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“I take it you don’t like Rebecca much.” I shrugged, then deeply regretted the action as a jolt of fire shot through my neck.
“She talks to me like I am a dog.”
“She talks to everyone like that.” Geo chuckled and swept a thin paintbrush briefly across the edge of the canvas. “We just have to make the best of it.”
“The best of what? Being thrown about like an ancient lorry?”
Come now, Lawrence. Open your eyes and look between the lines.
“No.” The artist grimaced as he smudged a bit of paint with his finger. “We just have to be understanding. She’s been in a state ever since she came here. A person doesn’t act like that without a reason.”
So what is the reason, Lawrence? Open your eyes.
“But how can you trust a woman like that? I mean, her demeanour is hardly warm.”
“And yours is?”
Ah.
Geo had a point there really. I had never been particularly sociable. Or, at least, I had never been described as such.
Cold-hearted monster was more like it.
Just like half the people in my own life. Except for Keane, of course. He always seemed to know what to say; doing so with an enormous amount of grace. Showing incredible strength.
And, as always, dignity.
Never rely on dignity alone. It is the greatest farce man has ever made.
So what was left?
“Jo!” The sharp bite wrenched me from the dream-like state and forced my eyes back to the young man glaring up at me behind the stationary canvas. “Stop moving! The shipment goes out tomorrow night, and I want this genius portrait to be on it. Now stand still. That’s it. Leane forward a bit more—”
“That’s the second time you mentioned a shipment.”
“And it won’t be the last unless you manage to stop flailing about.” I returned to my stationary pose; yet, my mind would not be so easily stilled.
“What shipment is this then? I assume it includes paintings?”
“And other pieces; sculptures, carvings, etchings, etcetera.”
“So it is an art shipment?”
“Yes, with only the finest works aboard. Now, if you wouldn’t mind—”
“To where?” Geo fairly threw aside his paintbrushes and nearly knocked a jar of coloured sludge sideways across the floor.
“’To where’ what?”
“Where is the artwork going?” The artist stared at me for a solid second, then reached down to scoop up the precariously abandoned supplies.
“How should I know? I don’t care where it goes, so long as the people like my artwork. It takes connections all over to become famous, you know.” When I did not answer, he groaned slightly and once more separated himself from his canvas. “Look, I don’t know exactly where McAteer is sending it, but it has to be somewhere communist.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Is there anywhere else artwork has to be smuggled in privately? Besides, they hardly get to make anything over there. It’s all rules and regulations.” Geo chuckled. “The ship could be carrying high-class drugs for all I know.” His words smacked me across the face with the vehemence of a bear’s mighty claw. I leapt down from the podium; all the while only half listening as Geo scrambled around his words.
“Come on, Jo.” He stumbled. “I was only joking. Just making the conversation a bit more interesting. It’s a normal art shipment. Happens all the time. They aren’t really carrying drugs.”
“No, they aren’t.” I agreed hastily. Heart pounding. Head reeling. Sprinting to the studio door.
Leaving Geo straggling behind.