“For Ivy
in her infinite Rapture
We each step one foot
upon the riser
As time brings forth
machines with nature
and from below
the dark it sits
in gyres ever increasing
My love for her
My lust unbound
shows no sign
of diminishing.”
Adam turned sharply, so enraptured by the painting that he didn’t realise that someone else had entered the small room and was standing beside him. The sound of her voice cut through his detachment, bringing him firmly back
to where
and giving him his bearings.
“Sorry?” He turned. His breath caught in his throat, clogging it and ensuring no other words followed.
“It’s what’s on the back of the painting, etched into the wood of the frame. Trent wrote it in blood. It’ll be long faded now of course. Just a memory of a poem, but no less for it.” She smiled. That same smile from twenty years earlier. The same expression. The same face, seemingly unravaged by time. That in itself could not be true of course, but there and then, in the darkness of he exhibition room - the only light a single spotlight that illuminated no more than the painting - it was what he believed. That was all that was important. Belief.
“I didn’t hear you…” Adam managed at last.
“Deep in your appreciation once more Adam.” She nodded past him and to the painting, much as she had once done before. “Still beautiful, isn’t she?”
Adam wanted to dismiss the question, to ask instead one of his own, like how on earth he had come to be staring at this painting when he had just entered his neighbours apartment instead. Like how he shouldn’t be looking at the painting. Like how you can’t just enter one room in one part of the world and emerge in another room in another part of the world. That things just didn’t work that way. This would be followed up with questions about who this woman was, what her name was and how she hadn’t seemed to age in twenty years (although that last part he assumed was because of the lack of light and once she was out in the daylight he would soon see the crows feet in the corners of her eyes and the thin lines stretching perpendicular from those lips).
None of that surfaced.
“Yes,”he said flatly, which was of course, the truth. She was beautiful. Both the painting and the woman who was standing before him.
“I’m glad you were able to come,” she said. She smelled of exotic spices and flowers that only grow in far off foreign climes, under strange stars and a sun that was a stranger to him. “I didn’t see you arrive, your car pull up outside…”
There was an inference there but not one he could place the intention behind and chose not to engage.
“I got dropped off around the corner,” he said, betraying not an ounce of the fluster that threatened to buoy his answer up. “I needed the walk.”
An arch of her eyebrows, such a little thing that gave her an amused quizzical look.
“I had heard about your accident, I am sorry. How is your recovery going?”
He didn’t know who she would have been talking to that would have approached the subject of his accident. He didn’t even know who she was.
First things first. He decided that the old version of him from twenty years previous wouldn’t have dared to be so blunt, but a lot had happened since then.
Screw it.
“You never did give me your name. I still don’t even know who you are. I don’t know who you know, or who you’ve been speaking to that’s told you about me or my accident.”
If she was shocked by his directness, she didn’t show it. She sipped slowly from her glass half filled with gently sparkling liquid, and allowed herself to hold it in her mouth for a moment before swallowing softly. Adam could see the spotlight on her lips now, those maddeningly full lips. He had been right, back then, and was right now. She was beautiful, more so than the painting. Beautiful in a way that seemed to grow with each passing second he looked at her. Beyond her, he could see the doorway, the rooms beyond similarly lit dimly. This was a recreation of before, something that wasn’t lost on him. That wads how time worked didn’t it. Loops and patterns. They were always there if you looked for them. He didn’t even need to look for this one. It was flagrantly blatant. Dark figures and murmuring voices filled the doorway as a few other visitors to the gallery began to filter through. Each with a glass in hand and a canapé in the other.
“Daphne,” she said, smiling that secret smile and extending her hand palm down for him to take. He did as he was bid. It was cool, her skin impossibly smooth in his own callused hand. She held it lightly and withdrew it slowly. “I’m sorry I never introduced myself before. In my fervent youth I fancied being a cool, mysterious stranger. One that would suddenly appear and vanish, leaving an indelible impression. I wonder if I ever did.”
“I think you know the answer to that question,” Adam replied, his hostility now a red tide quickly ebbing away. “But it’s nice to finally put a name to the face.”
“Nice, is it?” A short musical laugh. A sip. The light dancing on her lips. “Good, I’m glad that I can be…nice.”
“Were you, sorry, are you an admirer of Trent’s work?” Adam asked. “I mean, I presume so but I was wondering if you knew him.”
“I know Trent. Yes. And I am more than an admirer of his work, I should say.” Now she did seem a little affronted, and Adam wondered what he had got wrong.
“Sorry I wasn’t sure if…” he let himself trail off, with no idea how to finish the sentence. He had only been standing there a short time, but his knees and thighs began to burn. He would need to walk a little soon and then sit down. Ideally he wanted to take the damn things off and sit in his chair, but pride would never let him that luxury, he was sure of it. Nevertheless, he did suddenly glance around the room, eyes widening, as he realised he had no idea where he had put his wheelchair.
“Over your shoulder, silly,” another small laugh, like the opening of a music box. The wording making her sound like an errant child. He wasn’t sure if it suited her or not.
“What is?”
“The thing you’re looking for.”
He let his hand go up to his shoulder, and felt the strap against his shirt. As soon as he had done that, he became aware of the weight of it, and wondered how he hadn’t been aware of it moments before.
“Habituation I expect.” She nodded as she spoke. “I imagine you are so used to taking that around with you that you don’t notice when you are carrying it any more. It’s quite common. Like tuning out this background noise.”
As she spoke, Adam become aware of the numerous conversations going on near by, the noise so very nearly overwhelming.
“But if you focus on my voice, all that will go, and you’ll non longer hear it. “
She was right. The background din receded instantly. Now it was just her, and him. With nothing else but silence, as though he were in a television program and the sound mix had just been altered. The supporting cast had their microphones muted.
He was going to say to her that he didn’t think that’s what it was, because he precisely wasn’t used to carrying the chair around. He hadn’t ever taken it out of his apartment. It had been purchased for that purpose, of course, but he had been too distracted
or just plain fucking lazy
to go out for any length of time. What raisin did he have? Where would he go, the park?
The Flats?
She didn’t need to know this. She knew too much already.
“V is here.” She turned to her side and waved at a figure that had just entered the room. The rest of the visitors seemed to part before him like he was a holy figure to be revered.
It was only when the light from the spotlight illuminated some of that craggy visage, and the electric shock of white hair, did Adam think that assessment wasn’t too far from the truth. Was there anything more feared in the art world than a critic? This was the holy man. The holy grail of a human according to any artist. This was, unless Adam was very much mistaken, Vemier Mamoulean himself.
Don’t beckon him over please don’t beckon him over.
“V, I would like you to meet someone,” Daphne said as the irrefutably tall man drew up beside her. Adam reckoned he must be six three or six four. Towering over his mere five ten and Daphne’s five six odd. Age hadn’t diminished him, even though he had been getting on seventy when he had last caught sight of him - again - more than twenty years ago. At the same exhibition that he had first seen Daphne. Patterns. It was all just repeating patters.
“Mr Campion.” Mamoulean said cooly, giving Daphne’s shoulder a light squeeze with a colossal hand. “I believe I have had the pleasure before. I can’t say I was expecting you to actually attend.”
He was much as Adam recalled. The cold flat lifelessness to his eyes, the thin lips and sunken cheeks. His nose full of broken veins denoting far too many exhibition openings and free drinks, much lie the one he had in his other hand. A short to Daphne’s long. The dark liquid within devoid of effervescence and no doubt not long for existence outside of the man’s digestive system. As if on cue, he lifted the glass to his lips and consumed the contents in one long slow swallow, clearly savouring it as it went down.
Adam could do nothing more than nod towards the other man. He did his best to hide his surprise, yet something must have slipped out.
“I am nothing if not blessed with a good memory,” Mamoulean said, allowing himself a wry smile. “For what it is worth, you had potential. It was within your grasp if you had stayed true to your craft.”
“We had a showing in our final year at art school,” Adam said to Daphne. “Apparently someone saw fit to invite journalists and critics, instead of just allowing us to show to our fellow students and families. They sought to bolster their reputation for producing artists and to hell with the rest of us. My work got three lines in one art journal, mainly comprising a quote. Adam Campion knows how to frame his art well enough, however it’s what is within that frame that brings on a sudden bout of nausea that the cheap cava can’t wash away. Which I’m sure you’ll agree does wonders for the aspiration.”
Mamoulean sighed theatrically. “If you are seeking to establish yourself in a certain profession Mr Campion, it would do you well to be able to shoulder the harshest criticism. Wouldn’t you agree? I happen to think that you had promise, should you have applied yourself.“
“Is that why you refused to attend my exhibition in favour of Trent?”
“You weren’t there yet. You were nowhere near his level.”
“That’s not for you to decide.”
“Oh dear boy, I think you’ll find that it is.” Mamoulean squeezed Daphne’s shoulder once more and began to move away, obviously tired at the prospect of any further interaction with Adam. “Now, I need to find that sweet little girl with the big tray of malt. Conversation leaves me with a terrible thirst. He looked towards Adam once more before turning away. “I am glad you did decide to attend however, Mr Campion. I was sorry to hear of your accident and subsequent marital troubles. Food perhaps, for the creative muse? There is always a future for you that will establish you in the past. If you wish it.”
Adam tried to think of a wittily caustic remark, one that would undo decades of hurt and firmly turn the tables in one fell swoop. Something that would be a fitting coda in the movie of his life. Instead, he watched slack jawed as the feared critic moved out of the room to find a drink.
Daphne stood with him, her attention going from the receding figure back to the painting.
“Don’t mind V,” she said without turning. “He is what he is.”
Adam shrugged. “To be honest that’s not a conversation I expect will remain with me even by the time I leave.”
If I actually am aware of leaving, unless I’m going to do a magic jump back into my apartment like the guy from that programme that developed super powers and magically began teleporting himself everywhere.
Oh god, please let me develop super powers.
She nodded. “Are you though?”
“Am I what?”
“Painting again?”
“How did you know I was a painter?”
“Logical guess. You don’t look like a sculptor.”
“Oh?”
“Bigger hands.” She laughed. He was beginning to get used to that laugh. It really was a wonderful sound.
They stood in silence for some time, Adam once again taking in the painting, finding his eyes drawn to the dark areas behind the flesh and machine parts. Looking for what he only half imagined was there. If he could get closer, he could find out for definite. He just had to see if it was there.
His eyes adjusted and everything around him fell away. There. In the dark. The deepest dark. Only a few strokes. An afterthought.
The staircase.
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