Bartle Clunes - Chapter 23
El Dorado County 1950 - High Summer
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El Dorado County 1950
June in the foothills was heating up with such ferocity that Bartle said over breakfast, “It is so damnably hot! Must be ninety degrees out there already. I can see the headlines in the Mountain Democrat now: “Local Man Spontaneously Combusts in His Own Front Yard.”
“Too right!” Louvina said, mopping her face with a large red handkerchief. She continued the ‘news report’ with, “Much to his family's dismay, Bartle Clunes, noted El Dorado County artist and a man of high moral character, stepped out of his front door into the foothills heat Tuesday afternoon and burst into flame.”
“If it hadn't been for the quick thinking of his devoted wife and daughter,” added Ayla, “who tipped him into the watering trough, he would have met a most untimely end.”
They looked at each other and decided that was enough of that. They all had chores to get to, heat or no heat.
But first, Ayla showed off her sixteen finished drawings of various 'Pinophyta', which her family truly admired – and not just because she was their daughter. They really were lovely pictures. She carefully wrapped them and went down to hand-deliver them to the post in Placerville. She wanted them sent first class, and insured, and prayed they would arrive in Berkeley unscathed by the Visigoth employees of the US Postal Service. These, her very first commissioned drawings, were a benchmark about which she acted nonchalant, but, in truth, she was thrilled by them and what they signified. She saw it as the beginning of her life's work.
Louvina and Ayla had settled into an easy routine with their goats. Thalia and Melpomene seemed content in their new home. The work of the two women was being rewarded. Local people stopped in to buy the soaps, both at home and over at Riles' General Store and Hardware. A few neighbors even bought jars of fresh milk and returned to exchange the empty jars for full ones. Bartle found that part incomprehensible, but kept his mouth shut.
Louvina stopped making pies. She could not bear to light an oven in this summer heat, but she did, finally, have some luck with cheese-making, and was turning out small consistent quantities of hand-labeled Daughters of Zeus Honey and Goat's Milk Cheese once a week. It was a two-day process. On those days, Bartle made himself scarce early in the day and he did not return until the product was wrapped and safely stored away in the back porch refrigerator.
Bartle, in the month of June, in fact, spent most of his days at the studio, and some nights as well. Maggie went along with him partly out of friendship, and partly for the ride in the truck. In the last ten days, under pressure, Bartle had reached a point of feverish creativity the like of which he had only rarely experienced in his life. He was seized by his imagination and could not slow down. Finally, lining up his work around the walls, he studied all sixteen completed paintings, four of them new. They left him perplexed and he wanted his wife’s opinion.
At eight o'clock, Ayla and Maggie were walking around under the stars together in the yard, looking for a breath of cool air. They found none and came back in. “Louvina,” she said, “I am going to stand under a cold shower for a few minutes and put myself to bed.”
About an hour later, Bartle headed for the shower himself, inviting his beautiful wife to join him. He did not have to ask her twice. They stood under the cool stream of water and scrubbed up with a bar of Peppermint Goat's Milk Soap.
After they had gone off to their bed, Maggie went into the bathroom, nails clacking on the tile, and licked up the shower floor. He sat in there for a couple of minutes on his own, the moon sending a pale glimmer through the window directly onto the ridge of his slightly pointed head. He sighed, pondering whatever it is dogs ponder at the dark end of the day, then he too retired to his old braided rug.
Bartle and Louvina lay about ten miles apart on their own sides of the bed with not even a sheet covering them. The quilt was kicked to the floor. It was too hot to even hold hands.
“Louvina,” he said, “would you come round to the studio sometime tomorrow to have a look at my work? I would like your thoughts before I carry it all off to the city.”
“I sure will, right after I get the cheese to dripping. l'll bring your lunch, too.”
He was silent for a few minutes. “Louvina, you are happy, right?”
“I am. Why do you ask me that, my hero?”
“Would you say you were married to a happy man?”
“Well, I don't hear you complain much. You are mostly always in good spirits. I would say you are a happy man, yes. Why are you asking this?”
“I studied my work today for a long time, one piece at a time. My paintings are consistently, invariably dark. Some might say they look like the work of an angry man, or an unhappy man, but I am not that. I want you to see this new collection and let me know what they say to you, before they are hung in the gallery.”
“I'll be there,” she said, falling asleep, “but I am not sure I can be very objective, Bartle, since I know you pretty well.”
“You know me better than anyone should, Mrs. Clunes,” he said.
Standing in the studio the next afternoon, Louvina said, “Your work is breathtaking to me, Bartle. It is dark and it is bold, but I don't feel anger in these paintings, I feel strength and certitude. Anyone can see these are works of passion. They make people feel something and that is the only important thing.”
“Louvina,” he said. “That means the world to me, sweetheart.”
“All of these paintings are beautifully connected and understandable. I promise you, my love, this work will be admired. You may even sell one or two,” she added with a kiss. Bartle was heartened by his wife's confidence in him. He was dogged by self-doubt lately, but really, probably no more than any other artist would be before a solo show, if he only knew it.
That evening, Louvina sat in the rocker with the never-empty basket of mending she was working through. Bartle was on the sofa, his stockinged feet up on the foot stool. She noticed, with a sigh, that one of those socks wanted mending too. He was searching in his book for something from Thoreau.
“Here, Louvina, I found it – this is the part I was telling you about.” She looked up. “Thoreau says to beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. Then he says that if there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? His idea is that if you have a new enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. You should not need a new suit of clothes until you have proven yourself in some way to be a new man. Otherwise, he says, you will be found sailing under false colors, fooling yourself and fooling others.”
“Nonsense,” said Louvina, shaking her head. “That man just did not have enough sense to come out of the forest and change his old worn out clothes! Needed a haircut, too, if you ask me. Bartle, I just think you might want to look your best for these fancy folks who come to see your work. They are coming to meet you. You will still be the same man you are in a new suit of clothes and you will make a good first impression.”
“Aha,” he said. “Yes, well, that is as may be. I will think on it, Louvina. Maybe.”
When it came right down to it, Bartle would not buy new clothes for his big show. His old jacket and trousers were good enough, he'd said. He hoped the people would like his paintings, but they would just have to forgive the artist for looking like who he was – himself.
The next day Louvina went into Placerville and bought him a new shirt and tie anyway. She took his old jacket and trousers to the dry cleaners and said, “See if you can bring these sorry things back to life by Thursday.” She had taken some pie money from the coffee can and bought herself something too, to bolster her confidence while mingling among 'society'. She came home with a plain linen skirt and matching peplum blouse, both the dark red color of rubies. She hoped her husband would be proud to be seen with her.
I am looking forward to Bartle’s big day.
You continue with such a sweet, sweet story