Дуглас Кеннеди - Five Days

And thank you for that little snippet of personal information.

‘But how do you know that my son is so. ’

‘You can say the word. Brilliant. How do I know that? He’s been buying paints from me for around a year — and he’s been dropping down here every five or six weeks, so we’ve started hanging out a bit. Quite an amazing cognizance of art, your son. Quite a lot of self-doubt in the mix as well. When he told me about getting that large-scale collage accepted at the Maine Artists show last year, I made a point of driving up to Portland for an afternoon and checking it out. And I have to tell you, Benjamin is brilliant.’

I felt a great frisson of maternal pride — and also immediately sensed that, like his tutor Trevor, this Norm character had assumed a mentor role in my son’s life; the understanding, supportive paternal figure he’d never had.

‘I couldn’t agree more with you,’ I said, ‘but hearing you say it — someone who undoubtedly knows a lot of artists. ’

‘Your son’s got it. And I was really pleased and, quite honestly, relieved to hear him on the phone yesterday, wanting to order paint, and talking about the big new canvas he’s almost finished. I’d heard from one of his professors about his breakdown. I hope you don’t mind me calling it that. ’

‘Why should I mind when it’s entirely accurate?’

‘Anyway, I had something similar when I was at the Rhode Island School of Art and Design, and I ended up drifting away from the ceramic stuff that was my specialty back then. Fell into this and that — teaching, art design at ad agencies, eventually this little shop which is, at least, my own. But I never got back to what I wanted to do. and I’m monologing, another of my bad habits. Anyway, it’s great that Benjamin has found a way back to his work. And his need for my Tetron Azure Blue — that is, as they say in the San Fernando Valley, way cool. Because Tetron Azure Blue is, as you can gather, a highly rarefied color. Subtly, but significantly, different from other sky blues. But here I am, continuing to monolog as usual — too much time alone mixing paint — when you’ve obviously got better things to do.’

‘You said you needed payment first before you mixed the color.’

‘I’m afraid it’s a strict rule of mine, having once been the sort of artist who stiffed many an art supply dealer, and having been far too indulgent when I started this business about offering credit. So I’m afraid I need one hundred and twenty-seven dollars from you before I work my alchemy in the backroom. which should take no more than thirty minutes.’

I tried not to blanch at the price. Norm could see my shock.

‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘Mucho dinero. But if you want my Tetron Azure Blue, you pay a high price. But it’s a price worth paying — as it has the most exceptional depth of coloration.’

I handed over my credit card. As Norm swiped it in the terminal attached to his cash register he said:

‘I’ve got an espresso maker and a reasonably comfortable old Chesterfield chair in the back. So I’m happy to make you a good coffee and offer you more scintillating conversation while I mix the paint.’

I signed the credit card receipt.

‘Since it’s such a beautiful day. ’ I said.

‘I hear you,’ he said, trying to mask his disappointment. ‘The river’s two blocks over to your left. I will have all this ready to go by three-forty-five.’

I thanked him. Following his advice I walked the two blocks over to the Charles. It was the stretch of the river that ran, on this side, in front of the Boston University campus and gave you a perspective on Harvard imposing itself on the opposing Cambridge side. Two academic worlds — one ultra-elite, one several notches down the prestige food chain — staring out at each other. And separated by this river, along which a nascent colony was once constructed. From that early settlement emerged this city, this nation — and with it, so many hundreds of millions of stories of everyone who, in one way or another, did time here. Stories which largely vanished with those who lived them. An individual life is insignificant when considered against the metaphysics of an ever-flowing urban waterway. But one’s own life should truly be lived otherwise. Because there is never anything insignificant about any of our stories — even if we ourselves consider the tale to be mundane. Every life is its own novel. And we dictate so much more about the way the story can progress and change — or remain middling — than we ever care to admit.

There were sculls on the river, being powered by half a dozen young men, slapping the water with oars, their unified downstrokes a miracle of timed synchronicity. There were the requisite joggers and parents with young children and a couple in their mid-twenties in the midst of a wild embrace on a park bench; an embrace that would have sparked a wave of unsettling jealousy a few days ago.

I stared out at the brownish waters of the Charles, my mind’s eye full of my beloved, and how, in just over ninety minutes, we’d be naked together in bed, and he would, as before, be deep inside me, and we would tell each other again how this was the love of a lifetime, how we were no longer alone in the world.

My thoughts came back to that exchange with Norm. Clearly an interesting man. Clearly a lonely man. Clearly someone who wants to make a connection that might turn into the connection that changes the contours of his life.

He too was grappling with the fact that things had not turned out the way he wanted. Don’t give in to a bleak world view, I felt like telling him. Because life really can change on a dime.

Back at his shop twenty minutes later he handed me a substantial shopping bag with two one-litre tins of the paint. He also had a small sample of the tint in a jar lid. Dipping a thin brush into its bluish hue, he quickly outlined a square on a piece of artist’s paper, then (with several fast further dips of the brush) filled in the white space of the square so it was now all blue.

‘Now there is the standard-issue sky blue you see everywhere. And then there is Tetron Azure Blue — which has such a crystalline density to it, such a pure ultramarine depth. Look deep into that square and what do you see?’

‘Infinity. A very welcoming infinity. One with infinite possibilities.’

‘Nice,’ he said. ‘More than nice. And may I ask you a personal question?’

‘Yes, I’m married.’

‘Happily?’

‘Not at all.’

‘I see.’

‘But I am very much in love with somebody.’

His smile tightened into thin-lipped disappointment.

‘Lucky man,’ he finally said.

Forty minutes later — after deciding to walk all the way down Newbury Street and across the Common — I entered the hotel. My arm was a little stiff after lugging all that paint, but I didn’t care. I was full of rising elation and manic-adjacent physical desire. Taking the elevator up to the top floor I all but bounded down the hallway to the door of our suite, used my key card to pop the door open, and saw my suitcase just inside. Fantastic! He’s here.

‘Hello, my love,’ I shouted, thinking he must be in the bedroom.

But the only reply that came was silence.

‘Richard?’

Silence.

I moved into the bedroom. Empty.

‘Richard?’

Then I saw, on the bed, his new glasses folded atop his new jacket. Against a pillow there was a note. I reached for it. I read:

Dearest Laura,

I love you more than anything. But I can’t do this. I have to go home.

I am so sorry.

Richard

Four

HAVE YOU EVER noticed how, when terrible news is landed in front of you, the world suddenly goes so quiet? It’s as if the shock of the unbearable deadens all aural recognition of everything outside the reverberations of your extreme distress. I read the note once. I sat down on the bed. The same bed upon which we had consummated our love. The same bed to which we returned multiple times to lose ourselves in each other; to discover an intimacy that was hitherto a terra incognita for both of us.