II - 1890
When the day they agreed on finally came, Owain wasn’t sure
he could go through with it.
He had asked Jamie to meet him in the afternoon, so that he
would have time to prepare. Though still early enough so that they might have
some hours of daylight to work with.
The easel and the paints took about twenty minutes in total
to arrange. The rest of the time he’d set aside to pace his room.
At noon, Mrs Alderson asked him if everything was alright,
for she had heard the incessant footsteps and thought him to be in some sort of
distress. When he assured her that he was fine, had merely gone without a full
night’s rest, she offered him a cup of tea and a slice of fruit loaf, which he
accepted so that he could be left alone once more.
Jamie arrived at five minutes past four. Owain stayed in the
attic, listening to their voices intertwine. He heard the landlady offer yet
another cup of tea, that was, somewhat surprisingly, refused. Then the
footsteps came, and he found he had forgotten how to breathe.
A rap of knuckles against wood, then the squeak of the door
which was already ajar.
“There you are.” Jamie smiled, though Owain sensed his
nervousness.
The painter made a small sound that didn’t quite develop
into laughter.
“Yes, I…Sorry, I should have come down, I was just setting
things up in here.”
Jamie nodded, glancing around. The afternoon light made his
skin appear golden.
He inspected the easel first, only having seen one from
afar, then the palette, colours already strewn across its surface like tide
marks on the beach.
Jamie was curious how Owain had managed to choose the shades
ahead of time. He’d been asked to wear his blue gansey, but the other colours,
the shades of marigold and cadmium, the slate greys, and browns. They had been
selected from memory.
Next, he turned his sights on the two canvases, propped up
against the leg of the easel.
“Don’t tell me you want me t’ sit twice?” He said in jest.
Owain chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck.
“I just wanted to have the choice; you see.” He picked up
one of the canvases to show his friend the difference. “One is small and
square; the other is a rather large portrait style.”
“So, the colours you pick as easily as…I dunno, choosing
fruit from a stall. But now you don’t know whether to confine me to a box, or
give me the royal treatment?”
Owain was stunned for a moment, all but forgetting Jamie’s
rueful sense of humour. It wasn’t until the man knocked him with his shoulder,
that Owain broke once more into uneasy laughter.
“Sit down, will you? You’re making me nervous.” He gestured
to the stool, ignoring the dampness under both his arms and above his brow.
Jamie sat, stunting the wooden stool with his stature. His
legs were like two ores on either side of a cobble.
“Sit down an’ shut up?” He asked.
“Just…sit.” Owain smirked, placing the larger of the two
canvases onto the easel.
He retrieved a coal pencil and began sketching a few basic
shapes. His eyes flitted up from the canvas now and then, matching the flow of
the pencil to the lines of the figure seated in front of him.
They spoke briefly, batting jokes between even glances.
Jamie broke his stance every half hour, pacing the room and swinging his arms
in a butterfly stroke.
After two hours and a trip to the lavatory, Jamie returned with
an air of change about him. His eyes no longer dazzled with humour, and his
expression was almost solemn.
“Michael was artistic.” He said, causing the painter a
start.
Owain let his brush rest, but he kept his eyes on the
canvas.
“Not like this, not…like you. But he made a good scrimshaw.
He didn’t whale neither, but his father showed him the way.”
The painter swallowed, listening. His cheeks were hot.
“He scrimmed on wood, mostly. Bits of broken shell, bones
brought back from the South Atlantic.”
“He never wanted to go himself?” Owain asked, forcing his
hand back into its stride.
Jamie shook his head slowly.
“He were needed here. That’s what he always said. He knew
the local waters better than anyone, knew where to get to yer if you were
stranded. And there were this thing, no one really understood it, mind.”
“Understood what?”
Jamie played with his beard, blue eyes brightening as they
grew damp.
“He could sense it; I don’t know if it were a smell or a
chill. But he knew the danger before anyone called for help. Someone joked he
were a bloodhound. Then it weren’t so funny anymore.”
Owain wanted to know, of course he did. He wanted to see and
hear all that Jamie had experienced so that he could lessen the pain in some
way, but he was afraid to press this bruise, worried he might learn something
he would later wish to forget.
He opened his mouth to speak but found it quite dry.
Clearing his throat, he dropped the paintbrush into the murky pot of water and
took a step back.
“I’m sorry.” Jamie was wide eyed as a lamb. He straightened
his posture. “It’s all just talk. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“N-No. You’ve done nothing wrong; it was just a dry cough.
Occupational hazard, I’m afraid.”
Jamie stared regardless. He felt in his gut that he had
offended the man somehow, but there was no tangible reason as to why.
“Perhaps we should take a break?” Owain suggested.
“Oh?”
Several moments passed without either of them shifting from
their current position.
In Jamie’s mind, their conversation had taken a dramatic
turn.
“I’ve disrupted yer process.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Then I have exhausted you? I’m in the habit of
exhausting people.”
“Jamie, please. That’s not it.”
“Then what?”
“Then nothing.”
But none of this had been uttered aloud.
Instead, Jamie asked to see some of Owain’s other pieces,
and a little drowsily, the man obliged.
Most of the finished paintings were out in the open, propped
against one other in the corner of the room like Russian nesting dolls,
unnested. They were dark yet beautifully detailed, and Jamie eyed them all with
genuine interest.
There were figures he recognised, even those whose faces
were mere streaks upon the canvas. He knew them by the shade and shape of the
hair beneath their bonnet, or the tilt of their pipe. He even spotted himself
in one of the paintings, hauling lobster traps with a small crew by the docks.
His hair was only a fraction darker than the sand beneath his feet.
“Are these the only ones ye keep here?” He asked.
Owain nodded, but his eyes were dark and slightly
distracted.
“Well, there are some…sketches and unfinished pieces. But
they’re not-”
“May I see?”
A flash of uncertainty, then a curt nod. Owain ventured to
the back of the room where a large armoire stood. It was a little battered, but
clean like everything under Mrs Alderson’s roof. He opened the doors and
stooped to retrieve a handful of loose papers.
The room was darker back there, with daylight fading
quickly. Owain hoped this might work in his favour, but when he turned around,
he saw that Jamie was holding a candle, eyes dancing expectantly.
Owain offered the papers to him in a sort of flailing gesture,
running a hand through his hair once Jamie had unburdened him. He watched him
study the drawings with more intensity than before, the candle casting a
flickering shadow across the paper.
There was a sound like dry leaves under foot as Jamie tucked
one sheet behind another. Owain could feel his ears burning.
He swallowed and said, “I hope they’re not too much of a
disappointment.”
Jamie did not lift his gaze from the paper. Owain had never
seen him so quiet, so pensive.
He wished he could recall every minute detail captured in
those drawings so that he might know just how nervous to be. There was nothing
lewd, nothing possessive within those markings, and yet, he felt he had
revealed something all too sincere.
“I never saw you.” The man finally spoke, eyes still fixed
on the sketch.
“Saw me where?”
“When you were drawing these. I never…”
At last, Jamie looked up, and Owain felt himself tremble
like a small, cupped flame.
“Some were drawn from…m-memory. Others were um…used as
character study.”
“Show me the painting, from today.”
Owain startled a little, not quite able to place his
friend’s tone among the hundreds of conversations that had passed between them.
“Please.” Jamie added.
A nod, and Owain led him back to the easel.
Jamie stood behind him. He gazed first at the swell of
jet-black hair, the dark sideburn and blushing ear, then looked past this to
the image Owain had painted. It was him, to be sure, though unlike any version
of Rhett Jamison he had ever seen or imagined. He hadn’t been improved so much
as cast in the light for the first time, and it ached him to look at.
Owain didn’t dare turn around. He stared instead at the blue
eyes set to canvas, feeling after several moments Jamie’s large, warm hand
moving softly through his hair.
