The Miracle Painting
By C.P.R. May
October 2007
The child looked up from his breakfast. Janice, his mother, had walked back into
the room holding a glass of milk and stood in a honey gold slip of sun that crafted
its way into the room. He waved a sticky hand in the air and a leaf-
"Milk?" he questioned, blinking in the sudden shadow, his mother's form a halo edged in light against the sun.
The room was decorated with paintings and bright colours, warmed with books and soft toys. From a small set of speakers on a kitchen surface, crowded with packets of organic foods and recipe books, chugged a music from a far country; softly urging peace and dance in the same whispering breath. Under the generous window, a desk, teemed with artists materials amongst which a wide blank canvas leaned, it lent the area a creative ambience.
"Look at you," Janice said, as she placed the milk carefully on the boy's tray, retrieved a handy cloth and swabbed at the remains of the breakfast.
"Good," said Jamie, who was nearly four and knew well enough how to manage a glass. His lively green eyes framed by a glow of morning hair creased in concentration over the task of safely manoeuvring the drink.
Janice sighed, a faint role of her shoulders cloud skipped against her smile. She
was worried, had woken agitatedly before the first blue of the day as she always
woke, fretting in her dreams till they merged fluently with the careworn tracks of
her thought. They followed now a tread wheel logic circling under her, starting again
where it had left off. Bank-
"Lets get you ready, little man," she said, hunting for shoes and coats. Jamie finished the milk and smiled up at her.
"School?" he said.
She nodded, kneeling to fit a pair of small red shoes to his feet. Then lifting him from his chair placed him on the floor; she smelt of summer, of baking and of soap and of that grass green softness of a warm meadow.
"School." Jamie stated. "Good."
Having walked the stone grey mile through a town surrounded by wild hills, with Jamie engaged in his favourite, what's that game, she wheeled the buggy into the school's drive and handed the child over to the staff at the gate. He ran, carefree as a daisy into the school yard. "Bye, have a lovely time" she called after his retreating figure and smiling at the teacher she went back home.
Standing on her doorstep, armed with a black Macintosh and a battered folder was a gloomy figure whom she identified from a distance as her landlord. She had been folded in thoughts about galleries, exhibitions and paintings, weighing her need for money against a stubborn refusal to give up her art for the tiresome grudge of the call centre or bar work, and his appearance had shocked her. He wasn't supposed to be here now, Monday was his customary day. As she walked towards him Janice steeled herself. He turned to speak to her his worn suit pulling where it struggled to stretch over an indefinite pudginess. He smiled, a lard soft grimace setting his eyes and mouth at war with each other and offered a dimpled hand, pink stubby fingers spread wide as if he never expected Janice to take it.
"A Ms. Morris… always a pleasure… can I…ah…"
Janice put her head on one side and making no move to accept the handshake raised an eyebrow.
"Not here Mr McGillian, inside." She pointed to the hall stairs under which were stored the prams and bicycles from the other five inhabitants in the apartment block.
His smile shrunk as if relieved to be gone.
"Ah…of course.. I.. after you." He flapped a hand effeminately towards the door.
Janice stepped through and the landlord followed.
"Cosey in here, no? Ah, well. There is the little matter of the… er… outstanding.. uh.. rent." He produced the last word with a small flourish and paused expecting a reply. When non was forthcoming he carried on.
"Two weeks Ms…ah… Morris. Two weeks behind I'm afraid. Now if you can pay me…uh… say… now we'll say nothing more. Mum's the word, eh?"
"I haven't got it Mr McGillian, next week I will, but this week I haven't." She looked straight at his eyes which shifted to glance away.
"I can't wait that long Ms Morris. Can't, see." He nodded his head as if to confirm the seriousness of his situation. "Why if I let all my clients off where would I be…. Eh?"
There was a pause the space of a hunted animal before the hunters conclude the job.
Janice stood frozen -
"I can pay half now."
"Half?" hanging Judge and Jury in the tone. "Let me see." He consulted the spiral bound black folder. "I'll tell you what, I'll help you out, see. I like you, you're a honest woman no doubt." He stepped closer to her until she could smell the whiskey and mouth freshener on his breath. His small grey eyes dropped an icy degree or two.
"You…ah…. Could be nice to me?" A small tongue flickered out and around his lips.
"Why not? Ms…. Janice."
Janice took a step back, the clammy concrete of the hall against her back. Her face had the look of one who has crossed a desert and found only dust.
"One more step, Mr McGillian and I'll scream." There was a silence as she defiantly met his eye, bird bright meeting reptile, until he looked at the ground.
"Ok, Ok, just asking. Give me half now and the rest in five days time. If you don't I'll be forced to ask you to vacate my premises."
Janice opened her purse, a slight tremble of her hands betraying the emotions that she fought to keep aside.
Once back in her flat she lent against the closed door and slumped, tears welling, as sobs of anger and frustration shook her frame. She threw her purse across the floor where it lay like a wounded animal amongst the child's toys and sunlight. Silhouette moments passed whilst reflections from the passing traffic and rainbows from the crystal hanging in the window duelled for possession of the ceiling. The tremor subsided and as she looked up a moment of cloud shadow dimmed the room, through which a dust dancing single ray of sun materialised, hanging like a bridge of diamonds across the air, illuminating only her painting desk. The work organised clutter of paints, brushes, palettes and sketches sprang into relief calling a message, half hidden against the noise from the street. Summoning, suggesting, it seemed to beckon. Janice drifted hesitantly across the room, unsure but content to let the rightness of the moment make its own time. The landlord was forgotten. There was only this strange compulsion. She reached for a brush.
Three hours later the canvas contained a picture of a mother and a child. In the background hills gave way to mountains and then to clouded skies below which a town blossomed. She stood back and gave her work space, the space taken when a workman has completed a satisfying job, the freedom needed to let a welcome sense of completion settle through the body's senses. In the painting she could see facets of her mother, half remembered when she was young and carefree. The portrait's eyes danced with life and the child in her arms flowered under their benevolence.
Janice looked at the painting for a long while and then blinked with a slight shake of her head as if to break a spell. She picked the canvas up and rested it gently from a nail protruding from a wall. A sudden tinny trumpet of ascending scales shocked her from her trance and fumbling for her phone she dabbed at its keypad.
"Hello, yes. Oh God, sorry, Jamie?… yes I've been delayed, I'll be there in ten minutes." The trapped gnats voice carried on for while before she spoke again. "Thankyou Mrs Fletcher I owe you a favour, I'll be at the school as soon as I can," and without waiting to put her coat on she snatched open the door and ran down the steps two at a time.
Forty minutes later she returned looking very much more relaxed. She levered the buggy up the curb and towards her door. Beside strode another woman, thin boned with a narrow face and wide sad eyes. They paused before the flat.
"Have you time for cup of tea in that busy schedule of yours, Mary?" Janice said, fitting the key into the lock.
"Well, I, why yes a cuppa would be good."
"The flats a bit of a mess I'm afraid. I haven't had a moment to clean up and you know today that awful landlord came, he's so creepy."
"And fat, like a little black pig."
"Do you know he actually had the nerve to ask me to go with him."
Mary pulled a face, "Oh, yuck, you should call the police. That's so disgusting."
"His breath is revolting, April said he actually touched her."
"Poor April, no wonder she hates him. How is her baby, I haven't seen her for a while."
Still talking they carried the buggy with a sleeping Jamie in it up the stairs and walked into the living room where the painting rested on the wall. Mary stopped in mid sentence her gauze fixed on the child and its mother.
"Oh," she managed as Janice lifted the kettle to the tap. "Oh, my." Her face usually so pinched with stress and hardened with tensions from a thousand day's work, of looking after a family and holding down the endless hours of a supermarket job, suddenly relaxed, her eyes almost unfocused and her lips quirked upwards allowing a brief glimpse of a younger girl, full of hopes and ambitions and life to emerge. Her voice came out in a whisper, covered by the rising note of the kettle from the kitchen.
"Its wonderful, I can see my mother in her, and that town, how did you know, its where I was born."
Janice, busy with the tea shouted back, "It's what, Mary? Sorry, can't hear you, I'll be with you in a second, do you still take three sugars?"
The painting glimmered with repressed life. The mother seemed to weave and dance hope like light on a mountain stream and Mary's face reflected the look of the child peering out from a place unstained and free, a world that once was and still is behind the unerring churn of the town.
When Janice came back into the room holding a tray with teapot and cups she studied the transformed woman for a few minutes before speaking. "Are you alright Mary, what's happened, why you're smiling?"
And she was. Her eyes had lost their cheerless air, her high cheek bones held her bright smile like a jewel and for a few moments she was a Madonna touched by the radiance of heaven.
A suddenly as an avalanche they were both laughing, big sobs of pure laughter at the joy of it and they laughed until it was too painful to continue, wiping their eyes and desperately trying to hold the laugh back. By the time the spasms had passed both women were on their knees arms wrapped around themselves.
"Oh, God. I haven't, I mean, its lovely," said Mary between sniffs.
"I haven't laughed like that since, since I don't remember." Janice replied looking at her friend and smiling through the tears in her eyes.
"Mummy," said a voice from the corner.
To Janice's amazement there followed five days of visitors. At first a trickle of friends knocking at Janice's door with one request, to see the painting. Then a tsunami of people she hardly knew or knew not at all. All had heard of the painting and each time she opened her door to the hopeful eyes of another pilgrim she knew she could not refuse them. She felt like she was living in a vision somewhere between the solid reality of her son and her reverie, fey and absorbing. Never once did she question the wonder but let it roam as it would across her mind and her life, taking what it needed to sustain itself. She felt its protection and its joy.
"Come in, come up," she would say and up they came to stand for a while in amazement before laughing or crying or giving great gasps of emotion often so totally inarticulate that Janice gave up asking them what they saw.
"It's my mother." One would say.
"It's me." Another would stutter before thanking her wildly and almost running from the room.
"That's my home," a neat young man said. "I never went home again, now I shall."
Many left money in the small basket that Janice used for Jamie's outdoor socks and hats. Sometimes a lot of money.
On the fifth day Janice answered the ring on the door bell to find her landlord standing there, fat piggy eyes furtively trying to see beyond her to the painting.
"It's you," said Janice simply.
"Ms Morris, I've come about your, ah, business," he rubbed his hands together as if he was washing them.
"My what?" Janice said.
"Business," he stated underlining the word with a slow drawl and getting only a blank look in response he continued quickly his words leaving his mouth as if he had practiced his speech and didn't want to forget it.
"See, I've been watching your place. Watched the people coming in and out. I know about your painting." Having let out this piece of information he rocked back on his feet for all the world as if he had uncovered a deep secret, craning his neck to see further into the room.
"And," Janice added when it seemed that he might not speak again.
He blinked rapidly and continued the fat soft lips parroting his words. "I can't let you operate a business on my premises. Not insured for it you see. Could be taken before the courts if it continued. Closed down like."
"I have the rent." She reached behind her and handed him a small wad of neatly stacked notes.
"Can't do, its more serious than late rent. I…ah.. regretfully have to ask you to leave." His tongue flickered again from the wet cave of his mouth.
"But, you can't." she stuttered. " I mean why, in Gods name."
"Oh but I can and I will, I have the.. uh… notice here." He pulled a thick piece of paper from his pocket and held it up to her.
"You bastard." The word held pure venom in its two syllables.
"Now, now. Can't have that. I'm just doing my job. Course I can offer a mutual… uh, recompense that… ah … might be of benefit to us both." He fingered his tie, straightening it over the bulge of his stomach.
"You sick bastard," shouted Jenice. "you think I'll steep to that."
"No, no, no," he interrupted. "Not that, I merely… ha… want to buy your painting."
The unexpected jolt of his offer silenced her for a moment, the landlord waited, watching a look of incredulity cross her face.
"Buy, my painting? But you can't its not for sale. I can't sell it."
"The way I see it," he poked one fat finger into his nostril and casually picked once at something. "Well see. Its not an option you have. I'm here to give you a straight choice. The painting or you're out."
"But..." she managed before he broke in again softening his harsh words with false sincerity.
"Think about it, the terms are fair. I've spoken to the people who've seen your work. I've seen the queues by your door each day." He tapped the side of his nose lightly. "Know what the painting can do, see. I would give it its rightful place, expose it to the world." He paused to deliver his coup de grace knowing that he could not loose. "And I would be giving you a year rent free."
"And if I don't." She let the last word drop.
"You're out, on the streets, finished, brat and all. Think about it."
Jamie's sudden high pitched cry of alarm broke the effect of his words, a torrent of reality in a somnolent slow motion film in which she had felt herself only an observer, incredulous at the events unfolding. "Mummy, here, Mummy, bee," he cried at the soft drone of a wasp circled the room.
"I'll return tomorrow and I expect an answer." The landlord dragged his bulk away towards the steps, then turned and called back at the closing door, "and be sensible about it Ms Morris. You have everything to gain and nothing to loose." He smiled sourly, "except your home."
Janice stood in front of the painting and watched it shift and move with a life of its own. Her heart felt lighter in its presence. The landlords words faded from harsh grey reality to a soft, pleasant almost comical blur, they were not truth, not real, this was. She did not think she owned the painting, it was no more her own work than that of making Jamie, more a part of her. Something vital to the working of the cosmos had flowed during those brief hours and it had felt more akin to a birth than creating a work of art. Jamie especially was captured by the painting and would spend hours sitting under it happily burbling to himself, content in whatever imagination he was evoking. She knew she should not sell it. It was beyond mere finance. It was something more, something refined and beautiful and she knew selling it would kill it. That night locked away in her room, away from the painting's lotus flower eye the fear crept back, at first like a scolded lover, unsure and hurt but as the early hours of the morning came, with panic. She tried to sleep but images of council Bed and Breakfasts, of hostels and their lack of privacy crowded her thoughts till they merged uneasily with her dreams. She woke early again fretting, but she had made up her mind.
After the landlord had waddled from the flat the canvas tucked under a fat arm, Janice carefully placed the new contract in a drawer and turned to the wall where the painting had been. She felt its vacuum, desert barren, yearning for the brightness that it had held. But this feeling faded with the passing days until it was only Jamie who would stand mesmerized for a moments, hand outstretched towards the bare wall as if he were trying to rekindle something half seen.
A week later, Janice, who after a few nights sleep untroubled by her usual worry had lost her pale drawn look, was perched on a chair leafing through a Sunday paper. Jamie had been convinced of the need for sleep and there was the soft parade of Bach pulsing quietly. She arched her back and raised her shoulders, tilting her pale neck in the abandoned pleasure of the stretch. Then smiling she turned the page. She froze staring intently at the print. First there was a picture of the landlord, arms folded resting on his belly; petulantly grimacing as if he wished the photographer would spontaneously combust. Behind him were the doors of the Abbey Galleries and on their walls was a huge billboard, clearly legible was the headline, 'Happiness Painting." She read on. It appeared that Mr. McGillian had spent a astonishingly large sum of money on advertising a new form of art. It was going to transform the art world. He had called it 'miracle art' and had made wild claims about its ability to enter the mind of the viewer and invoke happiness. Various and surprisingly well acclaimed critics had verified his claim, suggesting that the painting was indeed able to do this. The opening was going to be today and the newspaper reported that a winding queue of punters had already formed equipped with sleeping bags and the paraphernalia needed to survive a night on the Dublin streets. There was no mention, Janice noticed, of herself.
She read the article again carefully and her frown returned as if it had only taken a short break. The mobile showed the time to be close to nine o'clock. She turned the radio on. The third article was about him.
"And now a special report on the psycho art hoax, is it all in the mind?" said the
presenter. Janice sat back in the chair and closed her eyes listening to the bizarre
unfolding of events. Apparently the doors had opened and the sizable crowd, who had
all paid extravagantly for the experience had gone in. There they had found only
a blank, plain white canvas centred amid a luxurious black velvet back drop. Judging
by the comments that had been made to the reporter on the scene this had not gone
down too well and refunds had been made to, a by now angry, mob who were vocally
demanding justice. A bewildered McGillian stuttered into the microphone against the
backdrop of cat-
"It vanished, must have been the light… uh... bad paint… faded, its gone. I've been robbed, that's what it is."
Jessica smiled, and then her smile grew into a laugh and she laughed like summer rain on a hot day. She knew the painting had not died for she had created the picture and it had been part of her, her hope, her mad refusal to abandon her art, and it had returned to her. She felt as if she had been given a licence to paint, almost a command and deep inside she knew that she could paint other pictures and they too would weave a magic of miracles. She picked up her brush.
