A Man of Genius by Janet Todd

open, clear as light and day, bright as the sun.’
    He addressed Lydia directly. ‘You are just there, suspended between life and death, past and future, here now. And this “now” is no more important than the other “nows”.’
    â€˜What’s he saying?’ said Lydia in a hoarse whisper to Frederick Curran. He ignored her.
    â€˜It is always the present,’ said John Humphries, who was content in his companionable silence but liked to ease where he could, especially when women spoke when they should be silent. He relished the chiming bass voices of men even in their cups, but winced at the higher register of females – it was like cats mewing. Henry Davies, so eager now to please it almost took his speech away, looked round trying to focus his eyes; he started to say something to his blurredcompanions, then thought better of it. Nobody heeded him.
    It was John Taylor’s turn to have the drinker’s gloom as he waved his blue-stained hand, raised his head and closed his eyes.
    â€˜You are only a painter, you are naturally dark,’ said Robert.
    â€˜I am lugubrious melancholy,’ shouted John Taylor, his eyes still firmly shut. ‘I am not dark. I shine in the night.’
    â€˜Then you are drunk,’ said Robert.
    John Taylor collapsed into a bearded sack.
    â€˜Don’t brood on it,’ said Robert James, ‘Everyone is drunk some time and a good number here – except of course Miss St Clair and Miss Um . . .’
    Lydia hissed ‘Minogue, Miss Minogue,’ but no one heard or paid attention.
    John Taylor inflated again. ‘True, true I am that. I am magnificent. My skies and seas are a marvel. My skies are divine.’
    Frederick Curran reached across Richard Perry to pat John Taylor on the knee. ‘They are pure,’ he said, and the ‘p’ sent spit on to Richard Perry’s waistcoat.
    â€˜Divine, spiritual,’ said young Henry Davies, content at last that he could expel his remark.
    Richard Perry ignored them both. ‘Purity matters,’ he said, looking at Robert.
    â€˜It does indeed. Purity is boundless, it is love and truth.’
    John Taylor deflated again and was suddenly on the edge of sleep. This time his eyes closed involuntarily. Henry Davies, his raw face shining with excitement, nudged him without effect.
    â€˜Sleep the inscrutable,’ said Robert gently.
    â€˜We are the saints,’ said Frederick Curran as if pricked to speak.
    â€˜They are the Puritans,’ said Ann.
    â€˜Oh the pedantry of Protestantism,’ said Robert, waving his tankard at the others but looking at her. As he looked he smiled with a soberness only for her.
    She felt warm, included in all this rich nonsense. Robert James was becoming her own Gilbert, not exclusive to be sure, but more publicly admired. That she could be admired by a man admired by others was so very sweet.
    â€˜Images are power,’ said Robert and sent his boy, an Irish lad with white eyelashes, for more drink and more of the beef suet pudding they’d been consuming earlier. It was not his dinner to command, but no matter. Who was the host, who the guests, who the entertainer?
    â€˜Bless you,’ said Robert, again raising his hand and waving it at the group. ‘Bless you all. We all have grace.’ He paused a moment, then looked round again. ‘That moment of my conception. Imagine how the clouds moved, the earth convulsed. My poor father and mother. They were hardly material to it.’
    â€˜I paint,’ said John Taylor, suddenly waking up, ‘ I revive the dead.’ His eyes closed again.
    â€˜Life is a mnemonic,’ said Robert, ‘a grand gesture pointing at something else. I extend myself into it but I am not enclosed by it.’ He leaned over the side of his chair, then swung back. ‘I become like you.’
    Curran was growing less drunk, more aware of Lydia scratching on his arm.