He tugged at his nose. “Well, Hon?”
“It seems a little overpriced,” Hon said. So did her dress, whatever she paid for it.
“Good paintings are an investment. If madam would like to see some less expensive works in the other room…? The untrained eye would not spot the difference…”
An eyebrow raised. “Quite,” the squat man muttered as he reached for his cheque-book.
“Get the hang of it?” he said to Laura once they had gone, and then to Paul a few moments later: “Where were we? Oh yes, you're safe until Friday. Are we certain of that?”
Paul's nod was lopsided. The swelling on his neck was worse. He confirmed, “Friday.”
“I'll give it some thought. Perhaps I can come up with an idea. Did you get anywhere with your little errand?”
“Come again?”
“The woman from the subcontinent?”
“The Paki? Oh yes. Went across to the Ridgeway, to the address, like you said. She don't live there, Mr Lawrence. You probably got the number wrong. An old couple lives there. Saw me hanging around and gave me what for. Probably thought I was a dodgy character. There's lots of them about. Right?”
Mr Lawrence nodded thoughtfully. “When you're up and about, maybe later, I want you to help me in the shop. Christmas is coming and we're getting busy.”
“No sweat. You done me a favour. I'll do anything for you. No questions asked.”
“How are you feeling now?”
“Better. Be up and about in no time.” He paused then said sheepishly, “Look under the bed.”
Under the bed he'd lined up four pairs of trainers and a pile of rackets.
“Squash?”
“Badminton,” Paul put him right. “Taking it up once the swelling goes down. Might play with those girls from the art class, see, cos one of them won't be playing for much longer, will she?”
“Really?”
“She's pregnant, Mr Lawrence. You can't run around if you're carrying, can you?”
“I suppose not.”
“So I'll play with the other one.” Paul winked.
Laura called up. “Mr Lawrence – customer!”
“More ducks,” he muttered.
“Mr Lawrence…?”
Mr Lawrence paused at the door. “What is it, Paul?”
“What happened to your finger?”
Once the shop was closed he found Laura in the kitchen ironing a black skirt. She rocked from one foot to the other as she listened to her Walkman or pod thing or whatever they were called nowadays. It probably came with pictures. The cassette or whatever rode her right buttock, held by the white lace of her pants. Her free breasts swung in time over the ironing-board. The scene reminded Mr Lawrence of the nature programmes on the television, rows of chanting natives with swinging breasts against a jungle backdrop. Inside, in those days, you were allowed to watch the nature programmes between six and seven. Now of course, it was porn on your own portable in your own cell. Even so, he doubted that even then they’d get away with a bunch of white breasts swinging along to ‘I Wanna Be Like You’ before the watershed. Discrimination, without a doubt.
“You can stay here for a few days. God knows where you'll sleep.” She said, “I'll put my bag in your room for now,” and offered him a knowing little smile.
They left it like that.
“House rules!” he said when she carried her ironing through. He'd intended to tell her to cover up but after consideration decided against it. He didn't want her thinking he was old-fashioned.
She paused in her step and hugged the ironing against her chest. “While you're here I must insist that you give up your moonlighting.”
“Mr Lawrence, you're jealous.”
“I can't have the Gallery involved in…in… It's not on.”
“But what will I do for money?”
“You'll manage. Treat it like a holiday. A few days off.”
“OK.”
“Promise me, Laura.”
“I promise that while I'm here I'll give up the tricks.”
“Fine. You can help out in the shop, until Paul gets better.” “That reminds me.”
“What's that?”
“I did two hours down there today. What's the hourly rate?”
Chapter 23
At the rear of the studio a door opened on to a small yard of black sterile earth where even the weeds would not take hold. To the right of the door stood a rotting wooden shed. Its roof had fallen on to a rustswollen lawn-mower. A cracked concrete path led across the yard to a blistered gate where two galvanized bins stood. The heavy gate hung off its hinges and scraped the concrete path. An arc of scraped-clean concrete indicated that it wouldn't fully open, but the opening was sufficient for the bin men – the waste disposal executives – to manoeuvre the bins through.
The gate opened as far as it would go on to a back road that ran behind the shops. It was an empty road save for the parked cars and an occasional lorry that would stop to make a delivery to the back of one of the row of shops or restaurants. At such times the narrow road was blocked to any other vehicle and for that reason most deliveries were made in the High Road. Across the road a line of silent offices stood in various states of disrepair. Most of the dark windows were cracked. At some stage, before Mr Lawrence's time, the road had been a place of industry but now the offices were mostly unused. The few that did flicker with light were dark again soon after for it meant that smackheads had broken in and were cooking with candles. Next to the row of offices stood a row of garages with corrugated roofs covered in moss. There was only one shop front in the road, and that was farther along, opposite the rear of the barber's shop, and it sold dolls. Dolls and dolly paraphernalia: doll's houses and cots and clothes and dolls of all description. It was called the Doll's House.
In that forgotten road the shop window stood out, dressed in white lace. An old woman dressed in long dark clothes and woollen shawls owned the shop but she was rarely seen. And customers were few. With Christmas coming, the only concession in the unchanging window was a single gold star that hung from a white suspended ceiling. A mangy black cat lived in the window and curled up on the cots. Its tail flicked over the plastic and porcelain skins and the beady lifeless eyes. Perhaps it looked content because it thought it had smothered a baby.
Mr Lawrence didn't often use the road for it was a depressing place, a throwback to an older time when grey was the colour and soot rained from belching chimneys. He saw it when he closed the yard gate on the mornings the bins were emptied. The executives always left it open. Only occasionally, when the gangs of youths were particularly boisterous, would he use that way to The British.
He'd noticed the gangs earlier as they left trails of lager cans behind them. It was interesting, Mr Lawrence considered, that these hard men of the time could not stomach bitter. And perhaps that was the difference between men and men who needed to be in gangs. The British was full of office workers on their Christmas night out getting in the way of the regulars. They were loud and noisy, making the most of their once-a-year excuse, expecting other people to join their revelry.
How he hated Christmas with its merrymakers in their cheap office suits and last year’s skirts that were now two sizes too small. How he hated the youngsters with the futures they didn’t deserve.
Smoke drifted in thin layers. Cigarette butts were crushed on the carpet. Lager dribbled from the bar.
An older man in a worn black suit and yellow tie was being served. He was obviously a director or the owner of the office to which the merrymakers belonged for he had bought a round of drinks and was now dithering about his own. “A real ale, please. An IPA, or something like that. Double Diamond or Red Barrel”
His tie or the drinks he had bought left the bargirl in her tight black skirt unimpressed. “Sorry, never heard of them. Have some of this schoolboy’s piss like everyone else.”
On the bar was a collection box for Rasher and the colonel. People edged away from it. It was the only place, a yard either side, where you could get served without queuing two deep. The thing is, apart from Rasher and the colonel who had sadly departed before being excused, the collection boxes were a reminder of what Darwin might have pointed out, that it is charity that holds back the future. That keeping the weak and the beggars alive to spread their what have you with the strong, is messing with evolution. The doctor or the double-glazing salesman was there.