But a broken sleep did nothing to sooth his Mother’s
anxieties, and by the time the lamps were extinguished in favour of a grey
dawn, Ernest resigned himself to losing a day’s pay in favour of staying by her
side to look after her. Rosalina paced the room, her long skirts
dusting the cobwebs into the corners. She began to study the light, to step
back. Ernest handed her what he knew she needed – a stick of charcoal from the
fire. She began to draw, quick decisive strokes on the whitewashed wall, making
the stick snap and the artist to growl in frustration. Ernest took advantage of her pre-occupation
to carry the slops and the empty pitcher down into the court. As he drew water
up from the newly-installed well, he looked down into the depths at his
reflection, broken in the dancing light. His Mother drew his likeness over and
over again, not in these fits of madness, but after them, perhaps as some kind
of recovery. But she always seemed to draw him as a child, with golden looping
curls of hair, and a bow beneath his chin. Ernest’s curls had been shorn by the
barber three years ago as a prevention against lice, and Ernest did not feel
that he was a child any more. He was growing up, and he needed to eat more to
allow his body to do that. If his circumstances did not change, he thought, he
may not live much longer. He set the bucket on the cobbles and took in a deep
breath. He did this every morning, watching his body carefully for any
weaknesses, especially for any signs of the cough that his Mother struggled
against. This morning, thank God, he thought, all was well with him; except for
the hunger. When he was in the market he
could rely on the goodwill of other stallholders to share a crust with him,
although he hated accepting such charity and would never tell his Mother that
he was forced to do this. But here in the Rookery he would have to see what he
could get for a ha’penny from the barrows lined up to serve the working, and
itinerant, population. He decided on a
bun, left over from yesterday and so it was hard but would be fine, warmed
before the fire. He did not want to get stuck in a conversation with the woman
on the barrow, who knew him by sight. ‘Drawing on the walls again, is she?’ she
asked, shaking her head at Ernest.
‘Mother’s very well, thank you’ he said.
‘No she ain’t or you’d be in the market, instead of running girl’s errands, and letting a day’s wages get away.’ The woman leaned over him, so that Ernest could smell the scent of her, warm sugar and yeast over soured cotton. ‘Listen, dearie – if you need to earn some more dosh in a hurry, come and talk to me. I know a very friendly gentleman – he’d love to spend time with you. He’d give you treats, a proper bath…’ she looked at him sideways. ‘You know what I mean, don’t you duck?’
Ernest could not honestly say that he did, but he knew the uncomfortable feeling that this proposal gave him, and he shook his head, firmly. The barrow woman threw her hands up. ‘Suit yourself little mister high-and-mighty. Better use it while you’ve got it, I say. You’ll learn.’ She gave him the bun in a twist of paper, and then sighed, and put in another one. ‘And one for your Mum. Run on home now, before she gets out.’
Ernest gritted his teeth. A few months ago his Mother had been found wandering, under the influence of laudanum, around the court at night. She could have been hurt, or worse, not by her neighbours but by their higher class clients. As a rule The Rookery looked after its own, but its hungry occupants also knew a money making opportunity when one presented itself, and a beautiful woman lost in her own thoughts and dressed in nothing but a silk shift was certainly worth selling. Ernest had the support of the women, including the cake-seller, to get his Mother, still talking of men with dangerous eyes and girls in terrible danger, back into her room, while the men stood around, arms crossed, and looked on silently, taking everything in. Ernest hoped that it had been a moment of madness that would not be repeated, but that episode had also begun with a spell of feverish drawing. Still, he thought, this time he was prepared, and the door would be bolted once darkness fell.
Rosalina was painting. She was confident, she was happy, she knew exactly what she wished to portray. In her mind, the burned stick she used was a limitless palette of colours, and the landscapes that she scratched onto the walls were places that she recalled from her childhood; tidy fields and flower beds, orchards stretching out at the edge of the landscape and watercress beds floating on clear streams. If she pressed herself closer to the wall, the perspective merged, and she might be able to walk down the flower fringed path to the willow tree, to sit under it as she had done in innocence. She drew more flowers, the stalks one quick line of her charcoal, the petals a dabbed impression from her sooty fingers. She fell on her knees to sketch in the foreground before the light changed, as she had done when she first studied painting, when the techniques were hers to master. But the shadows were moving across the landscape, and she had the sensation that she was being watched. Her flowers refused to come alive under her fingers, and the trees that she had sketched became bare, stunted twigs. She could see eyes in the leaves, and faces that leered out from the dark spaces in between. She rubbed and smudged the painted world, but the eyes stood out more strongly from the misted trees, and wherever she moved, between the landscape or back into the room, she could not escape them. The colours drained away in front of her, and she had a moment of dreadful clarity, stood in a mean room in a dirty nightdress, holding a half burned, half chewed stick. She closed her eyes, but then the laughter started, as she had been afraid it would. A snide, unkind laugh, that of a man of the world, experienced, amused, and so close that it must only be in her own head, but if it was, she could never be free of it. And if the laughter was not in her own head, it must be coming from the faces in the picture, since there was nobody else in the room. Rosalina swayed, hearing the laughter grow even as the blood pounded in her ears. This time, she thought, this time I will stand my ground. He shall not win. She thought of Ernest, of fighting for her son. She stepped resolutely up to a clear space in the wall, and then away, as if she were back in her own studio, and scrutinising her sitter. She held her stick upright, and then at an angle, measuring the features of a face that only she could see. And then she began to work, using the soot from the grate and her spit to make a paint, the chewed stick for a brush. She used her sleeve to give the softer tones of the background, and even her fragile tortoiseshell comb became an implement to give texture. She worked as fast as she could, for she knew that her sitter would not wait patiently for her to finish. She had to capture him in paint before he really knew that he was observed, before he could escape.
Ernest was hefting the full pitcher of water up the stairs with both hands, the penny buns turning to crumbs in his pocket as the heavy pitcher slapped against him. He stopped at the door to his room, alarmed by the silence within. Normally by now his Mother would be muttering, talking to herself, acting out her society triumphs, sometimes even singing. This morning he could hear nothing but a fast scratching sound. He pushed open the door with his elbow and took only a couple of steps inside before he stopped, trying to understand what had happened in his absence.
Every wall was covered in charcoal sketches and patterns. Monstrous, smudged vegetation grew and tangled around the room, covering every wall except for the space above the hearth. There his mother still worked, her back turned to him as he cautiously approached. She could be violent if she thought anyone was going to prevent her from painting. But she turned to him and smiled, a simple gesture that frightened her son almost as far from reason as she was herself. Ernest looked at her face, black with charcoal so that only her eyes and her teeth gleamed ferociously through the smears. Her sleeves were black and torn, her fingers black except for the blood dripping from her broken finger nails. There was a fine mist of dark red spattered down her chest. Her hair had come loose and she must have been using the ends of it to paint with, for the ends were stiff and twisted and the rest was full of cobwebs.
But it was not the sight of his Mother, transformed into a Bedlam inmate, that truly scared the young man who stood and faced her, fighting to control his urge to run away. The source of his terror, which seemed to become a palpable force inside him, was the portrait above the hearth. His Mother had drawn the portrait of a man, but like no man could ever be. He was handsome enough, not disfigured or grotesque, standing over their room with his hands on his hips, looking down on artist and child as if he owned them. But the expression in his eyes, the set of his face, was so cold, so detached that Ernest could hardly imagine that his passionate, vital Mother had been able to conjure something so evil from thin air – a stick and some soot had been enough for her to finally share the figure who haunted her, who she ran from in her dreams, who terrified her enough to seek peace in the warmth of the opium poppy.
‘Dear God’ breathed Ernest. ‘Mother – who is this man?’
‘It is a portrait of your father’ said Rosalina, attempting to smile at her boy. And then the exertion of the work overtook her, and she fell insensible to the floor.
‘Mother’s very well, thank you’ he said.
‘No she ain’t or you’d be in the market, instead of running girl’s errands, and letting a day’s wages get away.’ The woman leaned over him, so that Ernest could smell the scent of her, warm sugar and yeast over soured cotton. ‘Listen, dearie – if you need to earn some more dosh in a hurry, come and talk to me. I know a very friendly gentleman – he’d love to spend time with you. He’d give you treats, a proper bath…’ she looked at him sideways. ‘You know what I mean, don’t you duck?’
Ernest could not honestly say that he did, but he knew the uncomfortable feeling that this proposal gave him, and he shook his head, firmly. The barrow woman threw her hands up. ‘Suit yourself little mister high-and-mighty. Better use it while you’ve got it, I say. You’ll learn.’ She gave him the bun in a twist of paper, and then sighed, and put in another one. ‘And one for your Mum. Run on home now, before she gets out.’
Ernest gritted his teeth. A few months ago his Mother had been found wandering, under the influence of laudanum, around the court at night. She could have been hurt, or worse, not by her neighbours but by their higher class clients. As a rule The Rookery looked after its own, but its hungry occupants also knew a money making opportunity when one presented itself, and a beautiful woman lost in her own thoughts and dressed in nothing but a silk shift was certainly worth selling. Ernest had the support of the women, including the cake-seller, to get his Mother, still talking of men with dangerous eyes and girls in terrible danger, back into her room, while the men stood around, arms crossed, and looked on silently, taking everything in. Ernest hoped that it had been a moment of madness that would not be repeated, but that episode had also begun with a spell of feverish drawing. Still, he thought, this time he was prepared, and the door would be bolted once darkness fell.
Rosalina was painting. She was confident, she was happy, she knew exactly what she wished to portray. In her mind, the burned stick she used was a limitless palette of colours, and the landscapes that she scratched onto the walls were places that she recalled from her childhood; tidy fields and flower beds, orchards stretching out at the edge of the landscape and watercress beds floating on clear streams. If she pressed herself closer to the wall, the perspective merged, and she might be able to walk down the flower fringed path to the willow tree, to sit under it as she had done in innocence. She drew more flowers, the stalks one quick line of her charcoal, the petals a dabbed impression from her sooty fingers. She fell on her knees to sketch in the foreground before the light changed, as she had done when she first studied painting, when the techniques were hers to master. But the shadows were moving across the landscape, and she had the sensation that she was being watched. Her flowers refused to come alive under her fingers, and the trees that she had sketched became bare, stunted twigs. She could see eyes in the leaves, and faces that leered out from the dark spaces in between. She rubbed and smudged the painted world, but the eyes stood out more strongly from the misted trees, and wherever she moved, between the landscape or back into the room, she could not escape them. The colours drained away in front of her, and she had a moment of dreadful clarity, stood in a mean room in a dirty nightdress, holding a half burned, half chewed stick. She closed her eyes, but then the laughter started, as she had been afraid it would. A snide, unkind laugh, that of a man of the world, experienced, amused, and so close that it must only be in her own head, but if it was, she could never be free of it. And if the laughter was not in her own head, it must be coming from the faces in the picture, since there was nobody else in the room. Rosalina swayed, hearing the laughter grow even as the blood pounded in her ears. This time, she thought, this time I will stand my ground. He shall not win. She thought of Ernest, of fighting for her son. She stepped resolutely up to a clear space in the wall, and then away, as if she were back in her own studio, and scrutinising her sitter. She held her stick upright, and then at an angle, measuring the features of a face that only she could see. And then she began to work, using the soot from the grate and her spit to make a paint, the chewed stick for a brush. She used her sleeve to give the softer tones of the background, and even her fragile tortoiseshell comb became an implement to give texture. She worked as fast as she could, for she knew that her sitter would not wait patiently for her to finish. She had to capture him in paint before he really knew that he was observed, before he could escape.
Ernest was hefting the full pitcher of water up the stairs with both hands, the penny buns turning to crumbs in his pocket as the heavy pitcher slapped against him. He stopped at the door to his room, alarmed by the silence within. Normally by now his Mother would be muttering, talking to herself, acting out her society triumphs, sometimes even singing. This morning he could hear nothing but a fast scratching sound. He pushed open the door with his elbow and took only a couple of steps inside before he stopped, trying to understand what had happened in his absence.
Every wall was covered in charcoal sketches and patterns. Monstrous, smudged vegetation grew and tangled around the room, covering every wall except for the space above the hearth. There his mother still worked, her back turned to him as he cautiously approached. She could be violent if she thought anyone was going to prevent her from painting. But she turned to him and smiled, a simple gesture that frightened her son almost as far from reason as she was herself. Ernest looked at her face, black with charcoal so that only her eyes and her teeth gleamed ferociously through the smears. Her sleeves were black and torn, her fingers black except for the blood dripping from her broken finger nails. There was a fine mist of dark red spattered down her chest. Her hair had come loose and she must have been using the ends of it to paint with, for the ends were stiff and twisted and the rest was full of cobwebs.
But it was not the sight of his Mother, transformed into a Bedlam inmate, that truly scared the young man who stood and faced her, fighting to control his urge to run away. The source of his terror, which seemed to become a palpable force inside him, was the portrait above the hearth. His Mother had drawn the portrait of a man, but like no man could ever be. He was handsome enough, not disfigured or grotesque, standing over their room with his hands on his hips, looking down on artist and child as if he owned them. But the expression in his eyes, the set of his face, was so cold, so detached that Ernest could hardly imagine that his passionate, vital Mother had been able to conjure something so evil from thin air – a stick and some soot had been enough for her to finally share the figure who haunted her, who she ran from in her dreams, who terrified her enough to seek peace in the warmth of the opium poppy.
‘Dear God’ breathed Ernest. ‘Mother – who is this man?’
‘It is a portrait of your father’ said Rosalina, attempting to smile at her boy. And then the exertion of the work overtook her, and she fell insensible to the floor.
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