she seemed peaceful; self-contained. It was once again painful to Olive how attractive her mother was, and how Sarah barely registered this fact – her hair a bit of a mess, her sundress crumpled as if she’d just pulled it out of a trunk. Her roots had now grown out considerably, and she didn’t seem to care. Her natural dark blonde was a stark, yet oddly pleasurable visual contrast to the peroxide ends. Olive had the itch to paint her, to capture this ease, in the hope that she too could have some of it for herself.
‘Summer’s nearly here,’ Sarah said, breaking Olive’s thoughts. ‘It’s going to be so hot.’
‘You were complaining when it was cold.’
Sarah laughed at herself. This too, was rare. ‘It wasn’t a terrible idea of your father’s to come here. Not a terrible idea at all.’ She reached over and squeezed her daughter’s hand. ‘I do love you, you know, Liv. Very much.’
‘Goodness. What’s wrong with you?’
‘Nothing. Nothing. I just think you should know.’
Sarah went out onto the veranda with her packet of cigarettes and the latest Christie shipped over from a friend in London, and Teresa began to mop the flagstones in the hall. Olive followed her, standing on the dry patch Teresa hadn’t yet reached.
‘Teresa, will you sit for my next painting?’ she asked, her voice quiet. ‘I’d love to use you as a model.’
Teresa’s spine stiffened, her fists tightening round the mop handle. ‘You didn’t tell me about the second painting we took to Malaga,’ she said.
‘I didn’t want to get you into any more trouble.’
‘Trouble?’
‘Look, I know you think this whole undertaking demeans me as an artist.’
‘Demeans?’
‘Makes less of me. You think Isaac gets more importance round here than he deserves. But it’s what I want. I want the freedom. You’re my friend, Tere. Let me give this to you.’
Teresa straightened, meditatively plunging the head of the mop into her bucket of filthy water. She knew, in a way, that she had wanted this moment ever since she saw Isaac in the sketchbook. And the decision to help Olive in her deceptions – taking the paintings into Malaga, making sure Sarah still believed they were by Isaac, keeping the attic clean – had all been leading to this less than noble truth; that Teresa wanted to be painted. She wanted Olive to want her as a painting.
As Teresa walked behind Olive upwards to the attic, she knew she had departed from her place in the script. She turned back once to view the floor, only half agleam, the mop resting, accusatory. She was no longer the servant who rid the house of stains; she was going to make a mark so permanent no one would ever forget it.
It was to be a painting of Rufina, Olive told her, locking the attic door. ‘I’ve done Justa in the Well, and you’ll be my Rufina. It was you who told me the story, after all. I’ve been wondering what part of it to tell.’
Teresa nodded, not daring to speak. What would Isaac say, when he found out Olive had painted his face green and sent it as a self-portrait to Peggy Guggenheim? When would he realize that painting after painting would come out of this girl? Olive believed Isaac was the source of her inspiration, but Teresa thought that nothing he could do now – no tantrum, no withholding of affection – would stop the flow.
‘Rufina with her pots, Rufina with the lion, or Rufina, beheaded, with her sister?’ said Olive, mainly to herself. ‘The last one’s grim, but it is the apogee, even though she’s down a well.’
Teresa heard the unusual word, and thought Olive had said apology. ‘There is nothing to be sorry for,’ she said.
Olive smiled. ‘I’m glad you think so, Tere.’
She had decided to abandon the diptych format that she’d used for Women in the Wheatfield, and paint just one scene. In the end, she wanted all the stages of the story involved. So Rufina would be there in her full body, but she would also be carrying her own head.
‘You could put your face in it, too,’ said Teresa, then immediately wished she hadn’t, for she was probably overstepping herself.
Olive bit her lip, considering the idea. ‘Well, let’s paint yours first,’ she said. ‘I’ll decide later whether to add mine. It is supposed to be one person, after all. But I’m definitely going to lay gold leaf on the lion’s mane. He’ll be tame as a pussycat.’