Stealing Picasso
Page 11
Harry lived in a room in a boarding house on Cecil Street in South Melbourne. His dad paid for it, signing cheques while clicking his tongue behind gritted teeth, shaking his head. His dad had been a self-confessed hero in the Korean War, who had seen the truth about life there, in battle, and was disgusted to have a son who thought art might be as enlightening as war. He wanted Harry to join the army. Vietnam was over but some other educational skirmish would flare up soon.
Harry’s room was fungal and dark, the wooden floorboards and windowsill drilled with wormholes, the walls stained by damp. It wasn’t really a place to paint but he called it his studio. It had a sink, a microwave and a table ranged with paint tubes, brushes, books, jars of coloured water and the many failed paintings one accumulates while trying to make a communication as enlightening as the war your father fought. He slept in a single iron bed against one wall with a few greasy blankets. Down the hall was a communal bathroom where toothless men took turns to stare in amazement at themselves in the mirror, trying to figure out how it was that just last week they were boys with their hair combed neat by their mothers.
Late one night a few days after they stole the Weeping Woman, Harry was in his studio with waves of rain crashing on the window. He was smoking, sitting on his bed, a glass of cask red in his hand, staring unhappily at a half-finished painting of Mireille. It wasn’t doing what he wanted it to do. It looked like she’d undergone a course of high-voltage correctional therapy that had fried her perspicacity and left her dimwitted; blandly handsome, but not a fire starter who stole stuff and lied to people as if lies were no more than chocolate-flavoured truth. A painting of Mireille needed to suggest amorality and fearlessness. He was thinking maybe he should strip her off, paint her bare-breasted, then surround her with bears and have her laughing at them. Not circus bears, angry bears from the deep forest. Sit her outdoors, bare-breasted, laughing at these bears with their furrowed muzzles. A neat external projection of her psychology.
He was nodding his head, having decided tits and bears were needed, when someone tapped apologetically on his door. Must be one of his mates just fallen out of a nightclub, trying not to wake the neighbours. Or one of the old guys who live here, wanting to share his wine.
‘I’m busy,’ he said through the door. ‘With tits and bears.’ The idiocies Harry spoke to his neighbours often excused him their company.
But a rich whisper answered. A cultured voice, right up at the keyhole. ‘Harry Broome? Could I have a word?’
‘Who’s there?’
‘Weston Guest.’
Weston Guest. Knows Harry’s name. Is here at his studio at midnight. In Harry’s line of work, Weston Guest is the king-maker. The guy is an aristocrat travelling through the shitty village of Art in a carriage pulled by white horses. Those who live in the shitty village of Art kneel in the mud as he rides by, and if he stops and smiles at your wares, if he nods, or squints his eyes over some hidden depth he’s found in a work of yours, then you shout it from the rooftops. You tell your mates. You boast to them that Weston Guest likes your stuff. ‘He ogled it … for thirty seconds. He’s definitely gone on me. I’m telling you, guys, he’s reaching for his chequebook. He’s about to buy me like a Grey Street lady.’
Because if Weston Guest buys one of your paintings for the NGV, you are made. You are anointed. And once you are anointed the gloss won’t wash off for ten years, and any crap you turn out will be gold-plated. Because Weston Guest is never wrong. He lost the power to be wrong when he became the director of the NGV. On many nights Harry has dreamt of Weston Guest pulling up before one of his paintings as he sweeps through the NGV School of Art. His eyes would boggle with delight and his jaw fall with astonishment. ‘Who … Who painted this?’
But now, as he steps through Harry’s doorway to shake his hand, Harry knows he can only be here to ruin him. He is wrapped in a trench coat dripping rain, his features pale and anguished. The theft is taking a toll on him.
‘Hello, Harry.’ He looks around the room. ‘A perfect hovel. Why are young artists so convinced talent flourishes amid squalor, as if effluvium were the staff of genius?’
‘It’s not always this messy.’ An obvious lie: the detritus is layered and historic.
‘Oh, I’m not criticising. I’m reminiscing. I used to live this way myself. Don’t think you’re a new phenomenon. Things haven’t changed since the time of Michelangelo, who lived with thirteen cats.’
‘Would you like a glass of wine?’
Weston ignores the offer, lost now in studying the painting of Mireille set up on the easel. ‘She’s pretty.’ A naked criticism.
‘I’ve only got … that … so far. I can’t get any deeper. I haven’t shown what she’s capable of. But I will. I’ve got some ideas. I’ll get her.’
‘And what is she capable of?’
‘Oh … you know.’ She stole your painting. ‘She sort of snarls at the common man.’
‘Have her snarl, then. At a common man.’
‘Yeah. But, you know, I want to do it subtly.’ Harry realises it’s stupid to be trying to convince this guy his art is good. Weston hasn’t come here at midnight to anoint him. He has come here because he knows. Something has led him here, to Harry. Some tip-off, an anonymous call, a fingerprint at the crime scene, intuition.
So far, Harry has only worried about the police. If they got caught would he do community service? Be put on a good behaviour bond? Do time in jail? He hasn’t yet worried what the theft might do to his career. Before the furore, it seemed to him such a cool thing to do, steal a Picasso, that he figured the village of Art, populated by cool cats, would love him for it, would want to elect him mayor. It would enhance his standing. There goes the guy that stole the Weeping Woman. Stole it and gave it back.
He hadn’t reckoned on the damage losing a Picasso would inflict on Weston Guest professionally. The board of a major international gallery is hardly likely to appoint as a director a man with a history of misplacing masterpieces. Weston either has to get the Weeping Woman back or his career is over. The anguish on his face is as much to do with his own future as it is with worry over the painting itself.
‘Harry, I’m here about the Weeping Woman.’
I am here to ruin you. To make you an untouchable. To devalue your art forever. ‘That boy … that Broome boy … he can’t paint.’ A mere utterance, but it will become lore. Harry Broome can’t paint. Harry Broome has been passed over. He has a thousand scenes in his head of his beautiful years as a renowned artist: snorting coke with rock stars, lecturing to starry-eyed wannabes at art schools, the hush as he walks into a harbourside bistro, de Niro holding still for hours (though he would kill for a smoke) while Harry sketches him. But not if Weston Guest says, no. If Weston Guest says a boy is a dud, then that boy better try another country. That boy better try another calling. He can’t be an artist in Oz.
Maybe if I confess, Harry thinks. Repent. Throw myself on his mercy. Pretend I was coerced into this theft by a band of thugs led by Turton. Hand the painting over and beg forgiveness. Might that work? If he returns to the gallery with the painting under his arm, might I come out of this a hero, as some sort of reformed golden boy? A wayward lad saved by Weston Guest’s lucid plea for morality.
And Turton? What of him? He is a demonstrable lunatic. In the dock he will tug at his sideburns like a fur-trapper flaying a beaver, confirming everyone’s view of him as guilty. The blame will attach to him naturally, and rightly so. He is in a position of trust at the gallery and should never have allowed this theft to happen.
Weston Guest reaches out and touches Harry’s arm. ‘Are you all right, Harry? You’re pale as a geisha.’
‘Mr Guest …’
‘Don’t be alarmed at my being here. I’m calling on all the young artists, one by one. Because of the Cultural Terrorists’ demand for extra funding for young artists, we suspect a young artist may be involved. So I’m travelling the town, delivering the same message to you all.’
Weston looks around, perhaps for a place to sit. Finding every surface here likely to stain his clothes, he pockets his hands and widens his stance. ‘I’m told you’re – connected. You get around. People talk of you, anyway.’
‘I don’t know anything about it.’
‘Of course not, Harry. But you might know someone who knows someone who knows something.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You’d be surprised. My father laid a carpet for Ronnie Biggs.’
‘Who?’
‘The point is: the Melbourne art scene is small. We’re all only one remove from one another. You may be a buddy of the thief.’
‘An insulting suggestion.’
‘Without knowing it. My father didn’t know he was laying Ronnie Biggs’ carpet.’
‘What did he think he was doing?’
‘Harry, I’m not interested in who stole the painting. The thieves themselves are nothing to me. I’m only interested in getting the painting back. If efforts to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice were a hindrance to our attempts to get the painting back, then I would resist those efforts. With that in mind, as far as I’m concerned if she were to turn up tomorrow in a locker at Spencer Street, there would be no more questions asked. Case closed. I’d like people to know that. If the perpetrators knew that, it might help us get her back. And if you were to spread that among your acquaintances I would be grateful.’
‘Well, yeah, I’ll mention it around. There’s a sort of pardon on offer if she turns up at Spencer Street.’
‘Not exactly a pardon. Suffice to say the identities of the thieves will not be pursued with any great vigour once the painting is returned.’
‘Yeah. Okay, I’ll spread that.’
‘Thank you.’ Weston nods his head, backing towards the door as he ties the belt of his trench coat. ‘It’s been nice meeting you, Harry. Turton has asked me to sit in on a selection of his end-of-year pracs, so we’ll meet again then.’ He holds up his hand, saying goodbye, but stops at the door, remembering something. ‘When I knocked you said you were busy. With tits and bears, if I heard right? What did that mean? Busy with tits and bears?’
Harry points at the painting of Mireille on the easel. ‘It was just an idea. I’m sort of bogged down trying to paint her. I can’t get inside her head. So I thought, and it seems stupid now, but I thought I might take her top off. Paint her bare-chested, surrounded by grizzly bears – you know, man-eaters – and have her laughing at them, unafraid of danger. Show her psychology by having her react to the bears with laughter. Sort of shit you think of late at night when nothing’s working out.’
Weston walks back into the room, his eyes fixed on the painting. He sits on a chair, forgetting the threat to his clothes, seemingly consumed by Harry’s idea. He places a finger to his lips and leans forwards with a blank look on his face. Harry is supposed to hear the whirring of cogs behind his eyes as he weighs the idea.
After minutes he rises to his feet slowly, holding his left fist in his right hand beneath his chin. The thing has been weighed and Weston is about to tell Harry its weight. ‘Harry, that is an extremely clever trope. Even just imagining her surrounded by bears, her laughing, I want to meet her. And a portrait’s primary function should be to imbue the viewer with a desire to meet the subject. Paint it, I’d like to see it. I think the gallery may be interested.’
Harry’s mind begins to veer between the half-dozen friends he could call at midnight to tell of his luck. Who would he call first? Mireille, Sedify Bent, Turton, his father? Weston Guest has got the hots for me. Weston Guest is about to buy me like a Grey Street lady.
They store the Weeping Woman at Turton’s airbrush operation in the warehouse in Pakenham. No one but they and the Stinking Pariahs know about the place: the Stinking Pariahs are going to keep quiet about it, and dog-walkers and nosy parkers are scared to go near it because of its inhabitants.
Harry goes out to visit Turton there on the Wednesday. He slips in through the big sliding door and stands in the dark warehouse watching him. Amazed. Because he and Mireille and Turton are supposed to be a sworn-to-secrecy ultra-hush-hush trio. Yet here’s Turton gambolling around under his overhead spotlight with Michael Jackson, whom Harry has heard about but never seen. He stares and stares. Not only does this guy have Michael Jackson’s face and voice, he is spooked like Michael – furtive, ready for flight, as though he expects to be tarred and feathered any moment. Harry can see that Michael’s infamy is hurting this kid as much as his fame delighted him. He has sad eyes and a brave, fake smile. He makes Harry think of some old movie actress whose sustaining light of fame has passed; who is trying to hold her chin up in this, her last role, pretending she matters.
But none of this is what amazes Harry. What amazes Harry (appalls Harry) is that Turton and this guy, Marcel, are knocking down snifters of calvados while Turton giggles and hugs himself and Marcel shakes his head and blinks his lashes in admiration at him. Because Turton (drunk? Stupid? Vainglorious? All three?) is telling this Marcel about their theft. Is boasting about it to a guy who has chosen to live a pretend life, which Harry thinks would hint at a delusion or a syndrome or a psychosis, or anyway that the guy is a nut not to be trusted with secrets of grand larceny that might get you ten to fifteen years inside.
Turton has laid three Weeping Women out across a sofa and is explaining how he studied the original, and he stands over the original and studies it; how he practised on this one, and he stands above the middle one and makes a few brushstrokes in the air; before painting this one, at which he splays his hands at his own masterpiece. Marcel shakes his head in wonder.
‘Turton,’ Harry whispers from the dark. Turton screams and throws his hands in the air, arcing a splash of calvados through the light beam, and clamps his eyes shut, shouting, ‘I’ve found her. I’ve saved her. I had a hunch. I followed a hunch. I was about to call …’
Harry steps into the light and says, ‘Turton,’ and Turton opens his eyes and lowers his hands to clutch his sideboards and calls Harry a fucking moron and tells him he thought he was a SWAT team and wants to know what he’s doing sneaking up on him like that.
Harry looks from Turton to his friend, whom he blinks at significantly. Turton tells him it’s rude to stare, but Harry tells Turton that after all that surgery it’d be rude not to.
‘Sorry,’ Harry says. ‘It’s not because you look like you-know-who. It’s just I’ve never met anyone before who knows I’ve committed a crime. Who could shop me for $50,000. It’s a weird position to be in.’
‘Oh,’ Marcel puts a hand to his face, shocked. ‘No. Turton and I are …’ He holds up a hand, the middle finger wrapped around the index finger. ‘Turton’s been so good to me.’
Harry steps forwards and shakes his hand. Marcel is wearing a glove. ‘I’m Harry.’
‘Marcel.’
This is the first person who’s ever looked at Harry knowing he’s a crook. He feels embarrassed, even ashamed, and has a need to explain their motives, the justness of their cause. ‘I guess you think we’re crooks.’
‘No.’ Marcel shakes his head emphatically. ‘It’s cool. I wish I was in the gang.’
‘The gang?’
‘Well – you guys. I love it. Borrowing a masterpiece so you can sell a forgery. I should charge you for the idea, though.’ He flips an accusing forefinger at Harry. ‘It’s definitely my idea. I am a forgery.’ He frames his face with his hands. ‘I sell myself to hospitals, shopping centres, schools,’ he ticks the clients off on his fingers. ‘I performed in front of two thousand kids at the Good Friday Appeal. Double bill with the Easter bunny. With me headlining.’ The guy’s joy is spilling over. He
smiles, recalling the crowd of delirious kids.
‘Happier days, Marcel,’ Turton warns, which kills Marcel’s smile. He lowers his face. ‘Well, yes. With the stuff in the papers lately. The lies. Obviously I’m … taking a break.’ His hands begin to move nervously in front of him as though he’s trying to mime the whole zodiac, and he smiles at Harry sadly. ‘I’m still for sale. You don’t want to know who to, though. Let’s just say it’s not shopping centres.’ He looks away at the three Weeping Women Turton has spread out on the sofa. ‘But when Michael is cleared …’ he whispers.
Harry knows then that this Marcel is a guy to worry about. He’s gone from being a pop star to being a rent boy who dreams of being a pop star again. He’s taken the long fall from working a double bill with the Easter bunny to selling himself to deviants in back alleys. A guy like this, with a broken dream, has a head full of shards of reminiscence sharp as glass. Harry knows that someone is going to get hurt. He feels sorry for Marcel. But he is the walking dead, dangerous to be around.
When Marcel leaves, Harry tells off Turton good and proper. ‘Fuck, Turton, could we get some more freaks involved in this? I’m worried we haven’t got a half-man, half-woman in on the gig. Or some guy that was brought up by huskies. Fuck.’
He looks down on Turton, who’s seated on his stained sofa staring at the floor, copping this tirade as his due. Harry shakes his head. Jesus. The man is hopeless. There is no point trying to enforce even common sense on him, let alone the measured behaviour that is required now.
‘Weston Guest came around to my place last night, Turton. Not a tip-off, or anything. He’s calling on all the young artists, because of that funding-for-young-artists demand I put in the letter to The Age. He reckons they’re not going to pursue the thieves if they get the painting back.’
Turton shoots up off his sofa smiling and snatching happily at his sideboards. Harry rolls his eyes. Shitsakes, the old man’s emotions carom about like a pinball.