Fascination Read Online Free

on the pavement, shadow wheels touching real rubber wheels, was both absolutely exact and yet undeniably distorted. The phrase ‘as faithful as a shadow’ came into his head and he thought how true it was, but then wondered, where did your shadow go when the sun wasn’t shining?… How could be something be faithful if you couldn’t see it?… And then he found his thoughts were returning to his mother and Lucien and he decided he would cycle back as slowly as possible, hoping Lucien would be gone by the time he arrived home and he would not have to encounter him, mysteriously washed and perfumed, a permanentsmile on his lips and full of an unfamiliar and repugnant affection for Oliver.
    The old painter was still sitting motionless in his field, still staring out at the sea and the coastline. The afternoon had turned hazy, the sky full of spilt-milk clouds, but still glarey and dazzling. Coming from the other direction Oliver could now see what was on the canvas, and as he approached he was surprised to note that it seemed almost black, full of murky blues and dark greys. For an absurd second, as he glanced at the silvered sea with its vast backdrop of sunlit cloud, he wondered if the painter might be blind. And then he wondered if he might be dead. People could die like that suddenly, sitting up, just stiffen into a posture like that – they could, he’d read about it.
    ‘Are you all right, Monsieur?’ Oliver asked softly.
    The painter turned slowly round. He had a big rectangular face, its features powerfully present – the nose, the eyes, the thin, wide mouth, the absolutely white hair – yet in no way distinctive or handsome, just a strong simple oblong face, Oliver thought, but somehow oddly memorable.
    ‘But of course, young man,’ the painter said. ‘Many thanks for asking.’
    Oliver had parked his bicycle and had climbed over the fence and approached the painter without seeing any movement in him, aware now that he wasn’t in fact dead, of course, but curious about his impressive immobility.
    ‘I thought,’ Oliver began, ‘because you weren’t painting that –’
    ‘No, I was just refreshing my memory,’ the painter said. ‘I just needed to come out here again, in case I had got something wrong.’
    Oliver looked at the murky canvas, which showed, as far as he could tell, a ship washed up on a shore in the night. He looked up at the bleached, blinding sky and back at the dark, thin canvas.
    ‘This happened a long time ago,’ the painter said in explanation, pointing at his painting.
    He began to ask Oliver polite questions: what is your name? –Oliver Feverall – how old are you? – almost twelve – where do you live? – Château Les Pruniers, but just for the summer.
    ‘You speak very good French, but you have an English name,’ the painter observed. Oliver told him that his mother was French and his father was English. His mother was an actress, she had appeared in half a dozen films, perhaps he knew of her – Fabienne Farde? – the painter confessed he did not.
    ‘Perhaps you’ve heard of my father, he’s a famous film director, Denton Feverall?’
    ‘I rarely go to the cinema,’ the painter said, beginning to pack away his brushes and tubes. As far as Oliver could tell, he hadn’t added a stroke of colour to his grimy canvas, just come outside and stared at it for a couple of hours.
    They walked back to the gate that led to the coast road. The painter admired Oliver’s bicycle, admired the efficacy of its folding-down stand. Oliver tried once more.
    ‘It was given to me by a singer, a famous singer, he’s in Deauville for the summer, at the Casino – Lucien Navarro.’
    ‘Lucien Navarro, Lucien Navarro…’ the painter repeated, holding his forefinger erect on his right hand as if calling for silence. Oliver waited. Then, after a while: ‘No, never heard of him.’ Oliver shrugged, wondering what kind of reclusive life this man led who had never heard of Fabienne