Read Online The Watercolourist by Beatrice Masini - Free Book Online
Authors: Beatrice Masini
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her.’
‘You tremble?’
‘Out of repressed envy.’
D. Lyly, Delilah, Dalila: a woman of deceit. Deceit in order to exist. To write. In comparison, Bianca’s pencils, charcoals, all the accoutrements of her drawing, seem as bland as the
oatmeal that her mother served her at breakfast while her brothers enjoyed pumpernickel bread and sausages. Her flowers are mawkish in their light green and gold frames. The leaves in her sketches
have been dead for an age. Everything she does is so graciously finished – and so useless. Life looks so much better alive than when it is drawn on paper. When it is written about, on the
other hand, life becomes stronger, colourful, more vital. And what is more, writing comes to life each time you read it. A leaf drawn on a piece of paper does not. When a leaf dies, you have to
wait for spring to be able to see it again, and it will never be the same leaf it once was.
Bianca is curious. She wants to find out more about this mysterious Lyly, who is very possibly a woman. Who knows what depths and peaks of passion she has experienced in order to be able to
render them so miraculously well on paper? Maybe she is like her character Tamsin, both impulsive and obstinate, reaching out for everything she wants against all obstacles. She is never defeated,
only by death. But no, not even that can stop her . . .
‘The author is most likely a middle-aged man with gout,’ observes Innes playfully. ‘He spends every day at the club and has never travelled further than Hampstead.’
‘You like teasing me,’ Bianca protests.
‘You should write, if you think you might enjoy it,’ says Innes, both indulgently and in all seriousness. They are walking together in the rain as if they are in England. They cross
paths with servants and peasants who look at them askance. It is one thing to
have
to get wet, but another to do it on purpose, dragging one’s skirt through the high grass in a
strange pique. ‘Write. Try it out. No one is stopping you. I know that your true talent is drawing, but it needs to find its right course. Don’t tell me you’re only interested in
herbals. That’s just the surface.’
And so, with that challenge, Bianca gives writing a go. On a stormy night, illuminated by candlelight, she starts a fictitious diary. It doesn’t come easily to her. She gives herself a
false name, rolling it around in her mouth as though it is a strange sweet, unsure whether to keep sucking on it or spit it out. She writes out the false name three, five, ten times, tilting her
flourishes here and there. Finally, she recounts her experience travelling from Calais to Dover. She leaves out the more distressing details, the jumbling of innards, and favours a more romantic
sketch: two mysterious characters in wind-swept capes, the moon peeking out from behind the clouds . . . She rereads it. It has all been said before. She gives it another go, adding the innards and
their by-products. The effect makes her shiver. There is action and atmosphere, but it all feels shallow. She cannot find the right words. She ends up with blackened fingers and torn-up pages. It
is better to read than to write, she thinks. And what’s more, it’s easier.
She gets into bed to read the novel, and is immediately reunited with Aidan; she locks that silly Tamsin in the storeroom, ignores her small fists pounding on the door, steals her cape and
effortlessly clambers up on a horse behind her hero. Together they ride off bareback, the beast trembling beneath her thighs, her arms gripping his waist tightly. He, too, trembles with the fury of
the gallop. It is pouring with rain, and the moon is shining . . .
The moon is always present, she reflects as she closes the book, thunder sounding far off in the distance. She looks out at her own moon through the distorting glass pane of her window, and
thinks it looks like a fried egg.
It is always with us
, she thinks,
even when we don’t see it. And we need it
‘You tremble?’
‘Out of repressed envy.’
D. Lyly, Delilah, Dalila: a woman of deceit. Deceit in order to exist. To write. In comparison, Bianca’s pencils, charcoals, all the accoutrements of her drawing, seem as bland as the
oatmeal that her mother served her at breakfast while her brothers enjoyed pumpernickel bread and sausages. Her flowers are mawkish in their light green and gold frames. The leaves in her sketches
have been dead for an age. Everything she does is so graciously finished – and so useless. Life looks so much better alive than when it is drawn on paper. When it is written about, on the
other hand, life becomes stronger, colourful, more vital. And what is more, writing comes to life each time you read it. A leaf drawn on a piece of paper does not. When a leaf dies, you have to
wait for spring to be able to see it again, and it will never be the same leaf it once was.
Bianca is curious. She wants to find out more about this mysterious Lyly, who is very possibly a woman. Who knows what depths and peaks of passion she has experienced in order to be able to
render them so miraculously well on paper? Maybe she is like her character Tamsin, both impulsive and obstinate, reaching out for everything she wants against all obstacles. She is never defeated,
only by death. But no, not even that can stop her . . .
‘The author is most likely a middle-aged man with gout,’ observes Innes playfully. ‘He spends every day at the club and has never travelled further than Hampstead.’
‘You like teasing me,’ Bianca protests.
‘You should write, if you think you might enjoy it,’ says Innes, both indulgently and in all seriousness. They are walking together in the rain as if they are in England. They cross
paths with servants and peasants who look at them askance. It is one thing to
have
to get wet, but another to do it on purpose, dragging one’s skirt through the high grass in a
strange pique. ‘Write. Try it out. No one is stopping you. I know that your true talent is drawing, but it needs to find its right course. Don’t tell me you’re only interested in
herbals. That’s just the surface.’
And so, with that challenge, Bianca gives writing a go. On a stormy night, illuminated by candlelight, she starts a fictitious diary. It doesn’t come easily to her. She gives herself a
false name, rolling it around in her mouth as though it is a strange sweet, unsure whether to keep sucking on it or spit it out. She writes out the false name three, five, ten times, tilting her
flourishes here and there. Finally, she recounts her experience travelling from Calais to Dover. She leaves out the more distressing details, the jumbling of innards, and favours a more romantic
sketch: two mysterious characters in wind-swept capes, the moon peeking out from behind the clouds . . . She rereads it. It has all been said before. She gives it another go, adding the innards and
their by-products. The effect makes her shiver. There is action and atmosphere, but it all feels shallow. She cannot find the right words. She ends up with blackened fingers and torn-up pages. It
is better to read than to write, she thinks. And what’s more, it’s easier.
She gets into bed to read the novel, and is immediately reunited with Aidan; she locks that silly Tamsin in the storeroom, ignores her small fists pounding on the door, steals her cape and
effortlessly clambers up on a horse behind her hero. Together they ride off bareback, the beast trembling beneath her thighs, her arms gripping his waist tightly. He, too, trembles with the fury of
the gallop. It is pouring with rain, and the moon is shining . . .
The moon is always present, she reflects as she closes the book, thunder sounding far off in the distance. She looks out at her own moon through the distorting glass pane of her window, and
thinks it looks like a fried egg.
It is always with us
, she thinks,
even when we don’t see it. And we need it
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