Don't Tell Eve (26 page)

As the day of the auction approached, Jess began to wish that she was speaking to Zoë. But she didn’t think Zoë’d yet learned her lesson. While Zoë frequently drove her mad, and would be enormously offended when she finally discovered what Jess had been doing all these years without confiding in her, she was her best friend and could be guaranteed to be a very entertaining distraction – which was what Jess needed. She didn’t like her current level of tension, tension that she knew didn’t just stem from the auction itself, or the dolls, but the knowledge that she was in the process of dismantling her life. There was also guilt. Jack was a significant casualty, or collateral damage as Roger, and subsequently Eve, would say. Jess had wanted to explain everything to him, but she knew he wouldn’t have understood, not all of it. He’d have listened, partially, and then said it didn’t matter, that he liked who she was. As if he knew.

Just as she was considering whether the best form of relief immediately to hand was alcohol, exercise or taking up smoking, she heard the phone ring. She ignored it, although she was aware that it too constituted a form of distraction.

‘Jess. Jess? Are you screening?’

Yes, she thought, I am.

‘If you’re there, pick up.’

Why should I? she thought.

‘I want to talk to you.’

Oh alright, she thought, finally picking up the receiver. ‘Hello.’

‘Oh, you’re there.’

‘It would seem so.’

‘What are you doing right now?’

‘I was considering taking up smoking.’

‘Ah. Word is that it’s not good for your health.’

‘So the pictures on the packets suggest.’

‘I have a better idea anyway.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Come out for a drink.’

‘Well, alcohol was another of my options.’

‘Excellent, great. I’ll pick you up in about fifteen minutes.’

‘Fine, see you soon.’ Jess hadn’t been in contact with Oliver since he’d returned the doll and admitted where he’d taken it. After that, he’d not called her, so she’d not called him.

She considered changing but she didn’t want to look as if she were making an effort since he obviously wasn’t interested. So she limited herself to washing her face and putting on lipstick. Just as she’d done so, the doorbell rang. So much for fifteen minutes she thought, wondering if he’d just been outside.

‘So, how’s the smoking going?’

‘Oh, probably be better if I had some cigarettes.’

‘You ready to go then?’

‘Yeah. Where are we going anyway?’

‘You’ll see.’

When they reached the car Jess didn’t try to hide her amusement. ‘A bottle-green sports car? I’m not sure what to say – less clichéd than a red one, I suppose.’

‘I’m not sure that it actually qualifies as a sports car, but mock if you must.’

‘I must,’ she said, climbing in. ‘I kind of like it though.’

‘Thanks.’

‘So, what have you been up to?’ Jess said as nonchalantly as she could. This sounded better than: why haven’t you called before this? Where have you been? What’s going on?

Oliver had spent the week not calling her. He no longer had the excuse of asking about the dolls, and she had that boyfriend. So, with no legitimate reason to contact her, he’d been doing some research instead. It wasn’t until it occurred to him that they could talk about the auction that he finally dialled her number. ‘You know, this and that – work mostly, catching up with friends, the usual. You?’

‘Same thing,’ said Jess. ‘Without the catching up with friends, and I guess I wasn’t working very hard either.’ It had been a long week and if he wasn’t going to give anything away, there was no reason she should.

As they drove past some dilapidated buildings, Jess nodded in recognition. ‘Ah, so you know about the secret bar too?’

‘Apparently it’s not so secret.’

‘I don’t know – considering it’s a relatively warm evening and it looks empty, I think secret’s a fairly good description.’

‘Okay, it’s secret,’ said Oliver, to be agreeable. ‘Tell me if you see a parking spot.’

It didn’t take long to find one, as the area really was uninhabited. Situated at the back of an old hotel down by the quay, the bar consisted of a number of indestructible plastic tables
and chairs dotted along an old wooden pier. It wasn’t a place people stumbled across.

‘Grab a table and I’ll get some drinks.’

Jess did as she was ordered, enjoying the experience.

‘What makes you think I even drink beer?’ she asked Oliver on his return.

‘It goes well with cigarettes? Besides, if you don’t want it I’ll have it, so there’s no big risk involved for me.’

‘Okay, well, if we’re having beer, we might as well order hot chips to go with it.’

‘Done.’

‘Right, good.’

They watched the ferries chug past, neither sure what to say next, and each waiting for the other to speak.

It was Jess who gave in first. ‘So, why did you call then?’ If Kate hadn’t been in the picture, she might have tried to be more pleasant. As it was, the outing was feeling remarkably like a date, which it couldn’t be, so the only appropriate way to deal with the situation was to keep it impersonal.

What Oliver wanted to say was not what he said. ‘I wanted to see how you’d got on at the gallery, what was happening about the auction.’

‘For the article?’

Oliver froze. ‘On Eve? No, that’s been filed now and I didn’t mention them.’ If Jess had said for ‘an article’, he might have responded in a different manner, or not. ‘I wanted to see how you were.’

This comment, which sounded sincere, made Jess wonder why it really was that she hadn’t called him. It would have been polite to let him know what was happening and by not doing so she probably seemed ungrateful, not that she had anything to be grateful for, but he didn’t know that. ‘Well …’ And she told him about seeing the dealer – she used this word rather than meeting – that all the dolls were now at
the gallery, and that her flat felt strangely empty. She didn’t mention Jack. She also admitted that she was nervous.

This display of emotion, limited as it was, encouraged Oliver. It showed it wasn’t something he’d done that was making her so prickly, or it was, but not anything for which she was blaming him. ‘I hadn’t thought about the empty nest aspect, but I can see how you might feel. I don’t know, a bit lost; that the place might seem very quiet.’

‘I think that’s it – it doesn’t feel empty so much as quiet.’ She thought of Jack and his guitar, but this was a different kind of quiet. However, she wasn’t going to talk about Jack. There was nothing worse than people who talked endlessly about their exes, especially to people who didn’t know them, weren’t interested in them and were likely to get the wrong idea if they realised the ex was still in residence. ‘Very quiet.’

It can’t be as quiet as all that, thought Oliver, not if Jack is still there. ‘Nerves are normal – I’d be bloody nervous in your position.’

Jess smiled at last. ‘Thanks.’

‘Sorry, that was meant to sound supportive and sympathetic.’

‘At least your intentions were good.’

‘They always are,’ he said.

‘Somehow, I find that hard to believe.’ Jess looked out at the water.

Ignoring this dig, Oliver went on. ‘But seriously, it’s a huge thing to have your work being sold at auction, along with some really significant artists.’ He paused, realising what he’d just implied.

Jess smiled again but said nothing.

‘Not that —’

‘I know. Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to pounce on you for that. I know there are some really important works being
sold alongside the dolls. But it’s not about money, it’s about them going public. There’s a lot riding on this.’

‘I know – it’s not just about art, it’s about identity.’

Jess wondered how much he really knew. ‘Yes, exactly,’ she said slowly. ‘But what I don’t understand is why you got involved? What’s in it for you? Especially if you didn’t put anything in the article.’

‘Can’t a guy just be helpful?’

‘No, everyone has an agenda.’

At that moment the chips arrived, distracting them both as Jess refused to let Oliver pour tomato sauce over them. ‘Salt’s fine, as much as you like, there’s nothing like good firm arteries, but sauce is just plain wrong, and as for vinegar or mayonnaise, don’t even contemplate it.’

Oliver was encouraged to see that she ate enthusiastically, if not regularly, if her size was anything to go by. ‘The bidding won’t be entirely random – you know that, don’t you?’

She did, but did he? ‘What do you mean?’

As she seemed genuinely not to know, Oliver suddenly wondered if he’d made a mistake. What if she wasn’t JJ? What if he had her all wrong? He looked across the table at the woman blowing on her potato chip. No. Perhaps it was just that her work had never been auctioned, that her dealer hadn’t explained the process. He elaborated. ‘They often know beforehand who’s likely to buy a particular work, so they make calls, talk it up to the collectors they think are right for them.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘I hear there’s already interest.’

A part of Jess thought that now was the time to let Oliver in on the truth, but another – the dominant part – insisted on discretion. So in apparent surprise she echoed, ‘There’s interest?’

There was indeed interest.

For several days before the auction, the pieces to be sold were on display in the gallery and potential buyers were allowed to examine them. Prior to that catalogues had been sent out as usual, and, as Oliver had mentioned, phone calls had been made and images distributed; the right people knew what was going under the hammer.

The last-minute inclusion of the dolls wasn’t so much a gamble as an opportunity – that is, if they were sold as the work of JJ. So far Jess had been resisting this and insisting the work remain anonymous. The dealer let her believe this was going to be the case. Among his many contacts, he’d immediately targeted one particular collector, not directly but through a consultant who collected for several people.

On seeing the dolls in the flesh, the consultant pressed the tips of his fingers together and tried not to give away his excitement. ‘Well, well. Estimate?’

A reasonable figure was mentioned.

‘Hmm.’ Not that the price mattered too much, this consultant had a lot of leeway when it came to spending his clients’ money. And this piece was just too perfect for one in
particular. Right down to the appearance of the dolls, the feel and the subject matter. The back stories on the linked website added another dimension, and a complexity to what could have been a relatively simple work. The client might even like it. ‘I won’t be in town for the auction unfortunately, but I’ll be in touch. I’m interested, at the right price.’

‘You’re not alone.’

‘You always say that.’ The art consultant let himself smile.

After he left, several other people visited, mostly to see the established artists, some to see if they could pick up a bargain from an up-and-coming young thing, or, as they called themselves on their grant applications, emerging artists. There were others, however, whose focus was the dolls. The rumour that they were the work of the reclusive JJ had been as effective as its generator had hoped.

One of these visitors was a woman dressed in a charcoal tailored suit with her hair pulled back in a painfully tight, painfully neat chignon.

After her meeting with Phil, Hilary had looked up the address he’d given her and had discovered it to be a gallery. Not being one who liked surprises, she had decided some preliminary reconnaissance was in order.

The place had been easy enough to find and from the outside it looked like an ordinary house, like several businesses on the street. But inside, stark white walls met polished concrete floors and, with the windows covered, the space felt at once claustrophobic and cavernous. Hilary liked it. What she didn’t like was the reception she received from a young woman with hair pulled back more tightly than her own and a suit even more sharply tailored. Instead of fawning over Hilary, as she’d imagined would happen when someone
entered a gallery where work was for sale – meaning money was involved – the woman merely raised her enthusiastically plucked eyebrows, the only enthusiastic part of her, looked Hilary up and down in a way Hilary was meant to notice, and said, ‘Yes?’

As Hilary didn’t quite know why she was there, she wasn’t sure how to continue the exchange. The woman opposite her didn’t look as though she planned to say anything else, let alone offer Hilary any information, and for a moment they simply stood, neither smiling, neither moving. Then Hilary heard a man’s voice and footsteps coming down stairs somewhere in the back of the building, and the statue came to life.

‘Was there anything in particular you wanted to see?’ it said.

Hilary knew this was the moment to mention the dolls. If the assistant didn’t know what she was talking about, she could pretend she’d come to the wrong place and leave. At least she had seen the gallery, and now knew that Phil had given her the details of an art auction. ‘Some dolls,’ and she waved her hand to suggest that they weren’t really important.

The voice, which she now realised belonged to a petite nattily dressed man in his mid forties, cut in. ‘Ah, you’ve heard about our dolls. Do let me show you.’ With a quick movement of his head, he gestured to Hilary to follow him.

‘Where did you hear about them, may I ask?’ It was always useful for the dealer to know about a potential new buyer; vital to know about their connections.

‘A friend,’ said Hilary, smiling to herself at the irony.

‘Ah,’ said the man, who introduced himself as the owner and director of the gallery.

‘The work is a last-minute addition, as you’ll know.’

Hilary nodded. She didn’t know.

‘The artist is choosing to exhibit anonymously for personal reasons, but you might recognise the style.’ He looked at her expectantly but she didn’t react. ‘This is, I think, more sophisticated than her previous work, very much a step up, and less obviously confronting. And if you like your art a bit camp, a bit ironic, a bit political – well, just look at them.’

Hilary liked none of these things – and nothing could have prepared her for the work. She didn’t look at it fully, only at the dolls, which were the centrepiece. They were what it was about, the multimedia aspect didn’t matter. For now, the only thing that mattered was that she alerted Eve to the existence of these dolls.

‘Don’t you just love it? The layers, the stories, particularly the reference to —’

‘Your one o’clock is here,’ interrupted the gallery assistant, making a tiny gesture with her chin towards two old women, one with lilac hair and jewellery that glinted with contentment under the artfully directed gallery lights.

The dealer’s attention shifted immediately towards them and away from Hilary, who assumed that they must be what serious buyers looked like.

‘Excuse me, I’m terribly sorry, but I’ve got one of those days, and if I’m late for this one, it will just get worse. If you have any questions, do ask my assistant, she’s very knowledgeable.’

‘Thank you.’ Hilary doubted the knowledgeable assistant could answer the questions she had, such as: could Jess be sued for this? Could the auction be stopped? She hated to imagine what people would think when they saw them; Eve hated to be made fun of. And what the brief piece in the catalogue suggested they said about the company – it was intolerable. She couldn’t believe that Jess could be so blatant – and so stupid as to trust Phil. She also couldn’t believe that Phil had been so naïve as to think she wouldn’t do her research. Other people’s idiocy never failed to astound Hilary. At least now
she had concrete evidence against Jess, and it wasn’t insignificant. Eve couldn’t dismiss it. In fact, the scale was such that if Hilary could put a stop to this fiasco, Eve would forget about the management book hiccough, and the Ilona miscalculation – which she’d worked out a way to handle now anyway – and wouldn’t ever want to be parted from her. Hilary’s departure from this inbred, festering island would be assured.

The assistant watched with as much interest as she was capable of as Hilary walked out, grinning to herself in a tight-lipped way.

Once outside, after recovering from the blast of sticky hot air, Hilary dialled Eve’s number. It didn’t matter what the time was on the other side of the world, it was vital they spoke. The phone rang out, then, exasperatingly, switched to voicemail. As Hilary didn’t want to explain why she was ringing, she simply asked Eve to call back. Urgently.

Back inside the chilled environment of the gallery the two old ladies – the one with lilac hair
was
a serious buyer – walked around chatting amiably to the dealer and scribbling notes in their catalogues.

‘So what have you got that’s fun, darling?’ The buyer called a lot of people darling, but the dealer was genetically entitled to it; he was a nephew, one currently in favour.

‘Well, I do have a little piece that’s just come in.’ He pointed to the dolls.

‘Oh,’ said the buyer, reading the sheet of paper the dealer had given her. ‘But surely this is the work of JJ?’

‘Well, not officially, as you can see.’

‘Why make it anonymous? That won’t do anything for the price, though I’ve been meaning to pick up a JJ for a while as her work is so amusing, and always so well executed, so
different to so many of her contemporaries. She’s obviously female. But I won’t bid on an anonymous work – although anonymous with proof of identity might tempt me …’

As the lilac-haired old woman continued to study the dolls, and her friend pointed out a certain feature that made them both chuckle, the assistant approached the dealer again, tentatively this time. ‘Excuse me, there’s a call for you.’

‘Yes, who is it?’

‘Jack,’ she said, her voice sounding almost warm, ‘from The Whale.’ Like Hilary, the assistant wasn’t fond of food, but she did think Jack delicious, and she’d heard he was back on the market.

‘I wonder what he wants?’ mused the buyer.

‘Whatever it is, I won’t be telling you, my dear,’ said the dealer.

‘You are dull. Now, if I do decide to bid, can your little girl help with that?’

The assistant winced.

‘I think she can manage it.’

The dealer returned to his office. ‘What can I do you for? Didn’t think art investment was your thing.’

‘Well —’

‘I hope you’re ringing to tell me that Jess has changed her mind about the anonymous business. It’s a complete pain in the arse. I’m dealing with it, but if she wants money, this is not the way to go. I’ve told her that, but maybe she’ll listen to you.’

‘Why would she start now?’

‘I was sorry to hear about you two.’

‘Not as sorry as me, mate, but that’s not why I called. I’ve got a friend who wants to see the dolls.’

‘Great. He knows the truth, I assume?’

‘About who made them? Yes, but not officially.’

‘Okay, I’ll say nothing. How does five sound?’

‘Perfect.’

The dealer put down the phone with an uneasy feeling that there was something Jess had not told him about the dolls.

When Hilary returned to the office she tried calling Eve’s mobile once again. There was still no answer. She rang Eve’s hotel and left a message there.

While she waited to hear back, Hilary tried to think of the best way to handle this, and cursed herself for not following up on the dolls business earlier, not taking it more seriously. But still, she told herself, the main thing was that the auction of the dolls wouldn’t go ahead. She would ensure they wouldn’t be sold. If she couldn’t make Jess withdraw them she’d go to the auction and destroy them. In fact, this was what had to be done. She’d do it in front of Jess, but she’d make it look like an accident.