“It’s a hell of a fake.”
And with that, and a pat on my shoulder, he drifted back into the party.
“I could have died,” I told Jance. It was straight afterwards. I was still wearing the Armani, pacing the floor of my flat. It’s not much — third floor, two bedrooms, Maida Vale — but I was happy to see it. I could hardly get the tears out of my eyes. The telephone was in my hand... I just had to tell somebody, and who could I tell but Jance?
“Well,” he said, “you’ve never asked about the client.”
“I didn’t want to know. Jance, I swear to God, I nearly died.”
He chuckled, not really understanding. He was in Zurich, sounded further away still. “I knew Joe already had a couple of Voores,” he said. “He’s got some other stuff too — but he doesn’t broadcast the fact. That’s why he was perfect for Herbert in Motion.”
“But he was talking about not wanting to be reminded of the suicide.”
“He was talking about why the painting was there.”
“He thought it must be a message.”
Jance sighed. “Politics. Who understands politics?”
I sighed with him. “I can’t do this any more.”
“Don’t blame you. I never understood why you started in the first place.”
“Let’s say I lost faith.”
“Me, I never had much to start with. Listen, you haven’t told anyone else?”
“Who would I tell?” My mouth dropped open. “But I left a note.”
“A note?”
“For my boss.”
“Might I suggest you go retrieve it?”
Beginning to tremble all over again, I went out in search of a taxi.
The night security people knew who I was, and let me into the building. I’d worked there before at night — it was the only time I could strip and replace the canvases.
“Busy tonight, eh?” the guard said.
“I’m sorry?”
“Busy tonight,” he repeated. “Your boss is already in.”
“When did he arrive?”
“Not five minutes ago. He was running.”
“Running?”
“Said he needed a pee.”
I ran too, ran as fast as I could through the galleries and towards the offices, the paintings a blur either side of me. Running like Herbert, I thought. There was a light in my superior’s office, and the door was ajar. But the room itself was empty. I walked to the desk and saw my note there, still in its sealed envelope. I picked it up and stuffed it into my jacket, just as my superior came into the room.
“Oh, good man,” he said, rubbing his hands to dry them. “You got the message.”
“Yes,” I said, trying to still my breathing. Message: I hadn’t checked my machine.
“Thought if we did a couple of evenings it would sort out the Rothko.”
“Absolutely.”
“No need to be so formal though.”
I stared at him.
“The suit,” he said.
“Drinks at Number Ten,’ I explained.
“How did it go?”
“Fine.”
“PM happy with his Voore?”
“Oh yes.”
“You know he only wanted it to impress some American? One of his aides told me.”
“Joseph Hefferwhite,” I said.
“And was he impressed?”
“I think so.”
“Well, it keeps us sweet with the PM, and we all know who holds the purse-strings.” My superior made himself comfortable in his chair and looked at his desk. “Where’s that envelope?”
“What?”
“There was an envelope here.” He looked down at the floor. I swallowed, dry-mouthed. “I’ve got it,” I said. He looked startled, but I managed a smile. “It was from me, proposing we spend an evening or two on Rothko.”
My superior beamed. “Great minds, eh?”
“Absolutely.”
“Sit down then, let’s get started.” I pulled over a chair. “Can I let you into a secret? I detest Rothko.”
I smiled again. “I’m not too keen myself.” “Sometimes I think a student could do his stuff just as well, maybe even better.”
“But then it wouldn’t be his, would it?”
“Ah, there’s the rub.”
But I thought of the Voore fake, and Joe Hefferwhite’s story, and my own reactions to the painting — to what was, when all’s said and done, a copy — and I began to wonder...
Roots
Jerry Sykes
For over twenty years the house had been a part of the dark dreamscape of my life, but as I crested the hill it rose anew out of the mist, a burning red ember fanned by the wind of change that blew in my heart.
A pale sun hung low over the hills and the cool mist rolled down the valley, chasing a river that ran sepia from the iron ore in the soil. I could smell wet bracken and new grass through the open window.
I turned off the engine and let the car roll down the hill, tyres crunching on gravel the only sound in the still morning. I pulled up under a huge oak that buckled the road at its roots and watched the house through the rearview.
All the homes in the valley were made of stone, cottages built at the turn of the century for mill workers and their families.
Except the red brick house in my mirror.
The house had been built during the Second World War by a man named Thad Irwin, a foreman at the brickworks a mile further up the valley. Rumour was that he had stolen the bricks a wheelbarrow at a time right from under the owner’s nose, the owner turning a blind eye due to the fact that Thad was the only regular worker left, all the others off fighting for their country. Any vengeful thoughts on the part of the owner were laid to rest when his heart exploded a month before VE Day, spraying the inside of his eyes a deep red.
Thad eventually completed his task, but there were still piles of hot bricks in the yard thirty years later when I was a regular visitor of his grandson, Rob.
The yard may have held our attention on cold evenings, but it was the old quarry that lay beyond the brickworks that demanded our presence throughout the summer.
A gaping wound in the green hills that rippled through the valley, the quarry had been abandoned for as long as I could remember. With a huge pond of stagnant water that could only be navigated by rafts built from strapping twisted planks across oil drums, a dirt track worn smooth by daredevil circuitry, a junked Mini complete with four tyres, flowers of rust blooming on the cracked paintwork, the place was considered a death-trap by anyone over the age of thirty, but to us it was the surface of the moon, Monument Valley, and Wembley Stadium all rolled into one.
But the one truth of childhood was that our parents knew best.
Perspiration slicked my hair and ran down my neck, spooking a shiver that snaked along my spine. I climbed on, hands pushing down on my thighs, my ankles tearing through the tangled undergrowth. My lungs felt scorched and tiny black stars exploded before my eyes. I could see the stone wall that rode the hills above me and promised myself a cigarette on reaching it.
A few minutes later I placed my hands on the wall and rested my forehead on my arms. I couldn’t breathe deeply enough and I felt nauseous.
Eventually I turned to look out over the valley.
A deep haze shimmered before my eyes, turning the view into a faded water colour. At the foot of the hill I could just make out the abandoned buildings of the old brickworks, the corrugated iron sheets covering the doors and windows booming in the wind like thunder. To the north of the brickworks I could see the old cemetery, the gravestones like broken teeth scattered on the ground, the spire of the church reaching upwards like a skeletal finger to scratch at the sky. To the south, armies of trees ran down the valley and circled the village.