Jessie Burton - The Muse

‘And what did he say?’ Lawrie asked, laughing. I realized that never in Lawrie’s life would anyone say to him what that man had said to me.

‘He thought I was simple. I nearly lost my job. Cynth was furious. It’s true though — I’d be quite at home with Queen Elizabeth and that tall Greek husband of hers, drinking a cup of tea and petting those funny midget dogs she loves so much. Quite at home. “Your English is not as good as mine,” I should have said. “It does not have the length and the breadth, the meat and the smoke. Come at me with my Creole, with its Congo and its Spanish and its Hindi, French and Ibo, English and Bhojpuri, Yoruba and Manding.”’

Lawrie laughed again. ‘Oh, to see his face,’ I carried on, draining my cider glass. ‘With his Anglesaxon—’

‘Angle what?’

‘Two-up, two-down, a window with a view people never truly look at, because they think they know every shrub and flower, the bark of every tree and the mood of every cloud. But we made room for their patois too—’

‘Odelle,’ Lawrie said. ‘I would be happy with you for the rest of my life.’

‘Eh?’

‘You have this light, and when it switches on I don’t think you even realize what it does.’

‘What light? I was talking about—’

‘I love you, Odelle.’ His face was hopeful. ‘You inspire me.’

We sat in silence. ‘You tell it to all the girls,’ I said desperately, unsure what to say.

‘What?’

‘You’re not serious.’

He stared at me. ‘I am serious. I feel like time’s tricked me, as if I’ve known you from before. Like we passed each other in our prams. Like it’s been a waiting game to meet with you again. I love you.’

I said nothing, unable to respond. He looked down at the carpet.

No one had ever told me they loved me before. Why did he have to ruin our evening with talk of love and. . prams ? I felt panicked. Quick’s warnings flashed again through my mind — and I cursed her inside. Why should I be careful — and yet why could I not bear to hear Lawrie’s words?

I got off the sofa and walked to the windows. ‘You probably want me to go,’ I said.

He sat, motionless, looking at me with incredulity. ‘Why would I want you to go, after what I’ve just said?’

‘I don’t know! I — look, I’m not—’

‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s fine. I shouldn’t have—’

‘No — it’s just, I was — and then you—’

‘Forget I said anything. I — please, forget it. If that’s what you want, then I’ll drive you home.’

So Lawrie drove us back in silence up the deserted A3. I clasped my handbag tight to my body, feeling utterly miserable, my fingers clenched around the pamphlet I had stolen, and the pills Pamela had handed me only hours before. How could I explain to Lawrie that this was terrifying for me, and that I couldn’t exactly say why? We’d only just started, he barely knew me. I felt like he’d hoisted me onto a pedestal and left me with my legs dangling, and of course I’d managed to turn it into a trauma for the pair of us. Being alone was always so much easier.

I glanced only once at him, his profile coming in and out of the orange light as the car moved under the street lamps. His eyes were on the road, his jaw set. I didn’t know which of us felt more humiliated.

When we reached my flat, he pulled in. ‘I left your present in Surrey,’ he said, the engine still running.

‘Oh — I—’

‘Anyway. I’d better go.’ I got out, he revved the car and was off. I stood in the road, until the noise of his engine was replaced in my head by the sound of a silent scream.

I lay in bed awake, my bedside light still on past three. In my chest, my stomach, in my aching head, I felt pain for us both. That Lawrie loved me, I could not easily believe. Though he had never made me feel like an outsider, I couldn’t help worrying that he only liked me because I looked different to all the other girls in that gang he’d turned up with at Cynth’s wedding.

Lawrie had rushed in with his declaration of love — but did he really see me? I couldn’t imagine being someone who dived in for another like that; the sense that one’s molecules were being recalibrated; the sheer, multi-layered joy of being seen and adored, and adoring in return, the cycle of shyness to confidence as each new step was taken. To seek your beloved in a crowd, to lock your eyes and feel you have no truer place — it seemed impossible to me. I was — both by circumstance and nature — a migrant in this world, and my lived experience had long become a state of mind.

I didn’t know if I loved him, and that was also frightening — not to know, to be sure. Just be careful of him. You don’t just happen upon a painting like that, Odelle. I had tried so hard to shut Quick’s voice away. I wondered if she was the reason I could not drop my anchor with him as confidently as he’d declared his love. I leaned over, switching off the light, hoping in the dark for sleep. As I lay there, I couldn’t tell which fears were mine, now Quick had slipped her own inside my head.

The painting Olive had finished was propped against the wall. She was more proud of it than even The Orchard , and felt that she was creeping ever closer to that shining citadel. The new piece was a surreal composition, colourful, disjointed to the gaze. It was a diptych; Santa Justa before her arrest and after, set against a dark indigo sky and a shining field. Olive had decided to call it Santa Justa in the Well .

The left half of the painting was lush and glowing. Olive had used ordinary oils, but had also experimented with gold leaf, which glinted in the light as she held the painting up. She’d always thought of gold leaf as an alchemist’s dream, a contained ray of sun. It was the colour of queens, of wise men, of shimmering land in high summer. It reminded her of the Russian Orthodox icons she had always wanted to touch as a little girl, when her father took her to the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

In the middle of the healthy land on this left-hand side stood a woman, her hair the colour of the crop. She was carrying a heavy pot with deer and rabbits painted on it, and in its centre was the face of the goddess Venus. Both the faces of the woman and Venus looked proud, staring out at the viewer.

On the right half of the painting, the crop was deadened and limp. The woman appeared again, except this time she was curled inside a circle, hovering over the crop. This circle was filled with an internal perspective to make it look as if it had depth, as if the woman was lying at the bottom of a well. Her hair was now severed and dull, her pot had smashed around her, a puzzle impossible for anyone to piece together. Around the rim of the well, full-sized deer and rabbits peered down, as if set free from the broken crockery. Venus had vanished.

Olive could hear soft knocking at the attic door, and she sat up. ‘Who is it?’ she asked, her voice half-strangled with hope that it might be him.

‘It is Teresa.’

‘Oh.’

‘The party is in a few hours, señorita. Can I come in?’

Olive leapt up and hid the painting under the bed. ‘Yes,’ she said.

Recently, Teresa had begun to help Olive keep her room in order. It was an unspoken agreement. Olive had not invited it, but she liked it; the attention, the paint brushes laid out for another day’s work. Her clothes were always neatly folded on her chair or hanging in her cupboard, her unfinished canvases were turned to face the wall, the way she liked it when it was time for bed. Olive would turn them back in the morning, and work up there unbothered.