Read Online Prosperous Friends by Christine Schutt - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Christine Schutt
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painted the white horse series?
“Not much,” he said. “The palette changes.” That was vague; he turned quotable. The horses were the visual equivalent of his state of mind at the time he painted them. The source of his pain was too petty to relate. “When I was in California, I did a lot of sketches of horses. Horses are very beautiful to me, even the most ragged has a soulful expression.”
Sally loved the horses; she had one of the paintings.
“One winter when my wife and I were housebound, I painted the horses. All the different shades of white outside and inside were a comfort and a drag.”
“So the landscape informed your ‘white’ period?”
“Death,” Clive said, “informs everything I see.”
Were artists relevant, could they instruct?
That was not the point. When he was painting, Clive said, he wasn’t thinking about meaning; he was looking to feel something.
Clive had said all there was to say, and if the young man had to end on a light note, well, he could finish the interview with a description of the scene, old man in the foreground and, behind, the suggestion of a woman on a Barcelona couch; both just strokes of paint, faces vacant.
“You’ve been more than generous with your time,” the young man said, and he stood and looked to the other end of the bleached wood and white gallery and waved good-bye to Sally, who came forward after the young man had left.
“I called Dinah,” she said. “She said you’re going to invite a complete stranger to live in the Bridge House for the summer.”
“Isabel Bourne is not a stranger.”
“I bet,” Sally said.
*
Ned was in Boston, or so he had told Isabel when Clive came to the White Street loft. He came with chicken soup and wonky cheeses packed in grass, the Easter-basket kind.
“Wasted on you,” he said. “I know your type.”
“What was it reminded you of me?” she asked him.
He had been thinking of her. He wanted to paint her. She would have time alone, too, to write. She could stay in the Bridge House.
“But your daughter . . .”
“The Bridge House is mine,” he said. He described an old house, barely furnished; the kitchen counter tin and patched in places. The house was empty for a couple of years while the original owner was in the nursing home. She was the last of her line. “For a while it looked as if the house might be left to fall but a goddaughter was willed it. She sold it from afar, cheaply. There is no bridge. Dinah made up the name: the Bridge House for a house without a bridge. Our own house doesn’t have a name. We’ve a stone wall, a barn for me to paint in, and Dinah’s garden. Why are you smiling?”
“What about your wife? What about Ned? Why do you think I would do this?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Clive said. “Most people I invite say yes.”
Noisy moths battered the barn light in her brain as he talked about firefly season. Not to be missed, and the light, especially in the afternoon, in the late afternoon, he described the way it turned their bedroom pink.
“Why are you telling me this?”
The phone rang and rang and rang until the answering machine clicked, and they heard Ned saying, “This should make you happy . . .” before Isabel muted the machine. “I’ll find out later,” she said, “and it won’t make me happy, I’m sure.”
“But be happy now,” Clive said. “Come sit next to me. I’ll be quiet.”
In Clive Harris she had found a new album in which to put any pictures she wanted: a white pitcher of cream on a round table, covered in a checkered cloth, two skinny French park chairs unevenly settled on the pebbled path. Where was this? France, Spain, Italy? France. Nice—Neese. To say nice seemed cornball, but that was Clive to her.
“I am not nice,” he said. He was thinking of Sally, poor Sally and the drab adjectives he used whenever he spoke of what she was but might have been.
An only, lonely daughter. “I am one of those, and Ned is an only,
“Not much,” he said. “The palette changes.” That was vague; he turned quotable. The horses were the visual equivalent of his state of mind at the time he painted them. The source of his pain was too petty to relate. “When I was in California, I did a lot of sketches of horses. Horses are very beautiful to me, even the most ragged has a soulful expression.”
Sally loved the horses; she had one of the paintings.
“One winter when my wife and I were housebound, I painted the horses. All the different shades of white outside and inside were a comfort and a drag.”
“So the landscape informed your ‘white’ period?”
“Death,” Clive said, “informs everything I see.”
Were artists relevant, could they instruct?
That was not the point. When he was painting, Clive said, he wasn’t thinking about meaning; he was looking to feel something.
Clive had said all there was to say, and if the young man had to end on a light note, well, he could finish the interview with a description of the scene, old man in the foreground and, behind, the suggestion of a woman on a Barcelona couch; both just strokes of paint, faces vacant.
“You’ve been more than generous with your time,” the young man said, and he stood and looked to the other end of the bleached wood and white gallery and waved good-bye to Sally, who came forward after the young man had left.
“I called Dinah,” she said. “She said you’re going to invite a complete stranger to live in the Bridge House for the summer.”
“Isabel Bourne is not a stranger.”
“I bet,” Sally said.
*
Ned was in Boston, or so he had told Isabel when Clive came to the White Street loft. He came with chicken soup and wonky cheeses packed in grass, the Easter-basket kind.
“Wasted on you,” he said. “I know your type.”
“What was it reminded you of me?” she asked him.
He had been thinking of her. He wanted to paint her. She would have time alone, too, to write. She could stay in the Bridge House.
“But your daughter . . .”
“The Bridge House is mine,” he said. He described an old house, barely furnished; the kitchen counter tin and patched in places. The house was empty for a couple of years while the original owner was in the nursing home. She was the last of her line. “For a while it looked as if the house might be left to fall but a goddaughter was willed it. She sold it from afar, cheaply. There is no bridge. Dinah made up the name: the Bridge House for a house without a bridge. Our own house doesn’t have a name. We’ve a stone wall, a barn for me to paint in, and Dinah’s garden. Why are you smiling?”
“What about your wife? What about Ned? Why do you think I would do this?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Clive said. “Most people I invite say yes.”
Noisy moths battered the barn light in her brain as he talked about firefly season. Not to be missed, and the light, especially in the afternoon, in the late afternoon, he described the way it turned their bedroom pink.
“Why are you telling me this?”
The phone rang and rang and rang until the answering machine clicked, and they heard Ned saying, “This should make you happy . . .” before Isabel muted the machine. “I’ll find out later,” she said, “and it won’t make me happy, I’m sure.”
“But be happy now,” Clive said. “Come sit next to me. I’ll be quiet.”
In Clive Harris she had found a new album in which to put any pictures she wanted: a white pitcher of cream on a round table, covered in a checkered cloth, two skinny French park chairs unevenly settled on the pebbled path. Where was this? France, Spain, Italy? France. Nice—Neese. To say nice seemed cornball, but that was Clive to her.
“I am not nice,” he said. He was thinking of Sally, poor Sally and the drab adjectives he used whenever he spoke of what she was but might have been.
An only, lonely daughter. “I am one of those, and Ned is an only,
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