The view from the bridge was spectacular. The restive black river, slicing through the city, granted new perspectives. The buildings on the other side were Lego-sized, those far squiggles trees on the Embankment walk. Even though Larry and the taxi driver were waiting, Ruth stopped for a second to inspect the night, and stood gripping the rail. The normal sense of being in a London street, of trailing along a canyon floor, was replaced by the thrill of horizons. The sky was granted a depth of field by satellites, a few sparse stars, aircraft sinking into Heathrow.
Larry and Ruth talked for the length of the journey as David roosted awkwardly on a flip-down seat. Ruth’s piece had been bought before the opening—by Walter—though Larry had retained rights to show it. When the gallery owner opened his notebook to check a date, David noticed that $950k was scrawled by the words Night Sky. He listened to everything very intently. Away from the public crowded gallery, a new, personalized part of the evening was actually beginning. Somehow there were only three of them, and he felt nervous. When the cab pulled up he tried to pay for part of the fare, but Larry dismissed him with a rather mean laugh that took the good, David thought, out of his gesture. The club was situated down a narrow alley and behind a blue door that appeared abruptly in the wall. David hurried through as if it might vanish.
Larry flirted with the girl on reception, signed them in. They followed him through a warren of low-ceilinged, wood-panelled rooms. Each had a tangle of flames a-sway in a grate and much too much furniture. And each was full of people in various modes of perch and collapse, laughing and squealing and whispering, demanding ashtrays, olives, cranberry juice with no ice. As he trailed after, David adopted a weary expression: if anyone should look at him they would never know how foreign he felt, how exposed and awkward.
Larry spotted a spare corner table and charitably chose the three-legged stool, leaving David the rustic carver. Ruth settled into the huge winged armchair, arranging her black shawl around her. David realized he’d been unconsciously pushing his nails into his palms, leaving little red falciform marks, and he stopped, forcing his hands flat on his thighs. He normally spent the evenings on the internet, chatting on a forum, but that night he was an urban cultural participant, engaged with the world, abroad in the dark.
‘So what did you guys think of the exhibition?’ Ruth asked.
This was his chance and David began talking immediately. He had given it much thought and started listing pieces and their attendant strengths and problems, then discoursing generally on the difficulty of such an undertaking, the element of overlap and competition with other artists, what the curator should have considered doing differently. Ruth was smiling, but the more he talked, the more solid her mask became. When she nodded in anticipation of saying something, David concluded, snatching his cigarettes with a flourish from the tabletop, ‘But I would say—and I know this sounds a little crawly—but I thought your piece was the most involving. I felt drawn into examining the nature of darkness, how it’s actually composed.’
He found he was sitting forward, almost doubled over, and he straightened up. Ruth smiled and said, ‘Crawly?’ but he could tell he’d talked too much. Larry had a bored, paternal grin on his face, and he waved his hand, dispelling some disagreeable odour. The waitress slouched across.
When Ruth made some slightly barbed reference to pure commercialism, David sensed a chink between them and tried to widen it. He waited ten minutes and then asked about money, about how art could ever really survive it. Larry grimaced, and explained that art and money were conjoined twins, the kind that share too many vital organs ever to be separated. Ruth balanced her chin on her small fist and flicked her gaze from her old friend to the new. David said that sometimes the most private, secretive art is the strongest. It had to relinquish the market to be truly free. Surely Larry wasn’t saying that Cubism started with the rate of interest on Picasso’s mortgage.
Larry frowned, forced to detonate David’s dreams. ‘Well, the fact is, not everyone’s Picasso.’
‘I think Larry’s trying to tell you that minor artists, like me, need to make saleable products. Is that it, darling?’
‘You’re certainly not minor.’
‘I’m certainly not a minor.’
Larry gave a loud guffaw and patted the back of her hand. Ruth ignored him and lifted David’s cigarettes; he passed her the lighter and she drew one out of the packet, pinching it in half to break it in a neat, proficient movement. She noticed David noticing.
‘Can’t stop, can only downsize.’
Watching her, David found himself reminded of the finitude of earthly resources. She expected, and the taking was so heedless she had obviously acclimatized to prosperity at an early age. When the time had come for her to order a drink she’d spoken quickly, astonishingly, in a volley of Italian. The reluctant waitress had beamed, revealing one deep dimple, and replied in the same ribboning cadences. Later, when David leant across and told Ruth how much he liked her charcoal-coloured wrap, she said, ‘Well, that’s really something. It’s a bit Raggedy-Ann now, but you know who used to own it? Audrey Hepburn. She was a great friend of my mother’s.’
Men who own banks and Audrey Hepburn. A sheet of black paper for one million dollars. David lifted the edge of the shawl then, and pressed his thumb in the cashmere. It was soft as baby hair, as kitten fur. He thought of the symbolism of the act, touching the hem of her garment. He had a terrible tendency to think in symbols. He knew it made him unrealistic.
Blame is complicated but some of it must be David’s. It was a Thursday night weeks later, and as the tube slid alongside the platform Ruth held tight to the bar, bracing herself for the lurch. She noticed a young man suddenly uncoil, a few seats down, and bounce to his feet. He was right behind her at the barrier, when she couldn’t find her ticket, and she stepped aside to let him pass. Outside on the pavement, the man was peering into the window of an estate agent’s, his head almost touching the glass. She walked down the High Street, took the second road on the left and, after a few moments, heard footsteps and looked back. He’d turned the corner too.
Something in her registered his presence as aggressive. But still, it was possible, she told herself, that he hadn’t even noticed her. Or that he hadn’t noticed he was scaring her. This was England. There was a thing called cultural difference. She quickened the percussive step of her boots and clawed round in her bag, locating her keys and jiggling them into her fist, so the sharp parts faced outwards. There was also a thing called sexual assault. Maybe she should stop and let him pass. But then they’d be only a couple of metres apart. Maybe she should knock on the door of a house, somewhere lit up. Further along, brown leather in street light, a man unlocking his car. Just as she tensed herself to shout, he climbed in and the door of the car banged shut. The words died in her throat.
The car’s tail-lights receded, exited right. She glanced back and the man stopped, and she thought of playing Grandmother’s Footsteps with Bridget in the yard on Sherman Street. The grass had almost been hidden by pink cherry blossom. An image of Bridget’s tiny hands, a doll’s hands, pouncing on her, Bridget screaming and giggling. She started walking quickly again and a white cat slinked out from behind some bins. That did it: she broke into a run, her canvas bag slapping awkwardly against her side. Flight heightened her panic. In the noise her motion made, she was convinced she could hear him behind her, running, and if she turned now he would be there, six foot of shadow coming towards her, coming right for her, and would say nothing, do something…
Number 87. She vaulted up the steps and jammed the button for C, the top-floor apartment. David’s. The man was strolling now, thirty, forty metres away. It was fine. Was it fine? As he approached, she managed to pout disdainfully and stare past him, but kept her finger pressed on the buzzer. He was almost