Memory of Bones (31 page)

Ben turned to the reproduction, then back to Leon’s notes.

In among the crowd of hags and the feared and vicious clergy is a man dressed in courtly robes. Elegant and groomed, he stands out from the procession of grotesques, his head bent towards the swollen form beside him. The gold of his chain is luminous, drawing the viewer towards him. He seems to be an Inquisitor, and I believe this man was sent from the court to deal with Goya on the instructions of a King who believed himself betrayed

… He is carrying a glass of water, which signifies life, and beside him is a monk. Monks and nuns were the very people Ferdinand VII hired to spy on his captives and report back to him. They were his own black army of quislings
.

Underneath, Leon had jotted down some short, scribbled notes, almost as though he was thinking too quickly to put them into proper sentences.

(Goya was watched while he was at the Quinta del Sordo. Was Detita right? What of the mountain in the backgrounds of the paintings? The same shape, over and over again. The shape of some terrifying, ever-present threat? Or the place of safety, always out of reach?)

Ben read the passage again, then turned the page. This time Leon had organised his thoughts into a lucid continuation of his essay.

Deaf and old, Goya had exiled himself at the Quinta del Sordo. Away from court and ridicule of his infirmity, he was confronted by the silence of his own thoughts and memories. Guilt, remorse and fear colluded to force him into a malaise which would kill him unless he conquered it or escaped it. From what we know, his illness was not a recurrence of his old sickness, but on closer examination there is a pattern – a very clear intimation of the slow death of Francisco Goya
.

Whistling through his teeth, Ben read on.

The Black Paintings are a ruse, a way for the artist to chart out a map of the history of Spain. And of himself. And of his life. Ultimately his death
.

A creak on the floorboards made Ben tense. The threat on the phone had unsettled him, and here he was – alone
in a remote house, in his dead brother’s study. He thought of the skull and cursed Francis for hiding it, for leaving him guessing. And worse, for leaving him doubting a man he had long taken for a friend.

Every memory seemed a gargoyle hunched over the past. Lack of sleep, his grief over Leon and Francis and the threat left on his answerphone were finally undermining him. His thoughts, usually incisive, were becoming mushy. He wanted to confide in someone, but didn’t dare. He wanted to get help, but couldn’t.

Dry-eyed, Ben turned back to his brother’s notes.

… the next painting, entitled The Ministration, depicts a man masturbating
,

something which would have been distasteful and certainly not commissioned by a patron. But we look at the act with judging eyes, without considering another viewpoint – that the man is not relieving himself, but is caught forever
without
relief. Sexually impotent, like Goya, not just from age, but from disease
.

Disease …

Ben’s gaze fell on the small pile of books in front of him. All Leon’s books, all well-used, thumb-marked and dog-eared with reading. Slowly he ran his hands over the covers and spines.
Goya’s Life, Goya’s Court Paintings, Goya’s Caprichos, Goya’s Disasters of War
… every book was so familiar to him. As familiar as if they had been his own. But in a way they
had
belonged to both brothers. Passed down from their parents, read from by Detita.

Goya’s life had been a parallel existence to theirs. So close, it could have been the memoir of a family member. So well known; their own lives lived within memory of the Quinta del Sordo and the Spaniard’s reach. Every etching, drawing and painting had been looked at by the brothers, every anecdote Detita told them repeated, until Leon’s uneasiness had censored Ben’s teasing. How fitting it had been that the old man’s skull should come into Leon’s hands, because no man would have valued it more.

So much that it had cost him his life.

Deep in thought, Ben flicked through the preparatory tapestry drawings and the paintings which followed on.
This was the youthful Goya, seducing women and climbing the precipice to the top of the Spanish court. This was the dark man who had made love to a nun, and had painted nudes so daring the Inquisition had come after him. This was the young, lusty Francisco, with his dowdy wife and his bed full of
majas
. This was the court painter who, although not well born, could insult the royals obliquely with his satire, could flatter a doomed duchess, and who was wily enough to keep his balance on the political tightrope of Spain.

Closing the book, Ben opened another, feeling a closeness to his brother, almost hearing Leon talking behind him.

Look at this, Ben – just look at this. No one could paint fabrics like Goya
…

His hands moved over the colour prints, over the painting of Mariano, the son of Goya’s only surviving child, Javier. There had been rumours that Javier had created the Black Paintings, but it was unsubstantiated. Thoughtful, Ben opened one of Leon’s last notepads. His words were written loosely, some in shorthand, others down the margin, vertically, as the ideas hit him. Just looking at his handwriting brought back the clever flightiness of Leon’s brain, coupled with his intense – and haunting – perception.

Pausing, Ben looked up, the rain blowing softly against the windows outside. Thinking of what he had read so
far, he reached for the book on Goya’s Black Paintings and began to look at the illustrations. The images were familiar to him. He had grown up with them, seen them in the Prado, on mugs, on tea towels and on the sides of buses.

Turning to the frontispiece, Ben read the words written by Goya’s son, Javier.

…
his own predilection was for the paintings he kept in his house, since he was free to paint them as he pleased … they were always his special favourites and he looked at them every day
…

Ben wondered about that. Wondered how a man could take pleasure from such bleakness. Then he glanced back at the painting of
The Dog
. Suddenly a dull, far-off thunderclap echoed outside, rain striking the window sill.

‘He never let me read them

Startled, Ben looked up to find Gina standing in the doorway.

Calmly, she pointed to the notebooks. ‘I saw you’d taken them the other morning. You didn’t have to do that – I wouldn’t have stopped you. You were Leon’s brother, you were entitled to have them. All this is yours now. The house, everything.’ She leaned against the door frame, her silhouette outlined against the hall light.

‘How did you get in?’

‘You left the front door open,’ she replied coolly, moving towards the desk. ‘I can’t bear this room. Too sad …’

Leaning back in the chair, Ben watched her. ‘Why did you come back, Gina?’

‘I was driving past and I saw your car. I wanted to talk about Leon and you’re the only person I can talk to.’ She sat down, her knees pressed together like a child’s. ‘I miss him. He was good to me. Temperamental, yes, but kind. Always kind.’ She thought of Gabino, still stinging from his treatment, her calculating mind weighing the odds. ‘I know you don’t trust me.’

‘You lied to me.’

Her lips parted, then closed in a thin line. ‘About what?’

‘Losing Leon’s child.’

‘I did lose a baby—’

‘I don’t doubt that, but it wasn’t Leon’s. He was sterile,’ Ben replied, trying to work out what she wanted and wondering if he
had
left the front door unlocked, or if Gina had kept a key to the farmhouse.

‘It was a stupid lie … but I wanted to get you on my side.’

‘I was already on your side. Leon was dead. I could imagine how that would hurt you. But lying to me? You lost my sympathy then, Gina. And my trust …’

She clenched her hands together, her face drawn.

‘I asked you why you came back. It wasn’t to talk about Leon,’ Ben went on. ‘So what was it?’

Her indecision confounded her. She hadn’t expected Ben to discover her lie about the baby and her confidence wavered. Any attempt at a hurried seduction of Ben Golding would only damn her further in his eyes.
The plan fluttered like a torn banner … Silent, she stared at the floor under her feet. There were indentations in the dark wood, deep and polished shiny over the decades. She had asked Leon about them once and he had told her the story Detita had told him: that the indentations were the Devil’s footprints. Lucifer had come to look over the writer’s shoulder, dictating madness. And then he’d laughed and told her he was joking.

Her eyes remained fixed on the indentations as she thought of Gabino Ortega. How he had used her. How she had used him. How she had used Leon. How, throughout her life, Gina had manipulated men and been manipulated in return. She felt a sudden weariness at the thought of Gabino and wondered if his lifestyle, five years on, would prove as satisfying as it had once done. If the sex and duplicity would be bearable. If even his towering wealth would compensate for the dry ache of a woman who would soon be aged out of the market.

‘Gina …?’

Realising that Ben was talking to her, she blinked slowly.

‘Sorry, I was thinking about – Jesus, I don’t know what I was thinking about. It’s getting late. I should drive back to Madrid.’ She stood up, then paused. ‘Can I stay the night?’ her voice was businesslike, almost cold. ‘I can use the room Leon and I used to have. I’ll leave you alone to work.’

He could hardly refuse. ‘OK.’

Her gaze moved back to the notepads in front of Ben.

‘Did he do it? Oh, come on, you can tell me that! Did Leon solve the Black Paintings?’

Remembering what he had heard about Gina’s previous relationship with Gabino Ortega, he lied.

‘No.’

‘He told me he was close.’

‘Not close enough.’

‘Like the skull. Not close enough …’ Her tone was expressionless. ‘He gave it to you, didn’t he? I know Leon must have, otherwise he would have got it back from Madrid and the phantom specialist. Thinking back, I never saw the skull after you came to the house – which means that you took it to London. You did, didn’t you?’

He shook his head.

‘Leon had the skull. I don’t know what he did with it.’

‘He didn’t have it when we did the seance.’

Leaning forward, Ben held her gaze. ‘Why do you care about it so much?’

‘It mattered to Leon.’

‘And you’re going to fulfil his legacy, are you? Save his reputation?’ Ben asked, bitterness obvious. ‘If anyone should do that, it should be me. But the funny thing is, I don’t care about his work. I miss Leon. I’m only reading his notes on the Black Paintings now because he was my brother and it’s a way to feel close to him. No other reason. I don’t have the skull. Truly, I don’t.’

She wasn’t sure if he was lying or bluffing. ‘So where is it?’

‘God knows. It was lost for centuries, it’s lost again.’

For a long moment she was silent, then smiled faintly. ‘I’m glad.’

It was the answer Ben had least expected.

The following morning he woke and lay in bed, listening and wondering if Gina was still in the house. But all he could hear was the sound of the ancient plumbing and the cawing of rooks outside the bedroom window. Having taken all Leon’s papers upstairs with him Ben had still slept half-heartedly, wondering what Gina was doing in the house. Was she there for sentimental reasons or still trying to find out the whereabouts of the skull?

He found her too transparent to be clever, too clumsy to make a good liar. Obviously Gina didn’t know that he was privy to information about her past. That he had already guessed her tactics – that she was trying to obtain the skull for her ex-lover. Whether to effect a reconciliation or secure a big payoff was the only thing Ben wasn’t sure about … Pulling on his clothes, he moved out into the corridor, looking towards the bedroom where Gina had slept. The door was closed and as he walked downstairs he was surprised to see the door of Leon’s study open.

As he went in, Ben heard the muted tones of a news
broadcaster and walked round the desk to find his brother’s old computer turned on. He looked at the headlines – a riot in India, the USA President taking a break at Camp David. Puzzled, he sat down, watching the tickertape strip of running news across the bottom of the screen.

… The skull of Francisco Goya has been found, and is now in the possession of the Feldenchrist collection in New York. This is the greatest art find for centuries …

A breath caught in his throat, his gaze moving towards a Post It note stuck on the nearby phone.

You were right – you didn’t have it
.

Gina

Jumping up from his seat, Ben moved to the bottom of the stairs and called out for her.

‘Gina! Gina!’

But there was no answer, just the soft swell of dust and silence, and memory.

New York

Standing beside one of the newspaper booths, Ben gripped the magazine in his hand. The few people who passed him would never have believed who this anxious-looking man was. The composed surgeon Mr Benjamin Golding, FRCS, had been left behind in Madrid. Left at the farmhouse, written away in the letter to Abigail which said he was going away for a few days. That he would keep in touch. That she mustn’t worry.