By the time his grandpa died, and his grandma, frail and frightened, agreed to move into an assisted living facility, the print had faded so badly that it went into the Dumpster, along with many more of their possessions that were too old, worn, and battered to be of use to anybody. It’s too big to hang in that new flat of yours, anyway, Zach’s father had said gruffly. His grandma had stared from the living room window, stared out at the Dumpster until the last possible moment before leaving. The original painting was in the Tate, and Zach went to see it whenever he was up in London. He felt nostalgic each time he looked at it. It took him back to his childhood, in the same way the smells of burned toast and Polo mints and cigarillo smoke did; and at the same time he could now see it through adult eyes, through an artist’s eyes. But perhaps it was time he stopped thinking of himself as an artist. It had been years since he’d finished a piece, even longer since he’d finished anything worth showing to anybody else. He really wanted the figure in the Aubrey painting to be his grandmother, and he often searched the figure for familiar characteristics. Tiny shoulders, comparatively large breasts. A diminutive figure with a smudge of light, tawny hair. It could have been her. The painting was dated 1939. That year, his grandma whispered to him as they stood in front of the print, she and his grandpa took a holiday in Dorset, near where Aubrey had his summer house; and they had met the artist while out walking.
Only later in life did the implications of all this begin to dawn on Zach. He never dared to ask his grandma outright about that summer, but he was willing to bet she would have given a little laugh and an evasive shrug if he had, and that there would have been that sparkle in her eye as she looked away, and a small smile lingering on her mouth. Her expression when she looked at the picture, Zach could see in hindsight, was that of an infatuated girl, still in the grip of young love over seventy years later. It got him thinking, but Zach’s father, maddeningly, bore no physical resemblance whatsoever to either Charles Aubrey or to Zach’s grandpa. But nobody in Zach’s family had ever picked up a paintbrush or a sketchbook until Zach did. None of his official forebears had any kind of artistic bent whatsoever. When he was ten, he presented his grandpa with his best-ever drawing of his BMX bike. It was good; he knew it was good. He thought his grandpa would be pleased, impressed; but the old man had frowned at the picture instead of smiling, and had handed it back to Zach with a dismissive remark. Not bad, son.
Another day in the gallery passed with barely any customers. An elderly lady spent twenty minutes turning the wire rack of postcards around and around before deciding not to buy any. How he hated that revolving wire rack. Postcards of art-last chance saloon for any serious gallery-and he couldn’t even sell them, thought Zach. He noticed that there was dust on the white wires of the rack. Tiny little banks of it on each and every horizontal. He wiped at a few with his cuff, but soon gave up and thought instead about Ian’s last question to him over their recent meaclass="underline" So, what are you going to do?
Something like panic gripped him then, and gave his gut a nasty little jolt; because he really had no idea. The future stretched out shapelessly in front of him, and in it he couldn’t find one thing to aim for, one thing that would clearly be a good idea, or that he could afford to do. And looking back was no help either. His one best thing, his greatest achievement, was now thousands of miles away in Massachusetts, probably developing an American accent and forgetting him already. And when he looked behind him, everything he thought he had been building turned out to have been transient, and had crumbled into nothing when he wasn’t watching. His career as an artist, his marriage, his gallery. He genuinely wasn’t sure how it had happened-if there had been signs he’d missed, or some fundamental flaw in his approach to life. He thought he’d done all the right things; he thought he’d worked hard. But now he was divorced, just like his parents. Just like his grandparents had longed to be, held together only by the conventions of their generation. Having witnessed the bloody battleground of his parents’ separation, Zach had vowed that it would never happen to him. He had been sure, before he wed, that he would do right whatever it was that they had not. Staring into space, he followed the thread of his life back, right back, searching for all the times and places he’d gone wrong.
The sun sank below the rooftops outside, and shadows stretched long and deep across the gallery floor. Earlier every day, these shadows descended. Pooling in the narrow streets where pale Bath stone façades stretched up on either side like canyon walls. In the heat of summer they were a blissful escape from the glaring sun, from the heat and the sticky press of crowding people. Now they seemed oppressive, foreboding. Zach went back to his desk and sank into the chair, suddenly cold, and tired. He would give every last scant thing he possessed in an instant, he decided, to the first person who could tell him clearly and precisely what he should do next. He didn’t think he could stand even one more day trapped in the silence of the gallery, smothered by the sound of an absent daughter, a long-gone wife, and no clients, no customers. He had just decided to get horribly, pointlessly drunk when two things happened within the space of five minutes. First he found a new drawing by Charles Aubrey for sale by auction in the Christie’s catalog, and then he got a phone call.
He was staring at the description of the drawing as he picked up the phone, distractedly, not really interested in the call.
“Gilchrist Gallery?” he said.
“Zach? It’s David.” Clipped words in a smooth, unfathomable voice.
“Oh, hello, David,” Zach replied, dragging his eyes from the catalog and trying to place the name, the voice. He had a sudden nagging feeling that he should pay attention. There was a nonplussed grunt at the end of the line.
“David Fellows, at Haverley?”
“Yes, of course. How are you, David?” Zach said, too quickly. Guilt made his fingertips tingle, just like they had at school when the question about his missing homework was asked.
“I’m very well, thank you. Look, it’s been a while since I’ve heard from you. In truth, it’s been over eighteen months. I know you said you needed more time to get the manuscript to me, and we did agree to that, but there does come a point when a publisher starts to wonder if a book is ever going to appear…”
“Yes, look, I am sorry for the delay… I’ve been… well…”
“Zach, you’re a scholar. Books take as long as they take, I am well aware. The reason I’m calling today is to let you know that somebody else has come to us with an outline for a work on Charles Aubrey…”
“Who?”
“Perhaps it might be more politic if I didn’t say. But it’s a strong proposal; he’s shown us half the manuscript and hopes to finish in four to five months. It would coincide very nicely with next year’s exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery… Anyway, I’ve been told by the powers that be to chase you up, not to put too fine a point on it. We want to go ahead with a major new work on the artist, and we want to publish next summer. That means we would need a manuscript from you by January or February at the latest. How does that sound?”