chatham house

        From the heights of Spyglass Hill they gazed out upon the Spanish Main. Hannah had stumbled during the climb and brused her knee. Mister Radcliff suggested they pause for a moment. He sat beside her in the thrashing tall grass and remarked: "The view is positively inspiring."
        "When I was a young girl I would tarry here after school."
       A sapphire sea spanned the points of romantic imagination. Midway, cobalt patches of cloud-shadow drifted windward like flat whales.
        A lonesome zephyr moaned through a nearby copse of Australian tea trees, tawny bark rustling like pages of an open book. Imported a century ago to drain marshes, the tea tree proved too successful. It conquered indigenous flora and became the bane to local landscape gardening.
        "What an odd-looking tree," Mister Radcliff remarked.
        "The melaleuca. Its oil is good for skin troubles."


                                                                                      *


        They roved on and came upon the crumbling estate of Arthur Chatham, heir to the fortunes of empire. The first Chatham was a slave-trader and the second Chatham was a planter of tobacco. The family emigrated from Virginia to Jamaica to remain loyal to the Crown. Chatham sugarcane was distilled into quality rum with worldwide distribution protected by the Royal Navy.
        Arthur Chatham was born into a generation of idle rich. He studied art theory in New York and nudes in Paris. After a year or two of debauched extravagence his trustees cut him off. He booked a steamer to New York to plead his case.
      The head trustee laid it out in blunt Runyon-esque argot: "No soap."
      Not one to assuage insult, the trustee added, "Don't worry, young man. The money will be there upon your maturity."
      Arthur Chatham moved to The Village, wore black turtlenecks and combed his ash-blond hair like Carl Sandburg. Forced to work for the first time in his life, he had the good sense to exploit his artsy goodlooks. A bookstore near Columbia quickly hired him. He was the perfect clerk for those evenings when college girls browsed for something interesting.


        "Excuse me. What poet are YOU currently reading?"
        From behind her milky earlobe came the tart essence of lemon verbana. Her eyes were deep and warm as Mexican chocolate.
        She smiled her hello.
        "Right now," he replied. "Mina Loy. An imagist, tough as nails."
        "Oh, I didn't know she wrote too. I loved her in 'Manhattan Melodrama.'"
         With his expert gentle touch he led her by the elbow to the poetry nook. Thinking it would be best if she discovered for herself that he had not been praising Myrna Loy.

                                                                                *


        During that first winter his loft went arctic. His models shivered, and nipples budded like blueberries. When excused from sitting they snuggled into the kapok sleeping bag.
        He experimented with mediums of glass and wire, but could not express himself the way he desired. One night he succumbed to joining Doris Miller from Sioux Falls in the kapok sleeping bag and fucked her. Then she fucked him.
        Afterward, she explained what she understood about art theory.
        And Marcel Duchamp.
        Exhaling a plume of hashish smoke she opined: "There is no such thing as the objet d'art. Art does not exist in and of itself. It is a conduit through which we express ourselves."
        "Goes without saying."
        Then he struggled out of the kapok sleeping bag and stumbled across the bare boards. His big toe nailed the pisspot and sent it skittering away with a splatter. He picked up the manuscript of his work in progress. Art theory, naturally.
         Worthless, he thought. Utterly worthless. But with a little cold weather snot the paper should make excellent spackling.


                                                                                        *


        Over the years his art bloomed and cross-pollinated. There was his Picasso's Apollinaire period. His Gris "Woman with a Basket" period. And finally, his Arthur Chatham period.
        "He sold the Jamaican property and moved to Saint James during World War Two and funded a militia and a yacht for subchasing," Hanna said breathlessly as she and Mister Radcliff climbed the green-pitted coquina steps.
        "Colorful man."
        "A local hero."
        "I understand he died of syphilis."
        "He did sleep around."
         The ancient steps ascended to a wide mezzanine shaded by a brawny banyan tree and guarded by a sandstone manticore. Beyond, amid smothering melaleuca, stood Chatham House.


                                                                                            *


        The iron gate was corroded with verdigris and sprung open, swaying in the wind with a siren song.
        Mister Radcliff leaned forward and kissed Hannah. She replied with a bold kiss of her own. Above them in the great banyon two budgerigars sparred in a clash of feathers. The many chambered house of  boughs lowed a warning.