Vicki told him in no uncertain terms, don’t go. Why on earth would you want to do that? A private view? What have you got to gain? It’s as if you’ve got this sore place and instead of letting it heal, what you want to do is take something sharp, stick it in and scrape it round. And what about Katherine? Have you thought about her? How she might feel? Are you even going to tell her what you’re doing?
Elder listened, thanked her for the advice, a quick kiss on the cheek and he booked return tickets on the Penzance to London train.
As far as Katherine was concerned, there was no reason she had to know. He had thought, at one point, of texting her, telling her he was going to be up in London, but then, if he did that it would be difficult to avoid telling her the reason why. Her response to which he could readily imagine. So there he was, window seat in the quiet coach, today’s paper, an indifferent cup of coffee and a KitKat for company.
By the time he arrived in London it was early evening, the blur of slow-moving headlights as he stepped out from the station, the threat or promise of rain. After all that time sitting, he needed to stretch his legs. Praed Street led him on to the Marylebone Road and from there he knew it to be a straight line past Baker Street and Madame Tussauds to Euston. No more than a couple of miles.
Passing the intersection with Gloucester Place, something jarred in his memory. A shop, wasn’t there a shop with some Italian-sounding name? Gandolfini, was that it? Gandolfi? Tutus, ballet dresses, leotards and ballet shoes. Katherine’s best friend at primary school at the time went to ballet lessons every week, every Thursday after school, and she had to do the same. The letter that came home after her first visit listed quite clearly what was necessary for her to wear to class, a list of stockists appended. Marylebone the closest to the salon off Lisson Grove where Joanne was working.
It had been a Saturday, Elder remembered, raining; not a faint drizzle like today, but unremitting, serious rain. Crossing the street, Katherine had stumbled and, reaching out for her arm, he’d only succeeded in knocking her further off balance so that she stumbled against the kerb, her coat trailing in the wet, one gloved hand going down into a puddle. Joanne ’s voice rising above the escalating thrum of traffic as she helped her to her feet. Couldn’t he be more careful? What did he think he was doing? And Katherine crying, Elder turning away from them both with a shake of the head.
‘There it is,’ Joanne said brightly a moment or so later, doing her best to pull things together. ‘The shop. See, Frank, look. Right there.’
‘I don’t give a fuck about the fucking shop,’ he barked back, louder than intended.
‘Great! That’s lovely, Frank. Really sweet.’
And all the time the crying getting louder. Katherine staring up at him with helpless eyes; wet, bedraggled and bereft.
In the end he’d waited outside while they went in and spent what seemed to him a ludicrous amount on a pink skirt and turquoise leotard, shoes for ballet, shoes for tap, and a pink dance bag to carry them all away in.
Within little more than six months Ballet Shoes had been replaced by Black Beauty; they were driving Katherine up the A1 to stables north of London and anything pink had been consigned to the bin.
‘Excuse me,’ someone said brusquely, brushing past, and Elder realised he had come to a standstill, mid-pavement, mid-reverie, embarrassed even now by how childishly he’d behaved. Knowing, in the same circumstances, there was a good chance he’d respond in the same way again. And the shop itself, he could now see, was no longer in business, the front boarded over, For Sale sign overhead; most people nowadays, he assumed, preferring to buy their tutus online.
Rain starting to fall more heavily, he pulled up his collar, hunched his shoulders and continued on his way.
At Euston, he took the Northern line three overcrowded stops to Old Street. The Hecklington and Wearing gallery was close by Arnold Circus, between Shoreditch High Street and Bethnal Green Road; Anthony Winter: New & Recent Work stencilled across the window in two-foot-high type.
Between the letters, Elder could see the first scattering of people starting to gather; paintings, at this distance without definition, on the walls. A young man in a black overcoat stood in the doorway, discreetly checking invitations as people arrived, the overhead light reflecting in the polished toes of his shoes.
The notice had been clear: Private View. Admittance by invitation only.
At a smart-looking burger place on Bethnal Green Road, Elder found a seat by the window and took his time over a chilli burger with fries and two bottles of pale ale. Manoeuvring his way to the bar in a busy pub a little further down the street, he ordered a large Scotch, no ice, water on the side. And then another. Still taking his time.
‘Invitation, sir?’ The voice was polite, just this side of insolent; young face unmarked save for a snail trail of scar tissue over one eye.
Elder grinned. ‘Must have left it at home.’
‘Then I’m sorry, sir …’
He held out his hand, a twenty-pound note curled between finger and thumb. ‘I’ve come all the way up from Cornwall for this. Wouldn’t like to miss it.’
‘Of course, sir. I understand.’ While one hand disappeared the note from sight, the other pushed open the door. ‘Enjoy your evening.’
Elder hadn’t known quite what to expect, but it hadn’t been exactly this. Long and low-ceilinged, the central section of the L-shaped gallery was busy with knots of smartly dressed people, the women mostly in slim black, the men, many of them, richly bearded, the occasional tattoo, small gold earrings, silver studs. The buzz of conversation reverberated loudly, waiters and waitresses in matching uniforms filtering their way with difficulty through the crowd, carrying trays loaded with canapés and glasses of what Elder assumed to be champagne.
A pair of security men, similarly attired to the one on the door, but older, bigger, altogether a more serious proposition, stood at either end of the gallery, stationed there, presumably, in case anyone should take it into their head to try walking off with one of the artworks – not that many people seemed to be paying very much attention to the paintings at all.
Elder accepted a puff-pastry-wrapped prawn and, skirting the edges of the crowd, made his way towards the rear wall. Two portraits, head and shoulders, richly contoured, of a middle-aged man Elder thought he should recognise. An author perhaps? Actor? He wasn’t sure. Further along a landscape, barren, no trees, a lowering sky. A factory, derelict, rusted machinery, fractured glass. Advancing between two more groups of people, Elder swallowed hard.
There, unmistakable, two paintings of his daughter, side by side.
In the first, she was sitting on the edge of a bed, leaning forward, naked, head down so that her face was partly hidden, but even so he could tell it was her; in the second she lay stretched out on her back, face just visible and legs splayed wide, a thin line of blood running from her vagina down along her thigh.
For a moment, Elder thought he might throw up.
Turning sharply, he narrowly avoided colliding with one of the waiters, apologised and pushed his way through into the centre of the crowd. More people than ever now and the sound of overlapping conversations more high-pitched, more intense.
Go, just go. Leave well enough alone.
The doorman looked at him in surprise. ‘Not leaving already?’
‘Just after a bit of fresh air.’
When he reached the end of the street he hesitated, turned slowly around, went back inside. Crowd hushed, one of the gallery owners making a speech, how proud he was to be showing such vibrant new work by one of the most gifted painters on the contemporary scene. At his urging, Anthony Winter stepped reluctantly forward to prolonged applause. Elder’s first sight of him, around the same height as himself but heavier, broad-shouldered, fleshy. Shaven head glistening in the gallery lights.
Winter thanked Tom Hecklington for his kind words, thanked everyone at Hecklington and Wearing for their hard work, thanked his friend and advisor Rebecca Johnson without whom none of this would have been possible. As for the paintings themselves, he preferred to let the work do the talking for him.
More applause.
Elder made his way towards the other end of the gallery and turned into the foot of the L.
A single canvas, bigger than the rest, hung spotlit on the far wall. At the centre, Katherine stood naked, her body twisted sharply at the waist; hands raised high above her head, her wrists tightly manacled, chains holding her arms aloft.
Elder was finding it difficult to breathe.
Kate’s face staring down at him, the pain alive in her eyes.
He knew that look; recognised that pain.
Turning quickly away, he pushed himself through the centre of the crowd.
‘Anthony Winter?’
The artist was surrounded by a dozen or more people, women in their little black dresses, men with their sharp suits and beards.
‘Yes?’
‘The painting round the corner. In the spotlight. The girl in chains.’
‘Yes?’
‘That’s my daughter, you sick fuck!’
Winter glanced anxiously over his shoulder. Elder punched him in the solar plexus and then, when he doubled forward, punched him in the face, hard enough almost to break his nose.
Blood spurted freely. Men shouted and women screamed. The security men muscled their way through the crowd. The camera flashes from a dozen or more mobile phones.
Winter was crouching forward on his knees, one hand to his face, blood leaking between his fingers to the floor.
Elder moved in to hit him again but hands hauled him roughly back and propelled him, feet scarcely touching the ground, towards the door and out on to the street. Off balance, a well-judged elbow struck him in the temple and he fell headlong. Two precise kicks in the ribs and he rolled into the gutter, the final swing of a boot opening a gash down one side of his face.
‘More’n your twenty pounds’ worth there,’ the young doorman said and laughed.
Elder levered himself awkwardly to his feet and stumbled across to the other side of the road.
Less than forty-five minutes later he was at Paddington station, waiting to board the sleeper train to Penzance. His ribs were sore and, despite the painkillers he’d taken, his face throbbed beneath the plaster on his cheek.
He would have had difficulty, at that moment, remembering the last time he had felt quite as good.