Guns in the Gallery

‘Well, don’t worry. I’ll get my revenge on you! The sensitive bloody artist, too caught up in his own creativity to get involved in real life . . . that’s how you’ve always presented yourself, haven’t you? Avoid emotional entanglements, so that you can concentrate on your art – huh? Well, you can’t avoid everything. People are real! Life’s real! Death’s real! And anyone who causes the death of another person is responsible for that death. Guilt doesn’t go away. Oh, sometimes the guilty person doesn’t get branded as guilty in a court of law, but they still know what they’ve done. And the guilt for causing someone’s death will never be forgotten. It will eat away at the perpetrator.’ She looked round the gallery dramatically, as if challenging everyone present. ‘You may think you have a secret and it’s safe inside you. But no, that secret is corrosive and ultimately it will destroy you. The person who has destroyed someone’s life will have to live with that fact forever. He or she will never get away with it, never get off scot-free. As they have ruined a life, so will their own life be ruined!’

Having delivered this almost Old Testament curse, the girl moved very close to the artist and spat the next words out at him.

‘You know what you are, Denzil Willoughby? You’re just like your art – full of shit!’

And, with that parting shot, Fennel Whittaker picked up an almost full bottle of red wine and stormed out of the Cornelian Gallery.

EIGHT

No one could completely ignore what had happened, but the outburst did not put an end to the Private View. The speeches by Giles Green and Denzil Willoughby had been a kind of natural break in the proceedings, and as soon as Fennel was out of the gallery, Zosia and her staff moved into assiduous glass-filling and canapé-offering mode.

There were some murmured comments among the Fethering invitees, but few of them had met the Whittaker family before. The general opinion was that they’d just witnessed the effects of too much alcohol. And, although it would have been embarrassing had the incident involved anyone they knew, the moment of confrontation had actually been quite exciting. Some of the locals, unsure what to expect from the art world, even thought that the scene had perhaps been part of the exhibition. Since the Tate Gallery’s purchase in the 1970s of ‘a pile of bricks’, Fethering folk affected a sophistication incapable of being surprised by anything that went under the name of ‘modern art’. After all, you never knew.

Denzil Willoughby himself seemed the least fazed of anyone there. In spite of what Fennel had said about guilt, he appeared to be immune to it. As soon as she had left, he had turned back to a group of younger people whom no one from Fethering recognized, but whom they had already marked down, from their flamboyant manners and clothing, as the ‘art college crowd’. On their fringes, trying to look part of the group, lingered Gray Czesky, with his dumpy hausfrau wife, Helga, in tow.

Carole Seddon accepted a top-up of her glass from one of Zosia’s helpers. She was glad they were serving the Chilean Chardonnay that she particularly liked from the Crown and Anchor’s wine list. And it was refreshing not to have to worry about driving. Only a three-minute walk from the Cornelian Gallery back to High Tor.

‘Good evening.’

She turned and was surprised to see that the words had come from Spider. Given the framer’s shyness, she hadn’t expected him to be at the Private View. In fact, she thought he had only just put in an appearance. Surely she would have spotted his bulk and distinctive hairstyle if he’d been there earlier. Perhaps he’d been lurking in his workshop.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘I recognized you. You came to get that photo framed.’

‘Yes. Of course I remember . . . Spider, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s right. Spider.’

‘I’m Carole.’

‘Carole. Right.’

There was a silence. The conversational sally seemed to have exhausted him. From across the room Ned Whittaker saw Spider and gave him a wave of recognition.

‘You know the Whittakers?’ asked Carole.

‘Yes, I’ve been over Butterwyke House. Delivered some stuff they’d wanted framing. Posters of Eastern geezers.’

‘Buddhas,’ said Carole, remembering the pictures she and Jude had seen inside the yurt Chervil had shown to them the previous Saturday.

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Spider.

‘Did you deliver them to Butterwyke House?’

‘No. To some place in the grounds with lots of, like, huts.’

‘Yurts.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The place is called Walden.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Spider again. ‘They gave me a full guided tour of the whole place, but I didn’t take it all in.’

Once more their conversation was becalmed. Carole racked her brains for something to say, finally coming up with, ‘Did you do any of the framing for this evening?’

It took him a moment or two to understand her question. ‘Oh, you mean, like, for the exhibition?’

‘Yes.’

‘No. I frame pictures, prints, photographs. I wouldn’t touch garbage like this.’