The Portrait by Iain Pears Read Free Book Online Page A

him next day in the grim little graveyard, with a full funeral as if he had been one of their own. No small thing, that; funerals are expensive and these people have little enough to spare. But he could so easily have been one of their own children. A touching ceremony, really. Stark and austere like their own lives. The congregation gathered in the churchyard overlooking the sea, a genuine, heartfelt grief for someone they had never known, and never even suspected existed. They are good people, truly they are, though your expression as you listen to my tale shows how worthless they are to you.
    One curious thing did happen a few days later, which even you might find intriguing. Maybe not. But the police heard about it and came over from Quiberon to find out what they could, and were properly cross that the boy had been buried already. Even threatened to dig him up again, although the priest soon put paid to that idea. The curiosity was that, to a man and a woman, they refused to say anything—not where the boy was found, nor what they did with him, nor any suspicions they might have had about who he was. They closed ranks completely, and responded to all questions with a sullen, stubborn silence. The boy was theirs, now. This was their business. Their obstinacy when confronted with anything to do with the outside world is extraordinary.
    It brought back an old fascination of mine that had been lingering in the back of my mind for years. Do you remember those Sunday morning expeditions we used to do together in Paris? I found them so wonderful, getting up early, meeting in a café for some bread and coffee, then off for a day of talk and art. A close friendship, as close as it can be. My education, of more use to me in many ways than any time I spent in school or atelier. We saw Puvis de Chavannes in the Pantheon, and argued long whether his vast canvasses of saints were genius or mediocrity, triumph or disaster. I still haven’t made up my mind, but I have a love for them because they are forever associated with the bliss of friendship and the joy of experience. We had the whole of the Louvre at our disposal, medieval wall paintings, Renaissance architecture, the sculptures of Houdon and Rodin; we saw churches and monuments, art modern and ancient. Studied Italian paintings and German prints together, ate and drank and walked. We sat in parks and dusty squares, walked by rivers and canals until the light faded, and still we went on talking. I remember the way you would stab the air with your finger to make a point as you marched along, the way you collapsed on a park bench and fanned yourself with a guidebook as you finished some wordy peroration about the use of public sculpture. The way you could recite poetry at the drop of a hat in your perfect French to illustrate some painting or panorama. The way you could turn anything into the subject for a lecture.
    I came back from these outings exhausted, but unable to sleep, my head spinning with all I’d seen. And, of course, went over everything we had talked about. Had I said something stupid? Of course I had, many times over; so had you, but with such confidence no-one dared call it so. That was one of the things I learned; one of the most important things. But even then I think the seeds of our divergence were germinating; I remember a brief flutter of slight annoyance—swiftly suppressed—when you made some sneering remark about Boucher. Well, alright, not to everyone’s taste, all those silly women dressed up as shepherdesses with those bouffant wigs perched on their heads. But look at the way the man painted! He could do anything; I couldn’t believe it when I first saw them. That didn’t matter to you at all, and maybe you were right. But you didn’t see the man’s sense of humour. Do you think he didn’t know he was making these grand aristocrats look faintly absurd? Didn’t you realise that was the point? No; humour was never your strong point. It was all