lion. And the fields were bright and green as peas – it must be all that English rain. The colours of the island were bright too – especially the sea. The sea could be sweet turquoise and it could be cruel navy. It could be blue as a sapphire or black as ink. He’d never known colour quite like it since.
In his father’s studio, paint would always be splattered everywhere – on paper and card and canvas; big dollops on the once-white tiles of the studio floor; rainbow freckles smattering pale walls. Tears of colour streaming and running and mixing – out of control, and yet under
his
control, as they all were. Enrique Marin was a man who could never be crossed.
Almost subconsciously, Andrés began to focus on the shapes he wanted to include in the picture. At this preliminary stage he was just doodling really – unsure as to what would go in. He started on the cliffs though; they were his framework. He loved the way the path wound to the top, the grassy cap which was covered in wild flowers, and he lovedthe scrolled shape of the sandy cliff edge – which over the years had eroded and crumbled on to the beach and into the sea.
His family had more than most on the island. His father and his father’s family before him had reared sheep and goats in the smallholding that surrounded the blue and white stone
casa
with its
postigos
, its little wooden shutters, and they grew the prickly pear cactus for the cochineal beetles, but his father’s heart was never in growing crops or keeping animals. He always had other things on his mind.
As soon as Enrique Marin started selling his work, he sold off the land to his neighbour, keeping only two goats and an area for growing vegetables, which Andrés’s mother tended. Sometimes – when his father’s work did not sell – it was all that kept them going.
The Canary Islands were known to the Romans as the Fortunate Isles; Andrés had learned that at school. But they were not perhaps so fortunate for everyone. They were not so fortunate for those who chose to speak up, for those who would not keep a secret, for those who refused to pretend.
*
On the paper, Andrés made a rough marker for where the sea would come, and the line of the horizon. And saw himself – four years old or five, ducking his head round his father’s studio door.
‘Andrés! Out!
Hacia fuera!
’ His father, wearing his loose pale blue cotton shirt and paint-spat shorts, would yell at him. Stabbing in the air with his brush. In his other hand was theusual thin cheroot; he couldn’t paint without smoking; couldn’t walk or think. He drew on it, coughed, flicked ash vaguely towards the ashtray and missed, as usual. He stooped slightly forwards, his shoulders hunched, his unruly dark hair held back from his face with a magenta fabric band that made him look like a Red Indian. He was livid. ‘I cannot work if I am to be constantly disturbed!’ Flick, point, ash. ‘Reyna!’
Andrés could hear him still.
Then his mother Reyna would come running and Andrés would scuttle away like a long-limbed cockroach, head down.
‘Never mind, my son,’ his mother would say, smoothing back her raven-dark hair and retying her apron. ‘You can work here in the kitchen with me.’
One day, back up to the studio she went, wiping her hands on a tea towel.
Andrés heard their voices rising and falling, rising and falling into silence. Those were the days when she was still allowed to enter the studio. His mother came back, shaking her head and clicking her tongue. She was carrying an old paint palette, some discarded sugar paper and a frayed brush. Andrés brightened. Work, she’d said. Work. Andrés liked that. It seemed to elevate him to the position of his father, to give him purpose. And he was to paint.
So, while his baby sister slept in her basket near the open door, where the breeze from the sea softly stirred the bamboo tassels hanging from the doorframe, and his mother did the household
In his father’s studio, paint would always be splattered everywhere – on paper and card and canvas; big dollops on the once-white tiles of the studio floor; rainbow freckles smattering pale walls. Tears of colour streaming and running and mixing – out of control, and yet under
his
control, as they all were. Enrique Marin was a man who could never be crossed.
Almost subconsciously, Andrés began to focus on the shapes he wanted to include in the picture. At this preliminary stage he was just doodling really – unsure as to what would go in. He started on the cliffs though; they were his framework. He loved the way the path wound to the top, the grassy cap which was covered in wild flowers, and he lovedthe scrolled shape of the sandy cliff edge – which over the years had eroded and crumbled on to the beach and into the sea.
His family had more than most on the island. His father and his father’s family before him had reared sheep and goats in the smallholding that surrounded the blue and white stone
casa
with its
postigos
, its little wooden shutters, and they grew the prickly pear cactus for the cochineal beetles, but his father’s heart was never in growing crops or keeping animals. He always had other things on his mind.
As soon as Enrique Marin started selling his work, he sold off the land to his neighbour, keeping only two goats and an area for growing vegetables, which Andrés’s mother tended. Sometimes – when his father’s work did not sell – it was all that kept them going.
The Canary Islands were known to the Romans as the Fortunate Isles; Andrés had learned that at school. But they were not perhaps so fortunate for everyone. They were not so fortunate for those who chose to speak up, for those who would not keep a secret, for those who refused to pretend.
*
On the paper, Andrés made a rough marker for where the sea would come, and the line of the horizon. And saw himself – four years old or five, ducking his head round his father’s studio door.
‘Andrés! Out!
Hacia fuera!
’ His father, wearing his loose pale blue cotton shirt and paint-spat shorts, would yell at him. Stabbing in the air with his brush. In his other hand was theusual thin cheroot; he couldn’t paint without smoking; couldn’t walk or think. He drew on it, coughed, flicked ash vaguely towards the ashtray and missed, as usual. He stooped slightly forwards, his shoulders hunched, his unruly dark hair held back from his face with a magenta fabric band that made him look like a Red Indian. He was livid. ‘I cannot work if I am to be constantly disturbed!’ Flick, point, ash. ‘Reyna!’
Andrés could hear him still.
Then his mother Reyna would come running and Andrés would scuttle away like a long-limbed cockroach, head down.
‘Never mind, my son,’ his mother would say, smoothing back her raven-dark hair and retying her apron. ‘You can work here in the kitchen with me.’
One day, back up to the studio she went, wiping her hands on a tea towel.
Andrés heard their voices rising and falling, rising and falling into silence. Those were the days when she was still allowed to enter the studio. His mother came back, shaking her head and clicking her tongue. She was carrying an old paint palette, some discarded sugar paper and a frayed brush. Andrés brightened. Work, she’d said. Work. Andrés liked that. It seemed to elevate him to the position of his father, to give him purpose. And he was to paint.
So, while his baby sister slept in her basket near the open door, where the breeze from the sea softly stirred the bamboo tassels hanging from the doorframe, and his mother did the household
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