‘What are you having?’
She answered him without thinking and then watched as he strode over to the bar and came back with a drink in both hands. She had just about digested what he had said by then.
‘What’s the catch, Gareth? You gotta understand that you can’t throw around numbers like that around here and not expect me to think you’re either a con man or out on day release.’
Gareth chuckled with the confidence of a man who was so unused to having to justify his place in the world, that he found it amusing. ‘You’ll have to spend six weeks on residency, in a village a few miles outside of Cambridge, and you’ll have to impress your benefactor in order to win the money.’
‘Impress her how?’ Ruby could not shake her scepticism.
‘Well, there will be a group of young underprivileged artists just like yourself and whoever commits themselves most to the process, and creates most authentically, will win the prize.’
Ruby mulled over each troublesome word in the sentence. ‘Underprivileged’? Who the hell was this bloke to come in here and make assumptions about her? ‘Creates most authentically’. She suspected that whoever this patron was, she wanted some kind of poverty porn show. The more fraught and pitiful the artist, the better the art. And then finally ‘prize’. Since when was art a competition? Were the Thatcherites really not content until they’d come after everything? Until each last hair on her head was assigned a monetary value, and thrust out into the unruly winds of the free market? Fuck that.
‘I’m sorry, mate, not interested,’ she said flatly, taking a gulp of her beer and turning away from him. Gareth’s face fell. They sat in silence for a moment.
‘OK, well if you change your mind, here’s my card.’ He stood up, fiddled with his cufflinks and buttoned up his jacket. Ruby shrugged. She didn’t feel bad exactly, but something about this man cut a sympathetic figure. Here he was doing some wealthy woman with a charity fetish’s dirty work.
‘You’re not gonna finish your drink?’
‘It’s yours …’ He hung back for a moment, as if pondering whether to say more. ‘Please consider it, Ruby. It could be a life-changing opportunity, and they don’t come around very often.’
Ruby huffed. What the hell did this ponce know about opportunity; he’d probably been born with those silver cufflinks in his mouth.Was that a good line? Maybe not.
‘It was lovely to meet you, Ruby Tongue.’
‘It’s actually Wallace. And yeah, you too, Gary.’
He smiled and walked out. Ruby finished her drink, and then his, and then came to terms with the fact that Cindy was not coming.
Despite herself, she slipped the business card into her pocket as she left.
Chapter 9
The letters started arriving a week after Opal got back to Fairfax. She’d stayed in Marylebone the whole weekend. Only when she’d gotten tired of the thrill of ignoring Martin’s calls to the flat, and failed to find any incriminating evidence within its four walls, had she driven home. She had hoped that he would be racked with worry, not knowing for sure where she’d run off to.
When she met with Debbie on Tuesday night at the tennis club, though, she was a little irritated to find out that he had told everyone she was visiting her friends in London. He’d worked it out and then not even bothered to test his theory by coming after her. It had made her feel both predictable and pathetic.
But then the letters. The first was from Adam. The writing was neat and the message concise: he would be honoured to take part in the tournament and would be arriving at 10 a.m. on the 14th of June. He had addressed her as Lady Fairfax.
Opal had always been uncomfortable with that title, mostly because she couldn’t shake the association with Saffie – who had inherited it along with the house when her brother had died young. Opal had always suspected that her mother, inturn, was never able to shake the association with her brother Edwin’s death, and that Fairfax Manor had remained an awful reminder of that precious thing she had lost. The cruel irony of that particular recurring generational pattern was not lost on Opal either.
The second letter came forwarded from Toad. It was signed by Jojo, no last name, and came accompanied by a short note from Gareth:Johan is a truly wonderful photographer. G
The third arrived the following day and was sent with a Scottish stamp. That was from Heather McCormack. Opal vaguely recognised the name; perhaps she had seen some of her work before, but she couldn’t be sure. As with Adam, there was no mention of the discipline, only a distinctly unenthusiastic-sounding relay of arrival information. Heather would need to be picked up from the station, and she signed off with a cool ‘yours faithfully’.
It was around that time, on the Wednesday, that Opal began to feel a little apprehensive about the whole endeavour. It was no exaggeration to say that she had never done anything so impulsive in her whole life.
She remembered a risky fringe she had cut herself in the bathroom mirror after her first-year exams. She’d fretted over the wonky result for weeks. And now here she was inviting a group of strangers into her home with the promise of awarding one of them close to the entirety of the money in her personal bank account.
Of course when she rang Gareth in a particularly acute moment of panic, he talked her down, or rather up, and shefelt fortified in her decision for the next couple of days at least. It was enough time for the fourth letter to arrive. The first thing she noticed was that the paper smelt divine.
Dearest Miss Fairfax,
I hope that this letter finds you well. I am writing in order to apply for a place in the summer tournament to be hosted at Fairfax Manor. I am a scent and sound artist based in Birmingham and would relish the opportunity to both focus on my practice for the summer and compete against some of my most talented peers. As a sensory creative I am unable to forward on a physical portfolio, but rest assured that your dear friend Gareth has seen and appreciated my work on multiple occasions.
I look forward to hearing back from you, and hold on to the hope that I may meet you in person someday soon.
Sincerely yours,
