Elizabeth George - For the Sake of Elena

It’s the absence of an outlet for creativity, he had thought. I’ve spent more than twenty years of my life in dusty academia, writing, giving lectures, meeting students, climbing up. It’s time to broaden my horizons and stretch my experience.

As in everything else, she had supported him in this. She did not join him-she had no abiding interest in the arts-but she admired his sketches, she mounted and framed his watercolours, and she clipped out of the local newspaper the announcement of the class that Sarah Gordon would teach. This is something you might like to take, darling, she had told him. I’ve never heard of her myself, but the paper says she’s quite an astounding talent. Wouldn’t it be wonderful for you to get to know a real artist?

That, he felt, was the greatest of the ironies. That Justine should have been the instrument of their acquaintance. But then, her having made him aware of Sarah Gordon’s presence in Grantchester in the first place actually completed the circle of the story in a well-balanced fashion. Justine, after all, was uniquely responsible for the final set of events in this obscene tragedy, so it was only appropriate that she also would have been instrumental in setting in motion the initial events that began with a life-drawing class in Sarah Gordon’s studio.

If it’s over between you, get rid of the painting, Justine had said. Destroy it. Get it out of my life. Get her out of my life.

But it hadn’t been enough when he defaced it with oils. Only its complete destruction would appease Justine’s anger and assuage the pain of his infi delity. And at only one time, in only one place, could this act of destruction be carried out in order to convince his wife of the sincerity with which he was putting an end to his affair with Sarah. So three times he had driven the knife through the canvas as Justine looked on. In the end, however, he’d been unable to bring himself to leave the ruined painting behind.

If she’d only been what I needed in the fi rst place, none of this would have happened, he thought. If she’d only been willing to open her heart, if she’d got in touch with her spirit, if creating meant more to her than merely possessing, if she’d done more than just listen and appear sympathetic, if she’d had something to say about herself, about life, if she’d tried to understand me at the deepest level of who and what I am…

“Where’s the Citroën, Anthony?” Justine repeated. “Where are your glasses? Where on earth have you been? It’s after nine o’clock.”

“Where’s Glyn?” he asked.

“Having a bath. And using most of the hot water in the house to do it.”

“She’ll be gone tomorrow afternoon. I’d think you could manage to put up with her that much longer. After all-”

“Yes. I know. She’s lost her daughter. She’s been crushed and devastated and I ought to be able to overlook everything she does-and every rotten thing she says-because of that fact. Well, I won’t buy it. And you’re a fool if you do.”

“Then I suppose I’m a fool.” He turned from the window. “But that’s something you’ve used to your advantage more than once, isn’t it?”

A spot of deep ruby appeared on each of her cheeks. “We’re husband and wife. We made a commitment. We made vows in a church. At least I did. And I’ve never broken them. I wasn’t the one-”

“All right,” he said. “I know.” The room was too warm. He needed to take off his coat. He couldn’t summon the will to do so.

She said, “Where have you been? What have you done with the car?”

“It’s at the police station. They wouldn’t allow me to drive it home.”

“They…The police? What’s happened? What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Not any longer at least.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She seemed to grow taller as some sort of realisation dawned upon her. Under the fi ne material of her suit, he could imagine her muscles ripple and coil. “You’ve been with her again. I can see it in your face. You promised me, Anthony. Anthony, you swore to me. You said it was over.”

“It is. Believe me.” He left the study and headed for the sitting room. He heard the sound of her high heels tapping along behind him.

“Then what…Have you been in an accident? Have you wrecked the car? Are you hurt in some way?”

Hurt, an accident. There could be no greater truth. He wanted to chuckle at the grim, gallows humour. She would always assume that he was victim, not avenger. She couldn’t conceive that he might take matters into his own hands for once. She couldn’t conceive that he might fi nally act at his own behest, without regard for opinion or condemnation any longer, because he believed it was right to do so. And why should she, really? When had he ever acted on his own before? Other than to walk out on Glyn and he’d paid for that decision for the last fi fteen years.

“Anthony, answer me. What’s happened to you today?”

“I finished things. Finally.” He went into the sitting room.

“Anthony…”

He’d once thought the still lifes hanging above the sofa represented his very best work. Paint something that we can hang in the sitting room, darling. Use colours that match . He had done so. Apricots and poppies. One could tell what they were at a single glance. And isn’t that what true art is all about? An accurate duplication of reality?

He’d taken them off the wall and carted them proudly to show her on the first night of class. No matter that it was life drawing she was teaching, he wanted her to know from the very start that he was a cut above all the rest, raw talent just waiting for someone to mould him into the next Manet.

She’d surprised him from the fi rst. Perched on a stool in the corner of her studio, she began by offering no instruction at all. Instead, she talked. She hooked her feet round the rungs of the stool, put her elbows on her thoroughly paint-spattered knees, cupped her face in her hands so that her hair spilled through her fi ngers, and talked. At her side stood an easel holding an unfinished canvas, depicting a man sheltering a tousle-haired little girl. She never pointed to it as she spoke. It was clear that she expected they would make the connection.

“You’re not here to learn how to put paint on canvas,” she had said to the group. There were six of them: three elderly women in smocks and brogues, the wife of an American serviceman with time on her hands, a twelveyear-old Greek girl whose father was spending a year as a guest lecturer at the University, and himself. He knew at once that he was the serious student among them. She seemed to be speaking directly to him.

“Any fool can make splatters and call it art,” she had said. “That’s not what this course is all about. You’re here to put part of yourself on canvas, to reveal who you are through your composition, your choice of colour, your sense of balance. The struggle is to know what’s been done before and to push beyond it. The job is to select an image but to paint a concept. I can give you techniques and methods, but whatever you produce ultimately has to come from your self if you want to call it art. And-” She smiled. It was an odd, bright smile, completely without self-conscious affectation. She couldn’t have known that it wrinkled her nose in an unattractive fashion. But if she did know, she probably didn’t care. Externals did not seem to have much importance to her. “-if you have no real self, or if you have no way of discovering it, or if for some reason you’re afraid to find out who and what it is, then you’ll still manage to create something on canvas with your paints. It’ll be pleasant to look at and a pleasure to you. But it’ll be technique. It won’t necessarily be art. The purpose-our purpose-is to communicate through a medium. But in order to do that, you must have something to say.”