The Brush-Off mw-1

by Shane Maloney

  ‘I haven’t thanked you properly.’ I said it deliberately low so she had to step closer to hear me. Then I took my life in my hands. I put my arm around her waist, drew her to me and kissed her gently on the mouth.

  Her lips, soft and dry, yielded tentatively. I inhaled the scent of her hair, apple shampoo, dizzying. She leaned into the kiss, accepting it, returning it. We shifted on our feet, neither of us breathing. Her hands found the small of my back and pressed me closer. The kiss went on. And on.

  Suddenly, she broke. We stepped back from each other, both swallowing hard, blinking. ‘Your friends,’ she said. ‘How much did they pay for this painting?’

  Her eyes shone with anticipation. ‘I dunno,’ I shrugged. I’d already done the mental arithmetic, speculated on the cost of restitution. Wondered about insurance. Forty-odd paintings in the CUSS collection, total value half a million dollars. Average price, say $12,000. Drysdale one of the stars. ‘Maybe twenty thousand dollars. Why?’

  ‘Take a look at this.’ Claire tugged at my hand, drawing me into the workroom. At the parting of the curtain, her touch fell away just as Gracie looked up from her colouring-in. The stamp album was still in my hand. I held it out to the child. ‘Do you like stamps?’

  ‘Stickers?’ She grabbed the book avidly, her diffidence forgotten.

  Claire stood at the work table, hands on hips, inviting inspection of her handiwork. The replacement frame was finished, indistinguishable from the original. It sat empty. Next to it was the repaired stretcher, a cross-braced timber rectangle, naked of fabric. Beside them was the unstretched canvas of Dry Gully. Ochre red and russet brown, it looked like the freshly-flayed skin of some desert reptile. Then there was another piece of canvas, the same size as Dry Gully. This one was a rather amateurish seascape that seemed to have been roughly cut down from a larger picture. Finally, propped open with a thick ruler was a reference book, The Dictionary of Australian Artists.

  ‘I thought there was something odd about this picture.’ With all the exaggerated staginess of a conjurer about to execute a marvel of prestidigitation, she proceeded to show me what. First, she turned Dry Gully over and invited me to examine the condition of the canvas. Before, when it hung on the stretcher, it was a dusty parchment colour. Now, it was a fresh-looking chalky white. Attached to the fabric, right in the centre, was a small piece of paper on which was printed an image, some words and a number. As I bent forward for a closer look, Claire whisked the canvas away. ‘One thing at a time.’

  She pointed to the other canvas. ‘When I took the Drysdale off the stretcher, I found this underneath.’ To demonstrate what she meant, she turned Dry Gully face down on the table and placed the fragment of seascape over it, also face down. The two canvasses fitted together perfectly. Dry Gully ’s obverse side now appeared the same dirty cream colour as when it was still stretched. ‘Two canvases,’ said Claire. ‘One on top of the other-creating the impression that the painting in front is much older than it really is.’

  ‘Why would someone do that?’ I asked.

  She now removed the false back and allowed me to examine the little square of paper. It had serrated edges and bore an image of the Sydney Opera House surmounted by the head of William Shakespeare. Australia Post, said the inscription, 43 cents. UK-Australia Bicentenary Joint Issue.

  ‘Big Bill in Tinsel Town,’ I said. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It means that if Russell Drysdale painted this picture,’ Claire said. ‘He did so posthumously.’ Her index finger settled on the biographical entry in the reference book. ‘By 1988, he’d been dead for seven years.’

  ‘You mean it’s a forgery?’

  Jesus H. Christ. What was it about me? I’d only been in this culture caper three days and the fakes were jumping out of the woodwork at me. First Our Home, now Dry Gully. Was no representation of the Australian landscape, no work of art safe now that I was in the field?

  Claire’s professional curiosity was piqued, but she wasn’t jumping to any conclusions. ‘Not necessarily. It’s certainly not an original, but as to being a forgery-well, that depends.’

  ‘Depends on what? Surely it’s either genuine or it isn’t.’

  Claire sucked in her cheeks and held the counterfeit Drysdale up to the light, as if trying to penetrate its secret. ‘I’m no expert, but this seems to be a very competent attempt to replicate Drysdale’s work. But the fact that it’s been done with a considerable degree of skill does not, in itself, make it a forgery. Owners of valuable artworks sometimes have high-quality copies made-to reduce their insurance premiums, from fear of theft, in case of accidental damage. They lock the original away, hang the copy and let people think it’s the original. Perhaps your friends did that.’

  ‘What, like a duchess who keeps her diamond tiara in the safe and wears a paste imitation?’ Except there were scant few duchesses around the Trades Hall.

  ‘Exactly. Or maybe your friends are just engaging in a little harmless pretension. Bought themselves a replica and told people it was an original.’

  What sort of friends did she think I had? ‘Not these people,’ I told her. ‘Not their style.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you happen to know if it came with a certificate of authenticity, do you?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A letter provided by the seller giving details of the picture’s origins and attesting that it is what it’s purported to be.’

  I told her I couldn’t imagine my friends buying anything without all the paperwork being in order.

  ‘You don’t happen to know where they bought it?’

  ‘It was arranged privately, I believe. Through a firm called Austral Fine Art.’

  She swung a phone book down from a shelf. ‘Never heard of them. But there’s no shortage of art dealers in this town.’ There was a page of them, including the Aubrey Gallery. But no Austral Fine Art.

  ‘Forgery isn’t my area, I’m afraid,’ Claire said. ‘My only experience has been with inaccurate attribution and genuine mistakes. The National Gallery has a Rembrandt self-portrait that turned out not to be a Rembrandt at all. We changed the caption to “School of Rembrandt” and left it where it was. But deliberate misrepresentation, that’s another matter altogether.’

  I was deliberately letting her walk me the long way around this, covering all the bases. I already had a grim feeling that I knew what it meant. But I wanted to be absolutely sure I wasn’t jumping to any conclusion just because it was the obvious one. ‘What do you think the stamp means?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Interesting isn’t it? It’s obviously some sort of personal mark. A secret signature, if you like.’

  ‘If it’s secret, why is it in such a prominent place? Surely that would increase the chances of the deception being discovered?’

  ‘True,’ she agreed. ‘Perhaps whoever did this intended that it be discovered.’

  ‘But why would a forger want to be discovered? Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose?’

  ‘It would if the motive was financial gain. But in some cases I’ve heard about, the forger was less concerned with money than with fooling the experts. After the critics and curators have waxed lyrical about the unmistakable hand of the master being visible in every brushstroke, the forger pops up and reveals that the picture in question was painted not by Van Gogh in Arles in 1889, but by Joe Bloggs in Aunt Gertrude’s garden shed last December.’

  How did the declaration found in Marcus Taylor’s pocket go? You so-called experts…You speculators and collectors who do not even know what you are buying… You are all allowing yourselves to be deceived and defrauded. There was another line, too. Something about taking action to draw public attention. Since the note was found on his body, the assumption had automatically been that the action he meant was his suicide. But if he hadn’t, in fact, killed himself, what could he have been referring to?

  ‘Gracie, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘Can I borrow back that sticker book for a minute?’

  Gracie, h
aving found the stickers already stuck down, was feeling gypped enough. She warily surrendered the album. ‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘Just for a minute, but.’

  The stamps dated from the previous year. Beneath each, inscribed in minuscule block capitals was a name. Some I recognised as belonging to artists. William Dobell was below a stamp commemorating the Seoul Olympics. Runners breasting a tape, 65 cents. Margaret Preston got paired with a possum. The British-Australian joint issue with the high culture theme bore the inscription ‘Drysdale’.

  The CUSS catalogue that Bernice Kaufman gave me was still in my pocket. I unfolded it and checked the names against those under the stamps. There was a stamp corresponding to every artist in the collection. Thirty-eight names, thirty-eight stamps. The album was Taylor’s register of production, his output ledger.

  Claire, naturally, was regarding my behaviour with a degree of incomprehension. ‘What’s all this?’ she said.

  ‘Just a minute.’ Using The Dictionary of Australian Artists, I checked two of the names. Noel Counihan and Jon Molvig. I wouldn’t have known their work if it was up me with an armful of impasto, but their names rang a bell. According to the reference book, they were both dead. I tried a name I didn’t recognise. It wasn’t listed. Nor were three others that were unfamiliar. By the look of it, the CUSS art collection contained only works by dead or undiscovered artists.

  If this meant what it looked like it meant, the whole lot were what Salina Fleet would probably call referential images at the cutting edge of post-modern discourse. Fakes.

  ‘For Chrissake, tell me what’s going on!’ Claire was getting impatient, irritated by my lack of communication. ‘This is a joke, right? You’re playing an elaborate trick on me, aren’t you?’

  ‘I wish I was,’ I said. ‘Mind if I use your phone?’

  ‘Only if you tell me what’s going on.’

  Gracie was all ears, galvanised by her mother’s response to my evasiveness. When I thrust the stamp album towards her, she went all shy and refused to take it back. I put it on her little desk instead.

  ‘I will,’ I told Claire. I put my hands lightly on her upper arms, a conciliatory gesture. She shrugged them away. ‘I promise. Just as soon as I find out myself. In the meantime, do you think you can put that picture back together the way it was?’

  ‘Aren’t you going to tell your friends?’

  ‘Tell them what? “You know your Drysdale? Well guess what? It’s not really a Drysdale at all. And here are the bits and pieces to prove it.” I’ve taken it without their knowledge or permission, don’t forget. Right now, the only option is to stick to the original plan and get it back where it belongs before they notice it’s gone. That way, I’ll have enough breathing room to figure out how to break it to them, or have them discover the truth themselves.’

  She was, I could see, far from persuaded. But she was also curious enough to put her better judgment temporarily on hold. ‘Phone’s on the counter,’ she said.

  I went out into the shop and dialled the Police Minister’s office and asked for Ken Sproule. ‘Is that criminal intelligence?’ I said. ‘What’s this I hear on the news about Taylor’s death being down to suspicious circumstances?’

  The methodical whoomph of a pneumatic stapler came from the workroom.

  ‘I’m as much in the dark as you are,’ claimed Sproule. ‘Now that it’s become a police operational matter, it’s strictly arm’s length from us here in the minister’s office.’

  ‘Come off it. You must have some idea. What’s this about the girlfriend shooting through?’

  Sproule’s ears pricked up audibly. ‘How’d you hear about that?’

  ‘So you do know something, then?’

  Ken got fatherly. ‘A word to the wise, Murray. Don’t go dipping your bib in here. The cops are notoriously sensitive to any suggestion of political interference in the operational side of things. Do yourself a favour and keep well clear.’

  ‘Since when does asking a question constitute political interference? Don’t be a prick. Tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘What’s going on is a routine police inquiry into a sudden death,’ said Sproule in tones that brooked no contradiction. ‘Tell you what,’ he softened slightly. ‘If I hear anything relevant I’ll let you know. Can’t say fairer than that, okay?’ Okay as in end of issue. Okay as in never.

  ‘Well I certainly wouldn’t want to do anything that might jeopardise an ongoing investigation, Ken.’

  Sproule, for some reason, thought I was being facetious. ‘Don’t get your wig in an uproar, Murray…’

  But I was already hanging up. The stapler had finished its whoomphing and Claire had appeared in the archway, attentive. ‘I never did ask about your job,’ she said. ‘What exactly is it you do?’

  It was time I came clean, told her the truth. ‘It’s hard to explain,’ I said. ‘I assist the minister.’

  The parodic Drysdale was in its new frame, indistinguishable from its pre-accident condition. ‘Brilliant,’ I said, wrapping it in the beach towel. It was 1.35. Every minute’s delay increased the chance of the picture’s absence being discovered. And now there was potentially a great deal more at stake than a bit of embarrassment over some accidental damage. ‘How much do I owe you?’

  This went down like an Elvis impersonator at La Scala. ‘You owe me an explanation, for a start.’

  ‘You’ll get one, I promise.’ I started for the door. ‘Soon as I can.’

  Soft soap didn’t cut any ice around here. Claire blocked my way, hands on hips. ‘How soon will that be?’

  ‘I want to see you again. Soon and a lot. But I can’t do it today. I’ve got to get back to work, then I have to take Red to the airport. I won’t see him again for a couple of months and I want to spend a little time with him, just him and me, this evening. Let me take you to lunch tomorrow. I promise I’ll tell you everything then.’

  The curtain was closed, Gracie not in sight. I put my hand on the back of Claire’s head. She didn’t resist but she wasn’t so enthusiastic any more. I gave her a big wet one and bolted out the door, feeling like a fool.

  With a good run of green lights, I was back at the Trades Hall in six minutes and at the open door of the exhibition room in another two. My towel-wrapped package was under my arm. Bob Allroy was up his ladder, back turned, his hand in the etched-glass mantle of a reproduction light-fitting. Bob was one of the few men still in regular employment capable of making a day’s work out of changing a light globe. I crept across the room and slipped the picture back in place.

  ‘No touching,’ Bob growled from above. ‘It’s moran my job’s worth if anything happens to them pictures.’

  Returning Dry Gully to the collection was one thing, finding out how it got there in the first place was another. That was a question for Bernice Kaufman.

  The receptionist was still out to lunch, so I went straight through to Bernice’s office. It, too, was empty, as was that of the neighbouring Industrial Officer. But the big fat suspension file labelled Combined Unions Superannuation Scheme was still sitting there, right where Bernice had left it. Lowering myself into the inflatable ring cushion on her chair, I began thumbing.

  For all her ferocious efficiency, Bernice was unlikely to win any Institute of Management awards for the neatness of her record-keeping. The CUSS file contained everything but the kitchen sink-minutes of sub-committees, auditors’ reports, back copies of the members’ newsletter-all of an unedifyingly general nature.

  Naturally enough, there was a lot of accounting stuff, including a collection of monthly statements from Obelisk Trust. As of the thirtieth of the previous, CUSS had a balance of slightly more than $6 million in its Obelisk account, half equity linked, half property trust, the first yielding 19.2 per cent, the second 22.8 per cent. Even to a man unschooled in the finer points of finance, these seemed like passably tolerable rates of return. But it wasn’t where CUSS kept its cash reserves that interested me so much as where it got its art.

&
nbsp; I hit that particular jackpot when I opened a well-stuffed manilla folder and found a sheet of paper bearing the elegantly understated letterhead of Austral Fine Art, Pty Ltd. It was the cover page of a document, dated five months earlier, confirming a number of purchases made by Austral on behalf of the Combined Unions Superannuation Scheme and listing the price of each work. Austral’s address was a postoffice box in South Yarra and Drysdale’s Dry Gully, at $60,000, was its single most expensive acquisition on CUSS’s behalf.

  Bulldog-clipped to the letter was a swatch of pages, also on Austral letterhead, each headed Provenance and Certificate of Authenticity, and consisting of a simple one-paragraph statement, signed at the bottom. The one I wanted read:

  Sir Russell Drysdale: Dry Gully (1946)

  This painting is the work of the late Sir Russell Drysdale and is from his estate. Austral Fine Art unconditionally guarantees the authenticity of the above named work.

  The signature on both the letter and the certificates was an ornate arabesque, executed in fountain pen and utterly illegible. But the name and title typed below it were decipherable at a glance.

  Fiona Lambert, it read, Managing Director.

  ‘Interesting?’ Bernice Kaufman loomed in the doorway, her voice dripping sarcasm.

  ‘Ah!’ I jumped to my feet, beaming. ‘You’re back.’ I gestured towards the unattended reception area. ‘Hope you don’t mind me waiting for you in here.’

  Bernice’s proprietary eyes raked every file, folder and item of correspondence for evidence of unauthorised tampering. ‘Forget something?’

  I hastened around the desk, relinquishing the Assistant Secretary’s throne to its rightful owner. ‘I’ve got an angle for Angelo’s speech I’d like to run past you. Get your input.’ I tumbled my hands around each other, meshing my fingers like gears. ‘How about he emphasises collaboration between the arts industry and union movement?’

  ‘If you were qualified in any way at all for your job,’ she advised me primly, ‘you would know that the union movement enjoys extensive links with the cultural sector. The Operative Painters and Decorators have, for a number of years, been at the forefront of raising artists’ awareness of health and safety issues. Many unions have engaged artists to create works in collaboration with their members. The Building Workers’ Union had a poet-in-residence last year.’