Title: Pictures In her Eyes
Rating: PG
First Posted: July 1, 2001
Notes:
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Feedback: Cherished. admin@florrie-fic.com
I can’t remember who asked. I think I did, but I know Cordelia manouevered me into the ask.
We had been to the Art Gallery, inside the Art Gallery for an opening exhibition of Victorian and Edwardian painters. Cordelia hadn’t been particularly interested in the art, she was there for the glitz and low key glamour and the photo opportunity. Old compulsions die hard.
I went because I was curious and well, she did ask me to go along. Being asked by Cordelia is always an impetus, for me. And, as I said, I was curious. I wanted to see the pictures through her eyes.
The Victorians don’t do much for me. Cold, sterile, emotionless. Pretty use of colour, pretty nubile models, pretty sylvian scenery, full of lolling around and kittens and sleeping. Not a lot of action. I’m an action guy when it comes to art. Action, emotion, movement, life, verve.
I lost her in the crowd for all of five minutes. Nerve-wracking. Me, alone, all those people, cheap champagne and raised little fingers. Scary. I found her over by a painting. She was gazing at it. It wasn’t the one I had pointed out earlier with a light conversational “Cord, do you know the legend of La Belle Dame Sans Merci?”
Cordy found this one painting by herself. A sultry dark beauty, buffeted by a wearing wind.
“I want one of those.”
“A Waterhouse? On your pay?”
“No, dummy - I want to be in a painting like that.”
“He’s dead - the artist, he's dead.”
“So?”
“I don’t think he’ll be taking new commissions.”
‘Urgh! And don’t lick your lip in that ‘gee, Cord’s stupid, got her there’ licky-lip way...”
“I’m not, honest... I didn’t really think you thought that I thought you meant... anyway, it was an opportunity to... to actually slip in a smart-ass reply... you know, doesn’t happen too often... the opportunity, cause usually you are the one...”
“Can it.”
“Sure.”
And that, I thought, was the end of that. How long have I known this girl? Obviously, not long enough. I was sitting on the sofa in the lobby, contemplating a Cordelia vigorously rubbing at an itchy nose, wondering why the hell I never had my block and charcoal with me when there was a delicious Cordy moment right in front of me....
“And couldn’t you just feel the breeze blowing through her hair and shawl?”
“Huh?”
“The girl in that painting, last week... you remember...”
“Oh... that girl. The Waterhouse. ‘Boreas’, wasn’t it?”
“Pardon?”
“The name of the painting. ‘Boreas’.”
“Really? Weird name.”
“The north wind... Greek mythology... I thought I explained the story at the time. ‘Boreas’ was the painting that was lost...”
“Yep, yep, anyway, as I was about to say, you can paint!”
“No, um, I sketch - it’s different.”
“Uh-huh. Painters use paint and sketchers use crayons but you can all draw, right?”
“Pastels, charcoal, ink. Different technique, mood, skills. Even within painting itself - there’s watercolour, oils, acrylic. And you need to be able to capture the personality...”
“You can draw?”
“I guess... not great but, I think it’s passable.”
Of course, as I was talking myself into saying ‘hey, Cordy, why don’t I paint you?’ I was as quickly talking Cordy out of her, as yet, unasked favour. Why did I say I was only passable? Sing your praises, Angel, sell yourself!
“If you liked, you could sit for me and I’d see what I could do...”
“See what you could do? Uh, I was hoping for a professional portrait, but thanks for offering.”
“Like you said, it’s all in the drawing. I can sketch you and then... paint it all in!”
“By numbers? Don’t think so.”
“Come on Cord, just let me do this - for practice! If it’s no good, then, I can chuck it away.”
“Chuck...? If I let you paint me for free - I get the artwork... understood?”
“Traditionally it’s the artist who is paid... but it’s a deal.”
“But you are asking me, Angel. I’m doing you the favour here... so you can practice!”
Damn it, she’d done it again. She knew it too, flashing me a broad, happy smile and sauntering off to tell Wes and Charles she’d be in the National Portrait Gallery collection before the year was out.
I set up an easel and paints in one of the upper rooms. There’s a great view and it isn’t precisely a garrett and I’m not starving but ... good light, no noise, no distractions... except for Cordelia, she’s a natural distraction. I’m trying to paint her portrait so I have to look at her, don’t I? I can gaze and stare, as much as I like. Study the line of her jaw, cheekbone, moist full lips. After all, I have to try and capture the ‘mood’ of the painting.
“Don’t wriggle.”
“I’m not.”
“Cordy, you wriggled your nose.... made it all scrunchy.”
“Geesh... picky much? You sure it’s okay I breathe? How much longer, Angel?”
“You’ve only been there for half an hour.”
“Yeah, but how much longer? Can’t we talk?”
“Not long. You talk, I’m trying to concentrate, find the mood, the personality... just don’t wriggle!”
“What colour is that?”
“Magenta.”
“Pretty. You want my life story?”
“Uh... whatever you are comfortable with, okay?”
“Remember that night I sat and talked to you in the Bronze? You were waiting for Buffy. I made you laugh. I didn’t know all the vamp-bite-fighty stuff back then.”
“Mmm.”
“I thought you were a gorgeous hunk... I remember thinking something about ‘salty goodness’ ... I was determined to get you away from Buffy. Oh and when you found me in the dumpster? With body parts? Ugh, gross. You insisted on looking after me, you even drove me home and kissed me on the doorstep! You’ve tuned right out, haven’t you!”
“Mmmm?”
“And I invited you inside and we made mad passionate hot steamy love on the sofa while the maid served iced tea and donuts. Then my folks came home and demanded you make an honest woman of me but you vamped out and daddy said you weren’t allowed to come and play again, ever. You burst into tears and ran off with a circus chimpanzee.”
“Uh huh.”
“Geesh.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Five more minutes... please?”
“Can I see?”
“No... no it’s ... bad luck to see a painting before it is done.”
“I’m not superstitious...”
“I am. Be patient Cordy, you’ll see it when it is all finished.”
I could tell this was going to take a while. Cord would only sit for an hour at a time. She was fine if I let her talk, for a while, then she’d insist I listen. Listening I could do. I like listening to Cordy talk. She’s full of fun and life and there’s a streak of pathos in there too, but if I listened, I didn’t paint. This was going to take a long time.
“I’d borrow one of mom’s silky gauze dresses, one with a really full skirt - the kind she’d wear to daddy’s lodge ball - and a pair of gold sling backs. I never bothered with makeup - my makeup days didn’t kick in until I was eight - and I’d stumble outside just before dinner to see if the moon was awake.”
“You were five?”
“Yeah. It’s my first really vivid, all-colour memory. Do you have one of those?”
“No. Keep going.”
“Well if the moon was awake I’d start dancing. I called it dancing. God, I must have looked ridiculous - patent gold slingbacks clunking on the terrace and I don’t know how often I fell over the damn skirts!”
“I bet you looked adorable....um, but why were you dancing for the moon?”
“I’m not sure but I think I must have thought the moon and God were the same. It was probably a Cordelia-has-a-guilty-conscience dance.”
“A five year old? With a guilty conscience?”
“Well, there are some serious five year old issues. Snapping the head off Becky-next-door’s Ken because she let him smooch with my Barbie, taking two cookies from the jar instead of one, you know the deal. Nearly done? I’m getting cramp in my big toe.”
She would chatter on about events and news items and childhood memories. Her first kiss, shit I wanted to throttle that boy for laughing at her - a first kiss and he expected a world class tongue wrangler! She even told me about our first meeting - from her perspective. She said she’d told me earlier, but I can’t have been listening. “Salty goodness”, er, what can I say? Wow.
Occasionally she’d sit quietly and stare out the window. On one unsettling occasion I discovered I had been staring at her (I was trying to determine the exact shade of her eyes) and she was staring back at me. I’m not sure how long we were gazing at each other. It evolved into a kind of a slow awareness that we were both doing it and then she sneezed and I looked away and she started chatting again. Un-sett-ling.
“I brought a book up today... you might like to read aloud from one of the stories.”
“Oh? Tired of my stories?”
“Never... it’s a book I thought you might enjoy, that’s all.”
“Um... Ghost stories? Icky!”
“Hey, you live with a ghost!”
“Dennis is a friendly ghost...I mean... listen to this... At last she is dead! It came to an end today: all that long agony, those heart-rending cries and moans, the terrified shuddering of that poor wasted body, the fixed and maddening glare, more awful for it’s very unconsciousness. Only this very day they faded out and died one by one, as death crept at last up the tortured and emaciated limbs, and I stood over my wife’s body...ugh, Angel! How old are these?”
“Um...old. Go back to the first one, it’s a Le Fanu...about a painter...”
"Nope, nope, nope. You trying to scare me out of this portrait deal? What’s funny?”
“Nothing, Cordy, sorry - I thought you’d enjoy the change, that’s all. Talk to me, I’m all ears.”
“Wait a minute...”
“What is it?”
“I’m reading... there’s a story here about the ghost of a doll... cree-pee!”
I could have kicked myself for bringing in the book. She hardly spoke a word after that and for the next two days she thumbed through the pages, glancing at passages and looking for more cree-pee. On the third day the old volume of ghost stories, well, somehow it was misplaced.
“Why did you attack me?”
“I’ve never... attack you? When?”
“Back in Sunnydale, time of Angelus, cemetery, night...”
“Um... yeah, I’m with you now.”
“Well?”
“What?”
“Why did you wrestle me to the ground?”
“Angelus... gee, I don’t remember...”
“Crap... tell me. You ignored the others and tackled me. Why me?”
“You know... the create pain for Buffy by torturing her friends method.”
“Willow was there. She was closer to Buffy than I ever wanted to be. Again with the ‘why’?”
“Um... you smelt tastier? I don’t know Cord and honestly, discussing my Angelus in Sunnydale days isn’t high on my list.”
“I smelled tastier... okay, I like that.”
“You do? Great!”
“We are talking a pleasant scent smell here aren’t we? Not a gross ewww body odour type smell? Hey, talking of Angelus... remember when that skanky actress drugged you and I duped you with the holy water...”
I was running out of excuses. She, not surprisingly, had once again begun to question when she could see the finished painting. Shortly after, I ‘found’ the ghost book again and she was content to sit and read for a few days but...
We’d been climbing the stairs to the top of the building and my locked "studio" for over a month. The hour in her company had become like a soothing potion... even to the extent I would sometimes sit, stupefied, barely remembering to raise the paintbrush to the canvas, entranced by the pictures in her eyes as she recounted moments of life, a la Cordelia.
On several occasions the addictive afternoon ritual had been interrupted by annoying visions or some damn client and I’d be on a knife edge until the next day and my next personal dose of Cordy time. But now the desire was intermingled with guilt. Guilt that I was somehow imposing on her time and good nature, taking advantage of the painting project to have her all to myself for an all too brief hour. I must have been bewitched because, by the next morning, the guilt barely ruffled the surface of my fixation as I counted down the hours to our next climb up the stairway together.
I was off my game. Definitely. Otherwise, I would have guessed she’d eventually lose patience and pinch my keys.
I found her, already in the room, frowning down at the uncovered canvas. She was going to be furious.
“Where is it, Angel?”
“It?”
“Don’t play dumb! Where is my portrait?”
“You promised me you wouldn’t try and sneak ... okay - you... actually... you’re looking at it.”
“Crap. This is a blank bit of paper!”
“Canvas...”
“Canvas, paper, crap... it’s empty! No Cordelia!”
“Yeah.”
“What? Is this some kind of crazy Blue Poles abstract anything goes? You see an empty face so you give me an empty picture?”
“No way, Cord... It’s just that I couldn’t... I couldn’t find...”
“A personality? Didn’t you tell me an artist had to capture the personality of the person? So that’s me, huh? A blank?”
“Don’t get upset... no, wait, don’t go... you said it - capturing the personality and that’s right, I couldn’t because I kept finding more and more and when I looked into your eyes, my god, the pictures I saw... I’m sorry.”
“I saw you painting...”
“Sometimes I’d fill the canvas with colour and during the night I’d re-block it - start fresh the next day... don’t be angry.”
“I was, I - I took it as an insult, you know - blank, empty.”
“I couldn’t pin you down, ‘capture’ you - I hope it’s a compliment - kind of screwy, but a compliment.”
“So I don’t make the touring Portrait Gallery this year?”
“Well... How do you feel about clay?”
“Clay?”
“Yeah, I could sculpt a bust - it’d be great - I could sit and stare at you and roll... massage... mold! warm, firm clay between my hands at the same time, I’m sure I could come up with... owww!”
(1) Quoted passage from "Dog or Demon", Theo Gift (Dora Havers), 1889.
(2) A reference in passing to Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's "Schalken the Painter", 1839 and F. Marion Crawford's "The Doll's Ghost", 1908.
(3) You can see John William Waterhouse's "Boreas" here.
