Paint. The art of scam. (34 page)

After years of
escapades, relationships that always seemed to end badly and all the winning
and the losing that is life, they met again in the same woods they had met in
all those years ago. Cyril had been living permanently on his land for a year
or so by then, having had enough of what felt like living in a pinball machine,
that was, in fact, a perfectly normal life to most.

It was Autumn and
Cyril was out collecting firewood, both for himself and Sir Thomas; for which
he got the use of the old ex-army Landrover and trailer. Nastasia, appeared,
standing on a hillock, looking down at him, as he stacked wood onto the
trailer.

‘Well, well. If
it isn't Cyril Barker.’ she shouted.

Cyril looked up.
The setting sun was behind her and, although he couldn't see her features, he
knew immediately it was her. Roger, furious with himself, that he hadn't heard
her coming, ran up to her barking.

‘Well, well. If
it isn't Nastasia Turner.’ Cyril shouted back.

Nastasia
clambered down the hill, sliding on the damp golden leaves, followed by a
confused Roger, and stood in front of him. They looked at each other for some
time as if scanning each other.

‘Well look at
you,’ said Cyril as he stared into those eyes that wouldn't let just anybody
in.

‘And look at you.’
said Nastasia.

With a sudden
collapse of unsure inhibitions, they fell into each other's arms and cried
their hearts out. Roger looked on, worried.

Once they had
settled down and able to talk, they went back to Cyril's place and unloaded
their pasts to each other.

Nastasia had just
got back from a disastrous marriage to a Canadian writer in Vancouver. She
looked tired and battle worn. It was her second marriage. The first one was
worse. She had no children thanks to a dose of syphilis, that had rendered her
sterile and, generally speaking, was relieved to be home at last, having, in
her words, ‘jumped off the carousel.’

Her life wasn't
all bad and did have smatterings of wonderful times, that made her laugh as she
told them to Cyril. It occurred to her, only then, as she talked, that those
times were always between relationships. When she was truly herself, unblocked
by compromise.

Cyril's story was
nowhere near as packed with change and chaos and he happily listened to
Nastasia, dumping out her every thought onto him.

In time their
friendship grew again into a mutual bond as solid as rock. Cyril loved
Nastasia, Nastasia loved Cyril and somehow, having been there and done that,
poking in the dark in their uncertain lives, looking for happiness and never
quite finding it, they could once again return to what they had before: They
could be children again.

Nastasia's car
thundered into the entrance lane and pulled up outside Cyril's van. The waft of
popcorn juice, a result of the Mercedes being fueled by cooking oil, lingered
in the air. Nastasia, as usual, spent a few seconds sorting out her bag; it
having been rifled for cigarettes or mints while driving, opened the heavy,
creaking door and got out.

‘Hi big boy!
Cyril? What up with you? You look like shit!’ said Nastasia.

She was right,
Cyril looked like a madman, crazy, psychotic. Cyril hadn't looked in the mirror.
He had been too busy looking at everything he thought he was about to lose.

Nastasia walked
up to Cyril warily and stopped a metre from him. ‘Cyril darling, what's wrong?’

Cyril looked up
for the first time, reached into his shirt pocket and handed Nastasia the
letter. Nastasia slowly opened it, straightening it out and read it.

‘You bastard.’
whispered Nastasia. ‘Oh Cyril darling this is just, just....what a fucking asshole!
Oh Cyril.’ Nastasia flung her arm around Cyril's neck and kissed him on the
forehead several times. ‘Oh my dear dear Cyril.’

‘Yeh, what a
fucking nightmare.’ mumbled Cyril. ‘And that's not all.’

‘There's more?’
said Nastasia, pulling her head away. Cyril nodded and slowly stood up.

‘Come inside.’ said
Cyril gently taking her hand.

Nastasia watched
Cyril as he reached inside the cupboard to his secret stash box and pulled out
a, now cleaned, dried and oiled leather bag.

‘Nice bag,’ said
Nastasia, ‘I can put it in the shop for you if you like, probably get thirty
quid for it.’

‘How much?’ said
Cyril as he dropped the bag down on the table in front of her.

‘Mmmm, it is a
bit tatty. Maybe twenty quid. We'll see.’

Nastasia watched
Cyril carefully undo the polished brass catches and pull open the hinged top.

She looked
inside, then up to Cyril's now smiling face.

‘Oh my God!’

By the time
Seymour emerged from the bathroom, five long minutes later, Polly had drunk
another glass of wine and felt comfortably numbed by it. The relief she felt
from her confession had left her feeling strangely empty; so accustomed had she
become to her secret. It had been a major part of her life, sitting stubbornly
in her being, tainting every moment. She had had to summon up some serious
emotions to handle it, but handle it, she did. Now she felt like a criminal in
court waiting for a verdict. It was all up to Seymour now, what he decided in
reaction to her confession was going to determine her foreseeable future. This
did not sit comfortably in her gut. It was not the first time in her life that
she had been at the mercy of a lover’s judgment. She had already planned for
the worst case scenario, that Seymour would kick her out. He didn’t need her
anymore. He would be fine now that he was selling his work. But then, she would
be fine too. Although she didn’t know exactly how much cash there was left in
the bags, there would certainly be enough to get her set up somewhere else,
again. These thoughts had brought about a certain feeling of hostility toward
Seymour. The fact that he had this power over her, just for that moment, while
she waited for him to come out of the bathroom, brewed up a feeling she had
never had for him before. She could just imagine him sat there on the toilet
feeling sorry for himself. Victim thoughts flying around his hash crashed head.
How she had deceived him, tricked him into thinking he was, after all, an
accomplished artist. How he had supported her through the trauma of the
robbery, how he had stood by her through thick and thin and now, this was how
she treated him. How he had trusted her. Right from the beginning of their
relationship, they had pledged to each other, in a drunken adlib ceremony, that
they would never lie to each other: ever. Polly drew comfort from the fact that
she, technically, had not lied to Seymour about anything, not really. The
difference between lying and telling the truth is dependent on one thing and
that is the existence of a question. Of course, she knew Seymour wouldn’t see
it like that, he never did, unless it was he that was defending himself.

The truth
however, was that Seymour had maintained his pose, as the victim of deception,
bowed head, dropped, defeated shoulders and all, right up until the moment he
had slowly, but firmly, closed and locked the bathroom door. He had then turned
around to face bathroom cabinet mirror and flashed a smile the size of a small
cutlass, a smile that stayed, as he felt the flush of relief waft away the doom
he had created. He stared at himself for some time, drawn in by his own eyes,
shaking his head slowly and then whispered, ‘You lucky, lucky bastard.’ With a
final wink to himself, he pulled down his trousers and pants, sat on the toilet
and released, what felt like a stool the size of a large eel. It seemed to
never end and in a way he didn’t want it to; such was the feeling of the
grinding suffocating knot that had gripped him for so long, as it slipped away
from him. He stood up, wiped himself and looked down at the stool, laying
there; rolling slightly from side to side in pathetic final death throws, only
one end visible, the other disappearing toward the bend. It was as if all of
the turmoil of the previous months were in that stool. Seymour smiled at the
thought, waved at the stool, blew it a kiss, before flushing the toilet with a
firm yank of the cistern handle.

Polly stared into
space as Seymour sauntered back to the table and slumped down in his chair.
Silence.

‘You know Polly.’

Polly subtly
rolled her eyes and looked at him. ‘
Oh
God here we go
,’ she thought. ‘
Seymour’s
got his jack boots on and is now going stomp around on the moral high ground.
’

‘I would have
done exactly what you have done, except for one thing.’

Polly waited,
looking down at the table in front of her, just as she thought was expected of
her, as Seymour paused in thought.

‘And that is... I
would have grabbed all of the money, spent the bloody lot, probably make a
complete ass of myself in the process and then would have probably got caught.’

Polly felt his
smile and looked up to him.

‘Fucking
brilliant Polly!’ Seymour offered his hand to shake, she took it, still unsure
as to where this was going. A large part of Seymour’s armory was sarcasm,
sometimes used with sick cruelty.

‘I’m being
serious Polly. I completely understand why you didn’t tell me all this. I would
have gone fucking nuts!’

‘I very nearly
did.’ said Polly squeezing Seymour’s hand. ‘I really thought I’d got away with
it.’

‘You have,
surely. I mean if Shoal really suspected you, he would have pulled you in by
now, wouldn’t he?’

‘I suppose.’

‘And when I spoke
to him at the opening, I don’t know, he seemed different somehow, like he
didn’t seem like a cop on duty, more like an ordinary bloke. Bit of a wimp if
you ask me, not like the megalomaniac he was when he was questioning you. I
know about these things Polly.’

‘How?’

Seymour nudged
his head to the TV in the corner, then pulled Polly out her chair and onto his
knee.

‘Ok, so it’s all
out in the open, now we can get on with our lives OK? I mean God. Things are
good now aren’t they?’

Polly nodded,
comforted by the warmth radiating from Seymour’s body. ‘Yes, things are good.’

‘Just one thing
though.’ said Seymour.

Polly stiffened
up.

‘The money. How
much was there?’

‘I don’t know,’
said Polly as she gracefully slipped off Seymour’s lap, stood up and went over
to the kitchen area. ‘40 grand or so? I really don’t know.’

Seymour watched
her as she pulled another bottle of wine out of the shopping bag and cut off
the foil top, his mind running through a possible shopping list. Polly began
winding the corkscrew into the cork, stopped and looked across at Seymour.

‘No Seymour.
Forget it. I want you to forget all about that money OK?’

‘I didn’t say a
word.’ said Seymour.

Polly gave him a
look that he knew only too well. The angry screech of the cork, as she continued
winding in the corkscrew, magnified it. Polly pulled the cork from the bottle
between her legs and marched assertively back to the table, loudly dumping the
bottle on the table and stood over him, hands on hips.

‘I have to say
this Seymour, I’ve thought about it a lot in the last few months.’

Seymour looked up
to her, puzzled.

‘I could have
grabbed that money at anytime, all of it. We could have had a ball, no debts,
loads of cash, not a care in the world.’

Seymour nodded at
the notion.

‘But. Fuck it
Seymour, I like the way we live. It’s been a struggle, at times. But.... We’ve
pulled it off somehow. I don’t want to change that. I don’t want to go near the
money. We’ve got all we need from it. That’s it.’

‘But...’

‘No Seymour!’

The New Easel.

Ed spread the
proof copy of this month’s Easel magazine out on the large Ikea table, in the
centre of his one room Ikea flat. This one was special. He could feel it. He
stood back, crossed his arms and looked at it, as an invading General would
look at a map of his enemy.

Ed was slowly
getting his way with the Easel. Henry Morgan, the editor and original owner,
had a massive stroke two weeks before. He was the rusting old bolt that held
the clunking old team of writers together. Without him they were lost. Henry
was The Easel. He had started it twenty years ago, using photocopiers and
staplers.

Having been
retired from the army early, due to a mental breakdown, Henry was steered
toward painting by Doctor Hindberg at the rehabilitation clinic. He needed to
focus on just one thing at a time, Hindberg had told him, and he was right.
When Henry painted he didn't want to kill anybody at all, or spontaneously cry
uncontrollably in front of a full battalion of armed troops he was sending off
to fight in a proxy war over oil.

As an ex-officer,
he was given a healthy pension and able to survive well in the little country
cottage in East Sussex he’d inherited from some Aunt that he couldn't remember
meeting.