The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper(66)

“Happy?” Edith said.

“They’re rather wonderful.”

“My wife says she’s giving me a second chance.” Adam shuffled back into the room. His face was ashen and his shoulders drooped. “Oh, is the lesson over?” He glanced around the room and then at his watch. “Some good work here, students!” he shouted out.

Ben and Edith gave him a disdainful stare and walked out.

“What’s up with those two?” Adam said incredulously. “What’s been going on?”

“The model didn’t turn up.”

“But their work. They’ve...” His words tailed away as he saw the subject in their art. “Oh...”

Arthur straightened his collar. “My name is Arthur Pepper. Now perhaps we can talk about what I came here for. I want to ask you about a gold charm in the shape of a paint palette. It’s engraved with the initials S.Y. I believe they may stand for Sonny Yardley.”

The college didn’t keep full records of students’ work, Adam explained. But they did keep some sketches and photos from some of the most promising students by year. Arthur said that he was looking for a piece of jewelry created around the mid-’60s and Adam pulled some heavy books off the shelves, opened them and set them in front of him.

“You should have said that you were here to find a piece of work,” Adam said. “I am so sorry that you had to strip off. This is the second time this has happened. If anyone finds out, then I will be fired. I’ll never get my wife back then. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

Arthur said that he would not. “Why does she keep threatening to go?”

“Because just look at me. I’m a bloody college lecturer. She’s a lawyer and way out of my league. She can run rings ’round me. Most of the time her work keeps her mind occupied. But she likes to keep me on my toes by threatening to leave. I can’t keep doing this.”

“It sounds exhausting.”

“It is. But we both love it. The sex afterward, when we make up, is astounding.”

“Oh.” Arthur flipped the pages and studied the sketches even more closely.

“They must have made charms that year,” Adam said. “This year it’s a piece of armor or body jewelry.”

“Ben told me. My penis may become a nose guard or something.” He said it without thinking and then gave a burst of laughter, that he had said the word penis and that he had stood for over an hour naked for students. It was absurd. Adam gave him a confused stare, which made Arthur laugh even more. A tear ran down his cheek and he wiped it away. His stomach muscles ached as he thought of Ben crafting a piece of brass into the shape of his dangly bits. He used his fingers to blot under his eyes. He was losing it. His life with his wife was a lie.

“Have you found anything yet?” Adam said. “What date are you at?”

“Um, 1964. I’m sorry, I just got hysterical for a moment.”

And then he found it. The next page he turned showed an intricate line drawing. It was of a palette with six blobs of paint and a fine brush. “This is the one.” He took the bracelet from his pocket and laid it out on the paper.

Adam peered at the page. “Ah, yes, it was Sonny Yardley herself who made it. She’s a wonderful artist. Very inspiring. How wonderful that you have this actual piece.”

“I believe that Sonny’s been ill, but I want to find out the story behind this charm and how my wife came to own it.”

“Well, when she’s back I’ll ask her to call you.”

Arthur walked back over to the painting of his wife. They smiled at each other.

Adam joined him. “That’s my favorite, too. There’s something about her eyes, isn’t there?”

Arthur nodded.

“It’s by Martin Yardley, Sonny’s brother. He only painted for a short time. I’m not sure why.” Adam lowered his voice. “I’ve never told anyone before, but that painting inspired me to become a teacher. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I was at school. I loved art but didn’t think of it as a career. Then we came to visit the college. I remember Sonny. She wore these huge orange trousers and had a headscarf in her hair. You can imagine the sniggers of us fifteen-year-old lads as we looked at these nudie paintings of women. I tried to pretend to be mature but touring a room full of painted breasts was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. I thought how amazing it would be to paint naked women for a living. I used to visit this gallery and look at the brushstrokes, especially on this piece of work.”

“She’s my wife,” Arthur said quietly, thinking how strange this sounded—standing with a young man admiring this naked portrait.

“Really? That is so incredible. You must bring her here to see this. Tell her that her painting helped me to paint, and meet lots of lovely young ladies, too. She’ll know Sonny, then?”

Arthur stared at him. He was about to say sorry but Miriam had passed on, but then he reconsidered. He didn’t want to hear another expression of sorrow for him, for his wife. He didn’t know her. She felt like a stranger to him now. “They were friends once, I think,” he said.

He said goodbye to Adam and walked out of the college, shielding his eyes against the bright light of the afternoon and unsure which direction to head in.