Guns in the Gallery Page 6

  Completing his ‘artist look’, Denzil Willoughby wore a plaid work shirt over a sludge-coloured T-shirt, frayed jeans and scuffed cowboy boots whose disproportionately long toes curled upwards. He spoke in a kind of slack drawl, which did not completely disguise his public-school-educated accent.

  ‘I’m not going to say much,’ he said, ‘because most talk about art is crap, and particularly when the person talking about it is the artist. Any statements that need to be made are made by my work. If you look at my work and get it, that’s cool. If you don’t get it, tough shit. Whatever you do, don’t ask me to explain it to you. The world out there’s a shit-hole, and art can’t duck that. I don’t duck it. I confront it, and my art is the expression of that confrontation. And if people don’t like my work, I’m not bothered. It’s just what I do.’

  He paused and reached into the top pocket of his shirt to produce a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a green plastic lighter. Before the horrified eyes of Fethering, he proceeded, in a leisurely fashion, to light up.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Bonita Green could not help herself from saying, ‘but I’m afraid this is a non-smoking venue.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Denzil Willoughby, taking a long drag from his cigarette. ‘Everywhere’s a non-smoking venue these days.’

  ‘But that means,’ the gallery-owner insisted, ‘that you shouldn’t smoke in here.’

  ‘No,’ countered the dreadlocked one. ‘It means that ordinary people shouldn’t smoke in here. One of the important things that anyone with any knowledge of the art world will tell you is that there are no rules for artists.’

  ‘Yes, there are!’ The voice that took issue with him was full of fury and alcohol. ‘Calling yourself an artist doesn’t mean you can evade all human responsibilities.’

  The voice was Fennel Whittaker’s. Jude looked across anxiously at the girl as she swayed closer to Denzil Willoughby. Carole saw the quick worried look exchanged between Fennel’s parents, and the expression of pure fury on the face of her sister Chervil.

  ‘There’s no responsibility in telling someone you love them, is there?’ the drunken girl went on. ‘We’ve all done that in our time, haven’t we? We splash the word “love” around like it was water, don’t we? On tap, easily available, doesn’t cost anything. Doesn’t do anyone any harm. We’ve all told people we loved them when we didn’t, thought we loved people, then found out we were wrong. We’ve all—’

  ‘Shut up, Fen!’ It was Chervil, who had suddenly interposed herself between her sister and the bemused artist.

  ‘No, I won’t shut up!’

  Like the tongue of a snake, Fennel’s hand leapt out and slapped hard across Chervil’s face. The younger sister recoiled, started to weep hysterically and backed off into the safety of Giles Green’s arms.

  This was the signal for Ned and Sheena Whittaker, no longer able to pretend they had nothing to do with her, to move towards their daughter. Jude also went to offer comfort, but Fennel burst free of their restraining hands to continue her tirade. And, though she was undoubtedly very drunk, there was nothing maudlin or pathetic about her. She was in fact magnificent in her anger.

  ‘You used me, Denzil! Pretended you cared about me, pretended you rated my painting, when the only thing that mattered to you was my money. And when I stopped handing that out, you dumped me. By text!

  ‘Well, don’t worry. I’ll get my revenge on you! The sensitive bloody artist, too caught up in his own creativity to get involved in real life . . . that’s how you’ve always presented yourself, haven’t you? Avoid emotional entanglements, so that you can concentrate on your art – huh? Well, you can’t avoid everything. People are real! Life’s real! Death’s real! And anyone who causes the death of another person is responsible for that death. Guilt doesn’t go away. Oh, sometimes the guilty person doesn’t get branded as guilty in a court of law, but they still know what they’ve done. And the guilt for causing someone’s death will never be forgotten. It will eat away at the perpetrator.’ She looked round the gallery dramatically, as if challenging everyone present. ‘You may think you have a secret and it’s safe inside you. But no, that secret is corrosive and ultimately it will destroy you. The person who has destroyed someone’s life will have to live with that fact forever. He or she will never get away with it, never get off scot-free. As they have ruined a life, so will their own life be ruined!’

  Having delivered this almost Old Testament curse, the girl moved very close to the artist and spat the next words out at him.

  ‘You know what you are, Denzil Willoughby? You’re just like your art – full of shit!’

  And, with that parting shot, Fennel Whittaker picked up an almost full bottle of red wine and stormed out of the Cornelian Gallery.

  EIGHT

  No one could completely ignore what had happened, but the outburst did not put an end to the Private View. The speeches by Giles Green and Denzil Willoughby had been a kind of natural break in the proceedings, and as soon as Fennel was out of the gallery, Zosia and her staff moved into assiduous glass-filling and canapé-offering mode.

  There were some murmured comments among the Fethering invitees, but few of them had met the Whittaker family before. The general opinion was that they’d just witnessed the effects of too much alcohol. And, although it would have been embarrassing had the incident involved anyone they knew, the moment of confrontation had actually been quite exciting. Some of the locals, unsure what to expect from the art world, even thought that the scene had perhaps been part of the exhibition. Since the Tate Gallery’s purchase in the 1970s of ‘a pile of bricks’, Fethering folk affected a sophistication incapable of being surprised by anything that went under the name of ‘modern art’. After all, you never knew.

  Denzil Willoughby himself seemed the least fazed of anyone there. In spite of what Fennel had said about guilt, he appeared to be immune to it. As soon as she had left, he had turned back to a group of younger people whom no one from Fethering recognized, but whom they had already marked down, from their flamboyant manners and clothing, as the ‘art college crowd’. On their fringes, trying to look part of the group, lingered Gray Czesky, with his dumpy hausfrau wife, Helga, in tow.

  Carole Seddon accepted a top-up of her glass from one of Zosia’s helpers. She was glad they were serving the Chilean Chardonnay that she particularly liked from the Crown and Anchor’s wine list. And it was refreshing not to have to worry about driving. Only a three-minute walk from the Cornelian Gallery back to High Tor.

  ‘Good evening.’

  She turned and was surprised to see that the words had come from Spider. Given the framer’s shyness, she hadn’t expected him to be at the Private View. In fact, she thought he had only just put in an appearance. Surely she would have spotted his bulk and distinctive hairstyle if he’d been there earlier. Perhaps he’d been lurking in his workshop.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘I recognized you. You came to get that photo framed.’

  ‘Yes. Of course I remember . . . Spider, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right. Spider.’

  ‘I’m Carole.’

  ‘Carole. Right.’

  There was a silence. The conversational sally seemed to have exhausted him. From across the room Ned Whittaker saw Spider and gave him a wave of recognition.

  ‘You know the Whittakers?’ asked Carole.

  ‘Yes, I’ve been over Butterwyke House. Delivered some stuff they’d wanted framing. Posters of Eastern geezers.’

  ‘Buddhas,’ said Carole, remembering the pictures she and Jude had seen inside the yurt Chervil had shown to them the previous Saturday.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Spider.

  ‘Did you deliver them to Butterwyke House?’

  ‘No. To some place in the grounds with lots of, like, huts.’

  ‘Yurts.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘The place is called Walden.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Spider
again. ‘They gave me a full guided tour of the whole place, but I didn’t take it all in.’

  Once more their conversation was becalmed. Carole racked her brains for something to say, finally coming up with, ‘Did you do any of the framing for this evening?’

  It took him a moment or two to understand her question. ‘Oh, you mean, like, for the exhibition?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No. I frame pictures, prints, photographs. I wouldn’t touch garbage like this.’

  Carole grinned. ‘I’m afraid I agree. Denzil Willoughby isn’t my cup of tea either.’

  ‘It’s rubbish, that’s what it is, just rubbish.’ He leant forward, overwhelming her by his proximity. ‘If Giles brings in more rubbish like this,’ he went on earnestly, ‘the Cornelian Gallery will be, like, closed within three months. And what’s going to happen to Bonita then?’

  What’s going to happen to you then? Would it be easy to find another job as a picture-framer? Carole’s thoughts were instinctive, but she didn’t voice them.

  ‘I think Giles bullies her,’ Spider confided. ‘She can’t stand up to him. Bonita never wanted this exhibition, but Giles bullied her into having it. Then he insisted on it being on a Friday, and Friday’s, like, Bonita’s day off, her special day when she goes to London. She never misses that, but Giles just doesn’t listen to her. He needs someone to tell him to, like, stop meddling in his mother’s affairs.’

  ‘That someone being you maybe?’

  ‘I might at that,’ Spider replied, and then looked almost embarrassed at having said so much. Big speeches didn’t come naturally to him.

  At that moment Ted Crisp lumbered up to join them. Carole introduced the two men, who to her surprise seemed instantly to get on and start talking. Or, that is to say, Ted started telling his stock of old jokes and Spider seemed more than happy to listen to them. Carole Seddon would never understand masculine conversation. She slipped away unnoticed into the throng.

  In the confusion at the end of Fennel Whittaker’s tirade, no one had noticed that Jude had been one of the few people who left the Cornelian Gallery. Outside the warmth held the promise of summer evenings not too far ahead.

  While the other departing guests went on their way, Jude lingered, looking along the line of shops for Fennel. But in vain. There was no sign of the girl. For a moment Jude was about to go round the back of the parade, suspecting that Fennel might have taken her sorrows down to the beach. But then she noticed some movement from inside a Mini parked along the road.

  She moved towards it. In the passenger seat sat Fennel Whittaker, the bottle of red wine tipped up, pouring its contents into her mouth. When Jude tapped on the driver’s side window, the girl appeared not to hear her. She tried the door handle, but it was locked.

  That sound made Fennel Whittaker look towards her visitor. After a moment’s hesitation, she clicked a button which released the central locking. Jude opened the door and slipped into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Didn’t realize it was you, Jude. Thought it was my parents. Haven’t got the energy to have another boring heart-to-heart with them.’

  Though the girl was undoubtedly very drunk, she was still in control. Her words were not slurred, just a bit faster and louder than normal.

  ‘So you had a relationship with Denzil Willoughby?’ asked Jude.

  ‘Yes. Dreadful word that, isn’t it, “relationship”? Sounds like a purely business arrangement. Some bank managers these days are called “Relationship Managers”. Did you know that? I think the word should be kept for people like them, to refer to professional dealings, not to cover all the messy business of living with someone and having sex and making plans and being disappointed. There ought to be another word for that.’

  ‘Was your . . . whatever this new word is . . . with Denzil Willoughby particularly messy?’

  ‘I don’t think particularly messy. They all are, aren’t they? At least all of mine have been. What about you, Jude? Have you had a lot of messy ones?’

  ‘My fair share, I’d say.’

  ‘Well, I think I’ve had more than my fair share.’ Fennel Whittaker let out a bitter laugh. ‘Though I don’t think “fairness” really comes into it. And to be fair to the men who’ve had relationships with me, I don’t think it can have been easy for them. Never knowing from one minute to the next what person, what version of me, was going to come through the door.’

  ‘I’ve had depressive friends,’ said Jude gently, ‘who’ve said that the comfort of having an ongoing relationship is that you’ve got someone who knows you’re the same person, whatever mood you’re in.’

  ‘Well, your friends have been luckier than I have!’ Fennel’s anger was less as she went on. ‘Men are always making jokes about women’s moodiness, uncomfortable jokes about menstrual cycles, but in my experience the women I know have been models of consistency compared to the men. Mind you, any man who takes me on gets a bellyful of moodiness.’ A wistfulness crept into her tone. ‘That’s why I got so excited when I met Denzil. At first he seemed to understand my personality, even see virtues in it. He said that all great artists are volatile, that the volatility is an essential ingredient in the art. He was very understanding.’

  ‘From what I saw of him this evening he didn’t seem very understanding.’

  ‘No, Jude. I’m afraid tonight you saw the real Denzil Willoughby – totally selfish. But I was fooled by him for quite a long time. And he can be surprisingly gentle at times. Oh, I know, you always read in the paper about these women who let men suck them dry financially and, generally speaking, you think, “Stupid bitch, why did she let herself be taken for a ride like that?” I’ve been through it, though. I know how credulous you can be when you think the person conning you is offering lurve.’ Her jokey emphasis on the word didn’t disguise the pain she was feeling. ‘But now,’ she said, ‘I feel better for denouncing the bastard in public.’ And she took a celebratory swig from her bottle.

  ‘Good,’ said Jude. ‘Promise me one thing, Fennel.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That you won’t attempt to drive home in this state.’

  ‘But I’m perfectly capable of driving home,’ Fennel replied with the unshakeable confidence of the very drunk. ‘If anything, my faculties are sharper than usual. I feel very in control.’

  ‘How you feel and how you actually are may be two very different things.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Jude. You’re the last person I would have thought of as a party-pooper.’

  ‘Well, if that’s what you want to call it, on this occasion that’s the role I’m going to take. It would be a terrible waste if you wrapped this Mini round a tree somewhere between here and Chichester.’

  There was a silence as Fennel digested this thought. Then she said, ‘Yes, it would be a terrible waste.’

  ‘So you’re not at the moment feeling suicidal?’

  ‘God, no. Oh, I know I have done at times, but I’m putting that behind me. Now I’ve expiated the curse of the extremely unlovely Denzil Willoughby, I very much want to continue living.’

  This positive manner was good in one way, but it also sounded alarm bells for Jude. She had treated a lot of bipolar clients, and she knew the dangers of the low that could follow an ecstatic high.

  ‘Are you taking your medication?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. I’m being a good girl. And I know it says on the packet you should try not to drink while you’re on it, but what the hell? Do you know anyone who takes seriously that thing about “avoiding alcohol” when you’re on medication – even antibiotics?’

  Jude was forced to admit she knew very few people who ticked that particular box. ‘I think we should get you home,’ she said.

  ‘How?’ asked Fennel. ‘You say you’re not going to allow me to drive. I don’t want to get a lift with my parents – and all the sanctimonious ticking-off that will involve. Or with Chervil, come to that . . . though I doubt if she’ll be coming home. No doubt spending the night here with lo
ver-boy.’ She infused the word with an infinity of contempt.

  ‘I’ll drive you home,’ said Jude.

  ‘I didn’t know you could drive.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be able to?’

  ‘Well, you haven’t got a car.’

  ‘I haven’t got a swimming pool, but that doesn’t mean I can’t swim.’

  Carole had noticed Jude’s absence fairly soon after she’d left. Her first instinct, to hurry out after her, she curbed. How embarrassing it would be, she thought, if she left the Cornelian Gallery and found Jude outside with some man draped around her. Carole knew that her neighbour’s sex life had been much more varied and adventurous than her own, but in her mind she did sometimes overestimate Jude’s powers as a man-magnet. Still, having witnessed a New Year’s Eve party that had led to a one-night stand, she wouldn’t put anything past her.

  It wasn’t as if Jude was dependent on Carole for transport that evening, as had sometimes been the case. They were both within a short walk of their homes. And they weren’t joined at the hip, for heaven’s sake, Carole told herself. They were both grown-up women, capable of making their own decisions and deciding the right moment to leave a Private View. But she couldn’t stop feeling that Jude’s departing without telling her was a slight – a slight slight perhaps, but still a slight.

  ‘We meet again.’

  She turned at the sound of a hesitant voice and saw that Ned and Sheena Whittaker had joined her. ‘Yes. Nice to see you.’

  Ned raised his glass. ‘Very acceptable red wine. An Argentinian Malbec. In fact we drink quite a lot of this at home.’

  ‘The Crown and Anchor has a very good wine list.’

  He looked puzzled so Carole elucidated. ‘This is being catered by the Crown and Anchor pub, here in Fethering.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘How’s the glamping going?’

  ‘We don’t officially open till tomorrow evening,’ replied Sheena. ‘First guests are supposed to be arriving about four, I think.’ She giggled nervously. ‘Thank goodness Chervil’s in charge. I’d be sweating cobs if it was me.’