Chatterton Read online

  On considering the painting once again, Charles decided that he was at least intrigued by it. And at once the idea of simply selling his books became absurd; the money would soon be gone, but this portrait would always remain in his possession. He became cheerful again: ‘I would certainly be interested in an exchange.’

  ‘Exchange me, would you, you banditto?’ Mrs Leno was very playful.

  ‘But has she the heart to part with it? Speak, Mrs Leno, or forever -‘ A kettle whistled somewhere in the adjacent room and Mr Leno, turning on his heels, was gone.

  Mrs Leno might very well bear to part with this particular portrait, since its presence in the shop had made her uneasy from the beginning. On several occasions she had dragged it from its hiding place and brandished it in front of her husband, saying, ‘There is death on that face!’ To which his invariable reply was, There is death on every face.’

  A small cough announced Mr Leno’s return, and she wheeled herself around to speak to him: ‘Early nineteenth century. No frame. Oil on canvas. Twenty by thirty. Do we or don’t we?’ Then she added, glancing up at Charles with a wistful expression, ‘But can I send it into the outer world? There is majesty there.’ She pointed to the picture. ‘Like a secret ray.’

  There was, perhaps, a slight impatience in her husband’s voice. ‘Will she part with it for the sake of two bound volumes?’

  ‘A flute for a lord. A flute for a lord. What shall it be, Mr Leno, what shall it be?’

  ‘Shall we finger the flute, my darling?’ They looked at each other quickly.

  ‘It is done!’ she cried, wheeling her chair towards her husband so that she seemed about to crush him. The dirty deed is done! The poet has vanquished me. I am glad to be wearing black today.’ Charles followed her, eagerly holding out the canvas, but she shrank back in her chair. ‘No, no. It is yours now.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Charles laughed. ‘I just wondered if you could wrap it up.’ And he held out his right hand, to show her the dust he had picked up from the side of the painting. She looked at his fingers in horror.

  ‘We have a bag.’ Mr Leno stepped between them, and took the picture. There is always a bag to be had.’

  Mrs Leno doffed her violet hat at the painting, murmured ‘Farewell my lovely’, and retreated backwards up the ramp into the other room while her husband was trying unsuccessfully to stuff the canvas into a plastic carrier-bag with ‘Europe 80’ emblazoned in yellow letters on its side.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Charles said, taking the painting from him, ‘it really doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It always matters.’ Mr Leno gave a solemn bow, and took Charles to the door. ‘But it is tea-time.’

  As soon as Charles had descended the stairs, and was about to enter the yard, he heard once again the hysterical screams and bellows of the argument which he had interrupted a few minutes before. But he was still smiling when he walked back along Dodd’s Gardens, carrying the picture in front of him. He was looking out for the black dog, so that he could show it to him, and he hesitated at the spot where he had last seen him. He looked down into the area of the house beside him, but there was nothing there except moss, ragweed, discarded beer-cans and slivers of dark green grass which gleamed in the weak light of the sun. Then he looked up and found himself gazing through the ground-floor window into a bare room; the curtains were half-drawn but he could distinctly see a young child standing upright in a corner of the room. He was holding his arms stiffly against his sides and seemed to be staring back at Charles, who noticed a small bird perched on the child’s right shoulder. Then a cloud passed across the sun, and the interior of the room grew dark. oh yes The Wychwoods lived on the third floor of a house in West London; it had once been a Victorian family residence of some grandeur, but in the Sixties it had been converted into a number of small flats. Certain of the original features had been retained, however – in particular the staircase which, although some of its boards were sagging and many of its banisters were chipped or broken, still curved gracefully from floor to floor. Charles had just turned onto its third landing when he saw his son, Edward, sprawled across the top stair.

  ‘You’re late, Dad.’ He was resting his chin upon his hands, reading the Beano, and did not look up at his father.

  ‘No, I’m not, Edward the Impossible. You’re early.’ The boy gave a hollow laugh, and carried on reading. ‘Where’s your key, Edward the Unprepared?’

  ‘You took it from me yesterday. You lost yourn.’

  ‘Yours, Edward the Unexpected, yours. Where was you dragged up?’ Charles tried to grab his son’s spiky brown hair and then, delicately stepping over him, ran laughing to his door. Edward put the comic up to his face and smiled broadly; then he rose and, composing his expression into a scowl, followed his father into the front room of the flat.

  This room looked as if it were being occupied by a student, and in fact the orange vinyl chairs, the flimsy pine table, the sagging sofa, and the posters advertising various examples of film noir had all come from Charles’s lodgings at university. (So, for that matter, had most of his clothes.) Charles had already entered his ‘study’ – a corner of the room with a wooden screen, painted bright green, placed around it – and Edward tiptoed towards it. Holding his breath, he peered through its grooves and was rather surprised to see his father talking to a picture of an old man. ‘You are my masterpiece,’ he was saying. Edward retreated into the room and remained silent when his father called out, ‘Edward the Idolater! Come here for a moment and see what I’ve got!’ No reply. ‘It’s important, Eddie!’ So the boy, with feigned reluctance, walked around the screen. ‘What do you think of this?’

  Edward glanced briefly at the canvas. ‘It’s a fake.’

  Charles had already half-convinced himself that he had acquired a painting of great value, and he was somewhat disappointed by this response. ‘Now where did you learn little words like that, Edward the Ungenerous?’

  The boy resisted the temptation to smile. ‘Mum’ll kill you when she finds out.’

  Charles put down the painting and put one hand against his chest. ‘What sweeter death to die. I don’t think.’ And at that Edward did laugh; at once Charles made a lunge for him, picked him up and began tickling his legs and ankles. The boy was helpless with laughter but with one great effort he burst out with, ‘Mum’ll murder you for spending her money!’ Charles stopped tickling him and gravely set him down. Edward stepped back, rubbed his eyes and then looked defiantly at his father; but Charles had once more taken up the portrait and started a low, tuneless whistle as he pretended to look it over. In an effort to placate him the boy put his arms around his waist and whispered, ‘It’s a fake.’

  ‘Haven’t you got something to do, Edward the Unemployed?’ Charles hesitated on the last word, seemed to his son to be blushing, and went on, ‘I’m busy.’ Then he added, in languorous voice, ‘I want to be alone, Edwardino.’

  In fact something really did seem to be occupying him because he put down the canvas, and from a drawer in his small wooden desk he took out a sheet of paper. He rolled it through his portable typewriter, and then wrote PART THREE The Bridges of Contentment Charles looked out of the window, so lost in thought that he did not realise how his eyes took fright at the endless sky and how they focussed instead upon a sparrow shivering upon a rooftop opposite. Its left wing seemed to have decayed and the air trembled around it; Charles’s eyes shifted again, trying to erase that image. He had been working for some weeks on a long poem, but he was happy to compose it slowly and infrequently: it was just a matter of time before he was recognised, and he did not believe himself to be in any particular hurry. He was so certain of his own gifts that he had no intention of yielding to the conventional anxieties about recognition; not yet.

  He was pleased with the line he had just written and with a sudden rush of enthusiasm he picked up the painting again and put it on the desk in front of him. His eyes ached, and for a moment he placed his right hand across them. Then he licked
the tip of his index finger and passed it slowly over the painted surface of the four volumes beside the mysterious seated figure: there was now a smear in the dust which covered the canvas, and Charles believed that he could see faint traces of lettering on the books themselves. He licked his finger clean as he contemplated them.

  ‘Dad!’

  ‘Hello!’

  ‘What are you doing, Dad?’

  ‘I’m eating the past.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m engaged in an act of research.’

  ‘Can you come here please?’

  Charles was not wholly displeased by this fresh interruption of his work, and with a theatrical gesture he got up and moved the screen aside. ‘What is it, Edward the Exasperating?’ He was about to advance on his son when the front door opened and Vivien Wychwood walked into the room. Charles stopped in mid-stride and looked almost shyly at her, while Edward called out, ‘Hello, Mum’, took her arm and tried to lead her into the kitchen. He was hungry.

  But she held back. ‘How’s it going?’ she asked her husband quietly.

  ‘Oh, it’s going.’ He had a sudden image of movement which could not be resisted, and of himself as part of that flow.

  ‘Did your headache come back?’

  ‘No. I gave it to Edward. He wants to take it to school with him.’

  ‘Don’t joke about it, Charles. You’d joke on your deathbed.’ She looked exhausted after her day’s work, but still she managed to smile as Charles feigned death and fell across the sofa, with one arm trailing upon the carpet. Edward sprawled on top of him, and they began a mock fight while Vivien watched them. But, as soon as she had taken off her coat and walked into the kitchen, they stopped. Edward turned on the television and lay in front of it, while Charles lingered in the doorway of the kitchen and watched his wife preparing the evening meal.

  ‘I picked up a bargain today,’ he said at last.

  Vivien closed her eyes for a moment, already fearing the worst. ‘Did you get on with your work, Charles?’

  ‘I found a portrait which might be extremely valuable.’

  ‘Don’t forget that Philip is coming for dinner.’ She was chopping some carrots with great ferocity; she was used to his enthusiasms, which generally vanished as quickly as they had arrived, but she still became angry when they interfered with his writing.

  Edward called out above the sound of the television, ‘He’s wasting our money, Mum. It’s a fake!’

  Vivien showed her anger now, but directed it towards her son. ‘Don’t talk like that about your father! He works very hard!’

  Charles went up to her and gently put his arm around her, as if she were the one who needed defending. ‘Won’t you just come and look at it, Viv? I think you’ll like it.’ So with a sigh she turned and followed him into the front room; he ducked behind the screen and then sprang out again, holding the painting in front of him so that his face was hidden from her. ‘Voila!’ His voice sounded slightly muffled.

  And Edward screamed, ‘Mange tout!’ This was the only French phrase he knew.

  Vivien did not seem particularly impressed. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I didn’t buy it,’ Charles was saying, ‘I exchanged it. Do you remember those books about the flute?’

  ‘But who is it?’

  Charles’s head appeared from behind the canvas, and he peered around to look at the seated figure. ‘Don’t you see that very intelligent expression? I think he must be a relation.’ Edward gave a loud, hollow laugh.

  ‘He looks shifty to me.’

  ‘But doesn’t he look familiar? I can’t put my finger on it –’

  ‘You did put your finger on it, Dad.’ Edward was no longer pretending to be engrossed in the television programme. ‘I saw you.’

  Already Vivien seemed to have lost interest in the subject. ‘Can I see what you’ve written today?’ she asked, going over to Charles’s desk.

  Apparently he had not heard her. ‘I think he may be a great writer. Look at those books beside him.’

  Vivien was looking down at the one line which Charles had composed that afternoon and she said, gently, ‘Don’t worry if you can’t write every day, love. Once you’ve got rid of those headaches –’

  Charles was suddenly very angry. ‘Will you please stop talking about that?’ For some weeks he had been suffering from intermittent headaches, with the loss of peripheral vision in his left eye. He had seen a doctor, who had diagnosed migraine and given him some pain-killers; this had perfectly satisfied Charles, who considered the naming of his condition almost equivalent to the curing of it. ‘I am not sick!’ He went over to the window, and looked out at the row of early Victorian houses on the other side of the road; and, as the evening sun gleamed on the faded stucco, he had a vision of the street as some unreal thing without depth or volume: if it was Victorian it was only as a diorama, a roll of canvas which unwound and gave the sensation of a moving world. It was like some dream of oppression, and he knew that he had to wake from it before it enclosed him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, turning round, ‘I didn’t mean to shout.’ Edward was looking at him solemnly. ‘You and I, Eddie,’ he went on, wanting to change the subject quickly, ‘are going to investigate that picture. We’re going to solve the mystery.’

  Edward got up from the floor and took the hands of both parents, exclaiming, ‘We’ll all do it!’

  But this exchange seemed only to depress Vivien who, slowly releasing her hand and bending down to kiss her son on the top of his head, walked back into the kitchen. ‘Philip will be here soon,’ she said, ‘so both of you get ready.’ if this is real Philip Slack stood uncertainly in the middle of the room; he had known Charles for fifteen years (they had been at university together) but, with his head slightly bowed and his hands moving nervously from the pockets of his jacket to the pockets of his trousers, looking for nothing in particular, it was as if he were still unsure of the welcome, if any, he was about to receive.

  Edward turned briefly from the television. ‘Where did Dad go?’

  ‘Wine.’ Philip looked down as he spoke to the boy, rendering his low voice more sepulchral still. ‘Opening the wine.’ He always brought two bottles with him on his weekly visit and, when he offered them rather sheepishly, Charles was always surprised by the gift.

  Edward smiled at him in a friendly sort of way. ‘Can I touch your beard, Philip?’

  ‘Oh.’ He hesitated, not quite sure how this could be arranged. ‘I suppose so.’ He bent down a little, and Edward gave it a sharp tug. ‘Ouch!’

  ‘It is real.’ The boy sounded disappointed.

  At this moment Charles came out of the kitchen, carrying the opened bottles of wine. ‘You might as well sit down, Philip. You’re making our Eddie nervous.’

  Philip cleared his throat. ‘Here?’

  ‘Anywhere you like.’ Charles waved the bottles, spilling some red wine on the carpet. ‘Everything I have is yours.’ Philip carefully looked around before choosing his usual and most uncomfortable chair, while Charles was already stretching out upon the sofa. ‘Hard day at the office, dear?’

  ‘Computers.’ Philip worked as a public librarian.

  ‘Tell me now, what are they?’

  Philip was used to his friend’s apparent nonchalance. ‘Learning computers. You know.’

  ‘No, I don’t know.’ He was very cheerful. ‘It’s funny but I don’t, Philip. We unemployed people are rather like that. Essentially we are dreamers. We are on a higher plane.’ Edward laughed at his father’s joke. ‘And that reminds me. I’ve got something to show you.’ He jumped up from the sofa and Philip, nervous at the sudden movement, rose slightly from his own chair. Edward noticed this, and smiled. ‘What do you think of it?’ Charles brought out the canvas with a flourish and held it a few inches from Philip’s face.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a portrait, I believe. What do you think it is?’ He took a few steps back and moved the painting from side to side, with a movement like tha
t of a striptease dancer: Philip could only properly focus on the eyes, which seemed to remain quite steady.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘This is the mystery, Holmes. Once I’ve solved it, I’m a rich man!’ But at this moment Vivien came into the room carrying dishes, and Charles quickly put the canvas away. Philip rose awkwardly to greet her, blushing as he did so. He admired Vivien; he admired her for ‘saving’ Charles, as he often put it to himself. He was quite objective about this: he knew that her resourcefulness protected Charles just as surely as her patience calmed him and now, as he kissed her on the cheek, he breathed in her warm perfume.

  Edward was tugging at the side of her dress, wanting attention. ‘Don’t touch his beard, Mum. It’s real. It hurts.’

  After a few moments they sat around the small dining table, and Vivien ladled out the soup. ‘What’s this?’ Edward asked, grimacing at the brown liquid being poured into his plate.

  Charles laughed at his son’s discomfiture. ‘Mulligatawny, Eddie. Old Widow Twankey soup, made from little boys. You never know, you might find one of your friends in it.’

  ‘Don’t, Charles.’ Vivien was not amused. ‘You’ll give him bad dreams.’

  Edward was looking from one to the other, giggling. Charles whispered something in his ear, and the boy was so bent over with laughter that Vivien had to haul him back up to the table. Then, after some prompting from Vivien, Philip began haltingly to talk about his work – how there was a prospect of a strike among the cleaners, how there was talk of banning certain books and newspapers which offended the various prejudices of his colleagues. But the subject of Philip’s employment never seemed particularly to interest Charles who, allowing his soup to grow cold, began telling a long and involved story about ghosts to his son. It ended when he cried out, in a high voice, ‘You all will die!’ In the general silence which followed this, Vivien cleared the table and then brought out the main course of lamb chops, carrots and chips. Now Charles and Philip, as they often did, began to discuss the contemporaries whom they had first met at university. They exchanged the latest news about certain frustrated or unlucky lives, but the sympathy which both men actually felt went largely unstated. Vivien had been an office secretary before she met Charles and this reticence had surprised her at first; now she took their peculiar obliquities for granted. Of their more successful contemporaries they spoke even less and, when they did so, it was with a tentativeness which bordered on indecision; it was as if both men were aware of the risks of seeming envious. There had been a time when Charles spent many agreeable hours with Philip parodying or abusing, light-heartedly, the work of young writers in whom he saw no possible merit. But in more recent years he had stopped doing this. And Philip, more relaxed now with the wine, was saying, ‘There’s a new Flint.’