frightening. And risky.
When the computer is finally ready (I must get a new one or at least get this one serviced), I bring my emails up. There’s one from Waitrose, another from a Canadian pharmacy and then, at the bottom, one from Clementine, Rhoda’s PA or whatever she is.
I open it and stare at the content without blinking.
Hi Chloe. Canvases now called Disorder #1 and Disorder #2. Hope this is ok wth you. Rhoda had to name them at v.short notice. Now owned by Arbiter Minerals. Sorry, but they want three more, same size same theme. Will get commission details sorted by midd of next week. £30,000 wired to yr banks Account. Congrats. Clementine.
I read it again six times. My mouth is dry and my whole body feels cold, even though the heating’s on.
I need to speak to Rhoda and quickly. Part of my mind thinks that this is a joke, but if it was, it would have probably come from Rhoda, not Clementine. Someone like Clementine would be fired for a joke like that. And who would have known my email address to send a message like this? And who would have known about the paintings? No – this is real. I read it again, twice, just to make sure I haven’t made some terrible mistake. Like an idiot, I start to snigger. After a few seconds I’m laughing out loud. Tears are rolling down my cheeks. Whether these are tears of misery, joy or relief I can’t really say. Maybe all three. I place my head in my hands and rock forward and backward.
When I’ve recovered, I check the time of Rhoda’s text. It was sent at 10.17, and I start to wonder if her bonking session has finished yet so I can give her a call. Probably not a good idea, I decide. Instead, I just text her back, a simple ‘thanks’, which is all I can think of to say at the moment. I lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling.
Three hours later, I’m in Rhoda’s car and we’re driving out to west London. I say driving, we’re actually in a traffic jam on the A40, but it’s driving of a sort. Just rather slow.
She finally rang me just as I was making something for lunch and I met her on the corner of the big car park underneath Cavendish Square. When I arrived, she was arguing with a traffic warden. I guess ‘arguing’ isn’t the correct word here. She was telling him off, while he stared at her cleavage, his jaw on the pavement. When I got in the car, she threw a five pound note at him. I’ll never know whether he picked it up. Would that have been bribery? Maybe her phone number was written on it. That wouldn’t have surprised me in the slightest.
The car smells of perfume, but not the gorgeous one she had on the other day, and as we speed along at a little over seven miles per hour, she gives me a little more detail about what happened to my paintings. I’m still in a little bit of a daze and have to force myself to concentrate on what she’s saying.
‘So I heard through the grapevine that Arbiter Minerals – god alone knows what they do – were starting the decorating of their grim, neomodern, brutalist new premises in a month from now. I’ve known Kaspar for ages, so he gave me the tip-off. There was only one sort of art that would go in the entrance hall of a place like that and your canvases fitted the bill perfectly, in my opinion. Which I forced upon them.’
I don’t bother to ask who Kaspar is.
‘Only problem is that like all these modern office spaces, receptions or atriums or whatever they like to call them, there was a lot of wall space to fill up and even though your two were big, they still needed something else. I managed to convince their man there – no idea who he was or what he did – that another three similar would just about make the place seem vaguely human and not look like some gruesome futuristic prison camp or an abattoir or something. Contracts are already written up. How long do you think it will take you?’
‘Um – I don’t know. It depends on…’
‘Mm. Well let’s not worry about that today, shall we? When your canvases have finally dried off, we’ll go and have a look at this