Hamish Ramon Henriques ran a hand through the luxuriance of his moustache to prevent his smile from becoming too overt, and Mrs Pargeter was glad she wasn’t in eye contact with him, as she soothed the injured genius with the meaningless words, “Oh. Oh well, that’s nice.”
But VVO’s well of bitterness was far from dry. “They’re always making fun of me,” he moaned on, “laughing at my aspirations to be a great artist… dismissing my paintings as mere imitative daubs…”
“Oh, come on,” HRH protested. “We always respected what you did best.”
The artist was incensed. “No, you didn’t! You respected my hack work!” Fuelled by anger, he rose from his seat and started to circle the room. “You respected me when I produced a Rubens.”
As he spoke, he picked up a canvas of a buxom nude whose bottom blushed appealingly. Mrs Pargeter, who had seen a similar sight in the bathroom mirror earlier that morning, could not restrain herself from murmuring, “Oh, that’s very good.”
“Or a Goya,” VVO went on vindictively, picking up a lady wearing a black mantilla whose authenticity was only let down by an unpainted patch of canvas in the top corner.
Though this picture struck no personal chords, Mrs Pargeter could still recognize the skill of its execution. “That’s smashing too,” she said.
“Or a Jackson Pollock.” On this third canvas, however, she could express no opinion. Mrs Pargeter had always found it tricky to tell a good Jackson Pollock from a bad one – or indeed from an accident in a paint shop.
The tortured genius let all three canvases clatter to the floor, as he struck his chest in impassioned misery. “But what happens when I express
To reinforce his words, he picked up a picture which had stood facing the wall. It was fixed in a gold frame, and was quite definitely the ugliest work of art Mrs Pargeter had ever seen. No weekend painter, suffering from a terminal overdose of sentimentality, could ever have produced worse.
A black Scottie dog, with an anthropomorphic smile and a tartan bow about its neck, sat coquettishly in front of a little humpbacked bridge over a tinkling stream. Spotted toadstools poked up through the grass. Bluebirds circled aimlessly overhead. The painting could have won a Queen’s Award for Winsomeness. Even a chocolate-box manufacturer would have rejected it as too coy.
“Hmm…” said Mrs Pargeter awkwardly. “Well, yes…”
“See!” VVO let the painting slip from his hand and hurled himself histrionically back into his chair. “You’re just like all the others. You can’t appreciate what I’m really trying to say. You can’t see through to the soul of my art. Ah, is it always the fate of genius to be misunderstood?”
Hamish Ramon Henriques decided that pursuing such speculation would be fruitless. It was time to get down to business. “VVO, in fact the reason we are here is that –”
But the artist’s list of grievances was not exhausted. “Not only does nobody appreciate my painting, I’m also excluded from all the exciting bits when we’ve got a job on. I’m always left on the sidelines. While the rest of the lads are having fun, out and about breaking and entering, I’m always stuck back here knocking out another Rembrandt.”
HRH waved an impatient hand. “Yes, VVO, I’ve heard all this before. Listen, we need your help for a job.”
“Painting again, I suppose?” the artist sneered. “No breaking and entering. No immobilizing burglar alarms. I’d be good at all that! You’re wasting the talents of a criminal genius, you know!”
But HRH was impervious to these demands for sympathy. “The job,” he confirmed, “is, as you guessed, painting.” At these words, VVO slumped even deeper into his chair. “Quite a lot of painting. Some old masters and some more modern works of art need to travel abroad. We want cover paintings for them.”
The artistic worm turned. “Oh, no! Have you really got the nerve to ask me to do that kind of stuff again?”
“It is,” HRH pointed out discreetly, “for Mrs Pargeter.” He let the words sink in before adding, “Widow of the late Mr Pargeter.”
Her husband’s name worked its customary magic. After a baleful look at HRH, the artist conceded, “Oh, all right, I’ll do your pathetic little job – even though it’s a prostitution of my art.” Then he slumped back again with his eyes closed.
“Everyone has to make compromises in this life, VVO.”
All that got was a “Huh.”
“And I’ll tell you what… the modern art covers can be anything you want…” One of VVO’s eyes flicked open. “You could even make them Reg Winthrops, if you like…”
Though it went against the character he had created for himself to show it at all fulsomely, this news clearly pleased the artist.
Hamish Ramon Henriques rubbed his hands together briskly. “Anyway, you’re forgetting your manners. Aren’t you going to offer us a drink?”
VVO looked at his guests with renewed truculence. “Do you want something?”
Mrs Pargeter didn’t want to put her host to any trouble. “I’m happy with some of that wine if you –”
“No, no!” As if his artistic integrity was being impugned, the painter clutched his bottle to his chest. “The wine’s mine, all mine!”
“Oh very well. A cup of tea’d be nice then.”
VVO immediately shouted to some unseen presence outside the room, “Tea, woman! Bring us tea!” He turned grumpily to HRH. “When will you bring me the paintings?”
“Next couple of days. There are more than thirty of them. You think you’ll be able to do the covers within the week?”
After the animation of the shouted tea order, the artist had slumped back into apathy. “What does it matter what I think?” he asked from the recesses of his chair. “Of course I can do them. Like any true genius, I work fast.”
There was a silence. Mrs Pargeter wondered who would bring the tea. With what kind of woman would someone like VVO cohabit? Which stereotype of the artist’s muse would it be? Some sluttish student with fiercely dyed hair and nose-jewellery? A former life model, blowsy and gone to seed? A hippy trailing scarves and wispy skirts?
The interior door opened to reveal none of the above. The woman who stood there with a neat tray of tea things was neatly dressed as a neat, ultra-conventional suburban housewife. The decor revealed behind her showed a neat, ultra-conventional suburban sitting room.
“Good afternoon,” said the woman politely. “I’m Deirdre Winthrop, Reg’s wife.”
She cleared a space on a cluttered table, put down the tea tray and turned with hand outstretched.
Mrs Pargeter shook it. “Good afternoon. I’m Mrs Pargeter.”
HRH went through the same social routine. Shaking his hostess’s hand, he identified himself as Hamish Ramon Henriques.
“Pleased to meet you both, I’m sure.” Deirdre Winthrop smiled graciously. “Tea was it you said you’d like?”
“That’d be lovely, thank you,” said Mrs Pargeter, with an equally gracious smile.
Deirdre lifted the wine bottle out of her husband’s unprotesting hands. “And you want some more of your blackcurrant juice, love?”
Reg Winthrop grinned at his wife, very calmly and with great fondness. “Yes, please, my angel,” he replied, the picture of meek suburban domesticity.
Mrs Pargeter and Hamish Ramon Henriques exchanged looks, but made no comment.
? Mrs Pargeter’s Point of Honour ?
Eleven
Mrs Pargeter’s customary shadow of desire had been anticipated again that evening by Leon the barman. The champagne was on ice, the two crystal glasses waited in readiness. And, standing over her favourite table as she entered the room, massaging his hands in unctuous delight, stood the proprietor of Greene’s
