The Mad Artist returns....
Kallian had gone to town on errands: buying more paint, wall-filler and beer. Because it's a well known fact that paint fumes and extreme heat can only be combated with beer =P
There was no knock at the front door or shout; the Artist just wandered in. He stood for some moments watching me as I struggled to paint the wall at the ceiling's edge with a brush a little over-sized for the task. "I thought," he said in that quiet and oddly accented voice of his, "you would have given up painting now you are respectably married."
I snorted at the old jibe and grinned. "No such luck. But Kallian sure as hell didn't marry me for my 'respectability' - nor I him!"
"What about your ghost?" The question was swift and soft.
I didn't turn away from my painting, but I was grinning all the same. "Oh, I married him too. At the same time I married Kallian. It's why I have two rings." A slightly confused and questioning silence greeted my statement. "We worked it out before hand; everyone's quite happy with how it turned out." I was almost laughing now because I knew quite how ridiculous it sounded, even if it was perfectly true.
Vincent put away his mildly troubled disapproval and looked wry instead. "There's hope for me yet." He surveyed the room. "Do you have anything to drink?"
"Kallian's coming back with beer."
"No Absinthe?" he asked hopefully, putting his small, battered, traveling case on the bed and sitting beside it.
"Nope."
"There is alcohol in the wash room."
"What? Errgh - no - that's rubbing alcohol, gods, don't drink that! What were you doing in the bathroom?"
"I needed to piss," he said simply. Followed by, "Still mistreating your brushes I see."
It was a cheap brush and being used quite as it deserved; to whit, however I damn well needed to paint the bloody walls. I rolled my eyes and then asked, "How do you find Hawai'i?" I pronounced it as I always try to remember to do, 'ha-vah-i'.
Vincent looked blank. "But... this is not the Sandwich Isles? ... It is independent perhaps?"
I grimaced. "No, it's part of America now. Which it bloody shouldn't be. But no one cares what I think, least of all the American government. I'm just a crazy Haole girl."
"What's a how-lee girl?"
Damn, used the lazy pronunciation. "Ha-oh-ley. It means without breath. Captain Cook refused to greet the Hawaiians in the traditional way - which is something to do with sharing breath, sort of like a kiss without kissing I think - it's meant to be ceremonial and very respectful. Anyway: Cook thought it was un-Christian or some such bollocks, and refused. Idiot stuck up Protestant wanker," I growled quietly.
"I see your views on religion haven't changed."
"Why should they? The religions haven't changed any. Have you seen the baby dinosaurs?" I asked suddenly.
"Dinosaurs?"
"They're chicks really, but dinosaurs were feathered (so science has now worked out) and have more in common with birds than lizards quite often. Sooo, baby dinosaurs." I turned around to gauge his reaction and lost my balance on the stool. For two seconds I teetered, arms waving, trying not to spill the paint I held or to fall... Another second and I'd pulled myself back from the brink. "Thanks for coming to my rescue," I grumbled.
Vincent hadn't moved; merely watched. "You once told me... you were in a circus?"
"Yeah, so?"
He shrugged as if to say that anyone who'd belonged to a circus ought to have enough balance not to fall from a two-foot high wooden stool. His eyes sharpened on me. "When are you going home?"
"Tricky question currently up for much debate. I'll visit the UK some-bloody-when this year..." It occurred to me belatedly that he probably meant 'when would I return to stay' and not just a holiday jaunt.
"He said you were of London." (Vincent refers solely to Sherlock Holmes as 'Himself' or 'He' and always manages to stress the capital 'H' somehow so it's very clear exactly who he is talking about. I have no idea if this is a habit he picked up from me or not.)
"I am from London," I batted back lightly before realising the words might have meant more than that.
"He also said you should leave before your..." He muttered a word or two, whether French or Dutch I couldn't tell, before hazarding, "Diction -?- is affected."
"Did he indeed?" I murmured grimly. Although SH did have a point. No one over here spoke properly. It was either a variant on Californian SurfDude/ValleyGirl, or it was Hawaiian Pidgin. Not, to be fair, that I have spoken correctly since I was twelve.
"He advised a Swiss finishing school," the Artist added, shifting his valise out of the way and lounging on the bed, his heels hooked up on his case.
I tried not to laugh. I could think of none less suited to a Swiss finishing school than I - except perhaps my little sister (for entirely differing reasons.) "Oh Kerrist," I complained. "I'd have to learn French - again. My deportment is awful and they'd have to teach me how to dress my hair. Or brush it," I muttered. (My feathers turn into a ball of frizz when brushed. At least when left to their own devices they're a mess of curls and ringlets.)
For a while there was silence save the rumble of the dehumidifier, the glop of paint, the squish of the brush against the wall and, from the pasture, the occasional plaintive and carrying bleat of the goats. Apropos of nothing, Vincent asked, "Is your husband as mad as you?"
"Oh, I'd say so, certainly."
"Has he ever joined the circus?" he asked dryly, as if that was the main obstacle to my road to sanity.
"Ah, no." I clambered from the stool, moved it three feet over, ascended and resumed painting.
"What are his politics?"
That was a new question - the Artist had never inquired such a thing of me. "Ask him," I suggested. "But I know he thinks governments are all corrupt bastards and council members and politicians serve greed more than the land - I'm pretty sure he hates the lot of them."
Vincent looked slightly shocked. "He is an Anarchist?"
I couldn't help it; I laughed. It was mostly because of the way people's perception of the word has changed over the decades, and an 1890's Anarchist was probably pretty far from a 1990's anarchist - in policy and politics as well as time. "No, I wouldn't call him that. I think he's just very aware that power corrupts and a government is usually more interested in serving itself than its country."
He nodded thoughtfully. Then another question out of the blue: "Who is the Assepoester Princess?" His eyes and head tipped meaningfully in the direction of the sitting room.
I wasn't sure what 'Assepoester' meant but it made me think of 'Aschenputtel' and therefore Cinderella. Combined with 'princess', I could hazard a very accurate guess. "The martyr with the golden hair sitting on her arse? That's Presley. Kallian's little sister."
He scowled. "She is unhappy?"
I shrugged. As with many things it was complicated. "She can be. And when she is unhappy she is... nowhere near her right mind. So she takes medicine. But this makes her forgetful. She doesn't like to face her demons, to work or to admit that anything in anyone's life is more important than hers. She doesn't like to face up to things - or anything, really." I wondered how Vincent would take my rather blunt assessment. He didn't seem perturbed; perhaps he didn't see any of his own battles or demons within her and so knew she was far safer than he...
I still wanted to change the subject; one should not bitch about a sibling (in-law) to a guest. At least not on their first day at any rate. "I was surprised you arrived as quickly as you did. I thought Maui or Lanai would snag your attention and you'd be delayed by weeks..."
His blue-teal eyes looked wistful. "Yes, very beautiful," he agreed. "The sacred pools - and the women..." he trailed off into reverie.
I left him to it for a moment or two before asking, "So why did you leave?"
He blinked. "I was hungry."
I twisted slightly to look at him; paintbrush still adhered to the wall and a frown on my brow.
"My brother's generosity goes only so far; and he is the most generous of any man I have known." A pause, then the Artist continued, his voice even lower than before. "Theo believes I am on a rest cure. That's what He told him." It was obvious the semi-deception did not sit well with him.
"Who says you aren't?" I challenged with a smile. "You look well. Travel appears to agree with you."
He uttered a short laugh. "Outrunning ones demons and heading to a land they used to call paradise? Of course travel is pleasing to me. So much to see, so much I left behind... it is like the breath of a promise I fly towards."
I was raising a quiet eyebrow at his fit of poetics, when his tone changed from the metaphysical to the present. "You look a little... native." He waved a hand. "Did the sun turn your hair like that?"
Last time he'd seen me I'd been pale skinned and pitch-black-feathered; he could be forgiven for commenting since I was nut brown and bleached so blonde it was almost stark white. (Still working on that...) "No. The sun tanned me. My feathers - my hair - that was just chemicals. Like a paint."
I didn't find out what the Artist had to say on this subject because at that point Kallian returned bearing two bottles of beer and tales of woe about how his errands had (n't quite) gone. Captain Flint also followed him in and proceeded to purr and play and bokk and attack everything in sight. Kallian left briefly to fetch something useful (a bottle opener, a box, a receipt - all three? I was painting, damned if I know.) Flint scampered out with him.
Once the door was closed, Vincent commented, "What a strange young gentleman."
Both eyebrows raised and my lips quirked to the side in amusement. "Are you talking about my husband or my cat?"
A blink, and then, "Both," he decided.
There was no knock at the front door or shout; the Artist just wandered in. He stood for some moments watching me as I struggled to paint the wall at the ceiling's edge with a brush a little over-sized for the task. "I thought," he said in that quiet and oddly accented voice of his, "you would have given up painting now you are respectably married."
I snorted at the old jibe and grinned. "No such luck. But Kallian sure as hell didn't marry me for my 'respectability' - nor I him!"
"What about your ghost?" The question was swift and soft.
I didn't turn away from my painting, but I was grinning all the same. "Oh, I married him too. At the same time I married Kallian. It's why I have two rings." A slightly confused and questioning silence greeted my statement. "We worked it out before hand; everyone's quite happy with how it turned out." I was almost laughing now because I knew quite how ridiculous it sounded, even if it was perfectly true.
Vincent put away his mildly troubled disapproval and looked wry instead. "There's hope for me yet." He surveyed the room. "Do you have anything to drink?"
"Kallian's coming back with beer."
"No Absinthe?" he asked hopefully, putting his small, battered, traveling case on the bed and sitting beside it.
"Nope."
"There is alcohol in the wash room."
"What? Errgh - no - that's rubbing alcohol, gods, don't drink that! What were you doing in the bathroom?"
"I needed to piss," he said simply. Followed by, "Still mistreating your brushes I see."
It was a cheap brush and being used quite as it deserved; to whit, however I damn well needed to paint the bloody walls. I rolled my eyes and then asked, "How do you find Hawai'i?" I pronounced it as I always try to remember to do, 'ha-vah-i'.
Vincent looked blank. "But... this is not the Sandwich Isles? ... It is independent perhaps?"
I grimaced. "No, it's part of America now. Which it bloody shouldn't be. But no one cares what I think, least of all the American government. I'm just a crazy Haole girl."
"What's a how-lee girl?"
Damn, used the lazy pronunciation. "Ha-oh-ley. It means without breath. Captain Cook refused to greet the Hawaiians in the traditional way - which is something to do with sharing breath, sort of like a kiss without kissing I think - it's meant to be ceremonial and very respectful. Anyway: Cook thought it was un-Christian or some such bollocks, and refused. Idiot stuck up Protestant wanker," I growled quietly.
"I see your views on religion haven't changed."
"Why should they? The religions haven't changed any. Have you seen the baby dinosaurs?" I asked suddenly.
"Dinosaurs?"
"They're chicks really, but dinosaurs were feathered (so science has now worked out) and have more in common with birds than lizards quite often. Sooo, baby dinosaurs." I turned around to gauge his reaction and lost my balance on the stool. For two seconds I teetered, arms waving, trying not to spill the paint I held or to fall... Another second and I'd pulled myself back from the brink. "Thanks for coming to my rescue," I grumbled.
Vincent hadn't moved; merely watched. "You once told me... you were in a circus?"
"Yeah, so?"
He shrugged as if to say that anyone who'd belonged to a circus ought to have enough balance not to fall from a two-foot high wooden stool. His eyes sharpened on me. "When are you going home?"
"Tricky question currently up for much debate. I'll visit the UK some-bloody-when this year..." It occurred to me belatedly that he probably meant 'when would I return to stay' and not just a holiday jaunt.
"He said you were of London." (Vincent refers solely to Sherlock Holmes as 'Himself' or 'He' and always manages to stress the capital 'H' somehow so it's very clear exactly who he is talking about. I have no idea if this is a habit he picked up from me or not.)
"I am from London," I batted back lightly before realising the words might have meant more than that.
"He also said you should leave before your..." He muttered a word or two, whether French or Dutch I couldn't tell, before hazarding, "Diction -?- is affected."
"Did he indeed?" I murmured grimly. Although SH did have a point. No one over here spoke properly. It was either a variant on Californian SurfDude/ValleyGirl, or it was Hawaiian Pidgin. Not, to be fair, that I have spoken correctly since I was twelve.
"He advised a Swiss finishing school," the Artist added, shifting his valise out of the way and lounging on the bed, his heels hooked up on his case.
I tried not to laugh. I could think of none less suited to a Swiss finishing school than I - except perhaps my little sister (for entirely differing reasons.) "Oh Kerrist," I complained. "I'd have to learn French - again. My deportment is awful and they'd have to teach me how to dress my hair. Or brush it," I muttered. (My feathers turn into a ball of frizz when brushed. At least when left to their own devices they're a mess of curls and ringlets.)
For a while there was silence save the rumble of the dehumidifier, the glop of paint, the squish of the brush against the wall and, from the pasture, the occasional plaintive and carrying bleat of the goats. Apropos of nothing, Vincent asked, "Is your husband as mad as you?"
"Oh, I'd say so, certainly."
"Has he ever joined the circus?" he asked dryly, as if that was the main obstacle to my road to sanity.
"Ah, no." I clambered from the stool, moved it three feet over, ascended and resumed painting.
"What are his politics?"
That was a new question - the Artist had never inquired such a thing of me. "Ask him," I suggested. "But I know he thinks governments are all corrupt bastards and council members and politicians serve greed more than the land - I'm pretty sure he hates the lot of them."
Vincent looked slightly shocked. "He is an Anarchist?"
I couldn't help it; I laughed. It was mostly because of the way people's perception of the word has changed over the decades, and an 1890's Anarchist was probably pretty far from a 1990's anarchist - in policy and politics as well as time. "No, I wouldn't call him that. I think he's just very aware that power corrupts and a government is usually more interested in serving itself than its country."
He nodded thoughtfully. Then another question out of the blue: "Who is the Assepoester Princess?" His eyes and head tipped meaningfully in the direction of the sitting room.
I wasn't sure what 'Assepoester' meant but it made me think of 'Aschenputtel' and therefore Cinderella. Combined with 'princess', I could hazard a very accurate guess. "The martyr with the golden hair sitting on her arse? That's Presley. Kallian's little sister."
He scowled. "She is unhappy?"
I shrugged. As with many things it was complicated. "She can be. And when she is unhappy she is... nowhere near her right mind. So she takes medicine. But this makes her forgetful. She doesn't like to face her demons, to work or to admit that anything in anyone's life is more important than hers. She doesn't like to face up to things - or anything, really." I wondered how Vincent would take my rather blunt assessment. He didn't seem perturbed; perhaps he didn't see any of his own battles or demons within her and so knew she was far safer than he...
I still wanted to change the subject; one should not bitch about a sibling (in-law) to a guest. At least not on their first day at any rate. "I was surprised you arrived as quickly as you did. I thought Maui or Lanai would snag your attention and you'd be delayed by weeks..."
His blue-teal eyes looked wistful. "Yes, very beautiful," he agreed. "The sacred pools - and the women..." he trailed off into reverie.
I left him to it for a moment or two before asking, "So why did you leave?"
He blinked. "I was hungry."
I twisted slightly to look at him; paintbrush still adhered to the wall and a frown on my brow.
"My brother's generosity goes only so far; and he is the most generous of any man I have known." A pause, then the Artist continued, his voice even lower than before. "Theo believes I am on a rest cure. That's what He told him." It was obvious the semi-deception did not sit well with him.
"Who says you aren't?" I challenged with a smile. "You look well. Travel appears to agree with you."
He uttered a short laugh. "Outrunning ones demons and heading to a land they used to call paradise? Of course travel is pleasing to me. So much to see, so much I left behind... it is like the breath of a promise I fly towards."
I was raising a quiet eyebrow at his fit of poetics, when his tone changed from the metaphysical to the present. "You look a little... native." He waved a hand. "Did the sun turn your hair like that?"
Last time he'd seen me I'd been pale skinned and pitch-black-feathered; he could be forgiven for commenting since I was nut brown and bleached so blonde it was almost stark white. (Still working on that...) "No. The sun tanned me. My feathers - my hair - that was just chemicals. Like a paint."
I didn't find out what the Artist had to say on this subject because at that point Kallian returned bearing two bottles of beer and tales of woe about how his errands had (n't quite) gone. Captain Flint also followed him in and proceeded to purr and play and bokk and attack everything in sight. Kallian left briefly to fetch something useful (a bottle opener, a box, a receipt - all three? I was painting, damned if I know.) Flint scampered out with him.
Once the door was closed, Vincent commented, "What a strange young gentleman."
Both eyebrows raised and my lips quirked to the side in amusement. "Are you talking about my husband or my cat?"
A blink, and then, "Both," he decided.