[77] This urge to convey the relation

We get a letter from Gus a year later, in the spring. It’s short and empty of useful content. He’s no good with words in any form; he can barely bring himself to sign his name. But he wrote this one all by himself, and here’s what it says: ‘Cool. Happy? Three rm 14 kr mth pretty. I think Puckersdorf. Never mind.’

We discuss, and estimate he’s telling me to come back – three years is long enough. I’d sent him some canvases the month before, two streetscapes and that painting of Emma in the winter garden. The kind of work that’s mostly about the effort of working. I’m not used to being unhappy with my own work – it’s horribly depressing, actually. I’m used to working easily with what I know best, which is graphite and paper and a touch of colour. If I can’t be honest with him about what I’m trying to do, there isn’t anyone else. The past year I’ve been working deliberately on the edge of what I know, and I’m still getting used to that place, to this awareness some failures can be more impactful than perfection could ever be.