Ruth, Epiphany (Sunday, 6th January)
She looked contemptuously at the portrait she had just finished; Mr E. A. Adonis had been dismissive and rude when she had gone to his house to take preliminary photographs for the painting and had then made several attempts to pat her bottom, and the finished portrait clearly showed her loathing of the man she had been paid to paint.
As usual her studio smelt of oil paint and various chemicals, while on her stereo something gloomy by Leonard Cohen was playing loudly; she slowly danced around the room to the sound of the music, trying to forget Ben who had left her, and her mother who was dead, and the rent that was overdue. Leonard’s deep tones soothed her, and for a moment she believed that he was her lover, holding her tight and ready to soothe her and take her to bed.
Even as she danced, immersed in her sorrow, she could not escape the portrait in the corner, the subject would not take his eyes off her; a smug, wealthy man who was soon going to retire with his downtrodden wife and enjoy his ill-gotten gains. Why was she doing such rubbish? This was not what she had envisaged when studying at Nottingham Art College; she had seen herself in London able to paint what she liked; her pictures on display in fashionable galleries and bought by rock stars and actors. She picked up a palette knife and stabbed her client through the forehead again and again until she was sure that he was dead, and then she fell onto the floor and made herself as small as possible, whilst Leonard sang of love and hate.
“Well, I think it is nonsense,” Len told the Parochial Church Council, and me in particular. “You are only here for a few years. St. Mark’s has been here for over a hundred…” Liz Gilbert, the church’s amateur historian tried to interrupt, but braver souls than she had failed to cut Len Biggs off in mid flow and he rode on regardless. “…and this will alter the very fabric of the building. And why weren’t we involved with choosing the pictures and the artist? We don’t even know who she is?”
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