In the Frame Read Online Free PDF

shapeless village, thinking about the picture and working off the burst of physical energy I often felt after the constraint of painting. More burnt umber in the folds of the kitchen curtains, I thought; and a purplish shadow on the saucepan. Regina’s cream shirt needed yellow ochre under the collar, and probably a touch of green. The cooking stove needed a lot more attention, and I had broken my general rule of working the picture as a whole, background and subject pace by pace.
    This time, Regina’s face stood out clearly, finished except for a gloss on the lips and a line of light along inside the lower eyelids, which one couldn’t do until the under paint was dry. I had been afraid of seeing her less clearly if I took too long, but because of it the picture was now out of balance and I’d have to be very careful to get the kitchen into the same key, so that the whole thing looked harmonious and natural and as if it couldn’t have been any other way.
    The wind was rawly cold, the sky a hurrying jumbled mass of darkening clouds. I huddled my hands inside my anorak pockets and slid back through the hedge with the first drops of rain.
    The afternoon session was much shorter because of the light, and I frustratingly could not catch the right mix of colours for the tops of the kitchen fitments. Even after years of experience, what looked right on the palette looked wrong on the painting. I got it wrong three times and decided to stop.
    I was cleaning the brushes when Donald came back. I heard the scrunch of the car, the slam of the doors, and, to my surprise, the ring of the front door bell. Donald had taken his keys.
    I went through and opened the door. A uniformed policeman stood there, holding Don’s arm. Behind, a row of watching faces gazed on hungrily. My cousin, who had looked pale before, now seemed bloodlessly white. The eyes were as lifeless as death.
    ‘Don!’ I said, and no doubt looked as appalled as I felt.
    He didn’t speak. The policeman leant forward, said, ‘There we are, sir,’ and transferred the support of my cousin from himself to me: and it seemed to me that the action was symbolic as much as practical, because he turned immediately on his heel and methodically drove off in his waiting car.
    I helped Donald inside and shut the door. I had never seen anyone in such a frightening state of disintegration.
    ‘I asked,’ he said, ‘about the funeral.’
    His face was stony, and his voice came out in gasps.
    ‘They said…’ He stopped, dragged in air, tried again.
    ‘They said… no funeral.’
    ‘Donald…’
    ‘They said… she couldn’t be buried until they had finished their enquiries. They said… it might be months.They said… they will keep her… refrigerated…’
    The distress was fearful.
    ‘They said…’ He swayed slightly. ‘They said… the body of a murdered person belongs to the State.’
    I couldn’t hold him. He collapsed at my feet in a deep and total faint.

3
    For two days Donald lay in bed, and I grew to understand what was meant by prostration.
    Whether he liked it or not, this time he was heavily sedated, his doctor calling morning and evening with pills and injections. No matter that I was a hopeless nurse and a worse cook, I was appointed, for lack of anyone else, to look after him.
    ‘I want Charles,’ Donald in fact told the doctor. ‘He doesn’t
fuss
.’
    I sat with him a good deal when he was awake, seeing him struggle dazedly to face and come to terms with the horrors in his mind. He lost weight visibly, the rounded muscles of his face slackening and the contours changing to the drawn shape of illness. The grey shadows round his eyes darkened to a permanent charcoal, and all normal strength seemed to have vanished from arms and legs.
    I fed us both from tins and frozen packets, reading the instructions and doing what they said. Donald thanked me punctiliously and ate what he could, but I doubt if he tasted a thing.
    In between times, while he slept,