Paint. The art of scam. (5 page)

Within seconds
she was sat astride him, her face inches away from his. She again slapped her
now smudged pouting lips onto his stupid clown-like grin and proceeded to suck
out his digestive system.

Seymour,
attempting to breathe through his nose whilst happily being asphyxiated, ripped
at her dress, tearing it clean in two as she pulled off his jacket Houdini
style. She slithered down to his crotch, undid his flies and wrestled his vaguely
enthusiastic penis into her mouth.

The phone rang.

They froze and
looked up at the cordless handset warbling on the sofa. Climbing off Seymour,
she slowly crawled on all fours towards it. Seymour watched her.

The phone
stopped. Polly dropped her head, let out a defeated sigh as she stood up,
grabbed a throw from the sofa and wrapped it around herself.

‘Oh shit, what's
the time? What the hell am I doing for God’s sake?’ whispered Polly, suddenly
distressed. She looked up at the clock, then at Seymour, who was attempting to
yank his trousers on.

‘God, I'm sorry
Seymour, this should not be happening, please forgive me. Oh God. Fuck!’

Polly looked
around at the chaos, running her hands through her hair.

Seymour stood up,
his oversized suit trousers falling down to his ankles as he took a step
forward and promptly fell like a tree, landing flat on his nose. After a moment
of being stunned, he rolled over groaning, blood pouring out of his nostrils.

‘Oh my God,’ he
moaned.

Polly, snapped
out of her desperate drug-numbed dilemma by the slow-motion crash of Seymour's
fall, went over to him and knelt beside him.

‘Oh shit Seymour.
What a mess! Hang on.’

Polly shuffled
over to the kitchen. Seymour, dazed, heard a tap running, then seconds later
felt a cold tea towel smothering his face.

Somehow Polly
managed to negotiate him onto the sofa and threw a blanket over him.

‘Seymour, listen
to me. Can you hear me?’

Seymour nodded at
her distant voice.

‘You stay here on
the sofa until you sober up, OK? Then you
have
to go. Kevin will be
back in the morning. I'm going to bed. I'll set the alarm for six and get you
up. OK? Do you understand?’

Seymour nodded. ‘Oi
wona cumb wid you,’ he mumbled.

‘Forget it,
Seymour! It's not going to happen. Now get some sleep. OK?’

Polly quickly
left his side and clumsily ran up the stairs whispering ‘Fuck fuck fuck.’

Seymour didn't
really sleep. It was more like a puzzling suspended animation, frozen in some
timeless dark waiting room, his nostrils blocked with a mixture of congealed
blood and remnants of dubious cocaine. It seemed dark, but slowly his
raspberry eyes adjusted to the incidental light from the full moon, cruelly
tinted by the yellow sodium street lamps outside. He could just make out the layout
of the room and vaguely remembered the proximity of the stairs out there in the
hall. The evening's events were just starting to take shape. He had to get
out. He remembered Polly's final words. He also needed to pee urgently. The
kitchen sink, of course. That was not far away. Yes. Yes, he could get
there easily.

Easing himself
off the sofa, he slowly stood up and noticed he was wearing only his
underpants. Where were his trousers? His bladder screamed at him. Bugger it.
After taking a moment to get his bearings, he made his way to where he thought
the kitchen was. There it was: he could just make it out from the moonlight
shining through the skylight. Taking a step forward Seymour felt something
prick his toe. He stepped back and tripped over backwards onto the sofa. The
ceiling turned more slowly now and his bladder moved up to join his heart. More
of the evening’s events began seeping through: snapshots appeared then faded,
fantasy and reality merged in a post-drug numbness. Something tickled the sole
of his foot; he shook it. It didn't feel right. He reached down and felt the
warm blood oozing from his foot and he felt something sharp jutting from his
toe's webbing. He pulled out a shard of champagne flute.

His eyes had
adjusted to the light now, or maybe it was getting light - he wasn't sure. He
looked around and found the door. Easing himself up, he limped towards the
door. Ah, there they were, the stairs. He looked up. It was dark up there.
Where was the light switch? He ran his hands along the wall and found a wire
hanging out the wall. Fucking builders. He could make it, stairs are easy once
you get started. One step at a time. He made it to the top and into what seemed
like a small corridor. He could just make out three or four doorways. One of
them was open: it must be that one at the end. Yes! He reached it, felt around
inside and grabbed a vacuum cleaner. Fuck. He noticed another door next to it,
ajar. Pushing it open, he could see it. The toilet.

Outside the house
a purring Porsche 911 slowly pulled up. The passenger door opened and Kevin
stumbled out, leant back into the car, steadying himself with his hand on the
roof.

‘Thanks a lot,
Steve. Sorry to put you to so much trouble. . . I'll see you later at the
office. Oh, and by the way, it was a great night, eh? Good result,’ said Kevin.

Kevin slammed the
car door, and staggered up the steps, opened the front door, grabbed a torch
from a table and quietly climbed the stairs so as not to wake Polly.

Polly, meanwhile,
had just woken up dying for a pee, having drunk a large glass of water before
going to bed. She had edged out into the hallway naked and crashed head on
into Seymour. This happened just as Kevin switched on the 500 watt quartz
halogen work-light the builders had kindly left for them until the electrician
had finished his community service.

Polly, nude, and
Seymour in his lipstick-smudged underpants stood interlocked to steady each
other. They looked at Kevin. Kevin looked at them: and jumped to a conclusion.

Love hurts

The next day down
at the pier Tracy set up her table, as did everybody else, leaving a space for
Seymour who had yet to emerge from his caravan. It wasn't until ten o'clock
that Tracey became concerned about Seymour. The compound gates around the
caravan were open and Tracy went in. She knocked twice and heard a groan from
inside.

‘Seymour? Are you
OK?’

Another groan.

‘Who is it?’
mumbled Seymour.

‘It's me, Tracy.
Are you all right?’

She heard a
creaking sound, a thump, another groan, then the door unlocking. She waited a
moment expecting it to open. It didn't.

Slowly opening
the door she looked inside and there was Seymour, sat on his bed, still dressed
in his suit, drops of blood speckled down the front of his shirt. He looked up.

‘Oh. Hi Trace.’
Said Seymour attempting to sound pleased to see her.

‘How did you get
on last night then?’

‘Oh fine, yeah,
fine.’

Tracey cocked her
head to one side. ‘Oh yeah?’

‘Oh . . . I just
got a bit of a nose-bleed that's all.’

‘And the black
eyes?’

‘Black eyes? Oh
yeah . . . I walked into a door I think.’

‘You
think
you walked into a door?’

‘Yeah, I was sort
of a bit drunk.’

‘Oh right. Sort
of a bit drunk, eh? So are you setting up today or what?’

‘Uh - yeah,
right . . . yeah . . . s'pose I'd better. What's the time?’

‘Tennish, come on.
I'll give you hand, we've left a space for you.’

Seymour dragged
himself up, banged his head on the roof of the caravan and sat down again.

‘Uh. Right. I'll
just get myself together Trace, I'll be out in a minute.’

Tracy laughed, ‘Come
on, get your ass in gear. There's buckets of punters about, and there was some
bloke asking about you earlier. He was banging on your door. Didn't you hear
him?’

Seymour looked
blank and shook his head.

Tracey slipped
out and grabbed Seymour's trestles on her way.

Seymour picked up
a shaving mirror, looked at it, closed his eyes and dropped his head.

A few moments
later there was a tap at the door, Seymour looked up to see a small suited man
with strict hair, wearing an expression that suggested to Seymour that he
wasn't about to buy a painting.

‘Mr. Capital?’

‘Uh . . . yes.’

‘My name’s Mr.
Blake, Assistant Chief Inspector of Works from the Brighton & Hove Council,
Department of Engineering.’

Seymour struggled
to take in the man's impressive title.

‘It's about last
night.’

‘Last night?’

‘Yes, exactly.
Last night. Where were you last night, Mr. Capital?’

Seymour thought
hard for a moment.

‘I . . . er . .
. was here. Asleep.’

‘Asleep? You must
be a very sound sleeper, Mr. Capital.’

‘Yes,’ laughed
Seymour, ‘Always have been, like a baby.’

‘So you didn't hear
the police trying to wake you?’

‘The police?’

‘Yes, Mr.
Capital, the police. There was a disturbance on the pier last night. Some
drunken youths were trying to get onto it. You don't know anything about it?’

‘No. I must have
. . ..’

‘One of them fell
and broke his leg. You didn't hear the ambulance?’

‘Well, no I....’

‘The whole point
of you being here, Mr. Capital, is to keep watch in case of events like this.
And we have also been informed that you have been running a retail outlet
without a licence just outside on the promenade. Is that correct?’

‘A retail outlet?
Well it's not exactly a.....’

‘You know that
you’re breaking the law don't you?’ interrupted Blake. ‘This is a position of
trust, Mr. Capital, and you have betrayed that trust. Somebody could have been
killed last night and if they were . .’

Seymour sat
staring at Blake, his mouth hanging open. This man was on a roll and enjoying
it, and nothing Seymour could say or do was going to shut him up. He reminded
Seymour somewhat of Mr. Hanson, his old headmaster years before when he was
expelled from school for playing truant, Seymour's first real taste of irony.
That same droning, tedious, unchallengeable self-righteousness that had made
Seymour's eyes glaze over, was having the same effect. Blake's voice seemed to
fade into a blurred mumble in the background as he thought of Polly, wondering
what had happened after he had left that morning. That moment when she had
launched herself across the table at him - was it just the booze and drugs
that had made her do it? Or was it the booze and drugs that had exposed her
true desire for him? No doubt, either way, it was the best night he'd had since
Madeleine's mum. Why does fun always seem to hurt so much?

‘Mr. Capital? Are
you listening to me?

‘I . . . uh. - yes,
of course.’

‘Well, so what
do you have to say for yourself?’

‘Um. Sorry?’

‘Sorry indeed,
Mr. Capital. I have been instructed to relieve you of your duties forthwith.’

Seymour, shocked,
sat bolt upright.

‘But, but, my
stall, it's all going so well!’

‘If you would
like to gather your - ’ Blake looked around the interior of the caravan and
screwed up his nose, ‘ - things, I will give you your outstanding wages, as if
you deserve them.’

‘But I - ’ mumbled
Seymour.

‘ - good day, Mr.
Capital.’ Blake disappeared from the doorway.

Seymour shook his
head.

Disbelievingly
stuffing his worldly possessions into a bag, he eventually stepped outside the
caravan to find two uniformed policemen standing in front of the stalls. Arms
crossed, they were watching Tracy and the rest of the stall holders packing up
their things. Several other official looking characters looked on, probably
talking about football.

Tracey, fully
loaded up with her table and chairs was just about to leave when she turned and
screamed ‘Fascist bastards!’ before storming off.

Her anger
impressed Seymour. He could never do anything like that. Never could. Possibly
because people were always so angry with him, he never had the chance.

Seymour caught up
with them all later, sitting on the beach nearby, swigging on a dubious mixture
of cloudy urine-coloured liquid in a crumpled plastic mineral water bottle.
Seymour struggled up to them on the pebbles, his few remaining paintings tied
together and stuffed under his arm, dragging his bag behind him.

‘Bastards,’ hissed
Tracy.

‘Yeah, bastards,’
grunted Sean.

‘Bastards,’ said
Seymour, dropping down beside them.

‘Did they fire
you, then, Seymour?’ said Tracy.