‘I can’t imagine I’m much of a tonic.’
She lit a cigarette, the last of the packet. ‘You have no idea.’
I couldn’t help wondering how long she had left, but I didn’t want to ask if she knew, nor enquire about medications, or anything really practical. It seemed too brutal that night, as if I was asking about her expiration date. She was still here, still vital, still mercurial.
IN THE SILENCE BETWEEN US, I reached into my handbag and handed over the art gallery pamphlet. I still wonder why I did it, even though it felt like a betrayal of Lawrie. I think it was perhaps the pride I felt, from knowing that Quick had confided in me. It was my consolation offering in return, even though I didn’t know if it was something she’d find useful.
She took it, almost as if she was expecting it. ‘This was in Lawrie’s house,’ she said.
‘How on earth did you know?’
‘You’ve been looking like you wanted to tell me something since the moment I mentioned your visit there.’
‘I didn’t know I was so obvious,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘You’re not that obvious. I’ve had lots of practice.’ She opened the pamphlet and placed it gently on her knees, her finger tracing the pencilled message, No Sign. ‘Was there anything else with it?’ she asked.
‘No. Just odds and ends on a window sill. Butcher’s bills, church ser-vice sheets.’
‘Church ser-vice sheets?’ she repeated, one eyebrow raised.
‘A carol concert, actually.’
‘I see.’
‘What do you think it means – where someone’s written No Sign? Was it the name of a painting?’
‘I imagine it’s simpler than that. Someone was looking for something, and they didn’t find it.’
‘You know what they were looking for, don’t you, Quick?’
She looked up at me, the electric fire turning her irises hazel. ‘I do?’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘It’s just – you’re very interested in Lawrie’s mother. And Lawrie’s painting—-’
‘ “Interested” is not the word I would use.’
Obsessed? Frightened? I thought. As if I would say those words to you. ‘Well,’ I faltered, sensing her stiffen, ‘you seem averse to the idea of exhibiting it.’
‘I’m not averse to the exhibition of that painting. I think everybody should see it.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘But that’s not what you said last time. You said Lawrie should take it home.’
She took in a deep breath. ‘Well. I’m not entirely happy with how Reede is planning to use it. Until we get more information from the Guggenheim institution, my doubts remain.’
‘What doubts are those?’
Quick’s face took on a haunted look. I’d seen it before, through the keyhole, when Lawrie had returned to continue his discussions with Reede. Her eyes darted back and forth on the rug between us, as if she was working out a means to express something incredibly difficult. She kept breathing in as if to speak, and then not speaking. It was frustrating, but I knew that to speak myself might ruin the slim chance she would finally say something.
‘Isaac Robles didn’t paint it, Odelle,’ Quick said, her fingers tightening on the pamphlet.
My heart began to thump harder. ‘But he’s standing in front of it, in that photograph.’
‘So? I could go and stand in front of any number of artworks and be photographed. It doesn’t mean I made them.’
‘It was taken in his studio—-’
‘Odelle, it’s not that I don’t believe he painted it. I know he didn’t.’
Her words ran over me like a shiver, and my skin turned to gooseflesh, the way it does when someone tells you the truth and you hear it with your body. The simplicity of her last four words sang through the air between us, and hit me in the stomach.
I must have looked dumb. ‘He didn’t paint it, Odelle,’ she repeated. Her shoulders sagged. ‘It wasn’t him.’
‘Then – who was it, Quick?’
My question ruined everything. On hearing it, Quick looked stricken, aged, weird. Looking at her, I felt a bit sick and scared myself, because she seemed terrified. ‘Are you all right?’ I said. ‘Should I call a doctor?’
‘No. It’s late. I’m fine.’ But I could hear that she was out of breath. ‘You should call a taxi. I have a number, out in the hallway. Don’t worry, I’ll pay.’
I rose, stumbling over the threshold of the front room into the cool darkness of the hall, where I switched on the light standing on the telephone table. There was no number to be seen. The house behind me was silent. I sensed a presence in the shadows, and my back prickled. I turned around and something was on the stairs, moving towards me. I gripped the edge of the table, as Quick’s cat emerged into the pool of yellow light, and sat very still before me, turning his green eyes on me. We regarded one other, only the faintest movement from his ribs dissuading me that he was stuffed.
‘Look in the drawer,’ Quick called in a haggard voice, and I jumped. ‘There’s an address book in the drawer. T for Taxi.’ I turned back to the lamplight, feeling foolish, praying that nothing else was waiting for me in the shadows beyond the cat.
I STILL DON’T KNOW WHETHER what happened next was another of Quick’s plans – her, leading me deeper into the wood – or whether in her illness, under strong medication, she just hadn’t realized what I’d find.
I pulled her address book out of the drawer, where it lay amongst old maps and balls of string and unopened mousetraps. I flipped to find T for Taxi, and saw two things. The first; under S, in Quick’s flowing black nib, were written the words:
Scott – The Red House
Baldock’s Ridge
Surrey HAS--6735
And secondly, a small white letter, folded in two, and pressed between these pages.
‘Everything all right out there?’ Quick called.