The Matisse Stories

Mrs Brown comes in the next day accompanied by a grey-haired sylph in ballet tights and trainers.‘Mrs Brown, Mrs Brown,’ says Jamie (it is the school holidays), ‘Mrs Brown, we saw you on the telly. And your name is beautiful, and I think the Muppet sort of things and the little faces are stupiferous.’Mrs Brown says,‘It looks as though I can’t come for a bit, Mrs Dennison. I hadn’t quite taken what a change in my life it was going to make, showing anyone my things. I just suddenly got it into my head that it was time they were seen by someone, you know how it is, and things got taken on from there, out of my control rather, though I’m not complaining. I kept meaning to say something, but it didn’t seem to be the moment, and I was concerned for you, how you would take it, for you do need someone to rely on, as we both know. Now this here is Mrs Stimpson, who will do exactly what I did, I’ll show her all the ropes, and how not to interfere with Mr Dennison, and I really do think you’ll hardly notice, Mrs Dennison. It’ll be just the same.’Debbie stares silently at Mrs Brown. Mrs Brown drops her eyes and then looks up slightly flushed.‘You do see how it was?’ she asks, steadily enough. Debbie thinks, the worst thing is, if we had been friends, she would have shown me her things. But we weren’t. I only thought we were.Sheba Brown says, ‘We understood each other, Mrs Dennison. But no one’s unique. Mrs Stimpson is quite reliable and resourceful. I wouldn’t let you down by bringing anyone who wasn’t. She’ll be just like me.’Debbie says, ‘And does Mrs Stimpson make secret works of art?’‘Now that,’ says Sheba Brown, ‘you will have to find out for yourself.’Mrs Stimpson’s young-old face has a firm, knowing little smile on it. She says,‘We can but try, Mrs Dennison. Without prejudice.’‘I suppose so,’ says Debbie. Before she can open her mouth again Mrs Brown and Mrs Stimpson have gone into the kitchen. Debbie hears the coffee-grinder. They will bring her a cup of coffee. It will all be more or less the same.Or not quite the same. For one thing, Debbie goes back to making wood-engravings. A Book of Bad Fairies and A Book of Good Fairies, which have a certain success in the world of book illustration. Some of the more exotic fairies have the carved, haughty face of Sheba Brown, and the sweet, timeless face of Mrs Stimpson. And Robin? He roars at Mrs Stimpson, who humours him by appearing to be very flurried and rushing energetically to and fro at his behest. He also develops an interest in oriental mythology, and buys several books of tantric mándalas and prayer-wheels. One day Debbie goes up to his room and finds a new kind of painting on the easel, geometric, brightly coloured, highly organised, a kind of woven pattern of flames and limbs with a recurring motif of a dark, glaring face with red eyes and a protruding red tongue. ‘Kali the Destroyer,’ says Mrs Stimpson, knowledgeably at Debbie’s elbow. ‘It’s a picture of Kali the Destroyer.’ It is not right, thinks Debbie, that the black goddess should be a simplified travesty of Sheba Brown, that prolific weaver of bright webs. But at the same time she recognises a new kind of loosed, slightly savage energy in Robin’s use of colour and movement.

‘It’s got something,’ says Mrs Stimpson pleasantly. ‘I do really think it’s got something.’ Debbie has to agree. It has indeed got something.

Nymphe et faune, 1931-2

The Chinese Lobster