Times Like These Read online

  It wouldn’t work to keep painting the way she’d always done it. Everything about it would have to change. Her whole approach. Technique. All of it. Was that going to be okay? Did she want to keep painting if everything about it would be different?

  The answer was quick in coming. Yes.

  Yes.

  Those things didn’t matter. She’d changed her style, played around with technique; every artist did. So, this would be just one more progression in her development.

  Only, she thought, sitting up, it had to happen fast. While she could still make things out as well as she could, because if the doctors were right, it was going to get worse. She couldn’t imagine it. Couldn’t imagine worse, when it was already so bad.

  Standing up, Bianca made her way out of the kitchen, turning lights on as she went through the house, then stepped back out the front door again and traced the path along to her studio. The door wasn’t locked, of course. She’d left the new model in there.

  She’d smelled good too, the new woman. Merren. Something citrusy and fresh. She’d had a nice voice, warm hands, and she smelled good. She seemed caring, approachable.

  Maybe she was another reason to figure this out. Working with a model at least meant she’d have company sometimes.

  Bianca swallowed. Merren had said she’d be available all summer. The air left her lungs in a huff, and Bianca put her hands out as if to steady herself, then turned on her heel and stalked back as best she could the way she’d come.

  Inside the house, she sought out the telephone, glad she’d never had the house phone disconnected. It was easier to find than her mobile, which she was forever putting down then being unable to find it again until she just happened to sit on it or swipe a hand across it when making toast in the morning.

  She picked up the old-fashioned handset and punched in the number from memory, automatically twirling her fingers in the cord while she waited for Renata to pick up.

  She had some explaining to do, but Renata would understand. Renata was someone to whom the tantrums of the artists she worked with were like water off a duck’s back.

  ‘Who is she, Renny?’ she asked. ‘What circles does she get about in?’ She listened carefully in the gloom of her growing blindness, nodding in relief. The woman was just a student. Completely new to modelling. She was a nobody. Just who Bianca needed.

  ‘Get her back here, will you, Renny?’ she said. ‘Tomorrow. Bright and early.’

  Hanging up, Bianca nodded faintly and sucked in a deep breath. She had until the morning to work this puzzle out.

  She hoped Merren would come back.

  Chapter Five

  It was all very well and good to Google something when you wanted to find out about it.

  Merren walked down the leafy street to her car, her mind on Bianca.

  Bianca who, though? If the artist had given Merren her last name, then she hadn’t caught it. She shook her head and dug the car key out of her pocket, pressing the button to unlock the doors, pulling the driver’s door open and standing there leaning against it for a moment, gazing back up at the house that dominated the corner of the street behind its fringe of tall trees and brick wall boundary.

  Sure, she could plug the right search terms into Google and come up with all the answers in two point seven seconds. Or not, she decided, sliding behind the wheel and flexing the fingers that had grazed against Bianca’s so electrically when they’d shook hands. She could still feel the touch.

  Sometimes flesh and blood encounters deserved real-time human resources. This was something she’d learnt, one of her philosophies, as her sister would call it.

  The scoot into the centre of town took only five minutes. It was one of the things that Merren liked about her home town – compact, self-sufficient, with the tang of salt water over everything. She’d been to Melbourne, Sydney, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, but she still liked Dunedin best. The way the city sat cupped around the harbour, the way the trees, grasses, hills, all looked somehow still wild, primeval.

  But thoughts of travel were for another day. She parked, got out and patted her little electric car, then ran up the steps to the public library, down the alley way beside it and out onto the street at the Octagon.

  The Public Art Gallery was on the other side of the octagonal hub of streets, and she crossed the road, slowing as she walked across the green grass of the plaza under the statue of the great Robbie Burns, far more well-known in the city for giving his name to a hotel and bottle store than for his poetry. Merren had tried reading a poem of his once and found it pretty much incomprehensible. Mind you, it had been after a trip to his bottle store, so perhaps that had been the reason for it.

  It was art of a different order she was after now, and she entered the Art Gallery with growing butterflies in her stomach. She knew the arts would survive into the future, unlike factory jobs and a lot of white-collar work, but she’d never been especially drawn to them herself.

  It was time to learn more. She opened and closed her hand again, the one that had touched Bianca’s fingers, and had touched her lightly on the shoulder, still feeling the frisson of sensation from it.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said to the man behind the desk. He looked up at her and smiled.

  ‘How can I help you?’ He half-turned and gestured at the stairs leading to the galleries behind him. ‘Admittance is free,’ he said. ‘You’re welcome to spend as much time as you like among the works.’

  She interrupted his spiel, although it was good to know that some things were still free in this world. ‘I’m wondering if you can help me find out about a local artist,’ she said, leaning forward against the counter.

  ‘If I can, of course.’ He nudged his spectacles back up his nose. ‘What is their name?’

  Merren winced. ‘Well, that’s the problem, you see. I only know their first name.’ She took a breath. ‘But she lives in Dunedin.’

  ‘And she’s professional?’

  That was a good question. Merren hadn’t considered that. She’d just assumed it. ‘Well,’ she answered. ‘I think so…’

  The man smiled and nodded at her. ‘Why don’t you just give me the information you have, and we’ll see where that leads us?’

  Excellent plan. Merren told him what she had. ‘Her name is Bianca,’ she said. ‘She lives in a big house here in Dunedin.’

  The information she had was precious little, laid out like that.

  But the man, Bryce, according to his nametag, was smiling. Grinning, even. Merren’s heart leapt.

  ‘Bianca Graves. Born, Auckland 1978, first came to prominence in the early nineties, with her portraits of women. She’s always painted female nudes in domestic interiors. Preferred medium – oil on board. Last exhibition was…’ He raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘A couple years ago, I think. In Wellington.’ He leaned forward, and his smile widened. ‘There have been rumours of a new series of work coming out soon, but so far that’s all it’s been – rumour.’ He straightened, nodding sagely.

  ‘Wow,’ Merren said, overwhelmed. ‘So, she’s famous, I guess, then?’

  ‘She’s one of the country’s better-known artists, yes.’ He picked up a ball-point pen with the gallery’s logo on it and pointed up the stairs. ‘We have two permanent exhibits of her work in our New Zealand Artist’s gallery. They both date from…’ He paused again, then pounced triumphantly on the right information in his personal data bank. ‘2007. The Gallery was very pleased to purchase them.’

  Merren looked at the staircase winding up into the heart of the building. ‘Up there?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘Would you like a brochure? It has a little map of all the galleries.’ He held one out to her, and she took it absently.

  ‘Is there a picture of her work in this?’ she asked, holding the glossy paper.

  ‘No, and I’m afraid there is no photography allowed in that particular gallery either.’ He cleared his throat apologetically. ‘I believe there is a postcard in the gift shop with one
of her paintings reproduced on it.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Merren said. ‘I’ll check it out.’ She turned, bemused, and walked towards the stairs. Her legs were stiff, and her brain stunned. She’d been standing naked in front of a famous artist just an hour ago?

  The thought made her blink in the dimness of the gallery, and she turned at the top of the stairs without paying attention to which direction she needed to go.

  The woman with the corkscrew-curly black hair and the bare feet was a celebrated artist? Merren held the brochure still folded in front of her, her fingers white against the thick paper.

  What had upset her so much, then? Bianca Graves. Merren tried the name out in a whisper. She said it again, a little louder.

  ‘Bianca Graves.’

  ‘Hey there, peaches,’ came a gravelly voice, vaguely familiar. ‘If you’re looking for Bianca’s work, you’ve gone right past it.’ A figure materialised out of a doorway to catch up with the voice.

  ‘Beverley.’ Merren cleared her throat, feeling her skin warm under the shirt she wore. A quick flash of herself sitting nude on a dais next to this woman seared her memory. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Same as you, I expect. Looking at the hand that feeds.’

  ‘What?’

  A wide smile and throaty laugh. ‘Oh, never mind me. I’m getting old. It brings a certain lack of fucks with it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What?’ Beverley mimicked. ‘Never took you for a prude, girl.’

  ‘I’m not a prude,’ Merren said. ‘I didn’t think anyone was here. You startled me, that’s all; I didn’t expect to see you.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Beverley answered, nodding her head like she was truly considering it. ‘Next time I’ll give you a call or you can give me a call, on the cellular telephone, and we can set it up like a date. I’ll even bring flowers.’ She looked at Merren’s stricken face and laughed.

  ‘Take your chill pills, darling; Beverley’s just pulling your leg.’ She linked her arm through Merren’s and turned her to face the way she’d come. ‘Bianca’s two masterpieces are through here.’

  Merren was drawn along in Beverley’s wake, trying and failing to tug her arm free.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ Beverley commanded. ‘They’re really best when you come up on them blind.’

  That made her look at the woman only a few inches from her, a startled glance.

  ‘I’m right. Just do it. I’ll lead you into position.’

  Despite her misgivings, Merren found herself closing her eyes and letting the old artist’s model shuffle her along the varnished floorboards and turn her around.

  ‘There,’ Beverley said, a feline satisfaction in her voice. ‘Open ‘em up, kid, and take in the view.’

  Merren opened her eyes.

  ‘It’s arresting, if I do say so myself.’ Beverley chortled and let go of Merren’s arm.

  Merren took an unconscious step closer. Let out a long, low breath. ‘Wow.’

  ‘Wow. That it, peaches? Wow?’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s…it’s…I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t worry, kid. We’ll wait while you find the words.’ Laughter again, but only for a moment, and then Beverley came and stood by Merren’s side, joining her in gazing at the two paintings side by side on the spot-lit wall.

  ‘Quite something, aren’t they?’

  Merren nodded wordlessly. Lifted the hand she’d touched the artist with and pressed her fingers absently to her lips.

  ‘She has an amazing talent,’ Beverley said, and for once, her voice was low, genuine. ‘For taking an interior scene that should be every-day, totally normal, and putting a woman in it in ways she should ordinarily belong – and yet…’

  ‘And yet, it seems almost…’ Merren groped for the word. ‘Subversive.’ She sucked in another breath, let it out. ‘How does she do it?’

  ‘No idea.’

  Merren glanced at her. Beverley was standing there gazing at the paintings with something that looked a lot like pride. ‘Do you know her?’ she asked. ‘Bianca. The artist, I mean.’

  Beverly pointed to the second painting. Nodded at it. ‘What do you think?’

  Shuffling along the wall a few steps, Merren organised herself in front of the second painting and leaned closer to it.

  ‘Oh my god,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  She turned and looked wide-eyed at the older woman. ‘That’s…?’

  ‘Me. Yup. I told you I’d been at this game a long time.’ She sniffed, although it sounded satisfied rather than grumpy. ‘That one was done in, let’s see. 2005? Round about then. Bianca used me quite a bit for that series. I’m in four of them that she did during that time period.’

  ‘They’re so detailed.’ Merren said, looking back at the painting. ‘How does she do it?’

  Beverley laughed. ‘Nope. Again, no idea. I just sit for them, I don’t understand them.’

  ‘Them?’

  ‘Artists.’

  ‘You make them sound like a different breed.’ Merren looked around at the rest of the paintings in the small gallery, then back at those by the woman she’d met that morning, the one who had sent her home for some reason. Because she’d been upset about something.

  ‘Well, they are a bit, aren’t they, artists?’ Beverley said. ‘All that dedication, focus, drive, all channelled into paint on canvas, or whatever.’ Merren turned around and Beverley shrugged. ‘I’m just saying – it’s a certain sort of life where you’re compelled to translate everything you see and feel into art. It’s not just a focus or drive, either.’ Beverly nodded at the paintings. ‘It’s a need. You and I – we just look at these and go wow, wouldn’t it be cool to be able to paint. But them, the true artists, it’s the way their soul speaks. The whole way they look at the world is through the lens of their art.’ She closed her mouth and sucked on her lips. Waggled her eyebrows. ‘Well, that’s my psychology of art lesson for the day.’

  Merren was looking silently at her, turning her words over in her mind. She blinked.

  ‘What got you into modelling, Beverley? How many artists have you sat for?’

  ‘Dozens,’ Beverley answered. ‘Not all of her calibre, of course.’ She cracked a grin. ‘And I got into it for the reason most young women take their clothes off.’

  Merren lifted an eyebrow.

  ‘Sex, peaches. Artists are sexy.’

  Merren closed her eyes. Yes, she thought. Yes, they are.

  Beverley was talking again, and Merren snapped her eyes back open and tried to concentrate. A couple words later, she had no trouble at all.

  ‘Was a tragedy when Bianca lost her wife.’

  ‘Her wife?’ Merren’s voice was choked. Bianca Graves was gay?

  ‘Yeah. One of those bloody awful things, you know. Drunk driver, Bess was wrong place, wrong time, didn’t stand a chance.’ Beverley shivered. ‘They were such a tight couple, too.’

  Merren felt her heart melt, seep right out of her chest from between her ribs. ‘When was that?’ Was it recent? Was that the cause of the pain she’d seen just a couple hours ago?

  It had been pain. The drawn face, the hunched shoulders. Merren wrapped her arms around her waist and sank in on herself, mimicking Bianca’s stance when she’d first seen her. And nodded to herself. It felt like pain. It felt like shielding herself from pain, shrinking down away from it.

  ‘I don’t know. Five years ago, it must be.’

  ‘Oh,’ Merren said. ‘That’s terrible.’

  ‘Yeah. Her art saved her, I reckon.’ Beverley sighed, then shrugged. ‘Wanna get a drink? Something to eat? I’m starved.’

  It was actually tempting. She could sit and pick Beverley’s brain about Bianca. And her wife, Bess. On the other hand, that seemed, well, a little underhanded. She shook her head.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I have plans already.’

  ‘Ah well. Maybe another time,’ Beverley said. ‘And I’ll tell you all the
old war stories.’ She gave her throaty, devil-may-care laugh. ‘They’ll curl the hair on your chest.’ She leered at Merren, laughed again, then turned to look at the two paintings, tipped her head to them.

  ‘I should introduce you to Bianca one day,’ she said. ‘You’re a gay girl too, aren’t you?’

  ‘Ah, yeah, but…’

  ‘And a budding artist’s model, to boot. It’s been long enough since Bess.’ She turned and walked toward the exit, Merren hurrying along behind her. ‘Mind you,’ she said as she walked, ‘no one’s much seen her over the winter. Bianca, that is. Renata said she’s been busy painting, but I don’t think so.’

  ‘You don’t think so?’ Merren couldn’t turn away from the gossip, despite feeling she ought to do just that.

  ‘Nope,’ Beverley said. ‘She hasn’t been using any of the models around town – and Bianca Graves has always used a model.’ She shrugged and stopped to look down over the gallery railing to the ground floor where the sun was spilling in through the wide doors.

  ‘Hell,’ she said. ‘Maybe the woman’s just been hibernating. I’ve been feeling like doing just the same, this last winter.’ She clucked her tongue against her teeth and waved a hand at Merren.

  ‘See you in class, peaches.’

  Merren stared after her, watching the woman whose much-younger likeness she’d just been staring at in a painting, and when Beverley had stepped out of the Art Gallery and out of sight, Merren went down the stairs, head spinning, and stopped in at the gift shop to buy a postcard.

  There were two left, and she bought both of them.

  Chapter Six

  Bianca paced the length of the long room. She had used to call it the sitting room, back when she could see it in all its beauty – the fine leadlight windows, the snug bay window with its little seat piled high with cushions, the panelling, and the focus of the room – the grand fireplace. She and Bess had decorated it with soft, comfortable furnishings arranged in cosy, conversational groups.

  She counted her steps from one end of the room to the other. Fourteen. Without the lights on, the room was filled with shadowy smudges. She’d pushed the furniture back against the wall at least a month ago, and Bianca was sure that if she could see it, she was probably wearing a straight track in the rich old carpet from fireplace to bay window.