‘Fine!’ My voice quivered. ‘Just getting it now.’
I looked at the Scott address in confusion. This entry might be a recent addition, of course – Quick undertaking some investigating of her own into Lawrie and the painting – and God knows it would not have surprised me. It was unbelievable that Quick might actually know the Scott family. And Lawrie didn’t seem to have recognized her, did he? He was far too convincingly bemused by Quick to be hiding the fact that he actually knew her. And yet, here was his family’s address. None of it made sense.
I opened the letter quickly, knowing I didn’t have much time. A thin slip of paper fell out from the fold and fluttered to the floor. I knelt to pick it up and read it, hunched in the semi--darkness, Quick’s cat still watching. It was a telegram, and my eyes bulged on the words. “DARLING SCHLOSS STOP,” it read: “VERY EXCITING PHOTOGRAPH STOP WE MUST BRING R TO PARIS--LONDON--NYC STOP LOVE PEG.” It was dated: “PARIS – MALAGA 2nd JULY 1936.”
I can see myself even now, kneeling like a sinner in Quick’s hallway, skin tingling with a sense of connecting threads, a knowledge just beyond my reach. Schloss. Harold Schloss? It was the dealer Reede had mentioned. What the hell was this telegram doing here, in Wimbledon, in Quick’s telephone book? Quick was in her living room, steps away from me, collapsed in her grey chair, but there could have been a thousand miles between us.
I sat back on my heels, hoping time would stand still in order for me to think. Peg could be Peggy Guggenheim, R could be Robles; the date fitted, and it was sent to Malaga, where Reede said Robles resided. If this was real – and it looked real – then this was a piece of correspondence Reede might kill for. And here it was, out of Quick’s drawer and in my hands.
‘Odelle?’ she called, and I heard the note of panic in her voice. ‘Are you summoning that taxi in Morse code?’
‘The line’s engaged. I’m just waiting,’ I called back. I placed the telegram on the table and picked up the letter. The date was 27 December 1935. I inhaled the scent of the old, thin paper. There was something familiar about it; but I couldn’t place it. It was addressed to a person called Miss Olive Schloss, at a flat in Curzon Street. It ran:
Further to your application to the Slade School of Fine Art, it is our pleasure to invite you to undertake the Fine Art degree course, commencing 14th September, next year.
The tutors were highly impressed by the rich imagination and novelty on display in your paintings and studies. We should be happy to have a pupil such as you, continuing the rigorous yet progressive tradition of the school –
‘Odelle.’ Quick was calling very sharply now.
‘Coming,’ I said. ‘There’s no answer.’
I began to refold the letter in haste, placing the telegram back inside it. I was on the point of reaching for the discarded telephone book, open on the Scott entry, when Quick came into the hall. I froze, the letter still in my hand. My face must have been a vision of guilt. The living--room light shone through the fabric of her blouse, she seemed so small, the outline of her ribcage far too narrow.
She looked at me – stared, actually – deep into my eyes, and then she smiled. She reached out, took the letter and the telegram from my mesmerized grip, placed them in the telephone book and closed it. And then my realization came, and I saw in Quick’s face a younger woman smiling, a woman in a photograph, a moment of happiness as she clutched a brush. O and I. O, a full circle. O, for Olive Schloss.
‘You knew him,’ I whispered. She closed her eyes. ‘You knew Isaac Robles.’
The cat brushed against my legs. ‘I’d murder a cigarette,’ Quick said.
I pointed at the telephone book. ‘Who’s Olive Schloss?’
‘Odelle, would you go and fetch me some cigarettes?’
‘You were there, weren’t you?’
‘I’ve run out, Odelle, would you mind?’ She fumbled inelegantly in her pocket, and thrust out a pound note.
‘Quick—-’
‘Go,’ she said. ‘There’s a shop just round the corner. Go.’
SO I LEFT, TO FETCH her cigarettes. Numb, I floated into Wimbledon Village to buy her a packet, and I floated back. And when I returned, the house was in complete darkness, the curtains drawn. The pamphlet I’d taken from the Scott house was on the step, weighted down with a stone. I put it back in my handbag and knocked and knocked, and called her name quietly through the letterbox.
‘Quick. Quick, let me in,’ I said. ‘You said you trusted me. What’s happened? Quick, who is Olive Schloss?’
There was only silence.
Eventually, I had to push the cigarettes through the door, and they thumped lightly onto the mat on the other side. I pushed through her change also, hearing the coins land one upon the other, as if I was throwing money down a wishing well that would never grant me any wish. Still, there was no movement. I sat on the other side of that door for a good half an hour, my limbs going stiff. I waited for the sound of her footsteps, sure that Quick would give in to the craving of her nicotine and come for the cigarettes.
What was true, and what was I already beginning to imagine? It mattered greatly to me as to whether Quick had intended for me to find the clues in her telephone book, or whether it was a mistake. It seemed as if she had been deliberate about it – why else tell me else invite me here, and grill me about Lawrie, and the painting? Why else tell me to look up T for Taxi? Or perhaps it had been a genuine mistake, and I had stumbled across her secrets – and now my punishment was this silent, locked door.