Flood
“I think I’d like to be a painting,” Ava says.
The device she presses to her ear makes a shallow indent in the fiery wash of her hair. It cascades past her shoulders, so reminiscent of the woman before her, swept into life from the tip of Botticelli’s paintbrush.
“You could be,” I tell her, honestly. Her face is pretty enough to be immortalised. There is no doubt in my mind that if Botticelli knew Ava, he’d paint her onto a canvas too.
She just laughs at me, moving away from the enormous frame as the audio guide instructs us, and onto the next. This room is filled with her doppelgangers; larger than life porcelain dolls with rich, ginger locks. They lounge, naked and free, on rocks and outcroppings. As we pass each frame, their eyes follow Ava. They whisper to her softly, their whistling voices haunting. She ignores them.
“If you’re a painting,” Ava continues. “You can be pretty forever. Never say the wrong thing, never grow old, or get fat, or wear a terrible outfit. Nobody could touch you without your consent, or hurt you in any way, You’re just frozen in time, serene and perfect,” Ava mimics the woman on the canvas before her, arm thrown above her head, eyes looking skyward. “Forever.”
I want to roll my eyes, but I can see it. She’d could crawl right into this scene and fit in perfectly, amongst the other angels. They’d shift over to accommodate her slender frame, allow her a spot on one of the more central rocks. It’s raining heavily outside — the only reason we ducked into the Uffizi gallery in the first place — and now the paintings are clouding over too. Rainwater cascades down upon the heads of these masterpieces, blurring pale skin with orange hair, until the colours bleed, until the silhouettes of these women are barely recognisable. In the haze of the rain, they look even more like her.
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If Ava notices the water, she doesn’t comment. Her hair is still coated with a dewy dusting from outside. My fringe is stuck to my forehead. I can feel it plastered to my skin, split and dark.
“Maybe,” I say uncertainly, zeroing in on the far right hand side of the canvas in front of me. Unbeknownst to the waifish, flame-haired women, a storm cloud is rolling in. With it comes a dark, shadowy figure, its claws outstretched towards one of the angels, poised to snatch her away. I wipe my fringe to one side, peering closer. The rain is falling heavier now; it drips into my eyes, making me blink. “I don’t think I’d like to be trapped in there. Everyone staring all the time.”
Droplets spatter over Ava’s pale skin as she smiles, quietly, to herself. “I wouldn’t mind that.”
“People stare at you anyway,” I say. “I guess it wouldn’t be so different for you.”
“It would just be such a relief,” she says in a sigh, distant as she stares into two dripping eyes. It could be a mirror, if she were crying. “Nothing to worry about. No pressure. Just young and adored.”
I hold my programme above my head as the rain spits down over me, and watch her, audio guide still pressed to her ear, stepping off to the next room. Her heeled boots trit through the growing puddles blooming across the marble floor; the angels weep as she departs. Their soft sobs chill me to the bone.
