We watch its edges curl blackly and its centre turn to ash.
"Oh no." Despite her words implying an exclamation, Jeanette's voice is light and soft. Her voice is always light and soft, no matter the urgency or meaning, like she doesn't have the strength in her diaphragm to provide volume. "That was a waste of good creative energy, Carlos."
"Well, they can't have it now, can they?" he says.
"They certainly can't, my friend," I say. "But I'm glad we got to hear it."
Jeanette moves from mournful to upbeat so quickly it might have given us all whiplash were it not so very Jeanette. "There's a kind of fragile beauty in temporary art, isn't there? It makes it more valuable, because you've only got moments to enjoy it before it disappears forever."
"I feel privileged to be one of the four people who heard it before it died," says Lutek. "Thank you, Carlos."
"Do you think there's money in it?" asks Jeanette. "Charging for the privilege of being the only one or two people in the world to experience a piece of art before it's destroyed?"
"Yes," says Elly. "You'd need a combination of two things: A superfan who also happens to be rich. It takes away the idea of ownership. Nobody should own art."
"Says the person actually selling art for people to own," I say.
"Hey. I live in a capitalist system. I have to survive in it somehow. It doesn't mean I agree with its ideologies. Obviously."
"Obviously," Jeanette parrots and winks at Elly. Jeanette might come across as flaky, but she's deceptively sharp-minded and well able to tease the young-and-full-of-attitude likes of Elly.
"Where's Bess?" asks Lutek. "She's never normally this late."
"No idea," I pull out my phone and call her.
No answer.
When she does turn up, I'm determined to behave in a way that doesn't make it apparent to everyone that I'm "smitten" with her. I shall be a picture of nonchalance. But nottoononchalant, because I'm also not particularly interested in being a dick.
"It's not like her," says Lutek, who has switched to his other love. Crocheting. Given that his artistic voice is expressed through metal sculpture, which he makes a decent amount on selling as garden art, a quiet evening making stuff and creatively solving the problems of the world doesn't really accommodate steel fabrication.
But he's happy.
His cup warmers – little blankets crocheted to fit around mugs – were, according to Bess, a surprising hit last Christmas.
As he listens to the often ridiculous nature of our conversations, his fingers flex dexterously, working the crochet hook and wool. Given he keeps coming back week after week, the smile that sits permanently on his face isn't just about the satisfaction of his work. I think he rather enjoys the ridiculous nature of our conversations.
"Do you think a glitter nude would look any good?" asks Elly.
Knowing Elly carries through with all her creative ideas and her question is therefore rhetorical, I tap out a few more words on my keyboard and agree with Lutek that it is, indeed, not like Bess to be this late, but that she'll be fine. The world would stop spinning before Bess allowed anything to get in the way of her ability to breathe. Or create art. She'd look Death in the eye sockets and say, "I very dare you," and I've no doubt he'd hold up all ten phalanges and say, "As you were, ma'am."
But...
...I pull my car keys out of my pocket. "I'll go for a drive. See if I can find her."
As I make my way towards the door, Elly says, "Lutek, can you pose for me?"
As Lutek says, "Oh, um," I say, "Not if he doesn't want to," and exit, knowing there's every chance Lutek will be naked and artfully posed upon my return.
I try Bess' house, the gallery, the gallery roof, all the main streets, and the areas around the seafront in which Bess might sit and contemplate if that is what she needs to be doing at this moment. She is nowhere.
Nor is she answering her phone.
A little knot of anxiety works its way into a lump low in my belly. I feel impotent with the not knowing and the not being able to do anything about it, and all I can do is return to the workshop and hope she'll turn up soon with a completely excusable excuse or a promise not to make us worry like that ever again.
I swing the door open, hopeful Bess has turned up in the meantime.
The disappointment in her lack of presence is almost superseded by the vision of eighty-something-ish-year-old Carlos, posing with apple in hand and dried arrangement on full display.
