“It’s perfect. You may inspire a movement. Now, let me preserve this masterpiece.”
“As you will.” Indifferent as ever, Micha flung the sketchbook between them.
Thomas caught for it clumsily, and the pages fanned open to reveal the pencil lines of an earlier sketch. “You drew something else?”
“It’s nothing,” said Micha sharply. “It’s not finished. Leave it alone. I said—oh fuck.”
“Oh my. Micha.”
Micha was scarlet. “Seriously, give it back.”
“Is this—”
“You were the only model I had. Now give it back.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t say anything, and you give it back.”
Thomas looked up with a shy smile. “I don’t really look like this, do I?”
“Not remotely. We’ve already established I’m very bad at drawing.”
“You’re bad at watercolour painting. You’re not bad at drawing. But we must get you a proper subject.”
“You’ll do for now.” Micha gestured dismissively. “As it happens, you spend most of your time with your chin in your hand, staring at nothing, so you’re easy to do.”
Thomas glanced again at Micha’s drawing. It was faintly sketched and obviously incomplete, but, sure enough, there was the outline of a man sitting with his chin in his hand, his expression at once intense and abstracted. He was not handsome, for his features were too angular for beauty, but the artist had been generous, catching the intelligence of his eyes and the paradox of a mouth at once whimsical and stern. “I’ll have you know that I am not staring at nothing, I am thinking deep thoughts about life and God and faith. And things.”
And so Micha was laughing, truly laughing, as he reached over to reclaim his sketchbook.
Chapter 10
Micha woke to a golden haze, rolled over, and reached for his bottle of laudanum. It would send him, if not back to sleep, at least into a state that was almost the same. The bottle felt slick and familiar beneath his fingers, but he hesitated, wanting out of the habit of wanting but also not wanting, which was an entirely new sensation. It was not, however, any sort of choice. He mixed up the laudanum and took enough to make the wanting fade, though it never really stopped.
He lay there for a while, feeling nothing but a painless, thoughtless calm, not quite floating, not quite dreaming, just cushioned by a softer world. It was tempting to take more, make the world softer still and fall into it, like angel feathers. But Thomas kept scratching at the edges of his peace.
You should do something, Micha. You need occupation, Micha.
Damn Thomas. Damn him.
And Micha didn’t need anything. Well. Nearly anything. The bottle slid from his slackened grasp and rolled across the covers.
Would nothing rid him of this turbulent priest?
Finally, he crawled out of bed, tugged on a dressing gown, and staggered across the room. The light came gentled through the window and embraced him, stroking warm fingers over his face and throat. The world outside was deeply green, tipped with scarlet and yellow, curled around the blue-grey horizon.
Perhaps ... perhaps he would go out. Fade into a fall of autumn leaves.
Or he could take that damn sketchbook. Try to draw the world as it was, rather than drug-fuelled phantasms of what it could be. Except he preferred the latter. At least there was a place for him in it.
Half an hour later, dressed, with the sketchbook (the damn sketchbook) under his arm, Micha was standing at the edge of the rectory gardens, wondering where to go and feeling like a man at the edge of a precipice, though this part of England rolled away smoothly in all directions, as serene as the surface of a lake. After a moment, he turned away from the village and began to walk. His steps were slow, and he rested often, but, for once, it did not trouble him. The world kept pace with him, speckling him with slow-dropping sunlight and sending little eddies of red-edged leaves to dance around his feet as he walked.
He came to a meadow, mingled with wildflowers, and sat awhile upon a stile to sketch. It turned out rather poorly. He had misjudged the perspective, and the whole thing ended up looking like a strange, multicoloured sandwich. So, he flipped the page and worked a little on his drawing of Thomas, deepening the eyes, adding detail to those expressive, perfect hands. How would they feel when they took possession of Micha’s body? Would his touch be gentle? He could not easily imagine violence from such smooth palms or cruelty from such tender fingers. But perhaps he was only deceiving himself. Sex was power, desire was shame, and Isidore had been the illusion all along. Though his lips faintly remembered Isidore’s kisses—and perhaps, somewhere beneath the noise of other hands, his body still bore the imprint of his touches—such things were for another time, another world.
Micha put his pencil away and closed the book. He had lost interest in drawing. He climbed down into the meadow and kept walking. The tall grasses bowed like mocking courtiers as he passed through them. Then came another stile, another meadow, this onestudded with bloodred and tiger-black butterflies that flickered from flower to flower like pieces of flame. He was the serpent in paradise, and the loveliness sliced his heart to ribbons.
A small stream cut a swathe of silver through the green, here and there overhung by the branches of a weeping willow, spun Rumpelstiltskin-gold by the season. Two ducks paddled along placidly, the undersides of their wings flashing emerald. It was a scene far beyond Micha’s paltry watercolours. The world had decked itself in brilliant gemstone hues until it was almost luminous beneath the sun-bright sky.
