The Muse Read online

  There was a silence. On the other side of the door, I was barely breathing.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Lawrie.

  ‘After the war, the Nazis who were captured claimed they’d burned the lot. Poppycock, of course. They stole too many to have destroyed them all. And they knew what they were doing. They knew that what they were taking was valuable, even as they claimed it didn’t fit the new aesthetic of the Reich.’

  ‘What do you think happened to Harold Schloss?’ Lawrie asked.

  Reede looked annoyed. ‘I’ll be investigating that, as I said.’

  ‘This painting wasn’t stolen,’ Lawrie repeated.

  ‘There’s no way to be certain – at least at the moment. The first half of this century was a mess for the art market, and we’re still picking up the pieces. Art has always been used for purposes other than pleasure, be it for political leverage or a loaf of bread.’

  ‘All right.’ Lawrie ran his fingers through his hair.

  ‘I’m speaking to a representative at the Guggenheim foundation, who is being a great help in investigating what – if anything – they have on Isaac Robles, which may shed more light on this painting here.’

  Lawrie exhaled slowly. ‘Thank you – I think,’ he said. He went to take the painting off the easel, but Reede stretched out his arm.

  ‘Don’t you think, Mr Scott – all things considered – that it might continue to be safer here? We have a night watch and an alarm system. I fear that in Surrey—­’

  ‘The crime capital of the world?’

  Quick intervened. ‘Your mother’s death – was it announced in the papers?’

  ‘It was.’

  This surprised me – what sort of ­people had their deaths announced in the papers?

  ‘That is the kind of thing that attracts art thieves,’ said Reede. ‘­People who get death notices in papers usually have things worth nicking,’ he went on. Reede’s use of the word nicking pinged out to me; it was the sort of word Pamela would use. ‘I know it sounds preposterous, Mr Scott, but even so. Allow us to look after it for you. It will be safer.’

  Reede was a slick act; polite, pressurizing, authoritative, conciliatory all at once. ‘All right,’ said Lawrie. ‘A little longer.’

  ‘Thank you. Sincerely. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have news. This is very exciting, Mr Scott. I can only thank you for choosing the Skelton as your base of investigation—­’

  ‘Can I keep this photo?’ Lawrie said, holding up the battered square.

  Reede looked puzzled. ‘Keep it?’

  ‘Until we meet again. Just to have a closer look.’

  ‘Marjorie will get Rudge or Bastien to make a Xerox copy for you.’

  I tingled at the sound of my name, terrified Reede would discover me hiding here, but I was unable to drag myself away. ‘I’m convinced that photo’s an original, Mr Scott,’ Reede said, ‘and I can’t let it go. Marjorie – are you all right?’

  Quick jumped. ‘What?’

  ‘I said, will you get one of the girls to make Mr Scott a Xerox copy of this photograph.’

  Quick gathered herself and took the photograph from Lawrie. She carried it by the tips of her fingers, not even looking at it. I backed away from the keyhole and moved as fast as I could down the corridor.

  I wasn’t fast enough.

  ‘Odelle?’ Quick’s voice was low and quiet. I stopped and turned, relieved to see she had closed the door behind her. ‘Come here,’ she said.

  I walked towards her, shamefaced. ‘You were listening,’ she said. Given the faint glint of amusement in her eyes, I saw no point in lying; I’d been caught creeping down an otherwise empty corridor.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Please, don’t—­’

  ‘Apparently, we’re not supposed to look through keyholes.’

  ‘I know.’

  She looked down at the photograph in her hands and went still. ‘Think he’s got a talent?’ she said.

  ‘I do. Do you believe that’s a genuine Isaac Robles in there?’

  She pushed the photograph into my hands. ‘If Reede says so. He’s the one that knows. And it looks like it matches the one in this image. But what do you make of it?’

  ‘I’m not an expert.’

  ‘I don’t want a bloody expert, Odelle. I just want to know if you like it. It’s not a test.’ She looked exhausted, and I noticed her hands were trembling slightly.

  ‘It unnerves me.’

  She leaned against the wall. ‘Me too.’

  ‘But it’s very beautiful.’

  ‘The subject matter is insidious.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s as if there’s an extra layer to the painting we’re not privy to. You can’t get at it, but it’s there.’

  I looked closely at the photograph. It was bent, splodged, with a liquid stain in the bottom left corner. It was in black and white, and looked as if it had been through the wars. And yet the image was clear enough – a man and a woman, standing in front of a large, half-­finished canvas. They were in a workshop of some sort. The man alleged to be Robles was without a jacket, his sleeves rolled up, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He was unsmiling, staring straight at the photographer. He had thick, slightly wavy hair, and dark brows, a slender face, nice cheekbones, compact body – and even in this locked-­away moment in time, his eyes were attractive, his glance determined. He was holding a large palette covered in many paints, and his body was turned all the way to the camera. He seemed defiant.

  The woman on his right looked happy. She had an open face – she couldn’t have been much more than a teenager really, but in those old photos, girls always look like women before their time. She was really laughing; her eyes were almost invisible, they were so creased. She had that cheery unselfconsciousness that always makes a person beautiful, however unremarkable their face. Her hairstyle was half-­crimped, close to her head in the thirties style, but flyaway, as if she didn’t care. She was pointing to the painting, and in her hand she held a brush.

  ‘Who’s the woman?’ I said.

  Quick closed her eyes. ‘His muse, probably. Or just a model.’

  ‘He’s an Italian Paul Newman,’ I said, and Quick laughed.

  The photo jarred something in me. It was so potent, so full of a story. I flipped it over, and amidst the marks of time, at the bottom left, I read the handwritten caption, O and I.

  ‘Did you see this, Quick – who are O and I?’ I asked. ‘Is it I for Isaac?’

  But Quick was no longer in the mood for speculation. ‘Don’t stand there gawping, Miss Bastien,’ she said. ‘We haven’t much time. Go and copy that for Mr Scott, will you? Off you go.’

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  ....................................

  VIII

  Three days later, Quick invited me to her house. I had mentioned in passing that my birthday was coming up, and I found a small card, left on my desk, asking me to lunch on the Saturday. I was thrilled. It was not normal for employers and employees to mix like this, but my curiosity overrode any reservations I might have had. I told no one I was going.

  My shoes clipped the pavement and my sense of adventure rose. It was the very last of summer; London was a motor-­car fume, a cigarette stub on the paving, a cirrus sky. By now, I was a fully-­fledged observer of the uneven spurts and scars of London housing. The postcodes, the brick, the rose bush absent or present, the foot scraper, the height of your front steps or the lack thereof was a language I had learned to speak. You couldn’t live here and not notice the difference where roads reigned in peace or chaos, a mangy dog lolling by the gutter, ragged kids, a neat box hedge, the flicking net curtain. In London, there were many different ways to live, but few to change the life you had.

  The bombings of the war ha
d left odd patterns in so many streets, and Quick’s long road was a familiar mongrel, starting with a handful of stately Victorian survivors, a slew of Edwardian terraces, a sudden and squat apartment block that had been erected in the fifties, with wide white balconies, concrete walls and a midget ivy that someone had planted in an attempt at greenery, but which barely reached the first-­floor window. Then, further along, was where she lived, on the edge of Wimbledon Common.

  I stood before Quick’s house. It was a low-­slung, pale-­blue-­coloured Georgian cottage. You but half closed your eyes, and a woman with a muslin dress and bonnet could so easily just have slipped within. Why the woman work if she have a place like this? I wondered. I thought Cynth would love to see this cottage, and how unlikely it was she ever would. I used the knocker, an old copper handle specked with verdigris, and waited. There was no reply. Honeysuckle spilled everywhere around me, framing the door. From within I could hear the strains of a classical piece, the simple steps of a piano, complicating itself as the stanzas went on.

  I wondered if the burn on my back was indeed eyes watching me, or just my worried imagination. I hadn’t been into a white person’s house at all, not even Lawrie’s. This was, shall we say, a very white street. The bolt slammed back, the door pulled open and in a rectangle of gloom, Quick was before me. That silvery short hair, those liquid pupils shrinking in the sunlight. She looked smaller than at work. ‘You came,’ she said. I had never entertained the thought that I might not. The piano was much louder now, playing through the house like a theatrical opener to our pas de deux.

  She gestured for me to step inside. It was a deep house, set back, and the floor stretched down a corridor, on towards a glimpse of garden, where leaves moved in a light breeze and the silhouette of a solitary cat was shaped like a waiting vase. ‘Garden?’ Quick asked, but it was not a question really, for she was already walking towards it. She was taking delicate steps as if she didn’t quite trust her own feet. I swivelled my eyes to the left where the front room opened out, and saw a brief glance of polished floorboards, wide rugs and pot plants and an upright piano. Wherever I looked, the front room, the corridor – the whitewashed walls were bare of pictures.

  It looked decidedly un-­English, no heavy Victorian tiles underfoot, no raised flock wallpaper, no cornicing, no heavy wood. There were bookshelves though, and I longed to pry. To the right, a flight of stairs began; I doubted I would ever see where they led. Another room opened off to the left as we carried on down the corridor, towards the square of light. It had a desk in it, and a gramophone from where the dying notes of the classical recording was emanating. I thought it was quite old fashioned of her to have a gramophone.

  When we reached the kitchen and the open garden door, Quick stopped. The cat skittered out into the undergrowth, where it settled, a pair of pale yellow eyes regarding me between the leaves. ‘Lunch,’ Quick announced. A large tray waited on the table. On it were bread rolls in a basket, a brash yellow cheese, some cold chicken legs, a pork pie and small red tomatoes, jewels of condensation running plumply off their sides. It all looked good, and I said as much.

  ‘It’s very simple,’ Quick said. I offered to carry the tray into the garden. ‘Not at all,’ she said, batting me away, before conceding, ‘but perhaps you can take those.’ She indicated a large earthenware jug of water and two glasses, and I took them outside, following her stiff gait. ‘Something stronger?’ she asked over her shoulder, and this time it was a question. I declined.

  Her garden was not large, but it was full of trees and bushes, and pink hollyhocks, more honeysuckle, the drone of accompanying bees, a little wilderness at the end. A church bell rang in the distance, a sombre line of twelve dongs to hold the time before it slipped away once more.

  The garden moved in the breeze. Quick put the tray down on a stone table and a car revved in the road. ‘Pull up a pew,’ she said, gesturing to one of the three sun chairs. Two were old and saggy and had clearly seen much use. I obeyed, compelled by her authority. Lowering herself down gingerly into one of the older chairs, she slowly extended one leg after the other upon the grass. Kicking off velvet slippers, she revealed petite bare feet, browned by exposure. Looking at Quick’s ten toes, I felt trussed in my winkle-­pickers, my wedged pill-­box hat, my plain green dress. She pushed a pair of sunglasses down onto her face and I lost sight of her expression.

  ‘There are days like this,’ she said, ‘that I wish could go on for ever.’ She poured us each a glass of water, struggling a little with the weight of the unwieldy jug. She glugged her glass and smacked her lips. ‘Please eat,’ she said. In her own habitat, she seemed much more relaxed. Gone was the haunted expression in Reede’s office, even the debonair diffidence she sometimes employed for me and Pamela. I took up a quarter of the pork pie and began to eat it with a piece of bread roll. It was a good pie; the pastry melting away, the cool of the jelly, the rich shock of pig.

  ‘I hope we’re not giving you too much to do at the office?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘It’s all manageable.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘How’s your married friend?’

  I looked at Quick, worried she was a mind-­reader. ‘Fine, thank you. She and her husband have moved to Queen’s Park.’

  ‘You’re not lonely?’ Quick said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Writing anything?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Can I read it?’

  ‘Read it?’

  ‘Well, that’s what ­people usually do with writing, isn’t it?’ She looked amused.

  ‘I don’t—­’

  ‘I’d be honoured if you showed me.’

  ‘It’s not very good,’ I said.

  She pulled a face. ‘Does it matter whether you think it’s any good?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well – because – because I have to be critical of it, to make it better.’

  ‘Well, that’s a given. But isn’t writing something as natural to you as breathing?’

  ‘In some ways. But I have to work at what I write,’ I said, my voice rising. ‘Every writer does.’

  ‘But you pick up a pen and write without much preamble.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘And are you proud of breathing? Do you revere your ability to breathe?’

  ‘It’s who I am. So if it’s not any good, then neither am I.’

  She stared at me. ‘Do you mean as a person?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, no. Don’t be moral about this, Odelle. You’re not walking around with a golden halo beaming out of you depending on the power of your paragraph. You don’t come into it, once someone else is reading. It stands apart from you. Don’t let your ability drag you down, don’t hang it round your neck like an albatross.’ She lit another cigarette. ‘When something is considered “good”, it draws ­people in, often resulting with the eventual destruction of the creator. I’ve seen it happen. So whether you think it’s “good” or not should be entirely irrelevant, if you want to carry on. It’s tough, but there it is. And of course, whether I think it’s good should also be neither here nor there. Even more so, in fact. I think you’re worrying too much.’

  I was silent. I felt like I’d been shot.

  ‘Do you want to publish your work, Odelle?’ she went on, as if we were talking about nothing so substantial as a train timetable.

  I dug my shoes into the grass and studied the tips intently. ‘Yes.’

  Surprisingly, my honesty created a companionable silence, a moment of reprieve. To publish my work was what I wanted; it was the only goal I’d really ever had.

  ‘And do you hope to marry one day?’ she asked. ‘Have children?’

  This was a swerve, but I had grown used to her staccato, jumping thoughts. Often with Quick you got the sense there was a whole other c
onversation going on underneath her words, one that only she could hear. The idea of being a wife was vaguely odd to me; the thought of being a mother, completely alien. Even so, the mind is elastic, so I thought of Lawrie and leapfrogged prematurely into the future. ‘Maybe one day,’ I said.

  ‘The only problem is, children grow up. Or maybe that’s a good thing, in your case. They can look after themselves, you can look after the words.’

  ‘Can’t I look after both?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never tried.’ I considered the house behind us; Quick had no sign of a family, children or otherwise. I tried to imagine Quick as a child, and I couldn’t do it. She was too sophisticated and strange to ever have been such a rudimentary being.

  Quick placed her cigarette in the ashtray. She readjusted her glasses, and forked a tomato with such expert precision that not a seed escaped. She plunged it into her mouth, and swallowed it. ‘Mr Scott brought his painting to the Skelton because of you,’ she said. ‘Didn’t he?’

  My stomach flipped. ‘I – what? – I—­’

  ‘Don’t worry, Odelle. You haven’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘He didn’t – it wasn’t me, it was the Skelton’s reputation – he—­’

  ‘Odelle,’ she said firmly. ‘I saw you kissing in the reception.’

  ‘I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have – I don’t want—­’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. Are you happy?’

  I thought about this. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just be careful of him.’

  I sat back in my chair, overwhelmed. ‘Do you – know him?’

  Quick lit another cigarette, her fist gripped so tightly round the lighter that her knuckles had turned white. She breathed out the bluish smoke. ‘No, I don’t know him. I’m only looking after you. That’s my job. I recruited you, and I value you, and I want you to be all right. Men are not always – well – just make sure you don’t do anything you don’t want to do.’

  I realized then, that Quick was not a person to make herself vulnerable. That in fact, she would do anything to avoid such a predicament. ‘I won’t,’ I said. It felt like Quick was admonishing me; this flash of a harsh demeanour had curdled the garden’s lovely atmosphere, where even the bees seemed to fall silent. ‘He’s not like that.’