Clapham Lights (5 page)

A waiter with a slick side parting waltzes over.

‘I’m not too late for lunch am I?’ Mark asks.

The waiter studies his watch. ‘We stop serving lunch at three p.m. You have two minutes to spare,’ he answers with a hint of irritation.

‘Good. Right. To start I’ll have two portions of the deep fried whitebait-’

‘Are you waiting for somebody to join you, sir?’

‘No. For main I’ll have the spit-roast duckling and the chicken, ham and leek pie.’

‘And this is just for you, sir?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that all, or would you like the dessert menu as well?’

‘Err, no. But I want some drinks. Get me three bottles of the Gruner Veltliner Renner,’ Mark’s eyes turn to the champagne list, ‘A bottle of the Bollinger Grande Annee… and a pint of diet Coke. Bring all of it over but only uncork one of the bottles of white for starters.’

‘I’m sorry, we don’t serve diet Coke.’

‘Normal Coke?’

‘No, sir.’

‘What’s that Italian stuff that’s like orange Tango?’

‘San Pellegrino?’

‘Yep, a pint of that.’

‘Are you sure that is all, sir?’

‘Can I have some tomato ketchup as well?’

Mark scoops the last silver forkful of vegetables into his mouth and washes it down with half a glass of white wine. He slouches in his seat and undoes his belt buckle. He is taking short breaths and holding his chest.

‘Are you feeling ill, sir?’ the waiter asks unsympathetically. ‘Perhaps you would like some fresh air?’

‘I’m just a bit full.’

‘Am I to assume that you do not want the additional bottle of wine or the Bollinger?’

‘I’ll take them home.’

‘I’m sorry sir, but you cannot take them home. We are not a
supermarket
.’

‘Can’t you make an exception? I’d be very grateful, if you get my meaning.’

The waiter says he’ll have to check. He returns to the table with the two bottles and tells Mark to be discreet on the way out. The bill is £311. Mark hands over his MenDax American Express card, tells the waiter to take a £50 tip and asks for a receipt.

As he stands up to leave, his BlackBerry vibrates. It’s an email from Justin telling him to get back to the office immediately.

M
ark bursts into Craig’s room and pulls back the duvet. It’s ten o’clock on Sunday morning and Craig is asleep, face down. His
Simpsons
boxer shorts have slipped below his waist. Mark shakes him by the shoulders and he moans.

‘Craig, get up.’

‘Why?’ he asks, his voice muffled by his pillow.

‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’

‘Show me later. I’m tired.’

‘We’re going out.’

‘I’m not. I need to save money.’

Craig’s eyes are red and there is a patch of dribble on his pillowcase. He turns to look up at Mark, wipes his mouth and has a drink from the glass of water by his bed.

‘What are you dressed up for?’

‘I’m taking you on a cultural day out,’ Mark says. He’s wearing jeans and a long-sleeved white Ralph Lauren polo with a blue silk scarf. ‘I’ve got us two tickets to the
Critical Condition of England
exhibition at the Tate Modern.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s an art gallery.’

‘I
know
it’s an art gallery. What’s the exhibition?’

‘It’s meant to be the coolest thing in London. The tickets were expensive so get up and get ready.’

‘If the tickets were so expensive, why did you buy me one?’

‘I told you, it’s a treat.’

Craig yawns and turns onto his back. Mark stands there with his arms outstretched:

‘Craig, come on, get up.’

‘Isn’t there anyone else you’d rather go with?’

‘No. I’m asking you, and besides nobody else can make it. Now get up and have a shower. I want to leave in half an hour.’

The sun is shining but it’s not warm so Craig pulls on his sweatshirt as they walk out of Mansion House underground station and along Queen Victoria Street. Mark has been wearing sunglasses since they left the flat. They reach Peter’s Walk and Craig makes Mark wait so he can take a photo of St Paul’s Cathedral. Mark complains that he’s making them look like tourists.

As they cross the Millennium Bridge, weaving their way through an Italian tour party and stepping over a busker playing a didgeridoo, Mark hands Craig his ticket. It has COMPLIMENTARY printed where the price should be and Craig frowns as he slips it into his wallet.

The South Bank is swarming with tourists. A young female guide with a rolled-up golf umbrella is anxiously checking a map as the group of teenagers she is in charge of jostle each other and get in the way of joggers. There is a BBC crew filming outside the Globe Theatre and, just out of shot, a stall selling £8 hot dogs.

Outside the Tate, every step, ledge and grassy area is covered with people having lunch, all of them shaded by the colossal rectangular building and its towering chimney.

Mark leads Craig into the turbine hall and up the escalators to the fourth floor.

‘It looks like a factory from the outside,’ Craig says, peering up to the glass ceiling.

‘It was a power station.’

‘Oh right, I thought it was a bit of an odd design for an art gallery. Can’t we have a look at some of the other stuff first?’ Craig asks as they pass the entrance to the
Beauty of Disfigurement
collection.

‘There’s not much to see really mate, that’s why the main bit’s free. They keep all the good shit back for the exhibitions. Last time I came here there was some big metal slide in the main hall made from bits of scrap. I tried to go on it but it started shaking. It wasn’t very good.’

A gangly man wearing an earpiece checks their tickets and hands Mark a slim visitors’ booklet, from which he reads:

‘
Critical Condition of England
is a ground-breaking new exhibition showcasing six of the country’s most gifted young artists. Each was
commissioned
to produce an original artwork, in any form, which is a lucid reflection of modern English society. The result is a unique and
captivating
collection of mind-altering exhibits which examine the fragile nature of civilization and question the futility of existence in a culture obsessed with the dehumanisation of the nuclear family and the
deification
of celebrity iconoclasts.’

‘What does that mean?’ Craig asks.

‘Hopefully we’ll find out.’

They enter a square room with bright white walls, a high ceiling and a narrow doorway at the far end. There are only two other people in there; a pair of bald men in their fifties studying a painting on the
furthest
wall. To Mark and Craig’s left there is a video installation, around six feet square, and facing it, a long white bench where they sit down. The piece, entitled
No Help Service
, is a short film about five nurses at Stockwell Hospital who set up a brothel in a disused ward. One of the nurses claims that working in the NHS is dangerous and degrading and that it’s only by selling her body that she has regained her self-respect:

‘
I became a nurse because I wanted to ease pain and suffering but cleaning wounds and emptying bedpans was demoralising. Since I’ve been sleeping with men for money, I’m changing lives in a way that I never could in my job
.’

As the film ends a disclaimer pops up on the screen stating that the nurses were played by actresses and that the story is based on interviews conducted with real medical professionals which have been discarded and re-written for the purposes of entertainment.

‘So that was all completely made up then?’ Craig says as they walk towards a series of black and white photographs.

‘I don’t know. Some bits of it might be true. But there can’t be a brothel in the hospital surely? Can there?’

‘Why don’t you go to the A&E and find out?’

‘But what will I say’s wrong with me?’

‘I don’t know; say you’ve been having sexual problems and see if they take the hint.’

‘But then they might think I’m being serious and start poking around.’

‘Why don’t I break your arm like they do to the goalkeeper in
Escape to Victory
?’

‘Thanks for the offer mate, but I think I’ll pass.’

The ten photographs they are now standing in front of are entitled
Husband v Wife. Hull. 2007.
They depict a boxing match in an
underground
car park between an overweight man wearing a vest and boxing gloves, and his equally overweight wife who is armed with a broken
bottle
. In the first shot, the wife jabs at her husband’s face; in the second he is shown on his knees, bleeding. In the next four photographs he’s on the floor covering his head as she attacks him with an iron bar. In the final three shots, she stamps on his head; stands over him victorious cheered on by the sparse crowd; and loads his unconscious body into a shopping trolley.

‘This is just weird,’ Mark says. ‘In real life there’s no way she’d beat him up. He’d punch her before she could get the bottle near him.’

‘What part of this is art?’ Craig asks.

‘Let’s have a look at that painting down the end.’

The third piece in the room shows a classroom of infants being taught to read using pornographic magazines.

‘The brochure reckons this is
an attack on the levels of literacy in schools
,’ Mark says in a loud, bored tone.

‘It’s not even a good painting,’ Craig adds. ‘The kids’ faces are blurred and the perspective’s not quite right. The whole thing looks a bit wonky.’

‘Apparently their faces are blurred to protect their identities.’

‘Why didn’t the painter just change them?’

‘No idea.’

Mark steps away and starts tapping on his iPhone. Craig turns to him and gestures that they should go through to the next room.

‘What’s that?’ Craig says as they enter the second gallery.

In the centre of the room is a large blank canvas on an easel. Next to it, on a plinth, is a magnifying glass attached by a cord to the floor.

‘Apparently there’s a message on the canvas but it’s invisible to the naked eye,’ Mark says, reading the guide as they get closer. ‘You’ve got to use the magnifying glass to find it.’

Neither Craig nor Mark are that interested in trying to find the
hidden
message and give up after a few seconds.

‘What’s that mark in the bottom corner?’ Craig asks, taking the
magnifying
glass. ‘Ha. I’ve found it.’

‘What does it say?’

‘It says,
Imagine
.’

‘Imagine what?’

‘That’s all it says.’

Mark looks for himself. ‘So instead of the artist actually painting, we’re meant to imagine what he might have painted if he could have been bothered to do so.’

‘I suppose so,’ Craig says, sounding sleepy.

Mark checks the guide as they move on. ‘Bloody hell, apparently someone’s already bought it for ten grand.’

‘Ten thousand for that? That must have taken about two minutes. Why can’t anyone just do a nice painting any more?’

‘A nice painting of what?’

‘I don’t know. Some fields with a river and some trees in the
background
.’

‘What, a landscape?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But that’s what they did in the old days, people like Constable and Turner and Keats. I suppose it’s all been done.’

‘Do you know who I think is a good artist?’ Craig says, getting a side view of the exhibit.

‘Umm… Rolf Harris?’ Mark laughs at his own joke, and the two older men in the room glare at him.

‘I knew you were going to say that. No, the bloke who did the
Angel of the North
and those statues on that beach.’

‘And his name is?’

‘I can’t remember his name but I like the way he, oh, hang on-’

One of the two bald men is walking directly towards them looking stern, his tweed jacket flapping:

‘My friend and I are trying to enjoy this exhibition and would rather do so without being subjected to your childish guffawing and asinine comments, so please keep quiet.’

Mark looks at Craig who is trying not to laugh and the complainer turns to walk away.

‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’ Mark says, stopping him in his tracks.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I said, who do you think you’re talking to?’

‘I was just asking-’ he starts to counter.

‘I don’t care what you were just asking. Do you know who I am?’

‘Um, no, I don’t.’

‘My name is Mark Hunter and I’m the managing director of MenDax.’

‘MenDax?’ the man says, puzzled.

‘MenDax Wealth Management; the company paying for this exhibition. So we’ll behave however we like and if you say another word,  I’ll get you banned from every art gallery in London.’

Mark glares at him and the man’s double chin wobbles as he stands too shocked to speak.

‘Come on Craig,’ says Mark, ‘I’m bored anyway. Let’s go.’

On the way out they pass a display board thanking the principal sponsors: The UK Young Artists’ Fund, MenDax Wealth Management and Spudson’s Potato Waffles.

Craig is sitting at a table outside The Hamlet Tavern on the South Bank. Mark, who has indigestion after finishing off his fish and chips in less than two minutes, is at the bar getting a second jug of lager. The wind has dropped and it’s warmer than it was earlier.

A half-full Thames Clipper cruises past and Craig leans against the railings and gazes down at the tea-coloured river as tiny waves break against the wall. In the distance, the dome of St Paul’s dominates the skyline.

Mark shuffles back through the crowd with the refilled jug and drops back down at the table.

‘Feeling any better?’ Craig asks.

‘Yeah a bit. Just trapped wind I think.’ Mark fills their glasses and takes a huge glug. ‘I like doing stuff on a Sunday. It gets a bit boring
sitting
around the house.’

‘Normally you’ve got a hangover.’

‘True. I was looking up reviews of the exhibition when I was sitting in the toilet.’

‘What did it say?’

‘The papers absolutely slated it. They basically said that a bunch of complete unknowns had been given a lot of money they didn’t deserve and had produced a lot of rubbish. No wonder they had so many free
tickets to give away at work. The whole thing’s been a complete disaster apparently, apart from for the guy who sold the magnifying glass thing. You never know, that might turn out to be a bargain if he gets famous, although I doubt it. Did I tell you I’d invested in a couple of paintings?’

‘No,’ Craig says, surprised. ‘What are they?’

‘Abstracts, by a girl I met in a club back home. She was a student at the local art college and invited me along to her graduate show. They were five hundred quid, together, but they’re pretty good. Here, I’ll show you, I’ve got pictures on my phone.’

They are paintings of geometric circles. The first is one large
overlapping
pattern within a square, predominantly blue and yellow, on a white background. The second is of twelve smaller circles, four rows of three, which are a variety of green, orange and pink.

‘I quite like them actually,’ Craig says. ‘They look like those
drawings
you used to do with a Spirograph.’

‘That’s what she uses.’

‘Really? You paid all that for two paintings done with a Spirograph?’

‘Yeah, but she’s a proper artist, that’s the difference. And she was fit.’

‘So that was the reason.’

‘Yeah, but she said she had a boyfriend. I saw her in town last time I went home funnily enough.’

‘What was she doing, selling her Spirograph prints to gullible people in a shopping centre?’

‘No, she was in Café Nero. Working.’

Craig laughs. ‘Her art career’s really taken off then?’

‘Mate, in twenty years those paintings could be worth millions.’

‘Why don’t you put them up in the flat? We could use a bit of colour on the walls.’

‘I’d worry about them getting damaged. Anyway I can’t remember where I’ve hidden them.’

A train crosses Blackfriars Railway Bridge and pulls into the station as Craig stares out across the river at City of London School.

‘I’ll be in Café Nero soon if work doesn’t get any better,’ he says.

‘Still bad then?’