The Photograph (16 page)

Claverdon’s partner has poured himself a drink and is settled on the sofa, talking the while. “Game for anything, wasn’t she? And she was on such a high that summer. What a shame it all went wrong. She was so upset—you could see.”

Glyn does not hear this; he will hear it later, much later. He is on his feet now, pleading time, distance, fatigue. “
Many
thanks,” he is saying. “Good to see those pictures—” His hosts also rise; Claverdon looks rebuffed, as well he may. The partner hovers. When Glyn is outside the door, heading for his car, the image returns—the pair of them, staring at him. Well, one could hardly have set to and explained, could one?

 
All right, then. So why did he marry Kath? He married her because she was the most desirable woman he had ever met: he had to have her, he had to go on having her, he had to make sure that no one else had her, evermore.

So you loved her?

Of course.

Did you say so?

Probably. Surely. Anyway, that is immaterial. I never went in for those statutory exchanges.

He married Kath because it was an imperative.

 
“Clara Mayhew?”

“Speaking.”

“Ah. You don’t know me—Glyn Peters. But I believe you used to run the Hannay Gallery, and would have known my wife, Kath.”

Pause. “I did. She worked for us from time to time.” Further pause. “I was told she—”

“Yes. Yes, I’m afraid so. Please forgive me for bothering you, but I wondered if possibly—” Glyn floats the idea of a memoir once more. He is getting adept at the memoir; he convinces himself, the work takes shape in his mind.

“You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to find me,” says Clara Mayhew, after a moment.

This is not quite what she is supposed to say, but no matter. Glyn agrees with her—he has indeed. He does not mention the systematic program of inquiry, and merely says that he is relieved to have struck lucky. “I believe you knew her fairly well?”

“Did I?”

This is unanswerable, which is presumably the intention. Glyn is now backing away from the idea of a meeting. Perhaps Clara Mayhew is another dead end. All the same, Kath spent many weeks and months at that gallery. He tries a shot in the dark. “I think she had a particular friend amongst the artists who used to show there, but I cannot remember the name. I just wondered if you might be able to help.”

“Help?”

“Help with the name of this . . . this person. This artist.”

A sigh. “I seem to recall that Kath had a lot of friends. Always in and out of the gallery.”

“I just have this feeling that there may have been—”

“There was the portrait, I suppose. Did it ever get done?”

“Portrait?” Glyn leaps to attention.

“Ben Hapgood. Wanted to paint her. Mad keen. No doubt he did, I wouldn’t know.”

It occurs to Glyn that this Clara is bored rather than obstructive. Not a particular mate of Kath’s, then. But productive—oh, distinctly productive. He becomes brisk. “Hapgood? That’ll be the chap. The name certainly rings a bell. Do you by any chance have an address?”

But Clara’s patience has run out. No, she does not have an address. All she knows is that the man lived in Suffolk back then. And she’s afraid she really has to go, so if he will excuse her . . .

Gracefully, Glyn does so. Ben Hapgood. Right.

 
Why did Kath marry him?

She married him because she found him charismatic, charming, because he made it clear that he was entirely focused upon her. She married him because he offered a different kind of life, because he wasn’t like the others, because he was a blast of energy.

Sex?

Of course.

You were handsome.

I was. Kath was outstandingly attractive. I was a good-looking man. There’s usually some symmetry about these things, one notes.

All the same.

All the same what?

You weren’t the first, not by a long chalk. So why you? Why indeed?

She married him because he insisted that she should.

 
This woman Clara has dropped the name Ben Hapgood into Glyn’s mind. There it lies, fermenting. Glyn works away. He checks directories, he consults Web sites, he locates lists of artists, and before long he has the fellow, who does indeed still live in Suffolk. Which will mean a long cross-country drive, but what is that to a man with a mission?

But the fermentation has had further effect. Something has come bubbling up from the vaults of memory—a lost moment, a vanished moment, a moment in which Kath is sitting in the garden on that red-striped deck chair. She wears skimpy clothes and dark glasses, her head is tilted back in the sunshine. She is talking. “Ben Hapgood,” she says. “He is
such
a good painter. And he’s just won this important prize. I’m so pleased. . . . You’re not listening, are you?” she says. And the rest is drowned out by that “You’re not listening, are you?,” the dark glasses turned towards him now, and a little exasperated smile. So what was he, Glyn, doing? Reading? Thinking? Also talking? Not listening, no. But now he is listening. He is listening hard.

He listens day after day, but there is no more. Kath has gone silent. He listens all the way to Suffolk, picking his way through the hierarchy of the road system, from motorways to dual carriageways and eventually onto minor roads that have him reaching again and again for the map. Ben Hapgood is not expecting him. Ben Hapgood is expecting a person who is interested in his work, who happens to be visiting the area, wondered if he might call in . . . a person who did not give a name because, when Hapgood asked, the line unfortunately went dead. Cut off. What a pity.

So Ben Hapgood will not be concerned, apprehensive, suspicious. Glyn is already visualizing Ben Hapgood; this man who was so keen to paint Kath’s portrait, so infatuated maybe, so involved. Glyn sees a man who complements Kath’s dark looks, as he does himself; he sees an Ur-Glyn, more
louche
, touched with artistic glamour. He sees this man in his studio with Kath. It takes time to paint a portrait, does it not? Many sittings. Many cloistered hours together.

Did these hours of intimacy take place here? Did Kath too pick her way down these winding side roads? It would seem so. And suddenly Glyn has a vision of Kath in that little Renault, off somewhere, going places, one hand out of the window, waving goodbye: “See you soon. . . .” And he feels a spasm of pain; he is clutched by an unfamiliar sensation. These glimpses of Kath do not provoke anything much, in the normal sense of things. He lives with them; they are a part of an interior landscape, they are simply there, and that is all there is to it. This is disconcerting. “See you soon. . . .” But she will not. Never again.

He jams a foot on the brake. This is it. This is where Ben Hapgood lives. This is the white cottage with a picket fence, on the right of the lane after you have forked left.

Two cottages knocked into one, more precisely, plus a rambling range of outbuildings in which, presumably, is the imagined studio. Glyn drives up onto the grass verge (did Kath too make this same maneuver?) and gets out. He stands for a moment, gathering himself, before he moves forward and lifts the latch on the gate. Precisely as he does so, the front door opens and out steps, presumably, Ben Hapgood. Who is short, ginger-haired, smiling cheerily, and behind whom hovers a woman. Both look to be in their mid-fifties.

Greetings all round. “Glenda, my wife. And you are . . . ? I’m afraid I didn’t catch—”

Of course you didn’t, thinks Glyn. “Peters—Glyn Peters.” He watches intently for recognition, but none comes. Fair enough—a not uncommon name, after all.

They move into a farmhouse kitchen. Tea is made. More chat. Have you come far? Hope my directions worked all right. That sort of thing. A friendly couple, unexceptional, untouched on the face of it by artistic glamour. Kath liked artists, thinks Glyn. She had a bit of a thing about artists; she was by way of being a camp follower, I suppose. He considers Ben Hapgood who is swigging tea and talking about his vegetable plot, visible out of the window. Glyn notes the wife also, and wonders how long she has been around.

Ben Hapgood supposes that Glyn would like to have a look at the studio. Glyn agrees that he would like to do so. The three of them move to one of the outbuildings. Classic studio stuff: smell of paint and linseed, canvases stacked up, others on the walls, clutter all over tables and shelves. Big easel with work in progress. Couple of old deal chairs, basket chair with grubby cushions. No chaise longue, no bed. At least, not today.

Now is the moment. He will have to come clean, blow his cover.

He does so, at length. He is charming, apologetic, a touch rueful. When he comes to the point, when he mentions the portrait, he is intent upon Ben Hapgood, with half an eye on this Glenda. He wants a reaction. He has already had a response to Kath’s name—the response with which he is becoming familiar: both register pleasure, affection, regret. . . . Glyn is by now experiencing doubts. But what about the portrait? What about that, eh?

“Oh
yes
. . .” says Glenda. “She was such a marvelous subject. And Ben did her proud. One of his best—I can say that, he can’t.” She laughs, lays an uxorious hand on the artist’s arm. The artist smiles fondly.

So. Glyn eyes them. Either they are putting up a show, these two, or
she
has not known what
he
was getting up to, or he, Glyn, is once again wrong-footed.

“She came here?” he inquires.

Yes, certainly, she came here, it seems. She stayed here a couple of times. She was such a lovely person to have around, they had a lot of fun, the children were teenagers then and Kath was so brilliant with kids, she’d suggest these crazy games, they still remember her. . . .

When?

There is consultation. Late 1980s, they think—summer of 1988? Yes, definitely, because the show at which the portrait was sold was 1989. Snapped up.

Snapped up?

Apparently. This bloke came to the opening view and just homed in on it. Or so it was said. Spoken for within the first ten minutes.

Really?
Really?

Glyn moves quickly. He revises his position, in a split second. He sees where to go. He explains that of course all along what he had so very much hoped was to be able to acquire the portrait. He had of course been aware of it (“You’re not listening, are you? . . .”), but Kath had been vague as to what happened to it—only recently had he begun to wonder if perhaps by some miracle it might still be around. . . .

Who was this man? The man who bought the picture outright, as though he had been waiting for it, as though perhaps he already knew about it, as though he knew Kath, as though he knew Kath so well that he must get his hands on her picture before anyone else did?

“. . . obviously it was too much to hope that you might still have it. But someone has. Is there any chance you’d know who that purchaser was?”

And, yes, Ben Hapgood keeps a record of where his work has gone. He fishes a file from a drawer and starts hunting through it. Glenda is talking about Kath. She talks about that summer, when, it seems, Glyn was away a lot, involved with his work: “I’m sorry, I don’t remember exactly what you do, Kath did say . . . so she was rather on her own, I think she was quite glad to come here, once she took the girls off camping on the coast for a couple of days. What a shame it was she never . . . not that she ever said anything, but one always sensed—”

Glyn is concentrated upon Ben Hapgood, who cannot lay hands on the stuff from that gallery—damn, did it get chucked out?—no, hang on, here we go. A Mr. Saul Clements—and here’s the address and phone number. London. Sounds an expensive address. Laughter.

He has him. He has this man. This is the real quarry. Ben Hapgood was a distraction, but who was to know that? Ben Hapgood was simply the unwitting facilitator. He painted Kath’s portrait, had indeed been mad keen to paint Kath’s portrait, but for entirely painterly reasons, and who wouldn’t? But as soon as the portrait is put on exhibition, is offered for sale, it is pounced on. By whom? By someone waiting for it? Someone Kath had been talking to about it? Someone Kath was seeing that summer?

All that remains is to disentangle himself from the Hapgoods. Who remain remarkably good-humored and hospitable, given it is now clear that Glyn’s interest in the artist’s work is entirely self-serving. In an attempt to improve his record, he pays belated attention to the works by which he is surrounded, asking questions, offering the occasional deferential comment. Hapgood is a figurative artist, and so presumably right outside the contemporary swim, judging from what is to be picked up from the Sunday newspapers. This deduction allows Glyn to line himself up on the side of the angels, with some disparaging remarks about unmade beds and pickled animals, which seem to go down satisfactorily.

Hapgood is now distracted from discussion of contemporary art by a sudden thought. It has occurred to him that he will have a slide of that painting of Kath, should have, if he can find it. Let’s see now. . . . He plunges once again into drawers and files. Glyn finds himself mesmerized; somehow he had not reckoned with the actuality of the thing, in this form or any other. Kath. Here, now. Ben Hapgood shuffles through folders and albums; Glenda is saying something about Kath—she is saying that it was a problem for Kath, looking the way she did. Problem? Glyn notices this Glenda, briefly—she is dumpy, fresh-faced, wholesome-looking, she reminds one of a small brown loaf, she is the antithesis of Kath. Problem? But now her spouse is saying, Ah, here we go; he has opened an envelope and is holding slides up to the light. Should be here, he says, this is the lot from that exhibition. And then—“Yes!” He passes a slide to Glyn.

Here is a tiny, jewellike Kath, glowing in the light from the window. The slide is too small to make out detail, but there is no mistaking that stance, the way she is sitting with her legs curled beneath her, head turned aside, chin on her hand, elbow on the arm of the chair. Glyn peers into this crystallized moment, this time when Hapgood saw Kath sitting thus, when Kath spent so many hours thus arranged, perhaps in that chair there, looking probably out of that window. He feels oddly excluded. There she was; there he was not. And now he is here, and she is not, and this fact is suddenly chilling.