Page 30 of Bare
Canvases stacked three deep against the walls. Paint tubes on every surface, squeezed, curled, bled dry. Brushes in jars, in mugs, standing upright in a tin that had once held custard creams. A worktable scarred with knife marks and layered with dried paint, each layer a day's work preserved in the wood. Sketches pinned everywhere: charcoal studies, ink drawings, loose sheets torn from pads with the spiral fringe still hanging.
And in the centre, on an easel, a large canvas. Five feet by four. Dark. The bruised blues and near-blacks of Rory's exhibited work, but underneath, ochre tones bleeding through the surface, ochre and umber, as though the painting were generating light from the inside.
The figure on the canvas was turning away. A shoulder. The beginning of a neck. The posture of a man holding himself in place.
Neil stopped breathing.
He crossed the room before deciding to. Stopped a foot from the canvas. The figure was nearly life-sized. The paint surface was thick with the scrape-back technique he'd named in the art room, built up in layers, then scraped with the palette knife. Beneath the dark blues, amber tones showed through.
The work was unfinished, the lower right corner raw canvas. But the shoulder, the neck, the invisible face, those were complete. Rendered with a precision that came from weeks of watching, across staff rooms and corridors and courtyards.
The angle of the shoulder was his own. The set of the neck, tense, resistant. Perpetually bracing. Rory had painted him from behind because that was how Neil presented himself. Backturned. Face hidden. The surface showing nothing while the underneath generated intensity.
Fingertips on the paint. Ridges and valleys, the places where the knife had scraped. Every mark a moment of attention. The accumulation was a portrait that didn't need a face because the body told the story.
The painting wasn't flattering. It wasn't romantic. It was accurate, and the accuracy was so sharp his skin registered it.
Freddie's words came back. I'd draw a face. So you'd know whether they needed help. The painting had no face. But it didn't need one. The shoulder said everything the face would have hidden.
‘You've been painting me.’
‘Yeah.’
No hesitation.
Rory in the doorway. Arms crossed. No apology. ‘Since before you came here. Since the staff meeting. Now it’s finished.’
Neil stared at the shoulder that was his. The warm tones under the dark.
‘You painted what I look like when I'm turning away.’
‘I painted what you look like most of the time.’ No cruelty. Observation.
‘Freddie said your paintings don't have faces. He said he'd draw a face so you could see if the person was okay.’
Quiet for a moment. Then: ‘Smart kid.’
‘He said it's a better kind of painting.’
‘He might be right.’
‘When will you paint my face?’
He hadn't meant to ask.
That didn't matter.
Rory's expression changed. The guarded look dissolved. What replaced it was open and raw and careful.
‘When you stop turning,’ he said.
The answer should have ended it.
Neil didn’t leave.
‘You made it look like I’m choosing to go.’
He hadn’t meant to say that either.
