Alison Lurie - The Truth About Lorin Jones

“If he’d been a painter Laura would have seen through him in ten minutes. Hell, her mother, Celia, if she’d been alive, she would have seen through him in five, because she knew something about poetry. And so did Laura’s brother, Lennie — he could spot a loser like Hugh at twenty paces.”

“So she left here with him at the end of April?”

“Yes. On May Day.” Garrett smiled wryly. “Cameron made a lot of that later, apparently. It was the sort of cheap symbolism he liked.”

“And you had no idea this was going to happen.”

“Not a clue. As I said, Lorin didn’t leave a note, so at first I wasn’t concerned. I was driving down from Providence, and I hadn’t said exactly when I’d be coming. When she wasn’t here, I figured she’d gone out sketching, or maybe even up to Boston overnight on the ferry; she did that sometimes. I searched all around the place, and walked down to the inlet, because she used to go there a lot to paint. After it got dark I phoned some of our friends, but nobody’d seen her or knew anything. Then I looked in the closet, and most of her clothes seemed to be there, so I started to think about car crashes, and the weirdos who could be lurking about on the beaches or in the pine woods.”

Over twenty years later, Polly heard in Garrett’s voice an echo of the panic of that evening. “So what did you do?”

“Well, I was kind of wandering around the house, calling up different people and pretending to them that nothing was wrong. I went into Lorin’s studio to look for a phone number. Before I hadn’t noticed anything out of the way, but now I realized that most of her equipment was gone.”

“You knew then that she’d left you?”

“No, not really. It could have just been a painting excursion. I knew the next day. I discovered then that she’d cleared out not only her own bank account, but also the joint account we kept here. Nearly six thousand dollars, it was, because I’d just put the money in for a new roof.”

“Oh, hell,” Polly murmured, wondering how she would ever justify this.

“I don’t want you to blame Laura too much,” Garrett said, registering her tone. “I figure it was probably Cameron’s idea. Laura didn’t have any understanding of money, or any sense about it. She would have lived by barter if she could have.”

“So you knew, or at least you suspected, that Lorin had gone off with Cameron,” she suggested.

“Christ, no. He didn’t even cross my mind.”

“Then you had no idea he’d fallen in love with her,” Polly said, putting it this way in an attempt at tact.

“No. If you want to call it that. All I know is, he had a Scotsman’s instinct for where the money was. As long as Laura had funds he stuck to her like rubber cement. When the cash was used up, and her paintings weren’t selling anymore, he just peeled off.”

“Yes, I heard — I mean, Jacky Herbert said Cameron wasn’t around when Lorin was dying.”

“No. He was up in Maine. The goddamn creep.” Garrett’s voice roughened. “Let’s forget about him; it’s all ancient history now. Here. Take a look at this.” He pulled the old black portfolio toward him and, with some difficulty, untied its frayed and faded tapes.

Inside there were only a few sheets of paper: three or four large drawings with pencil notations about color, evidently preliminary sketches for paintings. Underneath them, covered with a sheet of creased tissue that Garrett lifted off carefully, was a big gouache of what might have been an explosion of fireworks, or a lake in the woods in autumn, the whole scene speckled and shimmering with red and orange and gold, almost pointillist.

“Oh!” Polly cried. “I’ve never seen — I didn’t know —”

“It’s not finished, of course.”

“Really?” It was true, there was a large irregular white area in one lower corner, streaked with a vague wash of ochre; but patches of nearly blank canvas were not uncommon in Jones’s work.

“Well. Maybe it’s finished, in a way. Maybe that’s how Laura wanted it.”

“It’s beautiful.” She stared for a long moment at the painting; and then up at Garrett accusingly. “You never mentioned — This could have been in the show.”

“Yes, I suppose so. But — Well, I suppose I didn’t want it there. That little pond — You can see it’s a pond?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s over in the woods in Truro. Laura and I used to go there sometimes together, the first autumn we were here. I don’t like to look at it much now.”

“I see.” It’s where they made love, Polly thought. This brilliant storm of light and color was the memorial of, the transubstantiation of, an erotic encounter.

She stared at Garrett, but his face was averted toward the window. “You could sell it,” she suggested, feeling as she spoke that this was crass. “I’m sure the Apollo Gallery —”

“I don’t want to sell this picture, damn it.” Garrett’s tone was rough. “I tell you what,” he added more gently. “Why don’t you take it?”

“Me?” Polly’s voice rose.

“Yes, you.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I mean, for God’s sake. It’s too valuable.”

“I don’t need money,” Garrett said almost angrily. “I’d like you to have it. That is, if I could be sure you wouldn’t hang it anywhere I’d ever have to see it again, or sell it to some damned collector or museum, at least until I’m gone. I don’t want to come across it unexpectedly somewhere, you know what I mean?”

“Yes; I understand.”

“Good.” Garrett cleared his throat. “Now, about this other material. I expect you’d like to have copies of some of the drawings.”

“I’d like a copy of everything, really,” Polly said eagerly. “Of course, I’ll pay —”

“Don’t worry about it. There’s a fairly good Xerox place in P’town. I can go there after I take you to the plane. Or, if we left a little early” (he checked his watch) “they might be able to copy the stuff before your flight.”

“That’d be fantastic,” Polly said. It came into her mind that Garrett was being generous and helpful. “You know, I’m amazed that you would go to all this trouble for my book. I mean, I really appreciate it.”

“Thank you.” Garrett smiled. “But why should you be amazed?”

“I just meant — uh, well, I meant,” Polly stuttered. “Some men might bear a grudge, I mean about last night.”

“That’d be foolish, considering the circumstances.” Garrett laughed. “Actually, you know,” he added very casually, “sometimes women who love other women are surprised to find they can also enjoy men — or rather, they can enjoy a man who understands what they prefer physically.” He gave her what was surely a meaning look. “I remember when I was living in the Village, back in the thirties —”

“I’m not like that,” Polly interrupted. She had heard before of men who prided themselves on their ability to, as they put it, “convert” homosexual women.

“Ah. Pity.” Garrett smiled briefly, and pulled Lorin’s gouache toward him along the table. Carefully, he lowered the protective covering over it.

The proposed gift was a bribe, Polly thought. I have just refused the implied bargain, and so it’s been withdrawn. She felt angry but relieved, for now Garrett was no longer decent and generous. He was exposed instead as a dirty old man who wanted to buy sex with his dead wife’s painting — even worse, with a painting of the place where he and she had once made love. Crass, horrible, disgusting.

Yet as the colors dimmed under the worn tissue, Polly felt a stabbing pang of loss. She thought that she would probably never in her life see this picture again, and almost wished that she had accepted Garrett’s implied bargain.