Nothing to Lose (17 page)

Jix grinned. ‘It won’t, actually. There’s a new gallery opened up in Bixford South. One of my – um – contacts mentioned that he’d – er – sold a few paintings there. I thought, as you’re not waitressing tomorrow, that we could take the picture along at lunch time.’

It had stopped raining, but only just, and the pavements gleamed and steamed in the humidity. April, struggling from the bus with the painting wrapped in sheets of yesterday’s
Guardian,
was already uncomfortably sticky. Jix took the parcel from her as she negotiated the hordes of students and tourists all trying to get on and off the bus at the same time. They’d left Bee with Daff, while Joel and Rusty had agreed to take Cair Paravel on his usual undercover pipe-opener in the park, getting quite excited about being seen with something as daringly butch as a greyhound.

Bixford South was far more arty than the other two parts of the borough: there was no industry here, no greyhound stadium, no back-to-back terraces or boarded-up shops. Bixford South had wide roads and leafy pavements, with tall elegant houses and green open spaces. Its residents all worked in publishing and the media, drank caffe-latte in mock-Manhattan coffee lounges, and had wisteria-walled gardens which featured in the Sunday supplements.

April took the painting from Jix again, cradling it against her to protect it from the rushing lunch-time crowds. They’d chosen the smallest one simply for ease of manoeuvring, but even so it was heavy and bulky. ‘How much further?’

‘Just along here,’ Jix said. ‘Round the next bend. Are you sure you don’t want me to take it?’

April shook her head. She had a knot of sadness in her stomach at the thought of parting with it. It had been one of her favourites: a mass of greens and blues and turquoises, representing, Noah had said, the ocean calming after a storm. She’d watched him paint it, laying the colours on top of one another, scraping them away in swirling curves just before each one dried, to give movement and depth. She hadn’t understood it, certainly hadn’t seen it through his eyes, but the finished picture reminded her of the blissful weeks they’d shared together as it grew.

The gallery was elegant, quiet and well lit, with lots of white walls and pale wooden floors. Each of the two windows displayed a single painting beneath spotlights: both were abstract, vivid jags of colour on black canvas. Inside, there was one rather ugly floral arrangement, all dried thistles and bits of curling twig, towering in a pale vase in a corner, Beethoven tinkled the
Moonlight Sonata
unobtrusively from hidden speakers, and a ceiling fan whirred continuously. April thought it gave the place the air of an upmarket funeral parlour.

A woman, presumably in charge, glided out from an antechamber as though on castors. ‘May I help you?’ The matching set of raised eyebrows and pursed lips immediately suggested that she couldn’t possibly.

April, wearing the pink sandals and a denim dress, quailed in front of this vision in fawn suede and coordinated make-up, and shifted the parcel under her arm. ‘Er – yes, I hope so.’

The woman, whose minimalist name badge strained at having to encompass the words Penelope Grieves-Harrison, surveyed Jix in his Glastonbury best and looked as though she would like to telephone the police. ‘Are you browsing?’

Jix shook his head. Several necklaces jangled. ‘No, we’d like you to look at this painting with a view to buying it.’

April winced slightly at Jix’s no-nonsense approach to the matter in hand. She’d have skirted around it a bit, made nervous apologetic noises, and probably said sorry a lot.

Penelope Grieves-Harrison seemed a little taken aback too. The pale gold eyebrows took on a life of their own. April could see ‘Stolen! Stolen!! Stolen!!!’ flashing through the cool brain. The lips peeled apart.

‘We don’t buy paintings from casual vendors.’

April, deciding that Jix needed backup, worked some saliva into her dry mouth. ‘It’s a Noah Matlock.’

Penelope’s sculpted lips drew back even further, now revealing a set of teeth that wouldn’t have disgraced a racehorse. ‘I don’t think it is.’

Holding herself back from shrieking ‘Of course it is, you daft bat – I should know – have a bloody look!’, April tried a woman-to-woman smile. ‘It was painted three years ago. During his return-to-nature elemental period.’

Penelope Grieves-Harrison gave a well-bred snort. ‘Oh no, my dear. I think not. All the Matlocks of that particular period are on permanent exhibition at the Stroud Gallery.’

April counted to ten. ‘I know. Three for earth, three for air, three for fire – and two for water. This is the third water one.
Oceanic Calming
. . .’

Jix seized the moment and, having wrested the parcel from April, laid it flat on the desk and began ripping off the layers of newsprint. Despite her cool indifference, Penelope, April noticed, moved a little closer. As the tumbling colours came into view she gave a small gasping intake of breath.

‘There,’ Jix said, when the whole thing was uncovered. ‘See. It’s genuine.’

Penelope was poring over it, peering at the chunks of paint, looking like a greedy child at a birthday party spotting the food for the first time. ‘It’s certainly a remarkable copy.’

‘It’s not a damn copy,’ April said, exasperated. ‘It’s not a forgery. It’s the real thing. Look at the signature – it’s his trademark.’

Noah, being highly original April had thought at the time, always drew a tiny ark complete with Lowry-type stick animals beneath his name, in the left-hand corner of each of his paintings beside the completion date.

Penelope had fumbled in the desk drawer for an eyeglass and was scrutinising the signature, her fawn hair all-of-a-piece with the soft suede dress. April exchanged glances with Jix. It had never been like this when they’d sold the other paintings. Then, so soon after Noah’s defection and sick with early pregnancy but not realising it, she had gone sadly with Jix to one of the big West End galleries, offloaded the pictures and pocketed the cheque and no questions had been asked.

‘I do have other proof, both of the painting’s originality and my ownership.’ April really hadn’t wanted to do this. Jix had warned her against it. But push was coming to shove here and they needed the money. ‘There’s this . . .’ She took the letter from her handbag and passed it to Penelope Grieves-Harrison. April knew the contents off by heart. She watched as the tawny eyes scanned the pages, taking in the huge scrawled words, knowing exactly at which point the eyebrows would raise, at which part the tongue would dare to protrude between the gin-trap teeth.

Darling April, my love, my inspiration,

Without you these paintings would not exist. Without you I would be as sterile as other men, working in dark futility.

My elemental work is dedicated to you. Should I leave you – and I swear I never will –
Oceanic Calming
is your insurance that I will return. It was created out of the roaring, surging torrent of our love; it siren-calls our passion teasingly to all those lonely souls unlucky enough never to have known such emotion. It is yours. Always. When you part with it you will have parted with my heart.

Your devoted and adoring, Noah.

When April had first shown it to Jix, he’d shrieked with laughter. ‘What a load of old cobblers! God Almighty, April – what the hell was he on? Who wrote this for him? No, don’t tell me – my mum’s got similar stuff upstairs. The love letters of Godfrey Winn! Jesus!’

Then he’d seen April’s tears, and handed the letter back quickly and made her a cup of tea.

She’d told him this morning that she’d brought it with her, and proof of her identity – and his reaction had been predictable. ‘For God’s sake don’t show it to anyone. They’ll laugh in your face.’

But Penelope wasn’t laughing.

‘Very well.’ She folded the pages and handed them back to April. ‘I’ll need to speak with my co-owners, of course – so if you could leave the painting with me for a day or so . . .’

‘No way.’ Jix pushed his hair from his face. It immediately tumbled back again. ‘The painting and April stay together. We want an immediate decision.’

Penelope stared longingly at the two-foot-square daubs of colour. April held her breath. The tape had worked its way round and Beethoven was tinkling the
Moonlight Sonata
again.

Penelope opened the bidding. ‘Two thousand pounds.’

‘Four,’ Jix said quickly.

‘Two and a half.’ Penelope hadn’t even broken into a sweat.

‘I’ll take three.’ April’s lips had gummed themselves together. She prised them apart. She hoped Penelope wouldn’t see the urgency in her eyes. ‘Three thousand pounds. Now. In cash . . .’

Penelope winced. ‘Cheque.’

‘Sorry. Only cash.’ April could already visualise the notes, crammed together, fresh and crisp, in the chocolate tin under the bed.

‘Very well.’ It was a rapid capitulation. ‘You’ll have to wait while I go to the bank. We don’t hold cash reserves here. I’ll call one of my assistants to wait with you until I return.’

The assistant, young and slender and a pale imitation of the splendid Penelope, must have been listening to every word, if the speed with which she appeared from the antechamber was anything to go by.

‘Elise will take care of you in my absence.’ Penelope was striding towards the door. ‘I won’t be long.’

Elise eyed them warily. April wanted to rush round the silent room punching the air. Three thousand pounds! Three thousand! And she still had at least ten more of Noah’s pictures at home. Not, of course, that she’d get rid of them. This was the last time. But – oh, what an investment for Bee’s future!

‘You could have got a lot more,’ Jix said. ‘She settled for three so quickly that she’d probably have parted with double.’

‘I know, but I’m useless at haggling, and a definite three thousands pounds right now is a damn sight better than six thousand maybe. We can hire a car, and pay for all sorts of things, and get Cairey racing and – ’

Jix shook his head. ‘The money is for you and Bee. Yes, sure, we’ll use some now. But the rest must be saved for when you and Noah get back together and move to the roses-round-the-door cottage. You’ve worked so hard for it. And the last lot didn’t go that far, did it? Rent and bills and things have a huge appetite.’

April sighed. Jix, of course, was right. But it was such a lovely heady feeling to have so much money – and all in one hit. It was a million times better than winning the Lottery.

Elise made a strange little mewing noise in her throat, and indicated the painting. ‘The – um – Matlock ... do you collect him?’

April smiled. Maybe Elise hadn’t been ear-wigging that closely – or at least not to the early part of the conversation.

‘Sort of. Why?’

‘I saw him once,’ Elise looked star-struck, ‘at an exhibition. He’s very – um – hunky. Not like an artist at all.’

‘More like a rugby player,’ April agreed nostalgically, with a shiver of ancient lust. Noah had always been a bit of a show-off when his paintings were on display. ‘So where was this exhibition?’

‘Swaffield. Last year. The Corner Gallery. I was working there during the summer holidays before being taken on here full time. He was over from France for a couple of days.’

April and Jix exchanged startled looks. Swaffield was only a couple of miles out of Bixford. They’d missed that one. April wanted to cry. Noah had been so close – and yet he hadn’t made contact. She guessed he’d been too busy . . . And now he lived in France, did he? Well, she supposed the loft-living harpy who had taken her place had by now given up her career and was happily parasiting off Noah’s new-found fame.

April and Jix had chased so many trails over the years that had simply dwindled out and gone cold. All their letters had been returned unopened. No wonder. They hadn’t even considered that he’d left the country. Noah was obviously settled in some rustic
gîte,
dining al fresco on non-stop Calvados and runny Brie, painting in the sunshine . . .

‘He’s coming back again.’ Elise broke into this Peter Mayle fantasy. ‘Noah Matlock. In September. I mean, I thought you might like to know, as you’re keen on his work.’

The pristine gallery swirled. Beethoven suddenly became a rap drumming in April’s ears. Hoping that she wasn’t going to be sick on the waxed lime floor, she swallowed. ‘What – er – back to Swaffield, you mean?’

‘The Corner Gallery again, yes.’ Elise nodded. ‘On the twenty-sixth of September – I know because that’s my birthday. He’s exhibiting his new French stuff. All very Picasso, so I’ve been told.’

The door opened and Penelope breezed through, an envelope in her hand. She smiled with a refined air of lascivious greed as she handed it over, and April counted the fifty-pound notes and signed the receipt, and none of it registered. The only thing that registered was that Noah would be here, a couple of miles away, and she would see him – and introduce him to Bee – in a little over a month’s time.

That evening, the Copacabana was thrumming. It was the running of the Bixford Cup, a prize donated every three months by Oliver, and attracted hugely knowledgeable dog-going crowds. A big race meeting meant that all the celeb owners were out in force. Martina had decided the cocktails tonight were to be champagne only, and April had served Blue Velvets to Jimmy White, Tibetan Monkeys to Ronnie Wood and, surprisingly she felt, a couple of very pretty La Vie En Roses to Vinnie Jones.

While the other cocktail waitresses were going through their quarterly swoon over the clutch of famous faces, April could see only one. Beautiful and battered, Noah’s image was in her head all the time, and had been ever since she and Jix had left the gallery.

‘April!’ Martina’s roar shattered the on-loop daydream just at the part where Noah had again spotted her across the crowded gallery and rushed, in slow-motion – naturally – towards her, his arms outstretched, his love enfolding both her and Bee for ever.

‘Uh?’ April blinked wildly.

‘You’ve been stirring that Queen Mum for five damn minutes!’

‘Oh God – have I?’ April looked down at the champagne and Tanqueray Gin. Despite the fact that she’d been whisking it with the jigger for so long, it looked flat and unappetising. She smiled apologetically at the waiting customer. ‘I’ll chuck it away and do another one.’