Indelible

by Peter Helton

  ‘Not Anne. That would be completely out of character. She is desperate to make herself heard, she wants people to listen to what she has to say. Last thing I heard her say was that she had had enough and was going to close down the school.’

  ‘Can she do that?’

  ‘Don’t know. Not immediately, I don’t think; people have contracts, students have paid fees. It would be hugely costly, and money is her number-one interest, it seems. But she might do it eventually.’

  ‘That would be a shame. There aren’t many independent art schools about.’

  ‘I wonder why?’

  Annis grabbed my arm. ‘Did you hear that?’

  I had – the distant sound of something being broken, like a pane of glass, somewhere in the building. ‘Sounds like a break-in.’

  ‘Why break windows? Most of them open easily. The phantom would know that.’

  We stole towards the door. With great care I opened it a crack. There were more distant clinking sounds. I thought I could now make out the direction: it came from the corridor leading off on the other side of the entrance hall. We tiptoed across like cartoon burglars but the soles of my boots squeaked on the floor. ‘Stop squeaking,’ Annis hissed. I halted, undid my laces and took off my boots in almost complete darkness. If it hadn’t been for a thin dribble of moonlight falling through the windows we’d have been unable to see a thing without using a torch. We could still hear noises when we entered the other corridor, but whoever was there did not use a light either. Annis and I both saw it at the same time – a dark, bulky figure walking towards us. I was about to challenge it when it too must have noticed there were three of us in the corridor. It ran towards us, then took a sharp right down the stairs to the basement. Annis, wearing trainers, was quicker off the mark than me but once up to speed I could slither and skid wonderfully on the polished floor. It was the braking I had problems with and I had to grab Annis to stop myself from skidding into the wall. Padding down the stairs was easier but there was no light here at all. The stairs curved to the right and for a moment the bluish flash of an LED torch reflected from further down, then left us in utter darkness. I stuck my hand in my jacket pocket, through the hole in it and furtled about in the lining until I found my mini Maglite. We proceeded by its eerie concentric beam to the bottom and found ourselves in a narrow service corridor that smelled damp, with an unusual top note.

  Annis smelled it too. ‘Now, why do I suddenly feel like a cheese sandwich with Branston pickle?’ she murmured.

  I knew where this would eventually lead us – to the bowels of the ceramics department where another set of stairs would lead us back up to moonlight again. The floor was bare concrete and I soon wished I had carried my squeaky boots with me. There were several narrow doors off, all to one side, looking in this light like a medieval dungeon. I tried the first one; it looked and smelled like an old coal hole. In the next two we found mouldering books in tea chests and the utterly silent central heating. Getting closer to the other side of the building now I found one door that put up a certain resistance to being opened, which could have something to do with the strong smell of cheese and pickle lingering here. I put my shoulder against it and pushed it open against the resistance of whatever had been piled against the door from the inside until I could squeeze through the opening. The beam of my torch revealed a large storeroom where thirty years’ worth of old furniture, props for still lives, broken easels and drapes were being stored. There was a small, dim skylight right at the back. We made our way past the dusty drapes, forgotten student paintings and a headless, one-armed skeleton to the other end where, below the skylight, someone had built a nest. A mattress, sleeping bag and blankets, candle in a jam jar and a couple of paperbacks. In the middle of it all, under a grey blanket, hid a human-shaped lump, keeping very still.

  ‘Okay, let’s have you,’ I said, keeping my torch focussed on the shape.

  The blanket was pulled back and the lump looked up. ‘Is night time,’ said Petronela irritably. ‘What have you doing here so late?’ Then she looked at the sandwich in her hand like she had forgotten it was there. ‘I get the hunger,’ she added and stuffed half of it into her mouth as though she thought we might take it from her. Petronela was wearing pink fluffy slippers, flower-print pyjamas, a pink cardigan and her faded pink dressing gown, the ensemble that had made her appear so large in the dark. ‘I broke cup, you heard. Pity.’

  ‘Annis, meet Petronela, the life model.’

  ‘What are you doing camping in here?’ Annis asked. ‘It’s a rubbish place to build a nest.’

  ‘I know, getting cold now. I thought of blowing heater but nowhere to plug.’

  ‘Why are you here in the first place?’ I wanted to know. ‘You didn’t always hide down here, did you?’

  ‘No, two weeks only,’ she said. ‘My boyfriend …’ She swallowed the last of the sandwich. ‘He threw me out of flat. Was his flat,’ she added, shrugging her shoulders, ‘so I must go.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He is very Catholic. I am slut to him. He finds out I take clothes off when sitting for students. This makes me slut and get out, not come back.’

  ‘Bum,’ I said eloquently. ‘You should have said. You can’t live down here, you’ll catch your death. We’ll find you somewhere else tomorrow.’

  ‘You think? I don’t have deposit.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. So at least we’ve solved the mystery of who was doing all the pilfering. Mrs Washbrook will be pleased.’

  Petronela groaned at the mention of Mrs Washbrook. ‘I know is really wrong but sometimes I get hungry late. And I am not only one making the pilferings.’

  ‘Why, who else?’

  ‘Anne Birdwhistler. She does pilferings every night. Big platefuls. I always watch out for her but she always hums by herself and goes with noisy feet, so easy avoidance for me. Please don’t tell Mrs Washtub about my pilferings? I’ll stop. Promise.’

  ‘I won’t tell her. I’ll tell her about Anne instead.’

  ‘Okay, enough about food, my stomach is growling,’ Annis complained. ‘What about the phantom, Petronela. Is it you?’

  ‘What, me? Be phantom painter? Very funny. I cannot paint stickman. And I would not have put green bra in my painting. I don’t like wearing green underlings, all my underlings pink or white.’

  I looked about the room by torchlight. It was a miserable place and it smelled musty. ‘I don’t really like leaving you down here; this is no place for you to be sleeping.’

  ‘You find better place for me tomorrow?’

  ‘Definitely,’ confirmed Annis.

  ‘Then one more night no problem. I’m fine. I have torch with windings up and sometimes moonlight.’ She produced her torch as evidence and wound its crank handle noisily.

  Back upstairs I shuddered at the thought of her sleeping down there but when we got back to the studio to pick up my things the French windows were wide open. I thought I could hear running footfall outside and I could tell someone had used turpentine in here. I flicked on the lights. There was an abandoned brush on my palette next to a mixture of greys and pinks. I rushed outside but the moon had disappeared behind clouds and all I could see was the dark band of trees and Kroog’s cottage beyond the lawns.

  ‘Curses, foiled again.’

  ‘You want to check the CCTV?’

  ‘No point. I forgot to turn it on again.’

  TWENTY

  I found Kroog in the canteen having a serious breakfast talk with Claire and joined them with my scrambled eggs, grilled tomatoes and corrugated sausage (a Washbrook special). The two were discussing the forthcoming exhibition. ‘Nibbles,’ Claire said forcefully as I sat down.

  ‘Nibbles to you too,’ I offered.

  Claire ignored me. ‘I’ve ordered the drinks but I think we should have some nibbles too. I suggested it to Mrs Washbrook but she instantly went into some kind of 1970s trance about mini sausage rolls and cheese and pineapple cubes on cocktail sticks.’


  Kroog shuddered theatrically. ‘I remember those. You get whatever you see fit but don’t let Washtub find out.’ She turned to me. ‘Morning, Chris. How’s your shoulder?’

  ‘Much better already.’

  ‘Good. I see we now have a permanent police presence here to make sure no one else gets attacked.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’ll put them off. It may have been dark but there were plenty of people around when I got hit. Talking of which, how’s Phoebe doing?’

  ‘They are keeping her in for another day then she’s going home to recover. Have you caught your phantom yet?’

  ‘No, but I caught the pilferer.’

  ‘Oh? Who?’

  ‘According to a reliable source our nightly pilferer is none other than Anne Birtwhistle. Stealing from herself, really.’

  Claire couldn’t contain herself. ‘And at the same time giving Mrs Washbrook a hard time about balancing her budget? That’s terrible.’ She stabbed her fork at a piece of bacon on her plate. ‘This is not the same college I joined three months ago. I knew Anne was trouble the moment she walked in here with that “mine at last” air. Sorry, Liz.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Kroog, ‘I’m on your side, Claire. But now she’s disappeared. As soon as I realized she was missing I snapped into action – I turned the heating up. No one is looking very hard for Anne, I assure you.’

  ‘She still hasn’t turned up?’ Kroog was right; if it was anyone else I’d be worried but as far as I was concerned Anne could go missing all she liked.

  ‘Actually it’s not true, the police are looking for her. Anne has a flat in Bristol but apparently she hasn’t been there since her father’s death, or since she came to stay upstairs in his rooms, I should say.’

  Claire had finished savaging her plate of bacon and eggs and sat up primly. ‘Perhaps she’s flipped her lid and the next time we see her she’ll be a bag lady or something. Best thing she can do for the college.’

  Kroog gave me a shrewd look. ‘Want to look into it?’

  ‘No, I’d be afraid of finding her. Do we need her? What if she stays disappeared, can’t you just run things?’

  ‘I can run things but I don’t own this place. And I don’t want to run things; that’s her business. And Claire’s.’

  ‘The place is jolly easy to run without constant interference,’ Claire said, smiling.

  ‘That’s why I have already contacted Henry. He’ll be here this afternoon. Her brother,’ she added when she saw our questioning looks.

  I remembered. ‘Ah yes, you mentioned him. I thought he was in Tibet or Norway?’

  ‘Goa. But he’s back. He ran a little theatre company out there but it got into financial trouble and it folded. Turns out he’s been sleeping on people’s sofas in London for the last few weeks. If Anne doesn’t show up soon, he’ll take over. It’s his place too.’

  ‘What’s he like?’ Claire asked in a doom-laden voice.

  ‘The exact opposite of his sister. He’s more like his father though more extrovert. He’ll happily throw money out of the window with both hands and worry about nothing until it’s too late, then claim it’s kismet. You’ll have to watch him, Claire, but he’ll be a lot more fun to watch than Anne.’

  ‘Oh good, the place could do with a bit of cheering up.’ Claire picked up her plate and left for her office.

  ‘I did find something else last night while I lay in wait for the phantom,’ I said. ‘Petronela. She’s been kipping in the cellar in a sleeping bag for the last two weeks since her boyfriend chucked her out.’

  ‘In the cellar? Can’t have that; she’ll catch all sorts down there. Split up with her boyfriend? Are they likely to get back together?’

  ‘He objected to her nude modelling on religious grounds. She chose the college over home and boyfriend.’

  ‘Girl after my own heart. Yes, I’ll put her up. That is what you are asking me, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Plenty of bedrooms at my place. Remind me, does she smoke?’

  With that sorted I went to round up my students to look at the results of the painting project. There were one or two duds and cop-outs but as a group they had worked extremely well and I told them so. Only very few of them preferred the results that were based on photographs, most reported that drawing the subject first made them look harder, in more detail, and remember the scene more clearly than the photograph could show. When they worked from their photos they often fell back on their first impressions and memories.

  ‘You’ll be glad to know that this project is now finished. I have one more painting project for you before I leave you to get on with your own work.’ Stony silence. You must be kidding, is what their looks conveyed. ‘I want you to go and rip all the ancient paintings in the corridors off the walls, paint the walls white with emulsion – Claire has a few gallons of it in her office – and when it’s dry hang a selection of your own best work on it for when the visitors arrive.’ The room came back to life. This was more like it. Painters are exhibitionists, after all. ‘There is one prominent place in the entrance hall, opposite Claire’s office, the first thing anyone sees when they come through the door. At the moment there’s some bland 1980s nonsense hanging there. It’s a prime spot and I think you should decide by vote whose painting gets pride of place there. That’s all. Get to it.’

  I had made sure that there were a few litres of white emulsion for us tutors and was carrying a tin of the stuff into the studio where the significant looks my fellow artists gave me clearly said that the phantom had been again.

  ‘I thought I scared the phantom off last night.’

  ‘Must have come back,’ Dawn said.

  ‘I think your painting is finished,’ Hufnagel said. He had a point. Looking at it closely I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to change. ‘It looks to me,’ he went on, ‘like the phantom likes you, hates me and feels so-so about Dawn.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s true. The phantom changed all our paintings in one way or another. The phantom doesn’t hate you, Kurt, or your painting would have been cut to ribbons or whatever. And if you don’t mind me saying so, I prefer your painting the way it is now. Dawn said herself that she approves of the changes to hers. I think mine has gained too. What it all means is that the phantom believes he or she is better than all of us. And it could be true.’

  ‘Just different,’ said Dawn. ‘I don’t mind critics, but buggering about with other people’s work is just arrogant. No matter how good you are.’

  ‘Oh, arrogance is right at the heart of it. But I’m also sure the phantom has a lot of fun and it’s not malicious fun.’

  Even Hufnagel grudgingly agreed, hidden under much grumbling – grumbling that became louder when I told him we were going to paint the walls today. ‘Can’t we get students to do that?’

  ‘Nope, they’re already doing the corridors and entrance hall. This one’s our baby.’

  Never ask a painter to paint anything but paintings; you’d be better off asking a five-year-old. We cleared paintings, painting tables and other furniture into the centre and started daubing the walls like three utterly dilettante decorators, each tackling one wall as high as we could reach with brushes that were far too small, dripping paint everywhere. In the middle of this delightful mess Kroog appeared and ushered a man through the door. Brown as a nut, wearing rings, earrings, bracelets and a necklace of Indian silver, Henry looked exactly as you’d expect an old Goa hippy to look but he had the features of his father and I was immediately prepared to like him. Introductions over, he showed interest in everything, asked intelligent questions about our work and the students and after half an hour hadn’t said a single annoying thing. I could see he was an immediate hit with Dawn, too, who painted over her own knee because she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Eventually Kroog left and Henry took me aside.

  ‘A lot of strange things have been happening around here,’ he said. ‘You haven’t got my sister locked in a cupboard somewhere, have
you?’

  ‘Not guilty.’

  ‘It would serve her right; she locked me in a cupboard once in Lizzie’s cottage. I missed strawberries and cream on the lawn. You were shot with an arrow, Lizzie said.’

  ‘Yes, but nothing vital damaged,’ I said heroically.

  ‘And you were there when my father died?’ he said, inviting me to tell the story.

  It was at that moment that the door opened again and two students appeared, carrying a large canvas, professionally boxed up in museum-quality protection, followed by its illustrious creator, Greg Landacker. He came straight across to address – no other word for it – Henry.

  ‘Ah, I take it you are the new man in charge, John’s son. Henry, isn’t that right?’ Henry said it was. ‘Well, I’m glad you are setting these layabouts to work on the walls.’ He delicately pushed a bottle top out of the way with the tip of his brogue. ‘I do hope you are also going to do something about this floor before tomorrow. I think that wall would do,’ he said, indicating the place where I had been painting my own canvas. ‘The lower edge of the painting must be seventy-two inches off the ground. The lighting in here is wholly inadequate for showing artwork. Can you make sure there are spotlights installed, erm, here,’ he walked as he pointed, ‘and here?’

  ‘Of course, no problem, Mr Landacker,’ said Henry cheerfully.

  ‘Call me Greg. I’ll leave it all in your hands, then, Henry.’

  ‘You have to excuse him,’ I said. ‘I think he grew up with servants.’

  ‘Yes, never mind. I’ve met plenty like him in India. People still have servants there, you know? Most of course are servants. We’d best postpone our chat until tomorrow and get cracking. I’m still not used to the pace of things here; everyone’s in such a hurry. I’m also still a bit stunned to find I have this behemoth of a school on my hands now.’ He waved his arms theatrically towards the ceiling, then let them fall by his side. ‘Of course I thought the old man would live forever,’ he added quietly and walked out through the French windows into the cool midday sun and crossed the lawns towards the cottage.