“Still, I don’t regret them.
“I regret only one thing. That I abandoned my wife and my children. I pretend to excuse it in that I couldn’t know what would happen. But really, you see, the statement should go the other way. If you are a man, a real man, you should never leave your wife and children alone, exactly because you do not know what will happen.
“In this,” he tells David, “you are very lucky. Because your father is a better man than I am. He will never abandon you. He will never leave you alone. This I know.”
My father is a wily old man. As well as having been a wicked one. But how has he divined that that is exactly what I want most to do in the world? Is his telling the tale this way, with this moral, some random event that I am, in my guilt, very attuned to? Is he a messenger, sent by fate, not knowing what he is really saying, sent to warn me of the consequences of my action? Or is this David’s grandfather, quite conscious of what he is doing, wily and manipulative, cleverly herding David’s father back into line.
I had gathered my strength, my strength for coping, once again, just to make it through the holidays, planning my escape for the cold clarity that I anticipate for January. There’s a sweeter woman who flushes with warmth when she sees me and welcomes me in, into her arms, into her heart, into her body. Dark eyes that seem to swallow me whole and flood me with endorphins or whatever chemicals the chemistry of love consists of, so that I feel free of pain and fear. Away from the spats and the sniping and the sword that lies down the middle of the bed where my heart and Moira’s used to lie entwined.
My father, who brought this rug to America — where he gave up his thieving ways, he says, and opened a jewelry store — and gave it to me as a wedding gift, has come about the other gifts he has given me.
Among those other gifts that he has given me are loyalty, love of family, and the cherishing of children. I didn’t know that those gifts came with an enforcer. Who would show up at the crucial moment with a warning parable. He has put a kinehara on me. I suddenly feel that if I leave them, the evil that men do will come and steal them away and kill them, leaving the weight of their fate on my soul, a curse for which I can never forgive God.
I look at Moira and wonder if there is any way, any way whatsoever back to the garden?
I look at my father, expecting that infuriating smile to be on his lips and see, instead, only pleading eyes and I know that I will stay at home. With my family and the god damn rug.
Herbert in Motion
Ian Rankin
My choices that day were twofold: kill myself before or after the Prime Minister’s cocktail party? And if after, should I wear my Armani to the party, or the more sober YSL with the chalk stripe?
The invitation was gilt-edged, too big for the inside pocket of my workaday suit. Drinks and canapes, six p.m. till seven. A minion had telephoned to confirm my attendance, and to brief me on protocol. That had been two days ago. He’d explained that among the guests would be an American visiting London, a certain Joseph Hefferwhite. While not quite spelling it out — they never do, do they? — the minion was explaining why I’d been invited, and what my role on the night might be.
“Joe Hefferwhite,” I managed to say, clutching the receiver like it was so much straw.
“I believe you share an interest in modern art,” the minion continued.
“We share an interest.”
He misunderstood my tone and laughed. “Sorry, ‘share an interest’ was a bit weak, wasn’t it? My apologies.”
He was apologising because art is no mere interest of mine. Art was — is — my whole life. During the rest of our short and one-sided conversation, I stared ahead as though at some startling new design, trying to understand and explain, to make it all right with myself, attempting to wring out each nuance and stroke, each variant and chosen shape or length of line. And in the end there was... nothing. No substance, no revelation; just the bland reality of my situation and the simple framing device of suicide.
And the damnation was, it had been the perfect crime.
A dinner party ten years before. It was in Chelsea, deep in the heart of Margaret Thatcher’s vision of England. There were dissenters at the table — only a couple, and they could afford their little grumble: it wasn’t going to make Margaret Hilda disappear, and their own trappings were safe: the warehouse conversion in Docklands, the BMW, the Cristal champagne and black truffles.
Trappings: the word seems so much more resonant now.
So there we were. The wine had relaxed us, we were all smiling with inner and self-satisfied contentment (and wasn’t that the dream, after all?), and I felt just as at home as any of them. I knew I was there as the Delegate of Culture. Among the merchant bankers and media figures, political jobsworths and ‘somethings’ (and dear God, there was an estate agent there too, if memory serves — that fad didn’t last long), I was there to reassure them that they were composed of something more lasting and nourishing than mere money, that they had some meaning in the wider scheme. I was there as curator to their sensibilities.
In truth, I was and am a Senior Curator at the Tate Gallery, with special interest in twentieth-century North American art (by which I mean paintings: I’m no great enthusiast of modern sculpture, yet less of more radical sideshows — performance art, video art, all that). The guests at the table that evening made the usual noises about artists whose names they couldn’t recall but who did ‘green things’ or ‘you know, that horse and the shadow and everything’. One foolhardy soul (was it the estate agent?) digressed on his fondness for certain wildlife paintings, and trumpeted the news that his wife had once bought a print from Christie’s Contemporary Art.
When another guest begged me to allow that my job was ‘on the cushy side’, I placed knife and fork slowly on plate and did my spiel. I had it down to a fine art — allow the pun, please — and talked fluently about the difficulties my position posed, about the appraisal of trends and talents, the search for major new works and their acquisition.
“Imagine,” I said, “that you are about to spend half a million pounds on a painting. In so doing, you will elevate the status of the artist, turn him or her into a rich and sought-after talent. They may disappoint you thereafter and fail to paint anything else of interest, in which case the resale value of the work will be negligible, and your own reputation will have been tarnished — perhaps even more than tarnished. Every day, every time you are asked for your opinion, your reputation is on the line. Meanwhile, you must propose exhibitions, must plan them — which often means transporting works from all around the world — and must spend your budget wisely.”
“You mean like, do I buy four paintings at half a mil each, or push the pedal to the floor with one big buy at two mil?”
I allowed my questioner a smile. “In crude economic terms, yes.”
“Do you get to take pictures home?” our hostess asked.
“Some works — a few — are loaned out,” I conceded. “But not to staff.”
“Then to whom?”
“People in prominence, benefactors, that sort of person.”
“All that money,” the Docklands woman said, shaking her head, “for a bit of paint and canvas. It almost seems like a crime when there are homeless on the streets.”
“Disgraceful,” someone else said. “Can’t walk along the Embankment without stumbling over them.”
At which point our hostess stumbled into the silence to reveal that she had a surprise. “We’ll take coffee and brandy in the morning room, during which you’ll be invited to take part in a murder.”