Still Life (2 page)

With that she started to cry.

Jane’s art had been an open secret in Three Pines for ever. Every now and then someone walking in the woods or through a field would stumble upon her, concentrating on a canvas. But she’d made them swear that they wouldn’t approach, wouldn’t look, would avert their eyes as though witnessing an act almost obscene, and certainly would never speak of it. The only time Clara had seen Jane angry was when Gabri had come up behind her while she’d been painting. He thought she’d been joking when she’d warned them never to look.

He was wrong. She’d been deadly serious. It had actually taken a few months for Jane and Gabri to get back to
a normal friendship; both had felt betrayed by the other. But their natural good nature and affection for each other had healed the rift. Still, it had served as a lesson.

No one was to see Jane’s art.

Until now, apparently. But now the artist was overcome with an emotion so strong she sat in the Bistro and wept. Clara was both horrified and terrified. She looked furtively around, partly in hopes no one was watching, and partly desperately hoping someone was, and would know what to do. Then she asked herself the simple question that she carried with her and consulted like a rosary. What would Jane do? And she had her answer. Jane would let her cry, would let her wail. Would let her throw crockery, if she needed to. And Jane would not run away. When the maelstrom passed, Jane would be there. And then she would put her arms around Clara, and comfort her, and let her know she was not alone. Never alone. And so Clara sat and watched and waited. And knew the agony of doing nothing. Slowly the crying subsided.

Clara rose with exaggerated calm. She took Jane in her arms and felt the old body creak back into place. Then she said a little prayer of thanks to the gods that give grace. The grace to cry and the grace to watch.

‘Jane, if I’d known it was this painful I’d never have kept at you to show your art. I’m so sorry.’

‘Oh, no, dear,’ Jane reached across the table where they were sitting once again, and took Clara’s hands, ‘you don’t understand. Those weren’t tears of pain. No. I was surprised by joy.’ Jane gazed far off and nodded, as though carrying on a private conversation. ‘Finally.’

‘What’s it called, your painting?’

‘Fair Day.
It’s of the closing parade of the county fair.’

And so it was that on the Friday before Thanksgiving the painting was lifted on to an easel in the gallery of Arts
Williamsburg. It was wrapped in butcher’s paper and tied with string, like a child’s bundle, against the cold, cruel elements. Slowly, meticulously, Peter Morrow picked at the knot, tugging the string until it came loose. Then he wound the old string around his palm as though winding yarn. Clara could have killed him. She was ready to shriek, to jump from her chair and shove him aside. To fling the pathetic bundle of string to the ground, and perhaps Peter with it, and tear the waxed paper from the canvas. Her face became even more placid, though her eyes had begun to bulge.

Peter neatly unfolded first one corner of the paper then the other, smoothing the creases with his hand. Clara had no idea a rectangle had so many corners. She could feel the edge of her chair cutting into her bottom. The rest of the jury, assembled to judge the submissions, looked bored. Clara had enough anxiety for them all.

Every last corner was finally smooth and the paper was ready to be removed. Peter turned around to face the other four jurors and make a little speech before revealing the work beneath. Something short and tasteful, he felt. A bit of context, a bit of – he caught his wife’s bulging eyes in her purple face and knew that when Clara became abstract it was no time for speechifying.

He quickly turned back to the painting and whipped the brown paper off, revealing
Fair Day.

Clara’s jaw dropped. Her head jerked down as though suddenly insupportable. Her eyes widened and her breathing stopped. It was as though she’d died, for an instant. So this was
Fair Day.
It took her breath away. And clearly the other jurors felt the same way. There were varying degrees of disbelief on the semi-circle of faces. Even the chairperson, Elise Jacob, was silent. She actually looked like she was having a stroke.

Clara hated judging other people’s work, and this was
the worst so far. She’d kicked herself all the way there for convincing Jane to enter her first work ever for public viewing in an exhibition she herself was judging. Was it ego? Was it mere stupidity?

‘This work is called
Fair Day,’
read Elise from her notes. ‘It’s being submitted by Jane Neal of Three Pines, a longtime supporter of Arts Williamsburg, but her first submission.’ Elise looked around. ‘Comments?’

‘It’s wonderful,’ Clara lied. The others looked at her in astonishment. Facing them on the easel was an unframed canvas and the subject was obvious. The horses looked like horses, the cows were cows, and the people were all recognisable, not only as people but as specific people from the village. But they were all stick figures. Or at least perhaps one evolutionary notch up from stick figures. In a war between a stick figure army and these people in
Fair Day,
the
Fair Day
people would win, only because they had a little more muscle. And fingers. But it was clear that these people lived in only two dimensions. Clara, in trying to grasp what she was looking at, and trying not to make the obvious comparisons, felt that it was a little like a cave drawing put on canvas. If Neanderthals had county fairs, this was what they’d have looked like.

‘Mon
Dieu.
My four-year-old can do better than that,’ said Henri Lariviere, making the obvious comparison. Henri had been a laborer in a quarry before discovering that the stone spoke to him. And he listened. There was no going back after that, of course, though his family longed for the day when he made at least the minimum wage instead of huge stone sculptures. His face now, as ever, was broad and rough and inscrutable, but his hands spoke for him. They were turned up in a simple and eloquent gesture of appeal, of surrender. He was struggling to find the appropriate words, knowing that Jane was a friend of many of the jurors. ‘It’s awful.’ He’d clearly given up the struggle and reverted
to the truth. Either that or his description was actually kind compared to what he really thought.

In bold, bright colors Jane’s work showed the parade just before the closing of the fair. Pigs were distinguishable from goats only because they were bright red. The children looked like little adults. In fact, thought Clara leaning tentatively forward as though the canvas might deal her another blow, those aren’t children. They’re small adults. She recognised Olivier and Gabri leading the blue rabbits. In the stands beyond the parade sat the crowd, many of them in profile, looking at each other, or looking away from each other. Some, not many, looked straight at Clara. All the cheeks had perfect round red circles, denoting, Clara supposed, a healthy glow. It was awful.

‘Well, that’s easy enough at least,’ said Irenée Calfat. ‘That’s a reject.’

Clara could feel her extremities grow cold and numb.

Irenée Calfat was a potter. She took hunks of clay and turned them into exquisite works. She’d pioneered a new way to glaze her works and was now sought out by potters worldwide. Of course, after they’d made the pilgrimage to Irenée Calfat’s studio in St Rémy and spent five minutes with the Goddess of Mud, they knew they’d made a mistake. She was one of the most self absorbed and petty people on the face of this earth.

Clara wondered how a person so devoid of normal human emotions could create works of such beauty. While you yourself struggle, said the nasty little voice that kept her company.

Over the rim of her mug she peeked at Peter. He had a piece of chocolate cupcake stuck to his face. Instinctively, Clara wiped her own face, inadvertently smearing a walnut into her hair. Even with that hunk of chocolate on his face Peter was riveting. Classically handsome. Tall, broad-shouldered like a lumberjack, not the delicate artist he
was. His wavy hair was gray now, and he wore glasses all the time, and lines scored the corners of his eyes and his clean-shaven face. In his early fifties, he looked like a businessman on an outward bound adventure. Most mornings Clara would wake up and watch while he slept, and want to crawl inside his skin and wrap herself around his heart and keep him safe.

Clara’s head acted as a food magnet. She was the Carmen Miranda of baked goods. Peter, on the other hand, was always immaculate. It could be raining mud and he would return home cleaner than when he went out. But sometimes, some glorious times, his natural aura failed him and a piece of something stuck to his face. Clara knew she should tell him. But didn’t.

‘Do you know,’ said Peter and even Irenée looked at him, ‘I think it’s great.’

Irenée snorted and shot a meaningful look at Henri who just ignored her. Peter sought out Clara and held her gaze for a moment, a kind of touchstone. When Peter walked into a room he always swept it until he found Clara. And then he relaxed. The outside world saw a tall, distinguished man with his disheveled wife, and wondered why. Some, principally Peter’s mother, even seemed to consider it a violation of nature. Clara was his centre and all that was good and healthy and happy about him. When he looked at her he didn’t see the wild, untamable hair, the billowing frocks, the Dollar-rama store horn-rimmed spectacles. No. He saw his safe harbor. Although, granted, at this moment he also saw a walnut in her hair, which was pretty much an identifying characteristic. Instinctively, he put his hand up to brush his own hair, knocking the piece of cupcake from his cheek.

‘What do you see?’ Elise asked Peter.

‘Honestly, I don’t know. But I know we need to accept it.’

This brief answer somehow gave his opinion even more credibility.

‘It’s a risk,’ said Elise.

‘I agree,’ said Clara. ‘But what’s the worst that can happen? That people who see the show might think we’ve made a mistake? They always think that.’

Elise nodded in appreciation.

‘I’ll tell you what the risk is,’ said Irenée, the ‘you idiots’ implied as she plowed on. ‘This is a community group and we barely make ends meet. Our only value is our credibility. Once it’s believed we accept works based not on their value as art but because we like the artist, as a clique of friends, we’re ruined. That’s the risk. No one will take us seriously. Artists won’t want to show here for fear of being tainted. The public won’t come because they know all they’ll see is crap like – ’ here words failed her and she merely pointed at the canvas.

Then Clara saw it. Just a flash, something niggling on the outer reaches of her consciousness. For the briefest moment
Fair Day
shimmered. The pieces came together, then the moment passed. Clara realised she’d stopped breathing again, but she also realised that she was looking at a work of great art. Like Peter, she didn’t know why or how, but in that instant that world which had seemed upside down righted. She knew
Fair Day
was an extraordinary work.

‘I think it’s more than wonderful, I think it’s brilliant,’ she said.

‘Oh, please. Can’t you see she’s just saying that to support her husband?’

‘Irenée, we’ve heard your opinion. Go on, Clara,’ said Elise. Henri leaned forward, his chair groaning.

Clara got up and walked slowly to the work on the easel. It touched her deep down in a place of such sadness and loss it was all she could do not to weep. How could this
be? she asked herself. The images were so childish, so simple. Silly almost, with dancing geese and smiling people. But there was something else. Something just beyond her grasp.

‘I’m sorry. This is embarrassing,’ she smiled, feeling her cheeks burning, ‘but I actually can’t explain it.’

‘Why don’t we set
Fair Day
aside and look at the rest of the works. We’ll come back to it at the end.’

The rest of the afternoon went fairly smoothly. The sun was getting low, making the room even colder by the time they looked at
Fair Day
again. Everyone was wiped out and just wanted this to be over. Peter flipped on the overhead spotlights and lifted Jane’s work on to the easel.

‘D’accord.
Has anyone changed their mind about
Fair Day?’
Elise asked.

Silence.

‘I make it two in favor of accepting and two against.’

Elise stared quietly at
Fair Day.
She knew Jane Neal in passing and liked what she saw. She’d always struck Elise as a sensible, kind and intelligent woman. A person you’d want to spend time with. How was it this woman had created this slapdash, childish work? But. And a new thought entered her head. Not, actually, an original thought or even new to Elise, but a new one for this day.

‘Fair Day
is accepted. It’ll be shown with the other works of art.’

Clara leapt up with delight, toppling her chair.

‘Oh, come on,’ said Irenée.

‘Exactly! Well done. You’ve both proven my point.’ Elise smiled.

‘What point?’

‘For whatever reason,
Fair Day
challenges us. It moves us. To anger,’ here Elise acknowledged Irenée, ‘to confusion,’ a brief but meaningful look at Henri who nodded his grizzled head slightly, ‘to …’ a glance at Peter and Clara.

‘Joy,’ said Peter at the very moment Clara said, ‘Sorrow.’ They looked at each other and laughed.

‘Now, I look at it and feel, like Henri, simply confused. The truth is I don’t know whether
Fair Day
is a brilliant example of naive art, or the pathetic scrawling of a superbly untalented, and delusional, old woman. That’s the tension. And that’s why it must be part of the show. I can guarantee you it’s the one work people will be talking about in the cafes after the
vernissage.’

‘Hideous,’ said Ruth Zardo later that evening, leaning on her cane and swigging Scotch. Peter and Clara’s friends were gathered in their living room, around the murmuring fireplace for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner.

It was the lull before the onslaught. Family and friends, invited or not, would arrive the next day and manage to stay through the Thanksgiving long weekend. The woods would be full of hikers and hunters, an unfortunate combination. The annual touch football game would be held on the village green on Saturday morning, followed by the harvest market in the afternoon, a last ditch effort to download tomatoes and zucchini. That evening the bonfire would be lit filling Three Pines with the delicious scent of burning leaves and wood, and the suspicious undercurrent of gazpacho.