Picture Imperfect (12 page)

I think about what Alexis said. I’ll take her advice,
but not quite in the way she’d planned, I think.

You have to
listen to your heart on this, Chloe. It’ll tell you what to do and I know
you’ll do the right thing.

I get my mobile out of my bag and check my watch. It’s
ten past one. I’ll ring Clementine. She’ll be able to put me in touch with
Jake. Rhoda said he was free this afternoon and I’m going to need him and his
van.

One Year Later

I’m dreaming about skiing. I don’t know why this should
be. I have no interest in skiing whatsoever and it’s something I’ve never
tried. I’m in a ski lodge, a drink in hand, looking out over the beginners’
slopes, smiling as I watch first timers falling over. I’m obviously pretty
experienced and find the tribulations of newbies rather amusing. A waiter comes
over to me and tells me that there’s a phone call for me. I wave him away. I’m
on holiday and don’t want to take any phone calls. Besides, no one knows I’m
here and how could they possibly know which number to call.

The waiter is insistent. He says that, like all the
other guests, I’ve left my mobile behind the bar and I have to answer it as the
ringtone is annoying the other customers. I can’t imagine why. It’s not as if
it’s some irritating novelty ringtone. It’s just a light, electronic trilling
sound. I insist that I’m not going to answer it, but he still goes on about it.
Then the manager (the manager?) comes over. She’s a stern looking woman of
about forty with a bad limp and says that they’ll have to let my room to
someone else if I don’t answer it straight away.

My eyes open and the dream
fizzles
away. My Blackberry is trilling away somewhere and it’s not going to stop.
Maybe if I leave it long enough, the answer thingy will kick in. I look at my
alarm clock and it says
it’s
six fifty-five. This is
really annoying. My alarm is set for seven-thirty and I thought that was early
enough.

I retrieve the Blackberry from under a pile of clothes
and click the answer button.

‘Yes?’

‘Yes? What
d’you
mean ‘yes?’’

It’s Rhoda. I can’t imagine why she’s calling this
early.

‘Oh. Hello. Hi.’

‘Just wanted to make sure you were getting up in time,
sweetheart.
Busy day today.
Didn’t you tell me you had
an appointment at the hairdressers this morning?’

‘That’s at ten.
Plenty of time.’

Wearing only knickers, I stroll into the kitchen and
put some coffee on.

‘Well, I know you’ve been working hard. I just didn’t
want you to oversleep, that’s all. Excited?’

This afternoon is my big opening. After a year of
making my name as the in-demand artist for big corporate abstracts, I finally
have my own show at the Charles
Haggett
Gallery in
Cork Street. It hasn’t been easy. Once Rhoda had decided that the time was
right (about six months ago), she’d worked hard at getting some of the
companies I’d worked for to allow the work I’d done for them to be displayed at
my one woman extravaganza.

This is harder than you might think. With private
collectors, it often just means lending out a painting that’s been in their
hallway or over the fireplace. It’s usually just for a few weeks or however
long the show lasts for. Then they get the painting back and feel good about
themselves.

With corporate clients it’s different, however. My
paintings are often a vital part of the decoration of their premises. Taking
them down is something that many of them don’t like to do. Quite apart from the
mark on the wall where the painting had been, it’s a major inconvenience for
them and they don’t like leaving big empty spaces everywhere. It’s just the way
they are.

To counter this, Rhoda had insisted that I start work
on some original, previously unseen canvases to bulk up the show, stuff that
she can sell to people after they’ve been to the gallery and have been overawed
by the brilliance, freshness and all-round niceness of my work.

So I’ve spent the last six months working on
commissions in the day and creating new works for the show in the night. It
wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it would be and, to be honest, I quite enjoyed
doing it. Living in the artist’s studio had meant that I could get up and start
work whenever I like. Living alone means there are no time restrictions or
interference with what has to be done. As a result, I’ve produced twenty-two
canvases that are purely intended for the show. Just the other week, I was
looking at them all, lined up against the studio wall and could hardly believe
that it was me that had produced them. I actually laughed out loud.

Rhoda’s plan paid off, too, as only two of my corporate
clients would allow my work to be temporarily kidnapped for my show. That was
seven canvases in all from them, the
luvvies
.

‘Yes. Yes I am excited. I can’t tell you how grateful I
am to you, Rhoda.
For everything, not just for organising all
of this.
I…’

‘Yes, yes, yes. Now we open at two-thirty this
afternoon. I don’t want you to arrive until about four. Everyone’s going to want
a piece of you and we don’t want to tire you out with all that Champagne
drinking, canapé nibbling and socialising. Making a late entrance is part of
the way it all works. Keep them wanting more of you. If I were you, I would
stay there until about eight. After that, I’ll smuggle you home in a cab. This
gives you all day to tart yourself up. You’re an attractive, sexy looking
woman, which is a change in the art world, believe you me. Don’t forget to wear
that dress.
Black stockings.
High
heels.
Kill them. That dress will be so tight on you that people will be
able to see if you’re wearing a suspender belt, so wear a bloody suspender
belt. See you later.’

As the phone goes dead, I giggle. I really can’t see
that what I’m wearing could make any difference in sales, but Rhoda insists it
will. She bought me a fantastic Stella McCartney sleeveless black dress that
must have cost a fortune. I’ve only tried it on once and it looked like it had
been painted on. I know what she means about the suspender belt. With a dress
like that, I’d actually think twice about wearing knickers with it. In fact, I
tried on lots of pairs of my
knicker
collection, but
you could always see the panty line. Eventually, the only thing that worked was
a thong.

She also bought me a pair of red patent leather Jimmy
Choo
shoes with four-inch ciggy heels and a matching red
necklace. I’m glad I’ve got a long raincoat I can wear when I get a cab to the
gallery. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable walking out of the door in that
get-up!

The remarkable thing was that Rhoda got my size exactly
right in everything. That’s something I’d never be able to do if I was buying
clothes for someone else. To make things even more difficult for her, I’ve lost
a stone and a half in the last eight or nine months. I guess she’s just got the
knack.

After I’d left Mark a year ago, it had taken me quite a
long time to get used to buying things for myself, especially clothes. When
you’ve lived with someone who was that parsimonious and mean-spirited, it’s
hard to get back into the swing of retail therapy and harder still to buy nice
things without feeling guilty about it.

It’s awful to say it, but I’m quite pleased with the
fact that I hardly, if ever, think about Mark these days. I think if I’d ever
had really strong feelings for him, I’d have been a little more upset, but
after I’d been living on my own for a few weeks, it was as if he’d never
existed. Maybe he felt the same way, as I’ve never heard from him and he’s made
no attempt to get in touch, although that would be difficult as I left no
forwarding address when I moved out of our flat.

At ten-o-clock, I’m sitting in a chair at my hair
stylists; water dripping down my back from the sensual head massage/wash I’ve
just been given. Gavin, my hair stylist, is looking at my reflection in the
mirror and scrunches my hair so hard that it feels like he’s trying to pull it
out by its roots.

‘So, arty miss; what are we going to do for your big
show?’

I never know what to say to hairdressers. I’ve always
found that it’s better just to let them get on with it and trust their
judgment, particularly when they cost as much as this one does. Gavin has won
prizes, too, so even though he always asks what I want, I always leave it to
him in the end.

I did, though, have something in mind this time. After
trying on my posh dress and the heels, I decided that my general look was so
sleek that I might go for something shorter than my usual medium length locks.
As I perused myself in the mirror, everything seemed to blend in together, apart
from my hair.

What I actually have in mind is the kind of short style
that Kristin, my New Zealander former colleague, was able to get away with. I
describe her hair to Gavin, who stops me in mid description.

‘I know exactly what you mean. It’s what I’d have done
to you months ago. I’m going to turn you into a severe, brutal, dominatrix. By
the time I’ve finished with you, you’re going to have to take a black leather
riding crop to this opening of yours. Don’t say another word.’

Forty minutes later, I look at myself in the mirror and
can hardly believe it’s me. It’s much shorter than I’ve ever had it in my life,
but is cut and styled in such a way that it looks windblown and tousled; even
slightly
punky
. I turn my head from left to right and
I’m amazed at how my features have changed. My cheekbones, which have always
been there (obviously), are now a major feature of my face. It’s as if the
hairstyle is pointing them out, accentuating them. Strangely, my mouth also
looks fuller and my eyes look bigger. It’s obvious that Gavin is in league with
the devil.

‘That’s fantastic, Gavin. It – it doesn’t look like
me!’

Gavin laughs as he watches me turn my head at different
angles, admiring myself. He holds a mirror behind me so I can see the back of
my head. The hair is very, very short there and has been savagely
razored
into submission, as Gavin would no doubt say. It’s
something that I would never have asked a hair stylist to do in a million
years, but it works beautifully.

When I’ve paid, I reach into my handbag and pull out a
couple of tickets for my show.

‘These are for you. I’ll only be there between four and
eight, apparently, but you can pop in whenever you like.’

Gavin looks shocked and takes the tickets. ‘I’ve never
been to one of these before. Who knows – I may even buy something!’

‘There’ll be lots of Champagne and nibbles, so enjoy
yourself
.’

‘I’ll look forward to it, darling. Thanks ever so much.
Don’t forget to break a leg, or whatever it is you arty types do.’

‘I won’t. And thank you, Gavin. My hair looks fab.’

He laughs. ‘You can whip me any day, dear.’

I eat quite a big lunch; I make myself a huge bowl of
pasta, with pancetta, porcini mushrooms and a delish cheese sauce, which I made
myself. I don’t usually pig out for lunch like this, but I thought it was a
good idea as I’m going to be drinking alcohol in a few hours and don’t want to
get completely sloshed at my own debut show.

After an hour or so posing in the mirror in my smart
new clothes, I order a cab and slip into my raincoat when it finally arrives. I
don’t want the cab driver having a free
perve
at my
expense; it’s bad enough having to tip. No one ever tips me!

When I arrive at the gallery, there are already about a
dozen people milling around. The gallery looks about the size of a small shop
from the outside, but there are two big spaces inside, one at the front and a
bigger one at the back. There’s a placard in the window with my name on it, but
nothing else. Things like this are often by word of mouth or personal
invitation, so they don’t need to make a big promotional fuss.

No one looks at me as I slip inside, which is hardly
surprising as they don’t know what I look like. I pick up a glass of Champagne,
and just as I’m about to take a sip, Rhoda appears out of nowhere and frog
marches me into the ladies.

‘OK. Get that coat off. Let’s have a look at you.’

I slip my raincoat off and hand it to Rhoda, who throws
it into a nearby sink. She circles around me, looking me up and down, and then
rummages in her handbag, producing a packet of wipes and one of her lipsticks.

‘I mean, have you no eye for colour whatsoever? Look at
your shoes. Now look at that necklace and now…’ she pauses dramatically ‘…look
at that shade of lipstick you’re wearing. It’s almost bloody orange!’

She takes three of the wipes out of the pack and rubs
my lipstick off. I feel like a silly schoolgirl who’s been caught wearing
makeup by the headmistress. She holds my jaw steady and carefully applies some
of her own lipstick to my mouth. It’s a deep red which is exactly the same
colour as my shoes and necklace.

‘That’s better. Now you look more like a human being.’

She steps back and takes a good look at my hair. She
runs her hand through it and nods her head.

‘Whoever did that, they’re not paying them enough. You
look absolutely beautiful, sweetheart. I had no idea you had cheekbones.
Right.
Now.
We’re going to wait in
Charlie’s office for half an hour or so, and when the place starts to fill up a
little more, I’m going to walk into the front gallery with you and tell
everyone who you are. Be nice, talk to people,
make
eye contact. It’s a terrible thing, but if some of these old farts who may buy
this stuff see that they’re buying a piece of a sex bomb, then it often puts
the price up. In their heads, it’s like they’ll be getting you as a free gift
with one of your paintings. But remember; you owe them nothing, nothing at all.
The new stuff is fantastic, by the way. Did I tell you that already?’