‘It is junk, Dad.’
‘You must be mad! Look! They’re original fifties units; I can get three grand for them if I take them over to Islington. Get in the van.’
‘Why?’
‘We’re going to Islington.’
‘I don’t want to go to Islington. I only came because you said you had something for me!’
‘Yeah, that’s right. You’ll love it. Can you put Rory on your lap?’
‘You’re not listening to me! We’re not going anywhere! As a matter of fact, I was hoping you’d look after Rory for me – I’ve got a big meeting and I have to get to Mayfair …’
Mick was already lifting the sleeping Rory out of his chair. ‘I’ll drive you, luv. Get in. God, he’s heavy!’ He gave him a cuddle, smoothing his hair down. Rory, exhausted from hours spent racing around the park chasing dogs and collecting used ice-cream sticks, wasn’t waking up for anyone or anything. He flopped over Mick’s shoulder, a solid, dead weight. ‘Get in!’
‘Mayfair’s nowhere near Islington and I don’t want you hauling him from shop to shop, Dad. He’ll go mad.’
‘Oh no, I can’t take him, angel. Not till later, anyway. But I’ll get you to Mayfair, no problem. Haven’t had a look around there for years. They’ve got nice digs in Mayfair.’
Rose thought she would scream. He was impossible. But still she found herself climbing into the front seat and taking Rory, strapping the seat belt across the both of them, burying her nose in his hair. The only way to deal with her father was to go along for the ride.
She watched in the rear-view mirror as he folded the pushchair up, putting it into the back along with the entire fifties kitchen and Lord knows what else. Slight, with thick dark hair and blue eyes, he was still an attractive man; handsome even in his funny white boiler suit. She’d never got to the bottom of the boiler suit – one day it appeared and suddenly it became part of his professional identity. Like a doctor in a white lab coat, he insisted upon wearing it every day, never visiting a client without it. Considering that most of his clients were willing to sell their own furniture to pay their debts, this delicacy struck her as particularly funny.
Climbing in next to her, he started the engine. ‘So what’s this meeting then?’
‘It’s to do with my new job.’
‘Which is?’ He pulled out, nearly slamming into a red Fiat. He thrust his head out the window. ‘Wanker!’
Rose had avoided telling her father the details of her new profession, mostly because she wasn’t sure if she could explain how she’d entered it and because she was absolutely certain she couldn’t tell him what it entailed. ‘Well, Dad, I’m an artist.’
Mick laughed. ‘Really? You? But you can’t even draw, can you?’
‘Honestly, Dad! No one draws any more. Everyone knows that!’
‘So what do you do? And I’m warning you right now, if it involves taking your clothes off, you’re in big trouble!’
‘I’m a contemporary artist. It’s all about defamiliarization.’
‘And what’s that when it’s at home?’ Mick leant on his horn. ‘Pick a lane, pal!’
Simon had spent the best part of an afternoon trying to explain it to her. At the time she’d been tempted to write notes on the back of her hand. But in the end she settled for memorizing a few key phrases. ‘It’s when you take familiar objects and put them in a different context so that the viewer is forced to see them in a new way.’
‘Right.’ Mick ducked into a bus lane, speeding past a long line of traffic. ‘So, like if I put a cheese grater into, I don’t know, the Albert Hall, suddenly it’s art?’
He was trying to make her feel stupid.
It was working.
‘Could be,’ she said sullenly.
‘What do you mean, could be? Either it is or it isn’t!’
‘Well, it all depends on who you are, Dad. It’s not just about the art – it’s about the artist. I mean, if Picasso draws on a napkin at dinner it’s definitely art but if Rory has a go, it’s just a ruined napkin, see?’
‘So how did you get to be so special?’
This was the nagging question that had disturbed her ever since that fateful day in Chester Square. She’d gone over it again and again in her mind. Why was everyone so excited? Could it have been her handwriting? Or the way she’d balanced the cards? The worst part was, now they were all expecting her to do it again. The opening of the exhibition was looming and she had nothing else to offer them. And deep in her heart, Rose had to agree with her father on the cheese-grater-in-the-Albert-Hall affair: at the end of the day, it was still a cheese grater to her.
‘I don’t know. Actually, Dad,’ she confided, ‘I’m in a bit of a pickle.’
Mick turned. ‘Do they want money? Never do anything where you have to give money up front to get started.’
‘No, Dad, it’s not that. It’s just I’ve done this thing, this installation …’
‘Did you follow the instructions?’
‘No, that’s what they call the art, they call it an installation. I’m supposed to have another one for today and …’ she hugged Rory closer for courage, ‘and I can’t do it, Dad! I don’t know how.’
‘Well,’ he nipped down a one-way street, ‘how did you do the first one?’
‘It was an accident really. And I’ve tried coming up with another idea but it’s … it’s so hard, Dad! I’m completely stuck!’
While Rory was at nursery, Rose had spent the best part of the morning trying to be inspired.
She sat at the kitchen table.
And thought.
Hard.
About art.
Nothing came.
She made a cup of tea instead.
Drinking it, she concentrated on her favourite paintings. There was one her aunt had in her living room of a hay cart next to a river. That was nice. Peaceful. Maybe a bit too brown for her liking. Then she remembered nature was meant to be inspiring.
So she spent a long time staring out of the window of her flat at the small patch of scraggly lawn in between the council blocks. She never let Rory play on it because the man downstairs took his bulldog there. All she saw was filth.
She concentrated harder.
But still, it was all dog poo to her.
Finally she tried her hand at drawing. Simon Grey claimed it didn’t matter. He’d reeled off the names of half a dozen supposedly well-known artists who couldn’t scribble a circle let alone render a reasonable likeness. But Rose didn’t believe him. First she tried to draw Rory. After all, she was with him all day long; she ought to know what he looked like. But he came out all stiff and round, and his eyes too close together. He looked like an angry stuffed toy.
She might have more luck with Victoria Beckham. Opening a copy of Hello!, she chose a photograph of her standing outside the Ritz in Paris in an evening dress. That went a bit better. But still her head was far too big, the dress too long; she looked like a mermaid, except Rose got stuck on the feet and had to draw them both in side view. This gave it an Egyptian feel.
The whole morning was depressing. Rose felt inadequate,