Chapter 24 Armand Explains How Art Happens
Armand Explains How Art Happens
We were out to dinner again. And I was suffering. Because there were three things I didn’t want:
The first was for Lucas to continue spending money on me without my being able to reciprocate; the second was to force Lucas to cook for me; and the third was to do the cooking myself.
I also didn’t want to leave the flat, so technically there were four things, but that last was the easiest to get past given how much practice I’d had in recent months.
So when Lucas said he wanted to go out, I couldn’t say, Nah, love, because that implicitly meant I was either asking him to cook or offering to cook (and I cared too much for both of us to attempt that).
We usually got takeaways from my favorite haunts—which were rarely sit-down establishments—so when the time came to go out, it was invariably Lucas’s pick.
And with the noted exception of myself, Lucas’s tastes ran posh.
I’d managed to convince him to stay in Croydon, and he’d gone ahead and found a family-owned Nepalese restaurant with some of the most beautiful decor I’d ever seen, five quid garlic naan, and mercifully, almost no other patrons on a Wednesday night.
Lucas took photos of the food, took photos of me eating the food, and right when I thought he might actually eat something, fiddled with his phone, muttering about hashtags.
I placed a hand on his arm. “Love, post it later. Once we’ve left.” I tried not to sound desperate, but Lucas narrowed his eyes.
“Babe, are you worried about geolocating? Has someone been weird—”
“No,” I said, perhaps too quickly. I bit my lip. “I’m paranoid. Humor me?”
He rolled his eyes and set his phone face down on the table. “Fine, I’ll be in the moment or whatever.” Then he stole some of my chickpeas like a sweet squirrel of a man.
I pushed my plate toward him and smiled, resting my chin in my hand. Lucas was happily tasting every dish on the table, giving an adorable shoulder shimmy whenever something turned out to be exceptionally delicious.
“Are you aware,” I asked, “that you are quite possibly the cutest person on the planet?”
Lucas’s cheeks colored. “Oh sure, cute like a little pig.” He gave two derisive snorts and set his fork down.
I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I simply ladled more daal onto his plate. “Lucas, eat, love.”
After a few moments he reached for the aloo chop. I smiled and made a point not to watch him eat.
“So, I know we technically don’t need to do any more official Surrogate Goose sightseeing”—Lucas looked at me through his lashes—“but you know what I’ve always wanted to see?” His voice had the familiar weedling tone he used to get me to pose.
“What?” I asked tiredly.
“King’s College. Isn’t it the oldest university in England?”
My stomach went cold. “Er, no, that’s Oxford, actually. King’s was founded later, a-as a secular option.” I was babbling. I had to come out and say it. “I, er . . .” I swallowed. “I w-went there, actually.” I swallowed again. “For a time.”
Lucas gave me a sweet, furthering smile. “Wow, really? What did you study?” There was no accusation, unspoken or otherwise, no suggestion that he’d noticed I’d somehow failed to mention this in every attempted interview and timeline construction we’d done for the anniversary event.
“A-arts and Humanities.” I took a painfully large swig of water. “Didn’t finish.” I coughed. Lucas was still watching me, and my face had grown so hot I was sweating. I had to say something more. Give him a reason that wasn’t . . . true. “Money troubles.”
It wasn’t a complete lie.
“Oh.” Lucas frowned, his mouth working for a moment as if there was something else he wanted to say. “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged and pushed the hair out of my face with both hands, trying desperately to think of any way to change the subject. My mind had gone blank.
“You know”—Lucas picked at his saag paneer, and I knew what was coming—“I’d never post anything you don’t want people to know about.”
“I know that, love. I do.” I tried to smile. “It’s just, I wasn’t there for very long, so it didn’t seem important. Thank you,” I added as Lucas poured me more water; my earlier attempts to drown myself had left my glass quite empty. I gently nudged the last vegetable samosa toward him.
I still needed to change the subject. “So, your mother’s coming to the exhibition?
” It was a stupid question, but perhaps I could salvage this.
“I’m, er, excited to meet her.” The thought of meeting Lucas’s mother terrified me, but it was also a hurdle I sincerely wanted to clear.
I’d always done well with older women; one could only hope that whatever appeal I held would extend to Cheyenne Barclay.
“Try and stop her. She’s excited to meet you too.” Lucas grinned, nudging the samosa right back toward me. I gave up and ate it. “I told her she could stay on the couch.”
I choked, and Lucas patted my back, laughing. “I’m kidding, she’s staying at the Savoy, like always.”
I coughed, eyes watering, and tried to recover from the attempted inhalation of peas and lentils. “Oh, aye, right, hilarious. I mean.” I sighed through my teeth. “She could stay with us, of course, but it would—” be the most awkward situation imaginable.
“No, breathe, Armand.” Lucas was still rubbing my back. “I’m sorry, that was mean. She wants to stay at the Savoy. I want her to stay at the Savoy.”
Do you want to stay at the Savoy? I gulped that thought down, tried to cover it with feigned joviality. “I don’t see why, my flat has all the same amenities. Who wouldn’t want to live in what is ostensibly a hallway? Now with the added excitement of damp.”
“I love your weird long flat.” Lucas’s eyes had softened, and his hand traveled from my back to my neck, gently finger-combing my curls.
“And it’s looking much better these days, if I do say so myself, but I don’t think she’d like sleeping in the same room as her son and his boyfriend.
” He grinned, having felt the happy shiver that ran through me whenever he used that word.
“I suppose that would be . . . not ideal.” I leaned into his touch.
“Nope, I want to be able to jump you at a moment’s notice.” His eyes went a bit distant. “You know, in case I go into an anxiety spiral.”
“What do you mean? I thought everything was going well?”
“It is.” Lucas had let go of me entirely and was fiddling with a cloth napkin.
Folding and refolding. Smoothing it out, straightening each corner, folding again.
“I’m just worried—” he swallowed, and I barely suppressed the urge to reach for him “—that everyone’s working so hard, and I’m getting this amazing opportunity, and when the time comes it’ll be . . .”
I gave up and took his hands, interrupting the napkin ritual. “It’ll be what?”
“Sophomoric.”
Goose bumps ran up and down my arms. “Why would you think that?”
Lucas shrugged, his fingers twitching under mine.
“I don’t know, it’s stupid. I guess I’ve never really thought of myself as making art.
I take pictures. And I love it. And it means something to me, but”—his brows pinched together—“it’s supposed to be something more.
And I don’t know if it is. Maybe I’m wasting everyone’s time. ”
I bit back the unhelpful observation that he’d just described art to a T, and instead rubbed my thumbs across his knuckles. “Lucas, I make a comic about a penguin.”
“But it’s not really about a penguin.” He huffed. “There’s a deeper meaning to it and stuff, with symbolism or whatever.”
“It’s about a penguin, love.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s about fate, and freewill, and society, and othering, and finding your place in a myth that couldn’t conceive of you—”
“Lucas, you silly man, it’s about a penguin, and the rest of it sort of happens. Like your photos.”
“No, it’s not like my photos!” His hands under mine had gone rigid. “I don’t make beautiful things, I just take pictures of them, and there’s nothing under them because I don’t have anything to say. And how could I? I’ve never been anywhere or done anything.”
This was him. This has to be him. I focused on Lucas.
“And yet, somehow”—I brought his hands up to my lips and kissed each in turn—“people see your photos and feel a way about them. Here.” I reached for the camera bag forever at his side, currently resting on the muted leather of the booth.
Lucas gave it over, and for about two seconds I stared at the mess of buttons before asking him to boot it up.
“Now what?” he asked sulkily.
“Take a photo. Er.” I didn’t quite bite back a cringe as he turned the camera on me. There followed the usual mysterious shutter sounds, and then the somehow predatory digital click.
Lucas lowered the camera. “Now what?”
He was being such a brat, it was hard not to smile. “Show me it.”
He did, and I meta-cringed at the sight of myself cringing. “All right, er, why’s the focus here?” I touched the raggedy collar of my jumper.
Lucas frowned. “Um. Because of the texture?”
I nodded, trailing my fingers over his again, the roughness between his thumb and forefinger.
“Contrasted with my skin and the wood paneling of the booth, which are both relatively smooth, and it draws attention to the tension in my shoulders, to the way a large, brown, poorly dressed man is trying to make himself small in a fancy ethnic restaurant. It’s a commentary on class, the hollow aesthetics of modern masculinity, and the commodification of immigrant cultures. ”
Lucas stared. “It is?”
I shrugged. “Just sort of happens, dunnit?”
Lucas set the camera down and leaned forward to kiss me. He tasted of mango lassi and spices and Lucas, and I wished I could kiss every last doubt from his mind. I certainly tried.
Lucas whispered against my lips, “I definitely feel an anxiety spiral coming on.”