the artist wanted to . . . I don’t know if this sounds right, but it was like he wanted to reduce them to mounds of flesh, shaped in a way he chose.
The word ‘hate’ kept repeating over and over in my mind. The man who painted these women hated them.
But I tell you another thing, that painting had a horrible power. You wanted to look away and then you wanted to look back again and every time you did you saw something else that twisted the knife.
Take the girl in the middle. She lay on her side with her head turned away from you and her red hair sweeping the stones. Her legs were lashed up behind her and a wooden stake ran between them up to her hands, which were forced back behind her head and knotted to the top of the wood. She looked like a plucked chicken ready for the pot.
On her arms the artist had delicately painted in the marks of old scars, dried and crusted, where her pale skin had been tied before.
Another girl, upright, was chained to a column. I say ‘chained’ but she was actually wrapped tight around it, her blue-veined breasts crushed against the stone like she’d been flung at it. Her matted blonde hair hung low from her lolling head. Her eyes, although wide open, were dark blanks and her parted lips were red and wet. There was a fleshy lump slick with crimson blood on the stones by her feet.
At the far end a slender girl swung from an archway. Her bound hands were hooked over a metal spike that pointed out from the middle of the stonework. There were weeping stripes across the pale skin of her back, like she’d been whipped. She was so horribly real you wanted to dab at that torn flesh, clean the wound, take her down and comfort her.
A lump came in my throat and I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to cry or if I wanted to spew my guts up, right there on the polished wooden floor. I looked at the gents around me in amazement. Couldn’t they see it? These girls weren’t desirable, they were dead. The only living thing in that picture was the sky and that was all wrong too.
Just above the hanging girl a cloud seemed to crack in two and a shower of dirty gold fell upon the right side of her body so that she seemed to glow. It made her skin seem diseased rather than beautiful, although you could sense how much the artist liked painting her flesh – every brush stroke revealed the curve of muscle or the imperfect stain of a freckle or a mole. There was even a small painted tattoo on the girl’s left ankle, just below a circlet of thorns that bound her feet together. A tattoo just like the one Clary Simmons had.
I looked closer . . .
And then I looked closer at all the Cinnabar Girls, ’specially a small naked creature crouched in the far corner of the painting covering her face in her hands. Her mouse-brown hair was braided into a thin plait that hung over a metal collar at her neck and down across her bony right shoulder to the nipple of her flat right breast.
Oh no, please, no.
I looked at Lucca. He was staring up at the left side of the painting and I couldn’t see his face properly.
‘Moving on now please, gents. Out to the left there. Next group.’
My hair prickled under the hat and I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead as we filed out of the gallery in silence and found ourselves in an anteroom with plush red velvet chairs arranged around the walls. Several gentlemen in our group sat down to . . . contemplate, I imagined. A couple of them dabbed at their drool-bubbled lips with squares of silk.
I dragged Lucca over to a couple of chairs set against the far wall. His face was a blank.
‘Did you see?’ I hissed. He nodded as I continued.
‘At first I didn’t realise, but once I really looked . . .’
He nodded again. ‘I never thought anyone would rediscover Sicilian Gold. It has been lost for centuries, but now, here in London. It is, truly . . . amazing.’
I stared at him and my jaw dropped. ‘You what?’
‘Sicilian Gold – the sky, Fannella. It is a technique
The word ‘hate’ kept repeating over and over in my mind. The man who painted these women hated them.
But I tell you another thing, that painting had a horrible power. You wanted to look away and then you wanted to look back again and every time you did you saw something else that twisted the knife.
Take the girl in the middle. She lay on her side with her head turned away from you and her red hair sweeping the stones. Her legs were lashed up behind her and a wooden stake ran between them up to her hands, which were forced back behind her head and knotted to the top of the wood. She looked like a plucked chicken ready for the pot.
On her arms the artist had delicately painted in the marks of old scars, dried and crusted, where her pale skin had been tied before.
Another girl, upright, was chained to a column. I say ‘chained’ but she was actually wrapped tight around it, her blue-veined breasts crushed against the stone like she’d been flung at it. Her matted blonde hair hung low from her lolling head. Her eyes, although wide open, were dark blanks and her parted lips were red and wet. There was a fleshy lump slick with crimson blood on the stones by her feet.
At the far end a slender girl swung from an archway. Her bound hands were hooked over a metal spike that pointed out from the middle of the stonework. There were weeping stripes across the pale skin of her back, like she’d been whipped. She was so horribly real you wanted to dab at that torn flesh, clean the wound, take her down and comfort her.
A lump came in my throat and I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to cry or if I wanted to spew my guts up, right there on the polished wooden floor. I looked at the gents around me in amazement. Couldn’t they see it? These girls weren’t desirable, they were dead. The only living thing in that picture was the sky and that was all wrong too.
Just above the hanging girl a cloud seemed to crack in two and a shower of dirty gold fell upon the right side of her body so that she seemed to glow. It made her skin seem diseased rather than beautiful, although you could sense how much the artist liked painting her flesh – every brush stroke revealed the curve of muscle or the imperfect stain of a freckle or a mole. There was even a small painted tattoo on the girl’s left ankle, just below a circlet of thorns that bound her feet together. A tattoo just like the one Clary Simmons had.
I looked closer . . .
And then I looked closer at all the Cinnabar Girls, ’specially a small naked creature crouched in the far corner of the painting covering her face in her hands. Her mouse-brown hair was braided into a thin plait that hung over a metal collar at her neck and down across her bony right shoulder to the nipple of her flat right breast.
Oh no, please, no.
I looked at Lucca. He was staring up at the left side of the painting and I couldn’t see his face properly.
‘Moving on now please, gents. Out to the left there. Next group.’
My hair prickled under the hat and I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead as we filed out of the gallery in silence and found ourselves in an anteroom with plush red velvet chairs arranged around the walls. Several gentlemen in our group sat down to . . . contemplate, I imagined. A couple of them dabbed at their drool-bubbled lips with squares of silk.
I dragged Lucca over to a couple of chairs set against the far wall. His face was a blank.
‘Did you see?’ I hissed. He nodded as I continued.
‘At first I didn’t realise, but once I really looked . . .’
He nodded again. ‘I never thought anyone would rediscover Sicilian Gold. It has been lost for centuries, but now, here in London. It is, truly . . . amazing.’
I stared at him and my jaw dropped. ‘You what?’
‘Sicilian Gold – the sky, Fannella. It is a technique
Similar Books
