If “I’m sorry” didn’t work, what would?
“You must’ve been thrilled when you saw the Ottawa Star review. When it called my art an old and tired parrot mimicking actual artists. Did that give you pleasure, Peter?”
“How can you think that?” Peter asked. But it had given him pleasure. And relief. It was the first really happy moment he’d had in a very long time. “It’s the New York Times review that matters, Clara. That’s the one I care about.”
She stared at him. And he felt cold creeping down his fingers and toes and up his legs. As though his heart had weakened and couldn’t get the blood that far anymore.
His heart was only now catching up with what the rest of him had known all his life. He was weak.
“Then quote me from the New York Times review.”
“Pardon?”
“Go on. If it made that big an impression, if it was that important to you, surely you can remember a single line.”
She waited.
“A word?” she asked, her voice glacial.
Peter scanned his memory, desperate for something, anything from the New York Times. Something to prove to himself, never mind Clara, that he’d cared in any way.
But all he remembered, all he saw, was the glorious review in the Ottawa paper.
Her art, while nice, was neither visionary nor bold.
He’d thought it was bad when her paintings were simply embarrassing. But it was worse when they were brilliant. Instead of reflected glory, it just highlighted what a failure he was. His creations dimmed as hers brightened. And so he’d read and re-read the parrot line, applying it to his ego as though it was an antiseptic. And Clara’s art was the septic.
But he knew now it wasn’t her art that had gone septic.
“I thought not,” snapped Clara. “Not even a word. Well let me remind you. Clara Morrow’s paintings are not just brilliant, they are luminous. She has, in an audacious and generous stroke, redefined portraiture. I went back and memorized it. Not because I believe it’s true, but so that I have a choice of what to believe, and it doesn’t always have to be the worst.”
Imagine, thought Peter, as the cold crept closer to his core, having a choice of things to believe.
“And then the messages,” said Clara.
Peter closed his eyes, slowly. A reptilian blink.
The messages. From all of Clara’s supporters. From gallery owners and dealers and curators around the world. From family and friends.
He’d spent most of the morning, after Gamache and Clara and the others had left, after Lillian’s body had left, answering the phone.
Ringing, ringing. Tolling. And each ring diminished him. Stripped him, it felt, of his manhood, his dignity, his self-worth. He’d written out the good wishes, and said nice things to people who ran the art world. The titans. Who knew him only as Clara’s husband.
The humiliation was complete.
Eventually he’d let the answering machine take over and had hidden in his studio. Where he’d hidden all his life. From the monster.
He could feel it in their bedroom now. He could feel its tail swishing by him. Feel its hot, fetid breath.
All his life he knew if he was quiet enough, small enough, it wouldn’t see him. If he didn’t make a fuss, didn’t speak up, it wouldn’t hear him, wouldn’t hurt him. If he was beyond criticism and hid his cruelty with a smile and good deeds, it wouldn’t devour him.
But now he realized there was no hiding. It would always be there, and always find him.
He was the monster.
“You wanted to see me fail.”
“Never,” said Peter.
“I actually thought deep down you were happy for me. You just needed time to adjust. But this is really who you are, isn’t it.”
A denial was again on Peter’s lips, almost out his mouth. But it stopped. Something stopped it. Something stood between the words in his head and the words out his mouth.
He stared at her, and finally, nails ripping and bloody from a lifetime clinging on, he lost his grip.
“The portrait of the Three Graces,” the words tumbled from his mouth. “I saw it, you know, before it was finished. I snuck into your studio and took the sheet off your easel.” He paused to try to compose himself. But it was way too late for that. Peter was plummeting. “I saw—” He searched for the right word. But finally he realized he wasn’t searching for it. He was hiding from it. “Glory. I saw glory, Clara, and such love it broke my heart.”
He stared at the bed sheets, twisted in his hands. And sighed.