the invention of pleasure 6

…from my novel, The Invention of Pleasure:

She is walking in the house at night. In a room, she finds someone in bed. The person in bed is lying there calmly, maybe even asleep. She can’t tell if it is a man or a woman. It could be herself. Or a mother or a father or a husband.
She can’t stop herself: every time she goes for that walk, she can not stay away from the room and she can not prevent herself from going up to the bed. She walks up to the bed in the dark bedroom. She is standing by the bed and she looks down at the familiar body covered only by a white sheet. She can see now that it is definitely a woman’s body. She turns to see who it is, to see the face – her body is shivering with the warning not to look!

She can’t stop herself from looking, looking down at the face.

She woke up with a brutal, snapping jolt. Her body was clenched with the tension of the nightmare and sweat was trickling down her side, making her itchy with fear. She got up and walked to the kitchen and took a drink of water, as she did every time. Holding the cold glass, she walked into the studio and looked in the mirror at her haggard face: a gray thing.

‘Another monster,’ she thought bitterly. To dismiss the vision, she said softly and aloud:

“Darkness was on the face of the deep,
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

God’s giant face moved over the waters; he was pleased with his work, pleased with the world: his world. And the waters reflected up into the heavens his face: giant, mysterious, truly wonderful. Far below, the ‘deep’ was no longer the domain of darkness and the demons were driven away.

Into dreams.

She looked at her painting tools. It was 3 in the morning. She took Kate down and found a fresh canvas and bolted it to the easel. She didn’t bother with her painting clothes; she simply took off her nightdress and pulled the paint table around. The ancient goose-necked lamp was made of iron and it threw a strong even light onto the canvas and the spread of tubes and pots. The day before she had scraped clean the board so it was smooth and hard and ready. She opened the can of oil and filled the cup; a smell like leather filled her nose. Her hand went to the paintbrush pot and she chose a square, medium sized brush that she knew as well as her own fingers. The canvas, so flat and white, was an odd partner to the brush. Every time, facing the canvas, there was this moment of tension; she thought tightrope walkers must feel the same way. Or sailors looking at the sea from the harbor. She crossed her arms and felt her muscles for the strength she would need. The brush was between the first and second fingers of her right hand, its fat stem rooted back into her ribs. Her body felt warm and pure. Human.

She started to paint.

The undertones were burnt sienna, shadowy, earthy but sublime. She touched up the color with alizarin crimson because she knew the flesh of the face would need to echo the energy of the sun. Lou drew the lines of the face in deep red brown; into the hollows, she put the deepest green of the poets.

‘Remember the face that kissed you,’ Lou told herself.

Her brush came slightly off the canvas and she stood rigid; she wanted to feel the desire pulling at her like some unruly animal on a leash. She reached for the slippery pot of oil and juiced the brush. Her eyes were like a hawk’s when she was painting. She could see the brush clearly, see the oil picking up the color of the paint from the board; see the fierce, perfect tone of the cadmium mixing with the yellow ochre, flawed and worldly. What color, the result? She didn’t know the name but her eyes knew! Her fingers were rooted through her hand and arm, rooted through her shoulders; her fingers belonged to her eyes and mind.

“Look,” she said, to the dark outline. It was a command and the unpainted eyes of the Postman tried to look. She would have to make him look! She could feel her heart pressing out and moving out to the edges of her flesh; feel her heart beating in her hands. Lou began to furiously paint and the Postman’s face began to appear on the canvas. The hours passed and dawn came; only when his face was there on the canvas, did Lou collapse onto the frayed sofa. The Postman’s face was the last thing she saw as her vision faded. Her heart, soothed and with an even beat, moved back from the edges of her skin, back into her chest, pulsing with a slow rhythm soft enough to let Lou drift away on her own breath.

The demons fled; banished back to the deepest water.

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