He looks at his watch.
‘How much further?’
‘Ten minutes.’
‘Poor old sod. He’ll be wetting himself. I hate to think of all those frauds and phonies chewing up his work. But I don’t expect they’ll bother to come.’
‘Are these the same frauds and phonies who hail Joe Nola as one of the brightest talents on the art scene?’
‘The very same.’
They’re off the A27 now and driving through Edenfield.
‘If ever I get married and have children,’ says Christina, ‘I’ll buy a house here.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I like the look of it.’
Their time of intimacy has come to an end for now. To be resumed on the drive back.
They lurch down the rutted coach road to America Cottage. The ancient Peugeot is pulled up on the stony ground by the garden wall. No other cars.
‘That’s his car,’ says Christina. ‘Looks like no one else has come.’
‘We’ve come,’ says Joe.
There’s a sign by the gate with an arrow pointing to the barn. To the show.
Christina feels suddenly protective. In this mood Joe could do anything.
‘If you hate it, you won’t say so, will you?’
‘He hated my show.’
‘Even so.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to smash it up. Look, no hammer.’
They follow the path round the side of the barn to its double doors. One of the doors stands half open. Joe pulls it open, scraping its bottom on the chalky earth.
Inside light falls through the single dusty window onto the board walls. Paintings hang all round, packed closely together, mostly portraits, some groups, some landscapes. In the middle of the earth-floored space stands a bulky armchair with its back to the door. The old man is sitting in the armchair, surrounded by his lifetime’s work. By his side, on the ground, there is a bottle of whisky and a glass.
‘Look at you,’ says Joe affectionately. ‘Pissed already, and the show hasn’t even started.’
He goes round the armchair to confront the old man with his grinning face. Christina follows.
Anthony Armitage sits in his navy-blue overcoat slumped in the armchair with his eyes closed. One hand rests on his lap, holding an empty pill bottle.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ says Joe softly.
He takes the old man’s wrist and feels for a pulse.
‘He’s cold. He must have been here all night.’
Christina is too shocked to speak.
‘You should get your crew out here fast,’ says Joe. ‘This is a better show than anything I could ever put on.’
‘Oh, Joe.’
‘It’s what the old bastard wanted.’
‘Oh, Joe. It’s horrible.’
‘No, it isn’t. It’s magnificent.’
He starts circling the barn, gesturing at the paintings on the walls, moving fast, talking fast.
‘These are good. These are the real thing. He knew that. You see what he’s forced us to do? He’s forced us to look at them. He’s put on a show in the modern style. He’s beaten us at our own game. It’s fucking brilliant!’
His circle brings him back round to face the dead man in the armchair. He talks directly to him.
‘Your work’s good, you old sod! I’ve always known it was good. I was coming to tell you so. Here I am. I’ve come. So why the fuck didn’t you wait for me?’
He’s shouting now.
‘Why didn’t you wait for me?’
Christina has got her phone out.
‘I’m calling the police.’
She goes out of the barn looking for a signal but can’t find one. Her hands are shaking.
Am I responsible for this?
She goes back into the barn.
‘Come on, Joe. We have to report this.’
‘Does that phone of yours take pictures?’
‘Yes.’
‘Take pictures, then. Take lots. Before they come and mess it up. This is his show. Record it.’
‘With him in the middle?’
‘Yes. That’s why he did it. Everyone has to see.’
So Christina takes pictures on her phone of the barn and the paintings on the walls and the old man dead in the middle of it all. Then they get back into her car and drive away.
They don’t talk as they drive. Christina knows the moment has passed. Whatever there might have been between Joe and herself died with the old man. Hard to say exactly why.
In the end it was you who died on me, wasn’t it, Joe? You let me down the only way I can’t overcome.
I tried. What more can you do?
Meet someone new. Start again. Christ, it’s so fucking tiring.
In Edenfield she pulls up by the village shop and tries her phone again. This time she has a signal. She calls the police and reports the death. She doesn’t tell them about the pictures on her phone.
The police ask her to wait so they can take a statement. They’ll be with her as soon as they can.
‘I know someone here,’ she says to Joe. ‘My old boss.’
39
The decoration of the Christmas tree is a family ritual. The decorations themselves live in a motley assortment of cardboard boxes, the more fragile ones cushioned in tissue paper. The boxes come up from the dust and cobwebs of the cellar, another year gone by already. Laura finds herself thinking, How many more Christmases will we have together? The children growing up now.
Out come silver balls, feathered birds, painted tin figurines, glass pendants, papier mâché eggs, china baubles. Each one brings with it a memory, preserved as it were also in the tissue paper, of the time and the place where it was bought. The little blueand-white china spheres from Amsterdam, the ruby-red teardrops from Venice. Laura and Carrie take the decorations out and lay them carefully on the living room table. Meanwhile Henry, as is traditional, unpacks and untangles the rope of Christmas tree lights. Jack is in charge of the tinsel.
The ritual calls for the tree to be dressed in a preordained sequence, to the sound of Ella Fitzgerald singing her Swinging Christmas songs. The Christmas tree lights go on first. Henry tests them.
‘My God, they’re actually working!’
Standing on a chair, he winds the dark green flex round and round the tree, while the others tug the little lights here and there to make sure they’re evenly distributed.
‘Off you go, Jack.’
Next comes the tinsel. Ella Fitzgerald sings ‘Jingle Bells’, and they all jig gently to the beat.
‘Oh, there’s the bird’s nest,’ cries Carrie, holding out the little basket of twigs with its tiny silver eggs. ‘I love the bird’s nest.’
Laura has found the cookie-dough man which Carrie made when she was seven.
‘Here’s Horace. I think he’ll last another year.’
Henry stands back, frowning, checking the symmetry of the tree so far.
‘Too much gold tinsel on the right, surely, Jack?’
‘Where’s the angel?’ says Laura. ‘We have to make sure she can fit on the top.’
‘He,’ says Henry. ‘Or possibly it.’
Now it’s time to hang the baubles. This job is reserved for Laura and Carrie. Carrie begins with the parrot and the carrot, two brightly-coloured pendants made of punched tin, which always hang near each other because they rhyme. Laura begins with the waxy artificial fruit.
Henry meanwhile sets to work on the overhead paper chains. Every year these fragile Chinese decorations threaten to disintegrate, and every year, with patience and Sellotape, they are nursed back into duty.
Ella Fitzgerald is singing ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’.
‘Look, Carrie,’ says Jack. ‘Your sequin ball. I remember you making that.’
‘You’re going to have to cut the top branch,’ says Laura. ‘The angel won’t fit.’
The silver balls are going on now, the most common of all the decorations, but the most effective. Th
e fine threads that hold the necks of the glass spheres are easily broken, and have to be slipped over the prickly branches with delicate care.
Henry gets the fold-out steps and the secateurs and climbs up to trim the topmost sprig.
Laura, watching, the angel in her hand, sees Jack and Carrie cooperating without argument, and wonders what has happened to improve their mood. Perhaps it’s just the approach of Christmas.
Henry returns to his paper chains. Season after season the cords that hold them up become hopelessly knotted and have to be teased out. Henry regards this as a challenge, and is patient and determined. Today is the first day of his Christmas break, he’s happy to be out of the frustrations and compromises of the cutting room for two weeks. He looks up and sees Laura watching him and smiles.
‘What’s the news on the Roddy crisis?’ he says.
‘Oh, Diana’s sorted all that out. She says it came to her in a flash. What Roddy needed was a shed.’
Henry bursts out laughing.
‘A shed! Brilliant!’
‘Diana says it’s all about men and sheds. Men have to have sheds where they go to play with their hobby. So Roddy’s being given a shed at the bottom of the garden where he can go and look for God.’
‘An actual shed?’
‘Yes. You buy them ready-made, windows, doors, lights, everything. Diana says Roddy’s thrilled to bits.’
The phone rings. Henry goes into the kitchen to get away from Ella Fitzgerald. Laura can hear exclamations of surprise, but not the words.
‘Have yourself a merry little Christmas,’ they all sing along.
Henry returns looking grave.
‘Something rather extraordinary,’ he says. ‘Do you remember a researcher called Christina who worked for me once?’
‘Not really. There’ve been so many.’
‘She’s in the village. She’s been to see that artist who painted Carrie.’
‘My old man?’ says Carrie. ‘The one in my house?’
‘Yes,’ says Henry. ‘Bad news, sweetheart.’
Carrie puts down the glass bauble she’s holding and looks at her father with an unblinking gaze.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’
‘Yes. It looks like he’s taken an overdose. I’m sorry.’
Carrie says nothing. The Christmas music fills the silence.
‘Christina’s coming over here,’ says Henry. ‘She’s the one who found him. She has to wait for the police.’
Selfishly, Laura feels annoyed. She doesn’t want anyone coming over right now. This is their special family time.
Jack says to Carrie, ‘How did you know?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Carrie. ‘I just did.’
She goes out into the hall.
‘I don’t understand what all this has to do with your researcher,’ says Laura.
‘She makes art films these days. She was visiting him. Look, I’m sorry, darling. I felt I had to offer.’
‘Yes. Of course you did.’
She looks through the open doorway into the hall. Carrie’s painting stands there, propped up on the hall table. Carrie is gazing at it.
Laura goes out and puts her arms round Carrie’s thin body.
‘I’m so sorry, darling.’
‘He was brilliant, Mum. He was a genius.’
‘I wish I liked his picture of you more.’
‘That’s because you’re not looking at it properly.’
‘Yes, I expect it is.’
The doorbell rings. Laura opens the door. There on the step is the director from the Hayward.
‘It’s you!’ says Laura.
‘The golliwog lady!’ says Christina.
They both start to laugh.
Behind Christina is a slender boyish man in a wool hat. He’s gazing past her, into the house, at the portrait of Carrie.
‘Come in, come in,’ says Laura. ‘What a terrible business. We shouldn’t be laughing.’
The music stops playing in the living room. Henry joins them in the hall.
‘Christina,’ he says. ‘Small world.’
‘Hello, Henry.’
She introduces her companion.
‘This is Joe Nola. He’s an artist. I’m making a film about him.’
The artist is standing in front of Carrie’s portrait, transfixed.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ he says. ‘That is the real thing.’
‘See,’ says Carrie to her mother.
‘He should have this one in his show,’ says Joe. ‘He never did anything better.’
‘Did he have his show?’ says Carrie.
‘Oh, yes,’ says Joe. ‘He had his show all right.’
‘Did the people come he wanted to come?’
‘They came.’
‘It wasn’t because nobody liked his paintings,’ Carrie says, meaning his death. ‘He just hated getting old.’
‘Is that a fact?’ says Joe.
‘He told me so.’
They all go into the kitchen and Laura puts on a kettle so they can have coffee while Christina and Joe wait for the police. Henry tells Laura that Christina has become a star television director.
‘And to think I had her running round libraries for me.’
‘Henry was wonderful,’ says Christina. ‘He was my first boss. It was him who showed me you could work in television and still take your subject seriously.’
‘So what’s happened to you since?’ says Henry. ‘You’re too young to be married yet.’
‘Not too young,’ says Christina. ‘Not married.’
‘What’s this about golliwogs?’ says Joe.
Christina explains. Joe is charmed.
‘That’s exactly what I did it for,’ he says. ‘People are supposed to come along and add their memories.’
‘Except now you’ve smashed it,’ says Christina.
‘So I have,’ says Joe.
Jack says, ‘I saw the old man smashing things in his garden.’
‘Ah, well, then,’ says Joe. ‘He was way ahead of me.’
‘What did he look like?’ says Carrie. She means what did he look like dead.
‘Like himself,’ says Joe. ‘Only, like he’d left.’
Laura thinks of Roddy saying, ‘I’ve left.’ Keep thyself as a stranger and a pilgrim upon the earth. And now he’s sitting in a shed at the bottom of the garden looking for God.
‘I want to go and see him,’ says Carrie.
‘No, darling,’ says Henry.
‘Why not? I won’t touch anything.’
‘No. Leave it to the police.’
‘What’s it got to do with the police?’ For the first time since she heard the news Carrie has tears in her eyes. ‘The police don’t care. I was probably the last person he talked to. I don’t suppose I mattered very much to him, but he mattered to me.’
‘You mattered all right,’ says Joe. ‘The way he painted you.’
‘Well, then,’ says Carrie. She holds up her head high and proud.
‘Tell you what,’ says Joe. ‘We can show you pictures of him. Christina recorded it all on her phone.’
Henry frowns, but Laura says, ‘Why not? She’s not a child any more.’
So Christina gets out her phone and shows them the pictures of the old man in his armchair with his paintings on the walls all round him. Carrie looks and looks.
‘He looks happy enough, doesn’t he?’ says Joe.
‘No,’ says Carrie. ‘He wasn’t happy.’
Again, Laura remembers Roddy.
‘Being happy isn’t what matters most,’ she says.
Carrie looks up at her mother in surprise.
‘Right, Mum,’ she says.
‘I have to go out soon,’ says Jack. ‘Can we finish the tree?’
So they put the music on again and Joe and Christina help with hanging the remaining decorations. Ella Fitzgerald sings ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ and ‘Frosty the Snowman’ and ‘White Christmas’.
‘I suppose what with
global warming and so on,’ says Henry, ‘we’ll never have a white Christmas again.’
40
It’s Jack’s idea. Alice doesn’t question it.
‘Come and look at the sea.’
He hardly knows himself why he wants to do this in such a cold season, but it comes upon him as a plain need. He wants to be somewhere wide and empty and bleak, somewhere stripped of all pretension, somewhere elemental. He thinks at first he wants to be there alone, but then he thinks he’d like to be there with Alice.
‘Come where?’ says Alice on the phone.
‘Seaford,’ he says. ‘Seaford beach.’
Not the picturesque meanders of Cuckmere Haven, nor the grand drum-roll of the Seven Sisters, but unlovely little-visited Seaford. Out of season in a seaside town that is forever out of season.
‘It’s special,’ he says. ‘You’ll see.’
He drives her there in the early afternoon and they park close to the Martello tower and walk together along the concrete broad-walk between the road and the beach. A blustery wind blows clouds across a grey sky and makes their eyes water. Gulls wheel and bank overhead, screaming their harsh screams. There are others out on the beach, lone figures walking their dogs, but few and far apart. Behind them the high cliff of Seaford Head. Before them, far off, the dark line of Newhaven pier reaching into the sea.
They walk briskly, their coats wrapped tight, scarves muffling their necks to the chins. Jack says they must walk the length of the crescent beach without talking, so they can empty out. Alice obeys as if this is a religious requirement, at first amused, but after a while she feels herself emptying out. Because of the cold wind and the wide space and the not talking.
Then they come to a stop, and turn about.
‘We can talk now,’ Jack says.
‘What are we to talk about?’ says Alice.
This is Jack’s game and only he knows the rules.
‘Real things,’ says Jack. ‘Not fluff.’
‘I’ve got no fluff left,’ says Alice. ‘It’s all blown away.’
As they walk back, warmer now, moving more slowly, they look out over the immense sweep of beach, over the unbounded grey sea, to the racing sky. Here and there through breaks in the cloud shafts of cool white sunlight pour down onto the water.
‘That’s the light of heaven,’ says Jack. ‘When we came here when we were little the sky often did that. My dad said, “Look, there’s the light of heaven shining down on earth.”’