Exposure

by Aga Lesiewicz

  I have no heart to tell him I hate Metaxa.

  We agree that Rupert will drop off the keys to their flat tonight and we disconnect.

  26

  The loft with its sprayed-on windows has a dark, almost derelict feel. It’s also very stuffy and there is a whiff of graffiti paint still hanging in the air. This needs to be sorted out as soon as possible. After a long wait, I get through to the building’s managing agent who clearly doesn’t want to tell me if our insurance covers vandalism. In the end, he reluctantly agrees to send someone to assess the damage. Having dealt with them before, I know it’ll take days, if not weeks, before they spring into action. I decide to bypass them and call the insurance company directly. They sound more sympathetic and give me some generic advice on what I should do. Call the police. Document the damage with photographs and provide notes as to how and when the incident happened. One thing is clear though: the damage needs to be assessed before ‘vandalism removal specialists’ can be called. Great, it means I’ll have to live in this dungeon for weeks, unless I pay for the removal of the graffiti myself. It would probably take a team of guys with specialist equipment on a cherry picker to clean off the paint and it would cost a fortune. As things stand at the moment I have barely enough money to live on, so forking out anything over a hundred quid is out of the question. A life in a dungeon, then. As a temporary measure I kick open one of the windows sealed with paint and breathe in the nitrogen-dioxide-rich Hoxton air.

  The shaft of light from the open window falls directly onto my desk and the Mac. I look at the big black screen, remembering Fly’s lecture. Part of me wants to dash out to the Apple store in Covent Garden straight away. But I really can’t afford a new Mac at the moment. Not even a refurbished one.

  Is it really possible that someone has planted rootkits inside it? Or worse, locked it inside its own virtual world? In the cold light of day it seems far-fetched, almost absurd. I’m not rich and famous nor do I have any terrorist connections, so why would anyone bother to monitor my digital activity with such a level of sophistication? I resist the temptation to power up the Mac and google ‘rootkits’. Instead I resort to pen and paper. It’s time to look at my life and separate fact from fiction. I draw a line down a sheet of paper, dividing it into two parts: ‘Facts’ on the left and ‘Speculation’ on the right. I start on the left.

  – Anton’s death

  – ‘Exposures’

  – Loss of job

  – Messages from Professor Stein

  I go back to the top of my list and add ‘Anton’s fling/unknown lover?’. Then I draw four arrows growing out of the ‘Exposures’ line:

  Ex 1 – The Violinist’s crime scene (forensic job connection?)

  Ex 2 – ‘In Bed With Anton’ (art connection? Anna?)

  Ex 3 – Anton’s fling (personal life?)

  Ex 4 – Drone attack (loft, my past?)

  Underneath the fourth arrow I print WAKE UP in capital letters and underline it. Damn . . . I add another item to the list:

  – Blip with Marcus

  I wish it wasn’t a ‘Fact’. But let’s move on to ‘Speculation’:

  – I’ve been hacked

  – Bike connection

  Bike connection gets three arrows:

  – Where is Anton’s bike?

  – King’s Cross encounter – who is the guy?

  – My two collisions with cyclists – link? (unlikely)

  I add two more items to the right column:

  – Violinist connection/Violin bridge?

  – Street art?

  Actually, Professor Stein’s emails have to be moved to the right as they might be fakes. The same goes for ‘Anton’s fling/unknown lover?’. The hotel receipt could’ve been planted on him and the video of him having sex at the loft faked. Well, maybe.

  I read through both lists, swap the black pen for a red marker and begin to draw more lines. The hacking speculation could be connected to almost everything on the list except for Anton’s death, the blip with Marcus and the bike. ‘Loss of job’ seems to be a direct result of ‘In Bed With Anton’, which could be related to Professor Stein and my art. The Violinist might be linked to Anton through the violin bridge, which would, in turn, tie Anton to the ‘Exposures’. The ‘Exposures’ may have something to do with him anyway, as he appears in two of them. Street art links him to the fourth ‘Exposure’ through the drone attack. He might have fallen to his death while on a street-art recce. There’s also Anna from the Fugitives, who is associated with Anton’s street art, but also was an unintended recipient of ‘In Bed With Anton’. Unless she herself was the hacker with access to my memory drives. And what about Rupert and Daniel, who just happened to be on the towpath to pick me up after my collision with the cyclist? Doesn’t Daniel work for some cyber security company?

  I drop the red marker with a groan. This is useless. The piece of paper in front of me, covered with arrows and red doodles, looks like the work of a paranoid maniac. It hasn’t helped me clarify anything. On the contrary, it’s made me even more confused and suspicious than before. One thing is obvious though – most of the ‘Facts’ seem to point to my past. I’m supposed to wake up from something, but I have no idea what. But as I dwell on it, my present life is coming apart at the seams.

  My present life.

  I need to get a grip on it. Talk to Heather about the Playthingz project. Look for a proper job. Face the music with Sophie and Marcus. Sort out the windows. Get Pixel back. Forget about Professor Stein and my unfulfilled artistic ambition.

  Job first. I check in with my usual agencies and get in touch with the new one that wanted my portfolio. The job’s already gone, but they’ll keep my name on file. I reluctantly power up my computer and browse through TV Watercooler, Grapevine, the Unit List and LinkedIn. You never know what might pop up on any of the websites. But it’s slim pickings today. Playthingz then. I call Heather and she tells me there are no more batches of sex toys to be photographed. But she is working on a new project she’d like to discuss with me in person. I hop into the shower, throw some clean clothes on, and twenty minutes later I’m sitting in the red velvet armchair in Heather’s office.

  ‘We’re launching a small and exclusive Discreet fashion range aiming to bridge the gap between designer and alternative clothing. It’s influenced by various subcultures, you know, Gothic, Punk, Heavy Metal, but with a softer, more traditional twist.’

  I don’t need much convincing to agree to do a fashion shoot for her. What else have I got to do, anyway?

  ‘I don’t want boring white-screen photos. I’m thinking a more urban setting, full of character, edgy. You know, Shoreditch fifteen years ago, something like—’

  ‘Hackney Wick?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I was going to say. Do you know it well?’

  ‘I haven’t been there for a while, but I know a lot of great spaces there . . . Let me have a look around and I’ll get back to you.’

  ‘Fantastic. How soon can you do it? I’d like to have something ready for London Fashion Week in September.’

  ‘I can start pretty much straight away.’ There’s no point pretending to Heather that I’m mega-busy. She radiates positive energy and seems to be genuinely pleased I’m available. ‘And the models?’

  ‘I’ve got that covered.’ She’s grinning mischievously and I have a feeling it’s going to be a hoot.

  ‘OK, I’ll just wrap a few things up and then do a location recce. I should have some pictures for you soon.’

  ‘I’m really glad you can do it.’ Our meeting is over and Heather opens the office door for me. ‘Oh, by the way, do you fancy going to a concert tonight? Patrick Ewer is playing at the Union Chapel in Islington. You know, the composer from upstairs.’ She points at the ceiling. ‘It’s sold out, but I have a spare ticket.’

  Ah, my Peeping Tom. I’d nearly forgotten about him.

  ‘Sure, why not.’

  It actually might be interesting to watch him instead of b
eing watched for a change.

  We arrange to meet outside the chapel before the gig and I leave Discreet, my head already buzzing with location ideas for Heather’s project. A fashion shoot for a sex shop isn’t going to be the pinnacle of my professional career but, given a free rein, I might be able to produce something I won’t be ashamed of.

  I dash across the street back to the loft, put my G12 camera in my bag and head out of the door again. There’s no better time than now, as Aunt Stella used to say. I catch a bus to Dalston Kingsland, and from there, the North London Line overground train. It’s one of the new trains with walk-through carriages and air-conditioning which has long lost the battle with a whole range of urban odours. It’s outside the rush hour, so there are quite a few empty seats and I squeeze myself in between a pale Goth boy and a chubby woman who shouts into her mobile phone in a language that sounds like Polish or maybe Russian. I watch the landscape behind the window change from the tightly packed inner-city clutter to a more sprawling and derelict industrial scenery. It feels familiar – I used to come here a lot as a fledgling artist. I remember getting drunk on cheap booze with Erin as we searched for an affordable studio space in our pre-Cubic Zirconia days. We ended up breaking into one of the ramshackle canal boats and sleeping off our hangovers in someone’s mildewed bed.

  Soon I’m arriving at Hackney Wick station, flaunting its post-London-Olympics modernity against the crumbling remains of the old East End life. I swipe my Oyster Card and walk down the ramp to street level. Sharp left into White Post Lane, past the Lord Napier pub, a ghost of a building with a stunning street-art-decorated facade, and along a row of small warehouses still occupied by wholesalers. Bold graffiti sprayed on a wall – WAKE UP NEOLIBERAL ARTY-FARTY IDIOTS FASHION IS FAKE – announces the arrival of new enterprises, pop-up rave places hiding behind metal gates firmly shut in the daytime. Past a couple of odd burger shacks, the closed shutters of the Celestial Church of Christ, a recycled clothes manufacturer and an MOT garage and I arrive at Queen’s Yard. Flanked by the Crate craft brewery on one side and the White Building, an art centre in a converted factory, on the other, this is where I’m hoping to find the location for my shoot. I don’t have to look far: the riverside Crate pizzeria, with its industrial interior made from reclaimed local flotsam, looks like a dream film set. I order a pint of Crate Wheat and settle at a table outside, watching an occasional boat pass almost noiselessly along the River Lee Navigation.

  The citrusy beer, with its delicious notes of orange peel and coriander, goes straight to my head in a mellow wave. This is it, I think, I could just sit here forever, sipping beer, watching the alternative world go by, far away from my life, far from the craziness of it all. The woman at the table next to mine looks like Tilda Swinton. Bleached hair with shaved sides, strong arms, splashes of paint in different colours on her sleeveless vest. Probably a painter. She’s immersed in a conversation with a slim, nervous man with a Peaky Blinders haircut and tortoiseshell glasses. An artist for sure. I soak in the coolness of the couple and the place. I could fit in here, I could be their friend. I could reinvent myself and disappear from my present life. The longing for that free-spirited feel of the early Cubic Zirconia days overwhelms me. If only I could have it again, go through the reckless exhilaration of those days once more . . .

  I put down the empty beer mug on the table with a loud clonk. The couple interrupt their conversation and look at me with round, aghast eyes. Yep, nothing nice lasts forever. I throw Tilda an apologetic smile and get up. Enough of this self-indulgence, I have a job to do. Even if the job is a budget shoot for a sex shop.

  I hurry up the steps to street level and cross the bridge over the river. The instant change in the landscape is ruthless. To the right the imposing disc of the Olympic Stadium sits in the middle of an asphalt desert with colour-coordinated signs and immaculate street furniture. To the left hums the rusty giant of the Olympic energy substation. Ahead, in the distance, looms the glass and concrete mass of the Stratford shopping centre. Right in front of me the engineered expanse is empty – there are no people here, no movement, no life. I turn round in disgust and walk back towards the other side of the river.

  I spot a narrow alleyway on the left, a messy pathway between tired buildings. Old pipes running up and down the walls are painted red, blue and yellow, and every accessible flat surface is covered in tags, stencils and graffiti. PUNK RUINED MY LIFE. CHADD IS A RACIST. A.CE IS THE NEW KATE MOSS. As I walk further in, the buildings become more derelict and the street art better. It reminds me of the narrow lanes of the Mission in San Francisco, where Anton and I spent weeks gorging ourselves on the most beautiful murals and the best burritos. The alley continues under the arch of one of the buildings, a short, dark tunnel with aptly dark art on its walls. I emerge from the tunnel into a square yard and I’m dazzled by bright light. The building at the back of the yard has been pulled down and the sunlight is cascading over the remaining pile of rubble, illuminating the cavernous space. Despite the brightness, the houses that still surround the yard on three sides resemble Victorian brick tenements, except their walls are not blackened with soot: they are all covered with stunning, vibrantly coloured murals. On the entire facade of one of them there is an elaborate design composed of many smaller details, in black, yellow, green and various shades of red, from magenta through crimson to deep rust. It looks like a huge, fiery bird, but as I stare at it, I begin to notice a different pattern, and I suddenly know where I’ve seen something similar before: Constellations at the Miró Retrospective. I remember standing in front of a particular painting, totally in awe. It was small, one of twenty-three works Miró painted on paper during the war, a tangle of lines and geometrical shapes representing women surrounded by flying birds. The mural on the wall is not a copy of Miró’s image, but a variation on the theme, transformed and developed. I stare at the mural, unable to take my eyes off it. This is clearly the best art I’ve seen in a long time. But who painted it? Thanks to Anton, I’m familiar with most of the big street-art names, but I don’t recognize anyone’s style on this wall. I rummage in my bag for the camera and take a picture of it, then another. This is it, this place is perfect for Heather’s shoot. The artwork, juxtaposed against the pile of rubble, will be an ideal backdrop for the models. I slowly turn round, snapping photos of the remaining buildings in the yard at different angles, trying to capture the beauty of the place. And then I freeze.

  I slowly lower my G12 and look at the wall I was just about to photograph. It’s dominated by a large black-and-white paste-up that stretches across three floors, covering all the windows, wrapping itself over every crack in the facade of the building. It’s a photograph of a face, in extreme close-up, created in different shades of grey out of a multitude of dots on a white background. The further one gets away from the picture, the clearer it becomes. I’m familiar with the technique. It’s digital halftoning, something Anton used a lot in his art. And I know whose face it is.

  Mine.

  I stumble backwards and, feeling my legs wanting to give out, sit down heavily on a remnant of an old brick wall. I greedily absorb the image in front of me, recognizing Anton’s way of running wheat paste over the image in a transparent layer of glue, his signature at the bottom right-hand side of the paste-up. Savage. It’s Anton’s work, I have no doubt about it. I even remember when and where he took the picture of me. It was in Argentina and I was furious with him because instead of travelling all the way down to Patagonia, he wanted to stay in Buenos Aires and do a massive paste-up with his Argentine mates. I was telling him that his bloody street art spoiled our every holiday and he just pulled out his camera and started taking pictures of me. There is something about looking straight at the camera lens that makes you instantly aware of yourself. I saw my anger and I immediately realized how petty it was. He kept snapping away, recording the transition from rage to truce in my face. We never went to Patagonia, instead we had a great time in BA.

  In his paste-up, Anton
has used a few different photographs from the series, superimposing them on top of each other. In a single image he’s captured the whole range of emotions and the effect is striking. It’s still my face, but it’s also a sublimation of the most universal of human expressions. It’s beautiful.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been staring at the wall, but eventually I notice my face is wet and my eyes are burning. I didn’t even realize I’d been crying. Seeing Anton’s mural has brought up so many feelings, feelings I thought I’d managed to put a lid on. Anger. Love. Hope.

  Is it possible he’s alive? Was his death a dramatic disappearing act? The mural looks untouched by time and the elements. I’m trying to remember whether it has rained in the past few days. Just like any wallpaper, paste-ups hate damp walls, need dry weather for the glue to set, and get washed off when fresh by anything stronger than a passing shower. Well, it’s been exceptionally dry and hot lately, but still . . . I approach the wall and touch the paper. It feels dry, the glue underneath it solid. It could’ve been done some time ago. But it looks so clean and immaculate, as if it’s been sitting in a gallery and not a Hackney Wick alleyway. They say the usual lifespan of a London paste-up is a couple of weeks. If the weather doesn’t get it, taggers or the council cleaners do. The mural in front of me hasn’t been defaced or damaged in any way, it doesn’t even have a single tag on it. It looks brand new, as if it was pasted up only yesterday. As if Anton pasted it up yesterday.

  Is it possible? Is it possible he faked his death and hasn’t even bothered to let me know he is alive? Could he be so cruel? OK, we did have a bust-up, but to punish me like this? No, I know Anton, he wouldn’t be capable of such malice. I’m trying to extinguish the tiny flicker of hope, but it keeps coming back. I didn’t see him in the mortuary. For all I know it was Lionel’s lawyer who identified the body. Was there an autopsy? An inquest? I don’t even know. What if he’s alive . . . ?