Painted Ghosts, page 4
‘”And why start now?” That’s what you’re saying,’ she snapped. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’ She sucked the end of her paint brush.
‘I’m trying,’ he said, glancing at his phone. ‘I’ve got people to meet. I can leave you alone with your blessed painting.’
‘All right, all right—’ She waved her hand impatiently at him. She had wanted peace all morning to work.
‘Just let go of it.’ He got up and placed his empty glass carefully on the table. ‘Do what you have to, then go home and get some counselling.’
‘My counselling is painting.’
‘Why don’t we just take you back now, mum. We can get a flight back in a couple of days.’
‘Not until it’s done.’
He shook his head. ‘Well just enjoy the scenery instead of pushing yourself. You’ve been doing that all your life, up early, doing this, doing that, always on the move. It’s time to chill out now, mum. You can retire and relax. You’ve got the money and you don’t have to worry about the business.’
‘You’re right. It’s just that—’
‘What?’
‘I’m not sure you’d understand.’
‘I’m just the ignorant son who’s lived a sheltered life, what would I know?’
‘I’ve always wanted to have a proper exhibition. You’d be so proud of me.’
‘I have got to go, mum.’ Carl gathered his phone, keys and wallet.
‘Whatever I try creatively now just does not work and it leaves a sort of feeling of desperation.’ She slammed the paint brush down, ignoring his retreat. ‘It’s not like when you’re young and ideas just flow into you and you just run with them. In those days I could do anything. I had a wonderful teacher — Tommy. I learned everything from him. The things he could do with oil paint, it was so exhilarating and challenging and new and exciting in those days. To have that youthful belief — that anything you do is a product of genius — you just take awful risks at that age, and somehow they come off. We could have run away together — the south of France, India, anywhere. He told me to shake off all preconceptions and just get on with my vision — don’t think about it, just do it, however it comes to you, that’s what he said. Why can’t it be like that now? It was like I could open a tap inside myself and it would all flow out. Now it’s so dark in there I can’t even find the tap.’
‘Why didn’t you? Run off with him?’
She laughed.
‘I wouldn’t be here if you had.’ He laughed with her.
She saw the little boy in him again and was moved. ‘You were loved,’ she said. ‘You were Ben’s little man.’ She came to the fridge and opening it took out a bottle of water and poured herself a glass, ‘I’m forgetting, you are grieving too. You and Ben were very close.’
‘You don’t have to—’ He jangled his keys, ready to go.
She stepped back, thinking for a moment. ‘You’re very patient with me. What a man Ben was, bringing me back here. And now you bringing me too.’
Carl came over slowly to the painting and leaned forward scrutinising. ‘What are you trying to do?’
‘A Yakshi is an ancient tree spirit that is depicted entwined round a sapling.’
He shrugged. ‘I’ll take you to the caves tomorrow. Your favourite one — number one — the princesses.’
‘With Shanta,’ she insisted. ‘Your father always spoke so highly about her — that is, when he did speak about her — which only happened when I asked him about her, I have to say.’
He pecked her on the cheek, said goodbye and left.
Mixing more Ochre with touches of Zinc White and Naples Yellow, she developed earthy slips of neutral colour with which she hoped to enhance the tones of the Yakshi’s body. Remembering things which Tommy had told her years ago, she relaxed her body, relaxed her arm and allowed her ‘whole body’ to paint, as he had instructed. In that way she could allow her torso to sway lightly with the movements of the brush, so that the act of painting became one of the whole person, not just the arm and not just the brain. ‘Art,’ he had told her, ‘involves all parts of the body and the psyche. If you just paint with your hand, it is a hand painting. But if you paint with your whole self it becomes an impenetrable complex of consciousness, especial and unique only to you. Then you are well on the way to becoming a real artist. Many people never get there — in fact most don’t. And you are close, Daphne, very close. You will get there if you persevere.’
Tommy was the only art teacher who had taken her on the path to becoming an artist. There had been others who had handed over techniques, philosophies and dogmas, but Tommy was the one who, working from his heart, had imparted the wisdom of the process.
It was still not good enough: the Yakshi would not come alive, she was two dimensional and had no life-spark to her. You must feel in a painted figure that it has a life of its own, that when it steps out of the picture it gets on with doing its washing and cleaning and surviving. Unless it is symbolic of something higher, more ethereal, cosmic, or an image of mythical or divine transcendence — so Tommy reckoned anyway.
She threw the paint-loaded brush on the pallet, crossed her arms and stared at the misshapen nymph and cursed under her breath.
Through the French doors of her hotel cottage-apartment she could see, a mile away, the main entrance to Ajanta. A small queue of Indian tourists were lining up, the bright colours of their children running in and out of them. Beyond the ridge she could just make out the top of one of the caves.
She resisted the urge to leave everything and go alone. Much better to wait and let Shanta be her guide. In the past when Daphne did have commercial contact with her rather than her partner Vishnu she was business-like with an eye for detail and a genuine interest in people, always asking after family. Ben and Carl said she was a highly educated, remarkable and enterprising woman who found time not only to source materials for Paint Clever but to support her local community by running her very successful co-operative, Kali Ko-op, which Ben had been instrumental in helping her set up both practically and with injections of cash.
She looked forward to the meeting — they could both expand their interests, friendships could flourish and Daphne could witness at first hand the achievements of her late husband. A journey to Karnataka for Daphne to see the good work that was being done and how Ben’s money would be spent would soften her feelings of grief and she could at last shed old skins, face old ghosts and find a new sense of self as an artist with which to go forward in her life. She was tired of finding reasons to get out of bed in the mornings and look at herself in the mirror. And Shanta may be familiar with the Yakshi images Daphne was haunted by and help her resolve them.
She was saddened that she could not explain that all to Carl. He could be stubborn like his father sometimes, and headstrong, just getting on with his own thing without thinking about the needs of others. But Carl did stick with her and if she softened her attitude to him he would help her.
4
Carl was back mid morning the next day grinning, although when he noticed Daphne at the painting, he stiffened.
‘I know what you’re thinking.’ Daphne waved her brush about. ‘But I’m going on with it.’ She noted he looked good in white trainers, white trousers and blue and red patterned shirt and should have told him so.
Heading for the fridge he said, ‘Like some phantom from hell.’
Ignoring the cruelty of his remark about her work she kept to her task. ‘Have you contacted Shanta?’
‘I’m waiting for Raj.’ He poured himself a gin and tonic, avoiding Daphne’s glare.
‘Shanta’s son, Raj?’
‘He drives me around when I’m over here. He’ll be here soon.’
‘Wonderful,’ she smiled at him. ‘I’ve not met Raj either, so that will be good. Everything can be arranged now — And there’s our driver for the trip. So that’s who you keep slipping off to see?’ Then she looked excitedly towards the caves where a small queue to get onto the path that led up the valley was forming. Women in red, gold and green saris attended girls in white and pink frocks and boys with bright white shirts, while men chatted in small groups. Regarding the cheerfulness of the families made her reflect on her own. She was particularly keen on Carl’s fifteen year old daughter. ‘I do miss Melody not being here,’ she reflected. ‘It would have been good for her to meet Shanta and see the good work she’s doing at Kali Ko-op. I have high hopes for her — she’s quick, intelligent, good academically—’
‘It’s that age, mum.’ Carl flopped on the sofa. ‘She wanted to spend her fifteenth birthday with her mates. She’s happy with her mum.’
‘I don’t get to see her much. I really would have liked my only granddaughter here with us, she has such energies, and she’s open to new things. She would have liked the caves, I know she would.’
‘I thought you two never really got on.’
‘We’ve had our disagreements, and when she shows attitude and is rude I am going to tell her off — as you should do. And you don’t do it often enough,’ Daphne said. ‘You should never have let her mother go off like that and take her.’
A tall girl with flowing blond hair, she had her father’s lips and mother’s blue eyes and when she made up her face with subtle pastel colours that complimented her features, she looked nineteen. Although Melody could snap sometimes there was a sensitive side to her and she could still a bad atmosphere with enchantment. Daphne felt a sense of connection with her granddaughter that Carl had missed. Melody was interested in art and painted little designs and liked to design clothes.
She would also be someone who could take over the business in time. ‘I do try with Melody’s mum, you know,’ Daphne said.
Carl shrugged. ‘Who knows what a fifteen year old girl wants?’
Daphne turned to her painting and tried to adjust the nose, layering in a touch of Cadmium Yellow and White with a touch of Burnt Sienna. The thick line of paint made the Yakshi’s nose bulge; it was all wrong. ‘I don’t suppose you spent much time dissuading her?’
She took a cloth and folding it round the point of the index finger of her right hand applied it to the over-thick paint on the nose and scooped some away.
‘She’s a teenager who changes her mind like the direction of the wind. Don’t take it personally.’
Daphne regarded the mess of colour on her canvas, resisting for a moment the desire to rip it apart with a pallet knife. Growling, she stormed away from it.
‘You’re impossible, mum.’ He sipped. ‘Twelve hours in Raj’s beaten up old tin can in baking weather.’
Carl was looking out past her, turning over his thumbs, a habit which annoyed Daphne. A person who believed every moment should be deliberate, almost pre-planned, Daphne found his fidgeting a distraction. If it wasn’t his fingers it was the rocking of one leg over another, just like his father.
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Paint your pictures.’ He gesticulated with his hand, the motion nearly spilling his drink in the other so she picked up his frustration. ‘You can talk to Raj when he gets here.’ Carl downed the dregs. ‘He knows his mum’s movements.’
Daphne let go and turned back to her picture, a rage tossing through her. ‘And now at last I have the time to paint — I can’t do it. I’ve lost the talent.’ She bunched her fists. ‘I can’t paint anything anymore.’
‘It’ll come back. It always does with you,’ Carl said lightly. ‘This stuff is a little drama you like to play out for my benefit.’
‘It won’t,’ she said, pushing back tears: she was not going to cry in front of Carl. ‘It’s gone. If you don’t fulfil these things when you’re young, you become a shell, an afterthought.’
*****
Raj was a couple of inches shorter than Carl and half his age; Daphne reckoned he was around twenty. His thick black hair was pushed back on top and finely shaved around the edges and he had thin dark eyebrows, narrow lips and a smile of warmth and authority.
‘Come in Raj,’ Daphne beckoned to the shy young man. ‘Have a drink with us — we have sparkling water, ice —’ She led him into her room.
‘Madam,’ Raj stepped forward with a slight bow of his head and proffered his hand for shaking. ‘Is it your first time in India?’
‘You can call me Daphne. I’m very pleased to meet you, Carl has told me so much about you and your mother. And to answer your question, my husband Ben brought me many years ago as Carl will have told you.’
‘I heard what happened,’ Raj went on. ‘He was a good man. I’m very sorry.’
‘You knew him well?’ Daphne motioned for him to sit and he obeyed. ‘Through your mother?’
‘Without him I would have had no school, I would be nothing. I’m driving now, but taking a degree soon.’
‘Then you can take over from your mother.’
‘We can work together,’ he smiled, ‘to build things bigger, wider—’
‘It’s very exciting. I’m so pleased to meet you. Get him a drink Carl. He might want water—’
‘Not if I know Raj.’ Carl poured Raj a small glass of whisky and another gin for himself.’
Daphne glared at her son. ‘You’re really too bad Carl, encouraging him. He’s a driver remember. I can just imagine you two and Ben—’
Accepting the glass from Carl, Raj let out a short laugh, stopped, and smiled back at Daphne. ‘It wasn’t quite like that — Daphne.’
‘I’m so glad we were able to help from our end,’ Daphne said. ‘And get your mum’s business up and get you an education. Ben was always at the forefront of giving to others.’
‘Mum won’t have anything bad said about my dad, Raj.’ Carl gave him a glance.
‘He was always good to me and he had a big heart. You know that.’
‘Yes, he did have a big heart.’ Carl nodded, sitting on a chair near the sofa.
‘You don’t have to say it with so much — sarcasm and irony.’
‘He did, mum. But you over praise him. He had faults just like everyone else.’
‘He was always kind to me,’ Raj added. ‘Like a father.’
Daphne poured herself a glass of water, ‘I’m talking to someone who knows what he’s talking about. I can see you and I, Raj, are going to get on fine.’ She waved her hand at Carl. ‘You can put the air con on now it’s getting stuffy.’
‘The sun’s getting up high,’ Raj said and seeing Daphne’s painting, he stood and walked over to it. ‘You paint, er, Mrs — Daphne.’
‘You mustn’t look at that.’ Daphne tried to get in between her visitor and the picture on the easel. ‘It’s just a work in progress, you understand. It’s nothing, really.’
Despite her move to block him, he had managed to slip past her.
‘A Yakshi,’ he said.
‘You can tell, you can see it?’ Daphne let out a short gasp.
‘This is a special Yakshi – a Shalabhanjika tree spirit. How did you know?’
‘You can really recognise it?’ Daphne fumbled in her pocket and came out with the trinket she had bought with the little Yakshi dangling from it.
‘Like a ghost,’ Raj laughed. ‘They can haunt you.’
‘Don’t you start,’ Carl said getting the air conditioning going.
Raj smiled at her again. ‘You do not have to worry. But the Yakshi is like a spirit that lives in the mountains and the woods guarding valuable metals and jewels in the earth. Yakshi is female and Yaksha is male. Even in Buddhist times you would see the entrance to a house with a Yakshi on one door post and a Yaksha on the other. They would stop bad spirits from entering and bring prosperity to the owner.’
‘If you believe that stuff,’ Carl laughed.
‘I can’t get it right, though,’ Daphne said, ‘not properly.’
‘Mum thinks she can do it.’ Carl gesticulated with his glass.
Raj looked at her, ‘I’m sure you can.’
‘You’ll be my friend for life, Raj.’ She leaned to him and lightly touched his arm.
‘Perhaps the face,’ Raj went on. ‘A little bit European. If you don’t mind me saying.’
‘I don’t mind you saying at all. You’re so polite.’
‘My mother paints,’ Raj said.
‘Shanta?’ Daphne scowled at her son. ‘Another thing I’ve not been told.’
‘She dabbles, like you, mum. Nothing special.’
‘Thank you for that, darling.’ Daphne fired at Carl, enjoying a moment of revengeful irony.
‘She painted a Yakshi once.’ Raj still observed Daphne’s picture. ‘A big canvas. A commission for a friend.’
‘Then she’s not a mere dabbler like me then.’ Daphne sent another scowl at her son. ‘She can help me.’
‘I’m sure she can,’ Raj said.
Carl sat forward. ‘She’s very busy, Raj, what with your sister. I keep telling her—’
‘Yes now that my sister is ill and Kali Ko-op is — how do you say —rejuvenating — itself.’ Raj carried on studying the Yakshi painting.
‘Rejuvenating?’ Daphne held her gaze on Carl. ‘What do you mean? Why haven’t you told me?’
‘Dad told you all that, didn’t he?’ Carl said.
‘My big sister Rani is sick.’ Raj shrugged. ‘There’s lots of doctors’ bills. My mother has had to sell things off.’
‘She’ll still be able to supply us?’ Daphne turned to Raj.
‘Of course, of course.’
‘It’s nothing, mum,’ Carl said, giving Raj a sideways glance.
‘I don’t want her business ruined if we can help. What exactly is happening?’
Raj turned back to the painting. ‘I’m sure she’ll help you with the painting.’
‘Raj. What’s happening to Kali Ko-op?’
He turned back to her, smiling. ‘The Devadasi women at Kali Ko-op make only purses, boxes, and things out of textiles like cushions and curtains. All the art materials we supply you, the hand made papers, the paints, inks and colours come from other sources my mother set up and runs. She knows suppliers and wholesalers. The little things the Devadasi women of Kali Ko-op make and supply to you is not enough to keep it going. It needs rupees it makes on art materials, fabrics and icons my mother gets from her suppliers, before selling on to Paint Clever.’
