A Scattering of Light
Chapter 74
"Each part is brilliantly conceptualized, and fascinating in its own right," Michael Kitson remarked as we stood over a light box in his drafty office, gazing down at a slide of Turner's Forum Romanum. "And as you see, by putting in the monumental arch above and the shadows below he's created an ellipse, which is essentially the shape of our field of vision anyway. Clever old bugger."
I looked at the slide carefully. "Yes, I saw this one in the Tate a few weeks ago. The colors are wonderful."
Michael sniffed, then tapped the side of the box with his ring finger. "Very nice," he said. "But the shapes are the thing, really. Look how solid the Arch of Titus is. You can almost feel its weight."
"And those vaults on the right look like they were carved directly out of stone," I added, anxious to sound the right note. "It's clear he had a deep understanding of architecture."
"Oh yes, visceral," Michael agreed, snapping off the light so that the bright little image dissolved into nothingness. "And now it's your job to show us how that happened."
My stomach grabbed. "I hope I can do the whole thing justice."
Michael gestured for me to take a seat at the round table nearby. "I'm absolutely sure you will," he said reassuringly, if slightly perfunctorily, as he sat down across from me, lighting a cigarette as he settled in.
"Some days I feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of his output," I confessed, tracing my finger across the slightly buckled satinwood inlay of the tabletop.
He exhaled energetically. "Yes, everyone has that reaction at first. I mean, it's a bloody big pile of work to slog through."
I gazed at my supervisor's face, trying to determine the color of his eyes through his almost comically thick glasses. "I'm thinking of approaching the question thematically rather than chronologically," I hazarded.
"Oh yes, I see," he said, in that automatic way some English people have, a shy willingness to meet one more than halfway without having invested much (if any) thought beforehand. "You mean the architecture?" he clarified after a beat.
I nodded. "Exactly. I'm imagining chapters on Oxford and Petworth and Venice..."
"So you mean settings rather than themes?"
I pivoted immediately, not to be shown up. "Or classical, neoclassical, collegiate, provincial, cityscapes..."
"Oh, I see. So actually thematic then."
"How does that sound?" I asked a trifle desperately.
He stubbed out his cigarette in the massive ashtray beside him and immediately lit another; it was almost as if he couldn't breathe without them. "I think it's a starting place, and it avoids the dreary predictability of the overly linear narrative approach."
I looked out through the chipped casement windows towards Portman Square. "I'm excited about the work," I said. "A little scared, but excited."
He offered a crooked, ironic grin. "Don't be frightened. You'll do it brilliantly."
"And of course hearing you say that only makes me more frightened."
He didn't reply and I sensed that the meeting was over. I began gathering up my papers.
"Ghastly about Blunt," he said.
I closed my briefcase. "Yes."
"Have you seen him?"
I nodded. "Just a couple of days ago.
"Ah," he said, as if surprised. "And how's he holding up?"
"Pretty well, I think, though he tells me John is a wreck."
"John was born a wreck."
I paused, considering. "I don't think I'll be seeing much of Anthony in the future."
Michael looked rather pleased. "Did he quarrel with you then?"
"He did, though not without reason, I think."
"Don't buy that nonsense, Paul," he said quite brutally. "He always plants a seed of doubt about one's own motives. He's right, everyone else is wrong."
I stood up, ready to take my leave. "It's not quite that simple."
He got to his feet too. "Once in a blue moon things actually are as simple as they seem. Anthony is brilliant and amusing, but he's rotten. Don't let him drag you down any more than he has already."
"What do you mean?"
"Just let it go."
As I walked towards the door I turned halfway back for a moment. "For the record, I don't think he's completely rotten."
Michael smiled for the first time that day; his teeth were awful--uneven and stained yellow with nicotine. "You have an admirable tolerance for difficult people. I'm beginning to think you and Mr. Turner will get on very well."
* * *
After leaving Michael's office I leant against the filigreed stair bannister and looked down vertiginously into the cavernous well of the staircase. Its self-contained beauty comforted me. I tried to disassociate thoughts of Anthony from the setting. Anthony, who had been the focus of so much of my energy for more than a year, had, for better or worse, twisted away from me. I felt raw from the desertion, though faintly relieved as well.
My gaze rose to the bulbous skylight hovering above like a streaked and pitted glass eye, all-seeing, ever watchful, but oblivious to the triumphs and sorrows beneath. It saw but didn't care. With enough effort, I almost believed I could achieve a similar state of detachment. I began descending the shallow granite steps very slowly, savoring my isolation in the echoing nautilus; there was no one to see me, and I allowed myself to stop periodically and gaze about as if imprinting on my memory not just the look of the place but its very feel. The faux marble walls and grisaille gods lingered in a dimension of timelessness I envied and aspired to.
In the foyer I encountered David Vardanyan, wreathed in scarves, sporting an annoyingly quaint trilby hat. "Oh hello," David drawled in his trumpety, insolent voice, encompassing me in an assessing gaze from head to toe. "How are you surviving everything?"
I wasn't about to be drawn into a discussion with this man about Anthony and all that had happened. "Everything's great," I said with a deliberately insincere smile. "I just met with Michael Kitson and he thinks the work is coming along very well."
David pursed his lips satirically. "That's marvelous. And how's poor old Anthony?"
I steeled myself. "Oh you know, doing his best. I saw him just the other day."
"Was he very angry that you took yourself off to the Commons to witness his defrocking?"
Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of Mr. Sykes in his glass box by the door, studiously pretending not to be eavesdropping. "I wouldn't say he was angry, just a little unsettled. In fact, I'm glad you told him about it."
David took off his hat. His dark, limp hair stood up in billowy puffs. "My my, you've got very clever, haven't you? It's been quite a year for a boy like you."
"Meaning?"
"Oh you know," he said airily, "spies and boyfriends and billionaires."
"You seem to think you know a lot about me."
He laughed. "I suppose I do know quite a bit," he smirked. "Maybe even more than you think."
I twitched with irritation. "That's just silly. It sounds like one of your 'anonymous' pieces for Private Eye."
He eyed me with a glint of grudging respect. "We are on our toes today."
A couple of guffawing girls came in through the oversized front door, their cheeks burned crimson from the cold. I took a step back to allow them to blunder through.
"Is your Sloany friend Miss Ludgate well?" David went on, seemingly intent on interrogating me about every member of my acquaintance.
"I'm seeing her tonight," I said, savoring the moment. "But I'm sure you already know that as well."
There was a charge in the air, a purposeful pause, as if a gun were being loaded. "And then there's young Nick," he went on.
I moved towards the door, anxious to escape. "Yes, well..."
"I hear he's hit the jackpot, so to speak," David said almost under his breath. My hand lingered reluctantly on the bronze door handle, dreading what was to come. "With your friend Mr. Ashbrook."
I opened the door and stepped out into the blustery afternoon.