‘A woman like you is probably interested in a lot of things,’ said Hood. ‘But take my advice — don’t get interested in us. You might be disappointed.’
‘I find all of you fascinating,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’
‘Don’t bother. You’re not going to be here very long.’
‘Now you’re being stern with me, and I’m twice your age. Do I know your father?’ She smiled. ‘Really, you shouldn’t take that tone. I’d like you to visit me sometime. I think you’d enjoy meeting my friends, exchanging ideas with them. They have more in common with you than you might think.’
‘No thanks.’
‘I think you’ll change your mind,’ she said with playful malice.
‘Look, sister,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you’re my type. If you’re through you can hit the road.’
‘Oh, God,’ said Lady Arrow in admiration, ‘I wish I could say that like you.’
Hood moved, and Lady Arrow reacted, startled by this slight gesture of Hood unfolding his arms. He took off his raincoat and threw it over the back of a chair.
Lady Arrow strolled to the small fireplace and said, ‘Yes, I think you will change your mind and visit me.’ She selected one of the carvings, an insect worked in ivory, and weighed it in her hand. She said, ‘I’ve been admiring your art collection. It’s really rather beautiful.’
‘Presents from people I happen to like. Put that down before you break it.’
‘They’re hard to get in England — very scarce nowadays. I imagine you were in Asia — they’re the sort of pieces one finds there, aren’t they?’
‘If you say so.’ Hood took the carving from her hand and put it back on the mantelpiece.
‘Brodie and Murf haven’t the vaguest idea. Oh, I’m sure they find them pretty, but they don’t know their true value. Brodie is so sweet. She thinks that brass ashtray is some sort of treasure. That scroll. It’s silk. Ch’ing Dynasty, is it not? It’s late, but it’s lovely. No, they don’t know how valuable things can be. Children are unmoved by sham and humbug. But they are unmoved by sincerity and beauty, too. Such simple creatures — not blind, but so short-sighted.’
Hood was going to speak, to prevent her from saying anything more he agreed with. She had come close to echoing his own feeling in calling them children and defining their simple slowness. But Lady Arrow interrupted him. She said, ‘May I say you are a most fortunate man, Mister Hood?’
‘Your time’s up,’ he said.
‘But I’m not finished!’
‘Now,’ said Hood, raising his voice to insist.
‘Yes, I’ve been admiring your art collection. In these rooms —’
‘Listen,’ said Hood.
‘— and upstairs,’ Lady Arrow went on. ‘That painting. Your little man was awfully cross, but in the event he didn’t seem to know I’d seen it.’
‘You’ve got a nerve.’
‘Not me, Mister Hood,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘It’s you who have the nerve. But I admire you for it. You see, I own that painting. Yes!’ She laughed in long mocking shouts, trumpeting in his face. ‘It’s mine! It belongs to me!’
Hood relaxed; he stepped away and smiled. ‘Which painting are you talking about?’
‘You know! The one in your cupboard.’
‘I painted that myself. It’s called “Death Eating a Cracker”.’
‘It was my father’s. You can call it anything you like.’
‘ “The Widow”, “The Jailer”, “The Saint”,’ he said. ‘It’s just a copy.’
‘The Rogier self-portrait,’ she said. ‘And you needn’t try to deceive me. I can assure you it’s the original.’
‘You’re lying, sweetheart.’
‘No, I’m not. I was ashamed to admit it — it was so valuable. How can you own a thing like that? It was on loan — that got me a tax deduction, for charity, believe it or not. It was so embarrassing I loaned it anonymously. I’ve had so many calls from the curator — he wanted me to make a statement. Weren’t you surprised by the silence? The lack of response? And do you know, I was glad it was stolen! Relieved — I can’t tell you how relieved I was. Now this! It exceeds my wildest dream. It is magnificent!’
‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘Absolutely nothing. One can’t be burgled by people one admires. You can trust me, Mister Hood, I won’t tell a soul. I might even collect on the insurance — my accountant’s been insisting on it. You’re welcome to that, as well. I do feel it’s a bit out for you to want to chase me away. You see, when I saw that picture in your cupboard I suddenly realized what a family affair this has all become. I wish I had planned it this way — arranged for someone to steal my own painting. But that sort of thing takes genius. However.’
Hood said, ‘I’m going to check on everything you say.’
‘Do that, Mister Hood. You’ll see I’m telling the truth.’
‘Okay, now beat it.’
‘Not so fast, my man,’ she said. ‘You can’t order me now. You see, your project very much concerns me. I support you! I believe we can be friends at last, and I consider this house as much mine as yours. Frankly, I was rather hoping Brodie would come back with me. She’s not yours, you know.’
‘She’s staying here.’
‘She’ll come to me eventually,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘And you’ll visit me now, won’t you?’
Hood pursed his lips, but said nothing.
‘I’m sure of it,’ said Lady Arrow, and she picked up her handbag. At the door she said, ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am that things have turned out this way.’
‘Keep going,’ said Hood in a flat threatening voice.
He banged the door and locked it, but when he went back to the parlour he clapped his hands and laughed — a yell of gladness, and still chuckling he sat down and waited for Mayo. The picture stirred him from its hiding place at the top of the house.
14
At midnight there was still no sign of Mayo. He wondered if she could be teasing him with her more frequent absences; she knew he was waiting and was deliberately hiding herself. She made her inaction secret to give it drama. She was whining in Kilburn over a pint of beer or in bed with an Irishman — for her a political act. She had deceived him over the passport, tricked him into forging one for the well-known actress, whose single attribute, so far as he could guess, was her theatrical ability to alter her face. You had access to a wig, so you were a conspirator. Araba had struck him as hysterical and insincere, a fraud, persuasive only to those who didn’t know the real thing. The trick had made him doubt his own judgement — the victim losing respect for himself when he knows how easily he has been victimized. But he said nothing to Mayo: he would have his own secrets.
He had drawn the cushions to the centre of the upstairs room and he lay on them in his bathrobe, with the cupboard door open wide and the lamp tilted to face the painting. He pondered it and smoked a pipe of Navy-Cut sprinkled with hashish grains. He had a feeling of wealth, the comfortable security of resting in undisturbed solitude. For the moment he wanted no more than this, and the self-portrait only added to his pleasure: now it could not be snatched away; he didn’t need to hide it; the owner didn’t care. It shone on him. Its greatness lay in the way the cubes of colour gathered to match his own mood. It was consoling: it did not reproach him — perhaps the greatest art never did — it exalted the eye. It shimmered with certainty, it was the surest vision, an astonishing light. What Mayo and the others did to enrage him the painting corrected: it was the only solace he had received, this illumination. And like a light it printed a small white star on his retina that stayed to remind and console him long after he turned away.