speaking of gifts, I sent three silk scarves for Mum and the girls,
do you know did they ever arrive? I posted them at the same time
I posted the marzipan to you, but I thought they would have
arrived long before now. Mind you, I haven’t had a cheep from
anyone in the family since I’ve been here, apart from you. Thank
you for all the letters. There’s a table in the common room where
Enzo sets out our post for us to collect, and I love to walk in and
see one of your blue envelopes with the familiar handwriting
sitting there waiting for me. It’s good of you to write so often,
as I know that after a long day at the office sitting down at night
to write a letter must take considerable effort. I love to hear your
news. The stuff about the builders made me laugh, although in
all seriousness you must have been damn glad to see the back of
them. The new windows will make the house more comfortable
for you, especially that big front room that was always hard to
heat.
I get on well with everyone here except Mauro. As Elsa remarked
the other day in her grammatically perfect but heavily accented
English, ‘I think we are all developing a Mauro complex.’ Late
that night she had a tremendous row with him. I’m not sure
what it was about, but I can make an educated guess. She
wouldn’t tell me but I notice that she hasn’t had a good word to
say about him since then. He’s well off: his father, she says, is a
wealthy industrialist who has funded Mauro on this particular
little flight of fancy for the past couple of years. When the novelty
wears off, she says, his father will set him up in something else,
and he’ll hold artists in contempt for the rest of his life. I think
the end can’t be too long in coming: terminal boredom has
already set in. I told Elsa I don’t think he’ll last the whole of his
six-month stay. He isn’t doing a stroke and there really is
nothing else to do here all day except work, as we’re out in the
middle of the fields. He makes no secret of the fact that he thinks
us all dull dogs because we spend our days closed away in our
studios.
Anyway, enough about him. Elsa is a tremendously fine artist.
I’ve learned ever such a lot from talking to her. She works on
lithographs, something I never enjoyed when I did it at college,
but she has let me spend some time at the stone with her and has
taught me a lot about the technique. There’s a great generosity of
spirit in the people here. We’ve all been into each other’s studios at
this stage, and have all (again, with the exception of Mauro) done
enough work to give each other a sense of what it is we’re about.
Gina is the exact opposite of Mauro, if anything a bit fanatical.
She has the studio beside mine, and when I wake in the mornings
(and I wake early, because of the light) more likely than not I hear
the sound of her chisel on stone. I often fall asleep at night to the
same sound, because she frequently goes back to her studio after
dinner and works again. The rest of us, I must confess, either walk
down to the little bar in the village for a beer, or else we sit around
on the terrace or in the common room drinking red wine and
talking until all hours. I can’t really communicate with her
because of the language barrier, but she doesn’t talk much to
anyone really, she’s just not a verbal person. The only thing she
can say in English is ‘I love stone’, and she knows the words
granite, marble and so on. She showed me a portfolio of
photographs of sculptures, and they were remarkable. She can
make stone liquid, can make it flow down the side of a table, she
can make it appear soft as a fleece. As Ray said with some
humility after he’d seen her work, ‘If I could do what Gina can do,
I think I’d spend all my time closed away too, I wouldn’t ever
want to do anything except work.’
Because the sad fact is that Ray isn’t a very good artist. He’s a
great guy, and we get on like a house on fire, but I can’t let my
feelings sway my judgement as far as work goes. I’m even cold
enough to say it interests me to see how bad an artist he is. I was
so disappointed the first time I went to his studio. He works in
collage, but it really has nothing going for it: no energy, no ideas,
even his sense of design is weak. When you look at it you’re aware
that it’s just bits of paper stuck together. That is of course
technically what collage is, I know, but the end result should be so
much more than that, just as painting is something more than
paint and canvas. What he does is all too tightly controlled and too
small He’s trying to work on a bigger scale but doesn’t feel
comfortable with it. He knows the work isn’t good enough, he
keeps saying that he needs to relax more into it, and he’s exactly
right, but he doesn’t seem to be able to do it. Every artist wants to
do better work: you’re always pushing against your own limits,
and I know myself from bad times what it’s like when you know
it’s not good enough – not good at all – and there seems to be no
way through. Yet you do also know when you’re on the right track.
He has, he says, good ideas, but he can never seem to push them
through to any satisfactory degree. And yet the odd thing is, he’s a
tremendously dedicated artist. I mean, he’s a real artist, even if he
is a bad one. I think if someone forced Ray to stop working he
wouldn’t be able to go on living, he needs to be doing it.
I’ve been thinking about this whole question a lot since I met him.
One always tends to assume that someone who is an artist, a real,
driven, anointed artist, is also a good artist, but that may not
always be the case. There are people of great technical ability but
no vision: they’re not really artists, but they pass as such. Poor
Ray. I have a horrible feeling that no matter how hard he tries he’s
never going to get any better. Perhaps I’m wrong. I hope I am,
and maybe after years of effort he’ll break through and do
something utterly original and beautiful.
Why am I telling you all this? I know it can’t interest you. I’m
just thinking out loud. I don’t want to talk to anyone here about it
in case it seems underhand or uncharitable to Ray, but it has been
on my mind a lot lately.
Enclosed are a couple of photographs – you might think to show
them to the family, although whether or not they’ll be interested is
anyone’s guess. Karl took them yesterday and got them developed
when he was in town today. The first one was taken in my studio.
Left to right, Gina, Elsa, the dreaded Mauro, yours truly, Enzo
and Ray. Looking at this picture, you will not be surprised to
learn that my nickname here is Gulliver (as he was perceived on
his Lilliputian travels rather than in his Brobdingnagian phase).
The second photo was taken on the terrace where we have dinner.
You’ll recognise who’s who from the first picture, apart from the
two people sitting under the tree who were just there for the
evening. The man is an old friend of Elsa’s from Turin, whose
name I must say I’ve forgotten already. He’s an expert in fresco
restoration and is overseeing a project in a church near here. The
woman beside him is Marta, a colleague of his. She speaks good
English and I enjoyed her company. It was nice to have some new
faces around the table. We arranged that Elsa and I would go out
to the church tomorrow to see them, and I’m pleased and excited
about that. I’ve never seen a fresco being restored before. They
both made a good contribution to the evening, which went on
until all hours.
I feel tremendously at home here, and so contented; I think I could
stay for ever. You wouldn’t ever think of coming over to live here?
I really believe at the moment that the only thing I would miss if I
never went back to Ireland would be the odd pint and your good
self.
Best love,
Your brother,
Roderic.
