Villa Margaux

This short fiction was written as part of Julia Holderness’s exhibition Villa Margaux at Sanderson Gallery (26 September to 22 October 2023) in Tāmaki Makaurau.

Villa Margaux

I’m in the kitchen on the first morning. The villa is quiet, still. Then the door opens and Isobel is there. She stands in the doorframe, takes off her hat, pushes hair off her forehead. Her face shines with sweat. Her lemon-coloured blouse has embroidered white dots that cluster more thickly at the edge.

“The sea isn’t far,” she says. “Only the last stretch is rocky. I went down to check the light.”

Isobel has been here for three weeks. She has been in two group shows in London.

“I’ll take my things down there now,” she says and retreats down the dark hall.

I nod, smile, look around the kitchen, and take down a green cup from the shelf. With a pot on the stove, I boil water to fill the teapot. There’s a small stack of plates and I pick a leaf-patterned one for my toast. A slender knife from the drawer. The butter dish is rimmed with a wobbly line of deep blue.

It’s hot, already, so I draw the striped curtains and push open the window. I can smell the sea, but I can’t hear it. The garden is dry and thirsty; the grass is brown and the ground hardened by heat. Mature olives trees line the back of the property, their elegant, tapering leaves show dark green or silver, rising to the open sky above. Sparrows fidget in the branches. The hill behind is thick with pine trees. The sun is somewhere on the other side of the house, moving in the sky, eager to burn through the day.

I turn back to the kitchen, brush the crumbs off the yellow flowered tablecloth and sit down. The chair creaks. The milk is creamy and glossy spots of fat sit on top of the tea. I run my hand over the tablecloth again, feel its weave of rough cotton and how the yellow patches sit higher than the white.

What will I see here? What colours will I gather at Villa Margaux?

Isobel is at the door again. ‘Do you speak French, Florence?’ she asks.

 I shake my head. ‘Very little,’ I say, embarrassed.

‘Neither,’ she says. ‘We’ll have to learn.’ She puts on her hat. ‘Well then, are you coming to paint?’