The Loo Sanction Page 4

  “Oh . . . let’s say it was hanging in the National Gallery in place of the real one.”

  Jonathan raised his eyebrows, his turn to feel admiration. “No question at all,” he pronounced with confidence. “But how would you get at the real Chardin, Mac? Since the ’ 57 thing, they’ve stiffened their security and there hasn’t been a successful theft.”

  “What makes you think that?” MacTaint’s eyes were round with feigned surprise, and he looked more than ever like a mischievous leprechaun.

  “But there’s a weight alarm system. You couldn’t possibly get one off the wall without being detected.”

  “Of course it would be detected. It’s always detected.”

  “Always? Tell me, Mac. How many paintings have you nicked from the National Gallery?”

  “All told?” MacTaint squinted sideways in concentration. “Over the years? Ah-h, let’s see . . . seven.”

  “Seven!” Jonathan stared at the old man. “I’ll take that drink now,” he said quietly.

  “Here you go.”

  “Ta.”

  “Cheers.”

  They drank in silence. Jonathan shook his head. “I’m trying to see this in my mind, Mac. First, you walk to the gallery.”

  “I do that. Yes. In I walk.”

  “Then you take the painting from the wall. The alarms go off.”

  “Dreadful noise.”

  “You hang up a reasonably good forgery in its place, and you stroll out. Is that it?”

  “Well, I don’t stroll, exactly. More like running arse over teakettle. But in broad terms, yes, that’s it.”

  “Now the alarm system tells them which picture has been tampered with, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “And yet it never occurs to them to give the painting a professional scrutiny.”

  “They give it a great deal of attention. But not scrutiny.” MacTaint was enjoying Jonathan’s confusion immensely. “You’re dying to know how I do it, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “Well, I’m not going to tell you. Give that mind of yours something to chew on. You’ll figure it out easily enough when you read about it in the newspapers.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Exactly one week from tonight.”

  “You’re a crafty and secretive son of a bitch.”

  “Part of my charm.”

  “MacTaint . . .” Jonathan didn’t pursue it. He had no doubt at all but that the old fox would get the painting.

  “All right,” MacTaint relented, “I’ll give you a little hint.” He fished up a penknife from the depths of his overcoat pocket and pulled open one of the blades with a broken crusty thumbnail. Then he leaned over the painting for a second before slashing it twice, making a broad X through the face of the boy. “There. How’s that?”

  “You are a nut, MacTaint. I’m getting out of here.”

  MacTaint chuckled to himself as he showed Jonathan to the door. “Haven’t you ever wanted to do something like that, lad? Slash a painting? Or break a raw egg in your hand? Or kiss a strange lady in an elevator?”

  “You’re a nut. Give my love to Lilla.”

  “I have enough trouble trying to give her my own.”

  “Good night.”

  “Yes.”

  The warehouse-cum-studio was in darkness, save for a single light hanging from the corrugated roof and the reddish glow of banked coal fires through the mica windows of the potbellied stoves. Only one painter was still at work, alone in absorbed concentration within the single circle of light. Jonathan walked silently across the cement floor and stood at the edge of the light, watching. His attention was so taken by the alert, feline motions of the painter attacking the canvas, then drawing back to judge effect, that it was some moments before he realized she was a woman. Seemingly oblivious of his presence, she squeezed off the excess paint from her brush between her thumb and forefinger and wiped them on the seat of her jeans, then she put the brush between her teeth sideways and took up a finer one to correct some detail. Her cavalier method of cleaning brushes was evidently habitual, because her bottom was a chaos of pigment, and Jonathan found this more interesting than the modernistic daub on the easel.

  “What do you think of it?” she asked between her teeth, without turning around.

  “It’s certainly colorful. And attractively taut. But I think its potential for motion is its most appealing feature.”

  She stepped back and scrutinized the canvas critically. “Taut?”

  “Well, I don’t mean rigid. More lean and compact.”

  “And interesting?”

  “Most interesting.”

  “That’s the kiss of death. When people don’t like what you’ve done, but they don’t want to hurt your feelings, they always fall back on ‘interesting.’”

  Jonathan laughed. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.” He was delighted by her voice. It had the curling vowels of Irish, and the range was a dry contralto.

  “No, now tell me true. What do you honestly think of it?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Probably not.” With a quick movement she brushed a wisp of amber hair away with the back of her hand. “But go ahead.”

  “Like most modern painting, I think it’s undisciplined, self-indulgent crap.”

  She took the brush from her mouth and stood for a moment, her arms crossed over her chest. “Well, now. No one could accuse you of trying to chat a girl up just to get into her knickers.”

  “But I am chatting you up,” he protested, “and probably for that reason.”

  She looked at him for the first time, her eyes narrowed appraisingly. “Does that work very often—just saying it out boldly like that?”

  “No, not very often. But it saves me a hell of a lot of wasted energy.”

  She laughed. “Do you really know anything about art?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I see.” She thoughtfully replaced her brushes in a soup tin filled with turpentine. “Well. That’s it, I guess.” She turned to him and smiled. “Are you in a mood to celebrate?”

  “Celebrate what?”

  “The end of my career.”

  “Oh, come now!”

  “No, no. Don’t flatter yourself that it’s just your opinion, informed though you assure me it is. As it happens, I agree with you totally. I suppose I’m a better critic than painter. Still, I’ve made one great contribution to Art. I’ve taken myself out of it.”

  He smiled. “All right. How would you like to celebrate?”

  “I think dinner might be a good idea for starts. I haven’t eaten since morning.”

  “You’re broke?”

  “Stoney.”

  “The only thing open this time of night would be one of the more fashionable restaurants.” He glanced involuntarily at her clothes.

  “Don’t worry. I shan’t embarrass you. I’ll just clean up and change before we go.”

  “You have your clothes here?”

  She nodded her head toward two suitcases standing against the wall. “My rent came due this morning, you see. And the landlady never cared for the stink of turps in the halls anyway.” She began scrubbing the paint from her hands with a cloth dipped in turpentine.

  “You intended to sleep here?”

  “Just for the night. The old geezer wouldn’t mind. Other painters have done it from time to time. I used the last of my money to send an SOS telegram to relatives in Ireland. They’ll be sending something down in the morning, I suspect. You can turn your back if the female nude disturbs you—not that I’ll be all that nude.”

  “No, no. Go ahead. I’ve passed some of my happiest moments in the presence of the nude figure.”

  She wriggled out of her close-fitting jeans and kicked them up into her hands. “Of course, as a nude, I wouldn’t have been much to Rubens’s taste. I’m quite the opposite of ample, as you can see. In fact, I’m damned near two-dimensional.”

  “They’re two of my fa
vorite dimensions.”

  She was just pulling her jumper over her head, and she stopped in mid-motion, looking out through the head opening. “You’ve a glib and shallow way of talking. I suppose the girls find that dishy.”

  “But you do not.”

  “No, not especially. But I don’t hold it against you, for I suppose it’s just a habit. Will this do, do you think?” She drew up from the open suitcase a long green paisley gown that set off the cupric tones of her hair.

  “That will do perfectly.”

  She tossed it on over her head, then patted down her short, fine hair. “I’m ready.”

  He gave her her choice of restaurants, and she selected an expensive French one near Regent’s Park on the basis that she had never had the money to go there and it was fun to be both beggar and chooser. Nothing about the meal was right. The butter in the scampi meunière tasted of char, the salade niçoise was more acid than bracing, and the only wine available at temperature was a Pouilly-Fuissé, that atonic white that occupies so large a sector of British taste. But Jonathan enjoyed the evening immensely. She was a charmer, this one, and the quality of the food did not matter, save as another subject for laughter. The lilt and color of her accent was contagious, and he had to prevent himself from slipping into an imitation of it.

  She ate with healthy appetite, both her portions and his, while he watched her with pleasure. Her face intrigued him. The mouth was too wide. The jawline was too square. The nose undistinguished. The amber hair so fine that it seemed constantly stirred by unfelt breezes. It was a boyish face with the mischievous flexibility of a street gamine. Her most arresting feature was her eyes, bottle green and too large for the face, and thick lashes like sable brushes. Their special quality came from the rapid eddies of expression of which they were capable. Laughter could squeeze them from below; another moment they would flatten to a look of vulnerable surprise; then instantly they were narrow with incredulity; then intense and shining with intelligence; but at rest, they were nothing special. In fact, no single element of her face was remarkable, but the total he found fascinating.

  “Do you find me pretty?” she asked, glancing up and finding his eyes on her.

  “Not pretty.”

  “I know what you mean. But it’s a good old face. I enjoy doing self-portraits. But I have to suppress this mad desire I have to add to my measuring thumb. Your face is not so bad, you know.”

  “I’m glad.”

  She turned to her salad. “Yes, it’s an interesting face. Bony and craggy and all that. But the eyes are a bother.”

  “Oh?”

  “Are you sure you’re not hungry?”

  “Positive.”

  “Actually, they’re smashing. But they’re not very comfortable eyes.” She glanced up and looked at them professionally. “It’s difficult to say if they’re green or gray. And even though you smile and laugh and all that, they never change. You know what I mean?”

  “No.” Of course he knew, but he liked having her talk about him.

  “Well, most people’s eyes seem to be connected to their thoughts. Windows to the soul and all. But not yours. You can’t read a thing by looking into them.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  “No. Just uncomfortable. If you’re not going to eat that salad, I’ll just keep it from going to waste.”

  Over coffee, over cognac, over more coffee, they talked without design.

  “Do you know what I’ve always wished?”

  “No. What?”

  “I’ve always wished I were a tall, terribly handsome black woman. With long legs and a chilling, disdainful sideways glance.”

  He laughed. “Why have you wished that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, really. But think of the clothes I could get away with wearing!”

  “. . . oh, it was a typical middle-class Irish childhood, I suspect. Cooed over and spoiled as a baby; ignored as a child. Taught how to pass tests and how to stand with good posture. My father was a rabid Irish nationalist, but like most he had suspicions of inferiority. He sent me off to university in London—to get a really good education. And they were delighted when I came back with an English accent. I hated school as a girl. Sports and gymnastics particularly. I remember that we had a very, very modern physical culture teacher. A great bony woman, she was, with a prissy voice and a faint moustache. She tried to introduce the girls to the joys of eurythmics. You should have seen us! A gaggle of awkward girls—some with stick legs and knobby knees, others placid and fat—all trying to follow instructions “to writhe with an inner passion and reach up expressively for the Sun God and let him penetrate your body.” We’d giggle about inner passions and penetrations, and the teacher would call us shallow, silly girls and dirty-minded. Then she’d writhe for us to show how it should be done. And we’d giggle some more. Cigarette?”

  “I don’t smoke.”

  She didn’t seem to realize that she had stopped her story midway and had turned her thoughts inward.

  He allowed the silence to run its course, and when she focused again on him with a slight start, he said, “So you won’t be going back to Ireland?”

  She butted her cigarette out deliberately. “No. Not ever.” She lit another and stared at the gold lighter as though she were seeing it for the first time. “I should never have gone to the North. But I did and . . . too much happened there. Too much hatred. And death.” She sighed and shook her head briskly. “No. I’ll never go back to Ireland.”

  “Say, do you like Sterne?” she said.

  “Ah . . . funny you should mention him.”

  “Why?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea who you’re talking about.”

  “Sterne,” she said, “the writer.”

  “Oh. That Sterne.”

  “I’ve always had this deep intuition that I would get on well with any man who had a fondness for Sterne, Trollope, and Galsworthy.”

  “Has it worked out like that?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never met anyone who liked Sterne.”

  “More coffee?”

  “Please.”

  “. . . and you took up painting?”

  “Oh, little by little. Not with much courage at first. Then I took the plunge and decided I would do nothing but paint until my money ran out. The family was dead against it, especially as they had wasted so much money sending me over here to school. I suppose they would have been happier if I had gone into prostitution. At least they would have understood the profit motive. Well, I painted and painted, and nobody at all noticed. Then I ran out of money and sold everything I had of any value. But the first thing I knew, I was stoney broke and didn’t even have rent money.”

  “And that was that.”

  “And that was that.” She looked up and smiled. “And here I am.”

  “I have a confession to make,” he said seriously.

  “You’re a typhoid carrier?”

  “No.”

  “You’re designed to self-destruct in seven minutes?”

  “No.”

  “You’re a boy.”

  “No. You’ll never guess.”

  “In which case, I give up.”

  “I have never liked the films of Eisenstein. They bore me to screaming.”

  “That is serious. What do you do for espresso talk?”

  “Oh, I’m not excusing myself. I recognize it to be a great flaw in my character.”

  “. . . oh, I love to drive! Fast, at night, in back lanes, with the lights off. Don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Most men do, I think. British men especially. They use fast cars sexually, if you know what I mean.”

  “Like Italians.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Maybe that’s why both countries produce so many competent grand prix drivers. They get practice on public roads.”

  “But you don’t like to drive fast?”

  “I don’t need it.”

  She smiled. “Good.” The vowel was d
rawn out and had an Irish curl.

  “. . . philosophy of life?” he asked, smiling to himself at the idea. “No, I’ve never had one. When I was a kid, we were too poor to afford them, and later on they had gone out of fashion.”

  “No, now, don’t send me up. I know the words sound pompous, but everyone has some kind of philosophy of life—some way of sorting out the good things from the bad . . . or the potentially dangerous.”

  “Perhaps. The closest I’ve come to that is my rigid adherence to the principle of leave-a-little.”

  “Leave a little what?”

  “Leave-a-little everything. Leave a party before it becomes dull. Leave a meal before you’re cloyed. Leave a city before you feel that you know it.”

  “And I suppose that includes human relationships?”

  “Most especially human relationships. Get out while they’re still on the upswing. Leave before they become predictable or, what is worse, meaningful. Be willing to lose a few events to protect the memory.”

  “I think that’s a terrible philosophy.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s the only one I’ve got.”

  “It’s a coward’s philosophy.”

  “It’s a survivor’s philosophy. Shall we have the cheese board?”

  He half stood in greeting as she returned to the table. “A last brandy?” he asked.

  “Yes, please.” She was pensive for a second. “You know, it just now occurred to me that one might make a useful barometer of national traits by studying national toilet tissues.”

  “Toilet tissues?”

  “Yes. Has that ever occurred to you?”

  “Ah . . . no. Never.”

  “Well, for instance I was just noticing that some English papers are medicated. You’d never find that in Ireland.”

  “The English are a careful race.”

  “I suppose. But I’ve heard that American papers are soft and scented and are advertised on telly by being caressed and squeezed—right along with adverts for suppository preparations and foods that are finger-licking good. That says something about decadence and soft living in a nation with affluence beyond its inner resources, doesn’t it?”