Читать книгу The Scarlet Macaw - S.P. Hozy - Страница 9

Maris hefted the old leather trunk onto the airport conveyer belt along with the suitcase that held her clothes, a few books, and some mementoes of her four years in Singapore. Her carry-on bag contained her brushes and sketch pad, the only things she would be upset about losing. The rest would follow in a month or two on the first available ship from Singapore to Vancouver.

I’m going home, she thought. But it didn’t feel like going home. It felt like taking a giant step back into a life of failure and defeat. She hadn’t been able to paint a thing in the months following Peter’s death. Instead of the vivid colours she was used to seeing, Maris now saw things only in shades of grey. Not really, but it seemed like everything was grey. It was like looking at wet concrete through a misty rain.

There had been no progress in the case of Peter’s murder. She had been the only witness, and the police had questioned her several times, asking the same questions and hearing the same answers.

“What time did you arrive at Mr. Stone’s apartment?”

“Just after six o’clock.”

“Was the bottle of Campari open when you arrived?”

“No. Peter uncorked it and poured himself a glass in front of me.”

“Was it a new bottle?”

“Yes. I noticed that it was full when he opened it.”

“What made you notice?”

“I don’t know. I guess it just registered. I probably would have noticed if it was half-full or almost empty, too. I just noticed.”

“Was Mr. Stone in the habit of drinking Campari?”

“Yes. He liked a glass before dinner.”

“Why didn’t you drink the Campari?”

“I don’t like it.”

“What did you have to drink?”

“A gin and tonic. Peter mixed it for me at the bar before he poured his Campari.”

And on and on. They couldn’t link her to the bottle of Campari or to the poison that had been put into it. And she had no motive. Her life was better with Peter alive. He encouraged her work and he sold her paintings. Why would she kill him?

There had been no suspects, although clients and customers had been questioned. No one seemed to bear a grudge against Peter, and they could connect no one with the poison. The bottle of Campari apparently was not a gift, but there was no way to be sure. Peter was in the habit of buying Campari for himself. It was his favourite.

Finally after four months, during which she could not paint, could not even think, Maris decided to go back to Canada to see if a change of scene would snap her out of the funk she was in. She knew she had been fond of Peter, but his death was more than the loss of a friend. She had lost her way, her bearings. Her focus was gone, and her eyes no longer saw things that spoke to the painter in her. She saw neither beauty nor ugliness. She saw only drabness and mechanics. She saw people walking with their heads down just to get somewhere, unsmiling and faceless; traffic rolling through the streets of Singapore in the same way every day; grass growing and being trimmed; and flowers being planted and opening and dying on schedule.

I’m looking at the world through a Plexiglas shield, she thought. Like watching planes take off from an airport lounge without the sound, the smell, or the vibration of the powerful engines: an endless loop of cogs meeting wheels, engaging the gears of nature, society, life, in a stupefying rhythm. She found herself sleeping more than usual, taking naps in the afternoon, and sleeping a dreamless sleep.

“You’re depressed,” said Dinah. “Maybe you should talk to someone.”

“Take Prozac,” said Angela. “Everybody does.” They were in the storeroom behind the gallery, unpacking a shipment that had arrived from Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

“I’m not taking Prozac,” Maris said, “and I’m not depressed. I’m just sad and tired. And aimless.”

“That’s depression,” said Angela. “We’re all sad and tired. But you don’t see me or Dinah sleeping in the afternoon. We have too much to do. We’re running the gallery without Peter and it’s hard work. You need something to do. You need to work.”

“Maris is an artist,” said Dinah. “You can’t just tell an artist to work and expect them to put their nose to the grindstone. Honestly, Angela, you’re in the art business. You should know that.”

“Yes,” said Angela, “I’m in the art business. And that’s what it is: a business. If artists don’t make art, they starve. They have to eat. Just like everybody else.”

Dinah rolled her eyes. “This conversation is clearly over,” she murmured to Maris as Angela left the room, muttering about some people never putting things back where they belong.

“That was a conversation?” said Maris. “I thought it was a sermon. From the high priestess of the Church of Business.”

“As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I shouldn’t have said them,” said Dinah. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” said Maris. “Maybe I needed to hear it. I have to do something to stop this inertia. I’m not going to take Prozac, that’s for sure, but I have to make a change.” Dinah handed her a penknife and pointed to some boxes that needed opening. “Angela’s right in a way,” Maris continued. “Art is my work and without it I’ll starve. And not just from the lack of money. It sounds corny, but I’ve lost something, some part of my soul. Peter sort of re-invented me as an artist. He made me believe in myself. Before, I had only seen myself as a painter, someone who put colours and shapes on canvas. Peter made me think about art. I mean really think about it as a medium for ideas. He believed I had something to say.” She slid the knife across the tape sealing one of the boxes. “And now I’ll have to learn to live without that — whatever he gave me — and find it somewhere else. But what are the chances of finding another mentor like Peter?” She sighed, lifting the flaps on the box. “I guess I’ll have to create my own internal ego-booster. Can people do that?” She smiled at Dinah, but just thinking about it made her tired.

“I think they can if they want to,” said Dinah. “You can’t go on waiting for someone or something to come along and do it for you. In my experience that doesn’t happen.” She started unpacking the opened box, stuffing Styrofoam popcorn into a plastic garbage bag. “But it’s easy for me to say,” she continued. “I’m not an artist. I don’t have to be inspired to work. I’m just the hired help. ‘No tickee, no washee,’ as my ancestors used to say.”

They looked at each other and they both started to laugh. “I have no idea where that came from,” said Dinah, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “What a stupid thing to say.”

“Yes, but it was funny,” said Maris. “It’s probably because Angela makes you feel like a coolie. She makes you run around and do grunt work all the time. I’m sure if he could have, Peter would have left his half of the business to you. I don’t see why a half-sister should have fewer rights than an ex-wife.”

“I know, but they had an ironclad agreement that if anything happened to either one of them, the other would own the business outright. Though I doubt that Peter envisioned anything like this happening. Still,” she said, looking into the box, “I’d rather be working for Angela than not working at the gallery at all. It’s what I love.”

Maris sighed. “You know, art isn’t just about inspiration. It’s also about putting pencil to paper and brush to canvas. Even if the result is bad or mediocre, it keeps the juices flowing. It’s like practicing the scales if you’re a musician. You have to be doing whatever it is that you do. And I haven’t been doing anything, not even looking at other people’s art or doodling, for months. I think I have to do something drastic before it’s too late.”

Dinah looked alarmed. “How drastic?” she asked.

Maris laughed. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not going to jump off a bridge. I’ve been thinking about going back to Canada for a while. Maybe a change of scene will help. I could stay with my mother. She has a house north of Vancouver where she makes pottery. Pretty good pottery, actually. She’s been doing it for years.”

“Maybe you could send me some,” said Dinah. “I could put it in the gallery and sell it. Authentic Canadian handicrafts.”

“That’s not a bad idea. Why not?”

Just then, Angela came back in the room, a large pair of scissors in her right hand. “Haven’t you finished opening these boxes yet? Do I have to do everything?”

Dinah looked at Maris. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I’ll deal with her.” She lifted an ebony carving of a woman’s face out of the box. An expression of beatific tranquillity on the face suggested she had seen Shangri-La. “Isn’t it exquisite?” she said.

After the funeral, Maris and Dinah had sorted through Peter’s stuff and decided what to do with it. Angela had flown back to Germany almost immediately to attend to the business that had been interrupted by Peter’s death. She told them not to get rid of anything without consulting her first.

In his will, Peter had left instructions for certain things to be given away, and they attended to them first. To Maris he had left an old leather trunk that at first glance appeared to hold nothing more than some old books and paintings — probably from his childhood and not the kind of thing he chose to display in his elegant apartment. Peter was not sentimental, but he wouldn’t have kept the old trunk if its contents hadn’t been important to him.

To Dinah he had left his precious art deco furniture, but with the stipulation that she could sell it or dispose of it in any way she chose if she didn’t want to keep it. She had cried when that part of the will had been read. Later she told Maris, “I’ve always loved that furniture but I never told Peter. It wasn’t as if I had to have it. I was just happy to look at it whenever I went to his place. He must have known.”

“Peter was pretty good at reading people,” Maris said. “I’m sure that’s why the gallery was so successful. He had a knack for matching people with the things he knew they’d love.”

“Is that why he gave you his childhood mementos in a trunk?”

“Maybe. He never did something without a reason.”

“Then I’m sure all will be revealed,” said Dinah.

Maris hadn’t examined the contents of the trunk before she left Singapore. She believed Peter’s decision to leave them to her had been deliberate and she would have to figure out why. But for now she wasn’t in a frame of mind to figure anything out. She was beginning to wonder if she really was depressed, as Dinah had suggested. Maybe she should talk to someone. But even the word “psychiatrist” made her uneasy. She knew a shrink would prescribe some kind of drug, and she believed that it would suffocate any creative impulses she might have. I have to find a way to work this out through my art, she thought. Words are not a good way for me to express myself. I never quite say what I mean. But a painting is either right or it’s not. It’s not finished until its meaning is clear. To me, at least, if not to anyone else.

She was looking forward to seeing her mother again. She’ll know what to do, Maris thought. After Maris’s father had left them for both another woman and a completely different life, her mother had been forced to re-invent herself in her mid-thirties. She had married Maris’s father, a California draft dodger, when she was twenty-one years old and they had moved to a hippie commune northwest of Vancouver. There they had raised three children: Maris, her sister Terra, and a brother, Ra. Maris had been thirteen, Terra twelve, and Ra nine when their father left to marry an heiress whose money had been made in automotive parts. Arthur Cousins had so transformed himself after marrying his second wife that he was now a successful businessman and owner of a BMW dealership in the posh Vancouver suburb of Kitsilano.

Sheila Cousins, or “Spirit” as she was called in those days, had been devastated. Arthur’s betrayal had gone way beyond breaking her heart. He had cast aside everything they had believed in and moved into the enemy’s camp. Had he just been playing a role all those years? And if that was the case, why had he loved her? Or had he loved her? Sheila Cousins was Spirit, in her heart and in her soul. She had not been one of those costume hippies who wore gypsy skirts and beads and feathers. She had been a believer. Meeting Arthur, who’d introduced himself as “Freedom Man,” had been pure destiny. She knew they were meant to be together. He’d heard about a hippie commune somewhere on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia.

“Pure Earth,” she’d said. “I know where it is. Near Roberts Creek.”

“Then be my lady and I’ll be your man,” he’d said. “And we’ll live on the land and be free.”

And they had, for nearly fifteen years. They’d cleared land, planted fruit trees and a vegetable garden, and raised goats for milk, butter, and yogurt. There were twelve other people on the commune in the beginning. After six years there were just eight of them left, but by then the children had started coming. The kids had run free, and they had names like Free, Moonbeam, and Meadow. Spirit had named her children for the sea, the earth, and the sun: Maris, Terra, and Ra (who later decided he would rather be Ray). She’d believed, and so had Freedom Man, that children were born filled with truth and goodness, and they should be allowed to grow without the restrictions and rules that society placed on people. They would learn to read when they decided they were ready and they would study what and when they wanted to learn.

Maris’s interest in art had begun early. Both her parents had encouraged her and sometimes she would draw pictures all day. Then she would give them to Terra and Ra to colour. The walls of their house were covered with drawings of animals, trees, flowers, people — anything Maris could see in the sheltered world around her. One day Spirit had taught her about still-life drawing. She had taken one of her own pottery bowls and filled it with fruit. Placing it on the kitchen table, she had added a candle and an open book, and told Maris to draw it. Then she had rearranged the objects, putting the fruit on the table, and the candle in the bowl. Another time she placed a sleeping kitten on the book.

By the age of ten, Maris began to develop a style of her own. But she hadn’t yet started to work in colours, except for red. She loved red and usually included something red in her drawings. They were quite dramatic in their own way, especially after her father gave her a bottle of black ink and some Japanese brushes. The commune operated on the barter system as much as possible, and Freedom Man would drive up the coast in an old pickup truck and trade fresh eggs, chickens, fruit, and vegetables for staples like flour and sugar. At the hardware store in nearby Gibsons, he traded some of Spirit’s pottery for small cans of paint and brushes for Maris. When Freedom Man left a few years later, Spirit started to sell her pottery for cash so she could buy art supplies for Maris. She got a library card and borrowed books on art and art history so that Maris could study and learn from the masters.

By this time, twelve-year-old Terra had developed an interest in pop music and wanted to learn the guitar, and Ra, who was nine, was obsessed with reptiles and spiders, especially the poisonous ones. Spirit refused to accept money from Freedom Man, who was no longer Freedom Man, of course, but Arthur Cousins, businessman, but he opened bank accounts for each of the children and deposited an allowance each month so that they could have some “extras,” as he called them. He was not without a conscience, even though Spirit told him he was a shallow, unscrupulous shit. But he was determined to provide an education for his children, however they wished to get one.

A couple of years after Arthur left, the three kids were still being home-schooled on the commune. Arthur wanted Maris to go to high school, so he drove out to the commune (in his BMW convertible) several times to talk to Spirit about it. He said Maris could come and live with him and Shirley and go to a good school. He would arrange for her to take the entrance exams so she could be admitted to a public school. Spirit said absolutely not. She was adamant that Maris would stay with her on the commune. End of discussion. Fine, said Arthur, she could be bused to Gibsons every day. He knew there was no point arguing with Spirit when she got like this.

Shirley didn’t say anything but she was secretly relieved that Maris would not be coming to live with them. She told Arthur, however, that she was very disappointed. She said that she had been looking forward to having a daughter, but she understood why Spirit did not want to let Maris go. She suggested that Arthur increase the children’s allowances. It was only fair since they were forced to endure such primitive conditions because their mother had custody.

Arthur provided a tutor so that Maris would pass the high school entrance exams and she started school at Lord Stanley Secondary School in September 1978.