One of his colleagues emits a gargled shriek. A waitress drops a tray of champagne flutes that shatter on the carpet. The guests are riveted, wide-eyed and silent.
The auction house director pulls his fist out from the painting and holds it aloft in triumph, his knuckles glinting white under the many spotlights. He is trembling, sweat now dripping off him and onto the pool of midnight-blue velvet that lies beneath the easel like an oil slick.
All of the guests, the expert jury, the waiting staff, the musicians who’ve come in from the terrace to witness the scene, struggle collectively for breath, as if the air has been sucked from them and out through the gaping black hole that now exists at the heart of the once gorgeous landscape.
The corner of Walter’s mouth twitches. He breaks into slow, solo applause.
“Bravo,” he says, with not a single hint of congratulation. “Bravo indeed. You have judged correctly.”
At this, there is a huge cheer and rapturous applause. The art experts huddle together in a teary group and hug like a cup-winning team, before breaking apart to reach for the nearest glass of something, anything, to wet their panicked throats.
The guests throng around them, offering their own congratulations, salutes, genuflections, and ululations.
Walter makes his way, unseen, to the elevator and steps inside, closely followed by Yo Yo and the doctor.
The real Landscape, Mont Saint-Victoire by Paul Cézanne, bought just a few months earlier for fifty-seven million U.S. dollars, rests quietly on its stand, completely ignored.
As the elevator doors close Walter watches the jury’s foreman, director of one of the world’s most prestigious auction houses, his raised hand still clutching a champagne flute in triumph, crumple into a pale, dead faint.
Nick, Liverpool — 2008
The woman being killed is lying face up on the ground, her arms stretched out on either side. A man’s got hold of one wrist, pinning her down. His face is hidden, just a glimpse of one ear under his cap, and his cloud-white shirt flies up as if he’s just now rushed forward. Booted feet set firm, the whole force of his body is gathered behind the knife he grasps in his other, raised, hand.
The killer’s got an accomplice, a heavy woman in a grimy yellow blouse and dark skirt, black hair streaked with grey, who bends to press on the victim’s shoulder with her full weight. The woman being killed is wearing a dark blue dress that won’t protect her from the blade about to be plunged in just above her groin. Her head is twisted towards us, blonde hair trailing in the mud, her open, down-turned mouth a small, black tunnel. She’s screaming, but no one hears her.
Nick pulls back to take in the whole painting at once; the pigment thick and jagged, the figures livid against the sombre backdrop: a cliff top, or a riverbank, it’s hard to tell; the sky, the horizon, the land, all merging into a void of oily bluey-black. He looks at the label again:
The Murder, c.1868; Paul Cézanne.
Maria told him to come and see it, so he’d understand more about the film she was working on. “It’s the painting that sparked the director off,” she’d said. Looking at it now, Nick wonders what that says about the bloke.
Maria was dead excited telling Nick about the first day’s shoot; the horse-drawn carriages clattering across the cobbles in front of Saint George’s Hall, loads of costumed extras strolling up and down the Paris street set that took two weeks to build, all for just a few days filming. She’d gone on and on about how great that Marius Woolf was, him who was playing the lead. It was all ‘Marius this’ and ‘Marius that’ and Nick’d had to stop himself being cold and sharp with her.
“He strides along with a big hat on that hides his face and he’s got this clay pipe between his teeth,” she’d told him. “And he’s got a big dark coat that flaps as he marches along, not moving aside for no one.” It all sounded a bit clichéd to Nick, though he never said that to Maria.
He hears, “Miss! Miss! Miss!!” and peers through to the atrium where a group of kids are holding up their hands for pencils and paper given out by their teacher. “Find your favourite painting and copy it best as you can,” she calls above the echoing din.
Nick had shared this energy once, the thrill of Paddy O’Riordan’s art room, sometimes sitting in front of a wall of pictures taped up for discussion and how Paddy let you call him Paddy and swear in his classes, as long as it was the art that made you swear. It was Paddy who brought art into Nick’s life when he’d needed it most: “It’ll shake you up and shore you up, Nicholas,” he’d said, in his light, singsong poet-y voice.
He used to imagine Paddy as the dad he would have liked for himself, if that bastard Jimmy hadn’t already been his dad. He never wanted Jimmy’s approval for nothing but he was always dying to show Paddy his drawings. His frustration too when he couldn’t draw as well as he wanted, even though Paddy told him over and over, “Be patient lad! Find your own way. Don’t be such a — ” what was it he called him? — “a literalist.”
It was in Paddy’s class where he and Maria first laid eyes on each other. They were both fourteen and Paddy’s group was the top set, filled with those who were being streamed towards further study if they’d wanted. A lot of them struggled, hit a ceiling when it came to their own creativity, didn’t have the stamina to break through it and keep trying, or grew to think it was all stupid anyway, which is what they said about things they were too stupid to understand, Nick always thought. Not him though, and not Maria neither. She didn’t speak up much in those rowdy, chaotic sessions but she was soaking it all in with her dark eyes, Nick could see.
There was a Cézanne taped up on Paddy’s wall, but it was nothing like this one, and he remembers it well because it was one of the few times when Maria did say something. There were some apples piled on a table, and a jug of flowers. The print was faded in one corner where the blinds had failed to protect it from the sunlight that poured into the classroom. Nick feels the warmth from that light still, the afternoons spent drawing and painting whatever Paddy set up for them. They were the best times of his life in that classroom, sinking into a deep well of concentration, looking, really looking, at what was in front of him and trying to get it down, the only sounds the pencils whispering against the paper, Paddy going round suggesting changes and giving encouragement, his lilting murmur mingling with the fat flies buzzing and tapping against the big windows.
Someone had said that the apples on the table in Paddy’s faded print didn’t even look like apples, they were more like oranges and someone else shouted out they were ‘sodding rubbish!’ There were loud laughs and whoops because Paddy had only just finished explaining in detail about Cézanne’s method, or something, Nick couldn’t remember exactly, and was in the middle of reading out the words written in his flamboyant cursive — proof alone for some of them that Paddy the Poofter, as they called him, was exactly that — across overlapping sheets of A4 and taped up on the wall above the print: I Will Astonish Paris With An Apple.
Maria’s voice had suddenly cut through the din — “They’re not rubbish, dickhead, they’re beautiful!” — then her face flushed as bright as the apples, and the noise abated to muffled sniggers as Paddy regained control. For days afterwards, Maria’s protest was called out to her in a high-pitched wail that was nothing like her voice whenever she walked through the school corridors.
It was Nick who, seeing her holding her breath in frustration one afternoon, as she shoved her books into her locker, came up beside her and said, “You were right. They are beautiful,” and she’d side-eyed him to check he wasn’t taking the piss before she allowed herself to exhale, letting the air out. He was a goner from that moment.
That lovely painting was nothing like this awful one. What’s happening is horrible, really horrible. The small, square label has Cézanne’s dates on it, (1839-1906), and Nick takes a moment to work out he was twenty-eight when he painted this, just a bit younger than Nick is now.
It says:
Although uncharacteristic
of Cézanne’s later work, the violence expressed in brutal strokes of a palette knife is typical of work he produced at the end of the 1860s.
This must have been hard work, even painful, the knife threatening to rip the canvas with every swipe of paint. It’s like a bad dream. Like one of Nick’s own bad dreams. Any one of them kids could come in here. Any one of them might see this painting. It should come with a warning — if they use it in the film it should be rated 18 — but here it is, on open view.
The label says:
This forceful composition has close parallels to the murderous themes in novels by Émile Zola, Cézanne’s boyhood friend with whom he remained in close contact.
So he’d read the story in a book, had he? In his friend’s book? Maybe an exposed adultery the booted man in white has always suspected, or a jealous lover who needs got rid of, or maybe a blackmail that’s gone too far? Maybe the film Maria’s working with will explain the story behind it all, this nightmare on canvas.
A couple of girls come into the room then, just as he’d feared, carrying paper and pencils. They must be about twelve or thirteen, and one of them, wearing an apple-green quilted Puffa jacket, meets Nick’s stare for a second, her blue eyes clear and calm. Well, she might be okay now but the painting will upset her. He takes a step forward and places himself in front of it.
The girl sighs, like she’s annoyed. Has she come in here specially to see it, like he did? She might have seen the local news reports about the film starring Marius Woolf, read online about the movie director’s return to his home town, Liverpool standing in for Paris, and this painting in the Walker that started it all off. She might have said to her teacher, “Miss? Can you tell me where to find The Murder, by Paul Cézanne?” That’s what Nick would’ve done at her age.
He can sense her there, waiting for him to move. She doesn’t understand he’s doing this for her. She must be thinking how selfish he is, standing right in front of the painting she’s come for, standing right up close so no one else can see. He’ll tell her he’s not selfish, honest. He doesn’t want her to be scared, that’s all. He can’t though. The only thing he can do is focus on the label:
The sensational subject matter is often considered the outpouring of his youthful and impetuous nature.
“Sensational?” Is that what they call it? Why should youth have anything to do with it? “‘Impetuous nature’ — what the fuck does that mean?” He’s spoken out loud, he realises, and winds himself back in.
He looks round to see if the girl heard him, but she’s joined her friend in front of another painting — a big blue-green sea with some bathers in red-and-white striped swimsuits. They’ve sat down cross-legged in front of it and are starting to draw, heads bobbing between paper and canvas. He hopes they never heard him.
He’s feeling a bit dizzy. Turns back to The Murder. The killer’s anxious, he sees. The force of the blow he’s about to strike might weaken his grip on the knife and he anticipates stabbing more than once so mustn’t let the handle slicken with blood — with her blood. The accomplice wants it done quick (as if it’s just another daily chore before she can go back to doing the washing) and Nick hears her shouting words of encouragement: Do it! Do it now! He doesn’t want to look any more, but he can’t not look. It’s beautiful, like a fresh wound is beautiful.
The woman being killed reaches out with a grey, desperate, hand. Her throat is clogged with fear, but if Nick leans in he can hear her thoughts: How’s this happening? I love this man — I thought he loved me — she’s my friend — can this be my death? Oh please. Let it be over. Oh please…
All at once, he tips forward into the blue-black void, but manages to steady himself — spreads his legs and feet to hold his ground — and sees his reflection in the glass covering the canvas, protecting it. With one arm outstretched he mirrors the man in the painting, the murderer.
A thick panic shortens his breath. It’s him that needs protecting. Sparks swirl in front of his eyes. The accomplice’s hands are pressing on his shoulders, pushing him into the ground, he feels the weight of her on his body, his legs wobble under him, he is swallowed up by the dark hole of the poor victim’s mouth, he too struggles for breath. The moment is eternally stretched, waiting for the tearing in the belly before the hot blood bubbles up into lungs and mouth. He too prays for it to be over. “Oh please — oh please…”
The girls’ teacher comes in to check on them — “Are you alright there girls?” she trills — and, somehow, her presence stabilises everything. Nick manages to tear himself away and out of the space, his trainers squeaking loudly on the polished wood floor, making the girls jump and stare in his direction, but he doesn’t care if they see him, if they think he’s barmy.
He comes to a stop against the low wooden railing that circles the atrium. A clanking of spoons echoes up from the café below. The coffee machine hisses scalding steam.
Nick leans forward and over the railing, but Maria’s not there. He already saw the film crew outside, saw the carriages lined up along the heavy stone facade, the tethered, stamping horses, the crowds of people, just as Maria described it.
“She’s late,” he whispers. He knows she’s at work but she should never had arranged to have lunch with him then, should she? She’s probably on the phone somewhere, trying to calm her nerves. I’ve never been a good liar — Nick hears her saying. “Yes you fucking well are.”
He’ll check his mobile. If there’s no message he’ll be annoyed. No, he won’t look. But he’s running out of time. He’s got an appointment he can’t miss — it’s one of Hartmann’s conditions; that Nick turn up every week.
He thinks about the number of days and minutes he’s spent doing things he doesn’t want to — talking to a shrink when he doesn’t want to, coming to see this painting, which wasn’t even his idea and he never would’ve chose to — but knows he mustn’t actually count those days and those minutes.
This moment, this right now, is coloured oily bluey-black by the thought of all that time stolen from him; by his dad, Hartmann, this painting, and by Maria.
He wonders, between birth and death how many days, hours and minutes do we spend doing what we really want? The question stretches way into the future and could take his whole life with it if he’s not careful.
He slots his fingers into the railing’s polished wood groove, tilts his face up towards the glowing skylight. He slides his hands backwards and forwards along the lovely wood that’s dry and warm and smooth as skin.
He focuses on the duration of his breaths instead of their number, concentrates on lengthening, deepening, extending them further, but he must not begin to count them.
How many moments of real tenderness do we get? The rare moments of human contact and warmth, the throwing off of clothes, the stroking of bodies, the lying down, legs wrapped round, the fucking, what do they all add up to?
He could ask the woman being killed. She might know. “No, she won’t know,” he says.
Jeffrey, Hong Kong — 2013
Jeffrey spins on his office chair, howling with delight. Kicking his legs, he propels himself from desk to wall to cupboard to window like a pinball, then shoots back over to his computer. With one click he watches again the moment the man punches his fist through the canvas. “And if he’d been wrong!” Jeffrey cackles.
Another click and he cuts to the live camera feed; Walter inside the elevator, that little witch Yo Yo hovering at his shoulder, the doctor leaning against the full-length mirror, super cool as always. No one speaks. Jeffrey can see by the way the muscles in his father’s jaw are twitching that the so-called legendary Walter Yeung, the world’s fourth fucking richest asshole, is mute with rage.
Jeffrey watches Walter step briskly from the elevator, cuts to the corridor that leads to his father’s quarters as Walter strides along, Yo Yo bustling closely behind, the doctor strolling a few paces back.
Jeffrey likes the doctor, with his dark suits and narrow neckties (he imagines them red), the
compact briefcase and vintage Ray-Bans. He exists in the tradition of court physician and counsellor; able to ease pain, to soothe and reassure, to indulge in consoling conversation during the night-time's lonely hours, subservient but supremely powerful. He has no need to run after Walter Yeung. If he so chose he could make Walter Yeung come scuttling after him.
At the end of the passage, Walter stops outside the door and waits. Jeffrey watches his right hand opening and closing as if strangling some small animal.
Yo Yo leans over to enter the code into the security panel.
Jeffrey jabs at his keyboard. The door to his father’s basement apartment remains firmly, impenetrably, shut.
Jeffrey sees Yo Yo’s lips form an apology as she re-enters the code. Once again he overrides the request and prevents access.
Walter’s rage gushes forth, pouring over Yo Yo. Jeffrey can’t see what he’s yelling, but can guess.
Yo Yo nods repeatedly and punches in the code once more, but once more Jeffrey bars them.
With the sudden agility of fury Walter’s hand shoots out to slap Yo Yo sharp across the face. She hops back, her shocked mouth forming a small Oh.
Walter waves the doctor forward and he enters the code.
This time, Jeffrey allows the door to open and his father slips beyond the dark rectangle. It’s not often he gets to direct the action, but it’s fun when he does.
The doctor moves to follow Walter, pausing to place a hand momentarily on Yo Yo’s shoulder, before disappearing into the basement suite.
As the door slides shut, Yo Yo’s composure shatters and she slumps in the corridor, rests her head against the wall. Her shoulders heave and she wipes her cheeks.
Shadow Is a Colour as Light Is Page 2
