Читать книгу Imajica - Clive Barker, Clive Barker - Страница 10

Though classically it was the light of day which showed a painter the deepest flaws in his handiwork, Gentle worked best at night; the instincts of a lover brought to a simpler art. In the week or so since he’d returned to his studio it had once again become a place of work: the air pungent with the smell of paint and turpentine, the burned-down butts of cigarettes left on every available shelf and plate. Though he’d spoken with Klein daily there was no sign of a commission yet, so he had spent the time re-educating himself. As Klein had so cruelly observed, he was a technician without a vision, and that made these days of meandering difficult. Until he had a style to forge, he felt listless, like some latter-day Adam, born with the power to impersonate but bereft of subjects. So he set himself an exercise. He would paint a canvas in four radically different styles: a cubist North, an impressionist South, an East after Van Gogh, a West after Dali. As his subject he took Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus. The challenge drove him to a healthy distraction, and he was still occupied with it at three thirty in the morning, when the telephone rang. The line was watery, and the voice at the other end pained and raw, but it was unmistakably Judith.

‘Is that you, Gentle?’

‘It’s me.’ He was glad the line was so bad. The sound of her voice had shaken him, and he didn’t want her to know. ‘Where you calling from?’

‘New York. I’m just visiting for a few days.’

‘It’s good to hear from you.’

‘I’m not sure why I’m calling. It’s just that today’s been strange and I thought maybe, oh.’ She stopped. Laughed at herself, perhaps a little drunkenly. ‘I don’t know what I thought,’ she went on. ‘It’s stupid. I’m sorry.’

‘When are you coming back?’

‘I don’t know that either.’

‘Maybe we could get together?’

‘I don’t think so, Gentle.’

‘Just to talk.’

‘This line’s getting worse. I’m sorry I woke you.’

‘You didn’t—’

‘Keep warm, huh?’

‘Judith-’

‘Sorry, Gentle.’

The line went dead. But the water she’d spoken through gurgled on, like the noise in a sea-shell. Not the ocean at all, of course; just illusion. He put the receiver down, and -knowing he’d never sleep now - squeezed out some fresh bright worms of paint to work with, and set to.