Monet's Angels Page 21

  ‘You don’t own me, you know,’ he had murmured. ‘I’ll do what I damn well like.’ Then he’d called across to his partner to suggest another set.

  He decided he had been unfair to Judith for wasn’t that also her response when he had tried to interfere?

  ‘Well, Robert, what’s all this about?’ Judith’s voice broke into his thoughts. She had approached his table and stood looking down at him, hand on hip. ‘I thought you weren’t speaking to me, any more?’

  He got to his feet. ‘Oh Judith, can’t we forget about all that? Be friends again?’

  ‘Well, you were very nasty to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I was only concerned that you… oh, never mind, do sit down and let me order you a cocktail.’

  What a lovely creature she is, he thought again, exuding heat and light like a hothouse flower. Anyone who looked like Judith might be forgiven almost anything.

  ‘Come on,’ he urged. ‘Champagne cocktail, that’s your favourite, isn’t it?’

  She hesitated a moment longer but more for effect, it seemed, then sat down. ‘It sure is,’ she smiled.

  The serving girl came and with a sense of celebration, he added some olives and other small dishes to his order.

  ‘So what have you been doing with yourself these past days?’ he enquired.

  ‘Oh this and that.’ With a spoon she fished out the rose petal and laid it on the table.

  ‘I hear you’ve made a friend of Dorothy Young.’

  She looked up. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Oh, you know how it is here. Nothing is a secret for very long.’ He hesitated. ‘Judith, you’ll pardon me if I say something? I know you think I’m an interfering old fuddy duddy but really, I shouldn’t have too much to do with her.’

  Judith frowned. ‘Robert…’

  ‘I know you’re young and fancy free,’ he continued, ‘and perhaps I have been too hard on you, trying to make you see things from my point of view but…’

  ‘Robert,’ she said again. ‘It’s okay, really it is. I have no intention of having much more to do with Dorothy, in fact, I probably won’t visit again.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘She’s, well…’ There was a pause as if Judith sought to add something and decided against it, then she finished, ‘Anyway, I have far more important things to do with my time.’ She eyed his cigarette case. ‘Might I have one?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He watched her smoke, gazing into the distance, a smile on her lips as if she were hugging some delicious secret to herself. In that moment, unconscious of herself, of the arrangement of her long limbs, still but poised for movement, she reminded him once more of a young animal.

  ‘Do you want to know something, Robert?’

  ‘If you feel you want to tell me.’

  ‘Oh don’t tease.’

  ‘That was not my intention. Go on, I’m all ears.’

  Judith stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. ‘Very well. You know I visited Monet at Le Pressoir and we got on just fine? Well, I was invited back the other day and I spent a long time with him. He loves talking about Camille, that’s his first wife, you know.’

  Robert raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes, I did know.’

  ‘I remind him of her, you see. Well, anyway… afterwards Madame Blanche offered me an aperitif, which I naturally accepted.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  She pouted. ‘Robert, you’re making fun of me again. Now listen to this: she said I was having a good effect on her stepfather, raising his spirits etcetera, and – now this is the wonderful thing – would I become a regular visitor.’

  ‘Holy smoke!’

  ‘Is that all you can say?’

  Robert was thrown by this news. He gazed at her, at once impressed by her power to attract but also apprehensive of its seeming uncontrollable force, almost as if she were possessed.

  ‘What do you think? Isn’t that just the best thing you’ve ever heard?’

  He sipped his beer, holding back the words that first came into his mind. Watch your step, you are entering a world you know nothing about. There is a history in that household, which does not concern you. Instead he said: ‘I think you’re a cunning little thing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The way you wheedle your way into men’s hearts.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘Oh Judith, you know you do. You can twist them round your little finger.’

  ‘Not you, Robert, I’d never try to do that with you. I see you as a real pal, even a soul mate. I am so glad we are friends again.’

  Robert patted her arm and ordered more drinks. He felt inordinately pleased they were talking again; he had missed her vitality and recklessness. An idea came into his mind; one that he thought would not only amuse her but also remove her from the somewhat claustrophobic atmosphere of this village and the likes of Dorothy. ‘Say, why don’t we go for a spin on Sunday?’

  ‘In that lovely red automobile, oh yes, but where?’

  ‘How about Rouen? Or maybe we could even go as far as Dieppe and have lunch in the port. They serve some wonderful fish there; I know a lovely little restaurant we could try. The only thing is we might not be able to get back until the next day.’

  ‘You mean stay overnight, just you and me?’

  ‘I am not planning to compromise you, Judith. You’ll be quite safe with me.’

  ‘Oh what a shame!’ She laughed. ‘I thought you were just the type.’

  ‘Now you’re teasing me, young lady.’

  Judith leaned back in her chair and considered him. ‘I can’t make you out, Robert. You’re a man, I’m a woman, you’ve been kind to me, friendly, but that’s all. Don’t you find me attractive?’

  Robert felt himself recoil. ‘Of course I do but… I’ll tell you some day.’

  ‘I’m intrigued. Anyway, I want to go to Rouen because of Flaubert.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Gustave Flaubert, the writer, you must have read him. He set Madame Bovary there. She’s one of my heroines: wonderful Emma Bovary who sacrificed all for love. She turned her back on convention and lived the way she wanted to live, even if it cost her her life. ’

  She shone with excitement and he was reminded of the image he had had when he first met her, of the flame burning brightly, too brightly.

  ‘Nothing is worth that, Judith,’ he said. ‘Nothing.’

  She sipped her cocktail. ‘Oh, I’m not planning to die for quite some time.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Robert said. ‘So Rouen it is, we’ll make an early start before it gets too hot.’

  – TWENTY-SIX –

  CLAUDE

  I

  t is the iris, which he contemplates today, drawn as always to the water garden where they line the serpentine path and randomly cluster near the edge of the pond. The design of the flower is perfect in his view, three large petals fold back from the stem and form the three points of a triangle, in the centre three smaller petals stand up, the shape of the fleur de lys. In the legends of flowers, purple iris were planted over the graves of Greek women and, among the duties of the Greek Goddess Iris, was that of leading their souls to the Elysian Fields.

  There is always a tactile pleasure in painting them. He makes sinuous brush strokes to describe their tall stalks and whiplash foliage, lightly, lightly to suggest a breeze stirring the surrounding leaves and reeds. Then, using pure pigment, he swiftly dabs in the blossoms. As he looks at them now, he feels the urge to paint them yet again and smiles at himself. The old man is coming to life again, like a lizard feeling the sun, sloughing off the despondency of the last months. He feels eager to make up lost time.

  Serene and silent this early morning, the air at the edge of the water is cool, damp and fragrant. Even while he breathes it in, there is a part of him wondering how to translate this from a sensuous to visual experience. What colours would one use?

&nb
sp; He stands on the Japanese bridge and gazes at the light shimmering on the surface of the pond. The water mirrors clouds, which he would paint in delicate tints of pink, white and pale yellow. He gazes and gazes until he seems to move outside himself and become the thing he is gazing at, immersed in shifting water and light. It is then the idea flashes into his mind. It’s not new, it comes and goes, but until now he has not given it much serious thought. Too ambitious at my age, he has mused, I’d need to develop new techniques and, anyway, where on earth would I paint anything so large? But this time it is different. The idea seems to drop like a stone into water, and the ripples it makes radiate out and out and out. He sees in his mind’s eye, huge panels depicting those variations of light as a day progresses, subtle alterations shimmering on the water where the lilies float. Colour can translate the cool air, green reflections warming to sunset, water mirroring the clouds in an ever-changing facsimile of life. Then there are the willows, of course, they could form another panel: the willow trees with arching trunks, their leaf-laden branches drooping above the pond’s rim, swayed by the suggestion of a gentle breeze.

  Where would he show them? He imagines a circular room covered with paintings of water dotted with water lilies to the horizon, the calm and silence of the still waters reflecting the open blossoms with a dream like delicacy. But this would be more than sight or first impressions; this work would draw on memory and experience. Four panels, he decides, but all united in a flowing rhythm, a meditation on the spectacle of light, the floating world of water lilies.

  Now he sees how he could work on them, mounted on wheeled dollies he could move around a room and interchange the sequence. That kind of painting could not be executed in the open air. He would transfer the fleeting effects he painted on site in the water garden onto giant canvasses. He’d need a new studio, of course, something much larger than he has ever had before, illuminated by northern light streaming through a glass ceiling. But that’s not a problem, Claude, he tells himself. You’ve always devised something ingenious; if it wasn’t exactly what you had in mind, you invented it, that is your forte. The only problem of course is his damned eyesight and getting the colours right, this business of relying on the labels of his paints, or relying on memory. Perhaps there are some other drops Cautela can prescribe, now that these ones seem to be failing him… anything but surgery. He has a morbid fear of it, wakes in the night sweating from a dream of having no eyes.

  The pictures he would paint are crowding into his mind: Morning, The Clouds, Irises by the Pond. But I’m seventy-two, he scolds himself. How can I even think of embarking on such a project? Yet his brain continues to turn over the idea of these panels, of the huge brush strokes they would take, the layers of colour, and he thinks, seventy-two is nothing. Look at Michelangelo designing the dome of St Peter’s when he was my age, or dearest Hokusai on his deathbed, asking for just five years more. If you’re an artist you work until you can’t hold a paintbrush any more

  ‘Until you can’t hold a paintbrush any more,’ he addresses the little boat, which has appeared from beneath the willows.

  ‘Excuse me, m’sieur?’

  It is the excellent Michel, sponge in hand, wiping soot off the lily petals.

  ‘Talking to myself young man, that’s all. It’s what you do when you’re old like me.’

  Michel gives him an uncomprehending look. This boy cannot believe he will ever get old, Claude tells himself. Others yes, but he will be the exception; we all think that. Look at that young man painting Camille in the wonderful green dress, falling in love with her. It never crossed my mind I shouldn’t be twenty-five forever.

  ‘Be good,’ he tells Michel. ‘Enjoy life. You know, wine, women and song.’

  The boy blushes. Claude wonders what on earth has he said? He cannot imagine Michel Duval doing anything much more than working and a prim walking out with a servant; one of our servants, Blanche has told him, though making him promise not to let it go any further. Hardly la douceur de vivre.

  ‘I’ve been looking at the irises,’ he says. ‘They’re doing well as irises usually do, but I wonder if we might consider adding some other varieties, there are so many to choose from.’

  ‘M’sieur Breuil…’ Michel begins.

  ‘To hell with M’sieur Breuil,’ Claude raises his voice. ‘Listen to me.’

  He regrets this instantly, this cursed short temper of his. Michel has done nothing wrong.

  ‘I will talk to Breuil,’ he says. ‘I will instruct him in what I require.’ He feels expansive, needs to share these ideas, have them out in the open. ‘I am about to embark on a great new project you see, young man, and the irises are important to it.’

  ‘Very good, m’sieur.’

  ‘More than good.’ Claude spreads his arms to the sky. ‘It will be my crowning touch, my swan song.’

  – TWENTY-SEVEN –

  CLAUDE

  T

  he morning in his studio passes swiftly. When work is going well, the time slips away. As he cleans his brush, his mind turns to food and the pleasant rhythm meals bring to daily life in the household. Alice would have been content that the kitchen garden flourishes and there is a plentiful supply of eggs from the fowl. Dear Georges is coming for luncheon today. When Blanche asked Claude what would please his old friend, he had said pike, yes that was it, pike gently simmered in a court bouillon and served with white butter sauce.

  ‘How about chanterelles to start with?’ she suggested.

  Chanterelles. An image comes into his mind: autumn’s palette of golden ochre, russet orange and vivid scarlet, a carpet of dead leaves beneath their feet as they walk, he and Alice through the woods. He is young again and a week ago, he painted Ernest in a group of hunters moving along this path. Now Alice’s husband is away in Paris again and they are alone at Montgeron. The air is crisp with the now and then crack of a rifle shot but they are not hunting pheasants or rabbits, only chanterelles. She stops, she points, she takes his hand and hurries him along. And there they are, a group of them, fruiting yellow and bright orange among a litter of leaves. He stoops to pick one, sniffs it and holds it out for Alice to do the same. Suddenly they are kissing, as they knew they would from the moment Alice said, ‘let’s go looking for chanterelles.’

  The kiss lets loose the stifled feelings, the hand touching, the glances of the past weeks as they passed each other or sat at dinner in the château. She pulls away. ‘We shouldn’t, Claude, we are both married.’

  He turns her back to him and they kiss again and he wants her, wants to take her there and then, on the damp bed of leaves with the rifle shots fracturing the still air. Camille is dying and he is filled with a rage to live, spend his emotions. The apricot aroma of the chanterelles will always speak to him of lust, but also guilt.

  Chanterelles! He realises for the first time since Alice’s death, the pain of dwelling on her loss has eased; he has begun to have lovely memories of her.

  ‘Chanterelles,’ he repeats, ‘in the weather we’ve been having? It’s been so dry.’

  But Blanche knows where she can lay her hands on some; she knows how much Georges likes them.

  Bacon, lard and chanterelles with a clove of garlic and, of course, lots of black pepper, does Marie know the recipe?

  The conversation at luncheon turns inevitably to his eyesight, what can you expect with a medically trained man as a guest?

  ‘When did you first begin to notice something was wrong?’ asks Georges, ‘Can you remember?’

  He casts his mind back to that trip to Venice, four years ago; he had no problem with colour then but there was a difficulty with space and distant objects. Afterwards, he had compared the Venetian work with paintings he had done in Antibes, some years before. The difference in detail had made him so angry he had destroyed the offending pictures.

  ‘It is ironic,’ Georges is saying, ‘you who are so passionate about light and painting in the open air. These factors could be to
blame for what has happened to your eyes.’

  Then Claude remembers that time when he was commuting between his parents’ house and Camille in Paris, about twenty-seven he must have been. There were problems with his eyes, even then.

  ‘A doctor advised me not to spend so much time in the open air but of course I didn’t listen.’

  ‘Ah hah.’

  ‘It did not affect my work. But now, I no longer perceive colour with the same intensity and I no longer paint light with the same accuracy. Reds appear muddy to me, pinks insipid, and the intermediate and lower tones escape me. It is a terrible anxiety.’

  ‘Understandably. I wish you could combat this fear you have of an operation. As I’ve told you before, they are now fairly routine.’

  ‘For ordinary people maybe, but my case is special. My goal in art is to portray the variation of light without interpretation. How can I accept an artificial correction of the sense I rely on to convey the truth and beauty of nature? I have to paint it as it looks, the exact colour and shape, until it gives one’s naïve impression of the scene before you. My study is light, colour and illumination and for that I need my original colour vision to stay intact.’

  ‘And there we have the impasse,’ says Georges, taking the opportunity to help himself to more fish.

  ‘Perhaps the cataracts will get no worse,’ Blanche says soothingly.

  ‘Oh they will, Blanche, without surgery they undoubtedly will.’

  ‘Then he will just have to do the best he can with the sight he has,’ she remarks, refilling the politician’s glass. ‘He is too old for an intervention.’

  ‘I would not say so, not in the hands of someone like Cautela.’

  Claude slams down his fork and asks them not to speak of him as if he is incapable of answering for himself, as if he is some kind of imbecile. ‘They are my eyes and I am the one to make a decision about them, if you please! Apropos, I was talking to the young American girl who visits me sometimes. She is very perturbed about my loss of sight and tells me that in America, the operation is now commonplace. Perhaps I will speak to her again. She is an extraordinary girl, such flair and elegance. D’you know, Georges, she reminds me in some ways of my first wife, Camille.’