Alan Isler The Living proof (pdf)

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than was sensible, and Cyrd had accounted on his own for two
bottles of Pape Clement 2001, Claire and I sharing a bottle
between us.
'On a diet, Cyrd?'
'Cholesterol problems, poor old fedow,' said Claire, reaching
over and clasping Cyril's horny hand. 'High blood pressure, qui
sait quoP. Wed, he's old, you know. We're getting on, Darby and
Joan, not young like you.' She smded, pleadingly.
Claire, of course, is much younger than I.
Cyrd frowned deeply, grunting. 'Fuck that. Eat what I want.
Not hungry, that's ad.'
Claire semaphored with her eyebrows and with pursed and
twitching lips: we would discuss Cyrd's health later, when he
was elsewhere.
After breakfast the fodowing morning Cyrd took me to one of
the barns in which he stored his canvases. The brisk air of the
outdoors, having blown through gills and across freshets, scree
and moors, was redolent of heather, of cotton grass, of wild
dowers, of health; it helped clear the dud ache in my head. I was
no longer able to debauch at night on whisky and wine and
awake unscathed the next day. We tramped across a yard stdl clut-
tered with the whimsical statuary Cyrd had budt years ago,
143
soldering together the bits and pieces of abandoned mechanical
devices. Low on the horizon, small clouds sped across the sky.
A kestrel hovering high above our heads swooped suddenly to
a distant rocky outcrop and rose on the instant, a writhing crea-
ture, perhaps a grass snake, in its talons.
I can remember when this barn was secured by a simple lock
and chain. That was in Murray's day, when wickets had been
chalked on the doors and Cyrd had bowled me countless overs.
No more. The barn's exterior is now a skin covering a win-
dowless, fortified chamber, its temperature and humidity con-
troded and constant. The doors themselves have been replaced
by a single steel slab that opens and closes on oiled roders
according to commands punched into a hand-held remote-control
device that Cyrd removed from his corduroy jacket. I might have
been participating in a James Bond movie, were it not that Q
(certainly not 007) had momentardy forgotten his code. 'It's
Murray's birthday' he said. 'Oh, Christ, I've forgotten it.'
'Why that?'
'I've told you before, she was the best of 'em. My way of
remembering her, you see, the times we'd had, that sort of thing.'
I gave him her birth date, which with trembling finger he
poked into the remote control. The door slid open to the ter-
rifying noise of savage snarling and barking, the unmistakable
sound of some vicious brute of a dog.
'Not to worry, it's just a ruse, a recording.' And in fact the
sound ceased when he turned on the lights.
The space was a white box, brilliantly iduminated. To the left
and the right were cubbies, two tiers high, each of them wide
enough to accommodate a single canvas on a stretcher. Before
us, however, hanging on the display wad, was the portrait Cyrd
had summoned me to Dibblethwaite to see. It was of Pody Kops.
It was almost identical to the one I had seen hanging in the
Connecticut home of Stan's brother, Jerome, the sitter's husband.
144
It differed only in that Polly, but for her string of pearls, was
totally naked. The book was gone from her lap. But the back-
ground, the angle of the light, the subtle tints, the pose, the
expression of aloof indifference, all were otherwise the same. And
yet it was a painting deliberately designed to evoke an erotic
response. It was impossible not to feel a frisson of desire, in which
were compounded not only a rueful awareness of the sitter's
indifference, but also, more importantly, the knowledge that she
was long since dead.
'You look at her, and what d'you see? An aristocrat, right?
Even naked she's clothed in this fucking aura of noblesse. Too
good for the rest of us.' Cyrd approached the painting, peered
closely at her bushy crotch, brought his hps together as if to kiss
it, and gently blew into the air a piece of fluff that had adhered
there. He grinned at me. 'Wondering what I was doing, were
you? Pygmalion and Galatea going through your head? At any
rate, I thought you'd like to take a look at her since you've seen
the other one.'
There was a padded bench placed for viewing, perhaps a dozen
feet before the portrait. Cyrd sat on it and gestured to me to
join him. We stared, two old men (one rather older and less
limber than the other), at Cyrd's magnificently naked maja, mute
in adoration. I thought that I would willingly give ad I had to
possess it.
'Has Jerome Kops seen this? Has Stan?'
'Not bloody likely'
We stared at the portrait for a while longer in sdence.
'She chewed gum incessantly, you know, happy to let you see
it move around in her mouth. Her voice was a reedy, high-
pitched whine, painful to the ear, to my ear anyway. And her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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