Copy Cat

‘That’s new,’ I said. Van Gogh’s Sunflowers was propped against the television in front of The Hay Wain and The Fighting Temeraire. In retirement Oliver made copies of famous paintings. At the door to his flat you had to squeeze past a framed Mona Lisa, and in the bathroom you took a piss with The Laughing Cavalier.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘All that impasto.’ Oliver wiggled his thumb about, as though applying paints to the canvas. ‘The Fauves owed a hell of a lot to Van Gogh. Matisse, Vlaminck, Braque. That crowd.’

‘The wild beasts.’ Pam edged her way into the room balancing three plates of sausage and mash. ‘That’s what fauves means in French, dickhead.’

Not how I’d describe Picasso, a black tom of stupendous girth. I fed him a piece of sausage and watched him expand some more. ‘So, what’s next?’ I asked. ‘Guernica?’

‘Christ!’ Oliver spluttered through a mouthful of mashed potato. ‘Have you seen the size of it!’

I winked at Picasso. He blinked at me.