I Came to Find a Girl (2 page)

“Jack Flood’s been shortlisted for the Prospect Prize. He’s only doing the Nottingham show as a favour to Mike Manners. Then it all moves to London.”

Mike Manners, head of fine art, was also known as the Golden Turd thanks to his first lecture when he placed a plastic ‘joke’ dog-turd on a desk and told us we had three years to find a way to turn it into gold. He had previously been a lecturer at Goldsmith’s in London and it was there that he had taught Jack Flood.

“I managed to get enough tickets for all of us,” I said.

Kelly, a Londoner who was pretty cynical at the best of times, scraped back her dark hair. “Shock art is too Sixties, like shit in a can.”

“You what?” Slug curled his lip. He was a Scouser, called Slug on account of his bed linen – a brown polyester sleeping bag (never washed).

“There was this artist, Manzoni, who canned his own shit,” Kelly said. “He even called it Artist’s Shit.”

Slug stopped eating his fried chicken. “People bought cans of shit?”

Spencer nodded. “It
was
limited edition.”

“Didn’t some explode?” I added.

“Gross,” Tamzin said.

“Yeah, but nothing shocks any more,” Kelly said.

“What about the news?” I said.

Slug discarded his plate by the side of his chair, ignoring the chicken bones as they slid onto the carpet. “It shocks me the stuff you lot call art. When is this so-called art show anyhow?”

“Tonight.”

“It’ll be full of pricks.”

“There’s free wine,” I said, knowing full well that none of them could argue with that.

And there it is on film – a moment from my life. It makes me think of the Nepalese, I think it’s them who believe being photographed captures your soul. He certainly took something from me. I bite my lip and sit forward as the film cuts to the college gallery: all white walls and a complicated glass roof, and the chatty, stylish crowd stand in cliques sipping wine, talking, and occasionally viewing the art.

The camera sweeps over Flood’s work – more concerned with recording who is there than the art. A sparrow-like woman in a bird of paradise hat beams at the camera. There’s a man with a white bouffant, my tutors Mike Manners – ageing hipster – and Mike Cherry in a crisp floral shirt, and briefly, I see myself: talking, laughing. I look young, pale and I hate to say it vulnerable. I’m wearing a simple charcoal dress, my hair is casually pinned up and my eyeliner is thick, and flicked upwards at the corners. Laughing with Kelly as we knock back free Chardonnay, I am carefree and unaware of being filmed. It is my ‘before’ before the ‘after’. My stomach knots at that thought and I have to wipe my eyes.

Meanwhile, the camera moves in: a man in a wheelchair gives a nod, while an older guy in a red shirt studies a painting up close, and there’s Marcus Hedley, art dealer. How did he get to be so special? Rich kid of course: Eton, Oxford, the universe. It must be more of a challenge to fail for some people. He’s wearing his signature heavy-framed specs. He runs a hand through his shock of white hair and beckons to the camera. “Jack, over here, there’s someone you really must meet.”

That ‘someone’ Flood ‘really must meet’ is in his late forties, dressed in a well-cut dark suit. It’s Nicholas Drake, balding hedge funder turned art collector.

“Jack, put that thing away now,” Marcus Hedley says. “I’ve hired someone else to film tonight.”

The film cuts to Flood’s hotel suite, some time after the private view. I guess the whole event didn’t mean much to him, while I still have the invite. “Can I keep it?” I had asked the sharp-faced woman on the door making her look me up and down as if I’d never been out before.

My heart raced as I entered. The gallery was buzzing. There was sparrow-woman, the tiny man in high heels with a white bouffant, middle-aged people in black talking art, a Barbie lookalike (there’s always one), other students and the tutors. We accepted wine and canapés, and hung out: looking, viewing, considering, taking it in. We stopped at the title piece –
Now That You’ve Gone Were You Ever There?
– a single pearl earring on a small velvet cushion, placed high on a plinth, surrounded by the outline of a body with prominent breasts marked out in yellow tape on the floor. It looked like a weird crime scene.

Slug laughed and said, “Looks like a murdered porn star.”

There was a small pot of dust, toenail clippings and a couple of black pubic hairs lit from beneath by a pink light-box entitled
I Owe You Nothing
.

“This guy is bitter,” Kelly said. “Which one is he?”

“That’s him, I saw him in
The Sunday Times
.” I pointed at a tall, dark-haired, thirty-something deep in conversation with an older man in a wheelchair.

“Not bad,” Tamzin said, but then Tamzin said that about everyone.

“I need another drink,” I said.

“Get us one,” Tamzin said.

“And me,” Kelly said.

I crossed the gallery and wove between the cliques; careful I didn’t trip in my high ankle boots. I felt good in that charcoal dress. One or two men stared my way. I could sense it. I recognised one particular face – nice looking but not single. I didn’t need it. I wasn’t interested in unavailable men and I resented the way they kept looking around, checking to see whether or not there was anyone better.

At the bar, I collected three glasses and turned back to find the gallery busier than ever. I could no longer see the art and crowds of people were blocking my way.

“Excuse me, please.” I was so going to spill something, but then somehow a path cleared before me. A man in a black jacket, T-shirt and jeans with artfully mussed up hair was standing aside to allow me through.

“Thank you,” I said, embarrassed by the small voice that came out.

The man watched me return to my friends. I couldn’t believe it. It was Jack Flood, the artist, and he was still staring, watching my every move. I didn’t know how to stand or what to do with my hands. It was like walking endlessly through customs.

I drank fast and headed back to the bar and that’s when something flashed. I turned around and found Jack Flood standing right next to me.

“You’ve just been papped.” He nodded towards a guy with bleached hair. I’d seen that photographer before; he was always at various clubs, lurking round the fringes pointing his equipment at one girl or another. “Is he press?”

“No, he’s on the photography degree.”

“He sees something in you. He’s not stupid. What’s your name?”

I told him.

He smiled. “Where are you from?”

“Bumblefuck.”

“And where is that?”

“The South Coast – a small place you won’t have heard of.”

“You’re a long way from home.”

“I’m an only child. I needed to get away – too intense. What about you?”

“I’ve lived all over, but London is home. What do you do?”

“I’m a student – fine art.”

He kissed me then, just closed in on my mouth before the possibility had even crossed my mind. And it was a good kiss, I hate to admit it, but I liked it. I liked him; there was something about him, or so I thought.

Jack Flood broke away. The kiss was over almost as quickly as it had begun. He decided. He decided when it started. He decided when it stopped.

“That was nice,” he said.

Is everyone staring?
A few faces looked away.
What is he doing?
It was his show. I looked up at him, took in his light brown eyes.
Is that eyeliner?

“I came to find a girl,” he said, “and that girl is you.”

“Sorry?”

“I wouldn’t bother otherwise.”

“What – you wouldn’t go to your own opening night?”

‘I came to find a girl’ –
what sort of a line is that?
I thought
.
I don’t like flattery; I know I’m girl-next-door – nothing without the make-up. But I’d never met a true artist before, let alone a highly acclaimed one.
Is this how they are?

“It’s a really interesting show,” I said, “but do you like women?”

He laughed. “Some of my best friends are women.”

“How come they just become these remnants?”

“How much do your lovers leave you?”

He’d got me there. Sometimes I was lucky to even get a surname, not that I wanted it that way. All I wanted was to meet someone interesting – not easy to find – and I couldn’t or wouldn’t compromise.

Jack Flood waited for me to say something. I felt a little out of my depth but managed to ask where he thought his work was going, but my tutor Mike Manners interrupted then, saying he had to introduce Jack to someone. And I rejoined my friends. Much later, after several red stickers had appeared to indicate works that had been sold, I felt a hand slowly stroke down my spine and turned to find Jack Flood standing behind me. “We should talk some more.” He handed me his card.

‘Protect Me From What I Want’ – the following day I sat taking cuttings from a magazine article about the artist Jenny Holzer. It was from her Truisms series:
Protect Me From What I Want
LED light installation 1982. I glued it across the front of my sketchbook.

The microwave pinged in the kitchen below. I collected my lasagne and went downstairs to the dingy living room where we ate our meals balanced on our laps in front of the TV.

“Not the fucking news.” Slug came in as I changed TV channel, turning the screen camel-coloured with dust, sand and explosions.

“You’ve got to know what’s going on,” I said.

“It’s all the same, nothing but bad news.”

“That’s the world we live in,” Kelly said.

“It’s not my life,” Slug said.

“The Simpsons is on...” moaned Spencer.

“Have what you like,” I said. “I’ve got to get ready for work anyhow.”

“You’re not working?” said Tamzin. “I thought we were going out.”

“Did you hear that?” Kelly nodded at the TV. “They said Forest Road East – someone’s been murdered.”

“It’ll be a prostitute,” Slug said.

“It’s so close,” Kelly said.

“Don’t worry, we’ll look after you, girls,” Slug said.

“Will you be okay getting to work, Mia?” Spencer asked.

“I’ll get the bus or tram back.”

Back in my room at the top, I looked out the window to see if there were any girls out on the corner at the crossroads. The wall where they liked to sit was empty but I sketched it anyway – the waiting-for-a-trick wall with its bricks falling from one end.

I reapplied my eyeliner and pinned up my hair, gathered my uniform together, and raced down the two flights of shag-pile carpeted stairs. “Seeya,” I shouted out in the greying light of the hallway, and slammed the front door behind me, pressing my fingers against it to check.

Two women with bare legs were now sitting on the wall opposite. It’s too cold to dress like that, I thought. What are they doing there? Have they not seen the news? I wondered if Mum and Dad had. Probably not, this was local stuff. They didn’t even know I was living in the red light area.

As I turned onto the main road, I saw the police cordon further up the hill by The Vine, our local pub. Nottingham and particularly our scrappy corner of the city suddenly seemed more dangerous, and yet nothing had changed. The threat of a madman roaming the streets had always been there. It’s probably safer than normal – police everywhere, I thought. But still, to make the twenty-minute trek across town to Saviour’s Bar and Restaurant, I slipped my keys between my fingers. The sharpest, jagged-edged Yale was between my index and middle finger, and gripped discreetly by my side.
Everyone needs keys.

Two

Jack Flood’s DVD cuts to his hotel suite: dark panelled walls, velvet mocha club chairs and a crystal chandelier, beneath which Flood is face down, fully clothed, on the bronze satin bedspread. He stirs, rubs his eyes and rearranges his black T-shirt. He takes a whisky miniature from the mini-bar and switches on the TV.

“Welcome to Sky News at five,” the male newsreader says.

“Same old,” Flood says. He knocks back the whisky, grabs a leather jacket and camcorder and exits the suite, taking the winding stairs down to reception.

“Good morning, sir,” the concierge says. He’s a tall, long-faced man, immaculate in black against the hot pink, paisley wallpaper.

The camera moves with the revolving door and out onto the cobblestones. “Why the long face?” Flood laughs to himself.

Outside it’s dark, misty and damp. Flood films his way downhill towards the main city centre: there’s a man muttering in a shop doorway – Flood homes in on him, spots a mobile headset and loses interest, a couple of women in saris scuttle past and the camera then lingers on a bearded heap asleep in a battered sleeping bag. “Look at that – the original
Nomad
.” Flood refers to a painted bronze cast of a figure in a sleeping bag by the artist Gavin Turk that Saatchi used to display in the foyer of his gallery to confuse the public. Flood nudges the bag with his foot. There’s little response beyond a muffled grunt. “Stick it on a skip,” Flood says, and moves on towards a pedestrian thoroughfare, where he spots a convenience store – inconveniently shut. “Call this a city?”

“You wanna film me?” There’s an old man with matted hair and a gappy grin who gives Flood a thumbs up.

“Any newsagents round here, squire?” Flood asks.

“Don’t go there, pal – they’re all terrorists.”

Flood turns the camera away and films a small blue toy monster that’s lying amongst fag butts and beer cans.

“Wait!” The man points ahead. “Tesco,” he says, like he’s seen the light.

“Thank you, my friend. Here, have a drink on me.” Flood hands him some cash.

“Bless you, sir, most generous.”

“Always happy to help the destitute die a little sooner.” Flood walks on past Monsoon, Gap and Marks & Spencer and finds the fluorescent-lit temple that is a 24-hour Tesco Metro. There are newspapers tied in bundles by the door. Flood retrieves a small knife from his pocket and slices open the plastic binding.

“You read a lot.” The girl on the till has round cheeks, large hoop earrings, a blonde ponytail and black roots. “Are you filming me? What you filming me for?”

Flood zooms in on her pink frosted smile, before the camera shifts to survey the conveyor belt: a pile of the day’s papers, a Kit Kat, and bottle of orange juice. “It’s all about me.” Flood flicks through
The Guardian
. “Here I am.” He points at a feature.