‘What are you hallucinating?’ I said. ‘What is it that you see?’
I waited, barely able to breathe, my fingers drawing away from the typewriter and resting in my lap.
She didn’t answer, and we sat in silence for a few moments, the clock on the wall syncopating my heartbeat. I took the risk. ‘On Friday night, you said that Isaac Robles didn’t paint the picture. Do you remember that, Quick?’
Quick sat, staring at her hands. She was swallowing hard, her throat constricted.
‘Did he paint any of the pictures, Quick – the ones in the Guggenheim?’
Still, Quick remained silent.
‘If he didn’t paint those pictures, who did—-’
‘All I wanted,’ she said, abruptly, in clear distress. ‘I just wanted to see.’
‘What, what was it that you wanted to see?’
I watched in horror as Quick fanned her fingers open on the neck of the bottle, and the entire thing slid between her legs and cracked against the floor. The base smashed clean off and the champagne gushed between us, fizzing and pooling everywhere. She jumped up crookedly, staggering from the mess before us. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It was an accident,’ I said. I stared at Lawrie’s ruined bottle, resting on the floorboards in a puddle of champagne. The green glass was so dark it was almost black, winking as the overhead lights caught its jagged edges. I’d never even got a taste. I swallowed hard and looked at Quick.
She was drained of colour. I knew the conversation was over, that I would get no further now. Would she go so far as to sabotage my present from Lawrie? I ushered her to her own office, and she leaned on me, snaking her arm through mine. I could feel her bones so easily through the skin. Now I knew about the cancer, I could see how ill Quick was; her pain, her brittle glamour. But it wasn’t just the cancer in her body; I was also witnessing her psychological recalibration.
I wouldn’t say her mind was diminishing, despite her protests of hallucinations and insomnia. It was almost the opposite to her body; an augmentation, Quick’s imagination inhabiting more than just the present. Somewhere inside her memory, a drawbridge had been lowered, and the foot soldiers of her past were pushing through in serried ranks. She wanted to talk; but she couldn’t. She didn’t have the words.
‘Please lock the door,’ she said, beginning to rally a little. ‘Odelle, I’m so sorry about your bottle.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘I’ll make it up to you in my will.’
Her black eyes glimmered with gallows humour. ‘Got a cellar in Wimbledon, have you?’ I said in kind, trying to chivvy her spirits.
‘Something like that. Fetch my handbag, would you? I need the pills.’ She moved slowly to the drinks table. ‘Gin?’
‘No thanks.’
I watched her pour herself one, breathing deeply, corralling herself as the clear liquid glugged into the tumbler. ‘Those are bloody strong,’ she said as I handed her the pills. ‘I fucking hate them.’
The expletive, the bitterness in her voice, shocked me. I forced myself to sit, reminding myself I was a junior employee, and must be mute and mild. Pushing Quick to tell me things I wanted to know was clearly not going to work. I’d had my suspicions that it wouldn’t, after the night with the telephone book, and now I had one smashed champagne bottle to confirm them. As frustrating as I found it, I had to be her blank canvas. Patience was never my strong suit, but as long as it kept her talking, it was better than silence.
‘There’s a fellow called Barozzi in Venice,’ she said, lowering herself into her leather chair and reaching for her cigarettes. ‘Works for Guggenheim. Around the time Mr Scott’s painting was being made, Peggy Guggenheim was attempting to open a gallery in London.’ Quick stilled herself for a minute, before finding the strength to continue. ‘She succeeded. The place was on Cork Street, before the war turned it on its head and it closed.’
‘I see.’
‘You don’t. The point is, she – or others at her gallery – are good with keeping paperwork. Barozzi found some rather interesting correspondence in her archives, sent it to Reede, and he’s beside himself.’
Cork Street. I knew the name – it was the street that the pamphlet came from. My skin began to tingle. I was used to the twists and turns of Quick’s conversational style, and knew I would have to keep up.
‘He now has evidence that Mr Scott’s painting was a commission for Peggy Guggenheim, as a twin to Women in the Wheatfield.’
‘A twin?’
‘He’s found a telegram addressed to Isaac Robles, which for some reason was never sent. It was destined for Malaga in Spain, dated September ’36, enquiring how much longer she will need to wait for the “companion piece” to Wheatfield, which Robles had called Rufina and the Lion. Barozzi has acknowledged that no deposit was actually given Robles for the Rufina piece, otherwise Mr Scott could have found himself in a lot of trouble, given that he’s apparently got no proof of purchase. The Guggenheim could have tried to claim it as theirs.’
I marvelled that Quick could be talking about another discovered telegram, as if the one hidden in her own house wasn’t inextricably tied up with all this too. Not only was she acting as if the smashed champagne bottle was not deliberate sabotage, she was now pretending that our evening with the telephone book had never happened.
‘Rufina and the Lion,’ I repeated. ‘That’s what Lawrie’s painting is called?’
‘That’s what Reede believes. Ever heard of Saint Rufina?’