Jerome couldn't see Thérèse's window,
but he imagined her asleep, snug in the warmth and comfort of the
Roquebrune's guest bedroom. Tired, he made his way up to his studio
and sat before his preparatory sketches of Lucrezia. Tubes of
Orpiment, Naples Yellow, and Vermilion lay on the table like vital
medicaments, but he was bereft of energy. What little he had had,
he'd left behind at Amelia and Duncan's apartment, all of their
voices still reverberating in his head like a sinfonia by Vivaldi,
violins, oboes and bassoons. He hoped he hadn't talked too much and
bored Amelia with his knowledge of Dutch painting, though she seemed
to have given herself up to his story of the vulnerable and much
targeted Irish Vermeer and the secrets it had revealed after its long
and arduous journey in the shadows of international art theft, and
then his trump card conversation piece concerning the pigment known
as Mummy, the ground-up Egyptian mummies that made their way into
older paintings, and how an average mummy could last a good eight
years to a seller of pigments. He walked over to his bookcase and
from the jumble, chose his post get-together, post art-opening,
post-after-all-the-small-talk-like-so-much-finger-food party piece of
music to help him decompress and retrieve that inner balance and that
quiet equilibrium. An odd choice, but Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf's
Symphony No. 4 in F major, The Rescuing of Andromeda by Perseus,
had a lovely opening slow movement which could quiet the buzzing
voices in his head. He fed the CD player and within seconds, the long
fluid oboe lines stretched out like an undulating view from a grand
country house, a breathless bucolic scene, a serpentine landscape
rolling away with a Capability Brown aesthetic; and as he reclined on
his wicker settee, he imagined his head resting on Thérèse's lap as
they lay in the shade of an ancient oak tree, goldfinches twittering
above them, the gentle breeze caressing their skin. Declan and
Lucrezia's country home passed through his thoughts: the maze, the
sculpture garden, the library, the hidden Dark Room, the polished
scrying stone behind the door, and then he remembered the series of
paintings by Burne-Jones on the Perseus and Andromeda subject. He
rose, weak at the knees, and made his way over to his bookshelves to
retrieve a large book with reproductions of the painter's work.
Turning the pages to the half-remembered location, he was enlivened
to find that yes, his memory was correct. In two of the paintings
where Perseus faces the sea nymphs, the three nymphs are standing on
an emblem of water, a thin mirrored stone, which somewhat resembled
the one on the back of the door of the hidden room. He ran his
fingers over the reproductions, wishing he could be standing before
the originals, drinking in the surface texture and colour. After a
pause, he turned the page to find the artist's exquisite The Rock
of Doom, and he was filled with an inspiration to reproduce it
with Thérèse as Andromeda chained to the rock, and himself as
Perseus come to set her free. He returned to his wicker sofa and
propped the open book on his chest. The dark violet colour of
Perseus's armour—an armour which he thought was much like a modern
superhero's such as the latest in Batman's bullet-proof attire—was
a favourite pigment with Burne-Jones. Such a rich contrast with the
skin tones of Andromeda, naked with uncertainty before her saviour.
Jerome's mind mixed burnt sienna, titanium white and yellow ochre,
and his eyes recreated the brushstrokes as he painted her figure,
feeling the resistance of the fine sable hairs, the liquid magic of
colours merging, melding. Breathing deeply, he listened to the oboe
above the expanse of the gentle strings, the book eased down upon his
torso, and sleep gently withdrew his imaginary paint brush from his
imaginary hand.
It was the briefest of rests, for,
aroused by Dittersdorf's Presto second movement, he decided to
make his way to bed; he was getting to old to fall asleep on sofas
and chairs. As he brushed his teeth, he thought of Duncan's dilemma,
the closing of his bookshop and family cordage business because of
the condo development, and wondered if he passed this information on
to Lucrezia and Declan, whose catalogue of rare books on magic had
been the product of Duncan's hand, and whose company was forcing a
final scene, perhaps something could be done to help him. As he
rinsed his mouth, the thought occurred to him that Duncan might not
want to be helped, but nevertheless, he would mention it to his new
patrons. He sensed Amelia would find any offer of assistance a
welcome one.
As he turned the light out and dropped
his head to his pillow, he thought of Thérèse. He had freed her
from her chains by bringing her back from Bergen, but he sensed he
still had to slay the sea dragon, whatever that might represent.
*
“Well, she seems strong
willed,” Duncan said. “I hope she recovers completely.”
Amelia finished rubbing skin
cream on her arms and face. “Uncle Edward pulled some favours with
his connections at the Neurological Institute. A specialist will be
looking at her tomorrow.”
“Good, good.”
“So,” Amelia said,
“how'd you get along with Pavor?”
“Nice guy. Quiet. Cards to
the chest. We got along though. Bookish connections.”
“Great. The wedding at the
McGill Chapel will be lovely, and a honeymoon in Venice . . so nice.”
Amelia trailed off as she turned the sheets down on the bed not
wanting to bring up the fact they'd never had a true honeymoon abroad
in the classic sense. A week in the Eastern Townships, though
enjoyable, wasn't Venice.
“Yes, Venice, very nice,”
he said, and as his mind played over the words very nice, he
realized that if he dropped the 'ry' in very nice,
it became Venice.
Amelia propped and
positioned her pillows, and the thought occurred to her that the
older people became, the more pillows they tended to have on their
beds. Youth, in contrast, a symbolic mattress on the floor in an
empty room. Designers, interior decorators and magazines were
influential in this trend of having a bed with cascading pillows in
size and pattern from the headboard to the middle of the bed like an arrangement of diminishing returns, lovely
to look at, pleasant to relax upon, but a style that created the
dilemma of where to put all the pillows when you merely wanted to
sleep. Stacks of pillows on side chairs, side tables, cedar chests
and benches at the foot of the bed. She rolled her eyes at such a
laughable dilemma, too many pillows. “Do you think we have too many
pillows?” she asked.
Duncan surveyed the bed and
wondered if it was a loaded question, like 'do I look good in this
dress?' “I imagine we have the average number of pillows for a
couple in a cold northern country. The hotter the climate, the less
pillows on the bed the better. Unless you live in air-conditioned
bliss, then I guess, you know, more pillows.” Pleased with his
response, he made his way to his side of the bed and settled himself
as did Hugh in his dog bed. “Why pillows?” he asked, and then
wondered why he hadn't left the subject well enough alone.
“I don't know. Maybe it
was Jerome's story about mummies.”
“Mummies?”
“Yes, he told me how they
used to import Egyptian mummies and grind them up for a brownish
paint pigment. The colour varied with the mummy. Some had better
resins it seems.”
“Ah, resins, fascinating,”
Duncan said, and he stretched out his right foot and caressed the
bottom of his wife's left foot. “I guess they had to use what they
could get. Lead, arsenic, cinnabar, ground-up mummy. Not the
healthiest of professions.”
“Jerome told me that an
Italian art teacher he studied under showed him old tubes of Mummy
from the turn of the century, items that had been passed down through
the artist's family—they were a family of painters—tubes of Mummy
pigment kept in little individual wooden boxes, like coffins. Family
heirlooms.”
“Hmmph, fascinating,”
Duncan mumbled, lost in the image of this bizarre family memento
mori, mummified Mummy pigments in little Mummy coffins.
“And Thérèse, I knew it
would be a simple explanation. She used her Father's surname for her
English language journalism. Understandable. No mystery. Paranoia
need not apply. Tess Sinclair, journalist.” Amelia opened a new
French novel and began to read.
“Hmm, yes,” Duncan said,
as he too opened a book, a bed-side biography of Lou Andreas-Salomé
he'd been dipping into for whenever he needed a change of
perspective. His eyes scanned the lines of text, but his mind was not
cooperating. Did Thérèse lie about being a friend of David's? Was
she really just following a story, writing up the funeral business?
Investigating the methods of grieving, remembrance, honour? Thanatos
in the parlour? Digital innovations in the presentation of a life?
Metal Rock selections in the Chapel service? Undertaking 2.0? Open
casket make-up and the use of ground-up Mummy blush. And as his
somewhat jaded thoughts spread upon the bed like recalcitrant Tarot
cards, he thought of David's gravestone in the rose garden where his
ashes resided—the complete opposite of being mummified—the
one-eyed gardener with his pipe, and the mysterious blonde haired
woman with her monthly flower offerings, and he thought he should
bring it all to Pavor as an offering for one of his future crime
novels.
*
As Melisande soaked in the
bath, Pavor sat on wood chair across from Clio who reclined, arms
curled towards her chest, staring at him from a cushion on a
comfortable chintz covered chair in the living room. Disenchantment
he thought. Clio, the calico cat was disenchanted. He took out his
notebook and wrote, disenchantments of change and he wondered
if his literary agent, Luke 'Fig' Newton, who he was scheduled to
meet on Wednesday, would be disenchanted at his upcoming marriage,
and the suggestion that he was thinking of killing off his character,
Rex Packard, and writing something more . . . literary. He imagined a
landscape of North Western Slovenia, a mixture of conifers, valleys,
fast moving rivers, rocky gorges, the Austrian Alps in the distance,
an evocation of landscapes found in The Prisoner of Zenda, in
Eric Ambler thrillers set in the Balkans, or in The Lady Vanishes
by Hitchcock. Disenchantment could be the title. He could use
shades of character he'd gleaned from meeting Tullio, Carina, and
Umberto, perhaps a dash of the recently met Duncan and Amelia.
How odd for him to have an
Oxtoby & Snoad publication. If Duncan discovers his own
Alacrity & Karma issued by the firm, he could plead
modesty, not wanting to shift the discussion away from the Chapman
book to his own volume.
Spring wedding. Preparations
will take valuable time. So many details to cover. Invitations he
remembered would set the tone. Opinions. Choices. Decisions. He
would have to make another speech, one of many no doubt, and he began
to think of opening phrases, writing in his mind. He flipped to the
back of his notebook and began to write:
Shall we raise a glass, a velvety
tonic for the entanglements of nostalgia, liquid evocations, vintage
complexities compressed, for the veiled perceptions of time.
No, he thought. Too
ornate, too baroque. It would have to be simple, honest, heart-felt.
He closed his notebook and looked over at Clio, and thought, yes, it
would have to have the calm serenity of a feline pose, with just a
smidge of self-deprecating humour like the antics of Hugh the sausage
dog. Eighty percent Clio, twenty percent Hugh. A few notes and then to speak extemporaneously would be the ideal. He rose and slowly
approached Clio and offered his fingers for her inspection, and after
the brief inquisitive wet nose investigation, he gently petted her
from between the ears down her spine, saying how pretty she was,
repeating the phrase with each comforting caress in his attempt to
sooth her anxious concerns over his intrusion. Hearing the sounds of
Melisande emerging from the likely now tepid waters, he straightened
himself and began to look at her bookshelves. Women writers were well
represented. No Alacrity & Karma in sight. He really
should read more women writers he thought, and he reached out for a
title unknown to him, The Spanish Decameron by Maria de Zayas
.
© ralph patrick mackay
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