Why I Won't Be Going To Lunch Anymore. Douglas Atwill
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her away from this happy reverie of remembrance. What did this being in bed at mid-morning mean? Was this unfamiliar weakness a prelude to something dark and final? Was this her deathbed?
She had always imagined she would go suddenly. As the years went by she formulated ever more dramatic scenarios for this finale: a private plane, solid maroon in her vision, plummeting down to winter seas off a storm-tossed coast, perhaps the rocky Atlantic side of Cornwall; a pistol shot from a crazed, foreign admirer in a Turkish military uniform, handsome with elaborate epaulettes and black boots; or, her favorite, because of its visual tension, a motor accident, the Mercedes with her at the wheel careening off an icy curve into an ultimate, smoky spiral down to the Rio Grande River, exploding in the dark New Mexico night, a night of festivities elsewhere. A satisfying show of concluding drama. A flamboyant death to match her eminence, not the slow wasting away that this morning in bed foretold.
A death at home in bed was for a rich dowager without artistic worth, not the painter that the world idolized, the artist that women everywhere took as a role model for female success in a man’s world. Furthermore, it would be a bore to die slowly in bed with wailing servants and long-faced associates to visit you, and then to depart with an audience of dull and sanctimonious faces. It would be a flat, atonal finale to what had been a glorious symphony. As she arrived at full consciousness, Brompton was very dissatisfied with this turn of events.
The cook found her. Isabel, after she saw the studio empty, quietly opened the closed bedroom door, let out a short cry to find Brompton in bed. In a flash she knew what it portended.
“Senora, you are ill.” she said, half a question.
“Yes, Isabel, it would seem so.” Brompton was annoyed with herself and her tone was clipped and harsh.
“I will call Dr. Harmon,” she said as she came near to feel Brompton’s forehead.
“Don’t fuss, Isabel.” She brushed her hand away. “I’ll have lunch here in the bedroom. Only broth and some toast, please.”
This was the day the staff knew would come, the end to their comfortable world. Cecily Brompton would die soon, Isabel thought, leaving their days empty but perhaps their bank accounts full of the expected bequests. The staff had discussed this day and what their inheritances might be.
Patricio, the driver, told the others that his legacy would be the largest as the Senora had always been in love with him. He said he saw her admiring him in the mirror when they drove in the Mercedes about Santa Fe. Cecily Brompton admired male beauty and all the drivers before Patricio had been handsome and young. Patricio counted on a large inheritance.
Isabel disagreed, saying that she and the Senora were like sisters, sharing decades of secrets and stories. The maid and the gardener knew their bequests would be smaller, but, considering Senora’s great fame and wealth, they knew that some substantial sum would come their way.
Now that this sad day was almost here, Isabel lost her voice to a whisper. She backed out of the bedroom door.
“Yes, Senora. I will call Dr. Harmon. Now.”
Thus the rhythm of her terminal days was set: insubstantial meals with naps throughout the day and fitful nights of sleep, short daily visits from Dr. Harmon. Weeks went by and there was no change in this pattern, excepting the increased volume of worried visitors. Her condition worsened as the number of bedside guests grew.
The new painting remained unfinished in her studio, the brushes stuck in the thickening paint of her palette. No one was allowed into her studio. Her gallery owners made several visits, her lawyer, her banker and a few of the few friends she had left. Isabel, hurling Spanish invective on their heartless heads, sent writers from the art magazines away with gusto.
On the fifth week of Brompton’s time in bed, Isabel arrived one morning with a bouquet of wildflowers, obviously picked along the road. She had a conspiratorial smile. “Your second-cousin, Carlos, is here to see you, Senora.”
“Isabel, I don’t have a second cousin.”
“Maybe you don’t remember that your great-aunt’s daughter, Mrs. Barrington, had two children, Carlos and Emilia. She was married to the man from Barcelona.” Isabel enjoyed pronouncing that with a rolled ‘r’ and a long ‘th’ sound. How family charts flowed in the Rodriguez family was very important to Isabel, and to lesser degree family charts in general. Where people fit into the scheme of things mattered to her. The fact that she knew more about the Senora’s family than she herself pleased Isabel enormously.
Brompton said, “That’s nonsense, Isabel. Send him away.”
“But the povrecito has come all the way from España to see you, to help you to get well.”
“So he’s a healer, as well as a cousin. Amazing lad. Isabel, he’s only an imposter.”
“He’s very charming and very handsome, Senora.”
“Oh, very well. Bring him up.” Isabel knew what mattered to the Senora.
In a few minutes, the door opened and Isabel presented Carlos with a proud flourish, as if she had cooked him up in the kitchen herself. She watched as Brompton looked up at the redheaded, brown-eyed young man. He sat down in the bedside chair reserved for visitors, putting his large hands on his knees; his lanky frame rested uneasily in the small, creaking chair. Isabel left and closed the door quietly.
Brompton said, “So you’re my cousin. Indeed.”
“Sorry about that. It’s only a small lie.”
“They are the worst, those small lies. Nations fall because of them.”
“I knew I needed to be family to get past Mrs. Rodriguez and my Spanish is good enough to convince her.”
“Your Spanish must be very good, then. If you’re not a cousin, who are you?”
“I’m here to look after you,” he said.
She laughed quietly and said, “I wish I’d heard those words sixty years ago”.
“I can make your life easier and help you paint. That is, to get back to painting.”
“I’ve never needed help painting. I detest someone else in my studio.”
He was insistent. “But you may need help now.”
“That’s true, alas.” Brompton paused and considered the young man. He appeared to be serious and concerned. What exactly could he do to help? Nobody had ever been able to assist her in the studio, so why now?
She continued to look at him in silence and he showed no outward signs of nervousness or guilt. Brompton set great store in her ability to watch a face and judge character. Carlos did not appear to be a thief or assassin. At worst, he seemed only an opportunist. Appraising her own position, Brompton thought that if she continued staying in bed, she would certainly be dead in a month or two, if only from boredom.
“Carlos, is it?” He nodded. “How did you know I was ill and not painting? Did a bright star appear on the western horizon?”
He smiled. “Your gallery people in New York told me. I was there studying your latest paintings. I’m a beginning painter myself.”
“What makes you think you are competent to assist me in any way? What do you know of my work?” she said. He smiled broadly again and Brompton tried to remember the Spanish words for the adage that the best passport in life is great beauty.
He said, “I’ve looked at your paintings a long time. I spent weeks at the Tate, going back day after day. And the same at the Beaubourg and the Whitney.”
“And what did you find?”
“I see great beauty in Number Three Forty-Seven and Number One Nineteen. Both at the Whitney. I also think it would be a shame for the world if you did not paint more in the vein of Number Four Eighty-Nine, now on display at the Tray Gallery on Madison Avenue. You have more to paint, I am sure.”
Brompton