MORNING SERIAL
ILLIE looked at me – his eyes had deadened – and then he looked at the canvas, and then back at me. His shoulders hunched.
“The same,” he said.
“The same?”
“Yes. Well, not quite. Because you got it wrong the other night. Over and over, you got it wrong.”
“So what is the same?” I said, my hand, holding the brush, dropping to my side.
“The dream is the same. The night is the same. The swing is still that deep sweet red.”
I had suspected Illie’s madness, but this felt close to home, as if it now was also partly my madness, that he had forced it on me and I had nothing left to fight back.
“You want me to paint the same painting I painted the other day?”
“Yes,” said Illie with an expressionless, flat face. “That is the work.”
“Over and over?”
“Until you get it right.” “Until I recreate what it is you see in your head?”
“That is correct.”
His eyes moved from me to the canvas and then back again, as if he could not quite figure out why I was asking questions and not getting on with the job at hand.
I had not intended to ask any question relating to what Stelly had told me, partly because I felt Stelly was as trustworthy as the devil himself. But it had nagged at me – probably exactly what he had intended. I turned to the tools of my trade, such as they were, and spoke with my back to Illie as I began to mix colours on the palette.
“What is it you’re looking for?” I said.
“What do you mean?” “Having me do this – and this is what you had Francis doing, I take it?”
“I have been very lucky that you came here to his funeral and were able to take his place.”
“But you are looking for something, aren’t you?”
Illie was silent behind me. I applied the first colour to the brush and began to paint the night.
“Darker,” he said. “You fail to catch the silver. It must be darker.”
> The Golden Orphans by Gary Raymond is published by Parthian www.parthianbooks.com