The Gravity of Birds. Tracy Guzeman
in the doorway like some sort of salesman.’ Thomas’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward in his chair as if trying to satisfy himself of something. ‘You don’t look well.’
‘I’m fine. Couldn’t be better. But I can’t stay long, I’m afraid. I’m having dinner with Lydia. Some new bistro she and my son-in-law have discovered.’ Finch despised lying in others as much as in himself, but he offered this up without a pang of remorse. Much easier to lay the groundwork for taking his leave sooner rather than later. He chose one of the small chairs and instantly regretted it, first hearing the squeak of springs and then feeling an uncomfortable pressure against his backside.
‘How is your daughter?’
‘Lydia is fine, thank you, although she fusses over me to no end. It’s almost like having a babysitter.’ He paused, realizing how disloyal he sounded. ‘I’m lucky to have her.’
‘Indeed you are. I question whether anyone really knows their own good fortune before it’s too late.’ Thomas gave Finch a rueful smile. ‘Too late to enjoy it or exploit it, one of the two.’
Thomas appeared at odds with himself. His hands worried the fabric at the ends of the chair arms, and Finch found himself growing nervous. He couldn’t remember the artist ever seeming so distracted, so undone. Thomas muttered something under his breath and looked up at Finch, as though surprised to see him still standing there.
‘Tell me the truth, Denny. You’ve envied me my solitude at times, no doubt. No more than I have envied you the companionship of a daughter. And the bosom of family to rest your weary head upon, eh?’ He gave a barely perceptible wave of his hand, before frowning. ‘Well, what’s to be done about it at this point?’
Had he ever wished for Thomas’s solitary life? Finch tried to imagine his home of so many years void of its past activity, absent its sounds and smells of family, the briefly lingering childhood traumas, their daily interactions that had turned, almost unnoted, into habits. His wife brushing his daughter’s hair in the afternoon at the kitchen table, her hand following flat behind the brush, smoothing any errant hair into place. The three of them, a family of readers, curled into small pieces of furniture on Sunday mornings, faces half-hidden behind a newspaper or a book. Claire tucked up next to him in bed, her body a sweet comma pressed against his. Lydia in his study in the evenings, her cinnamon breath warming his neck as she leaned over his shoulder and asked about the work he was studying. This and so much more had been his life. He could not bring to mind a moment when he had wished any of it away.
‘You know, Denny, the older we get, the better I like you and the less fond I become of myself.’
‘You’re sounding positively maudlin. You must be out of gin.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘In that case you’ve proven what I’ve always surmised. The most successful artists are filled with self-loathing. This revelation on your part must indicate you’re entering a new period of productivity, my friend.’
A thin smile broke across Thomas’s lips and he closed his eyes briefly before responding. ‘We both know I’ll never paint anything again.’ He rose from the chair and walked over to the credenza to pick up a decanter. ‘Join me in a drink?’
Finch patted his coat pocket. ‘I’ll stick with my pipe, if you don’t mind.’
‘Each to his own agent of destruction.’
Finch could feel his mood deteriorating from its already low state. The atmosphere in the room was oppressively dismal. ‘So, Thomas. Something is on your mind.’
Thomas laughed, a dry rattle that turned to a cough and reverberated across the room. ‘Always one to dispense with the niceties, Denny. I appreciate that. Yes, there is something on my mind.’ He hesitated, and Finch drummed his fingers against the worn fabric on the arm of the chair. ‘What would you say if I told you I had a painting I wanted you to see?’
‘An artist you’re interested in?’
‘The artist I’ve always been most interested in, of course. It’s one of mine.’
Finch was certain he’d misheard. ‘I’ve seen everything you’ve done, Thomas. You know I’m one of your most ardent admirers, but you haven’t picked up a brush in twenty years. You told me so yourself.’
‘Twenty years. Time passes so slowly and then suddenly it doesn’t. At which point one becomes aware of how much of it’s been squandered. Twenty years. Yes, that’s true.’ He walked back to the chair and stood behind it, as if for protection. ‘What if this wasn’t something new?’
Finch felt his tongue thicken as his mouth went dry. ‘But all of your work is cataloged in my books. And in the catalogue raisonné. Every one of your paintings, Thomas, examined in minute detail.’
‘Perhaps not every one.’ Thomas emptied his glass and drew an unsteady hand across his chin. ‘I know what a perfectionist you are. How thorough in your work and research. I had my reasons for holding back. And now, well, I wanted you to see it first. I owe you that, don’t I?’
His voice took on a hypnotic note, and Finch’s head began to swim. Another Bayber. It simply wasn’t possible. Anger flashed warm in his veins and he dug his nails into the flesh of his palms, recalling the years he’d spent working on the catalogue raisonné. The hours away from Claire and Lydia, locked up in his cramped study, his neck angled stiffly over one photograph or another, deciphering the meaning in a brushstroke, assigning reason to a choice of color. The envy he barely tamped down at the recognition that this prodigious amount of talent had all been dumped into the hands, into the mind, into the soul of just one person. One insulated, selfish person. And now, another Bayber? This withholding seemed untenable, especially in light of the years they had known each other; the presumed friendship; the insinuation of trust, of favored status. The rent Finch paid out of his own pocket, the small monthly allowances sent to Thomas to keep him fed, although it was far more likely the money was keeping him well-lubricated. An omission such as this made his position all too clear.
Thomas cleared his throat. ‘There’s something else, Denny. The reason I’ve called you here, obviously.’
‘Obviously?’
‘I want you to arrange to sell it for me.’
‘Me? Forgive me, Thomas, if I find this insulting.’ Finch stood up and paced the circumference of the room, marking a path free from furniture. ‘Why me? You could just as easily call Stark, or any one of a hundred dealers for that matter.’
‘I have my reasons. I don’t want this sold through a dealer or through a gallery. Besides, my arrangements with Stark ended a long time ago.’ Thomas walked over to Finch, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘I want this to go straight to auction. You still have connections, Denny. You can arrange that for me, can’t you? It needs to be done quickly.’
Finch’s head was on fire. The pain that had started in his back spread across his body. He could torch the entire room simply by laying a finger to it.
‘You could have asked me to do this years ago.’ Finch could feel steam rising off his skin. ‘Look at you. Look at the way you live. This isn’t just a quirk or some strange artistic temperament. You live in squalor. And I’ve paid for a good deal of it. Why now?’
‘You’re angry. Of course you are. I should have expected that. I know things haven’t been easy for you lately.’ Thomas drew himself up and took his hand away from Finch’s shoulder. He walked across the room to one of the large floor-to-ceiling windows hidden behind heavy drapes and pushed the curtain aside with his finger. ‘Would it be so strange I would want back what I once had, just as you do?’
‘You’re the one who stopped painting. You let your reputation slide away, you didn’t lose it. Kindly don’t patronize me. And don’t make assumptions about my life.’
‘I don’t expect you to understand.’