Sarah Hall - How to Paint a Dead Man

First on the dance floor, last man standing at the bar. An intemperate lover, except when he had loved Raymie. At the funeral four years later, divorced and wrung out from amphetamines, and from worrying about his wife’s casual, suicidal joyrides, Peter had missed the reconciliation he so badly desired. He had arrived at the cathedral half cut, and had spewed forth a beery eulogy, to the disgust of the family. ‘To my hero, to my bloody hero,’ and then he’d put his face on the dead man’s lapel and cried like a Spanish widow.

Dyas would get a kick out of this now, surely. Seduce your way out of this one, Petie, he would bellow, spreadeagling himself on a nearby boulder, and knocking the top off a bottle of stout. ‘Something of a predicament, eh. Something of a rum position, kiddo. Whatever shall we do?’ If he could decant the man from his memory into the world again, he would, no matter the bad history. The clouds have moved over and the darkness is intensifying. His mood of levity has left him and he is inalienably alone. Even the company of ghosts would do. Even if it meant standing trial, digging over the offences committed and hearing the charges read. Usurper. Bad friend. Thief. But the chance to apologise to Ivan-wouldn’t that be a fine thing, wouldn’t he risk unholy resurrection for it? The chance to say he was sorry, that he was cuntstruck, that he was too young to know better. Yes, he would raise corpses for it, Ivan’s at least, though maybe not the other one.

Maybe it’d all be water under the bridge anyway-so much time has passed. Maybe they’d just have a good old natter about the state of things. They could opine on various interesting developments. The Piss Christ. Mandela. Dubrovnik. Betting odds. Or they could reminisce like two old codgers. Remember the marble pissers in the Philharmonic? You could whizz like a king. Remember Dolores McArthur’s splendid tits? Oh yes. Epic. Maybe they would shake hands like decent friends, sit in the cold together and wait for the re-emergence of the stars. Dyas would be incisive, as always. ‘Hate to say it, Peter old son, but that sounds like rain.’

And true enough, there is an aspirin flavour to the air, an impending fizz. He can feel the first few drops arriving on his forehead, and then a steady patter begins. Peter looks up. There is just blackness and water. A few minutes, and he is soaked through. The wound begins to nip and sting, and he knows then that the flesh is open. He tears a wet strip from the hem of his shirt and ties a tourniquet at the top of his calf. He doesn’t know how much he is bleeding. He doesn’t know if he is scratched, or if his life is draining away. He can smell minerals being released from the stones all around, the perfume of the mountain.

When the blindness came it was not unexpected. Dottor Florio had outlined the disease. Also there had been a series of unfortunate events and Annette felt she was simply the next in line, like a domino toppling over because the one before it had toppled. First Signor Giorgio had died. He had not come to the school for many weeks. Signora Russo had told them that he was in grave health, and that they should pray for him to recover. They were to continue sketching, of course, and improving their skills. She herself would take the lessons, she said. She placed apples in front of them, and pieces of earthenware. They were to attempt to replicate the sheen and the depth. Once she sat in a chair at the front of the classroom and invited them to attempt a portrait, but there was too much laughter and nonsense, and after ten minutes Signora Russo stood up and invited them to paint their own hands instead.

Not long afterwards she announced at the end of class one day that Signor Giorgio had passed away. She took a handkerchief from her sleeve and pressed at the corners of her eyes and then she sneezed. ‘Children,’ she said, ‘we should not ever forget we were lucky to have received his wisdom. The rest of Italy has not understood Signor Giorgio well. Here, we might have turned our back on such a man. But he was, nevertheless, our comrade. Let us all remember how he graciously shared with us his time and his knowledge. Let us not be too sad.’ She blew her nose loudly. When she had recovered she folded her handkerchief into her blouse sleeve, and said there would soon be a museum dedicated to him in the city of Bologna, where he had once studied. When they were older they might like to visit it and admire some of his paintings and read about his life. He had survived very turbulent times, she said. She said those who thought he should not have received the Grand Prize were foolish. She drew out her handkerchief and blew her nose again. Then they sang the anthem, with Signora Russo conducting, and class was dismissed.

As Annette walked home an odd thought occurred to her. She wondered what had happened to Signor Giorgio’s big spectacles. Perhaps he’d had them on when he died, because sometimes death came right in the middle of what a person was doing, as it had come to her papa. Perhaps Signor Giorgio had died without his spectacles. Perhaps he had taken them off before he slept and he had died in his sleep. Annette often forgot to take off her glasses when she climbed into bed, and then she would wake up and the frames would have slipped and gored into her nose. If he had died without his spectacles, would he be able to see in heaven? Perhaps in heaven his eyesight would be perfect. She also wondered what he had heard and what he had seen when he died. A red field or the citrine wolf’s eye? Bluebottles buzzing? The keys of an old Olivetti striking against its ribbon? Perhaps a firework wailing? She wondered if in any way the Bestia had been involved.

Next there was a disaster at the greenhouses. A mysterious blight had arrived in one of the beds and quickly spread to others. Textbooks were consulted. Vincenzo, Maurizio and Uncle Marcello raked and pruned, uprooted bulbs, and burned piles of leaves. Dark grey, musty-smelling smoke rose from the gardens. The panes of the glasshouses were disinfected with vinegar and newspaper. But the blight continued. In the evenings Uncle Marcello would place a black-spotted leaf next to him on the table and he would study it while eating, sometimes turning it over by its stem, as if it might reveal to him its sinister properties and its transmission code. He telephoned the London botanical gardens and had a difficult conversation in broken English. Afterwards he looked at them and shrugged. After three weeks, he said there would be no profit that year. They would have to rely on the lavenders, the olive oil and the vegetables. Annette’s mother said it was a bad omen.

Perhaps it was, because then Vincenzo announced that he was going to South America. Their mother cried for a week, and said she had suffered enough humiliation and desertion already. She accused her son of keeping a whore, of stealing money from the family, of corruption and the abandonment of Italy. But the ticket was already bought and the suitcase packed. He shook hands with his brothers, kissed Annette and baby Tommaso, and unhooked Rosaria Tambroni’s clawed fingers from his wrists. ‘I will write,’ he said. He picked up his suitcase, put on his hat, and walked to the station.

Castrabecco fell into despair afterwards. For days nobody spoke. Nobody dared to sit at Vincenzo’s place — a black shawl was folded neatly on his chair, and the chair was turned to face away from the table. Even Mauri’s teasing and tickling and playfulness was suspended. Their mother lay in her room with the door locked. Twice there was the sound of violent weeping and something smashing. The family waited in abeyance. Finally it was Tommaso who broke the spell. He pulled himself up off the floor while no one was watching and pushed the mourning chair like a barrow around the room, making the noise of a purring, spluttering engine. He pushed it down the steps and out the door of Castrabecco into the courtyard, where it was left overnight in the rain. Annette retrieved the damp shawl and Uncle Marcello broke up the chair legs and tossed the pieces on to the smouldering bonfires of blighted leaves.