Intaglio: Dragons All The Way Down (25 page)

“I’m just so
fucking mad.” Cole rasped.  “Just pissed off at...at everyone! Okay?!?”

“At me?”

He frowned.

“No...  Yes!  I
don’t fucking KNOW, all right” He shook his head in frustration.  “God, I just
have all of this... rage... I can’t even think straight.  Fuck!”

She nodded,
stepping closer.  Her hand on his wrist stayed, but the other hand went to his
chest.

“It’s okay to
feel that way, you know?”  She grimaced.  It was almost a smile, just devoid of
happiness.  “I get that, Cole...  I really do.”

“No, you don’t,”
he retorted.

She frowned,
eyebrows pulling together in annoyance, voice rising.

“Yes, actually,
I do!”

He looked down at
her, his body warring with emotions.  Ava was there, and he couldn’t bring
himself to shove her away.  She stared up at him. 

“So what do I do
then?” Cole asked.

She exhaled
shakily, fingers dropping from his wrist to hold his hand tightly.

“Let’s go paint.”

: : : : : : : :
: :

Ava
power-stapled a swath of canvas to the wall of the studio with unsteady hands. 
Cole stood just inside the door, jittery with the need for release.  He rocked
back and forth on the balls of his feet, hands clenched at his side.  His face
was closed and dark… 
furious
.  Ava could almost see the waves rising
around him like the heat off pavement in the summer, as if his ire was slowly
released in the frustration of the repetitive motion.

This was the
side of Cole that scared her, but she wasn’t leaving tonight. 
Not this
time.

The makeshift
canvas covered one entire wall, the raw linen stretched as high as she could
reach.  If the two of them had been five years younger, she would have suggested
spray-painting a building, but she’d had too many close calls lately... and she
wasn’t risking it with Cole's mood.  If the police came, she was almost sure he
wouldn’t run. 
‘He’d TRY to start a fight,
’
an inner voice
warned.  Ava knew, with certainty, that Cole didn’t care about the consequences
of his actions right now... and that worried her.

It reminded her
of her younger self.

Pulling open her
black painting kit – a large metal toolbox – Ava scooped up tubes of acrylic
paint.  Oils were too slow-drying for this process.  Cole needed something
immediate and intensely pigmented
. ‘Paint sticks!’
her mind suggested. 
She nodded to herself, grabbing a handful of them too.

She spread them
across the shelf of the easel and on the nearby table.  Two of them rolled and
tumbled to the floor, another following seconds later, but Ava didn’t notice. 
She was filling a coffee can with water from the sink at the back. Returning to
the studio, she slammed the can down onto the table, water sloshing over the edges. 

With one last
look at the supplies, she turned to Cole.  He was still scowling, his mind
somewhere else.  Lifting his fist, she pulled open his fingers one by one,
pressing the handle of a brush into his palm.

“Paint it out,”
she instructed, eyebrows rising.

Cole's lips
curled like a dog about to attack.

“I’m NOT a
painter like you are!”

There was
challenge to the snarled words, and insolence.  It irritated her.  She tugged
the brush from his grip, grabbing a paint-stick and slapping it into his palm.

“Fine, Cole,”
Ava muttered, refusing the bait.  “Draw, then!  I know you can do that!”

He stared down,
face darkening.

“What am I
supposed to do with this?” he growled.

Ava dragged him
to the canvas.

“I don’t fucking
care WHAT you do,” she replied angrily.  “I just need you to start.  Do anything,
Cole.  Just do it.  Make something.  PAINT!”

He stood before
the blank canvas, body taut with anger.  Unmoving.  Ava leaned in, her words
harsh.  Letting her own fury come out in the sharp hiss of her words.

“Just start,”
she taunted.  “Destroy it, Cole!  Make it dark!  Cruel!”  Her voice rose,
growing angrier.  “Do whatever the hell you NEED to do!  Just GET. IT. OUT!”

He’d been
scowling at the wide expanse of unprimed fabric while she talked.  She saw the
wrath just under the surface of his control, rising like flood waters.  Dangerous... 
she took his wrist, holding his fist and the paint-stick next to the wall.  
Hovering it over the canvas.

“Fuck off!”  he
barked.

Ava leaned in, her
lips in a cruel smile.

“What’s pissing
you off, Cole?”  His eyes met hers.  “Is it your dad?  Nina?  …your mother?” 
Ava paused, stepping closer still, breasts bumping against his chest, her
intonation almost sexual.  “Is it me?”

“Stop it!”
Cole roared. 
His face was flushed; he was breathing rapidly.

Ava smirked
icily.

“So how angry are
you, Cole?” she taunted.  “Show me...”

Like a dam
breaking, he was suddenly in motion.  He tore his hand out of her grip, her
nails scoring his arm.  As she watched, a line of expletives smeared across the
canvas in a single broad stroke.  Fury and rage spilled out into words and
obscene scribbles as the minutes passed, the rage given voice in the dark.  Ava
stood beside him as he worked, watching as he was pulled into the process. 
Disappearing under the black surface.

Cole moved with
surprising speed, his anger rising up out of him in waves.  Ava handed him new
medium as he used up the old.  She switched him to paint when Cole could no
longer cover large enough areas with the narrow lines. His actions became
bolder.  The storm was unleashed.

“More black!”
Cole demanded, reaching back to her.

Ava loaded
another brush with acrylic, standing back and watching as the pale canvas
altered and changed under his assault.  It was fascinating and horrifying...
she was seeing the physical representation of Cole’s demons emerging onto the
wall of her studio. Pain.  Fury.  Hatred.  Fear.  All growing into a larger
whole, blurring together to form something more.

The canvas on
the wall slowly filled with released rage, the texture of the words fuelled the
raw flow of emotions.  Ava glanced at her cell phone, shocked to see that two
hours had passed. The streets outside were silent and empty, raindrops steadily
slapping against the windowpanes.  It was well past midnight, but Ava didn’t
interrupt the process.  She’d gone through this too many times herself. 
Instead, she watched in awe as Cole’s words morphed into hatch marks and then
finally into renderings... shapes drawn in searching lines coming out of the
canvas toward her.

Another hour
passed.

Coming back from
changing the can of water, she realized, with a start, what the image was. 
There were two people struggling to cling to a broken piece of wood as waves
crashed around them.  Ava stood in place, swallowing again and again as bile
rose in her throat.  The figures were cut and bleeding.  The waves threatened
to drown them both.

Cole’s arms
moved ceaselessly across it, adding colour and detail: blood running down the
limbs, water soaking the clothing, dragging them under.  There was something
she recognized about the image... something impossibly familiar. Only one thing
had changed.

‘Last time, I
was the only one in the water …’

At the canvas,
Cole reached backward, groping blindly for a brush.  Ava was too lost in horror
to notice. He grabbed the tube of paint from the easel, squeezing it directly
onto his fingers, rubbing it directly into the canvas.  A glimmer of light
appeared over the dark blues and greys, pulling the image into relief.  Two
people – a man and a woman – were caught together, grappling with impossible
forces.  Fighting hard to stay afloat.

‘That’s me and
Cole...’
Ava realized in shock.

A frisson of
fear ran up her spine.  This was her dream… the one where she died.  She knew,
somehow, that the winged woman – the figurehead of the ship – was nearby.  But
this time, it was going to come down on both of them.  They were both dying in
this image.

“No… it can’t
be,” she whispered in terror.  “He’s supposed to make it to shore.” 

Her words were
drowned out by the rain on the windows, the thrumming of the roof above. 
Cole painted
like a man possessed. 
Unstoppable
.  The image emerged from the
darkness, highlights deepening the illusion of depth, the watery grave that
surrounded them.  A quote from Renoir popped to mind:
“I’ve been forty years
discovering that the queen of all colours is black.”
The canvas was leaden
with it.

Standing next to
the easel, his clothes completely destroyed by paint, Cole altered his approach
again. He rubbed pale skin-tones into the grain of canvas, obscuring the
written words, pushing them under the surface of the water with acrylic glaze.
The liquid character of the painting splashed over the edges.  The speed of his
fingers edged toward care.  Violence was tempered by detail. Cole moved the
male figure’s hand so he was grasping the woman next to him.  The water
surrounding them was changing.

‘We’re not going
to make it…’
Ava’s mind announced. 

Ava noted the
subtle change as Cole’s anger began to recede. She could see it in the way he
moved.  He no longer was attacking the canvas, but selecting colours now. He
switched back to brushes, the edge of a split lip and the purple swelling of a
black eye appearing in careful strokes.  A crimson line of blood dribbled
across a cut cheek like a flower on snow.

Ava swallowed
hard as the image shifted into focus
.  ‘That’s definitely the two of us...’
she thought as Cole smeared his nose in the image, breaking it in the process. 
‘But Cole’s drowning with me...’
 The man in the self-portrait was
struggling to stay afloat, his hands wrapped tight around the image of Ava. 
His face was torn in anguish, body flagging with exhaustion. There was a hint
of beauty under the destruction.  Tenderness appearing on occasion.

‘Dying
together…’

It made her want
to cry.

Ava wavered on
her feet, eyes darting to her cell phone again.  She realized in shock that
they’d been here all night. Cole was painting even now, though his arms had
slowed, and he paused, panting tiredly every once in a while. Outside, the sky
had lightened to a greenish blue, promising the coming of dawn. Stumbling to
the couch in a daze, Ava pulled off her shoes, slumping down on the cushions,
her mind buzzing with lack of sleep. Cole worked on; he turned around at one
point, surprised to see her watching him.

The image –
larger than life – had transformed again. Their embrace – a death grip – as
they went under the water, no longer held rage and exhaustion.  There was
comfort in death. Ava noted that Cole’s painting style was much more
representational than her own.  She watched in awe as he shifted the curve of
the lips on his self-portrait, so that he was half smiling, as the water rose
to cover his face. Pain on his visage, but relief in the expression.

‘Together, at
the end.’

As if reaching a
pre-defined point, Cole stopped, his body going perfectly still. He stood
before the canvas a long time, anger finally dissipated.  Fatigue and relief
were visible in the relaxed lines of his posture, his body close to collapse.
Exhausted, but whole. He dropped the brush into the water-filled coffee can,
turning back to where Ava waited.

She smiled,
lifting her hand, gesturing him to come near.

Cole joined her
on the low couch. Ava lay down near the back, pulling him close.  He faced
toward her, his paint-stained hands between them, together as if in prayer. 
She tightened her arms around him, her face next to his on the crumpled drop
cloth.  Cole caught her eyes as she relaxed, and for the first time in
hours, he gave a weary smile. 

Ava reached out,
petting his hair, then running her fingers down his back. He didn’t speak,
though he groaned tiredly.  Her fingers brushed his forehead, rubbing away a
smudge of paint. Cole’s body was limp in her arms, weak after the lengthy
process. She recognized this from her own nights of explosive anger as she
waited for his breathing to finally slow. Her hands moved over him again and
again in comfort. Her eyes were riveted to the canvas on the far wall.

‘It’s over…’
her mind
announced.

Finally Cole
slept.

Cole was in the
water, one arm wrapped around her chest, the other slung over the broken mast
to which he clung.

“Swim!” he
roared, but Ava wasn’t answering any longer. Her face, half-submerged, was
ghostly pale, eyes closed, lips faded to blue.

His fingers
tightened around her limp hand. 

“No, Ava!  Stay
with me!”