The doorbell rang.
The doorbell never rang unless heralded by some kind of prior communication whether by email or telephone or even, on one occasion, by an ageing Pyrenean Mountain Dog. He had threaded his way over the footbridge across the tiny stream at the borders of his garden and had made his way through the many maze-like, hedged enclosures of his long, narrow haven of peace, all the while carrying a short, but by now damp, message in his jaws that read 'ffi and Lucia will be arriving a little earlier than planned' and 'please to answer the doorbell'. What friends he had made in the village and in the surrounding farms had long ago learned that a random, impromptu visit would only garner a steadfast refusal to come to the door or else a coruscating diatribe from the studio window about how he was not to be disturbed while working unless it were a matter of life and death and, even then, only if it concerned his own death or, for that matter, his own life. He was, after much thought and quite deliberately, too far off the beaten track to ever be disturbed by Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, evangelicals in search of converts to a disinterested God; traveling salesmen and hawkers, purveyors of tea-towels or dusters wrapped in cheap cellophane; earnest, insistent adolescents eager for him to switch from his current electricity or gas supplier. What meters there were that might need to be read by the utility companies, and the post-box, were easily to hand down by the front gate to the long drive that led to his door; parcels, too large for the post-box, were always collected from the post office in the village or from the sorting office in town. The only exception to this rigid rule was the driver of the refrigerated van who delivered his monthly groceries from the supermarket and who had the privilege of being one of the few to possess the secret of where a key to the gate was kept.
The doorbell rang once more.
Pretend that you are out, he thought, although he was puzzled as to who might be at the door; someone who did not know him at all well, that, at least, was clear. The locals were too well trained, although that might surmise a purpose or an intent which, in truth, was not, and never had been, present; perhaps conditioned, in the manner of Pavlov's dogs, would be a better summation of the relationship that existed between the artist and those that surrounded him somewhat distantly on all sides. However, he was puzzled and not a little intrigued by this nameless and faceless stranger who seemed somehow determined to speak with him.
The doorbell rang for a third time.
It was difficult to work himself up to the ire required to deliver a diatribe and he did not want to allow any chinks in his armour of resolve, any weakening of the walls that he had built to surround his solitude nor any dilution to his anger, whether feigned or real; it was mostly false. That morning had started brightly, as filled with promise and prospect as any had recently; his illustrated book for children about a peregrine laggard had finally found a publisher, a tale for the twenty first century, full of concerns for the environment; the pancakes, heavy with maple syrup, at breakfast had tasted better than they had done in an age and, at 6:50am precisely, Rory, the inappropriately named Irish Setter bitch, had begun giving birth to her five pups, no doubt pups that were destined for a life as witless and dopey as their mother's had been so far; pups that he would surely have to retain for no-one else would want them, feckless eegits and ne'er-do-wells as they would surely become when fully grown. Rory was indeed an excellent canine pointer, just as long as you needed her to point at wood pigeons; the dog was, however, in no way to be persuaded, despite his best efforts through the years, that pheasant were a better target for her attention, although the occasional bumble bee or butterfly would sometimes take her attention away from the one thing which nobody wants a setter to point at, pigeons!
The doorbell rang again. This was fast becoming tedious and irritating!
He put down his palette and suspended the brushes in water on a small 'hand-made' 'dolly' which he had made in the tool shed with awl and chisel (and mallet) from scraps of wood and an old plastic paint-kettle and rued the day that he had ever started to paint with acrylic; this would cost him dear, this interruption. He hated cleaning his palettes, the paint dried so quickly, in minutes without retarder, and became just like plastic when hardened! It took detergent and a scouring pad just to get the palette clean and pristine, although he was fortunate in becoming friendly with the local potter and ceramic artist, who had kindly made glazed, ceramic palettes in the traditional style for him in return for a small watercolour of two wrens playing on the windowsill of her small pottery studio.
He went out onto the narrow, wrought-iron balcony which lay beyond the French doors to his studio and directly above the front door to the house; north-facing it was, as befits a painter, although he supplemented that light in the dreary, overcast British winter with an array of fluorescent 'daylight' bulbs mounted on steel 'goose-necks'; his eyesight was sadly, much like his good sense, not improving with age! He leant over the balcony, eager to see what, or rather who, had occasioned this interruption.
"Ho mountebank, thou jack-a-napes, what pestilence is this that blights and corrupts my precious solitude." he cried. "You had best have a goodly, and godly, reason for this presumptuous intrusion, and no mistake." He liked the mock 'Jacobean', the faux 'Shakespearean', it had altogether the timbre of an eccentric old man. An Elizabethan General Sternwood, he liked to think, might have been a model, although he could no more conjure one daughter for the masque, least of all two, and he was sadly missing a bath-chair. It was nevertheless an atmosphere, an ambience, that he wished to foster; especially amongst strangers.
"Leo? Leo Armitage?" A voice, soft, gentle, waif like, like a wave's caress across a rock, like sunlight parting the clouds, like a lover's word from amidst the moonlight, rose from below the balcony, and yet the mouth that spoke the words was still unseen.
"Leo Armitage who used to live in Brixton, London," the disembodied voice continued. "And who used to have such grand delusions of being a painter, an artist, one day. The Leo Armitage whose mother would never let him ride a bicycle for fear that he might be injured or abducted? Is that you, Leo, the Leo Armitage that I used to know?"
The childhood memory of his mother's staunch interdict cut deep into his self-composure; here was at least someone who had known him and known him well, he thought; I do not divulge such petty secrets willy-nilly, pell-mell to the hoi-polloi, without just regard, he thought.
"Show yourself, Pierrette!" he exclaimed. "Show yourself to me so that I may see who torments me, foul manticore of the seventh circle of the inferno!" He was starting to enjoy these mock outbursts.
"Just open the door, Leo, I wnat, need to speak to you," was the only reply.
She stepped back a few paces, away from the door, and he could see her now quite clearly. She was tightly swaddled in a long fur coat which by its appearance did not seem to him to be fake, her head was topped by a similar hat pulled low over her ears, although that did at least appear to be faux-fur. Her round, cherub-like face with its olive skin and deep, glowing eyes made her appear younger than she no doubt was but did not seem to him to be familiar, as she peered up at him, although he had the notion that he had seen such eyes somewhere before.
"Please Leo, let me come inside, it's witheringly cold out here in the wind," she said, clasping her hands in front of her as if in prayer, in quiet supplication.
He was confused but nevertheless he turned on his heels and left his studio. He made his way down the narrow staircase in between the kitchen and the laundry room, where Rory was nursing her pups, and walked the short distance to the front door. He paused, uncertain of what the opening of the door might conjure. Finally, he unbolted the door and threw it wide open. She stood there, bracing herself against the chill Arctic wind which had blown in from Siberia or Scandanavia over recent days; she was clutching a small Mulberry Scotchgrainovernight bag firmly to her chest.
No comments:
Post a Comment