Framed

by Frank Cottrell Boyce

  Then we saw Tom.

  ‘Thank gumdrops!’ said Minnie. Tom was striding across the field towards us, waving happily. Only he wasn’t just waving his hand. He was waving some sort of doll. He held it out for us to look at. It was a model of Splinter – the Turtles’ guru. ‘Sixty-seven points of articulation.’ He beamed. ‘I was beginning to think it didn’t exist. I’ve been looking for this all my life.’

  It was pretty good, to be honest. It really had that Splinter, faraway look.

  ‘Where did you get it?’ said Minnie.

  ‘Over there. Man in a Skoda.’

  ‘That’s what I was afraid of. How much was it?’

  ‘Seventeen pounds and ninety-nine pence.’

  ‘So how much have you got left?’

  ‘Two pounds and one pence.’

  We didn’t feel like explaining it to him. He was so happy with his Splinter model, it didn’t seem right to spoil his moment.

  That’s when the Jaguar trundled on to the field. Barry and Tone got out and looked all around.

  ‘One last try,’ said Minnie.

  We sneaked round the front ends of the cars and came up just short of the Misses Sellwood’s stall so we could keep an eye on the painting. Barry and Tone were about to walk past us, but Minnie stepped in front of them and said, ‘Where’s the money?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No money. No painting.’

  ‘I’m not going to hand over twenty-five grand under a set of floodlights in a crowded place,’ said Barry. ‘What are you doing here, anyway? You said up at the house.’

  ‘Sorry about that. Babysitting.’ She showed them Max.

  ‘Your sister nearly gave us a heart attack. She knows how to wail, doesn’t she?’

  ‘She’s had lots of practice. We need the money.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not all of it. An advance. In good faith. Or no picture.’

  ‘How much?’

  She glanced at the stall. The picture was still there. ‘Twenty quid,’ she said.

  ‘Twenty quid!’ said Barry.

  ‘Twenty quid!’ said Tone.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ said Tom. ‘We mean it, you know.’

  ‘Go on, go on,’ said Tone. ‘Anything else? Bag of peanuts? Packet of crisps?’

  ‘Just give me the money.’

  Barry took a big wad of cash from his pocket and peeled off a twenty. Minnie grabbed it and said, ‘Wait there.’ Then we dashed over to the Misses Sellwood’s stall. We were just in time to see that Lester was there, that he was picking up the painting and walking away with it.

  We both froze. We knew that Barry and Tone were watching us. Without even thinking about it, I shouted, ‘Hey!’ at Lester.

  He looked round, saw us and then looked away again. He blanked us completely. I thought of all the times he’d been pleased to see me and wished this was one of them.

  I looked at the Misses Sellwood’s stall. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it was a different painting. No, it had definitely gone. Where the picture had been, you could now see Miss Elsa sitting on the bumper of the Rover, looking very tired.

  ‘I want my mam,’ said Minnie. As I said, you forget, because she’s a genius, that she is just a little girl. ‘Where is she? Where’s Mam?’

  She was looking round for Mam’s stall. I grabbed her by the elbow. ‘Things are difficult enough for Mam,’ I said. ‘Come on.’

  And we set off after Lester. I knew it was going to be embarrassing. I knew it might not work. But I also knew it was my job to sort this out and not bother Mam with it. We hurried through the crowd. Lester was moving quite slowly. The painting was slowing him down.

  Nothing was slowing Barry and Tone down. They were right behind us all the time, keeping an eye on us. Not getting too close. Not sure whether to trust us or not. There wouldn’t have been any point trying to shake them off. Max kept waving to them and shouting. ‘Men! Hello!’

  We got alongside Lester as he reached his car and I said, ‘Hi.’ He didn’t look round. So then I did the hardest thing ever and said, ‘Quentin.’ He looked round. I smiled and glanced over my shoulder. They were still there. ‘Are you going back up? Could you give us a lift?’

  He looked a bit taken aback.

  Minnie said, ‘Please.’

  I said, ‘We’ll give you back Sunflowers.’

  He still didn’t say anything. He just put the picture in the boot, opened the back offside passenger door and waved us in. He closed it with that satisfying thunk but still didn’t say anything. I suppose if you steal a twenty-five-million-pound picture from someone, they are going to be a bit cool with you. All the same, the leather seats were completely beastie and we were safe. For the moment anyway. We could see Barry and Tone staring at us as the engine started up. Minnie gave them a little wave. I wish she hadn’t because they snarled at us, and two minutes later we got a text. It said ‘w8 & c’.

  We were so happy to be in the car, we didn’t notice that Ms Stannard was in the front passenger seat, with her shoes off.

  ‘Evening, children,’ she said. She was eating a Twix. She didn’t offer us any. ‘We were going to take a spin up to Bala, but Quentin suddenly became obsessed with sourcing TMNT merchandise.’ She held up the book that Lester had bought. It was an old Turtles annual. Why had he bought a Turtles annual? He took it off her and put it in the ergonomic map-holder between the front seats. Still not talking. Even though Max was now singing, ‘Fast car! Fast car! Fast car!’ over and over. I normally join in, but I was too embarrassed, and he stopped in the end.

  Minnie was feeling cheery and cheeky because she thought she’d cheated death. She said, ‘You like Miss Elsa’s picture then?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  Ms Stannard said, ‘Is that lovely young creature really Miss Elsa?’

  Minnie said, ‘Her dad painted it when she was little.’

  ‘No he didn’t,’ said Lester, without taking his eyes off the road (A496). ‘That picture is called A Greek Captive. It was painted in 1863 by Henriette Browne. It was one of the most popular paintings in the gallery. During the Second World War, the last time these paintings were evacuated to this quarry, the painting went missing. I deduce that some previous Sellwood stole it, for whatever reason.’

  ‘Why do you deduce that?’ said Ms Stannard. ‘Why not deduce that the picture was left behind by useless people from the gallery and was saved for the nation by Mr Sellwood.’

  ‘Because he didn’t save it for the nation; he kept it in his kitchen.’

  ‘Cowabunga!’ yelled Minnie. ‘Grandpa Sellwood wa a bandit. He did the perfect crime. That’s why Manod’s got low crime figures. Because we’re so good at it, we never get caught.’

  ‘It’s certainly no surprise to me that theft and lying are part of the culture,’ said Lester.

  ‘Thanks for that, Minnie,’ said Ms Stannard. ‘Thank you very much.’

  Minnie looked up at the mountain and smiled. ‘That’s what we should have put on that sign: Manod – Welcome to Bandit Country.’

  That wasn’t the point. All I could think was, That is not Miss Sellwood and her dad did not paint it.

  When we got back to the garage, Lester pulled over and said, ‘Right. I believe the arrangement is that you now return the painting.’

  Minnie said, ‘OK. Are you ready . . . ?’ But I shushed her.

  ‘What’ll you do with it then?’ I said.

  ‘I shall lock it up in my cave with all the others, and I shall never ever again make the mistake of letting people come to look at them. You show people art, and all they see is money. Where is the painting?’

  ‘We want you to do something first,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not really in the mood to bargain.’

  I made Lester bring the picture into the house. It was a bit depressing. All the books and most of our clothes were in big piles of boxes in the front room.

  I said, ‘Upstairs.’ We used to have these photos of us all on holiday
in little frames all the way up the stairs. Mam had taken them down and now there were these little white spaces on the wall where the pictures used to be.

  We were outside Marie’s room. I knocked on the door. She shouted, ‘Drop dead!’

  I said, ‘Marie, it’s Lester. He wants to tell you something.’ Then I asked him to tell her about the picture.

  ‘Your picture? Your collage with the photographs of the baby on? Yes, the National Gallery believe it to be a local project and they’ve hung it. It’s attracting more visitors than the Meléndez, as a matter of fact. Ridiculous, really, but there you are. It’s very successful and popular, even though it just seems to be pictures of your baby. That’s how I knew what—’

  ‘I don’t care!’ yelled Marie.

  I said, ‘No, not her picture. This one.’

  Lester looked puzzled.

  I shouted through the door, ‘He’s got something else to tell you. Something about the Misses Sellwood’s painting. It’s not a painting of Miss Elsa.’

  There was a long silence from the room.

  Then the door opened and Marie peeped out. She looked as though she’d been crying for a month. Her eyes were all red and her skin was all dry. She saw the painting and growled. I thought she was going to kick it. I said, ‘Wait, wait. It’s not her. This isn’t Miss Elsa. It’s nothing to do with her.’

  ‘Who is it then?’

  I looked at Lester. He can’t help himself. Even when he’s cross, he loves to lecture. He cleared his throat and said, ‘Interesting question. The model’s name was Maria Pasqua. She was quite famous for a while. As you can see, she was extraordinarily beautiful.’

  ‘She’s not even related to the Misses Sellwood?’

  ‘Not at all. She was from the Abruzzi region of Italy, from a peasant family. Her family were extremely poor and, when this exquisite creature was born to them, they saw it as an opportunity to improve their lot. Her father took her to Rome. At the time it was the custom for people with interesting faces to wait on the Spanish Steps in the hope that artists would hire them as models. There was an old man with a big beard who was often hired to model God, a lot of young women who got to be the Virgin Mary, and so on. When this girl turned up, everyone wanted to paint her.’

  ‘What as?’

  ‘Well, nothing, really. She was just so beautiful, as you can see. She was painted by almost everyone that season. And when the time came for the various studios to exhibit, all the paintings of the little peasant girl were snapped up.’

  ‘So did she get really famous?’

  ‘More complicated than that, I’m afraid. An English countess fell in love with her face and tried to buy one of the paintings, but was too late. So she bought the girl instead.’

  We all said, ‘What?!’

  ‘She summoned the girl’s father and offered the child a good life and a good education if he agreed never to see her again. The family was poor. I’m not sure the father understood all that the countess was saying, but he agreed.’

  ‘And what happened to her?’ said Marie.

  ‘She went with the countess, thinking that she was going to model for her for the afternoon, and she never saw her family or her country again.’

  We all stared at the picture, thinking that when it was painted the girl didn’t know this was going to happen to her. Even Max was quiet.

  ‘But what happened then?’ said Marie.

  Lester said, ‘I believe her father wrote to her quite often, but she never got the letters. She lived to be quite old.’

  Marie said, ‘I mean, what happened to her face?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Lester, ‘she was always beautiful. And she married and had children and they were beautiful too.’

  Marie looked at him and said, ‘Of course! She had children! Why didn’t anyone say that?!’ And she threw her arms round Lester and kissed him. Then she kissed Max and she kissed Minnie. She’d’ve kissed me if I’d let her. And she went downstairs, talking nineteen to the dozen just like she used to, and said to Lester, ‘D’you know, I’ve been locked in that room for weeks because of that picture, and now the same picture, well, it’s set me free. Thanks, Lester.’

  ‘Quentin.’

  ‘Thanks, Quentin.’

  I could see that he was sort of starting to be happy again. She asked him if he wanted to stay for tea, but he said he had some business to attend to, and he looked at me and Minnie.

  Minnie said, ‘You’ve had the picture back for ages. We hid it behind the other one. It’s in that frame. Check if you don’t believe us.’

  He did check. He took Sunflowers out just as Mam was coming through the door. And we all sat in front of the picture for a while, as though it was a fire and we were warming ourselves. Mam stayed there longest of all. ‘They make you feel like nothing else matters,’ she said.

  I went with Lester to the car. He said, ‘Why did you do it? Was it all planned from the very beginning?’

  ‘No. I really did enjoy the paintings, even though I didn’t know about them. Everyone liked them.’ Then I told him all about the insurance men and how they put the premium up because of the gallery being there and he said, ‘Oh, is that all? You should have come to me with that. I’ve a small fund for community relations. I’m sure I could cover that for you. I’ll let you know.’

  And off he went and I thought, ‘Well, why didn’t we think of that in the first place?’

  Just after that, the Misses Sellwood came through and I opened the gate for them. Miss Edna seemed quite cheery. ‘We made a hundred pounds!’ she said. ‘Imagine!’ But Miss Elsa was sitting there like a broken teddy. ‘She’s upset because she thought that Da made that painting of her. I told her not to be so silly – what difference does it make if you can’t see it? I’m just telling Dylan about how silly you are, Elsa.’

  That night in bed, a text message beeped in on Marie’s phone. It said, ‘RT and AB r an item. Official.’ It took me ten minutes to figure out that it wasn’t some strange coded threat from Barry and Tone. It was just someone from Marie’s class, passing on some gossip. By then I was too awake to go to sleep. I just lay there thinking, and the more I thought the more obvious it was that everything was my fault. All the way back to Ms Stannard’s Fiesta, everything was my fault. I told Barry and Tone about the Mini. I told them where Dad was. Even the robbery. It was Minnie’s plan. But she’s my little sister. I’m her big brother. Big brothers are supposed to stop little sisters becoming involved in major robberies, aren’t they? Big brothers are supposed to look after little sisters. And who is supposed to look after big brothers? Dads. And where was mine?

  10 July

  Cars today:

  TAXI

  JAGUAR XJ 4.2 V8 SOVEREIGN – Barry and Tone

  Weather – sunshine

  Note: ZEBRAS ARE IMPROBABLE, NOT IMPOSSIBLE

  One reason I don’t believe that anyone can do a perfect crime is that plans just never work. Because things just keep happening. Even Vincenzo Perugia got caught in the end. Look at Minnie. She had Plan A. Then she had to go to Plan B and that didn’t work either. And look at me. I sat up all night planning what to do when Barry and Tone came. Then I heard a car roll on to the forecourt, first thing. I knew it would be them. I felt sick. But I got out of bed and went down to the front door. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I just knew it had to be me and not Mam that did it.

  I opened the door.

  And it wasn’t them. It wasn’t a Jaguar. It was a Mondeo (top speed 121 mph). The first thing I noticed was that there was a zebra in the front passenger seat – one of those big fluffy toy ones. The back passenger-side door opened and Dad stepped out and paid the man, and the taxi drove off.

  I won’t go on about it. He didn’t say much. He nodded at the zebra and said, ‘That’s for Max.’

  ‘He’s still asleep.’

  ‘We won’t wake them then.’

  So we had a bit of a kick-around till the others woke up.

  While we all ha
d breakfast together, Max played with the zebra. He pushed it around the floor, making brum-brum noises.

  Dad said, ‘How’s it all been?’

  I said, ‘We had a few problems with the insurance, but I’ve sorted them out.’ Mam looked at me. I said I’d tell her later. ‘Oh, and me and Marie can do oil changes now.’

  Mam said, ‘What brought you home?’

  ‘I was in Harlech for a while, then I decided to move on. I went to look at the New Barrier. I was in London. I heard about this picture at the National Gallery that was something to do with Manod. I went to see it and it sort of persuaded me.’

  Maybe you’ve never seen Marie’s picture. I hadn’t seen it myself at the time. I’ve seen it since on our wall. Everyone says it looked even better in the National Gallery – where it was the only picture. As Dad says, ‘They didn’t need any other pictures. If you’ve got that on your wall, what else would you want to look at?’

  The picture is thirty-five Polaroids of Max. They’re all laid out next to each other, like words on a page, and they’ve got the date in the bottom left-hand corner. There’s one for each day for thirty-five days. They all look pretty much the same. Except in the first ones he’s got this long, curly baby hair, which we’d forgotten all about. At the beginning, he’s a baby. By the end, he’s a little boy. If you step back, they look like thirty-five pictures all the same. If you get close and look carefully, you can see the differences. You think you can see Time changing his face.

  I suppose if you were Dad, you’d think it was a picture that showed you what you were missing.

  Anyway, it was very popular. Especially with us.

  Straight after breakfast we started unpacking the boxes. Because we weren’t going to leave Manod now. I was with Dad when the Jaguar turned up and Barry and Tone got out. ‘Can I help you?’ said Dad. I was thinking, My dad was a bandit. He was on the run – but now he’s home, what are they going to do to him?