Shadows With Claws

An extract

THE VALKYRIE
Bedroom; west wall.
Directly in the line of sight of anyone sitting up in the bed.

An apparent effort at a mythological variation, painted in the same glistening hyperreal style as the "Street Encounter." In the right-hand half of the picture a man is slumped against a pillar. His back is to the viewer and only his left side is visible. Darkness and mist obscure the background; the floor is smooth and polished, gleaming with a grey light; the ceiling, like the top of the pillar, is outside the composition. The man is evidently injured and possibly unconscious: his head hangs limply to the left while his arm is held stiffly across his body, apparently pressed against an abdominal wound. There are no overt signs that he has been involved in a battle, or even that he is a warrior; but the bulky angularity of his shoulder suggests a military greatcoat, and the gunmetal surface of the pillar is grazed and pitted as if by repeated violence extending far back in time. Some critics have also seen in the darkened area of the floor around the man a spreading pool of blood, rather than the indeterminate shadow which appears to the more conventional view.

Facing the man from the left side of the picture, at an equal distance from the centre, is an armoured female figure. She is crouching on her feet and hands, leaning slightly forward in an attitude suggesting mild curiosity. Her limbs are bare except for greaves on her lower legs and a bracelet above her right elbow; bracelet and greaves have the same blue-black colour and battered, ancient texture as the pillar. The rest of her armour consists of a similarly battered thigh-length mail shirt, belted at the waist; from the belt hang sundry items of equipment including a knife, a claw-hammer, a leather water-pouch, and what on casual inspection looks like a pistol; careful inspection shows that the weapon is a small electric drill. In contrast to the state of her armour, all the tools are well cared for and polished to a steely shine. She wears no helmet; her greenish grey hair falls in seaweed clots over her shoulders and forehead. Her arms and face are pallid, with a tinge of blue; possibly some unearthly effect of the light, possibly not.

Her head is thrust forward and held slightly to one side: an attitude that might almost be called quizzical were it not for the expression on her face. That expression has been much debated, but no-one has detected irony there, let alone humour. The face itself is unobjectionable, if a little angular; there is nothing unnatural in the shape and proportion of the features, and the means by which the artist achieves his effect have caused almost as much argument as the meaning of that effect. The posture of the head, the dead-straight gash of the mouth, the depth and flatness of the eyes, all contribute to its peculiar quality.

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