Benjamin Wood - The Ecliptic

The external assessor was so insulted by the picture that he did not deem it worthy of a passing grade. I had sensed that the mural would provoke strong opinions, but I did not expect that it would rouse such ill feeling that the School would deny my graduation. Whilst I was painting Deputation , I daydreamed of installing it at Central Station, imagining the railway manager being invited to the show, falling in love with it. I had taken the trouble of designing it so the canvas could be detached from its stretcher frames and affixed to the brickwork with lead paste, as many of the great muralists in America had been known to do. I had thought — vainly hoped — that it would help me acquire more commissions. Instead, the School gave me two options: repeat the fourth year, or leave without a diploma. I preferred the idea of packing sewing-machine needles with my mother.

At the end of term, as the show was being pulled down, I went in to the studio to collect my things. Henry Holden called me to his office. I sat on his paint-smattered banquette while he rummaged the papers on his desk. There was a reek of whisky about him. ‘I’ve spoken again with the School governors,’ he said. ‘I wish I could say they’d changed their minds.’

‘I’m starting to think it’s for the best.’

He shook his head. ‘Rubbish. You submitted a wonderful painting, and I’m embarrassed those cowards aren’t supporting it. When you go off and make your fortune as a painter, they’re all going to look rather silly. Now —’ He lifted up a folder and gave it a cursory glance before tossing it aside. ‘You might not have seen this in the newspapers, or heard about it on the wireless, but —ah, here we are.’ He unfolded what looked like a grocer’s receipt, skim-reading it. ‘There’s a new travelling fellowship you can apply for.’

‘I really don’t think I’ll be—’

‘Shssh. Listen. This is good news.’ He paused, swallowing drily, and I realised that he was very drunk indeed. ‘Now, I should warn you, the endowment is not much, but it’s been decided, and the committee chairman — namely me —will be most upset if you don’t accept. In fact, he insists that you do. Here.’ He offered me the grocer’s receipt. A name was scrawled on the back in pencil — Jim Culvers — with a number and an address. ‘An old student of mine in London is looking for an assistant. If he doesn’t pay you well enough, give me a ring and I’ll lean on him. It’s not the same as a diploma, or even a proper fellowship, I know — but, anyway, those are his details.’

I felt as though I should kiss him. ‘You don’t have to do this for me, Henry.’

‘I’m aware.’

‘I don’t think I really deserve it.’

‘Then give it back, I’ll tear it up for you.’ He creaked forward on his chair, turning out his palm. I would always remember this moment with Holden, how he looked at me with certainty, knowing I would not release the paper to him. ‘Thought not,’ he said, and withdrew his hand. ‘It’ll take Jim a while to notice you’re a better painter than he is. When that happens, move on. Until then, I suspect the two of you will get on famously. He’s already expecting you.’

If I had chosen differently, and carried out my plan to take a factory job alongside my mother, I might never have painted again. But how much worse off would I have been to live without art than to have it consume me and spit out my bones? There are still days when I count up all the sewing-machine needles I could have packed instead.

There is no doubt that Fullerton’s arrival at Portmantle had some influence on my painting, but I cannot credit him for the discovery that mattered most. It was in the springtime — two whole seasons before he was admitted — that I took myself into the deepest woods in search of herons to draw, and found one perching on a rotten tree trunk swathed in mushrooms. I sat and sketched that splendid bird until it suddenly took off. I tried to keep track of it, gazing up through the branches, but it glided out of sight, and by then I was halfway out of the forest and the dinner bell was clanging at the mansion. It was only when I got back to my studio, after dusk, that I realised I had left my sketchbook somewhere in the trees — most of the drawings it contained were not worth saving, but I felt the heron sketches had potential and I did not want to lose them. So I got a torch and went back into the woods. That night, the dark was full and thick; the firmament of stars was at its clearest. There was a waxing crescent moon and the yellow-white shimmer of the neighbouring islands seemed closer than ever. I hurried through the pines by torchlight, hunting for the spot where I had found the heron, but everything looked different in the dark. My foot caught in the scrub and I tripped over. The torch spat out its batteries as it hit the ground. For a moment, there was terrifying blackness and I thought I had passed out. But then I saw the most unusual thing ahead of me: a spread of pale blue light, like the haze of a gas flame.

I lifted myself up and moved towards the glow. It was coming from a clutch of fallen trees not far away. As I got closer, the blue intensified: a curious shade, vivid yet lucent, like the antiseptic liquid barbers keep their combs in, or the glaucous sheen on a plum. It did not emanate from the trees themselves, but rather from a substance they were covered in: luminescent mushrooms the size of oyster shells. Their caps had pale blue halos that, when packed into dense clusters as they were, gave off a gleam so bright I could make out all the textures of the forest floor, insects crawling in the mulch, my sketchbook lying on the ground — I no longer cared to pick it up. There was a slow, electric crackle in my blood, a feeling I had not known in years. Not quite clarity, just the tingle of it surfacing. An idea. A glimpse of home. The rest, I knew, was up to me.

By the winter of the boy’s appearance, I was still learning the nuances of the pigment, sampling its versatility. Some inconsistencies had to be corrected in the mixture before I could commit to painting with it; the production methods needed more refinement, and I had lingering concerns about permanence and lightfastness. But my excitement for the material could not be dampened. Quickman always said the best ideas ‘invade your heart’. This one had become a romance.

It was not a difficult pigment to make, though it required considerable patience and commitment. I established a simple routine: working through the darkness until breakfast, sleeping until lunch, resting until dinner, resuming after dusk. I lived this way throughout the summer, finding respite in the cool of nightfall, hiding from the glare of daylight. I persisted through the muggy autumn evenings, the early rains, the frost, the sudden snow. But when the boy arrived, it knocked me off my rhythm. I allowed his presence to divert me from my purpose much too readily. His sparring with Quickman at the backgammon board was just the first instance of this distraction — their game dragged on much longer than expected and I did not even think to put a stop to it, just let the two of them battle it out, paying no mind to the delay it caused my work. It may have only set me back a fraction, but a fraction was too much.

As soon as they were gone, I went about the drudgery of organising my studio. There was a long night of sampling ahead of me and I had not rested much since lunchtime. I closed my shutters, rolled down my blinds and stapled them to the frame. I brought out the mortar and pestle, the stone muller and the mixing slab, wiping down my workbench and dragging it into position. I prepared another fifty canvas squares. I cleaned my sable brushes. Then I put on my coat and satchel, laced up my boots, and waited for the last few lights to blink off at the mansion. Lanterns glared for a while in the portico until Ender came to snuff them out, and then a perfect darkness settled all about the refuge.