‘It’s good that you have such variety in your work,’ he told her as they discussed the best spots to display particular paintings. ‘That always excites interest and makes a tour of your work more interesting for the general public.’
‘You mean that I haven’t yet found my distinctive vein?’ said Ros with a grin, recalling a critic’s phrase from his review of an earlier and much more modest display of her work.
Harry Barnard grinned. ‘When you do, make sure it’s one that sells. I’ve seen too many clever artists and sculptors who please themselves and almost no one else.’
Ros enjoyed making decisions with him on which of her paintings would look best where. It was good to have a dose of common sense in her life, from someone who knew what he was doing and how to sell. She remembered asking someone years ago why it had taken Lowry so long to become popular. The answer had been that it was only late in life that he acquired a shrewd and successful agent. The preparations for the exhibition occupied most of her day, but she decided that she didn’t mind that at all. She would return to her studio with a better perspective and a better grasp of the life led by the sort of people who might buy her paintings.
Kate Merrick was already in the house by the time she got back from Cheltenham. Kate worked for three days a week in the local branch of the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society. These were the days when she wasn’t, as she put it, ‘part-time model and full-time dogsbody’ for Ros Barker. Ros called from the front door, ‘I’m home from the office, dear. I hope you have the meal ready to serve!’ and was greeted with a cheerful selection of colourful obscenities.
She gave an account of her day and an affectionate summary of Harry Barnard, then noticed the envelope with her name on it upon the mantelpiece. ‘It was behind the door when I came in,’ said Kate. Ros slit the envelope wonderingly and then stared unbelievingly at the single sheet within it.
RESIGN NOW FROM THE FESTIVAL COMMITTEE IF YOU WISH TO REMAIN ALIVE
Sam Hilton pulled the collar of his anorak up around his neck. It was cold by the docks in Gloucester. There was no protection here from the breeze sweeping up the Severn. It had felt quite still as he threaded his way through the older part of the city and down to the ancient quays, but the wind was stronger here, more chilling as the night advanced.
Sam glanced at his watch as he passed under the street light. Ten forty. He had timed it about right. That was the easy part. He flicked again at the collar of his anorak, forgetting that it was already up beneath his ears. It wasn’t the cold that prompted the move. It was the need for concealment.
He felt very exposed beside the old docks. No seagoing ships docked here now to unload at the quays, as they had done for six centuries. The old warehouses were antiques centres and museums now, so that this area was busy by day with a more cosmopolitan clientele than it had ever had. But at this hour it was silent and almost deserted. Sam, hurrying along beside the huge, silent mirror of the water, felt very exposed.
He was relieved to turn on to the narrower thoroughfare he was seeking. He saw the orange lights of the pub windows at the other end of the street, heard the noise growing in volume as he approached. He felt his steps slowing as the sounds increased. It was always like this, he told himself. He always felt nervous at this stage. But it was groundless alarm. Nothing ever happened.
It was easy money, really. You ran a little risk, but you were amply recompensed. He liked to pretend to the world in which he moved by day that he made a living from his poetry. It was a matter of pride, really; people thought you weren’t any good if you didn’t make money at something. No one except a few people who had tried it realized how difficult it was to make real money from poetry. You could be quite successful; you could publish slim volumes, you could even get favourable reviews, without making a living from verse. You needed something else to support you. If it was something secret, so that people didn’t see it and supposed that you were a financial success as a poet, so much the better.
He realized now that he went through these arguments with himself at this stage every time. That was self-knowledge, which was always a good thing for a poet to have. And the next forty minutes would be exciting, with every one of his senses working acutely and every nerve of his body stretched towards breaking point. A thrilling experience, which he would surely be able to incorporate into his verse at some point. The more fully you lived life, the more fully you explored its extreme moments, the more extensive your armoury as a poet became.
Sam Hilton took a deep breath, pushed open the swing door of the pub and slipped into the cavern of noise inside.
Everything was suddenly very bright. Everything was noisy and glaring, when he wanted quiet and obscurity. It was some time before he could get his order accepted at the bar; he felt as if every eye in the room must be upon him in his isolation. Everyone else here seemed to be part of a noisy group, whilst he waited solitary and silent for the barman. Even the raising of his arm to secure the busy man’s attention seemed a gesture to excite the interest of every curious eye in this brilliantly lit place.
It was not so, of course. As he was served, he saw that one of the noisiest groups, a set of girls on a hen night, were making their erratic way towards the exit, calling final crude sexual insults to the male group with whom they had been verbally fencing for the last hour. Sam took his pint of lager from the bar and slid gratefully into the alcove the women had lately occupied. The smells of cheap scent and the echoes of cheap language seemed to linger here, but as soon as he sat down he felt much better.
He was less conspicuous, for a start. He realized now that he had never really been the centre of attention, even when he had been standing alone at the bar. The people here were preoccupied with their own concerns, not him. And by this time on a Friday night, many of them had drunk quite a lot. Alcohol didn’t improve your perceptions. Moreover, he had chosen the right clothes. There were several others as well as him in dark blue anoraks and well-worn jeans. Not exactly a fashion statement, but that was the last thing you needed if you wanted to be inconspicuous. With his average height and slight frame, he was better fitted to go unnoticed than most men. He had sometimes resented that, when he’d been a teenager, but here it was a decided advantage.
He sipped his beer, tried to look relaxed, and watched the hands of the pub clock creep round towards eleven. Pubs didn’t have to close at eleven, or any other set time, now that the licensing laws had been amended. This one was open until eleven thirty on a Friday, but eleven was the time he had agreed. He grinned hastily at the crude invitation to join her group that a girl on her way back from the toilets offered, but didn’t otherwise respond. Company might have helped to conceal the purpose of his visit here, but it was the last thing he needed with the time of his meeting approaching.
The pub clock was three minutes fast, as they often were, to encourage people to respond to invitations for last orders and injunctions to drink up. When the fingers on his own watch pointed precisely at the hour, Sam Hilton downed the final half-inch of lager at the bottom of his glass and slipped through the door with the sign above it which read ‘Gents’ Toilet’. They’d got the apostrophe right, he noted approvingly; when your life was shaped by words, you became prissier than the most pedantic schoolmarm.