Nobody's muse

The Lady in White

Of course, you couldn’t imagine it now. Time takes its toll, you pay the price for a life spent burning the wick at both ends when you are young. Looking back, she would not have done anything differently. The Lady in White she was known as. Tall, thin, striking - although she knew she was never beautiful - she always dressed in white from top to bottom, inside to out even down to her jewellery - white gold, moonstones - in her late youth, diamonds. 

She doesn’t regret a thing. That she is pot-bellied with a stoop and losing her hair. That the wrinkles around her lips from smoking and the dropped pendulous breasts and the coughing and wheezing. You had to have your fun somewhere in this life, and she had hers when it mattered and where it mattered. 

She had her supporting cast of artists, friends, and lovers. Now she was alone in a tiny bedsit with her fags and cat to keep her company. She still wore white, when she could, but it was such a damn nuisance to keep clean. On her walls were three paintings that could solve all of her financial worries and make her life comfortable and, perhaps, happy. The trio, by different, now respected and known artists whom she had sat for in her prime. Two portraits, one nude sketch. She couldn’t part with them for obvious reasons. 

What she missed, more than anything, was the attention. People didn’t see her anymore, she just blended into the background. The kids today were so vibrant and did what they wanted, wore what they wanted, and she was jealous of their freedom. She had been a near scandal, but it was worth the whispered words of disapproval and the finger-pointing and the back turnings - at least she was seen. Now she could go days without even opening her mouth to utter a word. She used to talk to the cat, but the cat stopped listening, so she stopped talking. She was aware that she was mumbling - the conversations in her head being voiced at the back of her throat, and when she did go out, people were noticing. So she consciously stopped even talking to herself.

She had thought about a book. She had plenty to write, stories to tell, and she had started a few times. But it had seemed such a silly, young girl who appeared in the text that came from her, very, adult adventures. It rather disgusted her as she recalled how she had got to know various people, how she had been initiated into the circle of artists and writers and playwrights and poets. She had forced her way in. She had made sacrifices to her dignity and her intellect - but what did all of that matter now? The book came to nothing. A little, she felt, like her life. What had it all mattered? Would she have been more content to have not been the Lady in White and had a ‘normal’ life with a husband, kids, and house? Could she have been the dutiful housewife that was expected back then? 

She wondered if she had been born in the wrong age, and she realised, instead, that the age had turned sour - that she had lived exactly where she should have, but that time had moved on and she and her cabal had not changed with it. It didn’t matter so much for those that actually did things. People still loved their art, and there is still an amount of respect left for the older generation if they can bridge the gap to the youth by being an influence. As a muse, no one knows you until the person whom you affected and influenced so greatly, dies. Perhaps you will have a line in their biography, but it is unlikely. You cause torture. Artists don’t marry their muses, they don’t even keep them around very long, generally. You need to flit, or you end up nobody's muse.

---

Bloomsbury/Fitzrovia, London, May 2023 Nikon d750

---