The Vexations by Caitlin Horrocks

Author:Caitlin Horrocks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2019-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

The next day, in the studio, Suzanne persuaded Adrien to lay some pillows on the bed in the vague shape of a woman. “I can tell you’re not even looking at me,” she said. “You’re concentrating on the curtains.” She could always tell when men were looking.

Her freedom thus procured, she sat side by side with Adrien, painting the same set of bed curtains—tricky delineations where the gold velvet met the red silk, the snaky braid and tassels. She’d promised herself that she would look as hard as she could, capture as much as she could. But her fleurs-de-lis came out spindly, their curves swelling and shrinking out of sync with the movement of the drapery. She took a break, painted a cat in the middle of the bed, a marmalade with cool green eyes.

Adrien glanced over and snorted. “That’s a fancy bed for a cat.”

“That’s a fancy bed for an invisible woman.”

“I gave him your address. Erik, from last night. I hope that’s all right. He was very taken with your carrots. He’s harmless, or I wouldn’t have told him anything.”

“I know,” she said, and mentioned the pneu and the celeriac. “‘Harmless’ doesn’t sound terribly exciting.”

“Is that what you want? Exciting?”

She listened beneath the words, to whether he was saying them with mockery or private longing, or whether he had other friends to set her up with, depending on what she wanted.

“He’s a composer, if that makes a difference,” Adrien added. “He isn’t just an accompanist.”

“Is he any good?”

“I don’t know, honestly.”

“Do you have anything else to sketch?” Suzanne asked, changing the subject. “Anything other than carrots, nine-year-old boys, or goats. I could sketch you,” she added. “You wouldn’t even have to stop painting. I’ll just do The Artist at Work.”

Why did he look so surprised? After all, how many times had he drawn or painted her? She needed the practice, because although she could have a career without being able to paint fancy curtains, she doubted she could have one without being able to paint men, something she currently didn’t do well. Maurice had once told her, in tears, that a canvas in their apartment was giving him nightmares, the way the men’s arms sprang from their shoulders at graceless angles, their buttocks thrust backward, their necks long and columnar. In the few biblical scenes she’d tried, it was Adam who wore a fig leaf and Eve who was unashamed.

“I suppose I could use a break,” Adrien said. “I’m going cross-eyed trying to get this gold right. Where do you want me?”

“On the bed?”

Adrien laughed. “Are you serious?”

“Why not?”

“Men don’t really lounge about seductively on beds.”

“You think women do?”

“Fair point. Am I being seductive, or just sleepy? Or perhaps I’m tragically ill.”

“I am curious to see you attempt ‘seductive,’” she said.

More game than she’d dared to hope, Adrien started to strip his clothes off. Shoes first, then painter’s smock, then collar and waistcoat, then shirt and socks and trousers. In a burst of bravado he whipped off his long underwear and jumped backward onto the bed.

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