The Italian Teacher(70)
“Pretty much all conceptual stuff,” Marsden observes.
“Yes, I think that’s right. It’s not so much about making the pieces. The artist just has the idea. And, as they point out, even the Old Masters had apprentices paint large bits of their pictures.”
“Fine, but the Old Masters did some bits,” Marsden notes, a glimmer of his former contrarian self. “And they could have done the whole picture, time allowing.”
“Well, all I know is that the worst British newspapers love denouncing this kind of art, which almost makes me like it.”
Marsden stands on the other side of the glass tank, appraising the pickled shark. Peeping into open jaw, he says, “Is this good, enduring work, Charles? Or is it taxidermy?”
“I’m not sure ‘enduring’ and ‘good’ are the same thing, are they? As you can tell, I try not to have views on art anymore.”
“Used to be all you had.”
“You stopped drugs, I quit opinions.”
“I still have a few. Including that this show is making me dizzy,” Marsden says. “Window shopping at Fortnum and Mason?”
“Yes, the proper antidote.”
As they cross Piccadilly, Marsden mentions Barrows, that they’re still in touch. “Her husband is a lovely guy. They’ve got the cutest daughters.”
“She’s at Princeton, right?” he says, masking his surge of feeling, inquiring as if only mildly curious. “It’s excellent when someone really worthy thrives. Don’t you think? Feels like vindication.”
“She’d love to hear from you.”
“Maybe. But more about you, Mars,” he says as the Fortnum & Mason doorman admits them to a paradise of marzipan fruit and chocolate pyramids. “Have you ended up happy?”
“Much better than I was, which is sufficient for now.” Marsden lists a few goals. “One business idea is pet vacations for people who don’t have pets. You’d pay to visit a farm and look after the animals. We’d assign each person a dog or cat or horse for the week. How does that sound?”
The idea lacks any of the bravura of the former Marsden. But this is a new person, and Pinch wishes to befriend him too, if only because they both knew that young man. “Pet vacations—I like it.”
Upon departure, Marsden says, “I still don’t know what you wanted my opinion on.”
“Maybe it was just trickery to get you here.” Pinch twinkles, taking out his pipe.
“Funny to see you still puffing that all the time.”
Pinch considers the object in his hand, frowns. “I stole this from my father’s tobacco box years ago, when visiting him in Larchmont.”
“He never noticed?”
“I’m not even sure he’s noticed that I smoke!” Worry lurches inside him. Because his friend is leaving? Pinch extends his hand. “Put it there.”
Instead, the thick-armed guest embraces his small-shouldered, potbellied host. Shyly Pinch insists on his handshake afterward, and it persists at length, each man wanting an extra minute to express that this trip was important. Finally Marsden hoists his duffel bag, passes the Tube turnstiles, disappears down an escalator.
All the hurried pedestrians appear odd to Pinch, as if everyone in London had stilled these past five days, only to resume action now. On the street he holds a match over his pipe bowl, sucks down. After two drags, he removes the slobbery bit from his mouth, tongue buzzing, fingers yellowed. Crouching over a puddle, he taps out the tobacco, which hits the dirty water with a hiss. A smoke column rises, then is gone. Using all his force, he snaps the pipe in two and drops it in a rubbish bin. To a passerby he says, “I just quit smoking.”
A week later he sends a lump of money to Marsden. It was just sitting in his account, doing nothing. What are savings for, if not that? Weeks pass, and he hears nothing. His concern becomes annoyance. Not even an acknowledgment? But a few weeks later, a seven-page letter arrives.
Marsden explains that he was too touched, hadn’t known what to do, how to thank such an act.
“Don’t thank me. It was a joy to do,” Pinch writes back. “It comes with a sole condition. You’re not allowed to pay it back. And a second sole condition: I need your help, Mars.”
57
Worringly, Bear has moved the cottage and shows few signs of leaving. Normally he takes one trip there a year, a few weeks of summer break during which he cavorts and guzzles, rarely venturing into his studio. But he recently broke with his latest wife, and appears to be settling at the French property this winter, talking of staying permanently, even resuming his art there. Any day he might discover what’s missing. Pinch can do nothing but wait.
“It’s a disaster,” he tells Marsden by phone, giving a variation on the truth, claiming that his crime was stealing an original Bear artwork from the cottage, then selling it to help his older sister. It feels too awful to confess that he drunkenly punched one of his father’s paintings in spite, later burning it to hide the misdeed. He certainly isn’t ready to admit to a forgery. That would mean confessing that he paints, a practice that feels too private, too fragile. Yet perhaps such qualms are immaterial now—Pinch might never again enter that studio. And without time in the mountains, standing before a blank canvas, trying to make something? What else do I have? Couldn’t Dad go anywhere but there?