The Sitting

Mrs Vance talked to the canvas.

She had done it at the first sitting, and the second, and the third, and Frederick had thought at the first that she was talking to him and had answered, and she had looked round the side of the easel at him with an expression of mild surprise, as though a chair had spoken, and said not you, dear, him, and pointed the end of her brush at the canvas, at the shape on it that was going to be him; and gone back to it.

“Come on,” she said to it now. “Come on. You were there on Tuesday. Where have you gone?”

She was a tall, thin, brown woman of about sixty, from New Mexico, from a town outside Santa Fe that she said had more painters than people and more dogs than painters; with grey hair cut very short and paint on her wrists and on the backs of her hands and in one eyebrow, and an old blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and men’s trousers, and boots; and she stood at the easel in the middle of the room on the first floor of the central block, the one with the tall windows facing north that the Household had given her because she had asked for a north light, and had said that if they gave her a south light she would go home; and she looked at the canvas, and then round the side of it, at Frederick, and then at the canvas again, the way Theo looked at an apple, finding the place she wanted.

“You’ve gone,” she said to the canvas.

Frederick stood on the dais by the window, in the uniform, and did not move.

He knew how to stand still. He had been standing still since he was an hour old. He stood on the low wooden dais, about a foot high, that the Household’s carpenters had built for her in March, on the spot she had chosen, with the north light coming in on his left; in the uniform, which was dark blue, with a high collar and gold at the cuffs, made for him in March by a tailor who had come from London with a tape measure and a great many opinions, and which he had now worn four times, here, on this dais, and nowhere else in the world; with the star of an order on the left breast, silver, eight-pointed, heavy, pinned on that morning by Dame M herself, who had done it without a word and then stood back and looked at it for some time; and his left hand on the hilt of a sword he was not allowed to draw, and his right at his side; and he looked at a point about forty yards off, over the painter’s head, through the far wall, which was not anything at all.

He had found a good one, for the sittings. There was a crack in the plaster of the cornice on the far wall, high up, above the door, a small one, in the shape of a bird’s foot; and he looked at it, and went there, and stayed there, the way Guardsman Bevan went to his lamppost on the Mall, so that Mrs Vance could look at him all she liked.

“You’ve gone,” said Mrs Vance, to the canvas, with real irritation.

---

The first three sittings had been in April, and he had gone to the crack in the cornice for all of them, and Mrs Vance had painted the uniform.

She had painted it all. The dark blue, and the high collar, and the gold at the cuffs, and the star; the sword hilt and the hand on it, and the other hand at his side; the light from the north coming in on the left of the coat and going round it. She had painted it very fast, in long sure strokes, talking to it the whole time, there you are, there’s the collar, look at that, that’s a good collar, that tailor knew what he was about; and at the end of each sitting she had let him step down off the dais and come round and look, and it had been a uniform, very beautiful, very exact, hanging in the air on the canvas, with the star shining on it, and the hands, and above the high collar, where his face was going to be, a pale grey blur, like a window steamed over.

“I don’t do the face till I’ve got it,” she had said, at the end of the third. “I don’t do it till I’ve seen it. You can’t paint a face you haven’t seen.” She had looked at him over the easel. “I haven’t seen yours yet.”

“You’ve been looking at it for three Saturdays.”

“I’ve been looking at it for three Saturdays,” Mrs Vance had agreed, “and it hasn’t been there for any of them.” She had cleaned her brush on a rag. “Where do you go, dear? When you stand up there? You go somewhere. I can see you go. You go about forty yards off, over my head, and you stay there, and what I’m left painting is the outside of a boy who isn’t in.” She had put the brush in a jar. “I’ve painted Governors who did that. And a Prime Minister. And a man who owned most of Arizona. They all do it. They’ve all got somewhere they go.” She had looked at him. “You’re thirteen. You shouldn’t have to have somewhere yet.”

He had not known what to say. He had gone back to the north wing and thought about it all week.

---

On the fourth Saturday, Theo came.

He had not been to the Palace since the half-birthday. He had not been asked; there had been no reason; Fridays were at the flat. But on the Wednesday, on the wall, Frederick had told him about the painter, and the grey blur where his face was going to be, and you’ve gone; and Theo had listened, with the apple, and said nothing, and then at the bell had said, picking up his bag, can I come?, and Frederick had said he would ask; and had asked Dame M at the Friday meeting, and Dame M had looked at him for about three seconds across the fire and said I’ll ask Mrs Vance, and had asked her, on the telephone, that evening, and come back up the stairs to the north wing sitting room at eight, which she did not do, to say:

“Mrs Vance says yes, sir. She says she was hoping somebody would ask.”

So Theo came. Mr Hartigan brought him, on Saturday, at ten, in Mr Dabrowski’s brown estate, across the forecourt at two miles an hour, with Mr Dabrowski in the front in the grey felt hat with the yellow camera, and stopped exactly level with the north wing door, and did not get out, and lifted one finger off the wheel, and Castellanos on the step lifted his; and Theo got out, in a clean shirt that had been ironed by somebody at a counter that morning, and looked up at the flagstaff, at the standard with the label on it, for about three seconds, and then at Frederick, on the step, in the uniform.

He looked at the uniform for a long time.

He looked at the dark blue, and the high collar, and the gold at the cuffs, and the star, and the sword, from Frederick’s boots to his collar, the way his mother looked at shoes. He did not say anything. He did not ask what it was, or what the star was for, or why there was a sword, or anything at all about it, the way he had never asked anything about anything like it, all year.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hello.”

“You look,” said Theo, and stopped, and considered. “You look like a doorman.”

Frederick bit the inside of his cheek. On the left.

“At a very good hotel,” said Theo, and went in.

---

Mrs Vance put him behind a screen.

She did it after about four minutes. She had shaken his hand at the door of the room with the north light, a long thin hand with paint on it, and looked at him from his trainers to his hair, the way everybody’s mother did, and said ah, as though a great many things had been explained to her at once; and had put him on a chair by the wall, out of the north light, where Frederick on the dais could see him if he looked to his right, which he was not supposed to; and had gone back to the easel.

And Frederick had gone to the crack in the cornice.

He had tried not to. He had stood on the dais in the uniform and looked at the painter and the canvas and tried to stay, the way she wanted; and he had felt himself go, all the same, the way he always went, because a woman was looking at him to see what his face was and he did not know, and the only thing he knew how to do when somebody looked at him like that was go to forty yards off, over their heads, and stay.

And then, on the chair by the wall, out of the north light, Theo had said, very quietly, to nobody, in the voice he used before roll call:

“Doorman.”

And Frederick had come back from the cornice so fast that he had nearly fallen off the dais.

He had not laughed. He had bitten the inside of his cheek on the left, hard, the way Guardsman Bevan had said, and held it; and his face had done something, he did not know what; and Mrs Vance, at the easel, had stopped with her brush in the air and looked round the side of the canvas at him, and looked at his face, for about two seconds, with an expression of sudden, fierce, professional interest, like somebody who has heard a bird she has been waiting for all morning.

And then she had looked at the chair by the wall.

“Mr Hartigan,” she had said. “There’s a screen in the corner. Would you go behind it, please.”

---

It was a tall folding screen, four panels, covered in faded green silk with birds on it, and Theo went behind it, with his chair, and sat down, and Frederick could not see him any more; only the screen, in the corner, out of the north light, with the birds.

He went back to the cornice.

He did not mean to. He stood on the dais and Mrs Vance painted, or did not paint, and looked at him round the side of the easel, and said come on to the canvas, and he felt himself go, slowly, up and over her head, forty yards off, to the bird’s foot in the plaster, and stay there; and the room was very quiet, except for the brush, and Mrs Vance talking to it, and the north light coming in on his left.

From behind the screen, very quietly, Theo said:

“In right of the hat.”

Frederick came back.

He came back from the cornice all at once, as though somebody had pulled a rope, and he bit the inside of his left cheek so hard he tasted it; and his face did the thing; and at the easel, Mrs Vance’s brush moved. Fast. Three strokes, four, at the top of the canvas, in the grey blur above the collar.

“There,” she said, to the canvas. “There you are.”

She did not look round at the screen. She did not say anything to it. She painted.

He stood on the dais. He tried to stay. He could feel himself wanting to go, because she was looking, because she had seen something and was painting it, and the only thing he knew how to do when somebody painted his face was not be in it. He could feel the cornice pulling.

From behind the screen, in a whisper, Theo said:

“Douglas.”

He came back.

---

“Mr Hartigan,” said Mrs Vance, at about eleven, without turning round from the easel.

There was a pause behind the screen.

“Yes, miss?”

“Come out from behind there, please.”

Theo came out from behind the screen. He came out slowly, with an expression of wide, grey, perfect innocence, the expression Frederick had last seen on his face in Room 9 in October, when Mr Ferrante had asked who put a frog in his drawer.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” said Theo.

“I know exactly what you were doing,” said Mrs Vance, to the canvas. “You were doing my job.” She put her brush down on the palette. She turned round, and looked at Theo, standing by the screen with the birds on it, in his clean ironed shirt, with his hands in his pockets. “And you were doing it a great deal better than I was.”

Theo looked at her.

“He goes,” said Mrs Vance. “When I look at him. He goes about forty yards off, over my head, and stays there, and I’m left painting a uniform with nobody in it. He’s done it for three Saturdays.” She pointed the end of a clean brush at Frederick, on the dais. “And every time you say something from behind that screen, he comes back.” She looked at the canvas. “And when he comes back, for about four seconds, before he remembers to go again, there’s somebody in the uniform. And I can see him. And I can paint him.”

There was a silence in the room with the north light.

“Come and stand here,” said Mrs Vance. “Behind me. At my left shoulder. Where he can see you.”

Theo looked at the place behind her left shoulder. Then at Frederick, on the dais. Then at Mrs Vance.

“I’ll make him laugh,” he said. “I can’t help it. I’ll do it without trying.”

“I know,” said Mrs Vance. “That’s why I want you there.” She picked up her brush. “Don’t make him laugh. Just stand there. Don’t do anything at all. Let him look at you.” She looked round the side of the easel at Frederick. “And you, dear. Don’t go to wherever you go. Look at him instead.”

---

Theo stood behind Mrs Vance’s left shoulder.

He stood there with his hands in his pockets and did not do anything at all. He did not say anything. He did not pull a face. He stood in the room on the first floor of the central block, out of the north light, behind a painter from New Mexico, and looked at Frederick on the dais in the dark blue uniform with the star and the sword; steadily, the way he had looked at him across the yard on the second morning, for three seconds, the way you look at a timetable when somebody has told you the times have changed; and he went on looking.

And Frederick looked back at him.

He did not go to the cornice. He could feel it there, the bird’s foot in the plaster, forty yards off, high up, waiting; he could feel the pull of it the way you feel the pull of the stairs in a dark house you know. But he did not go. He looked at Theo instead. At the boy standing behind the painter’s shoulder with his hands in his pockets and his hair standing up at the back as if he had slept on it and the clean shirt that somebody had ironed at a counter that morning; who had sat beside him at a desk by the aisle every day since the second of September because of an alphabet, and had looked at him across a yard on the second morning, after somebody told him, and had gone back to his apple.

He did not know what his face was doing.

He did not try to know. That was the thing. For the first time in his life, standing still in front of somebody who was looking at him to see what his face was, he did not try to know, and did not go anywhere, and did not do the face from the library or the face from the balcony or nothing; he just stood on the dais in the uniform and looked at the person behind the painter, and let his face do whatever it did.

Mrs Vance painted.

She painted for forty minutes without saying anything to the canvas at all. Not come on. Not there you are. Nothing. She painted in short fast strokes in the grey blur above the collar, and stood back, and looked, and went in again, and the brush moved, and the north light came in on his left; and behind her left shoulder Theo stood with his hands in his pockets and did not move and did not make him laugh, not once, although Frederick could see, at about the twentieth minute, that it was costing him a great deal.

At a quarter to twelve she put the brush down.

“Thank you,” she said. To Theo. Not to the canvas.

---

He asked about the pigments while she was cleaning her brushes.

He had wanted to ask since the first sitting. He had watched her palette for three Saturdays: a big flat board, kidney-shaped, held on her left thumb, with blobs of colour round the edge of it in an order that never changed, and the middle a mess of mixtures, browns and blues and a dozen greys; and he had wanted to know what each one was, and why it was there, and in what order, and how you got from the blobs round the edge to the uniform on the canvas, the way he wanted to know how a timetable was made, or a Bill. He had not asked. You did not ask the painter things. Mr Pargeter had said so in March.

He asked now, standing by the easel in the uniform, with the sword, while she wiped the brushes on the rag.

“What are they?”

Mrs Vance looked at him.

“The colours,” said Frederick. “On the edge of the palette. In order.”

Mrs Vance looked at him for a moment longer. Then she held the palette out, so that he could see it, and went round the edge with the end of a clean brush.

“Titanium white,” she said. “Yellow ochre. Cadmium red, light. Burnt sienna. Raw umber. Ultramarine. Ivory black. And a viridian I hardly use, because I don’t trust it.” She pointed at each. “Same order since 1987. Same as the man who taught me. If I put them in a different order I can’t paint. I’ve tried.”

“And the greys? In the middle?”

“Mixed.” She pointed at them. “Nobody buys a grey, dear. Not for a uniform. A grey out of a tube is dead. You mix it. Ultramarine and burnt sienna, mostly, with a bit of white, and you can push it warm or push it cold by how much of each. Your uniform’s dark blue, but the shadows on it aren’t blue, they’re grey, a hundred different greys, warm where the light comes round and cold where it doesn’t.” She looked at the canvas. “I’ve mixed about forty for that coat.”

Frederick looked at the palette.

“How do you know how much of each?”

Mrs Vance looked at him for a long time.

Then she held out the palette knife. A small flexible steel blade on a wooden handle, with paint dried on it in a dozen colours.

“Here,” she said. “Make one.”

---

He made one.

He did it on a clean corner of the palette, with the knife, the way she showed him: a little ultramarine, taken off the edge of the blob with the tip of the blade; and a little burnt sienna, beside it; and he pressed them together, and spread them, and folded them over, and spread them again, and they went from blue and brown to something that was neither, a dark, dull, muddy colour, and then, as he went on, a grey.

It was a cold grey. Too blue.

“Warmer,” said Mrs Vance, beside him.

He added a little more of the sienna, on the tip of the knife. He folded it in. It went warmer.

“A touch of white. Just a touch.”

He added a touch of white. It went lighter, and softer, and something happened to it; it stopped being a mixture and became a colour; a grey, a particular grey, dark, very slightly warm, like the sky over the depot on Dunmore Street at half past four in February, or the stone of the wall by the bike racks when it was wet.

He looked at it.

He had made it. It was the first colour he had ever made in his life. He had drawn things, all year, from the outside in, in their parts, exactly, in pencil and pen, with labels; but he had never once made a colour. You could not draw a colour. You had to make it.

Mrs Vance looked at it, on the corner of the palette, for some time.

“That’s a good grey,” she said quietly. “That’s a very good grey.” She took the palette back from him. “That’s the grey for where the light goes round.”

She picked up a brush, a small one, and loaded it with his grey; and turned to the canvas; and put it in.

She put it in quickly. Three strokes. Somewhere in the dark blue of the uniform. In the shadow, where the north light went round.

He saw exactly where.

He stood beside her in the uniform and watched the brush go in, three times, short, sure, and come out; and saw exactly where his grey had gone, into the picture, into the coat, where it would be for as long as the picture was; and he did not say anything at all.

Behind Mrs Vance’s left shoulder, where he had been told to stand, and had not moved, Theo had seen it too.

---

“Which bit’s yours?” said Theo, on the step of the north wing, at a quarter past twelve, while they waited for the brown estate.

He was not looking at Frederick. He was looking at the forecourt, at the Saturday visitors walking across the gravel in the May sunshine to the front of the house, with children and pushchairs and cameras.

Frederick had changed out of the uniform. He was in his ordinary clothes, the grey trousers and the blue shirt and a jumper, and the star was in its box upstairs, and the sword was in its case, and the dark blue coat with the high collar was on a hanger in a room on the first floor of the central block, with the north light on it, where it would stay until the fifth sitting.

“I’m not saying,” he said.

Theo looked at the forecourt.

“I saw,” he said.

“I know you saw.”

“I know which bit it is.”

“I know you know.”

Theo was quiet for a moment.

“Are you going to tell anybody?”

Frederick thought about it. He thought about it properly, the way he thought about everything; about the picture, which would be finished in June and hung somewhere, in a gallery or a hall or a room in a palace, and looked at by people for a long time, by people who would want to know everything about it, because that was what people did with pictures; about the forty greys in the coat, all of them Mrs Vance’s but one; and about the one.

“No,” he said.

“Not even your dad?”

“Not even my dad.”

Theo nodded slowly, looking at the forecourt.

“Fair,” he said.

He did not ask anything else. He did not ask why. He stood on the step of the north wing door in the clean ironed shirt and looked at the forecourt, at the visitors on the gravel, and at the corner where the Axis came in, where in a minute a brown estate car from 1991 would come round at four miles an hour with its headlights on in the middle of the day; and Frederick stood beside him and knew that Theo knew, and would not tell either; and that there were now exactly three people in the world who knew which three strokes of grey in the state portrait of the Prince of Wales had been mixed on the corner of a palette by the Prince of Wales: a painter from New Mexico, who had put them there, and who would not say, because painters do not; and the Prince of Wales; and a bus driver’s son from Milwaukee who had stood behind a painter’s shoulder for forty minutes and not made him laugh.

“Theo.”

“What.”

“You didn’t make me laugh. For forty minutes.”

“I know,” said Theo. “It nearly killed me.” He looked at the corner of the forecourt. “You know what I was thinking about? The whole time?”

“What?”

“The doorman,” said Theo. “At a very good hotel. Saying Douglas.” His face started to go. “In right of the hat.”

The brown estate came round the corner of the Axis with its headlights on.

And Frederick, on the step of the north wing of Columbia Palace, in the May sunshine, in front of the Saturday visitors on the forecourt, who did not look at him, because nobody expects to see him there, put his hand over his mouth, and laughed so much that Castellanos, beside the door, looked at the sky.