The Colour of Memory

She had passed this way many times before and had no mind to linger now, her first thought being home, and the comforting embrace of an armchair in which she would almost certainly fall asleep. How much had she had? But sudden movement in a wide bay window snatched her attention. She found herself watching figures silhouetted against the light of lamps just switched on inside a room. And as she worked along the row of houses, she became aware of the colours and shapes of other lighted windows. Squares and oblongs and semi-circles of yellow and orange and gold, warm and welcoming yet excluding too, glimpses of lives of which she was not part. The outsider looking in.

Standing on the pavement in the half-light, she felt a keen sense of separation yet compelled to watch a series of vignettes: domestic scenes, unrehearsed performances on undersize stage sets, the window frame as proscenium arch and Lucy Potter an audience of one.

§

Lucy found herself telling Rosemary about her painting, its various phases, and her current efforts to overcome the block that had blighted the last few months. Rosemary, she reflected, had turned the tables but seemed genuinely interested. And building up some capital might be no bad thing, stand her in better stead.

“Windows, you say. Is that looking out or looking in?”

“Neither, really. It’s not about views through but the shapes and sizes of the windows themselves and the colours I choose to depict them.”

“Are we talking about real windows or imaginary ones?”

“Both. That’s to say, a real window may be the starting point for a particular painting but then my imagination takes over. So it ends up as something different.”

“No women gazing longingly from rooms they cannot leave? A caged bird in the background to rub the point in?”

“No,” said Lucy. “I don’t do people.”

“Any reason? I noticed that you didn’t mention portraits among your work.”

“I haven’t got the skill or the patience or the stamina. Think of all those sittings. And the pressure, the expectation that I would produce an acceptable likeness. Something that satisfied the sitter and anyone else who cared. I wouldn’t feel in control. Supposing they hated how I saw them, what I saw in them. If I revealed some inner qualities that clashed with the way they saw themselves or which they wanted to keep hidden. I’d have to be honest; I couldn’t flatter for the sake of an easy life. It’s too much of a risk for both parties. It’s easier to take liberties with places and things than with people.”

§

The path she took meandered between headstones starred with lichen and brought her to a porch on the south side, overseen by ancient yews that cast a pall even on this fine afternoon. Lucy hastened through the door into the body of the church. It was simple and unadorned; the large east window beyond the altar had nothing but plain glass. It was the smaller west window that made her catch her breath. Two Gothic lights and a quatrefoil above, the stained glass brilliant in the sun that struck the front, filling the walls and floor with radiance and colour. An abstract design of no obvious religious significance, as far as Lucy could tell. The varying shapes and hues gave the illusion of movement, of being alive.

Lucy was enchanted. She stepped into a pool of rose madder, shading to garnet red, before bathing in washes of orange and yellow and gold, and thence the richer tones of blue, indigo and violet. She wished she could have been there longer to see the light change through the day, move across the floor and walls, dissolving the shapes in its path.

§

Lucy left it for a while and then took a gamble. “The mirror in the kitchen corridor,” she said. “With the glass covered…”

“Well spotted,” said Rosemary. “It used to hang in the hall of the house in Buckinghamshire. I was fond of it, the ornateness of the frame, especially the birds and fruit and flowers entwined. And then she caught me looking at them, assumed I was admiring myself in the mirror. ‘Don’t waste your time, girl. No one’s going to look at you.’ I can still hear that sneering voice, see that face behind me reflected in the glass, criticising, judging.

“I eventually inherited the mirror and a few other things. It was put away for years, wrapped in blankets. But when Gordon died I retrieved the mirror from the attic and hung it where you see it now. Out of the way but not out of the way. Less need for explanations.”