Every Picture Tells a Story

by Gregory Dowling

  “Well, an angel,” she said seriously. “And it was quite a little work.” She made gentle gestures with her piece of pork pie and glass of lager, indicating a rectangular shape of about two feet by one foot. “But the police couldn’t find any evidence about Ozzers.” She licked a fleck of pastry off one finger’s end. I realized that by some mysterious ethereal process she had finished off all the food—without offering me a single crisp. “Mmm. I could do with a Yorkie Bar,” she said. “And a Crunchie.”

  Well, I’d paid for girls with more expensive tastes, I thought. I went over and bought this final course. While she unwrapped the Yorkie Bar I said, “Has a young Italian been in today? About so high, rather nervous, dark hair and eyes, speaking pretty good English?”

  “Oh, yes. He came as soon as we opened up. And wanted to talk to Ozzers.”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t know. They talked in private. But when he left I think I heard Ozzers saying something about meeting for dinner at Ciro’s.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “It’s a restaurant in Soho. Ozzers often goes there because it’s near the other gallery.”

  “What other gallery?”

  “The Blue Moon. Ozzers has an interest in it.”

  “Do you mean he finds it interesting or—”

  “Oh, he’s got shares or something, I think,” she said with the sweet vagueness of one who lives on a higher plane. “And they sometimes do some cleaning or restoring for him. It’s quite an exciting place. Lots of the latest really important movements. Always on the go, you know.”

  “Did you say it was an art gallery or a discotheque?”

  She looked puzzled and said, “They have had dance-related exhibitions actually—you know, the whole performance-painting movement.”

  I didn’t know. Go to jail for a few months and you miss a whole movement of contemporary art.

  I felt I’d got as much out of her as I could without making her too suspicious. I said, “Well, it’s been a nice lunch. Er, I know as an anarchist you won’t give a damn about what your boss thinks, but still maybe I should point out that if you tell him about your friendly lunchtime chat with me, it won’t actually help you get into the Blue Moon.”

  “Oh, no, of course I won’t say anything. Thanks for lunch—and thanks again for those marvelous lectures in Venice.”

  “Oh, well, you know…”

  “We all agreed about them, you know. We said, he might not know much about the facts, but gosh, can he enthuse.”

  “Thank you.” I took our empty glasses back to the bar. She’d drunk the full pint—and when I returned was putting the last morsel of Crunchie in her mouth.

  We said good-bye in the street and she kissed me on both cheeks. Well, we’d been talking about Italy, I suppose. I gave her an invitation card for the private view and told her I’d see to it that crisps and Crunchies were laid on. I watched her shimmer off down the road, somehow making January London streets look like June meadows.

  But Lucy, I suddenly thought, had been able to make January feel like June. By just being there.

  But only in Venice, I then answered myself back, breaking into a vigorous and sentiment-squashing stride. Nowhere on the real earth.

  4

  I TOOK the tube back home. I wondered how that bloody Stepney swan was going to affect me when I opened the door of the studio; a masterpiece of transcendent dazzling pith or a messed-up piece of trivial Disney kitsch. Maybe it would depend on whether I had another drink before opening that door.

  I got off the train at Earls Court. One more piece of procrastination. I went along to the house I’d seen the Italian enter.

  I pressed the second doorbell, which presumably corresponded to the first-floor flat. After about forty seconds the door was opened by a large woman with badly dyed blond hair. She said, without taking the cigarette out of her mouth, “Yeah?”

  “I’m looking for the Italian man who lives on the first floor.”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Oh. You don’t know when he’ll be back?”

  “Not coming back.”

  “What?”

  “Not coming back. You deaf?”

  “No. Um, when did he leave?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Well, he’s a friend…” I trailed off under her contemptuous stare.

  “Had about enough of it,” she said after a few seconds.

  “Of what?” I said.

  “All these bleeding questions.” Each clipped remark seemed to be thrown down as a deliberate challenge: Let’s see if you can work that one out.

  “I’ve only asked two,” I said carefully.

  “Yeah. You have.” Then, after another defiant pause: “So far.”

  “So who else has been asking questions?”

  “You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Well, this ain’t Russia, is it?”

  I worked on this one for a couple of seconds, then said, “No. Two pounds?” This was Thatcherite Britain.

  “Ten.”

  “Five.”

  “Okay.” But she just stood there, the cigarette unmoving in her mouth. I got out a five-pound note and handed it to her. She pocketed it carefully then began, “So first off he just comes and tells me this morning he had to go, at around eight o’clock, I mean, what a time, I wasn’t dressed even, and he didn’t even give no reason, but I told him he had to pay till the end of the month anyway, ’cause I mean, fair’s fair, innit? and he said okay, and then off he went, I mean talk of being in a hurry. Then about an hour later along come these other Eye-ties who say they’re his friends, and they wouldn’t take no for an answer when I said I didn’t know where he’d gone, I mean, bloody cheek, who do they think they are, that’s what I want to know.” It was like a dam burst.

  “I see. What name had he given you?”

  “Tony.”

  “Tony what?”

  “How should I know? Tony Spaghetti or Tony Ravioli, I expect. I mean we don’t go much for second names here.”

  “And these two who came along? They were definitely Italian?”

  “Well, they talked funny like Tony did, and they said they were his friends, so what do you expect me to think?”

  “Did they say why they wanted to see him?”

  “Just said they were his friends. But the one of them, a little bloke with a beard—well, they both had beards—but the little one, I can’t imagine him being nobody’s friend. Dead creepy. His eyes didn’t move once. And wouldn’t take no.”

  “And they didn’t—”

  She interrupted me, “That’s a fiver’s worth.” And slammed the door.

  * * *

  Back home I made myself a cheese sandwich and then went along to the studio clutching a can of beer—not too desperately, I hoped. I opened the door.

  Well, nobody could say the swan wasn’t noticeable. It occupied about one-fifteenth of the canvas but dominated the whole picture. Dominated the whole room. I’d portrayed it as rearing up from the rubbish heap, its wings half-open, its neck and head straining to the sky. Probably it was all wrong ornithologically—didn’t they have to take off from the water? So maybe I could call it something ironic like Wasted Effort. Like my morning.

  No. That title would be too much like a gift to any critic looking for a cheap crack. Homage to Cima. And on an impulse I took up a fine brush and painted this title in one corner of the work. There. I hoped Osgood would hear of it. Then he’d feel—well, if not small, less enormous.

  Except he’d probably be bigger—as a result of huge meals paid for by the proceeds of the Cima sale. He might even offer to buy my Homage. That would be the kind of crushing joke he’d enjoy. And if he offered enough, I’d possibly even sell him it. That would be the kind of crushed worm I was.

  Oh, well. I phoned Adrian. I apologized again for the previous evening, told him not to expect anything in the Corriere della Sera, and then said, �
�Listen. I’ve just finished a real winner. And I mean a winner. Something quite different.”

  “Oh, dear. That is—ah, how interesting. I’d love to see it. Well, I’d like another look at them all in fact. Suppose I pop over tomorrow morning?”

  “That would be fine. Er, not too early. After ten.”

  “I understand. And, um, you’re not going to phone back in half an hour and say the painting’s terrible?”

  “Adrian.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time. Just don’t destroy it, that’s all. Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye.” That last warning was not really necessary. I had my ups and downs, as he knew, but I hardly ever reached the point of doing anything so decisive as destroying a painting. There might always be somebody prepared to pay for even the worst tat.

  I spent the rest of the day just tinkering with my canvases, pretending I was adding finishing touches or improving them generally. I tried not to drink too much, as there was a danger I might wake up the next morning and find a bloody great swan on every single painting. When it was clear I was merely wasting time—when I found myself picking paint off the easel—I went out and bought a Cornish pasty and some tomatoes and a yogurt: a three-course meal. I also bought an Evening Standard.

  I read the paper over dinner. There was no mention at all of my performance the previous evening. So even my notoriety was a failure now. I drank another can of beer and then I went back to the studio. I put the paintings in two stacks leaning up against the wall. I had decided I could no longer stand the all-surrounding eyeful of gloom every time I entered the room. Also it meant I would be able to show them one by one to Adrian, and see his reaction to each painting individually. I left the swan on the easel.

  I read one of Jim’s thrillers until about eleven-thirty and then started up the stairs to bed.

  The front doorbell rang.

  I turned back down the stairs, but as my fingers reached out for the latch my irritation changed to wariness and I thought, Hang on. I called out, “Who is it?” There was no answer. I peered through the letter box. There was nobody there. Obviously just kids who ought to be in bed.

  And then there was a tinkle of broken glass from the kitchen, at the back of the house. Stupidly I still thought, Bloody kids, and I moved in that direction.

  And somebody, not a kid, came out of the kitchen holding a gun.

  “What?” I said in blank amazement. I wasn’t even scared yet.

  Then, one and a half seconds later, I was. My hands were already pointing to the ceiling, without my being aware of having raised them. The same probably went for my hair. I was now saying something like “But but but but” and I went on doing so till my mouth dried up.

  The somebody was in darkness, at the other end of the unlit corridor, a large unmoving figure holding a large unmoving gun. Somebody else came out of the little kitchen behind him, a smaller suppler figure. As he moved toward me and into the light that seeped from the top of the stairs I had a nasty shock: his face was dead white and featureless. Then I realized he was wearing a mask: one of those blank plaster masks for the whole face that they sell everywhere in Venice, with just eyeholes. The explanation didn’t comfort me any.

  “Who are you?” I said. Probably a foolish question.

  “Silence.” There was something horrible about the way this came from a nonexistent mouth. He frisked me with deft gloved hands. The larger figure moved closer. He had the same kind of mask, which again looked extremely sinister above his turned-up greatcoat. Why couldn’t they wear something traditional like stockings over their heads?

  The smaller one straightened up. He was dressed in a leather jacket and jeans. A brown polo-neck sweater was visible where the jacket was open at the top.

  You might think these sartorial observations were an odd thing to be indulging in at the time, but half of my business is looking at things, and I couldn’t see their faces. My looking, however, didn’t tell me anything that answered any question my mind was asking. All I could guess from the clothes was that there was something foreign about them. And even that had perhaps been suggested by the one word spoken so far—wouldn’t any English person say “Shut up” or “Be quiet”?

  “Go in there,” the smaller man said, and the foreign accent was obvious now. He motioned me to the studio.

  “What the hell is all this—”

  “Go,” he repeated, and the other one flicked the gun.

  I went, my hands still foolishly raised. I moved into the center of the room by the easel and the smaller man found the light switch. He turned the lights on and looked at the windows to check that the curtains were drawn. They bloody were of course.

  “Sit on that chair,” he said, pointing to the armchair.

  I sat in it. I supposed the chair hadn’t been chosen for my comfort, but because it was the lowest, the one that made me most vulnerable. He took a length of cord from his pocket and told me to hang my arms down the side of the chair. I did so, still wondering furiously what the hell all this could be about. Were they just local thieves? The gun seemed a little excessive in a bit of housebreaking around here. After all, what would they expect other than video machine, compact disk, and the rest? Hardly worth risking the extra charge of armed entry for. Were they Osgood’s boys? But no, why would he have foreign thugs? In fact, would he really have thugs at all? So were they Italian? The Italians who’d been asking after Tony? The masks suggested Venice. So it seemed possible. And one of them was little, as the woman had said.

  The cord was pulled painfully tight and I gasped: it was released a millimeter or so. I looked at the man with the gun standing by the door—and I gasped again. The man laughed; a single derisive “Ha,” and his colleague finished tying his knot and looked at me. “Ah, you have seen.”

  The big man threw the gun onto the ground, which it struck with a feeble clack. I’d been terrorized by a child’s toy.

  “But now is too late, no?” the small man went on, and the blankness of his mask took on an extra sinister touch, since it was obvious he was smiling behind it. I looked at his eyes, which were a pale green, and did not flicker as they met mine.

  That’s what you think, I should now say, and burst out of my bonds, kick him in the teeth, and then dive for the gun—no, wait a minute.… “You bastards,” I said.

  The big one now drew a cosh from inside his greatcoat. Not a toy this time. The real original blunt instrument. He stood there tapping it into the palm of his hands, looking like a cliché of dumb violence from a horror comic. But a cliché I wasn’t going to argue with straightaway.

  The small man looked at the paintings against the wall—or, at least, that’s the way his mask was pointing. “An artist, I see.”

  “Thank you.”

  “An artist pretending he has a social conscience.”

  “Where?”

  “The degradation of the proletariat exploited to make pretty pictures for the borghesi. Such tenderness of conscience.”

  “Not many proletarians living on that motorway flyover, I should think,” I said, referring to the picture he was standing in front of.

  “So you have also the ecological conscience. A green who thinks the world’s problems will be solved by bicycle paths and the prohibition of aerosol sprays.”

  “Look, I’m sorry if you don’t like my paintings, but I didn’t invite you in and—”

  “Silence.” He didn’t bark it out, just said it in a voice as expressionless as his mask. His eyes returned, unblinking, to me.

  And I won’t invite you to the private view either.

  “We want to know where is Toni Sambon.”

  “Who?”

  “Alfredo, hit his left hand. I’m sorry,” he said as Alfredo approached, swinging the cosh. “These are not the methods I would choose, but we have no time to waste.”

  The sudden blow made me yelp. He’d merely tapped the cosh on my knuckles, but it felt as if he’d shattered every bone in the hand.

  �
�That was your left hand. As an artist you will not want that we are harder with your right hand. So where is Toni Sambon?”

  “The only Toni I know is I don’t know where. I mean I don’t know where the Toni I know is.” I was babbling in undisguised panic. I forced my voice back to steadiness. “I don’t know.”

  “Another hit I think, Alfredo. The same place would probably be best.”

  “No!” I yelled as Alfredo drew the cosh back.

  “So speak.”

  “Look, I don’t know anything about this bloody Toni. I just got talking to him in a gallery yesterday and that’s all I know.”

  “Alfredo, you will probably have to hit him again. But wait a moment. First I will try to make him reason.”

  Alfredo, who obviously understood English perfectly well, said in Italian, “These types never reason.” A northern Italian accent.

  The small man said, “We know you went to Toni’s flat this afternoon. You were seen. And this afternoon when you went out we entered in your flat and—”

  “You what?”

  “—and we saw that painting.” He pointed to the swan. “And we saw the title. So please do not pretend you know nothing about Toni.”

  Oh, hell. I’d got myself into a right mess. Why hadn’t I called it The Ugly Duckling? Why hadn’t I painted a bloody sea gull? I grabbed at an irrelevance. “How did you get in?”

  “The window in your kitchen. We had to break it this second time, I’m afraid.”

  I remembered now that I’d closed it on coming back from the shops. I was always leaving it open to get rid of cooking smells—well, burning smells. “Why did you ring the bell?” Another procrastinatory irrelevance.

  “We wanted to be sure we would find you downstairs.”

  And at their mercy—at the mercy of the toy gun, that is.

  “Now, please,” he went on, “answer to our inquiries.”

  I was now sweating all over, watching that dangling cosh, watching the obscene blankness of their faces, the unnatural fixity of the small man’s pale eyes, unable to force my mind to anything like constructive thought. I remembered tales of men under torture who shat their trousers and then suddenly that was the only thing in my mind: God, don’t let me foul myself, don’t let me—