Paint. The art of scam. (37 page)

When Jason
arrived on the scene, recommended by Harry, well at least by the husband of a
friend of Harry, it all fell into place. Carva could go out to play and not
have to sit around all day, sneering at pretentious cretins dressed like
fucking shop window dummies. Jason had spent the afternoons of the last week
learning the workings of the gallery. The, what to do's and what not to do's,
according to guidelines, set out by Carva in 1967.

Jason was full of
new ideas to improve the gallery, was well connected to the scene, as he called
it, and knew plenty of artists that could bring something to the now renown,
New Carva Gallery.

It was true.
Carva's sudden success with Seymour's work had surprised everyone. Simon Carva
had spotted a new talent and had already attracted respect for his intuition.
That was another reason for getting out of the gallery. He was sick and tired
of all those fucking young artists stuffing pictures in his face in the hope of
having an exhibition.

Polly and Seymour
liked Jason too. That was important. Why he wasn't sure. Polly had made it
perfectly clear she wanted nothing to do with the running of the gallery, only
with regard to Seymour's work. But nonetheless Carva wanted her approval.

Of course, Jason
was a raving queen and made no attempt to hide it and why should he. But then,
why should he exaggerate it for dramatic effect. This, ‘I am gay and proud of
it,’ attitude, that seemed to prevail these days, puzzled Carva: having spent
most of his life just quietly being a faggot. This, in your face, exhibitionist
display of homosexuality, designed to shock, was akin to the equally crass
behaviour of macho men. The common thread being it was generally practiced in
gangs, a gang being more than one person.

It occurred to
Carva that this new gay liberation, which seemed to have piggybacked women's
liberation of the sixties, had drastically increased the gay population.
Everyone was gay it seems. If you were not gay, the only other choice you seem
to have was to be straight, which was considered to be dull. Surely there
weren't that many gay men in the world before, hiding their feelings in piss
drenched toilets, using masonic like handshake codes to fish for a blow job on
the off chance? There just wouldn't be room.

Carva concluded
that young gay men around these days are just going through a phase in their
development and would one day hang up their bicycle shorts and get married to a
podgy bottle blonde woman, who spat out accidental babies.

'Morning Simon!'
sang Jason as he pranced in like a fairy and pecked Carva on the cheek en route
to the bathroom.

Carva often wondered
why these new gay men talked like that. That ridiculous camp voice that, in his
day, would only be heard in cabaret or film. Somewhere that you can't get the
shit kicked out of you or thrown in jail. Carva was an old school queer, a
homo, he liked men, that was the point, not these damned, irritating, emaciated
lady boys.

'Ah Jason. Right
on time. I just this minute got here myself.’

Carva put the
last of his files into a box on the desk. He was taking them home. It was
symbolic. All the paperwork from the old Carva Gallery days, letters, bills,
everything. He was taking them home and he was going to ceremoniously burn the
lot in his wood stove.

Jason emerged
from the bathroom, rubbing his nose, smelling like a whore and looking like
some sort of confused, hyperactive puppet.

‘Right then
Jason, I've written down a few notes about Seymour's work that Polly gave me,
if you can read them through...’

‘No need!’ said
Jason, interrupting brightly, balancing on one leg, arms outstretched.

‘I had dinner with
the Capitals last night, we talked for hours and hours. It was so lovely. Such
a nice couple and what a dish, gorgeous, and Polly's quite attractive too.’ Jason
burst into an hysterical laughter that split the air.

‘Yes, quite and
there's an article about Seymour in this bloody comic. Apparently that says
something interesting.’ said Carva slapping a copy of The Easel down on the
desk.

‘Don't you worry
about a thing Simon, now you run off and play with all the boys and girls.’ said
Jason, ushering Carva, with his box, out the door. ‘Everything's going to be
fine.’

And it was, Jason
breathed a new life into the gallery. More artists were signed up for
exhibitions, the mailing list grew and within a short time The New Carva
Gallery was firmly on the map.

Carva kept an eye
on Jason's activities from a distance and any major decisions had to go through
Carva for approval. This was usually conducted via excited phone calls from
Jason when he had found the most amazing ceramic artist or an out of this world
sculptor he wanted to show. Carva was invariable half drunk at some dinner
party when he got the calls on the mobile phone Jason had insisted he had with
him at all times. Jason had a way about him: if you didn't say yes to him, you
would be in for an hysterical outburst that would begin with silence and evolve
into spiralling barrage of emotional blackmail.

So, yes it was,
to everything, and after a while Carva gave Jason carte blanch to do whatever
the hell he likes, as long as he stopped calling at lunchtime, dinnertime or
anytime.

Discovered.

‘Nice paintings.’
said Johnny.

Jason looked up
from his book and smiled. ‘Yes, they are.’

Jason had been watching
Johnny since he came into the gallery. There was something about his look that
intrigued him. That sharp glossy suit, neatly trimmed hair, tie loose, top
shirt button undone, broad shoulders, and a stylishly unshaven, chiselled face.
He reminded Jason of the Action Man doll he’d got for Christmas when he was a
young lad.

As with anybody
that came into the gallery, Jason immediately sexually assessed him. Would he
or wouldn't he? A childish game, but one practiced by any creature with a
pulse. Most candidates were immediately judged with a swift yes or no, based on
a sweeping generalisation, due to a genetic fault or poor taste in clothes, but
Johnny? He took some watching.

‘Yeh, very nice.’
said Johnny thoughtfully as he wandered back away from the desk where Jason was
sat and returned to the paintings. He seemed particularly interested in The
Vase Lady, but then most people were. But Johnny stood looking at The Vase Lady
longer than most. He kept nodding his head, as if he understood something at
last.

Johnny had
received a strange message a few days before. Although it had, apparently,
originated from Bruno Costaldi in jail, it had been given to him from a
reliable source, so he did act on it. He was told to get a copy of The Easel.
He did. He was then told that the woman in the background of the cover photo
was her.

It didn't click for
a while. The woman in the background is who? Then it did click. He had never
seen her before. Now he could put a face to the woman who had tricked him. A
crime punishable by death: but one to be secretly admired.

‘All sold then.’
said Johnny from across the gallery.

‘Yes, sold out
within two weeks.’

‘Pity.’

‘Seymour's
working on a new show at the moment actually.’ said Jason, getting out of his
chair and gliding across to Johnny. ‘We don't have a date for the opening yet,
but I can put you on the mailing list if you you'd like to give me your
details.’

Johnny turned to
face Jason as he approached him. Johnny wore a smile that stopped Jason in his
tracks, a smile that somehow said, 'not too close.' His piercing eyes firing
laser like warnings that softened slowly.

‘Yeh, maybe.’ said
Johnny, moving on to the Flower Tree. ‘Maybe.’

Jason felt a
tremble run down his spine, a sensation that usually excited him, the slight
fear of risk when pushing limits. But this was just pure fear.

‘Are you a, um, a
collector?’ said Jason nervously, his voice breaking as it tailed off.

‘Yeh,’ said
Johnny to The Flower Tree. ‘You could say that.’

Johnny's slight
but colourful cockney accent had a sinister, dismissive edge to it that
disarmed Jason. He was beginning to regret his curiosity.

‘Are you, um, a
collector of contemporary art?’

Johnny looked up
to the ceiling, as if considering Jason's question, then looked Jason squarely
in the eyes.

‘Yeh, but I like
permanent stuff too.’

Jason laughed but
stopped, as he saw Johnny's deadpan face of disapproval, that slowly changed to
a wide grin. Johnny slapped Jason on the shoulder, hard enough for him to lose
his balance.

‘Funny innit,’
said Johnny turning back to The Flower Tree.

‘Excuse me?’ said
Jason.

‘Contemporary
art. When does it stop being contemporary art and become, just art?’ said
Johnny thoughtfully, as if talking to himself.

‘Um, well uh,
good question.’

Jason turned to
the door as he heard it open, relieved to see Polly arrive. Johnny watched
discreetly.

‘Ah Polly
darling!’ screeched Jason, as he wafted over to Polly, gave her an over
enthusiastic hug and a kiss on each cheek. Polly endured Jason's ritual
greeting dutifully and headed into the office, with a puppy like Jason in tow.

‘You look
fantastic darling! How's Seymour?’

‘He's fine.’
Johnny waited until they had entered the office, smiled to himself and slipped
out the door.

Cyril and
Nastasia lay arm in arm, their heads together, Roger snoozing at their feet on
the large bed in Cyril's van. The growl of distant diesel motors and the
crashing of trees, poisoned the air.

‘There must be a
way of dealing with this.’ said Nastasia softly. Cyril sniffed out through his
nose.

‘I'm sure there
is darlin', but I'm buggered if I can see it.’

Nastasia stirred
away from Cyril and lay on her back, still holding his hand tightly.

‘I was talking to
Jerry Hart the other day, he reckons Edward wants to put in a 9 hole golf
course over at Sandle meadows.’ said Nastasia.

‘Yeh, I heard
that too. For fucks sake. Why is doing this Natty? Why is destroying the place
and everyone in it?’

‘Revenge.’

‘Revenge?’

‘What else? You
know him Cyril, you know his history, everybody hates him, always have done.
You remember what he was like as a kid. Always making trouble. He was jealous
of all of us. Remember when Tommy Bradford caught Edward wanking down at the
lake, when we were all skinny dipping and took that photo of him?’

‘Yeh,’ said Cyril
smiling. He posted a copy to him didn't he?’

‘And stuck some up
around the village, including the pub. I wonder what became of him?’

‘Who, Tommy? Last
I heard he was working for the Daily Mirror. He was a bugger that boy.’

‘Then Edward shot
Dave Partridge's dog for shagging that stupid little poodle of his.’

‘Yeh, the boss
was bloody furious, poor old Batty, he was a lovely dog. He was Roger's
grandfather you know.’ said Cyril stroking Roger with his foot.

‘Really? I didn't
know that. Hard to keep track of dog family trees around here.’ said Nastasia
smiling. ‘Or human’s come to that.’

‘Yeh that's true.’
laughed Cyril. ‘Anyway you could be right, maybe it is revenge, maybe we all
took it a bit too far sometimes.’

‘You think so?’ Nastasia
turning her head to look at Cyril. ‘We were kids Cyril, we did what we thought
was right under the circumstances. Edward was behaving like a dickhead, so we
treated him like one. That's what kids do. Grownups have to make allowances. I
remember Mum telling me to be careful about Edward, not to pick on him. Of course,
I didn't realise that if we got thrown off the Estate we would lose everything.
You don't think about things like that when you are a kid.’

‘Sir Thomas never
threw anyone off the Estate.’ said Cyril interrupting.

‘I know, but Sir
Thomas isn't around anymore is he Cyril. What's done is done and there's
nothing we can do about it. Except fight back.’

‘Fight back?’ said
Cyril. ‘What with? Catapults and sarcasm?’

‘What about all
that cash? You could hire a lawyer this time.’

Cyril turned to
face Nastasia, reached across and kissed her on the forehead.

‘My dear Natty,
have you any idea how much that would cost? There just isn't enough there.
Edward would just bring out the big guns and demolish me in court. I've already
got a criminal record because of that bastard. Admittedly, because I tried to
defend myself.’

‘Yup, you are
many wonderful things Cyril Barker, but you're a shit lawyer.’

‘Thanks Natty,
I'll take that as a compliment. Nah. I'm fucking tired of fighting. Maybe I'll
use the cash to get this old van on the road again, bugger off to Europe for a
while, see what comes up.’