An Episode of Remnants.

Episode Content Warnings

Please bear in mind that this work has content some listeners may find distressing, including themes of war, violence, and grief. This episode contains:

– coarse language

– descriptions of war and occupied territories

– child neglect and endangerment

– descriptions of a fascist regime

– implications of sex with dubious consent

– descriptions of violence

– references to consensual sex

– implications of murder

Transcript

COLD OPEN (NO INTRO MUSIC)

A DOOR OPENS, A BELL TINKLES

SIR
Look alive, would you?

THE APPRENTICE STARTS AWAKE

THE APPRENTICE
Huh?

SIR
Didn’t you hear the bell?

THE APPRENTICE
Oh, right, of course. Sorry, sir.

FOOTSTEPS. THERE ARE MANY CLOCKS TICKING.

A SOUND GROWS, LIKE STRANGE WIND

THE APPRENTICE
Sir?

FOOTSTEPS

SIR
Make haste.

THE APPRENTICE YELPS IN SURPRISE

SIR
I’d move your head, if I were you.

THE APPRENTICE
What?

SOMETHING THUDS LOUDLY ONTO A TABLE. THE RISING WIND SOUND STOPS WHEN IT LANDS.

THE APPRENTICE
A box.

SIR
Your powers of observation astound me. Aren’t you going to look at it?

THE APPRENTICE
Yeah. That would make sense, wouldn’t it?

SIR
I should hope so.

THE APPRENTICE
Um. No, no label, no name, nothing, just ‘returns’ stamped on the side.

SIR
Well?

THE APPRENTICE
Well, sir?

SIR
Aren’t you going to process it?

THE APPRENTICE
The box, sir?

SIR
Yes.

THE APPRENTICE
Oh. I. Uh. I suppose so, sir?

SIR
Very good.

THE APPRENTICE
Yeah. How exactly do you–

SIR
What do you normally do with boxes, dear apprentice?

APPRENTICE
Open them, sir.

SIR
Indeed.

APPRENTICE
Oh. Right.

PAPER RUSTLES. PORCELAIN CLINKS.

APPRENTICE
It’s a teacup.

SIR
A porcelain teacup.

APPRENTICE
Right. Glad it didn’t break when it fell.

SIR
Of course it didn’t.

APPRENTICE
Oh.

SIR
Well?

APPRENTICE
Well, sir?

SIR
Aren’t you going to process it?

APPRENTICE
Ah, yeah! Of course! Just. What do I need to do, to process it?

SIR
You have to read it.

APPRENTICE
Read it?

SIR
Yes.

APPRENTICE
But it’s a cup, sir?

SIR
Indeed. But if you don’t read it, how will you know how to process it?

AS THE APPRENTICE SPEAKS, AN ODD SOUND IS MADE, ALMOST LIKE A TRAIN PASSING BY, OR THE RUSH OF SOMETHING THROUGH THE AIR. THEN IT FADES.

APPRENTICE
I don’t know, sir. But I just can’t— sir? Oh you’ve— sir?
Where did he go?

APPRENTICE
Right, wonderful. Now I just need to figure out how to read a teacup.

PORCELAIN CLINKS AS THE APPRENTICE HANDLES IT.

APPRENTICE
Okay, let’s have a look. Just an ordinary teacup. Floral pattern around the side. It’s well used, the inside is all stained only… I don’t think it’s stained by tea. There’s… I think it’s paint, the residue of paint?

SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF

APPRENTICE
Yeah, sort of chalky on the nose, interesting? But it’s a pretty nice teacup. On the bottom, Royal Doulton. Uh. Well, that’s the only writing on it, so. Hmm. I wonder if I’m supposed to just find a place on one of the shelves for it to go? I didn’t see any teacups on the way here, though. Or honestly any sense of organisation.

SIR
(distant, undulating)
Look for a sign.

APPRENTICE
Look for a sign.

FABRIC RUSTLES AS THE APPRENTICE GETS TO HIS FEET.

APPRENTICE
Oh! Big gold arrow on the floor, ‘processing this way’! How helpful.

AS THE APPRENTICE WALKS, SOUNDS OF TICKING AND WHIRRING AND MOVING MECHANISMS GET LOUDER IN ALL DIRECTIONS. HE PAUSES FOR A MOMENT.

APPRENTICE
Cor. Place is huge!

HE WALKS ON.

APPRENTICE
Ah, another sign: ‘Processing’.

A HEAVY DOORHANDLE CLUNKS AND THE APPRENTICE MAKES A SOUND OF EFFORT AS HE SHOVES THE DOOR OPEN AND IT GROANS AGAINST HEAVILY THE FLOOR.

APPRENTICE
(straining)
Oh, buggar me!

THE APPRENTICE TAKES A STEP INTO THE ROOM. INSIDE IS A JUDDERING, BASSY RUMBLE, AND LAYERS UPON LAYERS OF WORDLESS WHISPERS.

THE APPRENTICE’S FOOTSTEPS SOUND LIKE THEY ARE STEPPING INTO WATER

APPRENTICE
(whispering)
Hello?

THEIR VOICE ECHOES AND THE WHISPERING STOPS.

THE DOOR SLAMS LOUDLY.

APPRENTICE
Dear lord, the box— !

THE TEACUP SHATTERS, BUT THE SOUND HANGS STILL, REVERBERATING. THE APPRENTICE GASPS AND IT BLENDS WITH A STRANGE, MANY-VOICED GASP.

AFTER A MOMENT, A CHILD CRIES OUT IN A LANGUAGE OTHER THAN ENGLISH, OVER THE SOUNDS OF DISTANT CONVERSATION AND WAVES LAPPING AT THE SHORE.

APPRENTICE
A little girl watches children playing on the beach.

She wants to join them, but she won’t. She never does.

She is just old enough now to notice that the other children laugh at her, and she doesn’t like it. Instead, she sits with her father. He paints them, faceless renderings, barely more than stick figures. He will sell the paintings in town tomorrow for 2 centimes. Purveyors will haggle down the price.

‘Painted by my daughter, Celine,’ her father will say. Celine can yet barely hold a paintbrush, but he smears oil colours on her stubby fingers, gums it into strands of her half-matted hair. ‘See how she will dance for you,’ he says. Celine spins in her worn leather shoes. Patrons clap. They throw a centime or two to the cobbles at her feet.

A WHOOSH OF AIR. THE SOUND OF BIRDSONG.

Two summers later, her father leans on his crutch. He tells those who ask him that he lost his leg on the Marne, Jutland, Verdun. He is grubby and red faced from the brandy he drinks from a small flasks which never seem to empty.

‘This is my trade,’ he tells Celine as he paints his wobbly figures. ‘I was once a great painter, but they broke my hands, you see?’ he tells her.

She takes his hand. His fingers are twice as big as hers, his skin rough and loose around his bones. In her grip, he trembles. ‘Come,’ he tells her, and pats the lap of his still-there leg. ‘Come tell me what you see.’

Celine looks across the meadow they are sitting in. It is high summer and they have come out to the countryside beyond Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer. Her father says they have come to escape the heat, but it feels just as hot to Celine out in the fields, only there is even less to do here than in town.

Last night they slept in a tumbledown cottage and Celine lay awake listening to the trills of crickets and the low crackling of the toads.

There is a hot sweet stink of cow dung on the breeze, wafting from the farmland beyond the meadow’s edge. A farmer turns a brown corner of field with a tiller made of bright new metal that flashes in the early sunlight of the morning.

Celine’s father takes a swig from his brandy. Celine lifts a paintbrush from the porcelain teacup by her father’s feet to her tongue to wet it before she dips it in the paint. She swirls golden yellows into muted browns and swirls of grey.

An hour later when she turns the canvas to her father, it holds a shoddy portrait. His eyes glisten. ‘My sweet, you see me,’ he tells her. He kisses her hair. ‘Sweet girl, but this will never sell.’

A WHOOSH OF AIR. THE DISTANT, ALMOST-BLURRY SOUNDS OF A BUSY STREET.

Celine has grown tall and willowy. She walks with her hands behind her back. She keeps her head down, her red hair hidden under a beige scarf.

She left her father sleeping at his pitch, paintings tied to the railings with yarn and string. She walks half a step behind a woman with a large perambulator. The baby inside is fussing, emitting loud squawks every few seconds. The woman pushing the pram is a governess. Her clothes are neat, black, plain, expensive but worn. Celine can see mending on the hem of the skirt and dotted lines down the jacket’s centre back where the seams have been let out a little.

Town is busy; there is activity in the hills outside of the main part of town, at the remains of a Roman villa. For months the wealthier Saint-Cyriens have been torn between complaining about the dust and disruption, and being excited about the knowledgeable and important men it’s been bringing into town. The researchers set up long tables on top of the ruins, preserving mosaics and pottery and hundreds of other artefacts.

Celine hopes that the crowds will mean more people will buy hers and her father’s paintings. No longer a ham-fisted toddler masquerading as a prodigy, Celine has long overtaken her father’s creative pace. She has learned how to perfectly mimic his style – style he once passed off as Celine’s, anyway – and has been developing it into something better and more refined, incorporating more figures into the landscapes, thinking more carefully of composition.

They are selling more paintings, and though her father is please, Celine senses something uneasy in him about it. Where he once complimented her skills, he has become increasingly critical.

His own hands are becoming unsteady. A week ago he threatened to tear Celine’s paintings to shreds and start selling broken crockery from the old villa like everyone else, as they seem to be doing much better than they are.

It’s not true, though, and Celine knows it. The crockery peddlers are an oversaturated market. Hers and her father’s paintings are selling the best they’ve ever sold. But still, it is barely enough for them to live.

Celine thinks it’s a wonder the researchers has any artefacts left to study at all given the amount she’s seen being sold on the town streets. She knew for a fact most of them weren’t legitimate, that most of the shards of roman pots were actually cheap broken crockery. That didn’t really matter, though, in Celine’s opinion. The people buying the shards weren’t experts or even particularly interested in the Romans at all. They weren’t going to be using the pots to teach anybody anything, they just wanted a little piece of the story to take home with them, so it didn’t matter if it was real, so long as they believed it was. In fact, Celine thought, it was probably better to sell these people fakes than the genuine article anyway. What good would a real bit of Roman pottery do sitting in the cabinet of some lady, forgotten behind this week’s fresh flowers?

The governess stops to soothe the fussing baby in it’s huge, ornate pram. Celine pads forwards and with a deft swish of the scalpel she uses to sharpen her pencils, severs the cords holding the governess’s pocket in place. Celine slips the pocket into the folds of her dress and crosses the street, heading up towards the hills that grow out of the edge of town like spines.

Once she’s left town sufficiently behind herself, Celine settles behind a large rock and empties the contents of the governess’s pocket onto the floor between her shoes. A silver rattle, a small sewing kit, an assortment of buttons, and a tiny coin purse. A few francs rattle inside. It’s not much, but it’s enough to buy bread for Celine and her father, and perhaps something sweet, too. It’s not a sensible use of money, but there will be more pockets to steal and her father has seemed so tired and melancholy for weeks. She takes the coins and the rattle, leaves the rest in the dirt, and runs back into town.

As Celine nears the bakery, she notices a crowd is gathering near the town hall. Something to do with the museum, she supposes. The baker eyes Celine with doubt as she approaches the counter and chooses a large, round loaf, and a small almond pastry, which to the baker’s surprise, she pays for in advance. She walks out with her goods under her arm.

The crowd is still there. They’re gathered around the edge of the market, as though some fancy new stall has set up in the hour or so since Celine was last here. But as Celine passes them, she realises that their tone is all wrong. They’re whispering fast. Some women are crying, handkerchieves held over downturned mouths.

Celine wanders over, and as she does, curiously, the crowd begins to part, many of the onlookers giving Celine strange and doleful looks.

When finally she reaches the fence where her father has tied up her paintings to sell them, she sees him. He’s sat on the overturned crate he always sits on when he’s selling their wares, but his posture is tumbledown, like an old cottage, like the beams have rotten and the stones are falling in on themselves. His eyes are staring at Celine, but he is looking through her, at some scene Celine knows only the dead can see. When she takes his leathery hand between her own, the bread and pastry dropped and forgotten several feet behind her, her father’s skin is beginning to cool. She thinks how strange that is on such a warm day. She realises she’d never noticed before just how warm people are, and how cold it is possible for them to become.

A WHOOSH OF AIR; THE SOUND OF HORSE-HOOVES ON COBBLESTONES

Celine sways her weight from hip to hip, making a show of tapping her finger to her bottom lip, feigning consideration. A young British military officer examines the painting she has had the hotel’s butler display upon a small chaise. It’s fairly small. A real collector would know Monet usually worked at a much grander scale than this.

The young man, Jules, whose hotel room Celine is standing in is very pretty, sharp eyed, and fancies himself an art enthusiast, but he incorrectly identified three paintings at the Louvre, so if he is a true enthusiast, he’s not a particularly knowledgeable one.

Jules pays equal regard to Celine and her painting. ‘And Monsieur Fauvre has authenticity it?’ Jules says, in broken French.

Celine nods. He looks at her for a long moment, eyes flitting back and forth between each of hers, then leans in close to the canvas, inspecting the outsized brush-marks.

Monet has a particular method of getting his paint from his brush, Celine has learned. In her first few attempts at this haystack – layered under the final image, which Jules has his nose just inches from, now – looked evocative of Monet’s work but could not have passed for it to even a passing admirer.

She’d returned to his display a dozen times and stood as close to the works as she allowed, trying to work out what it was, exactly, she was missing. Something to do with the underpainting, she thought, and then the method of application was wrong.

‘Monsieur Fauvre will accept sterling, yeah?’

Celine’s heart clenched. ‘Ah, no. I’d prefer in Francs.’

Jules frowned. ‘My uncle told me to use Fauvre because he was very reasonable about foreign currencies.’

Celine fidgeted. She can’t take the whole payment in sterling; it will involve going to a bank and explaining how she came by this money. Nobody knows her in Paris well enough to vouch for her and though she can pass as a shop’s assistant to foolish Englishman in her dress made of stolen curtains, any Frenchman with an eye would recognise the patterning and spot her for what she was; someone attempting to appear to come from money when she did not.

‘Please, I am trying to show initiative, I am only Monsieur Fauvre’s assistant shop girl, but I want to be a real art dealer like him. I want to prove to him I am capable, you see?’

Jules sighs. ‘We’re due to head across France, I’d rather keep a hold of my francs. Who knows what we’ll need to pick up on the way?’

Celine nods, hoping that biting her lip makes her look sympathetic.

British soldiers have been passing through the capital all summer. In June, she overhead old men in cafes complaining about it. We’ll never go to war with the Germans, they said, our memory is too long. Too much blood was spilled on French soil in the Great War, they said. Others disagreed. By July there were heated arguments in every bar and cafe. It’s our duty to go to war with the Germans, cried the young. You don’t remember what we lost, raved the old.

Now, in September, there is war, but it still doesn’t feel like it. The wealthy British Officers, like Jules, seem to treat the start of their journey as a holiday. Celine wonders if perhaps all men treat war like this, even when it’s a proper war. Perhaps it is because they are young and they are men and so they have had the world handed to them, so they don’t know how to be afraid when it might be taken away.

Celine, who grew up with nothing but the clothes on her back, glances at the painting, then at Jules. ‘Well. I suppose I will take sterling,’ she says. ‘Pay with what Francs you have and I will take sterling for the rest,’ Celine concludes with a nod.

This way maybe she’ll be able to spend money on a fancy dress which will get her taken seriously in a bank. She’d been hoping to spend the money from this painting on renting somewhere to sleep instead of lurking around shop fronts and going home with strange men.

‘Ah,’ says Jules, with an indulgent smile. ‘Well you see, I only have five francs in my name. Perhaps I can pay some kind of premium? For your trouble? I— I’m sure if I come by his office tomorrow and mention my uncle, and your incredible work as an assistant, Mr Fauvre—’

‘No, no,’ says Celine, quickly. ‘I understand. I will take payment however you can manage it.’

‘How about a twenty percent premium?’ asked Jules, turning to the small writing desk in the corner of the room. ‘Will that impress your employer sufficiently?’

‘Most definitely,’ says Celine. She supposed she could take portions of the money to different banks, maybe that would allow her to have the cash converted.

Jules hands Celine a stack of bank notes. She folds them into her pocket. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she says, with a little bow.

‘Aren’t you going to count it?’ Jules asks.

A hot thrill runs down Celine’s sternum. Of course she should have counted it. She smiles her most broad and beautiful smile. ‘I trust you,’ she tells him.

‘I’ll be back in Paris in the Spring,’ says Jules. ‘Perhaps I might call on you then, at Mr Fauvre’s?’

‘That would be lovely,’ says Celine. She will likely have left Paris by then.

‘What a delight,’ says Jules.

Celine bows again and leaves the hotel room. As soon as the door closes behind her, a shudder racks her body. Her hands drop to her sides, balling into fists. She breathes shallow and hot, walking fast, her head down. She takes her coat from the cloakrooms, ignoring the maid’s sneer at all of the poorly executed seams. She pulls up her hood, slips her hand into her pocket to paw the edges of the notes Jules has given her.

A WHOOSH, A FIRE CRACKLES.

Celine buttons her dress, staring at the military dress coat hanging on the back of the chair opposite her.

‘And it is a real Monet?’ asks the man smoking, naked, behind her.

Celine glances at the painting. ‘Oh yes,’ she says, with a small smile.

‘Almost as nice face as you,’ he says, in his German-accented French.

Celine tries her best to smile. She finishes buttoning her dress. ‘Thank you for the wine,’ she says, and begins to head to the door. When she reaches for the handle, the man grabs her wrist. Celine’s heart thuds in her chest.

‘Fragile as a bird,’ he says, his fingers closing tighter.

Celine tries to smile. She closes her free hand around the keys in her pocket, nestled next to the money the Nazi officer has paid for her painting.

‘I hope to see you flying about, little birdie,’ he says. He lets her go.

Celine smiles and a little laugh tumbles out of her. The officer has already turned his attention back to the paper he has propped against his bare thighs.

Celine closes the door gently behind herself. She takes a long, slow breath, and hurries down the stairs. She leaves out the back door in case anyone is awake, though it’s just before dawn. They already think so little of her.

Celine heads home, head down, ignoring the whistles from other German soldiers that she passes. When finally she reaches her little flat, she closes the door softly, as gently as she can, and slowly sinks to the ground with her back against it. She buries her face in her knees. She has not cried for years, and for a moment, she longs to, she aches for the prickle of fresh tears in her eyes, but none come.

She gets up, dusts herself off, and sits at her easel. The piece she is working on is meant to be a Renoir, an early version of the La Baigneuse. ‘From Monsieur’s workshop, rescued after his death,’ Celine practices saying the words in German, under her breath. ‘A priceless masterpiece that would befit a man of status like you.’

Celine swirls the paint on her palate. ‘From the workshop of Monsieur Renoir itself, it’s a real treasure, almost lost to time. Such a thing deserves…’

Celine swipes a gently muddled shadow, the implication of a jaw, onto the face of the woman she had painted yesterday. Her cheeks are plump, blood red. The lines of her body are soft, like a cloud’s. She is full and well-fed and with every careful brushstroke, Celine is filled with more and more envy.

‘It’s a treasure, my old master Monsieur Fauvre was lucky to come across it, from Renoir’s own workshop. It was not discovered until after his death. It’s one of a kind, an early version of his famous piece La Baigneuse. See how the shapes here are a little more refined, less organic than in there? I see her a self-consciousness. An insecurity. The love of the final piece is here overtaken by a certain kind of rage.’

Celine throws her palate aside. She breathes heavily. She puts her face in her hands. She does not cry.

A WHOOSH. THE BUSTLE OF A BUSY STREET

Celine tucks a short strand of hair behind her ear, rearranging the bag of oranges slung over her shoulder. The scabs on her scalp have long healed but sometimes when she combs her hair, the teeth meet the scars there and make her shudder.

The day the Germans were forced out of the city was a day of celebration, until it wasn’t, until they grabbed at Celine and cut her hair with shears, tore her dresses, threw her into the mud.

Her hair would have grown to her shoulders by now if she had let it, but instead she keeps it cropped short, a little higher than her jaw. It’s makes her look bold and chic, this flash of neat blonde waves.

She likes to dress all in one colour. This is a statement, too. She has become a go-to seller for the wealthy Italian enthusiast of French paintings. She is known to be able to make almost anything happen for her clients, and none of them will talk about how much she costs to make it happen.

At home, her son, six years old, is spread out on the large rug, drawing in a sketchbook. ‘Mama!’ he cries when she walks in. His grin is filled with half-grown teeth. The older he gets, the more he looks like his father, who was shot against a wall in Paris the night before VE Day by a man from the French Resistance. Benoit was born six months later.

Benoit shows Celine his drawing. ‘There’s you,’ he says, pointing at a sausage shaped figure with a yellow scribble at the top, two dots for eyes, and a sideways parenthesis for a smile. ‘Here’s me,’ he says, pointing at a dark haired circle with stick arms and legs pointing out at the sides.

‘Where are my arms and legs, you silly cabbage,’ she says, lifting him onto her hip.

Benoit giggles and she promises to herself she will never, ever tell him who his father is.

WHOOSH; A HUM OF CONVERSATION

Celine laughs indulgently at a joke she didn’t listen to. Across the ballroom, her eyes catch a young man leaning against the back of a chair. Though his coat and tails are well tailored, there’s something a miss with him. His posture is off, his hips swung casually. He reminds Celine of her paintings.

‘Ah, I see you’ve spotted young Perry,’ says Celine’s acquaintance, whose name she cannot be bothered to remember.

‘You know him?’ says Celine.

‘You don’t?’ says her friend. ‘Goodness, that doesn’t happen often. I’m being gauche, calling him Perry; he’s Lord du Perier. I’m surprised you don’t know him; his wife is a Parisian, like you.’

‘I see,’ says Celine, hiding her bristle with a smile. ‘A shame we’ve not yet been acquainted.’

‘Oh, would you like me to introduce you?’

‘That would be a delight,’ says Celine.

The boy holds Celine’s gaze as she makes her way around the dancers in the centre of the room. He is a boy, too; at least fifteen years Celine’s junior. She prides herself on her looks and is certain nobody in the room would know that, however. Celine’s friends make their introductions.

‘I’ve heard of you,’ says du Perier, in French that is accented but smooth. ‘You’re the French art dealer everyone has been raving about.’

‘Guilty,’ says Celine. She sips her champagne.

‘I love your work,’ says du Perier.

Celine smiles, frowning. ‘Oh, it’s nothing, I’m a middleman, really.’

‘Ah,’ says du Perier with a smile. He looks at Celine’s hands. ‘Of course,’ he says, with a wink.

Celine laughs. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,’ she says.

Du Perier smiles. He grabs another flute of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray. He stands up straight, and it’s as though he assuming a new skin. His boyish grin is softer, more dignified. Celine cannot help but smile back.

‘Monet and Renoir. The masters would quake in their boots,’ du Perier mutters.

Hours later, Celine is pressed against the wall in her hallway, du Perier’s nose on her throat. His hands on her bare shoulders are not a gentleman’s hands. They’re rough, scarred, but his touch is gentle. He pulls Celine’s dress up around her hips, and kisses his way down to meet his fingers.

They lie on the rug in Celine’s living room afterwards, smoking. Du Perier never took his trousers the whole way off. Celine’s dress is crumpled, but likewise still covering her. Du Perier is staring at Celine’s latest piece.

‘Where did you learn to paint like that?’

‘My father hated my portraits,’ says Celine.

‘That’s not an answer,’ says du Perier.

‘How did a beggar become a lord?’ asked Celine.

Du Perier grinned. ‘I was never a begger.’

‘What then? A thief?’

Du Perier shakes his head. ‘Are you a thief?’ he asks.

Celine thinks on this a moment. She shakes her head.

Du Perier runs his hand over his face. ‘Do you ever wish they knew it was yours? They love your work, Celine, they hang it in their homes, pay thousands for it. But they don’t know you made it. Doesn’t that hurt?’

Celine does not know how to answer this.

When she wakes in the morning, du Perier is gone, leaving not even a note. For some reason this, of all things, makes Celine’s eyes sting. She touches her most recent painting.

WHOOSH. THE SOUND OF THE SEA.

Celine sees du Perier three times over the next years. Once he stays three days, meets Benoit.

Celine is horrified to think that if du Perier were just a couple of years younger, he and her son would make fast friends, not that she wanted Benoit to keep such a man for company.

Since that first night, he has not mentioned her paintings again.

She has heard rumours about him, about what he may be doing with his time. Each time she feels she may be getting closer to the truth, it makes her shudder. He’s a nobody boy; that’s what she likes about him. They can be real with each other without needing to speak the truth. The truth has nothing to do with reality. Reality is all about believing. To her clients, those paintings are real Monets and Renoirs. To Benoit his father was René Fauvre, even though he had been killed by German soldiers two years before Benoit was conceived.

Fuck the truth. It has offered Celine nothing. Reality is all about believing. The truth has nothing to do with reality. To Celine’s clients, those paintings are real Monets and Renoirs. To Benoit, his father really was Rene Fauvre, even though he had been killed by German soldiers two years before Benoit was conceived.

Celine and du Perier meet for the last time in Valencia, in the height of summer. The little house where he is staying stinks of oranges; it seems to be all he eats. His hands are often sticky with them. There is something off about him, something strange and hurried. He seems older, now, old the way Celine has begun to feel. When they sleep together it is hurried, frenetic, and makes her worry.

‘Perry,’ she says to him, as they lie in his bed afterwards.

Du Perier runs his hands over his face. Celine touches his spine and thinks back to their conversation on the rug, the night they met. ‘The paintings are not mine,’ she answers. ‘If they were, nobody would love them.’

Du Perier turns to Celine, his expression filled with disgust. In silence, he dresses and leaves her in the house. Celine stays there all day, all night, all the next day and night too. Celine wanders around the little house that stinks of oranges. Their hollowed out husks sit mouldering on the counters. There are no clean linens in the cupboards, no clothes in any of the wardrobes. The drawers and cupboards in the kitchen are all empty, except for a single tea cup. It looks almost exactly like the one her father used to use to wet his paintbrushes. She thinks of him sharpening the bristles on his tongue.

Celine takes out the teacup and weighs in her hands. She squeezes several oranges into it, mashing the flesh with a fork, licking the juice that spills down her wrists.

As night begins to fall, Celine stands in the small courtyard at the back of the house, listening to the creak of nearby crickets. She sips the juice; it tastes odd, too sweet, and there’s something metallic about it.

She hears something, a sound, in the house. She strains her ears, but all is quiet again.

Celine takes a few steps towards the back door. ‘Perry?’ she calls. But this is not his name. Nor is du Perier. ‘Do you want to talk?’ she calls.

There is a crack of cold pain on the back of Celine’s head; her vision flashes white. She hears the teacup shatter on the tiled floor and feels her balance failing. She looks out across the ocean at Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer. She will not play with the other children for they do not like her.

WHOOSH.

THE SOUND OF A TEACUP SHATTERING.

THE APPRENTICE GASPS, BREATHING HEAVILY. HE TAKES A FEW UNSTEADY STEPS, FEET SPLASHING IN SHALLOW WATER.

SIR
So? What do you think?

APPRENTICE
(breathless)
What?!

SIR
Shelve or discard?

APPRENTICE
What do you– what do you even mean?!

SIR
Are you asking for a more precise definition or an outline of the task?

APPRENTICE
Yes!

SIR
That is not an appropriate answer to my question.

APPRENTICE
Mph, well. Okay. What’s the criteria I’m using to make this decision?

SIR
You will need criteria to pass judgement?

APPRENTICE
Yes!

SIR
Ah, I see. I didn’t think of that. We shall try again.

APPRENTICE
What? When?

SIR
When I have your criteria. For now, go to sleep.

A STRANGE, LOW, REVERBERATING HUM. THE APPRENTICE EXHALES AND IT ECHOES.

OUTRO MUSIC

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