“I could fleece you,” said Gerry seriously.
“Yes you could, but I don’t really care about that, what I care about is Tasha and if it makes her happy to know that this piece is not available for general viewing it will be worth every penny and I won’t consider myself fleeced.”
“Maybe I should start a bidding war with your mate Lenny,” suggested Gerry to an increasingly irked Jim.
“To what end? I will win that war so save your energy and name your price,” he repeated as Simone appeared.
“Doesn’t Tasha look fantastic?” she asked Gerry who nodded. “So happy and young, carefree. You are obviously very good for her, Jim,” said Simone honestly and without malice.
“I hope so.” Jim smiled at Simone.
“Simone,” said Gerry. “Jim is buying ‘Betrayal’, would you like to relieve him of his cash,” he added.
Jim cocked his head at Gerry. “Thank you.”
As he went to follow Simone to pay, Gerry called to him. “Tash does look carefree. Like Simone said, you are good for her. I’m sure you know I was stupid and through my own doing I lost her, but she is the loveliest person I have ever known and she has put up with some serious shit and she deserves to be happy. I won’t fleece you. Simone will charge you the last catalogue price, in fact,” he removed the picture from the wall. “Have it. Your payment can be to keep my princess smiling like she is tonight.”
Jim stared at him in disbelief as Simone swung around and frowned. Jim resisted the temptation to tell Gerry that Tasha was not his anything, least of all his princess. He just nodded at him and seeing Simone’s face said, “Look, let me do you a favour in return for this very kind gesture. What is your most expensive piece?”
Gerry pointed to a small framed collage of foil called ‘Recycled.’
“How much?” Jim asked.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand,” Gerry replied.
Jim raised his eyebrows in surprise and pulled his phone from his pocket. “Watch.”
With his phone on speaker, Simone and Gerry watched on.
Jim spoke, “Hi Lenny, is this a bad time? Oh, good. Look I’ll cut to the chase, I’m at this damned exhibition with Tasha and as you know I’m not into this kind of stuff, but there is a real buzz about one piece here tonight.”
“Which piece? I have already bought a couple. Simone emailed me the confirmation earlier,” Lenny said.
“Yeah, she’s here tonight and I think she is about to close the deal on this collage piece, it’s called ‘Recycled’ with a guide price of two hundred and fifty thousand but I think they are about to shake on two hundred and seventy five thousand. I just thought you might be interested.” He winked at Simone, making her blush as Tasha returned with a drink for him.
“Hold on Lenny, Simone is here so ask her yourself if three hundred thousand would seal the deal.” He passed his phone to Simone who rushed off to secure the sale.
“Do you not get on with Lenny then?” asked Gerry curiously.
Jim shrugged. “We get on okay, but sometimes he forgets that whilst he may be married to a woman who was once my wife he is not my children’s father and his opinion is not one that allows him to forbid, threaten or ridicule my daughter’s dreams, but I reckon he got off lightly at £300,000 for committing that particular offence,” he said seriously, darkly.
“You are a scary guy,” said Gerry as he laughed nervously.
“So I am told,” replied Jim dryly. “Nice to do business with you, Gerry.” He extended a hand that Gerry took willingly.
Gerry then stretched across to Tasha and kissed her on the cheek. “I should mingle.”
As Tasha and Jim turned away a red head almost walked into Jim. She apologised and then stared at Tasha. Jim thought that she was probably similar in age to Tasha, but shorter and with a fuller figure, pretty enough in a plain way, not beautiful like Tasha was, but pretty. She wore a green halter-neck blouse with black trousers.
“Tash!” she said with a mixture of pleasure and anxiety.
“Kara,” replied Tasha curtly.
“You look great,” said Kara.
“Thanks,” replied Tasha. “We were just leaving.”
Jim really had never seen this side of Tasha before; the stony faced, abrupt, hard assed bitch, but as this was the former best friend who had screwed her boyfriend, her saviour as she saw him at the time, it was understandable.
