Echo

there. What's to stop me nicking it, now you've shown me where it is?''

'Nothing,' said Deacon, 'except it's mine, and you haven't earned it. Not yet, anyway.'

'What'd I have to do to earn it?'

'Learn to read.' He saw the cynical look in Terry's eyes. 'I'll teach you.'

'Sure you will, for two miserable days. And when I still can't read at the end of it, you'll get mad and I'll've wasted my time for nothing.'

'Why didn't Billy teach you?'

'He tried once or twice,' said the boy dismissively, 'but he couldn't see well enough to teach anything 'cept what was in his head. It were another of his punishments. He poked a pin into his eye one time which meant he couldn't read very long without getting a headache.' He took another cigarette. 'I told you, he were a right nutter. He were only happy when he were hurting himself.'

They were the most meager of possessions: a battered postcard, some crayons, a silver dollar, and two flimsy letters which were in danger of falling apart from having been read so often. 'Is this all there was?' asked Deacon.

'I told you before. He didn't want nothing and he didn't have nothing. A bit like you if you think about it.'

Deacon spread the items across the table. 'Why weren't these on him when he died?'

Terry shrugged. 'Because he told me to burn them a few days before he buggered off that last time. I hung on to them in case he changed his mind.'

'Did he say why he wanted them burned?'

'Not so's you'd notice. It was while he was in one of his mad fits. He kept yelling that everything was dust, then told me to chuck this lot on the fire.'

'Dust to dust and ashes to ashes,' murmured Deacon, picking up the postcard and turning it over. It was blank on one side and showed a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's cartoon for The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and the Infant St. John on the other. It was worn at the edges and there were crease marks across the glossy surface of the picture, but it required more than that to diminish the power of da Vinci's drawing. 'Why did he have this?'

'He used to copy it onto the pavement. That's the family he drew.' Terry touched the figure of the infant John the Baptist to the right of the picture. 'He left this baby out- his finger moved to the face of St. Anne-'turned this woman into a man, and drew the other woman and the baby that's on her knee the way they are. Then he'd color it in. It were bloody good, too. You could see what was what in Billy's picture whereas this one's a bit of a mess, don't you reckon?''

Deacon gave a snort of laughter. 'It's one of the world's great masterpieces, Terry.'

'It weren't as good as Billy's. I mean look at the legs. They're all mixed up, so Billy sorted them. He gave the bloke brown legs and the woman blue legs.'

With a muffled guffaw, Deacon lowered his forehead to the table. He reached surreptitiously for a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose loudly before sitting up again. 'Remind me to show you the original one day,' he said a little unsteadily. 'It's in the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square and I'm not as convinced as you that the legs need-er-sorting.' He took a pull at his beer can. 'Tell me how Billy managed to do these paintings if he couldn't see properly.'

'He could see to draw-I mean he were drawing every night on bits of paper-and, anyway, he made his pavement pictures really big. It were only reading that gave him a headache.'

'What about the writing that you said he put at the bottom of the picture?''

'He did it big like the painting, otherwise people wouldn't have noticed it.'

'How do you know what it said if you can't read?'

'Billy learnt it to me so I could write it myself.' He pulled Deacon's notebook and pencil towards him and carefully formed the words across the page: 'blessed are the poor.

'If you can do that,' said Deacon matter-of-factly, 'you can learn to read in two days.' He took up one of the letters and spread it carefully on the table in front of him.

Cadogan Square

April 4th

Darling,

Thank you for your beautiful letter, but how I wish you could enjoy the here and now and forget the future. Of course I am flattered that you want the world to know you love me, but isn't what we have more perfect because it is a secret? You say 'your glass shall not persuade you you are old, so long as youth and I are of one date,' but, my darling, Shakespeare never named his love because he knew how cruel the world could be. Do you want me pilloried as a calculating bitch who set out to seduce any man who could offer her security? For that is what will happen if you insist on acknowledging me publicly. I adore you with all my heart but my heart will break if you ever stop loving me because of what people say. Please, please let's leave things the way they are. Your loving, V.

Deacon unfolded the second letter and placed it beside the first. It was written in the same hand.

Paris

Friday

Darling,

Don't think me mad but I am so afraid of dying. I have nightmares sometimes where I float in black space beyond the reach of anyone's love. Is that what hell is, do you think? Forever to know that love exists while forever condemned to exist without it? If so, it will be my punishment for the happiness I've had with you. I can't help thinking it's wrong for one person to love another so much that she can't bear to be apart from him. Please, please don't stay away any longer than is necessary. Life isn't life without you. V.

'Did Billy read these to you, Terry?'

The boy shook his head.