The Hummingbird

A quiet tragedy when the horror of obsessions and human frailties collide.

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The Hummingbird

By Samuel Evans

 

Let me say right off that Rosie really had talent. At least I always thought so. I felt like she would never let herself enjoy any success or even modicum of success, that came along. Always striving for perfection. And what is perfection, really? Seriously, what is it? It’s subjective. It’s intangible. And it’s the sort of thing that will take your sanity away.

 

Let’s start with one such example. It was a Saturday. Fairly typically as her agent, I visited her studio on a Saturday. The front door, half hanging off its hinges but still impregnable, needed a buzzer to get in. I knew Rosie would be deep into creating at that point and buzzing her would not be received well. As often with me, I’d forgotten my key card. I curse myself under my breath. Or so I thought. It was enough to get a disapproving look from the old woman who lived above her studio and spent far longer than was healthy sunning herself on the balcony. Anyway, I waited for someone to come out the building, then snuck through the crack of the door. Pretty uncomfortably I might add, as beer and middle age have made my frame not as svelte as it once was.

 

I made my way up the stairs, two at a time. I always enjoyed seeing what she’d been working on. Sometimes before she destroyed it. Sometimes just to admire it. Or both, I suppose. I opened the next door, or what was left of it. It had about rusted to ash. Rosie was never one for minor repairs and such. There were a lot of large canvases arranged in the room, mostly face down. Many of them ripped into pieces, left here and there. There was a coffee pot, half drunk. Next to it a cup, brown stains left inside the yellow porcelain. The air smelled fusty, I have to say. I caught wafts of paint, sweat and obviously coffee.

 

Rosie hadn’t caught that I’d arrived. She had her back to me. She was dressed as was her habit in faded dungarees with a white T-shirt underneath. As her right arm worked feverishly on the canvas, her hand reminded me of a humming bird. Blurring and unceasing.

 

As was typical with me, I had spent too long observing her and I tripped. I put out my hands to steady myself as I landed on the brown, mottled hard wood floor. My fingers were repaid with dust, coats of it. Seeing the only sink full of paintbrushes and other debris half as high as I was tall, I chose the easy option and wiped the dust out on my chinos. At least the colour vaguely matches, I thought.

 

Having missed my moment to let Rosie know I was there, I observed what she was creating. Unlike the majority of her work, it was devoid of colour. A monochromatic mix of whites, greys and as the light from the curtained window caught it, a glint of silver. It was an incongruous image, but one I judged to be deliberately crafted to make you draw your own conclusions. When you got closer, you appreciated that every stroke had been meticulously crafted. Like a master storyteller labouring over the perfect adjective to evoke the exact mental image in their reader.

 

It is a privilege very few get to observe a great artist at work, in any walk of life. A composer writing their songs. A writer building a character from scratch to perfection. But here I had a great artist and their creative process right in front of me. Looking back, I truly appreciate it. It’s something most people never get to experience and I did. I was never conscious of it when I was there. But I think I appreciated it at the time. I think I did.

 

“Good morning, Rosie,” I said, almost apologetically.

 

Rosie went from hummingbird to sloth in terms of speed instantaneously, a compliment to her precision. She stopped dead and then spun on the spot to face me, in one movement. “Morning, morning. It will be good if I finish this, I suppose. You all, right? Great. Good. Coffee? Right, you know what the pot and the machine are.”

 

It’s feasible I’m misremembering this, but it felt like Rosie shared all this information at staccato speed and returned to our painting. I imagine anyone reading this could view this as brusque, but that was just her way. Not only was I used to it, but I admired it.

 

I didn’t bother with any coffee. I just sat on the only chair in the room and watched. The chair was way too small for me, like it was made for a child. But I watched. Rosie switched from wider brushstrokes to a tiny brush for smaller details and the hummingbird motions switched to the accuracy of a laser. She fought and battled over every stroke now, occasionally stopping to step back and curse. Or prod herself in the temple with the other hand, as if trying to jump start her creativity.

 

Couldn’t honestly tell you how much time went by, but it was certainly way more than an hour. I sat and watched Rosie’s contest with herself, fascinated. Now the picture had covered the whole canvas, she fought a contest with herself over the fine, details. Agonising of every fleck of black, every last touch of grey. I offered to order food, but was met only with a perfunctory grunt. I ordered something she’d liked in the past, a chicken cobb salad, figuring it would be just as good warm as it was cold. Whenever she stopped. If she stopped.

 

My back eventually defeated itself on that tiny chair, so I had to give up and walk around. I stood back a little and looked at the painting again. It was stunning how when there was no light on the piece, it looked grey, black, almost foreboding. Then when just a glint of light came across it, you caught slivers of silver and if I wasn’t imagining it, a tiny outline of gold.

 

The light outside eventually began to fade and I suppose it must have been late afternoon by this point. Rosie never worked by electric light. I never asked her why. My assumption is it’s something about being natural. About being primal. As was her way, she just stopped. From motion to no motion, in an instant. Passing me a monosyllabic goodbye, Rosie rolled over on the small battered futon in the corner and slept, silently.

 

 

 

I returned the next day. I didn’t generally go two days in a row.  Not knowing what to expect. It might have been ripped to shreds. It might be she decided to sleep the day out, Rosie sometimes did after a bout of great creativity. But I had to go. I suppose in my own way, I was also obsessed.

 

I had remembered my card this time and there was a great noise blaring out from the studio. It was one of those curious dichotomies. Rosalie either worked in absolute silence or had the music in her studio turned up Spinal-Tap high.

 

The music was jazz and I judged it to be freeform, with my untrained ear. I don’t know who the artiste was, but it was old. Classic. Is that the right word, classic? Vintage? Anyway, it was messy. And loud. The only chair had been taken, by Rosie. She was standing on it, to continue with the top edges of the canvas.

 

I stood back near the door to take it in. The day before, I felt like the painting had reminded me of a wolf howling at a moon that was looking down upon it with disapproval. Now, when I looked at it, I thought it looked more like a fog drifting across the sky in the middle of the sea. There was perhaps still a hint of the moon in there somewhere, but it was hidden. Perhaps deliberately lost. I feel my words don’t do justice to the haunting quality of her work. I feel perhaps they never can. Or never could.

 

Perched upon the chair with the innate grace of a ballerina, Rosie was using the same sized brushes in both hands. It was like one was playing the piano and the other joining in with its on notes own the trumpet. If you’ll pardon the clumsy metaphor. The noise of the music has most likely jumbled this memory in my mind. But I just marveled at the talent. Both hands, equally talented. Not a beat missed.

 

There was something almost ethereal about watching her. I didn’t speak. I just watched. I perceived it as hours before I even let her know I was there. She seemed roughly as pleased as the previous day to see me. Eventually, Rosie repeated the pattern and rolled over into an exhausted sleep. The one thing I did before leaving was to turn off the music. No actually, I also put the chair back in its usual place. 

 

I fought myself not to return the next day. I went for a very long run. Had a cold shower. Watched an uninteresting superhero series on Netflix from start to finish. Anything not return. And to prove to myself that I was am professional.  That it wasn’t personal. That I wasn’t obsessed. And I succeeded, in that I didn’t go that day. I think it was the Monday. But I didn’t stop thinking about that painting. I didn’t sleep. Barely ate. A series of distractions were just what all my actions were. At least I’d gone to the studio, I’d have seen it. Seen her.

 

That Tuesday, I lost the battle with myself. I returned to the studio. There was no music. In fact, there was no sound at all. There was a smell though. It was not usual, it was out of place. Smelled almost like a car. I opened the door. Rosie was fast asleep, face down on her futon. But without her T-shirt. There was slight glint of light through the window. I looked down at her back. It was covered with the same pattern as the canvas had been, the same eye for detail in blacks, shades of grey and evocations of other colours when light hit it. I didn’t know if she was sleeping, paralytic or dead, she was so quiet. The effort it must have taken to evidence this change within one day, still chills me to think of it now.

 

I caught the smell again in my nostrils, stronger this time. The canvas had been discarded on the floor, only face up this time. I still gaped at the detail this time once more. But this time, I felt like it was the face of an implacable ghost, staring right through me. Mocking. Taunting. The only change from the usual mess was a box of matches, next to the canvas. It was then I could infer where the smell was coming from. She’d covered herself, covered the painting in petrol and intended to strike the match.

 

I looked from the painting to her and back, maybe for a long time. Maybe not as long as I recall. I thought about waking her. I thought about just walking away and not interfering. Finally, I knew what I had to do. Or at least, felt like I did. I picked up the canvas, the odour filling my nose and trying to resist an urge to vomit. And I took it. And I walked away.

 

“How could you? How could you do that to me?” Her anger was as visible to me as anything she had ever painted. Despite it being a phone-call, I was filled with her image. I saw every detail, like I did with her paintings. Every fissure of anger.

 

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” I answered, probably believing it myself in the moment.

 

“The right thing? How could you know? You aren’t an artist. You’ll never understand. How could you know?”

 

That was the last word Rosie ever spoke to me. And I suppose she was right. What is knowing? What is understanding? It’s subjective, it’s intangible.

 

I exhibited her painting. And she made a fortune and became famous. But she never painted again, as far as I know. And I never saw the hummingbird dancing again.

 

Something was burnt that day, just not with matches and petrol.