Read Letters to Leonardo Online
Authors: Dee White
Letters to Leonardo
Dear Leonardo,
Truth is important in art, don’t you think?
Truth is important full stop.
Matt
It’s Matt Hudson’s fifteenth birthday and all he wants is some art lessons.
Instead, he gets a card from his dead mother.
How can someone who died ten years ago send you a card?
Simple answer – they can’t.
This awful truth changes Matt’s life forever.
To the great Leonardo da Vinci
,
Why am I writing to a dead guy?
a) My History teacher, Mrs D, says I have to.
b) Mrs D is dumb enough to think that somebody IMPORTANT and DEAD would want to know about me and my boring life.
c) Mrs D is a pain.
d) All of the above.
If you guessed
d)
, go to the top of the class – but don’t expect to find me there. I don’t have your greatness. Must admit though, when it comes to painting, I sure wish I did
.
Matt, the not so great
Dear Leonardo
,
I’m on a roll. Two letters in two days! Mrs D will be shocked
.
So why did I choose you, Leo? Apart from the painting connection, there was the fact that you were someone I’d actually heard of – I mean, who hasn’t?
I’ll tell you about my life – if that’s what Mrs D wants. But they probably won’t be the sort of letters she’s expecting. I don’t do furry pets and family holidays – probably comes from growing up without a mum
.
Tomorrow’s my birthday. I guess I could tell you about that
.
Matt
My fifteenth birthday doesn’t start out as anything special. Dad has to work. So what’s new?
“We’ll do something on my day off,” he promises.
At breakfast, I think about Mum. I guess it’s natural to think of your dead mum on your birthday.
I try to remember her voice, but I can’t. Was it low and soft, or one of those high-pitched, on-the-edge voices – one that goes up at the end of a sentence? Did she suffer in the accident – or was it quick, like a falling tree?
Dad’s about to load his mouth with cornflakes.
“What sort of car was Mum driving?” I ask.
He just about chokes on his breakfast. After he stops coughing, he puts his spoon down and pastes on a sad, reflective face. “A Cortina – an old white one.”
Dad lays one hand on my shoulder and uses the other to point out the window. “She’s up there, keeping an eye on us – she’d be really proud of how you’ve grown up.”
I shove him away. “Come off it. She’s not a star, she’s dead.”
“You used to like it when I told you she was watching over you.”
Is he for real?
“I believed in Santa Claus back then.”
Dad hands over his present. It’s heavy and square, and it’s wrapped in silver paper with cheery gold “Happy Birthday” all over it.
It’s a book on motorbikes. Just what I
didn’t
want! I asked for painting lessons. There’s this guy at the art shop in town – Steve Bridges – man, can he paint. I took one of my pictures to him once. “You’ve got natural talent,” he said. “Just need to learn about technique and composition.”
“Thanks, Dave.”
I leave the book on the kitchen table and turn back to my toast.
Dad shakes his head. He hates me calling him Dave, but I do it to annoy him when I’m mad. It makes the muscle at the corner of his eye twitch and his mouth sets in a hard line, like he’s trying not to react.
“I know you wanted art lessons,” he says, “but trust me, mate, art will get you nowhere.”
I take my plate and half-eaten toast to the sink, open the window and hurl my crusts to the birds. I turn to face Dad. “What about Leonardo da Vinci?”
“He did a lot of other things as well. You can’t make a good living out of painting.”
“And you can make a good living out of what
you
do?”
Dad’s eye muscle twitches. “We manage.”
I wind my foot around the chair leg and pull at the torn edges of the tablecloth. “You think?”
“We always have food on the table.”
“Yeah, well I’d rather paint and starve, than do some lame real estate job.”
I know I’m going too far but I can’t seem to stop myself. Why won’t he let me paint?
I grab my present and the pile of birthday cards from relatives we never see, and take off to my room. I always read letters in private – it stops Dad from making his “secret admirer” jokes.
I toss the book onto my bed. It misses and topples over onto the floor. I leave it there, its pages sprawled out like the wings of a damaged moth, and line the cards up on my desk. There are the usual suspects – Aunt Alexa, Nana Rose et cetera, and an envelope with writing I don’t recognise and no return address.
Matthew Hudson
, my name’s in purple, loopy letters with feathered ends – as if the ink ran. The scent of oversweet perfume drifts out of the envelope. I’m looking through a cloud, seeing a vague outline of a shape that I can almost recognise. My stomach jolts, as if all this means something – something important – but I don’t know what.
I lay the card on the bed. The pulsing in my stomach won’t go away. I try to absorb myself in what’s on the front of the card: Uluru at dusk, a blast of red and purple light. There’s something about the painting that looks familiar.
The colours, that’s it – they’re just the sort of colours I would use. I trace my fingers over the brushstrokes, wondering if I’ll ever be that good. Steve Bridges reckons I could be.
I turn the card over and look inside. That’s when I nearly throw up.
To my darling Matt
,
I don’t expect you to understand why I’m sending this. I’m not even sure I do. I think about you every day. Not one of your birthdays goes by without me wishing I could see and hold you in my arms
.
It gets harder every year
.
I promised I wouldn’t do this, but you’re fifteen now – old enough to make your way in the world – old enough to know your mother
.
You never stopped being the brightest star in my universe
.
Have a wonderful birthday, darling boy
.
Love Mum
It can’t be from Mum – she’s dead! Dave told me how she died. Who would play such a sick joke?
I read the words more carefully, but they don’t change. I shake the envelope and a photo falls out. It’s Mum and me – when I was about five – just before Mum “died”.
The letter
has
to be from her. Goose bumps creep up my arms and wash over my neck. Pain stabs my chest. My eyes sting with murky memories, splashed together like a contaminated palette. I can’t stop shivering. Can you have a heart attack and die of shock at fifteen?
I stare at the photo for ages, not believing, yet knowing it has to be true. You just have to look at us – we’re exact copies: same dimple on the chin, same questioning brown eyes. Where has she been for most of my life?
All those lies! I want to confront Dave. I want to throw this in his face, now – trap him in his own lies. But I get to the door of my bedroom and realise, what’s the point? How do I know he’ll tell me the truth
this
time?
Right now, I just want to smash something – him!
“Bye, Matt. Have a good day. I’ll bring home pizza.” The front door slams.
White-hot anger gouges a hole inside me, burning for answers.
I fling open the door of Dave’s bedroom. I tear open the top drawer of his old timber chest and rummage through it, scattering neat piles of socks and undies everywhere.
I don’t really know what I’m looking for but there has to be something here. Something about Mum. I search through each and every drawer.
He must have loved her once. Why doesn’t he have any of her stuff? I throw open the wardrobe door and ransack Dave’s shelves. I toss neatly folded shirts and tank tops everywhere. I’m frantic, out of control, like a bat searching for a cave exit that’s just been sealed off. I bang my arm on a broken corner of the shelf. Ow. I don’t care. I keep on searching but find nothing.
Under the shelves is another nest of drawers. I tug the first drawer open, so fiercely that the handle pulls off in my hand. I drop it on the floor and kick it under the bed.
Finally, in the drawer with the missing handle, I find something: a small ivory bible with
Zara Templeton
in neat calligraphy on the inside front cover. That must have been who she was before she became a Hudson. Inside the bible is a wedding photo of a much younger Dave with thick, red-blond hair. Mum wears a light purple dress with lipstick to match. Her hair’s as black as a starless sky.
I hold the bible in my hand, close my eyes and try to remember. But I can’t. What did her feet sound like on the kitchen floor in the morning? Did her clothes rustle when she walked? Was her sneeze soft and quick like a cat or loud and wet like Dave’s? Did she only wear perfume when she went out, or was it the essence of her that lingered wherever she went? Why has Dave done this to me? Why did he keep me from my own mother? Why didn’t
she
write a return address on the envelope?
I want to let my shoulders sag, to cry ten years worth of tears.
But I can’t cry. The anger won’t let me. It flares from every nerve ending. It forces me to keep going – to keep hunting. I have to find out what all this is about. Where can I find Mum? Where is she? Why did she leave?