Jessie Burton - The Muse

‘But I did not want for you to—’

‘This is madness,’ Isaac said. ‘This is una locura . My painting is here.’

‘Isaac, it’s just a bit of fun.’

‘This is not a game,’ said Isaac. ‘I have my painting here—’

‘Please, Isaac. Look, he might not sell Women in the Wheatfield . So it stays in the family after all. This will be forgotten. Then you can give him your one.’

‘But what if he sells yours? What if he sells an Isaac Robles that has not been painted by Isaac Robles?’

‘If it sells — well, I don’t want the money, and you need the money. I heard what you said about your father. If my father sells the painting, you could spend the money any way you wanted. New schoolbooks, trips out, food, equipment for your students, the workers.’ Olive paused. ‘“ What do you want in this life? ” Isn’t that what you asked me, Isa? Well, I want to be useful.’

‘Art is not useful.’

‘I don’t agree. It can make a difference. It can help your cause.’

‘I cannot do this.’

‘Isaac. Claim the painting in the other room. It means nothing to me.’

‘I don’t believe that, Olive.’

‘Let me do something useful. Let me be needed. I’ve never done anything useful in my life.’

‘But—’

‘I’m not going to admit that the painting in the front room is mine, Isaac. Not to my father, at least — and in this case, he is the only person who matters.’

‘But he has praised it. Teresa is right. I do not understand—’

Olive drew herself up, her face pale. ‘Listen. I cannot tell you how rarely my father has this reaction. Let’s not risk damaging that. Be the Isaac Robles that’s out there now. Just one painting.’

Isaac said nothing for a minute. He had a look of misery, his mouth downcast. Next to him, Teresa was pulling nervously at her cardigan. ‘But it is not his ,’ she whispered.

‘It is, if I give it to him,’ said Olive.

‘You will be invisible, señorita. You are giving yourself away—’

‘I’m doing the absolute opposite of giving myself away. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll be completely visible. If the painting sells, I’ll be in Paris, hanging on a wall. If anything, I’m being selfish. It’s perfect; all the freedom of creation, with none of the fuss.’

Isaac looked between his own painting and the kitchen door — beyond which, down the corridor, Women in the Wheatfield was waiting on the easel, and Harold’s exclamations could still be heard. The bottle of champagne Teresa had prepared popped, and Sarah laughed. Back and forth Isaac’s eyes went, between two possible selves.

‘Do not do this, Isaac,’ Teresa whispered. ‘Señorita, go in there and tell them that it is yours.’

‘Isaac, this could be our chance to do something extraordinary.’

Isaac pushed through the door and lumbered along the corridor. When he’d disappeared, Olive turned to Teresa, her eyes alight.

‘Take this upstairs for me. And don’t sulk. It’s all going to be fine. Hide it under the bed.’ She studied Isaac’s poorly rendered version of her face. ‘Is that what he thinks of me?’

‘I do not know,’ said Teresa. ‘It is just a painting.’

‘I know you don’t really think that,’ Olive said, with a smile.

If the smile was supposed to be a gesture of forgiveness for what Teresa had done, it did not lift her spirits. She watched as Olive skipped down the corridor, following Isaac’s path. The door of the front room opened again. Alone in the kitchen, Teresa heard laughter, and the repetitive clinking of glass.

Isaac walked back to the cottage in a daze. He was so tired, so hungover. Harold had got some woman on the telephone about the painting; she’d expressed interest, and he was off to Paris in the morning. The Schlosses had implored Isaac to stay for a celebratory dinner, but he couldn’t bear it. He felt like half a man. He almost hoped the thing wouldn’t sell, that Olive’s vendetta against her parents was a delayed adolescent whim soon to be forgotten, something she would look back on in years to come and laugh. The people . She wanted to help the people . She wanted to help herself, and Isaac knew he had made it possible.

He patted his pockets for his cigarettes, lit one, inhaled deeply and breathed out the smoke on a sigh. What was he doing? As he began the ascent to the cottage, the kites circled above him. He pushed open the door and thought again about the party, that kiss against the finca gate. It seemed half a year had passed since then. Olive’s insistence on coming to the church had showed a spontaneity and rebelliousness that he’d admired. He just didn’t realize quite how deep that spirit went.

He should simply have kept away from the finca from the very beginning. He should have said no to the commission, he should have told Teresa to find work elsewhere, he shouldn’t have stopped Olive in the dark, in her evening gown, hair flying everywhere. He should have marched into the front east room, bearing his own painting. He wasn’t up to pretending, and he didn’t want it.

The sound of feet on the gravel made him turn. It was Olive, running up the hill after him. She stopped to catch her breath, and he waited, immediately wary.

‘I just wanted to say, don’t worry. It’s going to be all right, I promise. If he sells it, the money’s yours. That’s it. The end.’

‘It’s done now.’

‘I promise you, Isaac. Just the one painting.’

‘Fine.’ He began to turn away.

‘And was it just the one kiss?’ she asked. He turned back to her, and she came closer, stopping just beyond his reach. They surveyed one another.

Isaac was done with her words, and tired of himself. He took her by the waist and pulled her towards him, kissing her hard on the mouth. Beneath him, Olive sprang to life, and he felt the power of her body responding as she kissed him back. He forced himself to pull away.

‘I’ve wanted this,’ Olive said. ‘Since the day we met.’

He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Wanted what?’

She stepped back. ‘You’ve allowed me this chance, Isaac. And I wondered why — and I thought — well, I thought—’

‘I did not allow you this chance. You took it.’

‘I think both of us can see this pretty clearly.’

‘Are you sure? What we have just done is exactly what a child would do. The three of us, whispering like children in the kitchen. It is make-believe. Only my sister tried to inject a bit of honesty into it.’

‘I wasn’t talking about the painting, Isaac.’ He was silent. A look of fear flickered over her face. ‘You don’t want me, then,’ she said.

Isaac felt something collapse inside himself. He turned towards the cottage and could hear Olive following him. ‘I just — I want it to be you,’ she said. He carried on walking, and could hear her steps.

He closed the door, and they stood facing each other. The light was dim, but he watched as Olive reached up and undid the top button of her blouse. She carried on, methodical as a sergeant major, button after button, letting the blouse fall off her shoulders, no brassiere beneath.

She stood before him, and her torso was perfect, her skirt a fabric stillness over the shape of her thighs. She must have thought Isaac was thinking of her, but he was not. He was thinking of that long-lost woman, Laetitia, twenty-seven years old and him, fifteen — and how grateful he was for her generosity to him that morning, how she’d never laughed, how she’d treated him like the man he’d been so desperate to become.

Isaac stepped forward and wrapped his hands around Olive’s waist. She gasped as he lifted her onto the table, her feet just touching the floor. She sat rigid as he drew a single finger all the way from her neck, between her breasts, down to the top of her skirt. She shivered and arched her back, lifting her hips and Isaac thought then, Why not, why not , and he brought his mouth to her breasts, kissing and kissing her, hearing her sharp inhalation as his finger stroked up the side of her leg and slid inside her knickers. Her legs tensed. ‘More?’ he murmured.