Goya'S Dog (22 page)

Storch nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Well, here it is: she's getting married.”

“She is, sir?”

“Yes she bloody is, Storch. The oaf asked her and of course she said yes. Inevitable as the deluge. But still, what a terrible waste. She doesn't really want to. I can tell.”

Storch nodded wisely, and Dacres was sure he heard orchestral music. He slapped his cheek.

“I thought—but I can't bear it. Can't put it out of my head. Why? Today.”

Dacres wanted to sit alone with the bottle in the stall for a week or
two but he doubted Storch would allow it. And he didn't fancy his odds against the man's sharpened teeth in personal combat.

“Today of all days, Storch. What are the chances? Of course, you say, what did you expect? To which I say, I don't know. I didn't expect anything. Everything. Just when I think the fates are smiling, they're readying the next cowpat. But you keep on longing, even when there's no hope, don't you Storch?”

Storch said nothing.

“Oh Christ,” said Dacres, and wiped his brow with one of Storch's fresh white towels and dropped it on the floor. Another idea came into his head, which felt at the moment like a vase full of hornets.

“What do you think of this country, Storch?”

“I think it's a fine and beautiful place, sir,” Storch said immediately.

“You think what?”

Suddenly the man was expansive again: it was like dropping a coin into
What the Butler Saw
.

“I think it's a fine and beautiful place, sir. You see there aren't so many walls, in Canada. They haven't been built yet. Even for a man like me, there aren't too many walls.”

Gin on Dacres's breath.

“Listen. What the devil do you mean?”

“Sir?” Then Storch answered, looking at Dacres's tie. “I only mean, sir, there's many things a man can do in this country. Doors are open here that mayn't be open at home. And the air is fine and there's more of it to breathe. I've made three fortunes in this country, sir. I may make another yet.”

Yes, you're quite mad, Dacres thought.

Before Storch could say any more there was a soft knock at the door.

Eye met eye.

“If you'll excuse me.”

“Yes, Storch,” said Dacres. “Do your duty.”

The plaza, the drumroll, the baying, scrofulous peasants.

With Storch at the door, Dacres went to the cabinet to pour himself another and knocked a pair of sharp scissors and a small glass canister onto the floor. Storch didn't look back. Ginned again, Dacres went to the mirror and brushed some odd white flecks off his cheek. He spat twice into the sink. Hot.

“It's a young lady, sir.”

“No doubt, Storch. No doubt.”

“Sir?”

“Tell her I'll be one moment.”

If there's an earthquake, thought Dacres, I'll be fine. No speech. Mummified in the lava with a white cup—earthenware survives everything—in his hand. A volcano. What rites was this mysterious figure pursuing? Time is, as ever, ungenerous with final answers.

The world started spinning twice as fast as usual. He had to put his hands down on the counter to stabilize it. He wanted to let out a long howl from the bowels but restrained himself.

Dacres had no coin to put in Storch's bowl. But, going out, he was full of emotion. He thought bluntly: My God, here's someone you'd want as your aide-de-camp. Taciturn, reliable, quick with a bottle. I don't want to leave you, Storch, he wanted to say. Instead, as he passed through the door Storch was holding open, on his way to Darly, Dacres clasped the man hard in his arms.

Darly smiled tensely and asked him if everything was all right and, looking away, he said of course it was. “Everything is splendid.”

He followed her light-blue haunches up the uncarpeted stairs, heart daggered out of him at every step. She was saying something; she was telling him to be quick and optimistic. The audience at these events liked to be challenged, but only temporarily. Then they liked to be complimented. Dacres told her to wait and ran down the stairs, retrieved his cup from the countertop—Storch was whistling, busy cleaning something up in Dacres's stall—and came out again into the dark corridor, and there was half of Darly waiting halfway up the stairs. She bent, she looked at him quizzically but sweetly, and he knew he had to do it. He hid the cup in his right paw.

She led him quickly through the musty lobby, past the stained glass—there was the front door!—and then into a reception hall. They walked along the aisle. She was efficient. There were forty, sixty people, and at the back of the room a few stragglers talked in groups. Near the front the rows of wooden chairs were taken up by matrons and their young sons. Dacres kept his head down.

All happening rather fast, this. He watched his shoes step up onto a platform, the kind of thing he and three other boys had had to drag to the centre of Hall for assembly, when it was their house's turn. He scuttled back towards the wall—look, dull dusty worthies' portraits, they could at least clean them—and she stood next to the lectern, one hand awkwardly on it. Graciously Darly thanked them all for attending. She apologized for the non-appearance of their scheduled guest. She seemed like somebody else, speaking in public, Dacres thought: someone stiffer, someone in a business. Her father's daughter? But then she flicked hair away from her forehead and his heart pumped lusty hellfire through all his veins. Was he actually salivating? He licked his lips dry: animal. Very happily, she said, the renowned British watercolourist now resident in our city, Edward Dacres, had agreed to step in. She half-turned and indicated him. He would be speaking on the arts in Canada and she hoped they would make him feel at home. All applauded her beauty, and then it was his turn.

“Thank you,” said Edward Dacres, the renowned watercolourist now resident in her city.

He watched Darly slip to the side of the room where two girls her age whispered to her and she nodded. He looked down at the audience. They were settling dresses and crossing legs and were now attentive. He opened and closed his eyes several times to wash his pupils and the yellow light in the room seemed to whiten. Odd that.

“Thank you,” he said. “Now then. The Arts in Canada.”

If this had happened three months ago, he felt rather than thought, he would have been prepared. He could have given a dazzling, charming impromptu talk. It looked like an educated crowd Darly had gathered: maybe he would even have secured a commission,
maybe the vicious tumble down the hillside lined with nails would have been arrested. No, probably not. But maybe it wasn't too late? Wasn't it? If it started feeling less like this was happening at the bottom of the frigid sea.

“The Arts in Canada.”

There was a rectangular shelf in the lectern and he'd placed his drink there. Now he took it out and took a sip and put it back. He patted down his unkempt hair so as to be able to speak. He pulled out an envelope from his jacket pocket—a club attendant had given it to him, he'd written some notes on it in an anteroom before seeking sanctuary in Storch's lair—and flattened it on the lectern. But to his dismay it was mostly illegible. He peered. Why had he written
All King? Elkins?
If that was an
E
. Ah …

“An exile's perspective,” he said.

How were you supposed to do this? When was the last time he'd spoken in public, 1806? There must be a German word for thehurriedness-of-experience-on-stage. Christ.

He cleared his throat, twice.

“This is not a young country,” Dacres began. “Sorry, I mean: This is a young country. That is its strength. The only problem you have, it seems to me, is not enough people.”

There was a titter. Encouraging. People love to laugh. Start them off with a joke, he thought, and soon they're eating out of your hand.

“I am aware of the various new schools, such as they are, various, um, advances, and I must say I admire them. I certainly do.”

He stopped and had no idea what to say next. He swallowed. He had been told about Canadian painters: men who painted just slightly constructivist mountains. Darly had told him to take a look at them, she'd said they were quite brilliant. He had not looked. He didn't remember the names. There were no English words in his head, all of a sudden.

Say something.

He sweated.

“Only recently I spoke to a man who described Canada as a fine
and pretty place. He said, if I remember rightly, that there are not too many walls here. Well I agree with that excellent sentiment, I do.”

Now what was Lady Dunfield doing in the second row? She was listening, excited, with a cigarette holder. No she wasn't. It was someone else. He shivered.

“Now I suppose he meant that there is air and space and freedom to breathe, and not too many walls, which is a good thing. Although if you're a painter you need walls, don't you? To hang your work upon. Don't you? Ha. Yes. Well, it depends. So perhaps it's not such a good thing, not having walls.”

Let's not confuse matters.

“No walls is a good thing!”

Right.

“Such wonderful plenipotentialities exist for the arts in Canada.” He waved his hand out, expertly, to show them. “Snow. Montreal. The great expanse of the Great Lakes. Your very Rocky Mountains. Things on the Pacific, no doubt: Alaska. Surely, for the sublimely motivated artist, you're really spoilt for choice. I think that's a good road to pursue. If you're in the magnificent nature line you can probably ask no more. Though in the interests of disclosure, I should disclose—”

No, don't tell them you haven't seen it yourself. Remember your rhetoric.

He reached for more to drink. That done he smiled out at the faces. They turned to each other, questions in their eyes. Well, they were either inspired or doubtful, he didn't want to know which. Darly had her hands clutched tight. Hello Darly. Get off the stage, Dacres. He should say he was ill, he should apologize. No, he should amaze, amaze, amaze them.

“Christ Jesus!” he said. Lorne was standing next to her, aiming a rifle at him. Dacres ducked, swooped back up again. Lorne was gone, Darly was standing with two girls. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry,” he said. She'd taken a step forward; with a royal gesture he told her to hold fast. Orchestral music again. Stop that.

He had to catch his breath. He had to find firm ground. This was reedyswampy stuff. He held on to the lectern.

“Of course, we're a long way from the centre here, aren't we, and there's nothing to be done about that. Is there, Lady Dunfield? Old friend of mine. Came a long way. Nice to see you. Thanks for the support. But, when you say guns, I reach for my revolver. No, I mean, when you say guns, I reach for my culture. Do you follow? No? I mean it is hard, in what is essentially a secondary European culture, to pretend that anything can be done here for another thousand years. For what have we here, a tiny agricultural fringe on the toe-end of a terrifying wilderness. You see, the creation of a culture requires a certain specific mass.”

He wondered if that was the scientific term he thought it was. He hoped there were no chemists in the audience, because he was starting to find some momentum now.

“Let me tell you how things are. If you have not lived in a real city you won't understand my point, unless I make it slowly. So my point. Well. Art is not made by a man alone in a room!”

Why was he shouting? (The audience rustled.) Ah, because he was hitting a thick seam of truth. He went on more quietly, until he realized he was whispering, so he went back again and repeated himself. There were open mouths in front of him and three hatless women (empresses?) decided they'd had enough and made to leave. He watched them go, and there at the door meeting them was good old Adelaide Blackthorn, in her Bath chair, being wheeled in. He waved, delicately, with just his fingers, like tapping on a screen.

“What I mean to say is, nothing good can be created without the foundation of a rich past. To build on. Or to rebel against. It's like the nutrients in the soil. Now, that is not a contradiction. It's a past you can't borrow and you can't fake. It takes time to grow. It's like a forest. How could you bring a forest across the Atlantic? Where would you put it? Absurd notion. Yes, you say, Mr. Dacres, RA, OM, but the forests are here! We have enormous forests! Yes. You do. You have enormous forests. Splendid, enormous forests.”
Dacres closed his eyes.

“Er …”

Tightrope.

Next step.

“But what I am talking about is the accumulation of men's footsteps. In London the streets are ten feet higher than their Roman level. More so in Rome: thirty feet. So when you set out for your walk you are ten feet higher than the Romans were. You walk past Purcell over there, scratching away, good man, and here is Wren's first church. Here's the church where Dante first saw Beatrice in Florence, awful painting of that by Holiday, he puts them by the Ponte Vecchio. Pure sentimentalism. And here on our left Monet is watching the Thames. You walk with them, you walk on top of them, you walk on their shoulders. So naturally you start with a huge advantage.”

Very interesting, he mused. A man was standing in the crowd pointing his finger. His lips moved but nothing came out.

“Very interesting. Wonderful. Now, of course. Now: I accept that this accumulated mud may become a burden.”

Really?

“Really. So that instead of walking on top of these shoulders you are buried in their grime. Buried in the accumulated rubbish of centuries, not standing on top of it. The last ten years, they've been dry years for almost everyone, and you have to ask why. What's being done now, today, that will remain? Really last, because that's the question.”

Dacres finished the drink, and Gorren bounced up shouting,
Your work!

“Thanks, Gorren, but I doubt it. Sometimes the weight becomes too much. This describes what is happening now. Centuries of careful innovations in hatred are pulled into a knot. You ask me, what is so wonderful about a history that draws you into these disasters, the rat biting out its own belly? Time and again. And I do mean time and again. That's not something you worry about here. To which I say: well.”