Rachael's Gift (32 page)

I took a step towards her, trying to hold my anger in check. My hand flew up to my head and she flinched. ‘God, I knew this was a mistake.’

‘It’s only a portrait,’ she snapped.

‘I should never have agreed to this.’ All those women – how many of them had he seduced? ‘Did anything happen?’

She loosened her hair and picked up a hairbrush, watching me in the mirror. ‘I can take care of myself.’

‘That’s what you said last time.’

She fell silent and bit her bottom lip, tears gathering. She placed the brush on the dressing table. One by one, the tears began to fall. A feeling of dread came over me. She held her face in her hands and began to sob quietly. ‘Mum . . .’ She looked at me, the hate replaced by fear.

‘Oh, Mum!’ Her sobs became louder. ‘I didn’t mean . . . I don’t know what happened.’ She wiped her face. ‘One minute he was my teacher and the next . . . Oh god . . .’ She sniffed and caught her breath. ‘He was touching me. I asked him to stop, but he kept going. . .’

‘Hang on . . .’

Her mouth was an open wound, a dark void. Her eyes shut tight, pressing hard to squeeze out one clear drop and then two, and a terrible howling sound threaded with pain came from somewhere deep inside her.

Every cell of me wanted to reach out and touch her, put my arms around her and tell her everything would be okay, but I remained frozen. ‘You’re lying.’

She shook her head. ‘No . . . please . . .’ she wailed, her arms clutching her belly. ‘You have to believe me.’ She doubled over and sank to her knees. ‘I’m going to be sick.’ And she dry heaved over the carpet.

I watched her suffering. Saw her pain. Perhaps it was real? A child is splayed on the bathroom tiles, her skin red and twisted, vomiting up bile. Another time, in the supermarket aisle, sitting in a burst pile of popcorn, coughing so hard through the sobs she throws up down her front. And another, my face smarting from the mark her palm has left, as she thrashes about her room.

‘When was this?’

‘The first time was –’

I faltered. ‘The
first
?’

Her words were chilling. Lucien. The paint brushes dig into my skin. His heady scent narcotic. His hands on my daughter? Could she be telling the truth?

‘Please, promise you won’t say anything,’ she begged. She was curled up on the floor, rocking back and forth, her hair fanned out around her, her shoulder blades poking through the white cotton. When she was a baby, she used to touch my face with her tiny hands while I fed her.

She began to punch herself in the arm. ‘Stupid. So fucking stupid. Disgusting. Dirty . . . Fucking idiot.’

‘Stop it!’ I yelled, catching her fist and holding it back.

She turned her red eyes towards me. ‘You hate me!’

I crouched beside her and restrained her arms until she fell slack against me. She buried her face in my neck. I smoothed her hair down her back and I held her.

After some time, she pulled away. ‘You believe me, don’t you?’

A spike went through my heart. I kissed her forehead. ‘Go have a shower.’

She picked herself up off the floor, took a towel from the back of the chair. I pulled myself up, feeling dazed, not quite sure what was going on. In spite of her pleas, I had to talk to Lucien.

Rachael hesitated at the door. ‘Please stay with me tonight.’ She picked at the wood of the doorframe with her finger. ‘I don’t want to be alone.’

I nodded. ‘Okay.’

I heard the shower running, my head splitting with thoughts. Was she telling the truth? I wanted to run down to Lucien’s room and scream at him. The thought of him lying there, sleeping even – I was in shock.

She switched the lights off and climbed into bed with me, wriggling down under the covers and placing my arm around her. She yawned, appearing placid, while my every nerve was pinched with stress.

‘Thank you for staying with me, Mummy.’ Her body began to succumb to sleep. ‘Night.’ She rolled over. And then, through the dark, her tiny voice said, ‘You’re not jealous, are you?’

Had I heard her correctly?

‘I know you’ve been with him again.’ She spoke through her yawn. ‘Don’t worry, you can trust me.’ And then I heard the soft little moans of her breathing, which meant she was asleep.

I stared into the darkness, dumb with disbelief. Was this a trick? A game? Did she want to hurt me? I heard the trees rustling outside the window; the wind had picked up. I would not sleep tonight. I needed to think this through very carefully.

Early the next morning, before the sun had even risen, I heard the sound of an engine start. I got up and peeked out the window and saw Lucien’s car disappearing down the driveway.

*

An hour later, I found a hung-over Wolfe passed out on the kitchen bench, drool on his chin. I shook him awake. ‘Go to bed, for God’s sake,’ I scolded, then told him I had to go to Paris for a work meeting. ‘Take care of Rach.’

He murmured something and passed out again. There was no time to have words with him now.

I took Francine’s car and headed straight for Lucien’s. I reached the city, slowing down in some light traffic, and watched parts of Paris slide past. Lights streamed in the rain; I caught my reflection in the car window, patterns from the pavement gliding across my face like two film negatives, one shifting over the other. I was replaying Rachael’s outburst in my head. How did she know about Lucien and me? Had he really raped her?

I’d been neglectful – distracted, too, by Lucien. He was hardly one to hold back; unburdened by middle-class morals, I would be naive to assume he didn’t do as he pleased.

You’re not jealous, are you?
Her voice rang in my ears. Jealous? It was as if she wanted me to be jealous. If that was what she wanted, the whole thing could be a lie.

I hurried up Lucien’s staircase. Butterflies flew inside me.

He had left the door ajar.

‘Hello?’ I said, puffing.

The lights were off. There were shadows in the room.

‘Lucien?’

I heard the faint sound of water running.

A draft came from an open window. An old glass of red wine rested on the workbench. The bench where we had . . . only a week ago. Had he done the same thing with Rachael? There was the kitchen chair. Had they done it there?

I saw the painting of the waterlily and beside it the other painting, the one covered with a white sheet. I marched over and yanked the sheet off; it billowed in the air and fell in a heap on the ground.

A naked woman sat on the wooden chair staring at the viewer in boredom, her painted red toenails curling around the bottom rung, but the rest of her sagged, in age, in lethargy, in disappointment. The lines around her eyes, her cheeks, her chin, were drawn and heavy. Her dark hair was stringy and brushed her breasts, which stood out unnaturally perky and exaggeratedly fake. This woman was old. I let out a harsh laugh. Rachael had not posed for him. She was lying.

The sound of water stopped, heavy footsteps walked from the bathroom to the bedroom, cupboards opened and closed.

My daughter had lied. There was no painting of her. I closed my eyes, thinking of her face, scrubbed fresh and pink, clean of make-up and then later, swollen and red from hysteria. I had come here to confront Lucien, but now I was not so sure. If Lucien had not painted her, had he raped her as she claimed, or was that a lie too?

Lucien walked in, freshly showered, looking confused.

‘Rachael has made up some wild accusations about you,’ I said immediately.

He reached for a packet of cigarettes, pulled one out and lit it. ‘What did she say?’

‘She said you were painting her.’ I began to pace. ‘And then she said that you had –’ it was difficult to form the words ‘– raped her.’

His cheeks drew in, creating a hollow above his jaw, and he blew the smoke between us, a look of perplexity – no, of boredom – on his face.

‘Is it true?’

Lucien closed one eye against a tendril of smoke. The smoke inhabited the room and my belly, the hollowness lurching, and a slow smile spread across his face.

That weightless feeling was back – the nauseating swarm of butterflies.

‘Why are you smiling?’

He began to laugh.

‘What are you, crazy?’ I said, incredulous at his reaction. My eye caught the painting again. I stared at the old woman and moved closer. She had green eyes. I hadn’t noticed that. Green eyes. Slowly, her features took shape: the slim nose, the square jaw, so like . . . ‘That’s not her, is it?’ I looked at him but he still had that smile on his face.

Lucien’s cigarette had gone out and he relit it. ‘Rachael really is something.’

‘What do you mean?’ I felt fearful.

‘I am not surprised she would say that.’

My temples began to pulse and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to hold it together for much longer. ‘What the fuck happened, Lucien? Tell me!’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘She wanted to and I wasn’t interested.’

‘But you painted her portrait!’ I gestured wildly at the painting. ‘She was wearing the shirt you gave her last night. She was in your room! You expect me to believe you? How can I?’ My breathing was erratic. ‘What about me?’

Lucien laughed and smoke gushed out of his mouth. ‘You got what you wanted,
non
? What you came here for?’ His face became serious. ‘What can I say? Believe me or don’t believe me. It’s not my problem. If I had wanted to sleep with her, I would have. I wanted to sleep with you and so we did.’

I flinched, thinking of the sex we’d had.

‘You know the process.’ He ashed on the floor. ‘I paint what I see. I paint the truth. That is all I care about. That is what I own. Afterwards, when the painting is formed, it’s no longer a part of me, and that is when it’s finished. It belongs to the person who sees it. It becomes whatever it is they see – changing, of course, from one to the next.’

‘But you painted her. This ugly thing. This is the truth, according to you?’

‘As you know, Camille, all art is subjective.’ He walked over to the painting, picked up a brush lying on the palette, and began to trace some shadowy lines down the woman’s arms as if he were stroking her. ‘Come here, come closer. Look at her.’ The fine tip of the brush now caressed her cheeks, adding deeper grooves. ‘See how the paint has built layers? Layer upon layer of depth and life and story.’ He lowered the brush. ‘What do you see, Camille? Rachael?’ He turned to face me. ‘Or, perhaps, yourself?’ He put the brush on the palette, ‘You see what you want to see, Camille.’

I held my arms against my chest. ‘The truth . . .’ I said, staring straight ahead at the white wall, picturing the whorish red lips. I thought of the giant waterlily, with its white petals becoming pink overnight and the young girl who sacrificed herself to be the moon’s lover. It would die in the next couple of days. ‘You could have picked anyone,’ I said, shaking my head and stumbling out the door of his studio.

*

I walked across the road to the bridge. Strangers’ voices faded in and then out as they passed by. Muddy-coloured water gushed beneath. I wondered how many people had made the pilgrimage to Paris and stood in this very spot, in awe of her beauty. Was it ever as good as their fantasies? Or had they, too, seen only what they wanted to see?

I gripped the metal railings with my bare hands and somehow did not feel the cold. Did I believe him? Lucien was a lot of things, but he was not a liar. I exhaled a white puff of air. There had been no rape. I believed him when he said he could have slept with her if he had wanted to. And he had not wanted to.

But she had. I’d been careless and blind.

Wolfe had been right all along.

*

Rachael was still in bed when I got back to La Roche Guilbeault. I strode right into her room, switched on the light and tore the bedsheet from her. She sat up in shock and the whites of her eyes shone large.

‘You lied to me.’

She blinked, drawing the sheet up over her.

‘Well?’

Her eyes were fierce.

‘Why’d you do it?’

I yanked the sheet from her and she tried to wrestle it back from me.

‘Answer me!’ I yelled. I let go of the sheet and she tumbled backwards on the bed. I stumbled and leant on the dressing table. She curled herself up into a ball, clutching the sheet around her, shielding herself from me.

I waited until I grew calm and when I spoke my voice was deep and even. ‘It’s my fault. I didn’t think . . . Perhaps I was wrong about you after all. Perhaps you don’t have what it takes. It’s one thing to protect ourselves from the wrongdoing of others – it’s another thing to betray me. What were you thinking?’ I looked at her. ‘You can’t be the sole focus of my attention. What will happen when I’m no longer here to pick up the pieces?’ I exhaled. ‘Your impatience and need for instant gratification will be your downfall.’

We stared at each other. I waited for her to say something but her eyes said it all: a trapped animal squirming to find an exit, but she didn’t have one. I walked to the door.

‘You’re so selfish,’ she whispered.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head, bored of this fight already. ‘Yes, yes. That’s right.’

‘I’ll tell Dad,’ she said, spitting the words out. ‘I’ll tell him everything. How you burnt the painting.’

‘I’m not the one who got caught stealing it.’

Her voice fell an octave. ‘How you slept with Lucien.’ Her eyes found mine: bullseye. ‘I’ll tell him all about you. All the lies.’

A rumbling began in my diaphragm. Oh, this was rich. Too bloody rich. ‘You think anyone is going to believe you?’ I walked over to the door. ‘You’re the girl who cried wolf.’

Firecrackers raged inside my head. It had been nearly a week since I’d arrived and I wondered what else had been kicking off at home. Rupert set me up on his laptop and I did a search for Ashley Everett. A number of links to Twitter and Facebook appeared. A link to an article by Pete Archer popped up, entitled: ‘The teacher, the internet and the lynch mob: How an innocent man was forced into hiding.’ He referred to Everett as ‘the teacher’, a ‘banal’ and ‘harmless’ person whose art was ‘less provocative than long division’ and who’d been the ‘innocent victim of a combination of a bored housewife’s revenge fantasy . . .’ (Avery?) ‘. . . and a manipulative sociopath’ (Rachael?). He went on about the responsibility of internet service providers and how it had made journalists of every Tom, Dick and Harry who didn’t know their arse from their elbow, and whom the teacher was now suing for defamation. Not only would the teacher have to find another job, he would have to relocate to a place where no one would know him. Poor bloke. I was sorry. Sorry for it all. What a bloody circus.