‘You saw a man carrying my paella and decided that we were best friends.’
‘You’re being dramatic. Besides, it’s getting us out of the town for an evening. I love an excuse to get dressed up.’
‘You’re always dressed up,’ I scoff, and take another look at her outfit, a lime-green silk gown that she has layered over a woollen turtleneck with enough gold bangles that they take up most of her forearm. She hadn’t said anything about my efforts. I hadn’t exactly packed for extravagance, making do instead with a striped top and wide-leg trousers with the only pair of shoes I had brought – trainers.
‘Is he any good, as an artist?’ She changes the subject, steering us away from our first argument.
‘He used to be.’ I think of the painting that used to sit above a chest of drawers in our bedroom, a portrait of a woman in a bar, with a cigarette in one hand and a whisky in the other. Ettie liked it; he said it was one of Florian’s first good ones. It was a birthday present, from brother to brother, back when money was tight and they were on speaking terms. Before I was on the scene. I didn’t hate it, in fact I had always felt some sort of affinity with the stranger, a companionship that came from staring at her in my bedroom for all of the seven years that Ettie and I were together. God knows where she is now.
‘Are you any good?’ I ask, squinting at a sign in the distance that I faintly recall being the right way.
‘What, at painting?’
‘Yes. You said you liked art; I assumed you dabbled.’
‘Ha!’ she splutters. ‘I’m no artist. I’m an admirer at best. Blu was my painter, she did enough for the both of us.’
‘Blu?’
‘Bluette – my friend, the one who owned your apartment.’ She says it as if I should know, that she has told me more than she has.
‘The tiles?’ I think about the splashback in the kitchen. I had confirmed my suspicions the other night, when I should have been in bed, that every single tile was unique, not one repeat; I think I had even seen a small snail on one in the corner. There were the birds too, in the beams in the bedroom. I had noticed them on one of the other nights when sleep just wouldn’t materialise. Once I’d seen one it felt like I couldn’t stop seeing them. They were on top of the wardrobe, etched onto the windowsill, scattered over the mantle of the door – gorgeous little sparrows that were so lifelike I had to do a double take.
‘That’s the one,’ The American nods. ‘Ooh, right here!’ she shouts as we almost pass a turning and the car screeches into a dark and unforgiving bend, throwing her towards me a little. When I catch my breath and return the car to a steady pace, crawling up an ever-narrowing road towards an uplit chateau in the distance, I sneak a look at her now unanimated face looking wistfully out of the window.
‘You miss her.’ I say it in the same way she had said it to me the other day at the restaurant.
She keeps looking out of the window while she answers me quietly. ‘Very much.’
The car park is surprisingly full. I go to park down the lane but The American tuts and gestures to her cane. ‘Park in one of those bays.’ She signals to a disabled space by the entrance.
‘I don’t have one of those badge things.’
‘No one does, just live a little.’ She taps the cane on the dashboard until I ferry her into the spot.
I get out, reach for my bag and then go to help her out. She thanks me and loops her arm into mine.
‘I just hope he’s not one of those artists who just paints vaginas on everything because he saw one once and has to tell the world about it,’ she says suddenly. I splutter out a laugh. ‘What!’ The American lightens up a bit, her thin lips crawling into a grin. ‘I went to an exhibition once where the room was just full of naked models, even the waiting staff were in on it. You know, it’s very hard to eat a canape from a man with his penis just… hanging there.’ She waves her hand around by her knees for good measure.
I don’t know what I expected from the exhibition. I hadn’t really had time to think about it. I’d imagined enduring a few hours in which The American would see some familiar faces and I could hopefully drink one glass of champagne and sneak off for a cigarette on the balcony. I hadn’t expected it to be quite so busy. There were people of all ages queueing for entry, thankfully dressed in varying versions of formalwear meaning that neither myself or The American really stood out.
Once we reach the head of the queue, we’re presented with a glass of champagne, a brochure of the exhibition on glossy white paper and directed to a gallery on the first floor. The first few rooms are taken up with some work from other local artists: landscapes of the area, rather sporadic abstracts, the occasional nude although that doesn’t deter The American who gives each painting a regimental ten-second glance before moving on.
I’ve never quite known how to conduct myself in a gallery, not that I have ever found myself in many. With museums it’s easy; there’s a story through time to follow, with little explanations next to each artefact to help you decipher what you’re seeing. With art you’re just sort of meant to know what’s good. I follow The American’s lead but find my eyes chasing around the room, searching for the only other face I know.
The American sees him before I do, she elbows me in the ribs and stares in the direction of a large crowd. I expect to see him on the periphery, a lone wolf skirting around the paintings, I don’t expect him to be in the centre of it all. He is animated, his hands waving wildly, grinning as he regales his audience with some story. They all laugh en-masse, the men pat him on the back, the women smile at him softly. I feel like I have landed in a parallel universe.
The American leans in close to me. ‘He looks like the life and soul of the party.’
‘Maybe they’re all friends?’ I shrug, and start to notice how the paintings change into pencil sketches on cream paper. At first, they’re indistinguishable formless shapes with strange little letters alongside them, the sketches looking like they’re in a series, each one changing ever so slightly until the last one forms a full image.
‘That’s so clever.’ The American nods approvingly.
‘Is it? It looks like a load of scribbling to me.’ I shrug.
‘Look closer.’ She points at the letters which, at her fingertips, morph into numbers; the lines on closer inspection are angles. It’s only when The American turns me to face the sculpture behind me that I realise the framed sketches are exactly that, first drafts of what’s to come, the dreams and completely nonsensical ideas to create this thing that exists only in his imagination from a slab of indistinguishable rock.
‘They’re the plans?’ I ask, scared to get it wrong and look even more like an idiot.
