The Cutting Room (10 page)

and tightly swathed, her features obscured, body hidden, save for a window at her pubis where tufts of hair sprouted black against the Corinthian white of the bandages.

`David Bailey photographs his beautiful wife.’ He laughed.

`Perhaps I, too, am an artist. Here’s another.’ He indicated an androgynous form encased in black latex, fetish mask zipped

at the mouth. `The same impulse. Well, at least they’re

quiet.’

`You think this is what’s happening in my photographs?’

`What does it look like to you? I think your man liked to

get up to naughty games. I don’t think he was a killer.

Experience is against it.’

`Is there any way I can be sure?’

`Mr Rilke, you are too old for that question. I am sure.

Whether you are sure is for you to decide.’

`I think that’s as good an answer as I’m going to get.’

I stowed the photographs of the girl in my pocket and

began to get up from my seat.

`One moment. What do you intend to do with the pictures

now?’

`I’ve no idea. Strictly speaking, they’re not mine, they

belong to the estate. I guess I’ll show them to his sister. I’ve a feeling she won’t be entirely surprised. What she does with

them after that is up to her. She might wish to destroy them.’

`I would give you a good price for them.’

`Why, if they’re so …unoriginal??

‘Their age, their lack of provenance, invokes a certain

frisson that enhances their value. Whether you involve the

sister or not is your affair.’

He tried to persuade me some more and I tried not to take

offence at the assumption I could be bought. The truth is, I could, but neither of us knew the right price. In the end he wrote down a telephone number on a piece of paper and

passed it to me.

`Remember, Rilke, I’ll buy them, this week, next week,

this year, next year, I’m in the market. Perhaps you don’t

need money, but there’s always something we want. Ask me.

I’m a useful person to know.’

I thought he was exaggerating.

I left him filing his prints back into the wallet. The front shop was still free of customers. The threatened storm had arrived and rainwater coursed down the basement steps from a blocked drain on the street above. Grime and dry dust would be washed into the basement courtyard coating the litter in a further layer of silt. Outside, the human traffic had slackened. Now only the occasional footstep passed the window, sober trouser legs, a pair of high heels click-clacking at a quick pace, eager to be home. I could hear Trapp in the back room talking on the

telephone, in a language I couldn’t identify. Derek leant over the counter reading a paperback novel. He lifted his head and our eyes met. I winked and nodded towards the door. The

curtains behind him parted and he lowered his gaze to his book.

`Well, Rilke, I hope our meeting has been of some use to

you. Remember my offer.’

The white-haired man placed a gentle hand on my

shoulder. The warmth of his touch crept through the layers

of my clothing and I turned towards him, holding out my

hand, wanting to loose myself of his benediction, his restraint, taking his hand in mine like a man making a deal, looking him in the eye and smiling. I assured him I’d remember.

Outside the rain had a horizontal stretch. I put up my collar, climbed the worn steps from the basement, then the cleaner

steps of the insurance offices above. Its stained-glass windows presented a diptych of dangers. A red fire ravaged a warehouse while fire-fighters battled in vain. A young girl turned

away from a ship setting sail. The rising breeze caught hold of her yellow hair, coiling it into art nouveau swirls, a smile touched her lips as she walked into the wind and away from

the gathering clouds that glowered over the vessel. A lady

with her premiums paid up. A golden legend promised Probity, Equity, Security. I settled myself in the lee of the doorway rolling a smoke, waiting.

I was on my third damp roll-up when I heard the door

below open. I eased myself back, into the shadows, but it

was Derek sure enough, swearing under his breath at the

rain already plastering his hair, leaving dark stains on his soft suede jacket. Oh sweet boy, let me towel you dry. I watched his ascent, marked the slenderness of his hips, the slim-fit black trousers tapering into Chelsea boots. I coughed and he

started.

`Jesus fuck!’

He stepped backwards into the basement, sheltering beneath

the stairway, brushing away the water that ran into his

eyes from his damp hair, peering up at me. I wondered what

type of spectre I presented.

Chat-up lines have never been my forte. I’ve never been

able to get beyond …

`Howie you doing??

‘Fine. I’ve just finished.’

`It’s a wet night.’ I was toiling.

`Sure enough.’

In the air somewhere there was a crash of thunder, three

short beats then a flash of lightning and the smell of cordite.

He winced and looked at his rain-spotted suede.

`Fancy a pint?’

`Why??

‘Well, this rain is going to ruin your jacket.’

We made a mad dash across West Nile Street, a river now,

right enough, blocked drains and streaming gutters. A bus

sailed to a stop, fanning a spray of spume across the pavement.

We outran its arc and into the nearest pub.

It was a lawyer’s howff, advocates and their attendants

clustered round the bar swilling spirits, talking loudly and looking like so many devils with their black suits and flushed faces. It was standing room only. I would have liked to get him somewhere quieter, a warm bar with a snug, where I could lull him with drink and words. Here with the hustle of suits around him the boy was liable to drink up and move on. Hell, someone might splash single malt over his good coat. I fetched the drinks, we eased ourselves into a corner and touched glasses.

`Cheers.’

Close to, I could see he was older than I had thought in the gloom of the shop, about twenty-three, twenty-four.

He brushed his damp hair back from his forehead. `Not

much of a place, this, but dry, eh? That’s some storm.’

`Aye, it’s harsh. Pity the poor sailors at sea. It looks like it might be on for the night.’

His smile broadened. `In that case best to be home, warm

and cosy.’

Was he teasing me? I didn’t want him to go home alone. I

wanted to lick his white teeth, bite his lower lip until it bled red blood, warm and sticky, coating his mouth like cherry lipgloss.

I sipped my pint against the faint taste of iron in my

mouth.

`Well, you never know, in the time it takes us to have a

couple of pints it may have dried up.’

Silence faltered between us. Him waiting calmly, me

grasping around in my head for words.

`So do you like your job??

‘I’ve done worse.’ He laughed again; this time there was an

edge to it. `It pays a wage, just about, but no, I wouldn’t say I like it. It’s peaceful, he lets me read - novels, fiction, not the stuff he sells. It’s better than McDonald’s, but not what you’d call a career.’

`So what would you like to do??

‘A million things.’ He looked around the bar. I wondered if

he recognised any of his customers. If he did he wouldn’t

greet them. `You’ve got the advantage on me. You know

where I work and what I do, but all I know is your name, if it is your name.’

So I told him about myself. Told him about the auction house. The thrill of discovery and the exercise of knowledge. I showed off, recounting pursuits of provenance. Pictures I had traced with my finger on the map of Europe. I told him of art dealers who enhance the value of paintings, inserting a dog or a person into an uninhabited landscape or perhaps a ship going down with all hands on sullen seas. Of daubs that had been

enhanced beyond recognition and banished from the saleroom.

I told him tales of houses I had visited. Discoveries I had

made. Costume jewellery substituted for heirlooms. Death

masks, a caul, a withered hand. The sale where every book

held a ten pound note snug against the fly leaf. I took him with me through the trade, the feuds and rings, the fist fights and tyre slashings. I held his eyes with an old routine, wanting all the while to push him harsh against the wall and press myself against him.

`Sounds like fun.’

I shrugged. `It’s a living.’

`Aye, but it’s interesting. You’re working with things you

like. So what did you want with Trapp this afternoon?’

`Nothing much. I just wanted him to look at some

photographs I’d found. I thought he might be able to tell

me a bit about them.’

`You must be well connected to get him to take time out

for that. What did he say??

‘That they weren’t as rare as I thought. He backed it up

with illustrated proof, then offered a decent price for them.’

`And you now want me to cast my expert eye over them.

That’s what this pint is about.’

Not entirely. `You’ve seen right through me.’

`Ach, well, get us another and I’ll do the biz. It’s not often I get consulted on matters of fine art.’

I lifted our empty glasses. `Wait till you see them.’

I showed him the scenes of death first. He studied them

closely, silently, the crowd around us receding, uproar

subsiding, as the images took on their dreadful focus. He

held them one by one in his palm, laid them out in a terrible triptych, then returned to each in turn, bringing them close to his eyes - irises expanding, pupils dilating, growing wider to take it all in.

`There’s something beautiful about these.’ His words

broke the spell, and the racket of glasses and drunkenness

was around us again. `I know they’re horrible but there’s a

ghastly beauty there.’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘Ach, you know

your art history - we’re trained to enjoy these images. How

many annunciations? The Virgin Mary waiting for Gabriel to

fill her full of the seed of the Lord, the original droit de seigneur. How many wan, prone women laid out like death? This is a

step further, a step too far you might say, but it’s right slap bang in the tradition of Western art. The innocent drained of blood. The victim of vampires. “The death of a beautiful

woman is the most beautiful thing in the world.” Edgar Allan Poe said that.’

‘That’s interesting.’

`But not what you wanted to hear, right??

‘It’s just an angle I’d not considered. You look at this and see art?’

`Hey, you’re the one showing me dirty pictures. I’m just

telling you what I see.’

`Sorry.,

‘Aye, that’ll cost you another pint. No, no harm done, it’s

not that I think it’s okay - the opposite, if you must know but you can look at something rotten and still see the beauty in it, right??

‘I take your point. What I’m trying to find out is did this

actually happen or is it some kind of weird construct?

He raised his gaze from the photographs and gave me a

distrustful stare. `Why are you so keen to know? A taste for the low life?

I fed him the same half-truth I’d been trying to convince

myself with. `This could be a lucrative sale for us. If I show these to the police they’ll be forced to investigate, and that means no auction. On the other hand, I don’t want to be

complicit in covering up a murder. I thought I’d see if there was any real need for worry before I decided what to do.’

He accepted it without question.

`Fair enough. No way of telling.’ He looked up from his

scrutiny. `That’s what he told you, right? I nodded. `You

asked me what I want to do. Movies. Mad, eh? I make short

films, show them to other folk who make short films, send

them in to competitions and get nowhere. It’s all I think

about; film daft. I see the world through a frame.’ He squared his thumbs and index fingers together, peering at me through them to illustrate his point. `I look at something, I’m trying to think how it would look up on the screen. A bus goes by and

I’m calculating angles I would shoot it at. Short cuts? Cut, cut, cut, cut’ - he sliced at the air with his fingers - `or one continuous sweep? I meet someone, I’m casting them in my head - you, for instance.’ There must have been something in my eyes because he stopped. `Ach, never mind. The most

depressing sound in the world to me is the sound of a video

cassette dropping back through the letter box, another

rejection. Who cares? That’s my personal tragedy. But this

is where my expertise is useful to you. I make horror films.

Blood is my speciality.’

`So what do you think??

‘I think Trapp’s right. There isn’t any way of being sure.

But if it is fake, they’ve done a really good job.’ He held the picture of the dead girl up close, scrutinising it with a dread enthusiasm. `A fine job.’ He caught my look. `That’s not nice, is it? I hope not’ - he lifted the photograph, her slashed throat, her bloodstained breasts, her sightless eyes rolled backwards in her unpillowed head, and lowered his voice as if he were

speaking to himself - `but it really could be.’ He shivered. `Brrr, enough to give you the heebie-jeebies. What are the rest of? Dismemberment? Cannibal parties?

I passed over the envelope and watched while he flicked

nonchalantly through the remaining prints, their content

nothing compared to the magazines he handled every day.