Keywords: Tell, Doesn't, What, The, Catalogue,

Eduard wavered for a moment.

"I don't know...that is...I'm not sure...but you see."

After what seemed to him an eternity of agonising indecision he made the fateful choice to sacrifice himself to his art. "No, I must go back to my work. I have to work when inspiration visits me." He stumbled around as he tried to put on his clothes as quickly as he could and then staggered and stumbled away, awkwardly carrying his easel, sketchpad and box of materials.

"Au revoir Monsieur," Alain called after him.

"What do you mean?" he replied as he stopped and turned his head.

"We are leaving for Martinique tomorrow to live with my uncle."

xxxxxxxxxx

His first idea was for a large painting of Alain showing him standing, kneeling and reclining. Then he decided to embark on what would be his ultimate artistic statement, a series of three life-sized statues in classical style in white marble on a marble plinth. It also became his consuming obsession. He virtually bankrupted himself to pay for the marble. He shut himself away for days at a time in the ramshackle hut that was his home and his studio. As he poured his life and his strength into his magnum opus and as the statues gradually emerged from the marble to embody his vision of youthful vitality, strength and beauty, so did his diminish. He no longer cared for himself. He hardly ate or drank or slept. His desire to capture and express his vision of Alain and the feelings that the youth had stirred in him that day drove him on. It was to be a monument to a love that had been lost at almost the very second of its realisation.

Finally the work was completed except for one significant detail. Emboldened by love, he had decided from the start to reproduce exactly what he had seen of Alain that day. But how was he to model the final detail to perfection? He removed his clothes and contemplated his own manhood, flaccid and grubby in his hand. What had Alain done to make his look so magnificent? He remembered, and a few gentle strokes produced the desired result. He might there and then have grasped the opportunity thereby presented in the spirit of carpe diem, but he had been fated in life to be supremely an observer, a recorder, an interpreter.

With dividers and a rule, he carefully measured his length and his circumference and the angle at which he stood proud. He noted the curve of the glans and the size and position of the opening. He traced the lines of the blood vessels and established the mass and the hang of his sack. He had considerable skill as a stone carver and after a few more days of meticulous and obsessive toil all three statues were displaying their manhood, fixed to their bodies by a skilfully executed plug and socket arrangement that left hardly any visible join.

He had poured almost all of himself into his monumental declaration of his love and the little that remained was crushed by the realisation, from which he could no longer hide now that his work was finally done, that his love was lost forever. The eyes of the standing statue seemed to draw him forward with the same winsome power of their inspiration. His hand trembled more and more with each tentative step closer to his creation until his fingers finally rested on the smooth marble pointing straight towards his eyes.

Feverishly he grasped it and slid his hand up and down the cold stone as his heart ached for the feel of warm vibrant flesh. He began to fumble with his trouser buttons with his free hand. His heart thudded and he began to hear a loud rushing noise inside his head as sweat beaded his brow. His fingers lost all co-ordination as they failed against the barrier of his trouser buttons. The first excruciating blow struck his heart.

His heart had never been strong and had had to struggle to cope with many years of casual neglect. But now the last few weeks of almost total deprivation were reaching their inevitable climax. The last things he knew were the pitiless eyes of the statue boring like white hot pokers into his own as a volcano erupted in his chest. He was dead before he hit the floor.

It was nearly a week before he was missed. The villagers were accustomed to him shutting himself away for days at a time. His neighbour, Jourdain the blacksmith, finally broke through the door and crossed himself as he beheld the scene. The blackened body of the creator in its mortal decay had become the ghastly antithesis of the pure white changeless beauty of his creation. The blacksmith, a proud giant of a man, trembled as he covered the body with the filthy and threadbare blanket from the dilapidated iron bed in the corner of the hut. Then he sweated in his anxiety as he enshrouded the statues in a tarpaulin and secured it around with a chain and padlock to obscure their corrupting influence before he sent word to the doctor. He was in the confessional box for much longer than usual on the following Sunday.

As Eduard had no known living relatives, it fell to the local notary to dispose of his estate, such as it was. The sale of his few possessions and several paintings was sufficient to pay for a proper churchyard burial and avoid the final ignominy of an unmarked pauper's grave. On being shown the statues by Jourdain, he assured the blacksmith that he would see to there safe disposal and swore him to everlasting secrecy.

-------------------------------------------------

"The statues were sold secretly by Ignace Flourauld, the local notary responsible for winding up the artist's estate, to the owner of a brothel in Bordeaux, which he had the habit of frequenting. It became a subject of notoriety and came to the attention of the 4th Marquis of Bedhampton, an infamous roué and libertine, who in 1875 bought it for 2000 francs and installed it in his private gallery at his estate in Berkshire. It has remained in the family until the present, in spite of being an object of considerable controversy and lurid speculation as to the activities for which is was employed. It is being sold to raise funds for much-needed restoration work in the east wing of Bedhampton manor."

In the event, Robert MacAllister's determination to own the statues was more than matched by the resources he could bring to bear in order to achieve his aim. Although his wallet was lighter by £65,000 he was happy. He had won and he loved to win. Winning was a habit in the MacAllister family and central to its creed. He and his younger brother David had both achieved a first in law at Cambridge. In fact getting a first at Cambridge was something of a family tradition. His son Miles and his nephews and niece, David's three sons and daughter, had all got firsts in their chosen fields. His daughter Judith had followed in Amanda's footsteps and moved forward triumphantly to a distinguished career as a ballerina and latterly a highly regarded teacher, choreographer and writer on dance. His niece Lorna had seemed set to step into Judith's pointe shoes but, just as a place in the corps of the Royal Ballet seemed to be within her grasp, she had abruptly changed tack and gone on to get her first at law at Cambridge.


So it was with great pleasure and satisfaction that Robert supervised the installation of the latest monument to the ongoing story of MacAllister family success in its allotted position within the Glade. He looked forward to the reactions and comments of his guests at his annual summer party a week hence.

The party was a great success and the sudden appearance of the statues in front of his guests as Robert led them in little groups into the leafily enclosed clearing prompted all manner of shrieks and guffaws of laughter and risqué comments. David and his wife Pamela, being both rather straight and serious-minded people, were predictable and pointed exceptions, while their daughter Lorna, normally more fun-minded like her uncle and aunt, studied the statues for a long time with a keen intensity, saying nothing.

**********

A few days later, Robert's quiet contemplation of the Sunday papers was disturbed as Amanda called to him from the drawing room phone.

"Lorna wants to spend the afternoon in the Glade."

"Who has she fallen out with this time?" he sighed. For Lorna, falling out with people was almost a way of life. She was small and, although 28, was so girlishly pretty that she looked more like a gauche teenager. But her sweet little girl appearance was wrapped around a formidable intellect, an iron determination to succeed in all she attempted, a voracious capacity for hard work and a heedless desire to have her own way as much as she could get away with. It was as if she was the ultimate expression of the MacAllister gene pool. She often used this dichotomy to her advantage in her career and her relationships. She was already a well-known expert on the legal aspects of international structured financing and well on the way to becoming one of the youngest partners in her law firm. She also had no trouble at all in attracting men.

But her career success was not matched with lasting success in her relationships. Her cute pretty girl exterior also disguised a tempestuously passionate nature that was completely at odds with her more cerebral and self-regulated parents and more than any of her boyfriends had been able to handle, apart from one. She seemed to take it in turns to fall out with her parents, each of her three brothers, her latest hapless beau and her best and longest-suffering friend from ballet school days, Caroline Knight. She was the quintessential control freak.

Whenever this happened she always turned to the only people she never fell out with, Robert and Amanda. They both loved her almost as a second daughter. Robert had an especially tender spot for her but was far too wise to be manipulated by her, which she respected. Amanda and Judy had often been a back-up mum and big sister for her in her difficult times. They had given her lots of help with her ballet during many sessions together in Amanda's studio, in a converted stable block, where she still gave tuition to promising dancers.

Keywords: Tell, Doesn't, What, The, Catalogue,

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