Honeybath's Haven by Michael Innes

Edwin, Ambrose. Just see if you can manage a quietly sympathetic response to anything he has to say.’ Having delivered this admonition – or rebuke – Honeybath remained silent for the remainder of the journey to Holland Park. It hadn’t after all been a good idea, he told himself, to bring Ambrose Prout along. But he could hardly turn the fellow out of the taxi now.
    They reached the former abode of the Lightfoots, and Honeybath paid the fare. They entered, and passed a prosperous-looking man coming down the stairs. It was probably the car-salesman, Honeybath thought. The lizard rather than the lion. They climbed to the studio, on the door of which Prout gave an ominously impatient knock. There was no bell. And there was no answer either. Prout pushed open the door, and they went in. The place did smell. This phenomenon seemed to deliver a clear message to Honeybath. Sympathy, yes. But action as well.
    The first objects Honeybath’s eye fell upon were a canvas on the easel and a palette perched on a high stool near by. Edwin had been at work. Honeybath took a second look at the canvas, and felt something like a stab of pain. No good painter had produced anything so pitiful as this since the final degeneration of Utrillo. And Edwin had never been a drunkard, let alone a drug addict. Something had recently gone very far wrong.
    What had gone wrong was Edwin himself, whether in mind or body. Edwin was sitting in a corner of the studio. He was sitting on the floor. It was an unnecessary posture, since the bleak place did run to two or three reasonably serviceable-looking chairs. Edwin sat on the floor, and looked from Honeybath to Prout and from Prout to Honeybath. But he didn’t speak. He wasn’t able to speak, since he was fully occupied in soundlessly weeping.
    â€˜Good God, the man’s mad!’ Prout cried out. ‘I knew it would happen, and here it is. Clean out of his mind.’
    â€˜Ambrose, don’t be a fool.’ Prout, Honeybath saw, was as terrified as if he had never seen emotional distress before. But this by no means excused the indecency of his reaction. ‘Put a kettle on that gas ring, and see if you can make some tea. Edwin, my dear man, get up and come and sit here by the window. There are things to talk about. You’re not at all well, and we must get you right again.’
    â€˜I can’t do anything. I can’t do anything at all!’ The dejected Lightfoot had got to his feet unsteadily. He pointed towards the easel. ‘Look at it,’ he said.
    â€˜It’s what I’ve just done, and we can both give it a rest.’ As he said this Honeybath lifted the canvas from the easel, carried it to the far end of the studio, and dumped it without ceremony behind a tattered Japanese screen. His return route took him past the big table on which Lightfoot kept his drawing-board and a litter of pencils, charcoal and chalks. Lying on it were a couple of the strongly accented portrait-sketches of men that Honeybath had noticed on his last visit. These were again wet-paper affairs. And the paper was wet. The sketches were quite new – and were masterly in their kind.
    â€˜You’ve got yourself wrong, Edwin,’ Honeybath said. He spoke as if to one entirely composed, although in fact Lightfoot could have been described as still blubbering. ‘You think you’ve lost everything, and in fact you’re only a bit browned off on oils. Inside every malerisch artist, you know, there’s a linear one screaming to be let out. And you’re giving yours a chance in those portrait heads. They’re tiptop.’
    â€˜There’s no tea,’ Prout said.
    â€˜Then go out and buy some, Ambrose. And a bottle of milk and a packet of cigarettes. Bestir yourself, man.’ Honeybath spoke with brisk command. If he didn’t clear up this mess, nobody else would.
    â€˜Not true. Everything gone. I can’t even draw.’ These