Read Online The Hearts and Lives of Men by Fay Weldon - Free Book Online

Leonardo’s property.
    And John Lally had, in a way, trusted Clifford, even while hating and despising him, because in spite of everything Clifford had some sort of proper response to his work; and John Lally had felt sure that whatever else befell, Clifford would at least never do what some collectors did—put the paintings in a bank vault somewhere for safekeeping. This being to the painter the same as rendering him blind and deaf.
    And now Clifford had done exactly this. And not, John Lally was convinced, when he roused himself from his stupor, and found the paintings gone, simply in order to preserve the canvases—they had survived many such a storm before and even as he shredded Fox Plus Chicken Pieces he was working out a new improved version in his head—but to be revenged. John Lally the impoverished artist, breaking down, splintering Clifford Wexford’s bedroom door, bursting in upon him—no, it was not forgotten, let alone forgiven! No. This was why eight fine paintings were now immured in Leonardo’s vault, while Clifford smiled and said lightly, “It’s for John Lally’s own good” and stretched his white daughter yet again upon the black satanic sheets. It was the artist’s punishment.
    It was fifteen days before Evelyn dared to creep back into Applecore Cottage and start washing and sweeping again, and three months before life returned to anything resembling normal. John Lally then got on with The Rape by the Sabine Women in which he depicted the latter as insatiable harpies. A silly idea, but well-executed: he painted it on the wall of the henhouse, on the ground that it could then hardly end up in Leonardo’s vaults. Rather, wind and rain would presently obscure the painting altogether.

LITTLE NELL’S INHERITANCE
    F OR SIX WEEKS NOW little Nell had snuggled tenderly and safely in Helen’s womb. She had inherited at least a degree of her maternal grandfather’s artistic talent, but not, you will be relieved to hear, his temper or his neuroses; she had all and more of her maternal grandmother’s sweetness, but not her tendency to the acute masochism which so often goes with it. She had her father’s energy and wit and not his, well, sneakiness. She was all set up to have her mother’s looks, but, unlike her mother, she was to feel it below her dignity to lie. All this, of course, was simply the luck of the draw: and not just Nell’s luck but ours as well—all of us who were to encounter her in later life. But our Nell had another quality too—her capacity to attract toward her the most untoward, even dangerous events, and the most disagreeable people. Perhaps it was in her stars: a tendency to drama inherited from Clifford’s father Otto—his early life, too, was lived in hazard—or perhaps it was, as my own mother would have it, that where you have angels, you have demons too. Evil circles good, as if trying to contain it: good being the powerful, moving, active force, and evil the nagging, restraining one. Well, you must make up your own mind as you read Nell’s story. This is a Christmas tale, and Christmas is a time for believing in good, rather than bad: for seeing the former, not the latter, on the winning side.
    As for Helen, she suspected that perhaps Nell, or someone, had come into existence, inasmuch as she suffered from a faint dizziness which affected her whenever she stood too suddenly, and because her breasts were so swollen and sore she could scarcely forget they were there—which most women do, most of the time, unless and until they’re pregnant. These symptoms, mind you, or so she told herself, might be due to love, and nothing more. The fact was that Helen didn’t want to be pregnant. Not yet. There was far too much to be done, seen, explored, thought about in the world which so suddenly and newly included Clifford.
    And how could she, Helen, scarcely yet herself properly in the world, bring someone else along into it? And how could Clifford love her if she was