Paint. The art of scam. (25 page)

She walked the
whole way, it was sunny for once and the idea of diving down into the
underground, as she did by default normally, didn't appeal. Besides, she needed
time to think and she could never do that down there.

This was getting
real now. She had already got it all worked out, right down to what she could
buy and do with the money.

The money. That
money: sitting there. It had occurred to her recently that, actually, she was
perfectly happy the way things were. She and Seymour were having a wonderful
time, money was tight, but they enjoyed everything they had, together. But then
it had always been like that, since they met. She wondered what would happen if
there was money around. In a way it was poverty that brought them together.
That worried her. She also wondered why she always wants to make money? For the
sake of it? She'd been chasing it or years and years, thinking it was some sort
of Nirvana. Trouble is, you never know when you get there.

‘Money divides
people.’ Seymour says, usually before he goes into rant, about the impossible
infinite growth requirement of the capitalist system and how it's a shame you
can't eat money, because then it would all make sense.

He was right of
course.

Among the fights
that had been going on in her head, there was a big one. Seymour didn't care a
damn if he sold his work or not. It was Polly, right from the beginning of
their relationship that had pushed him. But somehow it was OK. Seymour was not
so much as resigned to it as going along with it.

Was she using
Seymour's work to wash the dirty money? Yes. Did it matter? No. Providing
Seymour didn't know. If he did know? Polly had no answer for that. Too late.

‘Jesus Christ, I
hope this works.’ whispered Polly to herself as she approached Carva's gallery.

‘Ah Polly. Good
morning to you and a beautiful morning it is!’ said Carva as a he stood up from
his desk and approached her. Polly was taken aback by Carva's rather over
dramatic greeting. He was supposed to be serious and suspicious, that was how
she’d rehearsed it. She thought she’d have to be hard and assertive, to get the
upper hand. Polly offered her hand to be shook.

‘Good morning
Simon, yes it is nice. I walked all the way.’

Carva leant
across to kiss her cheeks; Polly allowed him to do it, which was unusual. He
smelt of something that reminded her of someone, must have been dirty old men,
she supposed.

‘Right,’ said
Carva going over to his desk. ‘Please take a seat.’

Polly lifted a
pile of files off the only available chair and put it on top of another
precarious pile on the desk.

‘Sorry,’ said
Carva. ‘Really must clear this place up.’

Polly smiled.

Carva clapped his
hands loudly. ‘Right! Let's get down to business.’

‘So you've
thought about it then Simon?’ said Polly with her best poker face.

‘Yes Polly. I
have.’

‘And?’

Carva stared into
space for a moment, as if thinking.

Polly looked at
him, then up at the high dark ceiling.

‘Look Simon.’
said Polly calmly but firmly.

Carva snapped out
of his thoughts. He had been thinking about Desmond. He was going to delivery a
speech, designed to put himself in control of the situation, using lies and
illusion. But Desmond had always said, ‘If you never lie, you never have to
remember a thing.’ It was true. In all their years of wheeling and dealing
antiques and art, not once had they misled anyone. There was no need.

‘Sorry Polly. I
just remembered something. Um. Yes, well yes, in principle I am interested, of
course.’

‘But?’

‘But I need to
know something Polly. I need to know. Well. Is this some kind of trick?’

Polly was
surprised; slightly offended by Carva's words. She was still trying to adjust
her stance to this new, softer version of how she expected Carva to behave. He
seemed fragile, childlike, that embarrassment, that only the British can
deliver.

‘Is it Polly? I
need to know. Now. You see. I'll be honest with you Polly. Things have been,
shall we say, tricky for me lately, on several levels and I...Well I won’t bore
you with the details. Bit I really don't think I could handle any trouble, or
some sort of deception. Do you understand? I don't mean to sound rude. But you
know what they say about things that sound too good to be true.’

Polly stared into
Carva's eyes. His frankness touched her.

‘Yes Simon, I do
understand. It's a fair question.’

Carva began
fiddling nervously with his thumbs and looked down at them. Polly looked around
at the low-lit gallery. A slight gap in the heavy velvet curtains covering the
front shop window, allowed a fine shaft of sunlight through, illuminating the
billions of jostling dust particles that lived there.

The sickly
feeling in her gut, that had started when Carva spoke, grew and the grim stale
air in the gallery began draining her head of blood, pushing her spirit down.
Polly stood up and grabbed her bag.

‘I'm sorry Simon.
I really do need to get some fresh air.’

Polly moved
slowly to the door, opened it and stood outside on the pavement. She had left
the door open. To close it would have made her exit final. The street was busy,
people going about their business, cars crawled by in the traffic, remnants
from the night before were being cleaned up. The sound of clumsy stilettos and
giggling came from behind her. She looked around and watched the two young
women stagger past her, arm in arm, laughing through smeared, well kissed
lipstick. It was all so normal.

Polly looked back
at the gallery door. It was closed.

‘Shit, fuck, bum,
ass,’ Polly muttered, accompanied by her off guard body language: observed by
Carva, through the gap in the curtains.

He watched her
for a few moments, when suddenly, Polly stamped her foot and stepped off the
pavement in front of an oncoming bicycle, carrying a fully kitted out cycle
head, who, luckily, thanks to his experience, avoided hitting her, just in the
nick of time. He stopped, looked at her and shook his head.

Polly mimed ‘sorry’
to him.

He was still
shaking his head when he rode off, looking back one more time, just to remind
her.

‘Rata Tat Tat’
The sound made her jump. She looked around to see Carva in the window, the
curtains fully drawn open, poised with his chunky gold ring against the glass.
He was pointing at the door, beckoning her to come in.

Polly smiled at
the sight. Carva looked like some burnt out old vaudeville act: the sun
blasting in, lighting him up.

By the time she
got inside, Carva was already sat back at his desk. He looked so relaxed: Polly
had no idea how to feel. ‘Polly, I am grateful for.....’

‘Simon.’ said
Polly, cutting in, as she sat down. ‘I will give you my word that I will not
cheat you, or lie to you in anyway. I will give you all the money you make from
this, this, project, in cash. That is all I can say. You have to trust me and I
have to trust you. But there are two conditions. One. That you must never ask
me where the money comes from. And two. That you never tell Seymour about our
arrangement. Ever. That's it.’

Polly sat back,
she had practised those words all night.

Carva nodded.
Money always was illusive to him, why the hell should he start worrying about
where it comes from now?

‘Bugger it. Why
not.’ said Carva reaching his hand across the desk to shake on it.

Polly took his
hand and looked at him. Their eyes met and locked for a few seconds. The glint
in both their eyes somehow chinked like swords.

‘Right. We can go
through the details over lunch if you like. Booked a table at the Chevington
for us. Nice and private.’ said Carva.

‘I'd rather not
discuss anything about this in public if you don't mind.’ said Polly. ‘We can
do it now, here, it's all pretty basic.’

Carva rolled his
eyes. ‘Oh OK, but not now. I'm starving, come on,’ said Carva, easing himself
up onto his feet, ‘let's celebrate instead!’

Polly smiled as
she allowed herself to be hoisted out of her seat and led out of the gallery
and into a beautiful 60's Mercedes convertible that Carva had borrowed for the
day.

‘Nice car,’ said
Polly, as they pulled away.

‘Yes. They don't
make them like this anymore.’

‘Who's is it?’

Carva flashed a
disapproving look at her.

‘Sorry’ said
Polly.

Carva burst out
laughing and prodded her playfully in the shoulder.

‘Bastard.’ said
Polly as she watched Carva enjoying himself at her expense. He suddenly felt
like an old friend that she hadn't seen for years.

‘Seymour will
like you Simon. He's a bastard too.’

‘Where is he?’

‘At home,
hopefully working.’

‘Let's go and get
him then.’

Polly, surprised
at the suggestion, took a moment to reply. It occurred to her that Carva was
full of surprises, Polly's favourite trait.

‘Ok. Yes. Why
not? Great idea! We live back that way, Shepherds Bush.’ said Polly pointing
behind her.

Carva pulled over
and turned around.

Seymour stood back
and looked at the Vase Man: it wasn't going well. He was stuck with the idea of
using the same shape vase as the Vase Lady, yet deeply masculine. It had to be;
otherwise it would end up being the Vase Lady's sister or something.
Could end up like those fucking Russian
Dolls
, thought Seymour. This was the problem. The Vase Lady was beautiful,
no question. He loved the long-winded process of creating her and would happily
live with her for the rest of his days. The Vase Man on the other hand, was
forced on him by a confused response to a joke he hadn’t spot at the time. He
suspected that Polly was winding him up about making a new Vase Lady, one that
he was prepared to sell, but he wasn't quite sure. He was furious with himself.
Misunderstandings between Polly and Seymour were becoming commonplace lately,
usually over trivial domestic things. It probably had something to do with the
copious amounts of hashish Seymour had pumped down his neck.

Polly was right,
when she pointed out his strawberry eyes, dull conversation and half finished
jobs around the house, like half peeled potatoes for example, that he was
smoking far too much. He promised he would stop sometime soon, but he had to
finish the Vase Man. The fundamental problem with the Vase Man was that Seymour
always saw beauty as a female thing. All of his work was female, every thought
he had about his work was female. This was quite a revelation when he realised
it and explained why Polly had said the night before that the Vase Man looked
like a homosexual. Maybe there is no such thing as a male vase, or anything
ceramic come to that. You can't even make a vase up to be male. Male things are
hard, potentially violent, stinking of mindless testosterone, competitive for
the sake of it. Maybe Bodmin Moor at 10 o'clock was male? He had tried a chunky
decanter shape for the Vase Man. But then it wasn't a vase anymore, which
defeated the point. And all that time, the Vase Lady just stood there,
watching.

The Vase Lady was
back in his work space now, not on the wall but leaning against it. Polly had said
one night that she was a little jealous of the Vase Lady, when she was hanging
on the wall near the four-poster bed Polly had bought recently. He wondered if
she was joking.

Frankly, he was
ready to give up. The only thing that kept him working on the Vase Man, was
that he felt he had something to prove to Polly. Which he didn't and Polly had
no idea of the consequences of her flippant little joke.

Seymour went over
to the stack of unfinished paintings leaning against the wall and flicked
through them. Nothing caught his eye. He needed to work on something. He looked
across at the Vase Man.

‘Fuck you.’ said
Seymour to the Vase man as he grabbed it from the easel and put it on the front
of the stack, facing away from him. He really wanted to put his foot through
it. That would finish it.

Seymour had
another joint and decided he needed to change his mood if anything was going to
get done. Rosey's for a coffee, he decided. Rosey makes great coffee, she lived
in Italy for several years and missed her caffeine hit so much when she came
back to England with Marco Spinnelli -now in America with her best friend- that
she opened Rosey’s Cafe. Because of her coffee, Rosey's Cafe was popular for
miles around and attracted clientele of all sorts: mainly wannabe poets,
suspended teachers, armchair philosophers, frustrated musicians and pseudo
intellectuals, who loved debating things until there was nothing left but bones.
It was always inspiring going to Rosey's. She also sold the best hashish in
town, some of which, if you asked for a cafe loco, could be fast tracked into
your brain.

Seymour always
dressed up to go to Rosey's as did most of the clientele. She wouldn't have it
any other way. Rosey, a loud luscious woman, always dressed well: her taste,
eclectic, but somehow formal. She could make any dress steam with flamenco sex,
yet she could, at the same time, pass as a Barrister. She never wore trousers,
despite her trim figure; much to the dismay of Seymour, who suspected she had a
wonderful ass that should be available for all to see. She thought trousers
were vulgar and if a woman dared to go to Rosey's in trousers; they would be
served like the unclean.