to you. Something about his physicality and yours marks you as family, one from either end of blond’s spectrum. Ben is dressed, still in his Italian trousers, but the rest is yours, a white T-shirt instead of the shirt, and your navy fishing jumper. I don’t know how this is chosen, but somehow we both gravitate toward it, hanging from the door hook. You have worn it for years. Sacred clothing. I think about the darker recesses of the studio, areas where the light does not reach: in the corner opposite the sink, where one frame leans against another; the shelved recess that houses the paint. I think about Ben standing there and how, with his face turned away from me, it could almost be … We are both aware of it. His posture changes in your clothes. Now he slouches against the wall, hands in pockets barely wide enough to hold credit cards. Nothing about this is caricature. He is not making a joke as he curves his shoulders inward, lips pursed, arms loose and gangly as if an overgrown boy. He wrinkles his nose.
– This stinks.
– He went fishing last week. You were the one who pulled it down. When he hangs it up there Vishni knows not to wash it. It’s one of the quirks he has.
– Doesn’t he just! What was he fishing? Are there still trout in the river?
– Brown trout. He has to go where the river passes town these days. Further away from the hills as less seem to travel upstream. He did pretty good last week, though. We were eating for a couple of days.
– Worth coming back for? It’s been a while since we went fishing.
– Worth coming back for. You know he’ll be only too pleased to take you.
– Maggots running everywhere, plenty of beer drunk, but not much fish, as I recall.
– He’s better at it, these days. Has the patience, I should say. You’ve got a good month or so ahead of you, if you want to take him up on the offer.
– So his letters suggest. Our boy’s become quite the country sportsman.
– Something of that kind. Are you going to be happy in that jumper, Ben? You realize that once I start you’ll need to keep wearing it.
– That I am aware of.
– And that we won’t be able to wash it, less we lose any of the marking?
– I can overdo the cologne to compensate. This is how you want me, isn’t it? I can see it in your face. Your eyes are lighting up.
– They are not.
– I know your game. The observer doesn’t want to be looked at, ad nauseam. Well, tough luck! We’re going to be staring at each other for a while.
– Not if I have you looking down at the floor.
– And you will, too! Now I understand why some of your subjects were posed the way they were. That little nugget never made it into the notes, did it?
– Stop teasing, Ben. We need to make a start if you want to catch your train tonight.
– I thought I might hang around. At least until John gets back. Shoot the breeze. If he’s only in the city, he shouldn’t be too much longer.
– I wouldn’t have thought so.
– I can take the overnight.
– Don’t be silly. Riding the rails through the night like a teenager! Stay over. We’ll make a bed up. I’ll go and speak to Vishni now because I’m not sure what she had in mind for dinner.
There is an ease with Ben’s decision, built on confidence, and from years of having had beds made in countless other artists’ residences, from poolside guest houses in California to squats in the wrong parts of London. There are some gallery owners who can barely bring themselves to shake an artist’s dirty hand, let alone sleep on a concrete floor; solely interested in the finish. Ben is not one of those. For all the comforts the success of his gallery has brought him over the years, he is still governed by a sense of adventure and an undying fascination in the process. He will spend the night in a tree if he is sure a good painting will come out of it. I hold him still and roll up each trouser leg; tight, narrow rolls that show his ankles. He stops talking now, knowing that he will have ample time to fill during the long studio hours ahead. For now, he is a cipher, who must ready himself to be prodded and pulled. Jumper sleeves are pushed up until they reach the elbow. I point to your shoes that sit by the door.
– Take your socks off, too.
– Sure. Anything else?
– Your jewelry. Watch and ring.
These are slipped off first, but there’s something slow in the way he moves now; these last moments where he morphs from friend and house guest to subject. From articulate to voiceless. Even though he still wears his trousers, removing his socks seems to erase the final remnants of who he is. He pulls on the shoes and follows me to the door. His shadow and soft steps are yours.
In the studio Ben moves instinctively toward a row of canvases leaning against the wall. All the care that is given to paintings in the homes they finally end up with is not shared in their places of origin. A sheet protects them from dust, but at various stages they have been handled roughly; marked, nicked in places and painted over. Before perfection – truth – comes digging, dirt. Each canvas bears sign of this excavation, before being hidden by frames and glass. I am a mother bear who carries her cub by the teeth.
– Look at those afterwards. Let’s get you in the chair first.
His eyes scan the rows hungrily, calculating how many have accumulated since his last visit. It is clear that he had not expected so many. The eyebrows that frame his widened eyes seem to tremble with the discovery.
– All these?
– Yes. But you can only see some of them. After you’ve worked for it.
Nodding in affirmation, he moves to the center and waits for me to push the chair toward him. The curiosity for pictures overrides everything, even this house, and his friendship with you. He will not leave without seeing what is under the cloth. Having pushed, dragged back, and pushed again, I motion him to sit. Again, his nod is one of compliance, brisk and sharp, knowing that he will wait patiently, for as long as it takes, until he gets what he wants.
THE EMPTY PLACE set at the table makes the lightness of our dinner talk a fallacy. We sit tightly as if listening to the band on the Titanic after receiving premonitions of our doom. The meal is good but there is sadness in the atmosphere, dulling taste buds and tampering with digestion. Ben does his best to play along, his easy manner and ability to keep the conversation going eventually relaxing us, so that at certain moments it feels like a replication of previous dinners, when the room was filled with the simple pleasure of friendship, and the absent place could be explained away by your fetching the wine, the watermelon, the cheese. It is only at the end of the meal, when interest in Vishni’s rose cuttings and my redundant gossip about other artists can no longer be tolerated, that Ben’s manners evaporate and he becomes testy.
– Why the hell isn’t he back yet?
– Soon. I’m sure it’ll be soon.
– He should be here by now.
We jump as his hand slaps the table, its echo as hard and flat as his palm. Our eyes meet momentarily before taking them elsewhere,
