Picasso and the Greatest Show on Earth by Anna Fienberg

Author:Anna Fienberg [Anna Fienberg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2023-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

When we got to the reserve, Picasso spotted Peggy in her floppy hat, digging up something in the garden. I only just managed to hang on to the leash. When she saw us she tried to straighten her back but didn’t get very far.

‘Here, let me do that,’ said Kit, taking the shovel. ‘You want the roots dug up?’

Peggy gave him a grateful smile. ‘They’re stubborn, these damn privets − it was only a small tree but it seems I’m allergic to its flowers.’

Kit dug and chopped the roots while Peggy rubbed her back against the trunk of a palm. Picasso ran around her in circles.

‘How’ve you been, you three?’ she asked.

‘We’re going to paint a mural for the school,’ I began. But then I remembered the plague assignment, so I told her about Yersinia pestis instead and how it had been the cause of the Italian Renaissance.

I saw Kit roll his eyes at Peggy as he flung a shovelful of earth across the grass. ‘Where’s the off switch?’ he whispered.

Peggy grinned. ‘She’s got a point though. People have to change when there’s a major threat to life. You can’t keep doing things the way you did. Look at climate change. Back in medieval times, that plague killed half the population of Florence.’

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘People grabbed a bit of happiness while they could—’

‘In art,’ Peggy nodded.

‘And it stopped mattering whether you were born into a poor or rich family because everything was breaking down anyway and people began to judge you as a person, like artists suddenly became important even if they weren’t—’

‘Yes, come in and get a drink while we talk,’ Peggy said. ‘I’ve got a splendid book on the Renaissance, you’ll love it.’ She started to make her way up the path as if she couldn’t wait to get there.

‘You go,’ said Kit, ‘I’ll just finish up here.’

When we were settled on the couch, Peggy put the book on my lap. It was a big glossy hardback with colour plates. Michelangelo, Masaccio, da Vinci, Botticelli …

‘Look at those faces, they’re so real!’ I pointed to a painting of Christ lying on a bed. ‘He looks like an ordinary man who might live next door. Well, a very thin, sad man, I guess. Still, art wasn’t like that before the Renaissance.’

‘No, but if you go right back to classical times, Ancient Greece and Rome, you find real-looking people in art again.’

Peggy got up to look for a book on Ancient Rome and Picasso followed her to see if he could help.

Kit came in then. He went to wash his gardening hands at the sink.

‘Hey, you,’ I said softly.

He looked around, and smiled. I think I’ll always remember that smile. It was his, but mine too. Because he gave it to me. It said, I’m happy to know you. It made me feel like a star. I took a picture of it in my mind, click, so I’d have it always, no matter what happened.

We turned the pages of the classical art book, the three of us on the sofa.

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