So he did.
* * *
That evening, to celebrate, he took himself out to dinner. He chose Max’s mainly on the basis that it had the most attractive patio, overlooking one of the central streets. He drank two glasses of a very crisp Sauvignon Blanc and ate a ribeye, medium rare. The steak was excellent, of course, accentuated before grilling by some kind of spice rub, smoky and a little sweet.
When the waiter came for his plate David asked what was in the spice mix. The man smiled and said it was a house secret. As usual, David found this irritating. He wasn’t going to run off and start his own restaurant on the back of a single recipe.
“Is there coffee in it?”
The waited inclined his head. “You have a good palate.”
“Tastes like the brew they have over at Bonnie’s,” David said.
The waiter smiled again, as if to say that he couldn’t possibly confirm or deny such a speculation, and took his plate away.
Back at the cottage, David found himself wishing he’d had one more glass of wine, or else thought to buy a bottle earlier in the day. To distract himself from this line of thinking he went into the studio, though he never normally worked in the evenings. He picked up his brush.
He stopped at midnight, a little confused at how much work he’d done, and the unusual colours in it.
* * *
On Sunday morning the work still looked good, but he wasn’t inclined to add anything just yet. Instead he went walking again. He remembered to take his proper camera this time, and spent a couple of hours taking pictures of particular houses he’d noticed on previous strolls.
After snapping a series of an especially perfect Storybook cottage, he turned to see a man watching him. Not merely a man, in fact, but a policeman, in khaki shorts and short-sleeved shirt. David felt instinctively defensive.
“Beautiful, huh,” the cop said, however. He was young, with short brown hair and a pair of dark glasses. “Always been one of my favourites.”
“I can see why,” David said, surprised. “Know anything about it?”
It turned out the cop did, from the name of the original builder to its current occupants. Then he seemed to realise there was probably something else he should be doing, and nodded, before starting to leave.
“Lucky place to live,” David said. He was speaking largely to himself, but the cop paused.
“Luck doesn’t have a lot to do with it,” he said, before walking away down the street.
* * *
Though he returned to the cottage late morning and spent a couple of hours in the company of his canvas, David did not make any progress. The momentum of the previous day had dissipated. He felt fine. He felt inclined to work. Yet… it wasn’t there.
Yesterday’s link in the chain was not connected to today’s. That happened sometimes. Just as it had once happened, six years ago, that a house he and his wife had wanted very much to purchase had fallen through because the chain of buyers had broken apart. One night it was all in place. By the following lunchtime it was gone. They lost the house.
Often David placed the beginning of the end of their relationship on that morning, that loss. The truth was probably that the chain of I-love-you-I-love-you-too had started to break long before. Even non-events throw shadows. Everything is contingent.
Knowing that the last thing you should do when the work isn’t happening is to stand banging your head against it—sometimes you can painfully bore your way through a blockage, but more often you end up tinkering, ruining the freedom of what you’ve done before—he went downtown for coffee.
He did not sit looking at the wall he was currently trying to portray. He knew enough about it already. What he needed was to clarify his ideas for the shadows he’d be casting upon it. Whose hidden presence did he want to evoke? None of the people he’d observed near it yesterday, that was for sure. Their gilded non-lives didn’t speak to him.
He watched the girl behind the counter inside, wondering if she would do. She was young, somewhat attractive, though carrying the extra pounds around the lower half that Californian women often seem to affect, presumably the result of some Scandinavian influence in the genes. She was very affable, dealing with locals and tourists much the same, and presumably had a real life of some kind. David found it hard to imagine what it would be.
He sat drinking another cup of the seductively complex coffee, and failed to come up with anything. He toyed with it being a couple of tourists’ shadows. A man and a woman, stopping for refreshment while driving up or down the coast. An air of tension, perhaps. Her wanting to enjoy the drive, him concerned with covering the miles to wherever they were booked for the night. Both of them, in their contradictory—and conflicting—ways, merely wanting the best for each other. Would David be able to evoke that through shadows alone?
It wasn’t difficulty that eventually made him go cold on the idea—when it comes to art, difficult is good. It was more the suspicion that no one, himself included, would give a crap when it was done. He needed something with a little more grit.
Finding grit in Carmel—now there was a challenge.
* * *
As he walked out of the alley onto the main street, he realised that in the six, nearly seven days he’d been in town, he hadn’t seen a single person who didn’t look as if they would have a perfect credit score. Also, that this was precisely what he’d been looking for. A Carmel wall, but with the imprint of someone who did not belong. That was the tension that would make the image worthwhile.
He wandered the central streets, on a mission now. After half an hour he still hadn’t seen anyone who stuck out. Everybody dressed the same, spoke the same, walked and shopped the same. It occurred to him that it would make as much sense to stay in one position and keep an eye out for someone passing, and so he did that instead, lighting a cigarette to keep him company.
“You can’t do that,” a voice said, immediately.
David turned to see a middle-aged woman smiling sternly at him. “Huh?”
“Smoking. On the streets. It’s not allowed.”
David looked around for a sign. He was used to this kind of restriction, though generally you had to be within twenty feet of an open doorway the public might use, which he currently was not. “Really?”
“Really. Town ordinance.”
She smiled again, more tightly, and strode up the street. David flicked the end off his cigarette, stowed the butt in the pack, and watched her go.
He spent the rest of the afternoon looking for grit. He walked a long way. He smoked a cigarette once in a while, careful to cup it in his hand, to hide it from passers-by. This, and the task he’d set himself, made him feel as if he was undercover.
When he gave up at five o’clock, he hadn’t seen anyone who looked mildly disadvantaged, never mind actively poor. He’d caught sight of a few Mexicans, engaged in yard-work or carrying sheets to or from vacation rentals, but it wasn’t the economic bracket that mattered. He’d seen no one who… he wasn’t even sure what the umbrella term would be. No one homeless. No one who looked like they’d ever been on medication stronger than some discrete Prozac, or Xanax to smooth out the bumps.
Living in San Francisco—or pretty much any modern town, he’d have thought—brought you into unavoidable occasional contact with someone who seemed to have been jammed into the world sideways. A corner-shouter. A crazy person. Even a simple down-and-out.
In Carmel, not so much. In fact, not at all.
Maybe there was a town ordinance for that, too.
* * *
On the way back to the cottage he stopped off at the grocery store. He brought a few snacks toward an evening meal at home. He also bought a bottle of wine.
After supper he sat out on the front deck and watched the world go by. It went by, smoothly, and without grit.