Spectrum

Contains some domestic violence

Spectrum

I can’t stop staring. Beautiful you. I will fix your face in my mind and on my palette, I will blend pigments with joy until I can paint you in colours of wonderful.

My stained fingers itch and twitch, picking and snagging at the flimsy cotton of my long skirt. It is bitterly cold—my thick cardigan and scarf, the only items to ward off the chill.

Already, I am mentally scouring my paint box, choosing my shades with care. Your hair—thick, bold strokes of browns and golds, ochre, russet, cinnamon. Deep dark eyes—Burnt Umber, Warm Sepia. My hands ache to pick up the tints, the brushes.

Your skin: pale-tan, olive.

Your fingers, long and strong, require smooth, gentle strokes applied with fine brushes.

Lips in shades of passion.

You are reading a book with intensity, only lifting your perfect head occasionally to glance, without interest, at your fellow travellers.

Look at me. Let me study that silhouette. I will sketch your face in charcoals and chalks, smudging and blurring, softening the contours with finger and thumb.

Will you be on the same train tomorrow? Can I hold time? Paint the clock dial in colours of now—make still the heavy brass hands.

Soft snow is falling as I walk home. It drifts down and I see its myriad shapes in a hundred shades of crystal—each one holds an image of you. I stretch out my arms, wanting to catch and embrace as they fall, and I know a loss, an emptiness with each dissipating flake. Their splendour is ephemeral.

My house is shrouded in emptiness: in cold, hard colours, as outside, darkness creeps in dyes of dusk until the skies become Prussian Blue, streaked with purple and beaded with silver stars.

The fire struggles. I long for warmth, but watch, still thinking of you as small clouds of smoke puff and blow through the logs until they catch. Then, entranced, I gaze at the writhing flames. I sketch your outline with swift strokes until I see your face.

Sleep. You drift into my dreams—elusive, ethereal.

It is morning. I have no appointments and nowhere to go. I have nothing, no one. Not since the white road, ice shining; crystal, slate, glacial. Black tyres losing purchase, car spinning in flashes of horror dashed with darkness––Rolling, tossing––leaves caught in a storm—twisting, bending, floating, dying, leaving my body mapped with scars of scarlet, pink and iridescent white.

I must find you.

The station is almost empty: arctic, windy. It distorts my vision with tears of cold, and my cheeks sting. I am winter—snow—alabaster and pearl. Was it a chance that you were here yesterday?

You are standing at the end of the platform.

My gaze reaches out, touches you. You turn, smile—it is vague with no undertones of emotion. I return your greeting with a nod. You give a brief wave, and my heart picks up the pace.

You are walking towards me.

‘Hi. Do I know you?’

I flush. Cadmium Deep Red.

‘No. No. I’m sorry.’ I hunt for words. “It’s just that, well, I’m an artist, you see. And… I would love to paint you.”

I wait. You frown, pause.

‘Hmm, I’ve never heard that one before.’

The heat returns to my cheeks.

The train rattles into the station, its metal wheels sparking as they grip the track, spitting out crackles of spangled light.

‘Sorry,' I mumble, turning away.

‘Wait.’ You are looking at my hands. 'It would seem you may be what you say.’ You laugh. ‘Either that or you haven’t washed for a week or two.’

I blink and fiddle with my earring. Lowering my head, I study my nails.

‘Why me? Why would you want to paint me?’

‘Difficult to explain,’ I mutter, pulling my scarf higher so that it almost covers my mouth. ‘I just do. I could pay you, though it wouldn’t be much.’ It comes out in a rush. I am not used to approaching strangers.

‘Money’s not a problem.’ You shrug. ‘I’ll think about it. How about we meet for coffee?’

‘Good. Yes.’

‘Tomorrow?’

We arrange a time, a place, and I nod, eager to get home. To climb the spiral stairs that lead to my studio, to set up my easel, to choose a canvas, a size, shades and tones. Sit with my sketchbook, consider the outline, begin now before I forget a shadow, a line, a detail.

The café is small and cosy. Warm shades float around me, inviting. Bright chequered cloths of emerald and white cover the tables. The aroma of fresh coffee drifts in hues of Umber and Sienna.

When you arrive, I show you the drawing.

‘Wow! I think you may have exaggerated my handsomeness,’ you tease.

‘Will you let me paint you?’

‘Yes, I believe I will.’

You arrive for the first sitting, dressed in smart shoes, a dark scarf and a cashmere jacket peppered with melting snowflakes of opaque pearl.

Shaking your head, you take off your coat, flapping it like a matador trying to attract a bull, and look around with interest.

‘Wow, I love the staircase. It’s out of place but gives the room something special and different.’

‘Yes, it’s what drew me to this house. It leads to my studio. Would you like a coffee before we start?’

‘No, thanks. Let's just go for it. I'm keen to know what it's like to be a model.'

You sigh and settle into the seat in front of the easel. You are an excellent sitter, conversing without spoiling the pose.

‘Tell me about yourself.’ You say, jiggling your shoulders, easing into stillness.

How can I explain that my world is a kaleidoscope—full of shades of everything: the words I hear, I see them? Smell, taste, touch—they are all light and shade tinted either with subtlety or brilliance, with tones and shadows that I can mix and blend.

You speak to me of your family. Nice parents, one brother. You live in the city.

‘A small place, rather expensive but convenient for my work.’

I bite my lip in concentration as I listen to you, and I feel the trembling hand of an unknown artist paint my heart.

What colour is love?

Do you feel the same? Hope? Yearning?

I am cool, professional. I am Blue Light.

Now and then, I pause, study the portrait, look at you again as your words fly, changing with your emotions. I sense who you love, what excites you, what makes you miserable, and what makes you happy. I see you in every aspect.

Twice a week, you arrive, always on time. It takes almost a month to complete the portrait. I learn each movement of your body, the sinews, the muscles, the steady rhythm of your heart.

It is finished. You may look now.

Silence: Misty, fragile, floating.

‘It’s wonderful. I don’t know what to say.’

Relief. Pleasure.

‘I was going to hang it,’ I tell you. “I sometimes show at a small gallery, but I think I’ll keep it.'

‘I’d like to buy it,’ you say.

I smile and shake my head.

‘Name your price.’

‘I could let you have the sketch.’ I move across the room, pick up my pad.

You flip through the pages, smiling.

'You’re very talented.' You study the drawing with half-closed eyes. 'But I want the portrait.'

It stands between us. My depiction and the real you.

‘You don’t understand.’ My words hang in the air. ‘I’m sensitive about my work. Some I like to show, others I keep. Occasionally, I even give one away.’

‘I don’t expect you to give it to me. I said I would pay.’

‘That’s not the point. Anyway, I think it’s strange, people who want a picture of themselves. You could look in the mirror.’

You smile, sort of.

‘I was thinking my parents might like it.’

‘I can get the sketch framed,’ I tell you.

‘But why?’ The colours are swirling around your head in a rainbow of irritation and confusion. ‘I don’t understand why you would want a portrait of me. Someone you don’t even know.’

‘Sorry, but it’s my work. I think it’s good. I’m pleased with it. I keep a portfolio of the ones I consider worthy.’

You storm out in a cloud of Carbon Black and Cassel Earth. I add them to my depression.

Then you are here. At the door.

‘You won’t sell? You won’t change your mind?’

‘No.’

‘I won’t give up.’ You wear a shroud of confident colours.

You are determined—weeks, months flow by—slow-moving waters of time in silver, sapphire and steel.

You return time and again, determined, persuasive. I am adamant.

‘Marry me and we’ll share it.'

'I thought you wanted it for your parents.'

'I've changed my mind.'

‘You want to marry me? For a portrait?’

‘Of course not. I admire your talent, your humour, your stubbornness, your principles.'

Everything is bright, intense. I want to decorate this unknown world, seek my biggest canvas, combine pigments of enchantment—create a rhapsody.

You give up your apartment and move into my house. And now my home is our home. Happiness is beyond my palette.

But you are not content. I shouldn’t have models, strangers coming here. Why don’t I paint landscapes? Still Life? Bowls of fruit? Anything but people. You sulk—you are Titanium White and Dassel Earth.

The house is changing. It is a spectrum of darkness.

When I look in the mirror, I see pale skin daubed with bruises of Green Earth, olive, Ultramarine and violet—a blur of pain edged with twilight. My arms show your finger marks in crimson lines.

My demeanour displays smudges of weakness, submission, and defeat in all the pale yellows of timidity and failure.

I am ugly, scarred from this second crash in my world. My pain turns to anger. How could you make me care? Fill my world with promises and then break them?

You hate me. You shout in tones of ebony, ink, raven and crow.

Pushing me, hitting me with wrath and revulsion.

Hospitals are white; there is no colourant, no comfort.

Shall I blend more blues from twisted tubes, squeeze them empty—spray my studio in garish dashes of anguish? Shall I sweep my hands through the rainbow wood of my palette? Send the jar of brushes flying across the room, tip out the oils and mixers till the artist is no more?

Our house is not a home. It is cold and lifeless: sombre—stone and slate.

My tears are rain and rivers; they are sharp pepper and pewter.

The stairs are steep and solid, cast iron, blood red. They twist upwards to my world. You climb them with ease and determination.

‘Useless. Trash,’ you mumble as you head heavenwards. The words are knives of flashing steel in shades of destruction.

I am waiting.

At the foot of the staircase, you lie twisted, broken. Your limbs at strange angles, your face devoid of emotion.

I watch the colours leave you. They seep and crawl and stagger through the gloom without farewell.

The funeral is, as it should be, black in all its variants.

And I am nothing again.

Till I see him.

Summer is no time for death. I look upwards to the bright sun and shake the dark cloak of loss away from me.

‘Sorry for staring. It’s just that I am an artist and I would love to paint you.’

He grins. We chat.

What colour is love?

I race home.

Grabbing my sketchbook and crayons, I begin. I rescue the deserted easel. Re-soak the neglected brushes. Clean and scrape the dry and crusted shades from my palette. Wash the unused knives and scrapers and select a fresh canvas with care.