Painting in the Rain

The letter came when it was raining and I had been looking for my notebook for three days.

I see the postman from my second-story bedroom window and jog down the stairs, hoping to grab the mail from him before he slides it into the swimming pool in the bottom of my letterbox. The new box, that didn’t have a rusted hole in the roof, was sitting in the garage, waiting for a sunny day that hadn’t come. Three months and it hadn’t stopped raining. I can’t even work. I had plans to use the basement as a studio but the foundations leak and water runs down the walls, making it feel like a mountain cave, complete with ambient dripping noises.

The mail is wet. I can see the postie’s fluro jacket halfway down the road already, blurred by the water running down my face. I grab the mail and push back my wet hair, wiping a hand across my eyes so I could see properly.

My hairdryer is still hooked up to the wall next to the toaster. I set the mail down in a row and move the drier back and forth. The first two letters are junk – charities asking for more money. Sorry folks, there isn’t enough to share anymore. My paintings aren’t selling, and I haven’t been able to finish anything new in months. The third letter is a bill. I don’t wait for that one to dry before I tossed it into the bin under the sink with the two that arrived yesterday. They’ll send another.

The fourth letter is a notice from the post office. I have a package.

That was a mystery. I hadn’t done any internet shopping recently - I didn’t have any internet. I hadn’t paid the company in three months. I’d told myself it was to keep myself focused on my art. I had paintings half-finished, piling up in the basement. The damp, freezing basement. Nothing dried down there. Nothing could be finished. There were paintings with smudged prints from something else on the back because it had started raining and I had to pile them under the plastic sheet so they wouldn’t be ruined.

David’s last works paid for this house. He’d always been the talented one of us. The one who could scribble a portrait on a used napkin and the bartender would pay him $100 for it. What he had and I missed was a talent for selling. He could convince you to pay for the shoes you were already wearing. He could make you think his paintings were something worth paying for.

The hairdryer cuts out. So do the lights.

I look up at the ceiling for a long while, waiting for the lights to come back on. I swallow hard.

There are candles in the cupboard. It isn’t night but it is dark. The clouds are still inky and pregnant with rain. I set the candles down on the bench. A stub in an old brass holder and citronella in radioactive green. I have candles, but matches… I search the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen, then in the living room. They aren’t near the cold woodfire – there are plenty of dead trees in the yard, but who has the time? It’s always raining so the wood would always be wet anyway. I couldn’t find them upstairs either. At some point, I stop looking for matches and started looking for my notebook again. Not under the mattress on the floor in the bedroom, or in any of the sheets. Not under the bathroom sink or on the half-empty bookshelves – all the books worth anything had been sold when I moved. I think for a moment I’ve found it in the room I use for storing unopened boxes, but it is a finished book – identical. I always bought the same one – a small, 40-page, leather-bound black notebook. This one is sitting on top of a taped-up box labelled sketchbooks. I should put them away somewhere. But the one I am using at the moment is only half full and it had a sketch in it that I wanted to use.

It had been one of those moments. I hadn’t had one since I moved into this house. It had been raining, but a drizzle – a sun shower. The sort of rain that made you believe in magic, that made everything smell stronger and the grass and trees glitter. Not this pelting, mud-making misery. I had gone out to the park and for a moment I forgot myself. I found my flow and I made that sketch. And when I finished, I knew I had to paint it. I left the park and ran home. The rain was getting harder. Anyone who saw me would have thought I was trying to escape the weather but at that moment I didn’t feel it. For the first time in months, I didn’t see the rain or dark clouds. I needed to get home to my paints and that’s all that mattered. I was home. I found a blank canvas somewhere in the piles of half-finished paintings. I dragged it up into the house. I found my paints and my brushes and then… and then I couldn’t find my notebook. My little black notebook – 40 pages, 20 filled, with my name and address written in gold on the front, just like every other notebook in my box, and my unrealised masterpiece right in the middle. I couldn’t find it. I went back to the park, I searched the basement as the water seeped down the walls. I keep checking the mailbox even when the post has already been delivered - just in case. Three days. No notebook. And no matches.

I decide to go out. I’ll buy matches before the sun goes down. I find a few dollars in the ashtray of my car. Parking money I don’t need because the tank is empty. I grab my old oilskin coat from the hook on the back of the door and my keys from the bowl in the kitchen. I am about to leave but… I grab the damp post office notice. I could do with a mystery to occupy my mind – a problem that could be solved with a quick jog into town and not with money.

I go straight to the post office and stand in line, dripping on their carpet next to a full umbrella stand.

David would have laughed. He would have told me that I’d be the subject of one of his paintings. The contrast. I could hear him talking in my head. An old conversation applied to a new context. It’s all about contrast. A wet mess in a room full of crisp businessmen and private-school mums.

I wipe my face and take a deep, ragged breath. I step up to the desk when the shop-lady calls “next!”. I push the notice across the desk and look at her.

“Do you have any ID?” she asks me. No. I don’t. My wallet is somewhere in my house, but I don’t know where. I haven’t used it in so long. I shake my head. She looks at me and then the note and sighs. “I’ll be right back.”

She returns with a white and yellow post office bag.

“what’s your name?” she asks, typing something into the computer. The package is within reach. The bag is deflated and sad.

“Andrea Graham,” I said.

“Do you have anything that can prove that?”

“No,” I put my hands in my pockets and look at the floor. My hair drips water onto her desk. my fingers brush against something. I pull out the notebook and stare at it. “Yes!” I hand the book to her. The pages are damp but not soaked and the writing on the front is clear as the day I wrote it. Name and address. The woman shakes her head but pushes the package and my notebook across the desk.

“Have a good day,” she says. I don’t say anything. I walk home in the rain, clutching the package to my chest. Water is streaming down my face, but I couldn’t get any wetter if I went swimming.

I’m at the letterbox when I realise I forgot to buy matches. The coins are still in my pocket with my notebook. I go inside and flick through the notebook. It’s not the one I lost. It’s the one from upstairs. I don’t remember pocketing it. I go upstairs and have a shower. The water is still hot and I stand there until it isn’t any more. If this is my last warm shower I’m going to enjoy it.

I leave my wet clothes on the bathroom floor and wrap myself in David’s oversized blue robe. I walk downstairs barefoot. It’s really getting dark now. I sit at the bench and look at the unfamiliar handwriting on the package. I can’t wait anymore. I rip it open and tip the contents onto the table. A brown paper wrapped package tied with a ribbon and a crisp white envelope. I open the package first and stare at it. A black notebook, the size of my hand. I turn it over and see, printed on the front in gold handwriting, my name and address. I flick through it. It’s half-empty. I open the letter. A piece of paper falls onto the table as I unfold the pages.

“Andrea Graham,” I have to squint through the gloom to see the writing, “I happened upon your notebook in the park yesterday morning. I meant to return it to you that day, but I caught a glimpse of the contents. The last sketch in particular. I was hypnotised. I couldn’t let it go without knowing that I would see it realised."

"I am something of a collector. I knew I recognised your name and after seeing your sketch I did some research. I have discovered that I have several of your late husband’s paintings in my collection."

"David Graham was a salesperson. I met him a handful of times and each time I walked away with a painting under my arm, but he did not have your talent. I cannot forgive him for hiding you from me and I would like to commission you."

"I have included a check;”

I pick up the fallen piece of paper and almost choke. I stare at the number written in the same curly handwriting. The light dwindles as I sit, staring at it. It’s almost too dark to see when I pick up the letter again.

“A second in the same amount will be sent to you on the completion of that painting. If this amount is not appropriate, please contact me and we can come to an arrangement. My contact details are below.”

I put down the letter and stare at the check. 20,000 dollars. Still clutching it I leap up and dig through the bin. I pull three unopened bills out of the rubbish. I stare at them almost as long as I had at the check.

There is a phone box down the street. I’m only in my dressing gown and It’s pouring with rain. It’s getting late.

But I didn’t buy any matches so even with a canvas sitting in the living room ready for a brush, I can’t paint until morning. I slip the check inside my notebook and leave it on the bench as I run upstairs. I find today's pants on the bathroom floor and dig through the pockets to find the coins for the matches. I keep the letter in my pocket, one hand over it to make sure it’s still there - still real - as I slip on my boots and run through the rain in David’s blue robe.