Seventeen

Miles Butler smiled. ‘But what I can’t figure out is why you’d have any interest in Hessen.’ In his intelligent eyes Apryl glimpsed mischief. Since they’d met at seven for dinner in Covent Garden, she hadn’t stopped laughing. He was one of those rare men who won you over by being modest to an extreme degree and who seemed never likely to take himself too seriously, while being accomplished at the same time. An underplayer, but a player all the same.

His face was thoroughly lived-in, but still handsome, distinguished. Even the lines around his blue eyes were sexy. And Apryl had fallen in love with his vintage hairstyle, reminiscent of an army officer in the Second World War: grey now, but shiny and neat and graded up the sides. His clothes looked classic too: high-waisted trousers worn with suspenders that she noted when he took his jacket off and draped it across the back of his chair. The only thing she would have added to his wingtip shoes, his white shirt with cufflinks and his retro silk tie was a trilby hat. They complemented each other in a way she couldn’t have anticipated: she’d worn one of her great-aunt’s exquisite woollen suits, seamed nylons that were called Cocktail Hour, and Cuban-heeled shoes with a little bow over the toe strap.

‘And anyway, what’s so weird about me being interested in art? Do I look like a schmuck?’

Miles laughed and shook his head. ‘No. But you’re, well, not like any other Hessen enthusiast I’ve ever met. You’re too attractive for one thing, Apryl. And far too stylish to be messing around with the Puppet Triptych. Let alone Studies of the Lame.’

‘Should I be in Harvey Nicks trying on Jimmy Choo shoes instead? Or chasing Mr Big around an office?’

‘Absolutely. Why spend so much of your vacation investigating an obscure European artist? And not a very wholesome one at that.’ Miles might have been flirting, but he wasn’t dismissive of her. She could tell he was genuinely intrigued by her reasons for calling him and enquiring about Hessen. ‘You are a mysterious girl. Quite the enigma.’

She laughed, and drank from her wine glass to hide the warmth of the blush suffusing her entire body. Why hadn’t she thought of dating older guys before? ‘Well there might be a family connection.’

‘Yes, you mentioned that on the phone. I’m all ears.’ He took a mouthful of his linguine vongole.

‘My great-aunt Lillian lived in the same apartment building. Barrington House. And she passed recently.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘It’s OK. I never knew her. But she left the apartment to my mom. And because she’s terrified of flying I came over to sort out the estate.’

‘In return for half the spoils.’

‘I’ve already earned it. You should see the place.’ She thought of making light of the mess, but levity seemed inappropriate; the apartment just wasn’t something she could laugh about. ‘She writes about him in her diaries.’

‘You’re having me on.’

Apryl shook her head, relishing his interest, the pause of fork from plate to mouth. ‘And they never got on. But the thing is, Lillian, my great-aunt, wasn’t well. You know? She was really disturbed, and she kind of blames Hessen for it, so I just had to find out more about him. And I found this website and read your book. And. ’

‘Now you’re smitten.’

‘Not exactly. I find his pictures like really creepy, but. this whole mystery about him and his connection to my great-aunt, it’s quite a kick. I never guessed I’d be into all of this, but I have to know what happened to Lillian and Reginald in that building. What he really did to them. Because he did something. And the more I find out about him and his art and the people that knew him, the more I just know there’s something not right. Something terribly wrong, in fact. My great-aunt may have been crazy, but she wasn’t making it all up. I’m convinced about that now. But what was he doing to her, and how did he do it?’

She then bit down on mentioning her own experiences with unexplained phenomena inside the apartment. He’d think her mad.

Miles nodded, and began to refill her glass. ‘Did you know that everyone who was at all close to him had a personality disorder? They all died young or ended up in institutions. He attracted the disturbed, the damaged and the eccentric. Misfits and outsiders all of them. People who couldn’t function in the world they were born into. Individuals who saw things. Other things. And not necessarily what everyone else was able to see. They orbited him. But I think you are suggesting that he made your great-aunt that way. Which is a novel perspective. So maybe it was his effect on others that explains their behaviour. An idea I never considered.’

Apryl’s glass was full. He rotated the bottle to avoid a dribble. He was trying to get her drunk. To remove the last vestiges of her nervous formality. She decided she didn’t mind at all. It was good to unravel a little. London was a bewildering place, but just when the city had begun to make her feel really low, it suddenly had this romantic side too. It had been ages since she’d made a real effort and dressed up for a date. And tonight, it was the sense of infinite opportunities in the city that seduced her. How could you ever get to the end of such a place? Miles filled his own glass.

Apryl took a sip of her wine, narrowing her eyes over the rim. ‘You know so much about him. But can you respect a man who was so fucked up? Why you are into him is more interesting to me right now.’

Miles smiled. ‘I like the underdogs in the art world. And he was interesting. Fascinating, in fact. He felt compelled to try and complete an artistic vision outside the values and tastes of his own time. I’m impressed by that. It must have taken courage. Great courage to go where he went.’

‘To draw corpses? And skinned animals? And those nasty puppets? A fairly bleak world view, isn’t it?’

‘It is. But then his world changed so much, from the end of the nineteenth century onwards. Imagine what Darwin and Freud did to religious belief. Not to mention the horrors of the First World War. Mechanized slaughter. And industrialization. The rise of Marxism. The beginnings of Fascism. The great war of ideology brewing. The flux was represented in so many ways. Fractious, discordant, chaotic ways. Modernism, if you like. And he took his place there, but his reputation could only be posthumous. I think he knew it all along. But he wasn’t interested in acclaim. He never cultivated peers or curried influence. He did it for its own sake. And for himself. Don’t you find that incredible? Especially these days? To dedicate your life to one vision with no thought of reward?’

Apryl smiled. ‘Sorry, I was only playing devil’s advocate. It’s a bad habit.’

He winked at her. ‘It is. Life could have been very comfortable for Hessen. Privately wealthy. educated at the Slade. handsome. erudite. cultured. talented. Come to think of it, he was a bit like me.’ He said this with a straight face until she began to laugh.

He offered her the basket of bread. ‘He had access to the great minds and talents of his age. Not to mention the queue of eligible connected beauties who would have fawned over him. But he made decisions guaranteed to make life difficult for himself. Incredibly difficult. He looked for and drew death, constantly. The moment of death in hospitals and the moment after death in the morgues and operating theatres. He obsessed over medical curiosities. Deformity. Disfigurement. He spent his best years trying to understand death and the idea of being trapped. By disability, and by social immobility. Wallowed in it. Spent his weekends bribing undertakers in funeral homes, his days sketching skinned sheep and offal in the abattoirs of the East End. Or drawing the deformed limbs and faces of the poor wretches who suffered every conceivable disease and incapacity.’

‘Must have been a barrel of laughs.’

‘Precisely. And what about his evenings when he was a younger man? No parties for Felix. Instead, he investigated every mystic, seer, and black magic practitioner in town, or attended séances held in front rooms and parlours. There is no evidence of him ever relaxing. Or being in love. He never seemed to do a single thing not directly connected to his vision. I know of no other artist so determined. To spend a decade trying to perfect line and perspective, and then to launch into distortion, which he claimed was the only true vision. A recreation of the Vortex. The absolute epitome of wonder and terror and awe. A place after this world, accessed only by madness, by dream, by the deep subconscious, and by death itself.’

‘You really think he was that good?’

‘Hard to say. Because what of that did we see? What survived? Those terrible final drawings of the human and the animal, imprisoned in those unformed landscapes. You see, I think Hessen is more interesting from the perspective of what he was trying to achieve. The drawings are only studies. Initial plans for the paintings no one has ever found. And to also go public in support of fascism with his Vortex paper – how could I not be fascinated by the guy?’

Apryl smiled. ‘I’m convinced. What was his name again?’

‘Don’t make me come over there.’ He raised one eyebrow and looked at her in such a way that she felt part of herself melt.

‘I looked on Amazon and there’s only your book.’ She didn’t mention the dozen bad reviews written by members of the Friends of Felix Hessen.

‘In this country, we’re very bad at looking after our artistic heritage. America is the place to find anything of value about British painting or poetry in the twentieth century. Ironic, I know, but there’s nothing left of him here. Though I believe there was very little to begin with. Hessen’s contribution to modernism is hard to gauge. That’s the problem. The myths that surround him are far greater than any actual evidence of his ability or influence. Besides the drawings there’s nothing left. Had he painted it would have been different. But sketches and chalks are not enough. Some of them are extraordinary, I know, and perhaps hint at a formidable vision. But I doubt it was ever realized. No one ever saw a single painting apart from a few acquaintances. And one must, surely, cast some doubt over the reliability of their testimony. I mean, they all saw something different.’

Miles took a long draught of his wine and she liked the way his face flushed with excitement as he talked. And that voice. She didn’t want to interrupt his flow. He could have been reading from the back of a detergent box for all she cared. She could listen to that voice all night.

‘But he was ahead of his time. He potentially created a new visual language, steeped in an anti-aesthetic, and in philosophy and radical politics. Outside vorticism, futurism, cubism, surrealism, he operated alone, and followed his own creative discourse from an early age. You could even call him an occult philosopher. Misunderstood in his own day and virtually ignored ever since. The scourge of middle-English conservatism and safe Bohemia. A painter who saw art as the worship of something supernatural. And as the means of finding it. What’s more startling is that no one wrote of him before me.’

That mention of the supernatural made her feel suddenly uncomfortable. It nearly spoiled her mood. ‘Do you think. ’

‘What?’

‘That he had powers or something?’

‘Powers?’

‘I know it sounds freaky, but my great-aunt was really scared of him.’

‘Well, he was steeped in occult ritual. Was probably tutored by Crowley, the Great Beast 666, in the most advanced summoning rituals. Who knows what Felix could have suggested to the impressionable.’

‘But what if it wasn’t all suggestion?’

Miles laughed and tore a bread roll apart with his fingers. ‘You’re pulling my leg again.’

‘I guess.’ It was a foolish question and one she immediately regretted having asked. All around her people were eating and talking under bright lights in a modern restaurant. Outside, taxis were trundling past and people were lining up to enter an opera house. This was a world of cell phones and credit cards. There were no ghosts. Maybe she was starting to lose the plot by filling her head with so much of Hessen’s and Lillian’s madness.

‘And the mysticism, of course, is not in his favour as far as the critics are concerned,’ Miles continued. ‘In fact, all the informed responses from art historians and curators who were familiar with Hessen were the same when I was researching the book. They all thought him absurd, and a minnow in comparison to his contemporaries.’

‘I guess you can believe anything you put your mind to,’ she said quietly.

Miles didn’t hear her but was looking intently into his wine glass at the syrupy crimson surface. She took a sip from her own glass. ‘Do you really think he painted anything?’

‘I don’t doubt he painted something. But I suspect he destroyed it when it fell so short of his ambition. Which was considerable. He was hard on himself. Set himself unfeasible expectations. Either that, or prison ruined him.’

‘I wonder about it. You know, whether he did produce paintings, and if people really saw them. Like my great-aunt and uncle.’

‘You think there is some dusty cache of crates filled with his work? Some have suggested he produced paintings more radical than any other modernist, or than any artist since his time. Now that would be nice. But where are they?’

‘You’re taking the piss.’ She liked the expression, had picked it up since arriving in England.

‘No. I’m not. I’m merely echoing my own disappointment at finding nothing. And you know I looked hard. I contacted the estate, distant relatives, and the children of anyone who ever mentioned him. Not to mention the family of the collector who acquired the sketches prior to Hessen’s imprisonment. Hessen gave them away. They had served their purpose. But I didn’t find one genuine lead to provide reliable evidence that he produced a painting.’

‘But what about after the war? Did you find out anything about him then?’

‘Barely ventured beyond the front door of his flat. Became a recluse. He never had more than a small crowd of acquaintances, and they were mostly gone before the forties. And there’s no evidence of any correspondence after his release from Brixton prison. So even if he painted something, who would have seen it? I once wondered if he might have given away any paintings he produced before he disappeared, perhaps to a private collector. But unless that individual comes forward, or their descendants, it’s gone. It’s tragic. I do believe he was on the verge of painting something incredible, but for some reason he either never began it or he destroyed it. I find the latter the more likely course of action. For all of his determination and grit, he was very unstable.’

‘I still wonder.’

‘I did too.’

‘And I’d still like to show you my great-aunt’s journals. Just to see what you think. You’d have more idea what to make of them than me.’

Miles smiled. ‘Apryl, I’d love to. I’m sorry, I suspect I’ve been an awful bore.’

‘Not at all. I’m kinda reaching saturation point with Hessen though. It was never supposed to be about him, but about my Lillian. I wondered if I could learn anything about her by finding out about him. I’ll go to that Friends of Felix Hessen meeting. And there’s a couple of people I’d like to talk to in the building, but then I’m done with him. For good. In case I end up like Lillian.’

He frowned at her, then raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, I know what you’re saying, but. ’

‘What?’

‘But I have a little suspicion about you. Despite your physical charms and the doors they must sweep aside, Apryl, I suspect you’re an outsider like Hessen, and are secretly drawn to his mystique.’

She blushed. The thought of him making a pass suddenly made her afraid but also thrilled. ‘Maybe I am an outsider, but I’m no fan of Felix Hessen. And I’m not a mystical kinda girl. Anyone connected to him is crazy.’

‘Me included?’

‘Particularly you.’

They both laughed at exactly the same time.

‘I wonder what happened to him,’ Apryl mused. ‘He’s supposed to have disappeared, but Lillian’s journals give the impression that he never left. It’s weird.’

‘Well, everyone loves a good mystery. And to vanish without trace is a trite legacy, but a legacy all the same, and one that might amplify a limited reputation and not just keep it alive, but give it the potential to grow into something it never was in the first place. Especially irresistible to those of a mystical bent – vanishing along with his so-called masterpieces.’

‘The Friends of Felix Hessen disagree with you.’

‘I never expected too much from them. They’re enthusiastic enough for amateurs, but not an academic organization. More of an occult outfit. It’s the ritualistic side of Hessen they’re obsessed with. Though they do make claims of being rigorously scholarly, I seem to remember. In their publications and so forth. Bit of a weird bunch. You’ll probably meet a few oddballs if you go to the lecture. I know I did. We used to get petitions from them to view our archive at the Tate. They sent them to all the galleries. They were after the secret cache of his forbidden illustrations. Stuff we’ve apparently suppressed for being sympathetic to the Nazis or some such nonsense. But despite it all, I do have a soft spot for the gifted amateur.’ He laughed. ‘And who knows, old Felix may have been pleased to have been the inspiration for a cult convinced of his importance who periodically harass the major art galleries. And maybe, after all is said and done, it’s the likes of the Friends of Felix Hessen who have the right idea. Perhaps the occult route and the interpretation of dreams is the only true method available to understand him.’

‘You don’t believe that?’

‘No, you’re right, I don’t. But I did stop looking. And not only because I drew such an almighty blank.’ He sat back in his chair, dropped his napkin on the table and sighed. ‘And I don’t have much interest in him any more either. Lost my appetite a bit.’

‘Why?’

Miles shrugged. ‘He got under my skin.’

Apryl laughed.

‘No, I mean it. You look at his work for too long and you might feel the same way. It even gave me nightmares. It’s very strange. I felt he was getting closer to me, but I was getting nowhere near him. What he was all about, I didn’t like it. And I feel much better since I finished the book. To be honest, I shan’t be upset when it’s out of print. I don’t like being reminded of it. The period in which it was written. it was a difficult time for me, personally. There were other things on my mind, but his art didn’t help. It started to change the way I thought. I became something of a nihilist. Because that’s what Hessen was. He couldn’t see anything but the end of life. Misery. The essential loneliness of death. And his predictions of what came after were equally grim. I’m not actually a masochist, Apryl.’

Apryl thought about what Miles had said. It made sense. After looking at Hessen’s sketches and reading about him for any length of time, she’d also felt a need to reintegrate herself into normal life. To go to a movie, to eat in a restaurant, to walk amongst other people. His vision was so oppressive. So consuming. So crazy. It managed to suck her inside herself and make her morbidly introspective.

‘It’s a shame you don’t live in London,’ Miles said, after a final gulp of wine. The bottle was empty. They both had purple mouths.

‘Why?’ she asked softly, deliberately lowering her eyelids. It had been so long since she’d had an opportunity to be provocative. It felt good.

‘Because I’d like to see more of you. We could join the Friends of Felix Hessen together. Go on dates to their meetings. It would be so romantic.’

Apryl giggled. She wouldn’t mind staying on in London for longer if hanging out with Miles was on the cards. At last she’d met someone sane and gregarious, and sexy in that British way. And someone who could help her understand the maniac who’d had such an impact on her distant family. She couldn’t help feeling seduced by his quiet confidence, his dry humour, that deep voice and the wicked smile in his eyes. All of these things were ganging up on her now. Making her feel wanton. She’d never lacked attention or been accustomed to rejection from men, but some guys made more of an impact. Or did she just have a crush on him?

‘What is it?’ asked Miles. ‘You have a very strange look in your eyes.’

‘I’m just wondering whether I have a crush on you.’

Miles swallowed and used his napkin to dab at his forehead. ‘Better ask the waiter for some smelling salts.’

‘Is there a Mrs Butler?’

‘Not any more. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a father. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a lot of things she wanted me to be.’

‘Girlfriend?’

‘Nothing serious.’

‘Lying bastard.’

Miles raised his hands. ‘It’s early days. That’s the truth of the matter. But if she knew we were having this conversation, she’d be furious. And hurt. And I’d feel like a shit. Which I’m not fond of. My head’s complicated enough.’

‘But I’m sure you could get over it.’

‘With you as an incentive, I’d say I could get over most things.’ Just for a moment, as he spoke, the smile slipped from his face and Apryl detected a brief look of longing. It stopped her breath. And she felt its impact between her legs.

So he did like her. And maybe more than she suspected. But why did everything have to be so complicated? That’s the way it was once you were approaching thirty and still a single girl. Particularly as the older, charismatic men like Miles were invariably married. She’d read about women who had affairs with them. These guys were always married to someone they underestimated and took for granted, but for whom they rediscovered an unbreakable attachment when it was time to make a big decision. Handle with care.

‘That’s sweet of you to say,’ she said, a little too bitterly for her own taste.

‘It’s the truth. You are lovely, Apryl. Why wouldn’t I be interested? You’re a beautiful young woman. A bright one too. And a little crazy in a nice way. Irresistible, in fact.’ The smiling eyes were back.

Her composure regained,Apryl detected a reticence in him about taking a chance with his emotions. Something else they had in common. If they never saw each other again, they’d think about each other.

‘It must be the wine. Or I’m a slut. But I came very close to asking if you wanted to come see my great-aunt’s apartment.’

‘Not exactly conducive to passion.’

‘You’re not wrong on that account. Unless it was something really kinky, like S and M.’

‘Get your coat. You’ve pulled.’

Apryl giggled, but couldn’t stop feeling churlish with disappointment. ‘Your girlfriend wouldn’t thank me for keeping you out late.’

‘Stop it. Now you’re misbehaving.’ But even being told off by him was not without its appeal. ‘Seriously, though, I’d love to see inside Barrington House. I wonder if it’s changed much since Hessen lived there.’

‘I don’t think so. It’s like totally retro. And Lillian’s apartment hasn’t had a lick of paint since the forties.’

‘This diary, too, I’d love to see it.’

‘Her journals? Sure, you can borrow them. The ones that are legible. The later ones are just unreadable. But you have to be careful with them – I want to take them back home with me. We’re not going to have much else of Lillian left when the place is sold. Just some photos and her journals.’

‘How many of them are there?’

‘There’s a stack of them. Twenty.’

‘Really?’

‘They’re all about your beloved Felix.’

He looked at her with such intensity, his face was almost stern. ‘All joking aside, are they really about Hessen?’

She nodded. ‘If you’d been listening earlier you’d have realized just how much. But you have to read them yourself. I couldn’t even begin to describe what they’re like. They’re frightening. And they’re the main reason I’m staying in a hotel from now on.’

‘Well, you weren’t exaggerating,’ Miles said, looking around the hallway. ‘This is incredible.’

‘Isn’t it? But you should have seen it before. I’ve cleared most of the junk away. Lillian never threw anything out. There were London telephone directories here from the fifties.’

‘Some of it could have been valuable.’

‘I’m not an idiot, Miles. The dealers bought anything of value.’

‘Ouch.’

‘And luckily for me, she also kept her clothes. This belonged to her.’ She twirled around to show off her suit, which she felt he hadn’t paid enough attention to.

‘I thought it had the look of authenticity about it,’ he said, studying the thin seams on the back of her calves.

‘And the smell too, unfortunately. I’ll have to mask them with perfume until I get them all dry-cleaned.’

‘It really suits you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I mean, it really suits you.’

She pulled a Betty Boop pose and blew him a kiss. His eyes darkened. With desire, if she wasn’t mistaken. She turned and teetered deeper into the apartment, and Miles followed.

‘Your great-aunt had problems?’ he said, as if to clear the air of the erotic awkwardness that seemed to keep surfacing.

‘She wasn’t very well. But she was. haunted. By the past I think. I don’t think she ever got over her husband’s death. She didn’t have any friends. Just rattled around here on her own, planning to escape from the city. She thought Hessen had trapped her inside here.’ Apryl wanted to mention Lillian’s suggestions about ‘the burning’ of something – possibly Hessen’s work – and the torments Lillian imagined the artist had inflicted on her and Reginald, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. She wanted Miles to like her and not think her flaky with any talk of evil spirits or ghosts or anything kooky like that. She’d let him read the journals and make up his own mind.

In the living room he looked through the packing crate filled with the photographs she had taken down from the wall. ‘Sad, isn’t it?’ he said quietly, while holding a picture of Lillian and Reginald standing in a sunny garden somewhere. And she knew exactly what he meant. For this to be the end of you; a box full of photographs in the hands of people who never even knew you.

Already the place was destroying her mood. Tonight with Miles was the best she’d felt since she’d arrived. ‘Come on, I’ll show you the rooms and then you can see me into a cab. I want to get out of here. I’ve spent way too much time here already. I want to have a bit of fun now before I go back to the States.’

Miles looked around the stained walls. ‘It’s no place for a wee young thing. So damn gloomy, but affecting in a way, too.’

‘You should try spending a night here.’

‘Is that an invitation?’

‘You’re welcome to on your own. I’m not sleeping here again before it’s sold. I told you, it gives me the creeps.’

‘But your great-aunt lived here. You’re wearing her clothes and you seem to think the world of her.’

‘I know. And I do. But it’s the place itself. The whole building, if I’m honest. It’s just not right.’

Miles frowned over a smile. ‘Really, what makes you say that? It’s just old. I thought you liked old.’

She shook her head. ‘No. It’s not even the age of the place or that the apartment’s never been looked after. It’s not that at all. It’s the actual place. The building. I know this sounds crazy, but it changed everything for Lillian. And I think it played a part in whatever happened to Reginald. The place is all wrong. It’s bad. You spend enough time here and you’d feel it too.’

Miles frowned at her.

‘You think I’m being silly. But read a few of the journals and you might see what I’m talking about. This place is all about madness and nightmares. It’s a sick building, Miles. Very sick, like Hessen.’

In the bedroom, while she rummaged in the dresser for the journals, Miles said, ‘Why is the mirror turned around? And is that a painting? May I see?’

‘Oh yes, that’s my great-aunt and uncle. I found it in the basement. I brought the mirror up so I could try on her clothes, but. ’

‘What? It’s a beauty.’

‘It is. But I don’t know. It just made me feel a bit freaked out.’

Miles began to laugh but then stopped when he saw her face. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not making fun of you. This place is kind of creepy. It could do with some new lighting.’

‘This is as good as it gets. The walls and floor just seem to swallow it up.’ The room wasn’t at all cold, but she shivered as she spoke.

He wrapped an arm round her and looked down into her eyes. ‘You want to get out of here.’ She nodded. ‘Thank you for these.’ He held up one of the journals she had given him. ‘I can’t believe I’m about to read something on Hessen from someone who actually knew him after the war. This is quite a find.’

‘She was obsessed with him. And I warn you, they are really weird. Don’t read them before you go to bed.’

‘I promise. And maybe I can help you find out what was going on here.’

She nodded. ‘I’d like that.’ Impulsively, she raised herself to her tiptoes and kissed him. When she drew away he looked surprised. She was about to apologize, but Miles leant down and drew her into a longer and deeper kiss.