Page 37

I look up. Is that what I felt last night?

My mother was twenty-two when she came here.

My grandfather didn’t want her to come, but she did anyway.

When she returned from Venice in December, she was pregnant with me and married to my father.

Her life going forward was as normal as the life of an artist could be.

There is no normality for me going forward loving Katherine. What do I want more?

I put the diary down and pick up my sketchbook.

In a few strokes Katherine is on the page as she was hours ago in bed, with the morning light making her more beautiful.

The low rays picked out her hollows and her fullness.

After three sketches, I jump up and grab a new canvas.

Bright, bold colour touched with light. Sharp, round, undulating.

I don’t stop to think or to judge. I paint the Katherine of my heart.

I lose track of time and of place.

‘Miss Kernow.’ Forster stands on the threshold to my room. I didn’t hear him knock. He flicks the light on. ‘What on earth are you painting?’

My heart stops. It’s all there on the canvas. I dash in front of it. He will know. But then I see the distaste in his expression.

‘Simply playing with colour,’ I say, and watch his Adam’s apple move as if he can’t quite find his words. He has nicked his neck shaving. There is a spot of dried blood.

‘Katherine tells me your portrait of her is finished.’

I nod.

‘I want to see it, but she insists you must be there.’ His voice is uncertain. This is new. Is it because Katherine has stood up to him?

‘The paint is still wet, and until it has dried sufficiently and I can check the balance of the colours in the painting, no one must look at it or move it.’

‘I have to look at a covered easel in my bedroom?’ He widens his stance.

I stifle laughter, because it was he who chose the location.

It is this painting of Katherine that has brought us together.

It is his doing. He’s made himself a cuckold, if that can happen when your wife sleeps with a woman.

Would that trouble him, as he doesn’t seem to give women credit for anything? He would be nothing without Katherine.

‘Can the easel be moved to another room while the painting dries?’ he asks when it’s clear I’m not giving ground on this.

I draw in a deep breath, delaying my answer. He is uncomfortable and I’m enjoying it. ‘It needs to sit for a week and then it can be placed out of the light, say in the dining room.’

‘Hmm.’

‘The growing heat in Venice will speed the drying process.’

‘If you insist.’ He huffs.

‘I do.’ Behind him I spy Signor Rossi. ‘Hello.’

‘Signorina Kernow.’ He bows slightly and pauses to study my painting. ‘This is interesting.’

‘Bah, it’s a mess,’ says Forster.

‘No, it is not a mess, it is done with intention and passion.’

‘A child with paints could do that.’

Rossi steps closer and examines the brushwork. Then a smile spreads across his face. ‘This work is excellent. It is not work I would choose for my home, but it is nevertheless excellent.’ He moves back and looks from me to the painting. ‘This is a person, no?’

I nod, and fear creeps along my skin.

‘I see it, and with the colours you have chosen and the energy, it is clearly a person you care for.’

‘Yes,’ I say, suddenly uncertain. No one but me can tell that it is Katherine. This I know, but I watch Rossi carefully. A smile plays on his full mouth.

‘The painting shows much passion.’ He glances at me again. ‘Still waters, as they say, can run deeply. I look forward to hearing your reaction to the work at the Biennale.’

‘I am so looking forward to experiencing it.’

‘Yes, experiencing is the correct term. It leaves you feeling things . . . a bit like your painting here.’ He turns from me. ‘Come, Simon, Il Duce wishes to see you now. Herr Hitler, the German chancellor, arrives in Venice tomorrow.’

The two men leave my room, and I feel seen and violated. Herr Hitler coming to Venice. My Venice does not have room for fascists, but they are everywhere. I am taking hospitality from one as well as stealing his wife. And that is what I want to do right this minute.

I leave my room, closing the door behind me, and go in search of Katherine. She is pouring gin into a glass. She looks at me and shrugs her shoulders.

‘A bit early,’ I say.

‘He’s home.’ She taps a pile of pages on the side table before dropping an olive in the glass.

‘That bad?’

The front door thuds and the chandelier shivers. I’m worried for Katherine standing under it.

‘Take a look for yourself.’

I scan the top page. It is all about a songbird and could have been written by me – someone who has no skill with words at all. In fact, as he said of my painting of Katherine, it could have been done by a child.

She knocks back the drink and pours a second before she gathers the papers together.

‘The irony – or maybe not irony, but agony – is that he wants something not just good but brilliant for tomorrow in case he has a chance to talk poetry with Herr Hitler.’ She takes a slug.

‘Herr Hitler is coming here to meet Mussolini and discuss Austria, among other things, not poetry.’

‘Leave him.’

She stares at me. ‘Nothing is that simple.’

‘You don’t need him. Let’s leave Venice and head to Cornwall.

No one will know you, and no one cares what I do.

’ I pause, letting a plan take shape in my thoughts.

‘Everyone will think we’re simply friends.

Only we would know the difference. We wouldn’t need to live like the fabulous artist Gluck who does so obviously.

It might not be as authentic, but we could leave that to our art. ’

‘That’s nothing but a lovely dream.’ She smiles, and I can see that the gin in her hand is not her second. She has lost her tolerance while he has been away. ‘He controls my money, the money I inherited from my parents. He’d have me declared insane and sent to an asylum.’

I gasp. ‘He wouldn’t.’

‘He tried to once before, but I promised I’d never leave him and he relented.’

This is intolerable. I have to get her away from him. It will destroy her. ‘Leave. He won’t find you.’

She laughs bitterly. ‘How would we survive?’

‘Frugally. I’d sell my work.’

She pauses, and I can tell that she is far away. ‘Your work is good, but he knows your name.’

‘We could stage it so it would appear that we weren’t together. I could leave first, or you could, and then he wouldn’t know. He’d never give me another thought.’

Sinking onto the sofa, Katherine focuses on me.

‘Maybe.’ She downs the drink. ‘You, my darling, can see the beauty behind the facade, but you cannot see the reality. You haven’t lived enough life to know that being who you are can cost you everything.

’ She rises, kisses me, grabs the papers and leaves.