Dialogues of the Dead

Oh, what fun it is to look at their faces and see that they are seeing what you want them to see but completely missing the many-splendour’d thing. They think we are all moving forward along the same broad highway, all crowded together, all jostling for the best position, some congratulating themselves on having outdistanced those they started with, others feeling themselves pushed to the edges, even trampled into the gutter, but none of them denying that the choice lies between striving forward along that road or stepping off it into annihilation. And all the time I am following the twist and turns of my own path whose existence they are only just beginning to believe in, and whose route they cannot hope to track because its purpose is so far beyond their comprehension. I look at them looking at these so-called works of art and laugh because I know that the true artists in this life use brush strokes too delicate and colours too bright for the ordinary eye to detect or to tolerate …

“So what do you think of this?” asked Rye. “Rather good, wouldn’t you say?”

She had come to a halt before a watercolour of a rather tumbledown house on the bank of a lake with the evening sun turning the water into wine. Or blood.

“It’s OK, but I’d rather look at you,” said Hat.

“Watch a lot of old Cary Grant movies, do you?” said Rye, eyes firmly on the picture.

“Not if I can help it. OK, let the dog see the rabbit.”

He moved her gently to one side, enjoying the excuse for contact.

“Oh yes,” he said. “Stangcreek Cottage.”

Now she looked at him then down at her catalogue.

“You’ve seen it already,” she said accusingly.

“No. I’ve seen the cottage and you’ll see it tomorrow. That’s Stang Tarn, which, unsurprisingly, like Stang Creek and Stangcreek Cottage, is in Stangdale. As close with their words as they are with their money, these Yorkshiremen. If you like the look of it so much, we’ll take a photo, save you the bother of buying the painting.”

If she wanted to play the connoisseur, he was quite happy to play the philistine.

“Is that all paintings are to you? Just some form of record?”

“Nothing wrong with records, is there? Here’s a place I liked the look of on such and such a date at such and such a time?”

“Is that all it says? Doesn’t the light and the colouring and the time of day tell you anything?”

“Sure. It’s getting dark, and maybe the painter’s run out of blue and green but he’s got lots of red. Or maybe he’s just better at blood than water. Yes, I’d say he should stick to blood.”

“OK, so let’s stick to blood. Any leads yet on the Wordman?”

This pulled him up short and he said, “Hey, I’m off duty here, remember?”

“Are you? Clearly you don’t want to talk about Dick’s painting, so I thought you must be one of those sad bastards who can’t relate to anything outside his job.”

“Dick’s painting? You mean, Dick Dee painted this?”

“Didn’t you realize? I thought that maybe that was why you were being so resistant.”

Clever clogs. She’d picked up on his antipathy to her boss even though he’d scarcely acknowledged it to himself.

He said, “No, I didn’t realize …sorry. I just thought we were playing a game. Actually, I think it’s very striking, you know …atmospheric. …”

“You like playing games, do you?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “Anything but solitaire.”

Let her twist and turn as much as she liked, she wasn’t going to shake him off.

“So what about the Wordman? What game is he playing?”

“What makes you think he’s playing a game?”

“Those Dialogues. No reason to write them except to involve someone else.”

“They could just simply be a record.”

“Like this painting?”

“You’ve persuaded me it’s more than that.”

“Then look at the Dialogues …surely they’ve got a subtext, too …an atmosphere. …”

“Like blood on the tarn, you mean?” said Hat, staring at the painting of Stangcreek Cottage.

“Blood on the tarn? Why didn’t I think of that for a title?” said Dick Dee.

He had come up behind them.

“Hello, Dick,” said Rye with the welcoming smile Hat had not received. “We’re just deconstructing your opus.”